Free Flower of Scotland by William Meikle Page B

drained. But mentally his mind buzzed with new ideas for promoting #starrywisdom and he wasted no time in putting them into action. He didn’t even bother checking his own follower count. If he had, he’d have seen it was now over thirty thousand.
    By late afternoon #starrywisdom was the hottest trending topic in Twitter history, with millions of people posting to the hash-tag, all of them including other tags in their posts, all of which further emboldened the @greatcthulhu poster.
    @greatcthulhu 200K followers. Whoo-Hoo! #countdown brought forward. #starsareright
    That next night Darren was at the keyboard for hours, posting a tweet every minute to as many new hash-tags as he could find. He also started to see new tags trending across the planet, all seemingly related to what he was doing. The #dance tag in particular got a lot of attention, with tens of thousands of people looking for information on a strange dream involving a great city deep under water and a dance in shadows.
    At some level Darren knew he should be worried, and that something was spiraling out of control, something that had wormed its way into the Twitterverse and seemed intent on taking over. But as sleep took him he was thinking of yet more ways he could help #starrywisdom in the morning.
    The dream is the same as before, but now there are many more shadows dancing with him, a host of shadows, numbering in the millions.
    In the morning all the talk online was centered around #dance, and @greatcthulhu was being followed by over fifty per cent of all Twitter users. And that next night, in their dreams, they danced.
They float, mere shadow now, tens of millions of them in that cold silent sea. And while the slumbering god dreams, they dance for him, there in the twilight, dance to the rhythm. Everyone is at peace.
    Darren lay on his bed, fully clothed, eyes open but sound asleep. Fifty thousand people followed him on Twitter, but he would never know. He was lost, lost to the dance.
    @greatcthulhu Wakey-wakey ROFLMAO #countdown=0. #dance #starsareright
    　
~-oO0Oo-~
    　 　
    The Young Lochinvar
    Julia really wanted to see a real Scotchman.
    Edinburgh had been a big disappointment. Sir Walter Scott had led her to believe there would be cultured men in fine lace and kilts, young Lochinvars ready to sweep her off her feet and dance her away to a romantic retreat where she would be smothered in soft kisses. Instead all she got was grey streets, fog and the taste of stale beer on a drunkard’s lips.
    Maybe Dundee will be better.
    The signs were not proving good so far. The train clattered through a dark windy night that caused the carriages to sway alarmingly like a boat tossed by the waves. The sound assaulted her ears, and she yearned for the peace and quiet of their Chelsea drawing room. Pater only made things worse with his constant prattling about guns and shooting. When the other men in the carriage lit up their briar pipes in unison Julia excused herself and left for the relatively clearer air in the corridor.
    She hoped for a view from a window, something to raise her spirits, a glimpse of some real Scotchmen, or even some of the scenery on the subject of which Scott had waxed so eloquently. But night had fallen since the train departed Edinburgh and any excitement Julia might have got at crossing the Forth was lost in the rain and dark. Nothing could be seen beyond the window but gray, interspersed with rivulets of water where rain splashed and was smeared by the wind.
    Welcome to Scotland.
    She had only thought it, but a dark figure standing where the carriages met turned towards her. He stood with a light behind him and his features lay in dark shadow. All she could tell was that he was tall, and dressed in what looked like an expensive woolen overcoat.
    "Your first time here Miss?"
    His voice was soft, almost timid, but Julia felt heat rising at her cheeks.
    He’s a Scotchman.
    Yet again, although she had not spoken, he seemed to guess her