Search Results for 'anne'

Yoland decided to have another go at the Pink Radio Exercise with a few online freinds.

(I’m procrastinating over turning this damn radio on…) she typed.

~ special effects from Franz E ~
(that’s what I just heard and we didn’t say START yet)

(Later)

(I’m procrastinating over turning this damn radio on…)

~ you see you weren’t listening. I said special effects from Franz E and you stopped listening immediately. ~ (well I was writing it down) ~
~ (mans voice) …..weather, and you don’t know whether or not to listen, do you… I didnt think so, off you go ~ (then a football match can you beleive it, can’t get off the football station) ~ and this is the whether station again, whether or not we want to listen ~ (mind wanders) ~ and the whether is changable ~ (mans voice sounds amused)

(Its channel 46 FWIW, I just asked him. And his name is either Roy or Gilroy. Gilroy.)

~ Gilroy Spadhammer ~ (now he’s laughing)

(ok lets see if I can move off the whether and football channels…..)

~ the whether is stabilizing ~ GOAL! ~ song: we’re all going on a summer holiday ~ Wakefield Pressman (solemn male voice)~

Yoland was sidetracked then by Teleport Moll’s sudden appearance, and forgot all about Wakefield Pressman.

Taatje van Snoot was an eccentric character of indeterminate age. That she had been born Dutch was obvious, but when, nobody could tell. Nobody could remember when she hadn’t been an integral part of the Amsterdam scenery, even the most ancient citizens recalled Taatje being around. Nobody knew her well, it seemed, but everyone knew of her existence, everyone saw her from time to time. She never seemed to age, and she didn’t appear to work, for she was never seen doing anything in a routine manner. Sometimes, for example, she would be spotted drinking coffee every morning at the same place; the following week or years therafter, she’d be elsewhere, never visiting that cafe again. Taatje was a bit of a mystery, but a well loved one. She was jolly, always smiling, as she bustled about the city doing whatever she did, polite and charming, delightfully vague, and always endearingly dressed in a random selection of fancy dress outfits and carnival costumes.

Ann wasn’t altogether sure what Godfrey meant when he referred to her new interest in continuity. Ann had always been interested in connecting links, yes, of that there was no doubt, but with so very many connecting links, and so many possible strings of connecting links, with so many possible divergences into yet more strings of connecting links, Ann really couldn’t fathom how anyone could possibly keep track of all those threads of continuity. Even a seemingly discontinuous assortment of unconnected links, once connected into a nonsense thread, became another continuity string. Furthermore, Ann continued ~ in a continuous fashion ~ to ponder, if everything is connected, then what, in actuality, was all the fuss about continuity? What exactly then WAS this concept of continuity? It seemed to Ann to be more like a string of barbed wire, or one of those flimsy but effective electric wire fences, boxing in the free flow of continuity, so that the objectively perceived continuity stayed rigidly within the confines of the preconceived tale. The inner landscape knew no such boundaries, although admittedly the inner landscape was far too vast to map.

Ann smiled to herself as she imagined trying to push pins into various inner landscape locations, tying strings from one to another, in an effort to map and label the inner continuity connections. Of course she was imagining it in a visual manner, because it was hard to imagine all those connections and strings being invisible and not taking up any space, and before long Ann’s inner map of pins and strings quickly resembled a tangle of overcooked spaghetti, perilously speckled with sharp pointy pins.

The image of the glutinous tangle dotted with sharp shiny pointers led Ann off on another tangent, but it was a tangent that soon became utter nonsense. Or was it, she mused. Perhaps it was those symbolically sharp pointy bits that in fact pointed out the immense variety of potential other continuity threads to choose from. Indeed, it could easily be said that having one of her characters dumped in Siberia in the previous story, painful though it was, was not unlike being pricked by a pin amidst the tangle of sticky pasta, a brilliantly effective pointer towards unlimited new directions.

Whichever way she looked at it (and Ann was aware that she might have gone down a side string) she simply couldn’t comprehend how anyone on this side of the veil could possibly even begin to understand the ramifications of the concept of continuity at all. Or how there could ever conceivably be a lack of it.

