Search Results for 'ages'
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In reply to: Rafaela’s Random Ramblings
The following is an e-mail from the past, composed on July 01, 2010. It is being delivered from the past through FutureMe.org
Dear FutureMe,
The Absinthe Cafe
Dawn and Mark had a bottle of Absinthe (the proper stuff with the WORMwood in
it, which is illegal in France) but forgot to bring it. Wandering around at
some point, we chanced upon a cafe called Absinthe. Sitting on the terrace, the
waitress came up and looked right at me and said “Oh you are booked to come here
tomorrow night!” and then said “Forget I said that”. Naturally that got our
attention. After we left Dawn spotted a kid with 2016 on the back of his T
shirt. We asked Arkandin about it and we have a concurrent group focus that does
meet in that cafe in 2016, including Britta. Dawn’s name is Isabelle Spencer,
Jib’s is Jennifer….
The Worm & The Suitcase
I borrowed Rachel’s big red suitcase for the trip and stuck a Time Bridgers
sticker on it, and joked before I left about the case disappearing to 2163. I
had an impulse to take a fig tree sapling for Eric and Jib, which did survive
the trip although it looked a little shocked at first. As Eric was repotting
it, we noticed a worm in the soil, and I said, Well, if the fig tree dies at
least you have the worm.
At Balzacs house on a bench in the garden there was a magazine lying there open
to an ad for Spain, which said “If you lose your suitcase it would be the best
thing because you would have to stay”.
Later we asked Arkandin and he said that there was something from the future
inserted into my suitcase. I went all through it wondering what it could be,
and then a couple of days ago Eric said that it was the WORM! because of the
WORMwood absinthe syncs, and worm hole etc. I just had a chat with Franci who
had a big worm sync a couple of days ago, she particularly noticed a very big
worm outside the second hand shop, and noted that she hadn’t seen a worm in ages
~ which is also a sync, because there was a big second hand clothes shop next to
Dawn and Mark’s hotel that I went into looking for a bowler hat.
Arkandin said, by the way, that Jane did forget to mention the bowler hats in
OS7, those two guys on the balcony were indeed wearing bowler hats, and that
they were the same guys that were in my bedroom in the dream I had prior to
finding the Seth stuff ~ Elias and Patel.
Eric replied:And another Time Bridger thing; a while ago, Jib and I had fun planting some TB stickers at random places in Paris (and some on a wooden gate at Jib’s hometown).
Those in Paris I remember were one at the waiting room of a big tech department store, and another on the huge “Bateaux Mouches” sign on the Pont de l’Alma (bridge, the one of Lady D. where there is a gilded replica of Lady Liberty’s flame).
I think there are pics of that on Jib’s or my flickr account somewhere.
When we were walking past this spot, Jib suddenly remembered the TB sticker — meanwhile, the sign which was quite clean before had been written all over, and had other stickers everywhere. We wondered whether it was still here, and there it was! It’s been something like 2 years… Kind of amazing to think it’s still there, and imagine all the people that may have seen it since!
~~~~The Flights
I wasn’t all that keen on flying and procrastinated for ages about the trip. I
flew with EASYjet, so it was nice to see the word EASY everywhere. I got on the
plane to find that they don’t allocate seats, and chose a seat right at the
front on the left. The head flight attendant was extremely playful for the
whole flight, constantly cracking up laughing and teasing the other flight
attendants, who would poke him and make him laugh during announcements so that
he kept having to put the phone down while he laughed. I spent the whole flight
laughing and catching his mischeivously twinking eye.
I asked Arkandin about him and he said his energy was superimposed. I got on
the flight to come home and was met on the plane by the same guy! I said
“HELLO! It’s YOU again! Can I sit in the same seat and are you going to make me
laugh again” and he actually moved the person that was in my seat and said I
could sit there. Then he asked me about my book (about magic and Napolean). He
also said that all his flights all week had been delayed except the two that I
was on. He wanted to give me a card for frequent flyers but I told him I
usually flew without planes ~ that cracked him up
The Dream Bean
Eric cracked open a special big African bean that is supposed to enhance
dreams/lucidity so we all had a bit of it. The second night I remembered a
dream and it was a wonderful one.
