Search Results for 'ants'

Forums Search Search Results for 'ants'

Viewing 20 results - 221 through 240 (of 414 total)
  • Author
    Search Results
  • #4082
    rmkreeg
    Participant

      At first, I think the continuity will, by design, seem to be disjointed. The reader will start off confused. But yes, I think there will start to be things that carry over as he begins to remember and assemble a personality that transcends the individual stories. This eventual personality, may or may not match up with his original personality from before the coma…probably not…but he’ll definitely begin to remember who he was. And perhaps there will be a meaningful contrast between his new transcending personality and his old real life personality.

      The idea is that each story puts him/her in a situation and there’s always something about that situation that resonates with him/her. That resonating is a clue to their original real life from before the coma started.

      And so the aspect that resonates becomes a part of the transcending personality and begins to carry over into the next stories.

      There’ll probably be situations where there’s a conflict between the transcending personality and the story personality that he/she naturally wants to flow with.

      Like, the story that they’re in might have them as a female in Greece, and he/she wants to flow with that story, but the transcending personality is there in the back of the mind, resonating as a male, for instance.

      This would be like an allegory for multiple lives, perhaps, but without bringing up reincarnation, and encapsulating it into a story that any reader can believe and resonate with. Almost like tricking the reader into learning something about multiple lives and essence.

      #4070
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        “Shall I put the kettle on, Miss Pants?” asked Ricardo. A bit melodramatic, he felt, probably best to humour her.

        #4069

        “Where the devil is everyone?”

        Miss Bossy Pants looked around the empty office with a mixture of disappointment and confusion. She had been anticipating the surprised looks on her colleagues’ faces at her unannounced return —she had no illusions about her popularity and knew better than to expect a joyous reunion—but the room was disconcertingly empty.

        Hearing the door behind her, she spun around in relief. It was the new guy, Prout, carrying a brown paper bag and a take out coffee.

        “Hello!” he said, hoping he did not sound as awkward as he felt and wondering if he could back out the door again. He had only met Bossy a couple of times and found her bluntness disconcerting. Terrifying, even. There was no reply, so, taking a sip of his steaming coffee, he bravely persevered.

        “Welcome back. How are you feeling?”

        “Are you the only one here? Where is everyone?” snapped Bossy Pants.

        Ricardo took a deep breath and focused on a wilted pot plant on the window ledge.

        God, I hope I don’t start rambling.

        “Connie and the temp, Sophie, went to Iceland … something about following a lead from Santa Claus and I’ve not heard from them since. And Hilda … I don’t know where Hilda went to be honest. She emailed me a few days ago wanting to know what to feed Orangutans.”

        Bossy had paled. She seemed to shudder slightly and put out a hand to steady herself on a nearby desk.

        “They eat mostly fruit,” he continued, “but other stuff too of course. Insects and flowers and stuff like that. Honey I think, if they can find it I guess, and bark. And leaves. Mostly fruit though.”

        That’s probably enough about the Orangutans. She is clearly not into it.

        “I got a bit held up actually; there is a young boy outside drawing maps. Quite young … youngish. I am not sure how old really but he was little.They are bloody good too—there is quite a crowd out there watching him draw.”

        “Iceland,” whispered Bossy, her face a deathly white colour.

        “Yeah, Iceland. Keflavik … Miss Bossy, are you sure you are well enough to be back? You don’t look so good. I mean, you look good … attractive of course … I don’t mean you look bad or anything but you do look sort of pale. Are you okay?”

        “Santa Claus.” Bossy sat down slowly.

        “Yeah … I know, a bit crazy, right? They seemed to think it was a really hot lead.”

        “Stupid idiots; the lead wasn’t from Santa Claus— I will bet my life that it was from that depraved scoundrel, Dr Bronkelhampton! I heard through the grapevine he had gone to Iceland with a new identity after the Island fiasco destroyed his reputation—we covered the story at the time and it was huge—and now he is clearly after revenge. Dear God, what have they got themselves into?”

        #4062
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          Hilda regretted her decision to fly to the British Isles, now that she was caught up in all the Fuxit brouhaha. The mysterious plague doctor in Chester had turned out to be nothing more than a common madman, looking for a party to crash. The Mexican band with a wheelbarrow full of bricks welcoming the orange toupee’d buffoon from the west had been momentarily amusing, but was nothing more than another common madman looking for a party to crash as far as Hilda could see, and not worth further investigation, but the madness that had enveloped the country over the Fuxit was another matter.

          Exit mania had swept the country ~ and not only the country, but the continent as well. Doors were falling off their hinges on buildings across Europe with the rush of people demanding to leave, or trying to keep others out. Irate women were pushing their husbands out of the front door and locking them out, while shop assistants slammed the doors shut on customers, exercising their rights to determine who should be allowed in, and who should leave. “Exit” signs on motorways were set alight and exit ramps barricaded, lighted exit signs in nightclubs were smashed. Herds of dairy cows smashed down gates and roamed the streets, and sheep huddled next to boarded doorways.