What was really intriguing Ann at this particular juncture of the experimental exploration of the story was the concept of the World View Library. This wasn’t unconnected to the continuity issue, far from it, it was all tied in (Ann sniggered at the unintentional pun) and connected. There were any infinite amount of potential continuity threads leading from, say, one persons desire or intent, to a particular world view in the library.

AHA shouted Ann, who at that moment had an ‘aha’ moment. Pfft, it’s gone, she sighed moments later.

Ann tried to catch the wisp of an idea that had flitted through her awareness. She had a visual impression of the library, endlessly vast and marvellously grand, with countless blindfolded characters dashing through, grabbing random pages or sentences, bumping into each other, snatching at phrases willy nilly, dropping notes along the way, and racing back out again into the ether. A stray thought here, a picture there, a name or a date, all on separate bits of crumbled paper clutched in the sweaty palms of the blindfolded characters as they rushed headlong back to their own realities to proudly share the new clues. Like magpies they were, snatching at anything that glittered brightly enough.

“I thought you said they were blindfolded?” interrupted Franlise.

Ann ignored the interruption, and continued ~ in a continuous fashion ~ to ponder the imagery of the library.

What the undisciplined purloiners of random snatches didn’t notice on their pell-mell excursions into the library were the characters in the library who weren’t wearing blindfolds. They smiled down from the galleries, calmly watching from above the mayhem that the news of the unlimited library access had occasioned, chortling at the scenes of chaos below. They smiled indulgently, for they too had first visited the library blindfolded, snatching at this and that, and racing home again to inspect the booty; they too had fretted and pondered over the enigmas of the incomplete snippets. Eventually (or not, it was after all a choice), they had bravely removed the blindfolds, slowed the mad race into a sedate stroll through the library, opened their eyes and looked around, sure of the way back home now, and not in a desperate hurry to blast in, snatch anything, and run back home.

After awhile, they began to realize that all the enchanting glittering jewels scattered around to catch their eye would still be there later, there was no urgency to grab them all at once ~ although, as Ann reminded herself, that too was a choice ~ some may well choose to be eternally snatching at glittering jewels.

Ann frowned slightly and wondered if she’d lost the thread altogether, and then decided that it didn’t matter if she had.

It was a choice, therefore, to remove ones blindfold, and stroll through the library ~ a choice to perhaps choose a book, sit down at a polished oak table and open it, a choice to stay and read the book, rather than ripping out a page and dashing back home. That would be one choice of continuity, a coming together of strings.

Ann wondered whether that would then be called a cable, or a rope ~ well perhaps not a rope, she decided, that had other associations entirely ~ but a cable, yes, that had associations of reliable and regular communications. There were always strings of continuity, then, strings of connecting links, between anything and everything, but when one stopped dashing about clutching at the sparkley bits, one might form a cable.

Or not, of course. Thin strings of continuity and connections were not ‘less than’ thick cables of reliable and regular communications. It has to be said though, Ann reluctantly admitted, that thick cables often made more sense.

She decided to hit send before embarking on a pondering of the meaning of Sense.

Franlise had an outward beauty which matched the sweet loveliness of her inner being. Yes, she was a vision of pure loveliness, and many gallant knight had attempted to woo her away from her cleaning job. But Franlise knew that it was here, amongst the filth and dust of Ann’s office, that her true work was done. By day a cleaner, by night she toiled endlessly weaving Anne’s words into works of beauty. Words which would then go out into the world and give solace to many a despondent and lonely reader. To know that her words gave hope where once there was despair was all the thanks that Franlise needed.

Of course no one must know it was Franlise who was the true author. The Fellowship had insisted when they gave Franlise her mission that her part be kept hidden. Being humble, as well as outwardly beautiful and inwardly lovely, Franlise was happy to obey the wishes of the Fellowship in this matter. Besides, she knew that if Ann were to find out the truth, the pour deranged creature would probably be driven to place of complete madness.

Franlise shuddered at the thought.