(Coincidentally, on the flight home I read a few pages of my book and it just
happened to be about the council of five dragons and misuse of magical beans)
In the dream I had a companion with magical powers, who I presumed was Jib but
it was myself actually. It was a long adventure dream of being chased and
various adventures across the countryside, but there was no stress, it was all
great fun. Everytime things got a bit too close in the dream, I’d hold onto my
friend with magical powers, and we would elevate above the “adventure” and drop
down in another location out of immediate danger ~ although we were never
outside of the adventure, so to speak. At one point I wondered why my magical
freind didn’t just elevate us right up high and out of it completely, and
realized that we were in the adventure game on purpose for the fun of it, so why
would we remove ourselves completely from the adventure game.
In the dream I remember we were heading for Holland at one point, and then the
last part we were safely heading for Turkey…..
The other dream snapshot was “we are all working together on roof tiles” and
Arkandin had some interesting stuff to say about that one.
There were alot of vampire imagery incidents starting with me asking Eric if he
slept in his garden tool box at night, and then the guy who shot out of a door
right next to Jib and Eric’s, in a bright orange T shirt, carrying a cardboard
coffin. He stopped for me to take a photo (and Arkandin said it was a Patel pop
in); then while walking through the outdoor food market someone was chopping a
crate up and a perfect wooden stake flew across the floor and landed at my feet.
The next vampire sync was a shop opposite Dawn and Mark’s hotel with 3 coffins
in the window (I went back to take a pic of the cello actually, didn’t even
notice the coffins). Inside the shop was an EAU DE NIL MOTOR SCOOTER Share, can
you beleive it, and a mummy, a stuffed raven, and a row of (Tardis) Red phone
boxes.
I had a nightmare last night that I couldn’t find any of my (nine) dogs; the
only ones I could find were the dead ones.
~~~~Balzac’s House
The trip to Balzac’s house was interesting, although in somewhat unexpected
ways. (Arkandin was Balzac and I was the cook/housekeeper) The house didn’t
seem “right” somehow to Mark and I and we decided that was probably because
other than the desk there was no furniture in it. Mark saw a black cat that
nobody else saw that was an Arkandin pop in (panther essence animal), and Dawn
felt that he was sitting on a chair, and Mark sat on him. (Arkandin said yes he
did sit on him
The kitchen was being used as an office. Jib felt the house
was too small, and picked up on a focus of his that rented the other part of the
house. (The house was one storey high on the side we entered, and two storeys
high from the road below). There were two pop ins there apparently, one with
long hair which is a connection to my friend Joy who was part of that group
focus, and I can’t recall anything about the other one. Dawn was picking up
that Balzac wasn’t too happy, and I was remembering the part in Cousin Bette
that infuriated me when I read it, where he goes on and on about how disgusting
it is for servants to expect their wages when their “betters” are in dire
straits. Arkandin confirmed that I didn’t get my wages.
The garden was enchanting and had a couple of sphinx statues and a dead pigeon ~
as well as the magazine with the suitcase and Spain imagery. Mark signed the
guest book “brought the cook back” and I replied “no cooking smells this time”.In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions
Dispersee sat on a fallen tree trunk, lost in thought. A long walk in the woods had seemed just the ticket to release her from her turbulent thoughts, but alas, she had been unable to stop thinking about the ramifications of the new message from the popular ghost.
At first she had been delighted to see it. She had agreed with it. But then she wondered why. Because she already knew all this, and in fact, it was information that could so readily be gleaned by anyone at all simply by engaging ordinary common sense, and run of the mill human compassion. Nothing esoteric was needed. No enlightened messages from the great beyond. In fact, she had said the same as the ghost, and on many occasions. The truth of the matter was that one had to be dead these days to be heard. Nobody was interested in the wise words of the living anymore. It could almost be said that nobody was all that interested in living at all: everyone wanted to be in the future, or the past, or in some other dimension, or planet, or not even physically alive at all anywhere. The individuals in the ascension process were particularly infected with this strange disorder: many of the ordinary uninitiated public were already quite well aware of the contents of the message and were already actively engaged in the process. It was as if the interest in so called shifty matters was an obstacle, an ugly carbuncle over the heart.
