Search Results for 'act'

Glynis rose at dawn to gather herbs for her potions—it is the best time to collect the flowered herbs, just as the dew evaporates and before the heat of the day. And usually she loves the freshness of the early morning but her night had been long and restless, full of strange dreams which had left her with an uneasy feeling.

The grass is cold on her bare feet and so she treads lightly and with haste. She stops though to pat the statue of a dwarf on his small concrete head. “Hello, Mr Cutie-Pie,” she says, as she does every day when she passes by. The dwarf is the only statue in the garden and she often wonders how he came to be there; he seems a lonely little chap.

When she first came upon the house, although house is not really a grand enough word for the beautiful mansion it must once have been, she spent hours exploring its many rooms. It seemed the occupants had left in a great hurry without ever returning for their things. This seemed strange to Glynis, for only one wing was badly damaged by fire. The rest was largely intact although over the years had fallen into disrepair and now was home to all manner of small critters.

It caressed the bottle it had stolen from the house, purring like a cat. Gorrash had never seen such a being before. Nor had his maker, as far as he could tell from the residual memories of the sculpting process. The creature looked somewhat transluscent and its movements felt unnatural. It reminded him of how water flowed from the surface of his stone skin during a rainy day.

Gorrash didn’t understand how it got the flask. Its paw had just flown through the glass and brought back its glowing prize without breaking the window. He had blinked several times before being sure the window had been closed.
That is interesting, Gorrash thought. He had never dared enter the house, fearing to be trapped inside.

The creature suddenly backed away and hid into a bush. There was movement inside the house. Gorrash returned quickly to his usual spot before she could see him. The human of the house was closing the window for the night. He didn’t understand that either. As far as he could tell, night was the best time of all, especially in winter when nights were longer. A couple of bats flew above him and as they became silent he knew there were a couple less mothes in this world.

Gorrash was still curious about the creature. He went to the bush near the window; you would be surprised how silent a stone dwarf could be. He moved the leaves apart and saw the flask on the ground. It was unopened but empty. The dwarf picked the bottle up from the ground. It was kind of wet. But no sign of the creature. He looked around the garden, with the moonlight it should be easy to spot. But the night was quiet and empty.

As he walked under the old oak tree, a satisfied purr from above attracted his attention. Gorrash looked up and there it was glowing and pulsing with flowing patterns of colors perched onto a branch like a christmas decoration.

Gorrash scratched his stone beard with its tiny hand. It was high for a dwarf. He had never climbed onto a tree, and he doubted he could do it one day. Mostly he feared the fall.

“Hey”, he called. The creature continued to purr and glow as if it heard nothing.
“Hey”, he called again. The creature continued to ignore him.
Gorrash looked at his feet and found a few pebbles. I hope it does not hold grudges, he thought before throwing the first stone at the creature.

It flew right through the creature’s body. Gorrash shivered thinking it might be some kind of ghost. He hesitated a moment, considering his options. But he had been alone for too long, even a ghost would be good company. He threw the other pebble which flew right through the creature again but this time he had calculated so that it would also bump into the bark of the tree.

It was enough to get its attention. The patterns of colors were pulsing more quickly, but were still harmonious.
“Hey! I’m down there”, Gorrash said. This time the creature looked down. The dwarf waved his hand. He was not sure but the rainbow creature looked a tad drunk. He wondered what was in that empty flask.
“You care to get down a moment ?” he asked.
“Mruiiii”, answered the creature with what looked like curiosity.

hello dead bloody hands
line indeed somehow great threads
talking catch matter virtual gone
longer job characters wondering
getting dido head

Eleri tried harder to focus on what Yorath was saying but she couldn’t keep her eyes off his red silk jacket. Eventually he realized the problem, and slipped the jacket off his shoulders, folded it neatly, and placed it in his travelling bag. Noticing Eleri’s widening eyes following the jackets movements, he zipped the bag closed and the tantalizing colour disappeared from sight.

“As I was saying,” Yorath continued. He now had Eleri’s full attention. “Don’t ask me where I procure it from, because I can’t divulge my sorcerers, er, sources. But I can promise a steady, if not unlimited, supply.”

“More tea, dear?” Eleri refilled his cup. “I’m very interested in the antigravity properties because you see, this stuff is so darned heavy. The heaviness has it’s benefits, in fact the weight of stone is one of the attractions. But during the creation process it could be extremely useful, not to mention the transportation aspect.”

Yorath smiled, nodding agreement. “Indeed, not to mention the expanded possibilities and abilities of the finished products.”

“The thing is,” asked Eleri, “Can it be programmed? There are times when heavy is entirely appropriate, and times when the anti gravity component would be welcome and beneficial.”