Franlise smiled gently to herself when she read Anne’s latest offerings. She was well used to making sense of the distorted and twisted words poor Ann worked so hard upon. Many might call them utter rubbish, but Franlise was a kindly soul, who was content to be seen as a cleaner by those who cared to look no further, and it would not be in her sweet nature to dismiss the works of another as “utter rubbish”, however bizarre those works may be.

I told you it is my feeling that in a sense these communications took place one afternoon while I was half dozing.

They could make no sense to me then. The use of unconscious knowledge could not then take place. I do not know the state of your wife’s consciousness, or of your own, at that time in my own past. In any case, your own conscious knowledge of such events apparently had to wait until certain intersections happened.

Awareness of these communications conceivably could have taken place at any time, but certain levels of comprehension had to touch all of our personalities before such communications jelled, or became strong enough to make sense in both of our worlds.

I do not believe that I was aware of these communications either when they first happened. I would have had no way to evaluate or understand them. I assume that the same is true on your parts. At the same time, in a manner of speaking, the communications are enriched as my knowledge of my world when I was alive blends with your present knowledge of your world in your time.

It is as if the three of us all wrote portions of a letter, the words fitting together meticulously, and yet forming a fine puzzle that had to work itself out as we each made our moves in our own realities. It is one thing to send a letter from one portion of the planet to another, as in your mail system — but it is something else when the three individuals involved are constantly changing their alignment, position, and probable activities.

It is like trying to send a letter to a certain address while the mailbox keeps appearing or disappearing, or changing its position entirely, for all three of us are a portion of that one communication, while the position of our consciousness constantly alters.

It is a wonder that such communications take place at all considering the changing coordinates that constantly apply. The communications could all have remained in the dream state on all of our parts, but we were all determined to bring them into some kind of actuality in the same way that the idea of a painting is changed into the physical painting itself.

“Godfrey, that’s got me thinking, you know. Seem to have a bit of an idea brewing, old bean,” Ann said with an enigmatic smile.

“What are you on about now, Ann?” he replied. “Why don’t you tell me what that book is you’re reading, you can’t quote books without mentioning the name of them, so you may as well tell me now.”

“I was wondering how to slide it in, Godfrey” she replied with a snort. “It’s The World View of Rembrandt, by Jane Roberts.”

The fact of the matter was that Ann had been intending to write about Cordella’s twin sister Flagella, but had been hopelessly side tracked when Godfrey had thrown that curve ball. Flagella had been wanting to slap herself rather badly and Ann was more than willing to oblige her by entering a scenario into the Play. The way things had panned out highlighted some interesting parallels with Yoland’s current state of affairs too. Obviously Flagella had chosen not to slap herself after all, although she appeared to have chosen to effect that in a somewhat convoluted manner. It was the unknown factors that were baffling Ann, the missing links in the convoluted manners; she felt painfully aware that she simply wasn’t seeing the whole picture.

Unsure of her footing, that’s what it was, at least that’s what Yoland had noticed. With the puppy always climbing over her feet or somewhere underfoot, she hadn’t been able to take a normal step in a fortnight. It was making her tense and tired, and jittery. Every step she took was halted, mid step, which made her feel permanently off balance.

Flagella had wanted to slap herself for being irritated, which was becoming immensely irritating in itself. Being irritated wasn’t fun at all, it was irritating! The most irritating thing of all was that she didn’t know why she’d started getting irritated in the first place.

Ann wanted to butt in and tell Flagella a thing or two about how dense she was being, but didn’t think there was much point. It wasn’t as if Flagella hadn’t already heard whatever Ann might have to tell her a thousand times or more, so it was doubtful that more words would be any help.

She doesn’t need any help, full stop, Ann reminded herself, and neither does Yoland.

Back in January, her friend Ronda had asked her if she wanted to come with her to a seminar in Madrid, one of these loonatics seminar. She wasn’t interested herself in that kind of gathering of freaky people and she wouldn’t have accepted if Ronda hadn’t offered to pay for her expenses.