Dispersee seriously wondered if the whole shift thing had been a good idea. She was beginning to doubt that it was. The alacrity with which people relied on messages from ghosts at the expense of exercising their own powers of deduction and intuition had caused the whole plan to do disastrously wrong. People didn’t even know how to behave like people anymore. Not only were they afraid of other people, afraid of their governments, afraid of their food, of the sun and the water and the very earth itself, they were afraid of their own human responses, or had forgotten them altogether.
Did it really need a ghost to advise people on media propaganda, and remind them to be compassionate to others who were on an incredible journey, an extraordinary movement during these times of change? And more to the point, did Dispersee need to be involved at all in this futile ascension malarkey?
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Stop muttering, Godfrey. What are you not in the mood for?” She winked at him *lasciviously.
Godfrey glared. “Stupid ignorant fool of a bossy boss and look at this will you!” He pointed dramatically at his letter. “A typo! He spelt my name Dear! ”
LIz was unperturbed.
“Well, I will tell you what I am in the mood for!”
She pirouetted around the recalcitrant Finnley who was still standing in the middle of the room and defiantly not making a start on **getting the cabbages.
“Nick, nack, paddywack! I’m in the mood for LOOOOVE!” sang LIz loudly and tunelessy.
Finnley grimaced and made a hasty exit.
notation* trying to sexy things up for our readers.
notation** being a euphemism for not writing a comment, of course.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Get your own cabbages,” snarled Finnley rudely. Finnley was never at her best before mid afternoon, or indeed at any time of day, and she was mentally exhausted from her earlier attempt at politeness. “All this lovey-dovey stuff is making me want to puke.”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Liz looked at the fat dealer with a snicker “Oh, you’re still here talking nonsense Big G? Haven’t you got your cabbages already? The staff these days… FINNLEY!” she shouted to the gaping muttering maid. “Snap out of this silly trance, will you! Get the man his cabbages, and show those drug-dealing gentlemen out. Can’t be here all day with the cement to set, I have a wedding to plan now.”
She turned at the window, looking for Godfrey who had temporarily left her, “what on Earth is he doing talking to that devilishly handsome fellow. Those rubberducks give me an idea for the wedding dress though. Golden yellow for the colour. With gorgeous yellow shoes. I’m feeling ages younger today… Oh, sweet love.”
In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions
The jiggong meditation’s end was signaled by a silent ring of the immaterial bell in between states of mind. MJ stretched his ideas and send a shepherd to gather his thoughts. Today only one student connected to the session. MJ acknowledged his presence with a slight flickr of his crown chakra and he checked his voicemail. 1223 messages from Dispersee. He let the potential irritation dissolve as it was born into existence and prepared to respond. No need to listen to the messages, it would only delay the answer.
He felt a nudge from the student who hadn’t dissipated as he should. Some hesitation fluctuated in the energy. He turned his attention to the void and waited. His motto was to always let people ask the questions they had if they had any, and not begin a conversation if you hadn’t something important to say.
Master John ?
MJ sent some encouragement to the void where the student thought he was.
I can’t think of a question, finally expressed the student out of nowhere.
Maybe you don’t have any question, MJ said to the void.
The student’s energy rippled with surprise. Had he been on Earth plane, he would have had a nervous laugh.Master John had already been aware that the void of the student had no question but was filled with interrogations. He was desperately trying to find something to ask in need to connect, unaware that the connection already existed and required no movement.
MJ sent an energy egg to the student. Let him play with that. It was crafted according to the ancient Chinese culture and hard to crack. With lots of mind knots and shiny curly clues. MJ let his pride of having created the object dissolve like squid ink in the ocean of his mind.Suddenly absorbed by the illusory complexity of the egg, the student suddenly blended into the void of MJ’s mind, replaced by the myriads of Dispersee’s messages cackling simutaneously to catch his unwavering attention. He picked one of them and followed the thread to Dispersee and to a nice pique nique in the mountain apparently. Floverly was already there, sitting on a patch of red flowers.
You could have changed after your jiggong, she said.
In reply to: Cakletown and the Lone Chancers of Custard
“There hath he lain for ages,” Mater read the strip of paper, “And will lie Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep..” Buggered if I know what that’s supposed to mean, she muttered, continuing to read the daily oracle clue: “Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; Then once by man and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die…..”