“The Overseer has been working on it, but he got in a bit of a muddle with it. You see, it’s a delicate combination of technology and magic. The combination has to be just right. Not too much technology without enough magic, but neither too much magic and not enough technology.”

“Oh dear,” sighed Eleri. “I’m afraid my technological know-how is nil. Well, almost nil,” she added. She knew how to mix colours, for example. Was that considered technical? She didn’t know, but felt despondent now about her ability to use the new ingredient.

“All that’s needed is a little more tinkering with the programming, and with a bit of luck,” Yorath snickered a bit at the word luck and continued, “I should be able to find just the right spell to go with it, to activate the technology.”

“I don’t know, Yorath, it all sounds beyond me, when you start talking about scientists and Heavy Ion Research it daunts me, you know?”

“Even though Elerium represents the hopes of a generation, the dream of a united world, and the struggle for human survival?” Yorath asked with a twinkle in his eye.

“Well, if you put it like that, how can I refuse? How soon can you acquire the right spell to go with it?”

“Leave it with me,” he replied.

Glynis likes to light candles before dark. She has a trail of candles leading from the kitchen to her small bedroom down the hallway. She made the candles herself by extracting the wax from the bayberries which grow with wild abandon on the bushes in front of the house. The candles burn cleanly and have a beautiful scent which helps her drift to sleep at night.

Glynis is in the portion of the house which was once the servants’ quarters. Part of the main house was destroyed in a fire many years ago and seemingly abandoned for good. There are acres of garden, once beautifully manicured, now overgrown and vibrant with life.

She is not sure how long she will stay here and lately has felt a restless pull to move on. Where? She is not sure. So for now, she practices her magic arts and knows she has much to learn.

Glynis is about to retire for the evening when something catches her attention. A flicker of light at the window. When she looks again there is nothing there. But something else is amiss; she can sense it.

“Oh, what is this? Eleven jars of potion? Darnit! I’m sure I made a clean dozen!”

When Eleri’s little dog started coughing and wheezing again her first reaction was to snap at him. Irritating though it inevitably was, once again she realized she’d been holding her breath somehow, or probably more accurately, holding her energy. Or holding everyone elses, like a brick layers hod carrier, weighed down with blocks from other peoples walls.

“It’s too hot in here, come outside,” she said to the scruffy mongrel. The cozy warmth of the wood stoves had become stifling. She slipped through the door into the cool night.

Breathe, she said to herself, momentarily forgetting the gasping dog. Her hunched shoulders descended jerkily as she inhaled the sodden air, wondering about ozone or ions, what was it people said about the air after the rain? Whatever it was, it was good for something, good for the heart and soul of mortal humans.

Feeling better with every breath, Eleri noticed the olive branches rustling wetly overhead. The olive tree had been planted too close to the fig tree ~ wasn’t that always the way, forgetting how large things grow when one plants a seed or a sapling. As the old fig tree had broadened it’s sheltering canopy, the olive sapling had reached out an an angle to find the sun, and sprinted upwards in a most un olive like manner. This reminded her of the straight little sapling story, which had always irritated her. What was commendable about a row of straight little soldier saplings anyway? All neat and tidy and oh so boring, none of them stepping out of line with a twist here or a gnarl there. No character! But the olive tree, in it’s race towards the light, leaned over the gable end of the dwelling as if spreading it’s arms protectively over the roof. A regimental straight sapling would have simply withered in among the fig leaves, whereas this one had the feel of a grandfatherly embrace of benevolent support.

What was it she’d heard about trees and oxygen? They exhaled the stuff that we wanted and inhaled the stuff we didn’t want, that was about as technical as she could muster, and it was enough. She breathed in tandem with the trembling rain sparkled leaves. In. And out. In, and out. Deeper breaths. Damn, it was good! That was good air to be breathing, what with the rain and the trees doing their thing. And there for the taking, no strings attached.

When the oven timer interrupted her sojourn in the night air, Eleri noticed that the little dog had stopped coughing. On her way back inside, she noticed the new mermaids patiently awaiting a coat or two of sea green paint and wondered if she would ever find a dragon to replicate. She was sure they’d be popular, if only she could find one.

MATER

Bert seems to be digging a very large hole. I mean, good grief, it’s just a veggie garden. I don’t think my cabbages warrant all that effort. I pull open the window—the latch wobbles precariously on its single screw—and call out to him.

“What are you doing, Bert? Digging a grave or something?”

My humour is clearly lost on him. He glances over in my direction, distractedly, before placing his spade on the ground. He then kneels down in the dirt and leaning right inside the hole begins scrabbling with his hands.

How odd!

I pull a jacket on over my pink floral onesie. The onesie was a birthday gift from the girls and was accompanied by rather a lot of silliness and giggling. However I was privately rather taken with my gift and with summer over and a cool chill in the air it was very handy to put on in the mornings. Completing my ensemble with an old pair of gumboots by the back doorstep, I go and join Bert in the garden.