That was the perfect occasion and the perfect time, with the crisis her little enterprise was sinking rapidly and money had never been so scarce. Those would be the perfect holidays, even if she would have to spend some time among some loonatics.

So in March here they went in Madrid. The hotel was simply gorgeous and as they told the biggest in Europe.

It was perfect again.

Not that the rooms were big, though they were quite expensive, but there were so many sculptures and paintings, so many trinkets in the lobby and in the lounge… and there was a pool!!! She could see herself flirting with one of those rich loonatics, always ready to spend money on glass pyramids that had properly been tachyonised

That’s where her life changed and that she realized she needed STRUCTURE in her life.

It happened during one of these meditations by a certain T’Eggy, a still active porn star, the favorite of Marvin Scrozzezi… and she was also doing seminars!!!
When she saw her, Patricia thought her face was familiar, and that’s when she saw the groupies in the first row, all of them wearing the leopard superstrings that had been made mass spread by her performance in the latest Marvin Scrozzezi. Patricia had one of them, but the superstring hadn’t resist her generous forms or she would have bring it to the party… well that’s another story.

T’Eggy was stressing the need of structure that they all needed in their lives and she made her points listened and watched with a few scenes of her recent and not so recent movies. Everybody was charmed and she made them laugh with her story about when she played the millionaire waiting for Bill the milkman…

Ronda was not really interested by T’Eggy and a bit shameful of her adoration of T’Eggy, Patricia had to sneak out during the break and she bought a few books, amidst which “The Pelvic Respiration” or “Release your Stress in a Gang Bang”. She also bought a few vials of the special Dr. B. Cream which said “Rejuvenate your Vagina”… apparently made with some blue spiders silk and venom. She went quickly in her room and hid her purchases in her suitcase before returning for the Channeled Music of the Chinese Swamps Monastery and the Channeling of the Big ErectoMagnetic Stick called Fryzon.

Patricia didn’t listen to all of that, she was already imagining all the ways she could structure her new life with the pelvic meditation.

Yoland was inordinately pleased with her purchases, trifling though they were. She smiled at the little bottle of cherry red nail varnish, imagining how it would look on sun browned and callous free toes. Painted toe nails was one of life’s simple pleasure, she reckoned. Nothing fancy or expensive or uncomfortable, like her new brassiere, which had never the less given her spirits a bit of a lift, as well as her breasts, with its bright blue moulded foam shape. She wondered if she could suspend the brassiere and its contents from something other than her shoulders for once, but couldn’t see how it could be arranged and still allow a modicum of freedom of movement. Perhaps some of the new scientific discoveries that she was eagerly awaiting would include some kind of gravity and weight defying device, possibly helium filled foam support. Perhaps even in the future, anyone with a high squeaky voice would be described as a bra sucker. Or perhaps one day breasts worn on the waist would be fashionable. This thought made Yoland a bit uncomfortable, as she hadn’t really believed she was following fashion, but maybe she was after all.

Yoland wondered if she was verging on the ridiculous again, and decided that it didn’t matter if she was. There was something rather splendid, she was beginning to discover, about the mundane and the silly. Something serenely pleasurable about ~ well about everything she’d been taking for granted for so many years. The things she hadn’t really noticed much, while her mind was busy thinking and pondering, replaying old conversations, and imagining new ones, sometimes with others, but often with herself, inside the vast jumble of words that was her mind.

It was always a wonderful change of pace to go away on a trip, with its wealth of new conversations and words, events and symbols to ponder over later at her leisure, the many photographic snapshots providing reminders and clues and remembered laughs, but it was the renewed sense of appreciation for the mundane that was ultimately most refreshing about returning home.

The word home had baffled Yoland for many years. For most of her 51 years, if the truth be told. So many moves, so many houses, so many people ~ where, really, was home? She’d eventually compromised and called herself a citizen of the world, but she still found herself at times silently wailing “I want to go home”, but with the whole world as her home, it didn’t make a great deal of sense why she would still yearn for that elusive place called home.

