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  • #3940

    In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

    “Actually, I was thinking about you, Dispersee, for a rather delicate mission.”
    Medlik said in a slightly coying voice. “I’m getting anxious vibes from the Lady Floverley, and I think she may have run into trouble with the lost refugees.”

    Medlik knew he’d caught her attention at the words “archangeology” and “refugee”. He didn’t actually use yet the word “archangeology”, but don’t forget all time is simultaneous in the Ascended Spheres.

    “If I remember well,” Medlik continued with increased coyness “you were accustomed to delicate tasks of exploration in connecting with sensitive groups of people and tribes of many cultures in another lifetime of yours dear Gertie.”

    The remembrance of her old nickname triggered amounts of memories, sand and romance, not necessarily in that order, nor in any order as it may.

    “Well, then, it is agreed Lady Dispersee. You will go to settle the Dessert Lands, and offer the recalcitrant story refugees a domain carved from the old stories, with new borders and frontiers. Settle them well into their new territories, and let them forget about these silly liberties they have taken with their roles. Pip, pip, off you go. And don’t forget the Lady Floverley in her predicament.”

    Medlik almost thought of how leaderly all that sounded, but he wouldn’t tip off the Lady Dispersee who would surely stubbornly go the opposite way, had she realized she was about to miss a novel way to defy authority.

    #3939
    ÉricÉric
    Keymaster

      Big G came to the rescue, as poor Finnley was visibly at a loss for words. Having her talking culinary delights was in itself a revelation as to her levels of stress.

      “Liz, dear. I think your cousin Badul is going to invite us for her nth wedding. There always has been a sort of untold competition between the two of you, hasn’t it?”
      “Godfey, don’t be silly. There hardly was ever a competition at all, to begin with. Now, be a dear and go fetch me a new husband.”

      Godfrey had anticipated the unexpected again. His eyes were set on the window, where the shady and hunky enough window-cleaner was peering through, visibly interested by the whole play. With a little make-over, he would make Liz a fine tenth husband, he reckoned.

      #3938
      Jib
      Participant

        Roberto had just heard the end of their conversation. I want to hear about dear cousin Badul, the old tart had said to the maid. Something in his brain was triggered by that name, something he had been led to forgot by his handlyer in Vegas before… his mission. Yes he remembered now that he had a mission. But still all the little tickling wheels in his brain were catching up with the forgotten memories.

        He looked inside the house. The old tart was handling what looked like a sheep skull. Was she doing some dark magic ? Was she a bruja ? He was not particularly superstitious or religious, but he had learned to fear the brujas of his village in the desert.

        “Put that on the library between Byron and Baudelaire, will you?”
        The maid looked at the skull, then at her mistress with the same rollling eyes. Oh it was subtle, so very sutble that the old lady had certainly not seen it, but he had been trained to read people’s faces… well he had read an old book of Chinese face reading that his grand mother had when he was living there… That’s why they recruited him.

        The maid left with the skull, removed a few books from the shelf and put the skull unceremoniously in between. She shoved the remaining books randomly on other shelves and shrugged.
        “I’m going to make a banana yogurt cake… without yogurt”, she said to nobody in particular.

        #3937
        F LoveF Love
        Participant

          Finnley, who you will surely recall had been on a brief excursion to Nowherehampton, wondered whether to ask what she had missed while away. She decided forlornly there was no point.

          It never makes any friggin’ sense.

          Sense was important to Finnley. Even if superficially a subject made no sense, she liked to believe there was an underlying meaning.

          That’s not true. What are you on about? Your brain is clearly addled. And possibly baduled as well.

          “Finnley! you are monopolising the thread again,” admonished Liz. “You are thinking too much and it is sabotaging the beautiful spontaneity of my story. Now, be a good dear and wipe that surly look off your face. You look so much prettier when you smile; you might even attract yourself a nice young man if you would make a bit more effort. Anyway, do cheer up—I want to hear about dear cousin Badul.”