          Itinerant builders were in high demand to fix broken hinges on gates and doors, and the memes about the population becoming unhinged quickly ceased to amuse in the utter mayhem.

          Hilda decided to get a flight back to Iceland as soon as possible. As an investigative reporter, she knew she should stay, but justified leaving on the grounds that a wider picture was imperative. And frankly, she’s seen enough!

          But leaving the beleaguered nation was not going to be easy. The airline websites had been closed, and the doors on the travel agents had either been boarded up or had been removed altogether, and nobody was staffing the premises. The motorway exit ramp to the airport had been barricaded. Not to be deterred, Hilda left her hire car on the side of the road, and dragged her flight bag across the waste ground towards the airport building. The place was deserted: the doors on all the aircraft had been removed, and emergency exit signs lay smashed on the tarmac.

          “Then I have no other option,” Hilda said, “But to teleport.”

          #4048
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            “Oh, there you are Hilda, can I have a word?”

            Hilda started guiltily at Connie’s voice, and pushed her teacup behind a stack of papers on her desk. Slurping down the last of the tea before making her way to the airport for the Boston flight, she hadn’t been able to resist looking into the dregs for a minute or two. What she’d seen had made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. But what was she to do about it? And now here was Connie, fidgeting in the doorway. Well, see what she wants first, Hilda told herself, and then decide.

            “Do you know anything about these?” asked Connie, thrusting the flight tickets in front of Hilda. “And what’s the background on the old crone, Sophie? I thought she was just a temp?”

            Hilda’s head was spinning. Should she say nothing, let Connie take the flight, and hope for the best? Or try and prevent her making the trip, just in case? How accurate was her tea leaf reading really? What if she had misinterpreted the signs? It could be too embarrassing. Better just hope for the best and say nothing.

            “Sorry Connie, must dash.” Hilda quickly gathered her things together and shoved them in the flight bag at her feet. Pushing past Connie she said, “Er, have a good trip!” and with a sickly smile she fled.

            When Hilda arrived at the airport an hour later, she made a snap decision to change her flight. Luckily there were a few seats left to Keflavik in Iceland. She really hadn’t fancied Boston and the crotch grabbers anyway. She wouldn’t tell the others she was already in Iceland, but at least she would be there to monitor events as they unfolded.

            #4046
            F LoveF Love
            Participant

              Miss Bossy Pants contemplated her pale and wan appearance in the bathroom mirror. She wondered if she was well enough to turn up at work today.

              Don’t want anyone else to catch anything off me…

              However, It was important they did not lose momentum with the competition out there chomping at their heels.

              “There is too much talking about writing and not enough actual writing,” Bossy grumbled to her reflection while she dealt to the under eye circles with some concealer.

              Of course, that was Hilda to a T; always yabbering on about some stupendous idea for a story but when it came to actually putting pen to paper … well that was quite another matter.

              Connie had started out with some potential but was becoming increasingly aggressive and alienating her leads.

              How many times must I tell her that clenching her fists and refusing to make eye contact makes her appear shifty and untrustworthy? Bossy slammed some lipstick on her mouth with unnecessary force.

              And that new staff member, what’s his name?

              Prout, that’s right.

              Bright enough but a bit of a moaner. Bad for morale all that moaning. As for sweet old Sophie, the temp, she seemed to be losing more and more marbles by the minute.

              #4039
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                Hilda woke up rubbing her jaw, recalling the odd dream about pulling a splinter of bone out of a hole in her mouth where a molar should have been. There had been a sharp point sticking out of her gum, and she pulled ~ and pulled ~ and the bone shard that appeared in her hand seemed much too big to have come out of her mouth. What does that symbolize, she wondered? She was sure miss bossy behind the scenes pants would have something wittily disparaging to say about the imagery. But then an idea struck her: perhaps it was part of the Polar Molar story that she was connecting to.

                Hilda had been wanting to join the new Dream Investigation course for reporters, but felt the need to practice first before joining the class. There wasn’t much point in attending with no dream recall at all. Not much point in joining with just the bare bones, so to speak, of a rudimentary isolated snippet of recall either. Perhaps she’d go back to sleep and try to fill in some gaps. If she was late to the office, she could say she’d been following an unexpected lead on the story.

                #4038

                Connie looked at the Bossy Pants instructions, her face inscrutable.

                Hilda was not up yet, probably passed out on her couch after a night of debauchery and snorting pepsain. As usual, she’d left a heap of links on her blog for Connie to choose from. Well, and of course, to sexy-bait them up. There were times she was glad she didn’t have to face all the people herself and interview them. Today was not one of them.

                She gestured at the awkward new intern. He passed a head through the door. She didn’t give him the time to open his mouth. “Another chamomile tea,… thaaank you.” He disappeared hurriedly.

                “At least this one gets me.”

                For today, chamomile was the least of evils. Anything stronger would have her go full contact on any one daring to even look at her. If people knew the efforts she made daily.
                Her self-defence instructor knew something about it. She almost sent him to the hospital last week.

