Occasional Sputterings

Emily knew Jane from way back ... they were sisters. The both of them grew up in a small farm; it was at that farm that Jane developed a taste for architecture. This was chiefly in response to how well the farm was built. Emily was older and had helped her dad work on the farm since before either of them had learned to speak. Emily had mastered all the tools in the normal span of such things, but Jane had always been frustrated by how her dad did things, eventually being also frustrated with Emily, who copied their father. Jane's root frustration was revealed when the barn, having been wobbly but serviceable for years, finally fell on their father. Emily's response was to grieve intensely, bury their father, and rebuild the barn, patching where she could but basically remodeling the entire thing - as close to memory as she could. Jane's response was a bit more violent. Their father had left a sizeable insurance policy behind, which paid nicely for the materials requ...

Jane also loved the house because of the lake. Half a mile behind the house, approachable by a small unpaved path, was a man-made body of water. Brush and branch hid the half-mile expanse of freshwater from the air, and thus it was one of those rare lakes that only appear in stories - clean, crisp, with just a hint of bacteria. In fact, the lake was originally built to create a seasonal breeze on the north side of the house, and was fed by several artesian wells, a special breed of bacteria designed for the lake itself, and about three miles of algae that had been placed and lovingly grown on the bottom of the lake. Jane loved to swim in the lake - it seemed to store heat more effectively than the house and so was always just the right temperature for both diving as well as general frivolity. She had even dreamed of owning the house solely for the purpose of sharing this lake with her future companion - whomever he might be - and hoped he would love the beautiful water hole and c...

It all began with a house. A small picket fence, windows framed with white shutters, a gentle molding that swept gracefully from the roof to the miniature meadow out back, and the strong, aged tree that seemed to provide shelter to the whole of the entrance. The whole house needed work, to be sure. The pipes had literally been carved out of marble - the plumbing had been planned by a rather interesting fellow who used marble for most of the hidden fixtures and whose work never broke - and it was the work of world-class sculptors whenever one of the pipes were clogged. Have you ever tried unclogging a marble pipe? The things rarely clog, but when they do, it's best to carve new piping. It began with a house. It continued with the live-ins. Jane and Marcy had been roommates for five years - each studying a completely different field and bouncing long-term ideas off one another. Jane wanted to be an architect, but felt the most effective way for her to not only establish herself but...