          #3934
          ÉricÉric
          Keymaster

            “Why do you suffer pain? You have compressed yourself into a form and an identity, hence the suffering. You pursue spirituality from the same limited and conditioned standpoint and hence you cannot secure any foothold in these pursuits. In whatever subject you are absorbed, you deal with it from the standpoint of a personalized entity, and not as dynamic manifest consciousness…”

            “Hear that Liz’ ?” Godfrey beamed in delight “It was not Roberto or any bloody character, it was only your dynamic manifest consciousness!”
            “In other words, are you saying it was all my fault again, cheeky blithering fool?” Liz’ couldn’t contain her petulance.

            “I think you’re missing the point, dear,… but yes.” He added after a dramatic pause “or you can blame it on Cynchtia Dipity, or her twin sister, Serene.”

            #3931
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              Prune turned to look back at Quentin as she made her way home. He’d have been better off waiting for a new chapter in the refugee story, instead of blundering into that limbo with that daft smile on his face. What a silly monkey, she thought, scratching under her arms and making chimpanzee noises at the retreating figure. Look at him, scampering along gazing up into the treetops, instead of watching his step.

              A deep barking laugh behind her made her freeze, with her arms akimbo like teapot handles. Slowly she turned around, wondering why she hadn’t noticed anyone else on the track a moment before.

              “Who are you?” she asked bluntly. “I’m Prune, and he’s Quentin,” she pointed to the disappearing man, “And he’s on the run. There’s a reward for his capture, but I can’t catch him on my own.” Prune almost cackled and hid the smirk behind her forearm, pretending to wipe her nose on it. She wondered where the lies came from, sometimes. It wasn’t like she planned them ~ well, sometimes she did ~ but often they just came tumbling out. It wasn’t a complete lie, anyway: there was no reward, but he could be detained for deserting his new story, if anyone cared to report it.

              The man previously known as the Baron introduced himself as Mike O’Drooly. “I’m a story refugee,” he admitted.

              “Bloody hell, not another one,” replied Prune. Then she had an idea. “If you help me capture Quentin, you’ll get a much better character in the new story.”

              “I’ve nothing left to lose, child. And no idea what my story will be or what role I will play.” Perhaps it’s already started, he wondered.

              “Come on, then! If we don’t catch him quick we might all end up without a story.”

              #3930
              ÉricÉric
              Keymaster

                “The writer is as slow as my aunt Germaine” was all that came to Godfrey’s mind.
                His aunt Germaine was a notorious for her gaps of lucidity during the family reunion cards tournaments, which made playing with her much less ludic that it should have been.

                “Truly, what I meant” said Godfrey, carefully weighing the next words to assemble in a coherent sentence (he’d been chastised playfully by the new maid already, who would pretend to not understand a word of what he asked her to do) “is that I thought you where talking about winter, not writer. Alas, the writer is not coming.”

                Finnley would probably have had a fit of bright clarity with that one, he smiled at himself proudly.

                #3928
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  “Godfrey, shouldn’t you DO something about that? The characters are wandering all over the place, on the wrong threads, wandering right out of stories, whether they’ve been written out or not. They’re all just doing whatever they damn well want, it’s getting ridiculous!”

                  Obligingly Godfrey cackled loudly, in what Liz presumed was a game attempt to restore some order in the threads (mistakenly assuming momentarily that they were in Caketown) .

                  “Are they all turning into anarchists?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

                  “Don’t be daft, Godfrey, you can have characters that are anarchists, but you can’t have anarchists that are characters, where will it end? Who will be in control, and lead the story?”

                  “The writer will have to follow the lead of the characters, then, and support their moves with filler and back story.”

                  Elizabeth felt faint. “What are you suggesting?” she whispered, filled with dread and uncertainty.

                  #3927
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    “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.

                    #3926
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      “Will someone answer that!” Liz parroted the other fat dealer. “Whose the leader of door answering these days anyway? All leaders and no fecking staff, now!”

                      Glancing towards the open window, where a shrill noise seemed to emanate from that had immediately set Liz’s teeth on edge, she noticed him. Could it really be him? After all these years! Was it really Roberto?

                      The door bell pealed again, distracting Liz, and when she looked back, the man had disappeared. Did I imagine that? she wondered.

                      Roberto, rubber duck in hand, walked around the outside wall to see who was making such a racket on the door bell.

                      “Madre mia! Los Guardianos !” he whispered, aghast. What were they doing here, of all places? Roberto crept back around the house, hoping he hadn’t been seen.

                      #3912
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        “As I was saying,” continued Liz, “Oh, unless you want to explain something first, Finnley?”

