Finkers, moodlers and yellow bellied hops

As it will soon be time to begin working on the proofs of my forthcoming novel and approve the cover design, the agent who is working with me suggested that now could be a good moment to draw together the various threads of the narrative into a concise form, explaining to readers just how it was that the characters made their first appearance on a clear, bright morning, just when a new idea seemed to be on the rise. Unusual events were thought to have occurred at Pode Hole, while the finkers themselves were known to be encouraging in their ceaseless promotion of a single ideal that ran like a sinew through the old systems of value which were then beginning to loosen and snap. Consequently, there was much to be heard about liberty, along with the scatter flown tales of the fennermarsh people, though, to the surprise of most, the first of them to encounter the elusive meedler vong was Amos Cloot. This was, for Professor Quiller, as much of a surprise in her own mind as it was to everyone else. It seems appropriate that it was Oscar Sollermon who said hum ha, in his room at the School of Thought, attached to Ayscoughfee Hall on the river Welland. And no less so that it was Cordelia and Thelonius Greeling who uttered a ha hum in unison, as each of the two sat at their table in the warmth of a spoongrease dinner shop, among numerous shovelling hands and handled forks. At the same time, a girl from Terrington St. Clement caused an occasional lurch for the worse in a finking brain. A quickening lick with a following kick of its own triggered means, thought blue eyed Basil. Odder than not, it might have been a means of giving them ease, although none took much notice of meedlers who were well in need of more than could be given out. And being funny peculiar more than ha ha, it was recognised as language of a sort, in the long held kelter of half remembered thoughts, offering a fleeting impression to whomsoever was curious to know. More urgent than this, the finkers were minded to push the notion of daring to its absolute limit with a look at the how and the what of a life, long lived through, a continuing curiosity in whatever could be learned from the hurtling, endless search for knowledge. There were however, some of a scowling persuasion who were less than eager to remember what each of them had earlier known. In the mind of my protagonist, Woller, it seemed that Agnes Mortimer was someone who would understand how it could be when some things were taken too late and some taken too soon, in curious places from words hauled on in, sudden time quick from the loose bound scrawlings of an earlier gone boomercumlingo. The occasional confusion which ensued was encouraging for those who would follow in the wake of Joller the swoondler. With a calling shout from Colonel Haw, the moodlers and the boomers took a clattering whack on a leaping span over the slow moving water below, without giving much thought to Meemo Leem who was a bogglegone searcher for the zing, the zong and the morfiner juice given out clean by the medicine men; along with the collected works of Doctor Mungo on the mattering means and the question of whether or not a smile was the one and only thing it could be. One for the joy making fakers to wonder about too, thought some. Cornelius Karp was long gone on the inside of his own mind and keen to know more about Orange Orlando, though this was something about which no one other than Milo could tell him – or so he thought. And then there were the curious thoughts of Samuel Amerson Averson who was of the opinion that a whole new way of thinking had become possible, bring into common usage the methods with which each and all could resolve the problems of adapting themselves to their environment in a new, conscious way in what he hoped could be the pursuit of a better made future for all those scattered across the wider region. The common interests of the fennermarsh people would be well served through what he conceived as a finking association independent of the cultural elites of Gosberton Clough and Tydd Gote. And so a suggestion was made that there would be more of a need among the chin rubbing, head scratching searchers to find an easier way to move through the hurling burl of life as it was lived in a time and a place as peculiar as could be seen. Where a jump, running man and a girl in a pair of pea green shoes could spark a fizz and a zizz from the other.