Of all the words that swam in her head some of them seemed to keep bobbing up to the surface, attracting her attention from time to time. That was the funny thing about words, Yoland mused, not for the first time, You hear them and hear them and you understand what they mean, but only in theory. The suddenly something happens and you shout AHA, and then you can’t find any words to explain it! Repeating the words you’ve already heard a hundred times somehow doesn’t even come close to describing what it actually feels like to understand what those words mean. That kind of feeling always left her wondering if everyone else had known all along, except her.

Yoland was often finding words in unexpected places, and these were often the very words that were the catalysts. (Even the word catalyst had been one of those words that repeatedly bobbed to the surface of her sea of words). Her trip had been in search of words, supposedly, channeled words (although Yoland suspected the trip had been more about connections than words) and yet there had only really been one word that had stood out as significant, and oddly enough, that word had been watermelon.

That had been a lesson in itself, if indeed lesson is the right word. Yoland had been attempting to exercise her psychic powers for six months or more, trying to get Toobidoo, the world famous channeled entity, to say the word watermelon ~ just for fun. She couldn’t even remember how it all started, or why the word watermelon was significant ~ perhaps a connection to a symbol etched on a watermelon rind in Marseilles, which later became a Tile of the City. (Yoland wasn’t altogether sure that she understood the tiles, but she did think it was a very fun game, and that aspect alone was sufficient to hold her interest.) By the end of the last day of the channeling event Toobidoo still hadn’t said the word watermelon which was somewhat of a disappointment, so when Yoland saw Gerry Jumper, Toobidoo’s channel, in the vast hotel foyer, she ran up to him saying “Say watermelon.” The simple direct method worked instantly, where months of attempts the hard way had failed. Yoland felt that she learned alot from this rather silly incident about the nature of everyday magic, and this particular lesson, or we might prefer to call it a communication, was repeated for good measure the following day in the park.

Wailon, the other world famous channeled entity who was the star attraction of the Words Event, had proudly displayed photographic evidence of orbs at the lecture. Like Yoland had tried with the watermelon, he was choosing an esoteric and unfamiliar method of creating orbs, suggesting that the audience meditate and conjure them up to show on photographs, rather than simply creating physical orbs. Yoland and her friends Meldrew and Franklyn had chanced upon a beautiful glass house full of real physical glass orbs in the park, underlining the watermelon message for Yoland: not to discount the spontaneous magic of the physical world in the search for the esoteric.

It had, for example, been rather magical and wonderful to hear Gerry Jumper explain how he had mentioned watermelon to his wife on the previous day in the dining room ~ mundane, yes, but magical too. It would have been marvellous to create Toobidoo channeling the word watermelon for sure, but how much more magical to create an actual slice of physical watermelon in the dining room and have Gerry remark on it, and to have an actual physical conversation with him about it. Who knows, he may even remember the nutcase who spent six months trying to get him to say watermelon whenever he sees one, at least for awhile. It might be quite often too, as his wife is partial to watermelon. Yoland wondered if this was some kind of connecting link, perhaps the connection to Gerry and Cindy started in Marseilles and watermelon was the physical clue, the pointer towards the connection.

Perhaps, Yoland wondered, the orbs were the connecting link to Wailon, although she didn’t feel such a strong connection to him as she did to Toobidoo and Gerry Jumper. She had been collecting coloured gel orbs for several months ~ just for fun. There was often a connecting link to be found in the silly and the fun, the pointless and the bizarre, and even in the mundane and everyday things.

In the days following her return home ~ or the house that Yoland lived in, shall we say ~ she felt rather sleepy, as if she was in slow motion, but the feeling was welcome, it felt easy and more importantly, acceptable. There was nothing that she felt she should be doing instead, for a change, no fretting about starting projects, or accomplishing chores, rather a slow pleasant drifting along. Yes, there were chores to be done, such as watering plants and feeding animals and other things, but they no longer felt like chores. She found she wasn’t mentally listing all the other chores to be done but was simply enjoying the one she was doing. Even whilst picking up innumerable dog turds outside, she heard the birds singing and saw the blossom on the fruit trees against the blue sky, saw shapes in the white clouds, heard the bees buzzing in the wisteria. The abundance of dog shit was a sign of a houseful of happy healthy well fed dogs, and the warm spring sun dried it and made it easier to pick up.