                        “I’m trying to tell you I am a Leader Personality, and it doesn’t fit my character assignation, which is why I am flitting about the place snickering,” the confused hitherto supportive cleaner replied.

                        #3911
                        ÉricÉric
                        Keymaster

                          Finnley came back hopefully in time with her five guardian angels to listen to that last comment from Liz.

                          Only two of them had decided to stay after she’d explained her boss wanted to mold them in salt-free concrete for body parts.

                          #3909
                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            Ignoring the peculiar behaviour of Finnley, who seemed to be having a strange turn (Flove only knew what had happened to her during her absence), Liz continued with her explanation.

                            “It’s the new exercise in the Mandala of Ascensions group. There are Leader Personalities, and there are Supporter Personalities ~ and let me be perfectly clear, there are no in betweens or other categories in this particular exercise. Members of the group must choose one category only.”

                            Liz paused to light a cigarette, and turn down the background chatter emanating from the puerile radio show, which was distracting her from her train of thought.

                            #3908
                            F LoveF Love
                            Participant

                              “Oh haha I can’t keep up with myself!” laughed Finnley in a most uncharacteristic and slightly manic manner. After offering to explain once more, although nobody could remember what she was explaining, she retreated for a second time.

                              #3906
                              F LoveF Love
                              Participant

                                “I am enjoying our time together but If you will allow me to explain,” said Finnley.

                                She then disappeared.

                                #3905
                                TracyTracy
                                Participant

                                  “Explain yourself you wanton harlot,” Finnley muttered under her breath, and then louder: “Shift Leader Personalities? What are they?”

                                  “Well,” Liz started to explain, but was rudely interrupted.

                                  “For fucks sake get a movealong.”

                                  Aghast, Liz looked at Finnley. “It’s not like you to be quite this rude!”

                                  “I will have to teach you how to do it,” the cleaner replied, somewhat enigmatically.

                                  #3897

                                  Seeing Dido eating her curry cookies would turn Mater’s stomach, so she went up to her room.

                                  Good riddance she thought, one less guest to worry about.
                                  Not that she usually thought that way, but every time the guests leaved, there was a huge weight lifted from her back, and a strong desire of “never again”.
                                  The cleaning wasn’t that much worry, it helped clear her thoughts (while Haki was doing it), but the endless worrying, that was the killer.

                                  After a painful ascension of the broken steps, she put her walking stick on the wall, and started some breathing exercises. The vinegary smell of all the pickling that the twins had fun experimenting with was searing at her lungs. The breathing exercise helped, even if all the mumbo jumbo about transcendant presence was all rubbish.

                                  It was time for her morning oracle. Many years ago, when she was still a young and innocent flower, she would cut bits and pieces of sentences at random from old discarded magazines. Books would have been sacrilegious at the time, but now she wouldn’t care for such things and Prune would often scream when she’d find some of her books missing key plot points. Many times, Mater would tell her the plots were full of holes anyway, so why bother; Prune’d better exercise her own imagination instead of complaining. Little bossy brat. She reminded her so much of her younger self.

                                  So she opened her wooden box full of strips of paper. Since many years, Mater had acquired a taste for more expensive and tasty morsels of philosophy and not rubbish literature, so the box smelt a bit of old parchment. Nonetheless, she wasn’t adverse to a modicum of risqué bits from tattered magazines either. Like a blend of fine teas, she somehow had found a very nice mix, and oftentimes the oracle would reveal such fine things, that she’d taken to meditate on it at least once a day. Even if she wouldn’t call it meditate, that was for those good-for-nothing willy-nilly hippies.

                                  There it was. She turned each bit one by one, to reveal the haiku-like message of the day.

                                  “Bugger!” the words flew without thinking through her parched lips.

                                  looked forgotten rat due idea half
                                  getting floverley comment somehow
                                  prune hardly wondered eyes great
                                  inn run days dark quentin simulation

                                  That silly Prune, she’d completely forgotten to check on her. She was glad the handwritten names she’d added in the box would pop up so appropriately.

                                  She would pray to Saint Floverley of the Dunes, a local icon who was synchretized from old pagan rituals and still invoked for those incapable of dancing.
                                  With her forking arthritis, she would need her grace much.

