This is not She multiplies infinity - part 6. It's something different that's come to me and I want to start getting down. Dunno if it'll bring readers in or drive them away, but I plan to post a little more often in the coming weeks - twice a week pretty much. The idea is to get this series running - which should be 4 or 5 parts - and post the rest of She multiplies infinity. I hope to get part 6 of the latter to you by Tuesday at the latest. In the meantime, thoughts on this departure are most welcome. Thanks.
------
The stairs were colossal. They opened up in a grand sweep welcoming you as you came in. They were old and the iron railings looked like they'd been stolen from a train, but once upon a time I figured princesses had walked down them whilst well-fed waltzers looked up at them performing dainty steps on their entrance downwards. Now though the stairs had become worn - the marble dipping and grainy all the way up. To make them look higher they'd been designed to taper - so the top of the stairs looked much further away than they were. It gave the optical illusion that the person standing at the top was almost twice as big as they really were. With Matron Militskaya stood at the top that was even more unsettling.
I'd been hoping Doctor Nastoyashin was going to show me around on my first day and not the Matron, but here I was and her akimbo bulk was glaring down at me. She was that kind of person anyway - even when she wasn't looking at you or was in another room, she was still glaring at you. Her eyes on you for a second lasted an hour in your head.
'Ruksakovich! Get your skinny tripe of an arse up here! I don't have time to babysit you today, so I'm going to be nice to you and not give you difficult rooms to clean.'
'Yes Matron. Thank you matron.'
'Get up these stairs then - don't just stand there like one of these dusty statues. Someone will bloody clean you in a minute if you don't move.'
I walked up the stairs and was very conscious of how their surface made my shoes tap. It almost made me want to hear her shout at me again - just to lessen the clacking of my toes. I was afraid I might be waking someone up. The illusion of the stairs turned out to be right and Matron Militskaya was not nearly as tall as she'd looked from the bottom. In fact she was fairly diminutive - vertically that is. Nonetheless, I wasn't stupid enough to suppose her foot-and-a-half shorter than me was any kind of advantage on my part. Quite the opposite I figured.
'We're going this way Ruksakovich. Just two rooms on your first day. And, remember, no matter what the inhabitants do or say - if they say anything that is - no matter how they behave or look, no matter how clean or dirty one room looks and the other doesn't, you must clean them every one hour exactly. Do you understand that clearly?'
She was tapping her fist on her skull as she asked me that. I wasn't about to argue with her, but making me out to be stupid was one thing that really pissed me off. Not on the first day though - I'd show her I was smart in time.
'Not a problem Matron. Clearer than a daisy's yellow middle. Clearer than a cat's whisker tickling a baby's foot. Clearer than a cosmonaut falling in black space.'
The way I made my voice overly positive, a bit too jolly, didn't go down well.
'Ruksakovich! Ruksakovich! Keep that cakehole of yours bloody tight shut and come with me.'
Then I asked something I shouldn't have I suppose:
'Just one thing Matron. Will Doctor Nastoyashin be showing me what to do?'
