The only thing vaguely Russian about Kasha was her name. Nonetheless, she took to dressing in 18th century Russian peasant clothing, and plaiting her flaxen hair into a long braid. She was fey, to be sure. Living in a house designed by and built for a surreal artist in the pacific northwest, among other things, she was a master code breaker and encrypter. She figured she inherited these talents from her great-aunt Enigma, and a distant forebear with the last name of Hieroglyph, plus her family’s perchance for analytical though scattered minds. She held degrees in logic, technowizardry, and the culinary arts.
Secretive by nature and profession, she had all her mail arrive in brown paper wrappers delivered by Fed Ex drivers who only turned left. So it was one Thursday, she received a package marked Top Secret FYEO*. She shook her head. Her latest client watched too many 1960s spy movies and read too much John le Carré – he gave her the code name “Goldlocks” – and ran his business as if he were M, or some other spy master. Considering he sold marshmallows, this was all pretty silly. But Mr. StayPuft paid well, so Kasha went along with his spy-fueled cloak and dagger games.
A cryptic note – Kasha broke Mr. SP’s handwritten scrawl first try – hinted this was the big time. She wondered how the tattered folder and yellowed piece of paper came into his possession. She knew he trolled yard sales, e-bay and shadowy internet ephemeralabilia sites for all manner of coded items. Having vanquished the photo surrealism gremlins+ for a time, she fired up her multilayered intranet. Decoders were a secretive lot – even their facebook page featured encrypted selfies and Instagrammatical shots.
Comparing the code to known variables, and playing with her decoder ring, Kasha wrote out: North Korea, nuclear, secret weapon. OMG, what had StayPuft got her into this time? One venture had the EPA, Department of the Exterior and Homeland Insecurity showing up. Before contacting her friend, the secretive Mr. G., to consult, she played one more time with the last string: &%DL. She burst out laughing. Her employer was in possession of a top secret alright. A 1950s North Korean and Chinese plot to flood the Free World with exploding marshmallows. The code contained the recipe.
Feeling a cooking binge coming on, she baked trays of Rice Krispie treats to send to her friends at various known and secretive government agencies. She hummed Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov as she made her marshmallows from scratch.
*FYEO = for your eyes only
Kasha is the newest “pigment – as a friend would say” of my imagination. Born for +Jane Doherty’s Strange Sunday # 3, her surrealism bedroom appeared in last week’s Tale Weavers #109: metamorphosis. She is still undergoing “analysis” for mlmm’s A World Apart 5 character study. Tonight, she is breaking code for Michael’s mlmm Tale Weaver Making Sense of Nonsense: The Secret Code. Busy woman.

March 13, 2017 at 11:41 pm
Love this great job! What a talented and creative woman!
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March 14, 2017 at 12:03 am
She’s a fun character to write about – I like being silly and absurd every now and then. And certainly Kasha has her special skills and abilities.
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March 11, 2017 at 4:52 pm
Of course, FedEx drivers only make left turns. Postal Service frowns upon left turns so what choice is there for them. We were here first. it might go back to the McCarthy Era communist trials about leaning left too. You have crafted a nice like piece well placed in the Monty Phython realm. Knights that would say Nyet surely would approve
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March 11, 2017 at 11:06 am
I’m sitting here with a stunned and silly Saturday morning grin on my face :D
I loved the absurdity of this – yet so subliminally real – it’s possible that some pigment of this woman lives and breathes, through you? through me? It certainly feels this way ;)
As Michael said in his comment – that whole business line about Fed Ex drivers who only turn left! Bloody brilliant! Still aching with laughter at this bit! And I ADORED Homeland Insecurity …. what a ripe snipe this is!
Love this piece Lorraine – I’m always thrilled when you’re mind wanders and you let it play with the absurd … it’s just another beautiful aspect of your creative spirit :)
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March 11, 2017 at 11:09 am
Thank you for putting a smile on my Saturday-morning-with-a-headache face. I am an absurdist a lot of the time — to the point of being obtuse.
Enjoy the rest of your Saturday — hope you keep finding things to smile about.
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March 11, 2017 at 12:21 pm
sorry to hear about the headache …. (((((((Lorraine)))))
and I hope you feel much better soon …. I’m in recovery mode …. slow and slower still ….
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March 10, 2017 at 4:42 am
Given that this is already pretty out there, the fact that I thought the prompt was the one of the harpist, the gnomes and the dinosaur really threw me. I followed the link back and see it’s about the Russian Baba Yaga illustration! Of course! It all slips into shape now (I think!).
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March 10, 2017 at 7:55 am
I get my weeks so mixed up — I knew I used her character in my surreal bedroom, and forgot the lizard and harpist was sandwiched between. A bit giddy, I thought I’d better reference the character. I confuse myself all the time — no wonder I confuse others.
I was taking Michael’s nonsense to the limit, and needed someone to break the code. Now, I’m thinking — maybe the lizard is a code breaker too . . . lol.
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March 10, 2017 at 8:09 am
I can’t think what else use a lizard would be. Lizard burglar?
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March 9, 2017 at 10:18 pm
Oh I did love this Lorraine, such clever whimsy I have to say..this bit tickled my fancy: “”she had all her mail arrive in brown paper wrappers delivered by Fed Ex drivers who only turned left”” a wonderful Monty Pythonesque touch among many you included this time….
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March 9, 2017 at 11:35 pm
I’ve been talking Monty Python at times with Mark, so such silliness as their sketches embodied danced across the keys.
Glad you enjoyed the silliness, and caught the phantasmagorical references.
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