Mater had become increasingly irritated as the morning limped on, with no sign of Prune. Nobody had seen her since just before 3:00am when Idle got up for the loo and saw her skulking in the hallway. Didn’t occur to the silly fool to wonder at the time why the girl was fully dressed at that hour though.
The oracle sounded ominous. Mater wondered if it was anything to do with the limbo of lost characters. She quickly said 22 Hail Saint Floverly prayers, and settled down to wait. If Prune had accidentally wandered into the lost characters limbo, battening upon seaworms would be the least of their problems.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
In reply to: Cakletown and the Lone Chancers of Custard
Becky sat looking at the key in her hand long after the others had gone to bed, her mind going over seemingly disjointed images and random memories, trying to piece them all together. Why had Dory sent her, Becky, the key to the detention camp? She wasn’t expected to fly to the island and physically release the detainee’s surely? Should she send it to someone in the area? But who? Or was it more symbolic? But symbolic of what, exactly?
Was it connected to the Imagination Wave? It surely must be, she thought. It must be connected to the surge of story character refugees, looking for a new story.
Becky sighed. There had been such a dearth of imagination during the previous waves that literally countless story refugees had been rounded up and detained, with no new stories available anywhere on the planet. Of course this wasn’t actually true: there were always countless new stories to be told, but the lack of imagination, the sheer lack of will to tell them, had brought the global situation to a dreadful impasse.
We could write them all out of the stories with a rat tat tat of the keyboards, she mused, and immediately cringed at the idea. Any fool can destroy in seconds. Destruction isn’t power, creation is.
Was it a coincidence that the leader of the old story where most of the characters were fleeing from, had the same name as that alien that kept promising to land, but never actually did?
Shaking her head, Becky wondered, not for the first time, if the world population can’t handle a few displaced story characters, what in Glods name would be the reaction to a load of aliens? Still clutching the blue key, Becky went to bed. She would discuss it with the others in the morning.
In reply to: Cakletown and the Lone Chancers of Custard
Gustave Butterworth cackled delightedly. The crowd control custard gas formula experiments were looking promising. The first batch, all being well, should be ready for a trial run in time for the bake sale at Lemoine Meringue Hall. If only he could deduce that vital missing ingredient in time!
Gustave looked at his watch and decided to call it a day. He was the last one in the laboratory as usual; before turning the lights out and locking the door, he made a quick tour of the lab rats accommodation. There were no cages like in the old days: scientists in this partially enlightened age were not allowed to keep rats and beagles against their will, and only volunteer creatures were used in modern laboratories. Thus, no actual physical abuse was administered, but the energy the creatures reflected off the experiments, and the scientists themselves, was monitored; and human “animal whisperers” were employed to communicate directly. Gustave was a scientist, not a whisperer, but he had been developing his whispering skills secretly, while observing the staff.
Most of the rats has nestled down for the night in their miniature studio apartments, but one comfortable little abode was empty. “I say, Rodean,” said Gustave to the neighbouring occupant, “Has Penelope gone for an evening stroll again?”
Rodean shuffled around in his tiny bean bag chair to look at the scientist.
“What, gone to visit her cousin Patty, you say?”
In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions
Master Medlik, looked distractedly at the messages left on his aura during his last simulation. One in particular that looked uncalled for jumped at his attention for some reason. Everything was a message of the Universe in the eternal now, wasn’t it.
The Top 10 Cloud Myths
Don’t let myths like these slow you down:- Cloud is always about money
- You have to be cloud to be good
- Cloud should be used for everything
- “The CEO said so” is a cloud strategy
- We need one cloud strategy or vendor
Lead your enterprise to a smarter cloud strategy.
He could see some vague fractal pattern surrounding, a reflection of the vastness and wisdom of the Universe in shards and fragments of mirror-like substance.
If only one thing, that was all the Cloud was supposed to be about, the purpose of its being created… Or so he was told.Maybe his views about the Cloud needed revising…
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
His mother had told him not to trust what he would see. Somehow she’d spoken as if she knew more than she wanted to tell.
After the mayhem with the quakes, and the meteor impact, he thought that was it. There was something more to the reality of these events.
But then, nothing could have prepared them for what happened next. “Bloody aliens?”