“What’s that, Bert? What’s that you’ve found in there?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he replied. At least, I think that’s what he said. It was hard to hear him when he was hanging upside down in a hole.

I crouch down beside him, no mean feat at my age, and take a look.

All I can see are some bones.

“What is it? A dog or something?”

“Too big for a dog.”

“Oh my goodness!” I gasp. “Are those … people bones?”

Bert gently extricates an object from the dirt and pulling himself back up he perches down beside me. “Not unless they have a beak for a nose,” he says, gently dusting off the dirt and holding it up for me to see.

It was a giant skull. Like a strange giant bird.

“Dragon skull,” says Bert with a satisfied smile.

Finnley staring at Godfrey in a bemused manner. Dragons? She hated it when characters changed personality mid-story and without warning. It was unsettling. Sidling closer to him she tentatively reached out and poked his arm firmly with her index finger.

“Ouch, dammit Finnley! What are you doing?”

“Testing to see if you are real or if I am hallucinating. Anyway, seems you are real so all good.”

“Oh, there you are, Finnley!” Liz beamed. “I seem to recall I was looking for you but I can’t remember why. Perhaps it was to remind you not to monopolise my thread. You are doing it again, you know.”

Liz was aghast. What had her characters been writing about her now? If there was one thing Elizabeth had learned while unleashing characters into the reality experience, was that there was no such thing as control. You could not expect the expected when it came to characters. It was almost as if they had a mind of their own.

“Not so fast!” she shouted to Felicity who was trying to climb the fence with the help of a sturdy old vine. She glared at Godfrey. “Now look what you’ve started.”

“Oh. how ridiculous!” exclaimed Elizabeth, throwing a transcript at Godfrey.

Deftly catching the paper being tossed in the whirlwind of a forceful exhalation of Liz’s cigarette smoke, he raised an eyebrow but remained silent.

“She had a dream, you see,” continued Liz. “A dream about a writer and her maid. She mentioned it to me because she had one of those funny feelings it was about me, and when she told me, well the first thing I thought about was, well, you know….”

But Godfrey wasn’t listening, he was winking at Finnley who was reading over his shoulder. The maid stifled a giggle.

“So then I said to her,” Elizabeth explained, “‘I wonder what she’s been up to, left to her own devices?” and then she asked him all about it, and that’s what he said. Thrown me for a loop, I must say.”

E: (chuckling) Left to her own devices, she generates considerable intensity in extremes.

A: is this a character that has become a focus?

E: Reverse.

A: So it’s a focus that has become a character…. is there any information on the focus itself that I could offer her to play with that?

E: The focus is a past focus, but a recent past focus…a past focus in the timeframework of the 1940s…

A: in the Americas?

E: This focus travels, but I would express is based in Britain.

A: That makes sense.

E: And in actuality is involved with early computers…with large cables. LARGE cables…

A: [babble babble ohh ahh blah blah] …and she is female?

E: Yes.

“I recalled a dream last night. One thing led to another, maybe I’ll tell you about that later, but it is connected, so remind me later. Then I was reminded of a story. Then I had a message from someone about a dream about a writer with a maid called Agnes, and she had recalled another story about Brooklyn. And of course, that got me thinking about stories. And story characters! And us!”

At this point in Liz’s monologue she paused and looked meaningfully at Godfrey, Finnley and Roberto. She repressed an urge to slap Roberto, who was gazing out of the window (thinking about mountain tajines no doubt), to get his attention for the meaningful look that she wanted to give him, and cleared her throat loudly instead.

Not a moment later she had to control the urge to slap Finnley, who was just about to make another remark about the length of her sentences.

“I didn’t say a word!” Finnley exclaimed with righteous indignation. “I only thought about it!”

“And I didn’t slap you, did I. I only thought about it too!” retorted Liz.

“Ah, but you’re the one who wrote it down. You’ve gone and done it once you write it down.”

“Don’t be daft,” replied Liz. But she wondered, what if?

“As a matter of fact, I was dancing,” said Finnley with exaggerated politeness. “It is something I do to get back in the flow of the Universe … and counteract negativity.” She looked pointedly at Liz.

“Anyway,” she continued, “allow me read to read a little from the great Prof E P Lemon’s latest offering:

“It’s also like in taiji, you sometimes get into that flow state but for that you need to go past the learning phase, can’t really go around that.”

Finnley looked sympathetically at Liz.

“Perhaps you are still at the taiji learning phase, Liz.”

“How would I learn taiji?” asked Liz humbly. “I can see you are a master, dearest and wise Finnley.”

