scan: still 2

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Provenance: The crucible from a box in Aqua's small events room, the one with the gold lame wallpaper with Chinese characters on it. The box from a relation-in-law, twice-removed, of Kelly's, its contents mostly from kitchen cupboards and buffet compartments. I'd been looking for props for one of my window displays and pulled out a few items. When I took them downstairs, Kelly related their provenance and offered me anything I wanted from the box, props aside. The top layer was country - goose - ceramics but underneath there were a few lovelies. I keep the crucible next to my desk and find myself testing it's impossible strength, its cool clang, when at my computer. It rests in the middle of my palm like an egg.

The stinkhorn eggs from the mulch heap at the head of the one of the paths. You smell stinkhorns a few feet before you spy them, their heads coated in a slime which attracts flies...need I mention that they are VERY post-coital once at their full growth?

M excels at sniffing out stinkhorns. I'm not sure what that says about him...

In years past, stinkhorns appeared in the fall in the sunny reprieves after stretches of cool weather. This chilly spring obviously presented the right conditions, because a few mushrooms emerged. By the time these eggs made an appearance, summer's heat was blaring most every day, so it was unlikely they'd fully develop. Or at least that's what I told myself when, a week or more after I spotted them, I picked them. But that's only half true, because they also were sort of puffball-y and I didn't know for sure until I got them home and sliced one open...