Suspiciously, everyone seemed completely hypnotized and blissfully eager to follow them wherever they led. He had tried to wake Yz up, she was usually the no-nonsense one, but she’d looked at him with vacant eyes barely recognizing him with a faint “Johnny?”.
He started to get really suspicious when one of the robots started looking at his behaviour, not packing like the others. It even tried to force him to drink water —dehydration was common in these airtight environments, it said. It was then it dawned on him, that there must have put something in the water. But for what? A Mars take-over?
How he was somehow immune? Well, for a while he’d collected the water dripping from the stones, and had analysed it, found it very pure. A few days ago, before the whole string of disasters, he’d tried to drink it, see how it tasted, and it seemed safe. Must have been why. By now, most of the stones he’d collected had dried up, and his water supply was limited.
While pretending to slowly pack his things, he was looking at everyone queueing in short lines, all very ecstatic to go to the implausible blue boot-ship surrounded by watchful Finnleys. The exodus had a very eerie feeling about it.
He could see most of the persons he knew, even the new ones, Prune cuddling a box with her hamster family, Hans, even that daft Lizette and the mines guy. The religious nuts were so stoned they were all following an obviously overdressed robot with a headpiece they probably took for their religious leader.
But wait… His mother? He hadn’t see her. Where had she gone?
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
“You can call us the Blue Enders” said gently one of the blue aliens, which by the shade of it, must have been a top ranking official.
Kale was a bit confused, and space had a jelly consistency that harped and warped around his ears. It may have been the injections they gave him after the meeting with the sculpturesque Fin Min.She had explained to him, they had made contact with a unknown sentient civilisation, and that they had in their infinite and blue compassion decided to warn us of impending doom on the Mars colony. They had requested a translator to go with them on a rescue mission on their faster-than-light bluship named Sprakle Star.
Hazy and fuzzy, he was quickly put and wrapped in a ball of cotton, ear-deep into a globe coaster of roller proportions.
At least, that’s how it felt… That waccine must have been full of blue bees.“Arrival on Mars orbital level 1, in 5,… 4… 3…”
At least, the Blunders had the good idea to put an instant translator in his ear-muffins.
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
When Eb woke up, there was a dozen messages left on his phone.
He didn’t have to check to know.
His mother wasn’t too subtle when he missed their weekly call.She now lived in a modest retiring home in Mississippi, spending most of her time on social networks exchanging links about anything from politics and revolution and anarchy, kittens and drugs. Oh, that, and politics too. And revolution.
She was suffering from early stages of Alzheimer, but called it “transition” as the old-age hype advertised some decades earlier, and due to her refusal to take her prescriptions, it wasn’t improving much as time went by. But Eb’s prognosis was more like “selective Alzheimer”, as she would perfectly recall when (and how many times) he had missed their weekly calls.He could already hear her complain about how she was left out of the loop, that the world story would be over by the time she catches up with all the gossips they’d hidden from her. Often, she would become so agitated that Fancy, her nurse would come help her relax and stop waking up the others. Everything was much less confusing thanks to Fancy.
After all that is said, he loved his mother deeply. She was always full of extravagant ideas and when she stopped doubting herself, she had her moments of sheer brilliance.
Being his only son, that she’d taken care of as a single mother most of her life, he felt tremendous pressure to be worthy of her sacrifices. So talking about his job wasn’t really something he liked to explore with her. If she’d known what he did for a living,… he couldn’t bear to imagine the look of crushed hopes and expectations on her devastated face. Well, suffice to say her face needn’t any of it.
Instead, he’d told her he was working in a tree nursery, working on pest control, with humane and eco-conscious methods. Which actually wasn’t too far off the truth. The pests were the glitches of the program, and the vegetables… well, that didn’t need much explaining.“Tricia speaking, who’s this?” Eb knew she knew perfectly well it was him, but the game was ever the same
“Mother, it’s Eb”
“Ebenezer, my dear boy, how kind of you to remember your old mother. What have you been up to? So many things happened here, with that new batch of decrepit old farts who arrived last month, so much drama. But you should tell me about you. Oh, makes me recall that stupid incident, a synch! I should tell Fancy about it! Fancy, Fancy!