It was, somewhat unexpectedly, while Yoland was picking up dog shit that she finally realized what some of those bobbing words meant about home, and presence, and connection to source. It seemed amusingly ironic after travelling so far (not just the recent trip, but all the years of searching) to finally find out where home was, where the mysterious and elusive source was. (Truth be told, some printed words she found the previous day had been another catalyst, by Vivian channeled by Wanda, but she couldn’t recall the exact words. Yoland had to admit that words, used as a catalyst, were really rather handy.)

Wherever you go, there you are ~ they were words too, and they were part of the story. Now that Yoland had come to the part where she wanted to express in words where home, and source, was, she found she couldn’t find the right words. In a funny kind of way the word vacant popped into her head, as if the place where the vast jumble of words was usually housed became vacant, allowing her to be present in her real physical world. It really was quite extraordinary how simple it was. Too simple for words.

The discussion had been going on for hours. Yann was feeling more relaxed than he had been during the afternoon, he was lying on the sofa, his legs on Yurick’s lap.
It was mostly Yurick who was speaking, Yann was listening and participating in some kind of soft energy exchange it was as if his point of view was being reflected by what Yurick was saying and all he needed was punctuate the conversation with ‘Yes’, ‘No’, ‘Ah’ and ‘mmmm’… well I exaggerate here but most of the time, Yann didn’t feel the need to expand much on any particular subject with words.

Feeling more comfortable and secure, Yann was letting feelings and emotions surface, old memories and associations were swirling around and none of them was particularly appealing for him to mention… except one.

“You know what, Yurick? When I was a kid there was that magician that I was afraid of… Romuald Borax… well he still frightens me.”

Saying that he felt a shiver crawling along his back. Yurick was staring at him, not knowing what to tell and Yann continued.

“He was always trying to demonstrate that people were fake”.

By People, Yann was meaning people involved in paranormal activities such as psychics, channelers, people who pretended to have telekinetic abilities… there was some animal reaction to him, Yann was feeling a deep repulsion and dislike of the man.

“Well, you know, it was also a good thing that he was skeptic…”

Yann wouldn’t listen to what Yurick was saying… that man was really willing to destroy them!!! how could Yurick not see it? These thoughts were like absolutes, thick concrete walls that couldn’t be overridden. Though Yann wouldn’t oppose anything, he was aware that his reaction to the man was triggered by some unclear associations. He couldn’t just evaluate them at the moment.

The day after, Yann didn’t pay attention when Dory mentionned a movie she had been watching called The Illusionist, his attention wasn’t on that aspect then… but another day after, he made the connection.

He realized that he had always been feeling as if he was in danger himself because he wanted to explore these areas. It was as if there was a pending threat upon his life because of his very interests and that if he made them known he would be made fun of and maybe worst, he could be locked up. The realization that Yann wasn’t directly threatened by that individual was enough to let him relax his energy about the man. He could see that he was safe in his exploration and that he had nothing to prove to the world or anybody in particular.

Yann even smiled at the thought that this illusionist wouldn’t realize that he was basing his protocol upon the biggest illusion.

“Hey Leo, I had a blinding revelation last night, after Barb left.”

“Well, do tell, Bea, I’m all ears” said Leonora with an encouraging smile, pouring herself a cup of tea.

“Well the moment was far clearer than I can explain it but it went something like this” Bea continued. “Bearing in mind that the FOCUS DIRECTS so the question of ‘directing’ essence is another choice of puzzle piece of the individual puzzle game at any moment…”

“Ye-es” replied Leonora, making an effort to concentrate.

“To connect to an individual focus is but a baby step towards being able to comprehend the interconnectedness of everything that you create, and that it is all in fact you.” Bea went on, adding “Like a beginner stage as it were, to keep it manageable.”

“Keeping it manageable sounds like a good idea” interjected Leo, pointedly glancing around at the disorder in the kitchen.