Finnley looked thoughtful. “Apparently the Prof used to go regularly up a mountain. The air is more taiji up there … maybe you could do that? Don’t worry I will take care of things here,” she said quickly, envisaging the peace and tranquility of a few days without Liz continually haranguing her.

“Take as long as you need to get some taiji,” she added with what she hoped was a kind smile.

CLOVE:

I offered to help Stevie go through her mum’s things expecting her to refuse on the grounds of it being private, but she said, Yes, you do it and I’ll watch, it will be easier that way. Stevie wanted to do it all methodically and start with the drawers, and I said no, that’s silly starting in the least likely place.

So we did it my way, and haphazardly followed random impulses. I’m not sure whether it was successful or not, because Stevie didn’t find what she was looking for (not forgetting that she didn’t know exactly what she was looking for anyway) but we did find something interesting. If I wasn’t going home soon, I’d have sent a message to Corrie right away, but I decided to keep it to myself for a bit, I don’t know why.

The elephant in Sue and John’s bedroom caught my eye, one of those big ceramic Indian ones with a flat saddle to put a spider plant on. It weighed a ton, but we managed to turn it over without making too much of a mess of the spider plant, which we forgot to remove first, and sure enough it had a cavity inside and there were some papers wedged up there.

Stevie got excited and started making squeaky noises and telling me to be careful. I gave her a look, and pulled them out and handed them to her. They weren’t like documents or anything, they were torn up maps with some little bits cut out where the letters of the names of the places were.

“Just a load of old rubbish! It must have been in there when she bought it, I can’t see Mum shoving rubbish up there. How exasperating, I thought we were on to something!”

“Let me have a look at them, Stevie,” I said, slowly reaching out for them. I was starting to have a funny moment, trying to remember.

It took me a minute or two, but I did remember. Although I can’t imagine how it could be connected. But still, it was a bit odd. It reminded me of what we’d found at the Brundy place that day, me and Corrie.

MATER

The room was dark, save for a sliver of light coming in through the curtains where I had not quite pulled them together. The rain started this evening bringing much needed coolness with it. I lay in bed and smiled thinking of the funny twists and turns life can take.

I had asked Corrie a few more questions but they were more a formality to reassure my brain that I was not going crazy. In my heart I knew. It is hard to find the right words to describe the state which came over me while Corrie was talking; it was as though the air around me had become lighter — so much so that I could almost see it shimmering — and a great … peace … I think the word is peace … had enveloped me.

I just knew it was them.

What a remarkable coincidence!

No, no, not coincidence. I know better than that. It’s magic!

Magic. I smiled again into the darkness. One needs to be reminded of magic at my age, where with every creaking, aching joint one can no longer be distracted so easily from the steady and inevitable propulsion towards death. A sort of reassurance in the presence of supernatural forces and perhaps a hint that there may be a purpose to my small little life. Dare I believe that I am worthy of magic?

Ah, perhaps I have not explained that well. Is it love? Is love the word I am looking for? When I felt the lightness, the magic, I felt expansive and loving. All the irritation of the morning was gone. And I felt loved in return by forces I could neither see nor explain. Not in my head, anyway.

Yes, and it was even nice to see Idle, though she was so full of rambling talk about Iceland and her trip that I had to excuse myself on the pretext that I had laundry to get in before the rain started. One can only take so much chatter.

“Aaron!” his focus snapped. Was he day dreaming?

As he came to the door, he looked at his suit in the mirror. It was keen, with straight lines and not a wave or wrinkle to be found. It was the epitome of structure and order.

He hated it.

He hated the way it felt. He hated the properness that came with it. He hated the lie.

In the next moment, he began to shake off the prissiness. It felt as if he could wriggle out of it, loosen up a little. And as he stood there, shaking his hands and feet, trying to get the funk off him, the suit shook off, too. It fell to the floor in pieces as though it were the very manifestation of inhibition.

As he stood there, in front of the mirror and half naked, a low murmur came up from his stomach. It was an uneasiness, a call to action, a desire to move…but he had no idea what for or why. It welled up in him and he became anxious without the slightest clue as to what he was going through. Frankly enough, it scared him.

“AARON!”

The voice was a part of him and there was nothing but himself staring at himself. Everything seemed to become more and more energized. It felt like he extended beyond the limit of his skin, like water in a balloon trying to push outward.

Were it not for his containment, there was a very real possibility that he might just completely leap out of his skin and bones. He felt that, given a small slip in concentration, he’d be liable to explode headlong into the atmosphere with the vigor of a superhero on poorly made bath salts.

His heart raced. He could feel it beating in his chest. He could feel it beating all over. What was happening? Where was he?

He looked back at his surroundings and found himself sitting behind a tattered cloth spread with sunglasses and watches…and his suitcase?