Oh dear… She’s gone cleaning up again. The last one who came in is a Chinese, and all his family is there, I bet she’s cooking some rice now, it smells funny. Fancy! Mind the rice! So well, it’s like the twins I talk with on the Internet, with funny names, Cilantro and Nutmeg, something like that, well, they have so many funny stories, like that meteor that dropped on Mars and blacked-out the TV show, they think it’s all bollocks. I told them I’d ask you about this, after all you did some studies in physics before becoming a gardener, you’ve always been the clever one in the lot, always helping with the dust stuck in my keyboard, and other IT problems. Oh dear… that was fun, but I think I must go, Fancy is waving at me, she says hello by the way! Oh, she rolls your eyes at you, how cute! Time for my siesta, … what? Oh, and change my nappies too, thanks Fancy, you’re precious, I keep forgetting everything. Talk to you soon my boy!”Well… If he hadn’t been so hungover, he probably would have tried to place some funny comments, or at least a well-meaning “hmmm hmmm”, to let her know he wasn’t just letting her monologue. Today was a good day notwithstanding, she hardly had a complaint. He should remember to send Fancy a card and a nice honey pot like he did every year, she was doing wonders at pacifying his mother.
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
At the Monitoring Station Alpha-7, Eb Ruide was looking lazily at logs on the big screen and surveillance images.
Nothing ever interesting happened on MARS. Eb used all caps in his head, to distinguish it from Mars, the real Mars. But it didn’t actually matter, they only knew about MARS (Mars Animated Realistic Simulation).
He hadn’t been there at the beginning, but he’d heard the stories — even if all were sworn to secrecy for the sake of the world’s peace keeping, they couldn’t help but gossip among themselves. Must have been fun back then… Not a day without trying to fix something in the simulation. The lab rats were always trying to expand their perimeter, and physical and physiological barriers had to be put in place for them to help improve the simulation.
They were more or less all willing subjects at the time, part of the big deception. Eb didn’t know how it changed, what made them start to believe in the illusion, and start to forget. He could only assume… many didn’t believe in the world as it was, and preferred to go back to a foregone settler era where every life counted, and you could measure yourself against the big expanse of unknown land, instead of living the comfortable torpor like he was, alone in his Monitoring Station, only virtually connected.
Since the Aurora, it had been a bit hectic there. Actually, a big solar flare had almost frozen their equipment, and despite all the precautions, some of it filtered through the simulation. Water had leaked too, which could have been a disaster, but interestingly, it had given some of them a purpose, and all in all, it didn’t become the dreaded event they all feared. Even if all the ins and outs and communications were filtered, you couldn’t rule out a blunder. Especially with the lack of gripping activity.
Something biped on his screen. A red button was suddenly lit. He’d never been trained to know what the red button meant. He had to refer it to his superior. Oh God, I hope she’ll be in a good mood… Since she started her special diet and had lost so much weight, Finnley Morgan was always a bit unpredictable and snappily dangerous.
The irony of the ever-calm and dulcet AI named Finnley after her in the simulation wasn’t lost on him…
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
On a rainy “morning” a bored “lady” was day dreaming about an “ancient” tribe who sailed the “sea” of Tedium. She “sometimes” had the strangest “memories”, although if the truth be “told”, it was not “usual” for her to make up things just to gauge the “unexpected” reactions. The last time she had a “visit”, or a visitation if you prefer, she was at a loss to know what it “meant”, lack of inherent meaning notwithstanding. Better perhaps to “face” the facts: “irina” was a fictional character, “stuck” in the back pages of a “group” story; despite not lacking in “consciousness”, like “mater”, she has no “hand” in it (or so it was assumed). Better not look a gift “horse” in the mouth, they existed, even if nobody was “interested” in them anymore. It was, however, the best “kept” secret of all: Irina and Mater had arranged to meet for lunch and discuss a plan.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Baby? What baby?” asked Liz. “I thought that baby had been dealt with in the last chapter, it seems ages ago. Has anyone been feeding it, do you think? What happens to all the characters when nobody writes about them? Are they glad of it, happy to do what they want? Or are they bored and frustrated at having nothing to do? Do they like being plucked from whatever they were doing once in a blue moon, and flung into an improbable scenario, and then left there, with no way out even imagined yet?”