Unperturbed, Bea continued “You draw to yourself parts or, if you like, focus points or other focuses of All That Is —of the whole that are at that moment useful.”

“Sounds reasonable, Bea, do continue. Pass the gingerbread men, would you?”

“All of the characters in the stories I write, for example, are my focuses in a manner of speaking, as are all the characters in anything I bring into my world my focuses if I choose to SEE THEM FOR A MOMENT FROM THEIR FOCUS VIEWPOINT.”

“Ok, ok, no need to shout!”

“I’m not shouting, Leo, let me finish and stop interrupting! Adding another focus is an analogy in a way for adding another focus or point of view to mine.
Dividing the actions of adding focus viewpoints into sections is useful in order to comprehend the scope of possible actions, but only initially, and as more actions are experienced objectively, the sections and labels become limiting and confining.” Bea paused for a sip of coffee and a long draw on her cigarette. “But they do keep it manageable to some degree, it must be said” she added.

“Yes, keep it manageable, by all means, couldn’t agree more”

“Everyone’s puzzle game is their own,” Bea was on a roll. “And the same puzzle piece, or other focus in this case, for one, would fit equally well into a completely different puzzle game of someone else’s because all of the surrounding puzzle pieces of each individuals puzzle game are created in each moment and are chosen for their relevance to that moment.”

“Good point, dear.”

“Likewise an individuals puzzle game is a new one in each moment and the puzzle pieces are interchangeable within the same puzzle game, depending on their relevance to the moment and the chosen surrounding puzzle pieces.”

As usual with blazing flashes of illumination, Bea found that they were hard to form into words, and when she did manage to get them into words, they look so screamingly obvious.

“Does that make sense to you, Leo?” she asked.

“Er, I think so Bea, I’m getting the gist…”

Interrupting, Bea continued to describe her revelations to her now glassy eyed friend. “And on the subject of trusting, doubting, confusion and so on”

“Oh, yes, confusion…”

“We are here shiftING, not shiftED, this is what we are choosing.
With the variety of viewpoints we have, the shifted and the unshifted and the semi-shifted, there is always something new to notice from yet another new perspective. Why not get really enthusiastic about the ride itself instead of planning how to float through it with the least fuss ~ it’s more fun on the helter skelter with its many perspectives and view points than on the mill pond for those of us who choose shiftING.”

“I dunno, Bea, from my perspective floating on a millpond sounds rather pleasant.”

“Well, at least now we know that what we don’t know is there to know.”

“Yes, there’s no doubt about that!” relied Leonora, “Have you finished? That was all very interesting but don’t forget we invited everyone over for the Yule Boulder Moving party. We should get a move on with the preparations you know”

“We need something new, Felicity, something completely different.” Annabel Ingman had invited Felicity Albright, the star of DDT, into her office. “We’ve got 56 channelers on our books now, and they are all saying the same thing! It’s ridiculous!”

“Well I just say what pops into my head, Annabel, that is my job description…” Felicity was feeling defensive.

“What I’m saying, dear” replied Annabel, “Is that we don’t need another 55 all saying the same thing as you. If you are all saying the same thing, then where is the drama? Where is the conflict? For heavens sake, girl, where are the sales?”

“Well I tell you what Annabel, I’m going to the F.U.N. picnic in the Elsespace Arrangement later, I’ll ask around, ok?”

“Godfrey, I seem to have rather alot of Felicity’s. I had no idea there were so many,” Elizabeth said to her friend and publisher, Godfrey Pig Littleton. “I don’t know which Felicity is which now.”

“Well, which Felicity did you have in mind, dear? Felicity the downstairs maid? Or Felicity the DDT celebrity channeler?” asked Godfrey with a smirk. “Oh, was it perhaps Felicity the bridal goddess?”

“Oh stop! Now I’m thoroughly confused again.”

“Well, give me a clue old bean, what is the year in question? That should narrow it down.” Godfrey suggested.

“Are you mad?” screeched Elizabeth. “Are you mad? The last thing I’m likely to remember is what year it was, you know I always get the time lines all wrong. Well, you of all people should know that, Godfrey”.