                                  #3892

                                  In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                                  Domba didn’t know why he’d attract those strange beings of light who tried to cajole him into following their glib tongued advice.
                                  Domba was no fool, he’d learnt young that nobody gets interested in Domba unless someone wants to play tricks on him.
                                  His life was a prison, that much he knew. The light guys could well be the jailers themselves for all he knew. He didn’t care about that, or any of their business with power. Power of knowledge, for all the good it did, didn’t seem to have guided the human race to better ends. And compassion was for foolisher than himself.

                                  For now, he did have fun a little with the one who called herself Dispe, for her spirit seemed benign enough, a fountain of wonderment and joy in contrast with the way he’d learnt to see the world. He couldn’t really understand all about her wild rants, but if anything, he was curious about her views, and how she sustained them, like as a child, he was endlessly amazed at the resilience and resourcefulness of ants.

                                  Maybe she was a queen ant, and he was just that stupid worker she was having fun with.

                                  The wild nature overgrown in the miles of no-man’s land around his place had so much to teach. Persistance, endurance, and a boundless love of life itself. It was as though nature’s own rhythm was overlaid and hidden by the man-made time and routines. Whereas, if you were to look under, the slow stubborn and everlasting pace of nature’s growth was vibrating underneath, encouraging whoever willing to listen to slow down to its tune, and taste its encompassing love of life.
                                  He often wondered how long before men would come and try to pour concrete over the land, and raise scrapers of metal and blown-sand. His only solace was to think that in his madness, man couldn’t completely obliterate nature, that it would always be waiting patiently.

                                  He wondered how those light beings failed to see how even them weren’t as apart from it as they thought they were. Or maybe they knew deep up.

                                  He’d noticed a bird coming many times too. That bird had an agenda, and too clean feathers to not be either a spy, or some heavenly messenger.

                                  #3891
                                  ÉricÉric
                                  Keymaster

                                    Liz had taken well to her new prescription drugs.
                                    In appearance, it had seemed to have drained out the inexhaustible source of inspiration that let her write novels after novels. Or maybe that was just due to the absence of Finnleys to take care of the editing.

                                    In the meantime, Godfrey had worked hard to nurture her back to whatever state she called sanity and suited her best, and gently coax her to resume her former passion.

                                    “Godfrey, let me retire from writing, it’s too passé.” she was pouring concrete into the silicon molds to make new saint statues. Over the years, she’d accumulated quite a few of those saints and martyrs that she collected (or stole) from derelict places of cult during her travels. She liked to paint them back to life with gaudy colours, mimicking some sort of Mexican style. Sometimes she would dress them, and ask Finnley to sew them clothes and little hats.

                                    Strangely, getting her out of the hospice had made her want to populate the whole house with concrete clones of those statues. Maybe to fill a void of inspiration ?
                                    Nevertheless, Godfrey was amazed at her capacity to innovate. Her writing momentum was certainly at a low, but did she channel her creativity in many ways.
                                    The last batch of Christian martyr statues painted in the many outfits of David Bowie were a testament to that.

                                    #3890

                                    In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                                    ÉricÉric
                                    Keymaster

                                      Readjusting to Earth had not been as easy as John had thought.
                                      At the beginning, everything seemed overwhelmingly bright and noisy. The huge blue sky was a wonder to behold, but his eyes couldn’t look at it for long time periods.

                                      Within a few days, the shock was wearing out, and the gradual realization started to settle, that there was no going back to that place where they were. That moment in space and time was so eerily starting to dissolve in his memory, feeling more and more like a distant fairytale, some story of the past, nothing more than an illusion.
                                      Yet, it was that place where all his experiences were had. Where he had forged his character, had played, laughed, dreamt, feared, loved.
                                      It all was almost meaningless. People were looking already at making movies and more distorted illusions of it for pure entertainment.

                                      So, readjusting himself wasn’t going to be easy, if at all possible.

                                      They’d released them in the end, not without giving them new identities. Seemed to be a fad these days, not only for protection of international security secrets, but also as a way to escape your irrevocable internet trail. Everything that was documented since your birth, since before you could even give your consent, and realize what was done. More and more were those who wanted a fresh start. What better solution to recycle a bunch of Mars stranded migrants into the fray of life itself.

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