“You only have to ask,” replied Aunt Idle, pushing the bowl of peanuts over to Liz.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“No, no, no, you can’t do that!” Liz complained loudly, after having read the last pages Finnley had diligently proofread. “A bag lady of all characters, can’t possibly steal the limelight from me now. Don’t forget who is the star of this reality tut tut.” She paused briefly and continued.
“Well, even if somebody had to care for the baby, she can’t me more mysterious and interesting than me…”
Seeing Finnley despondent more than her usual silent yet quipping self, she leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially “you’ve been worrying me dear, ever since you stopped thumbing up my posts on fruitloop. What has gotten into you? Let’s just hope it’s a passing fad.”
She poured herself another serving of quince tea, and picked a slice of lemon with a soured face. “See, my lemon diet is doing me good, you should do the same.”In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Corrie:
I was offering the plate of mince pies to Mr Cornwall, who had been coaxed out of his room for the first time in ages and was sitting next to the gum tree sapling that Aunt Idle had strung with fairy lights in lieu of a Christmas pine, when they arrived. We were all surprised to hear the taxi hooting outside, that is, except Bert. I heard him mumbling something about “She bloody meant it, the old trout,” but I didn’t remember that until later, with all the commotion at the unexpected guests.
“Here, take the lot,” I said, shoving the mince pies on the old guys lap, as I rushed to the door to see who it was. A tall autocratic looking woman swathed in beige linen garments was climbing out of the front seat of the taxi, with one hand holding the pith helmet on her head and the other hand gesticulating wildly to the others in the back seat. She was ordering the taxi driver to get the luggage out of the boot, and ushering the other occupants out of the car, before flamboyantly spinning around to face the house. With arms outstretched and a big smile she called, “Darlings! We have arrived!”
“Who the fuck it that?” I asked Clove. “Fucked if I know” she replied, adding in a disappointed tone, “Four more old farts, just what we bloody need.”
“And a baby!” I noted.
Clove snorted sarcastically, “Terrific.”
Suddenly a cloud of dust filled the hall and I started to cough. Crispin Cornwall had leaped to his feet, the plate of mince pies crashing to the floor.
“Elizabeth! Do my eyes deceive me, or is it really you?”
“Godfrey, you old coot! What on earth are you doing here, and dressed like that! You really are a hoot!”
“Why is she calling him Godfrey?” asked Prune. “That’s not his name.”
“He obviously lied when he said his name was Crispin Cornwall, Prune. We don’t know a thing about him,” I replied. “Someone had better go and fetch Aunt Idle.”
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
When I left the Inn this morning, Mater seemed upset. I regularly kisses her on her forehead before going to the gas station, as I know it pisses her off, but today she seemed lost in her thoughts and she called me Fred. I don’t like it when she does that, it gives me the impression she’s losing it. I wonder who’s going to hold that crumbling place when she’s gone. Certainly not Dido, she can’t focus her mind on a project for more than a few minutes, and it usually does not pass the stage of smokey ideas. I see clearly her game, she’s messing around with Mater for God knows what twisted reasons. They never seemed to appreciate each others much, and I’ve only known them for eighteen years. Looking at how it didn’t evolve much during that time, I bet it had been like that for quite some time. Family relationships are boring, and usually quite messy.
Take Joe for example, he’s crazy. His father is crazy, and his grand-father well he spent so much time in the mines that his family didn’t really miss him when one of the tunnels collapsed while he was inside. They never found the body. The Mining company gave the family a ridiculously small amount of money as an indemnification. Joe’s father lost it in some fracking wallaby race. Bad luck had stuck to him his whole life. Jasper once told me to avoid him. I would have, even if it was not for my dead brother’s warning.
Joe’s working at the gas station with me. He had been working there since he was sixteen when the school told his parents it was a waste of time [for them] to try and teach him anything valuable. His father beat him to keep up the appearances, but they were glad they could put him to work to bring in some more money.
Joe is nuts, but he’s not dumb. He just likes to experiment. He must have a good star watching upon him, unlike his father, because each time he manages to make something explode or break in a real bad way, but he always gets out without a scratch. He’s excited, he’s finished working on his last project. He wants us to borrow a gas tank and go to his place after work. I’ve rarely seen him so excited. We’ll have to put off the hockey with Callum.