“Well since you mention it, Liz, there is the question of the unlikelihood of portable channelvisions in travelling circus caravans in the year 1856, and I can’t help wondering how you’re going to rectify ….”

“Don’t you keep trying to rectify me, you old bounder! I have a plan for that, don’t you worry.”

Siobahn had a few more cages to rattle before she she made her way to the meeting. The Freakus management had invited a spokesman from the S.E.C.R.E.T. department (otherwise known as Special Exploration Corps of Really Entertaining Trivia) to give a speech on the art of C.R.A.P.S. (also known as the Coordinated Redistribution of Ambiguously Protected Secrets). All staff were expected to attend the meeting, which unfortunately meant that Siobhan had to refuse an invitation to the F.U.N. picnic (otherwise known as Foundation of Unimportant Nonsense to Those In The Show, which, dear reader, you will recall are also known as T.I.T.S.)

Siobhan rattled the last few cages on her list, and made her way back to her caravan. She had an hour to relax before the meeting so she turned the portable channelvision on and settled herself comfortably on the sofa to surf through the channels. The first channel she landed on was twitching and shouting, ‘The present is not a result of the past, orlright? Orlright, orlright’; the next channel was chuckling and saying with a sly grin, ‘…that would be your choice…”. Flicking through a few more channels, hearing the words ascended higher density love and light and light and love and all is one stuff, Siobahn kept surfing. Sheesh, they are all just saying the same thing, over and over again, she thought to herself, same old same old, blah blah blah… what she wouldn’t have given for some new channel to say something completely different.

Pfft. Siobahn turned off the channelvision and stood up. She made up her mind in the moment to go to the F.U.N. picnic anyway, and bugger the meeting. Maybe she would even start channeling something completely different, just for some bloody variety. Cage Rattling was in her blood, after all, she was a born Cage Rattler and it seemed to her that the whole channelvision empire was getting altogether too samey.

With the weak Scottish sun warming their backs, India Louise and Cuthbert made sand castles on the deserted beach. Very few holidaymakers visited The Orkneys in the days when the Wrick twins were growing up (Elizabeth was tempted to add ‘whenever that was’ but refrained) and they had the beautiful sweep of coastline to themselves, all but for their nanny, the eccentric Breton, who was sitting on a tartan blanket in the sand dunes practicing her Scottish accent. Nanny had heard somewhere that a Scottish accent had been voted the ‘most reassuring in an emergency’, and in her position as nanny, she felt it would be an advantage, especially while working for the eccentric and adventurous Wrick family.

Seagulls squawked overhead as she recited “… pRRoid te the lowkel in-abitents und steps av bin tayken in RResunt yeers… to improve the appearance of the city …… impRRoov the appeeRents uv the citay…”

Nanny’s studies were interrupted by shrieks from the two children, who were running down to the waters edge, pointing towards an unusual object which appeared to be floating towards them on the incoming tide.

By the time Nanny reached the children the mysterious floating contraption had beached itself on the sand. As India Louise and Cuthbert paddled over to it, a wizened and emaciated Ella Marie Tindale whooped and cackled “Hooley Mooley, that was quoot a rood!”

“Och aye, ma wee bairns, dinnae tooch it!” shouted Nanny “Ye dinnae ken owt aboot it, och! Oof, and what ‘ave we ‘ere, what eez zeess?” she said, lapsing back into her natural French accent, in a state of shock at what the tide had brought in.

The twins became alarmed immediately, backing away and asking nervously “Is it an alien?” “Is it a ghost?” so Nanny resumed the reassuring Scottish accent.

“Nay ma wee poppets, och and it’s nowt but anoother mummay!”

Cuthbert and India Louise exchanged looks surreptitiously. “What does she mean, ‘another’ mummy?” whispered Cuthbert to his sister. “How did she find out about the mummy in the unlocked room?”

“I don’t know!” she whispered back “Maybe she heard me telling Bill!”

Nanny gave both of the children a cuff round the back of the neck, reminding them of their manners.

“Help ze lady off and ztop zat rude wheezpering!”