                Glancing upon the list of notes, she noticed that Hilda had made a highlight to double check on the gouda cat-like man. That was strange. Hilda wasn’t one to come back on stuff once shared and published. Definitively not the past-dwelling profile. There must have been something more.

                “Well, know what, old tart: early bird gets the worm.”

                She rose from the swivel chair, taking her purse swiftly and aiming for the exit door with the path of least eye-contact when the odd guy appeared again with the damn tea. She’d forgotten about that. Again, her brains firing at full speed, she didn’t leave him time to tell or ask anything.

                “You don’t know where Joel is? Of course not…” The photographer was probably on another assignment. Had not been seen for weeks it seemed. Not that she cared, he would have been more like an alibi for her to go an a follow-up mission.

                Sometimes her brains would also make her do the darnedest thing. She couldn’t stop herself from telling to the hapless intern.

                “You look too happy Ric. Take your coat and come with me.”

                #4035

                “Bird poo is good for your hair,” said Tina scathingly, once again reading Quentin’s thoughts. “When these little ones hatch… “ She trailed off, not feeling the need to elaborate further.

                :fleuron2:

                Meanwhile in another part of town (or possibly in another dimension … it is not clear to the writer at this point but the writer is determined to carry on regardless — the editorial staff can clean it up later), Miss Bossy Pants managed to crawl her way out of bed, just long enough to send an urgent message:

                Can’t possibly write today. One of you will need to do my contribution for the story. Thanks.

                She contemplated adding a smile emoticon but feeling such a strong urge to punch it in the face decided that it was extraneous.

                #4032
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  “I don’t know, I just feel that connecting with each other is part of the fun,” mumbled Ricardo Prout.

                  “We have to start somewhere!” retorted Connie in exasperation. “Do some research! Find some connecting links!”

                  “One should never underestimate the behind the scenes idea prompts,” remarked Hilda, somewhat cryptically. “Relax, Ric. And for heavens sake buck up a bit! Why don’t you take the rest of the day off, you’re distracting me from my work, as instructed by miss bossy behind the scenes pants.”

                  “But I don’t get what the others are writing, if I want to join, the safest is do my own stuff,” said Ricardo sadly. “And I thought this job was a fun team job.”

                  Connie and Hilda rolled their eyes in unison. “He’s a newbie, he’ll get the hang of it,” whispered Hilda.

                  #4025
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    Obviously, Baked Bean Bea was a pseudonym for Baked Bean Barb , but it was perhaps too obvious. In fact, the more obvious the clues were, the more invisible they became. It had been plainly stated in the book (although omitted in the movie, as usually happened with movies based on books) that the point of the story was to
                    “broadcast seeds of absurdity in the cornfields and the meadows of the hay hoo down dooly…“

                    The trouble was that not many had ascended to the degree that they could understand the value of absurdity. Absurdity was never disconnected, if one had an eye for the connecting links, and more importantly, it was a thing of joy when approached from the right angle, occasioning an ebullient cackle.

                    It was ironic that the more the inhabitants ascended to jaunty joyful cackling at absurdities, the more the shiftmeisters tried to control them.

                    #3996
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      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”.

                      #3971
                      Jib
                      Participant

                        “What happened to you, Finnley ?” asked Liz. The maid, usually neatly permed looked dishevelled and had forgotten to remove her cucumber mask.
                        “The delivery man”, began Finnley, “He said someone ordered 30.”
                        “30 what ?”
                        “30 crates of carrot champagne.”
                        “Carrot champagne ? I didn’t know they could make alcohol out of carrots,” said Liz. She pouted lasciviously, thinking of what she could do with all that champagne. She had never taken a bath in champagne, that could be a first. She would have to be careful with the carrot tan though.
                        “They can do alcohol with anything”, added Godfrey.
                        “Who ordered that ?” asked Liz, “And why 30 crates ?”
                        “Apparently, it’s your cousin Badul”, said Finnley. A cucumber fall off her face.
                        Liz’ lips closed tight at the mention of her cousin.
                        “It’s Badul’s intention to have the wedding at your property.”
                        Liz dropped her spaghetti hat on the freshly mown grass. Roberto bent over, showing even more of his crack, to pick up the hat before it attracted ants. Liz bit her lips.

                        #3968
                        Jib
                        Participant

                          Then she collapse, her body rigid like stone. Actually her skin began to take on a shade of grey, and several colonies of moss found their way into the wrinkles and meanders of the granite like hair.
                          Mater arrived at that moment.
                          “Oh! my! Dido, what did you do ?”
                          The old lady looked at the table, saw the empty jar, the lines of ants already pillaging the sweet spots on the table and on Idle’s fingers. Some of them had already turned into stone. Mater tried to forage into the jar to find the small package. It contained the mantra to release the hungry ghost from the stone trap of the termite honey.
                          The jar was meant for rats, Mater would feed them with termite honey to change them into stone and sell them on the market. A little hobby. She would never have thought Idle would eat that stuff. It smelled quite awful.

                          #3955
                          F LoveF Love
                          Participant

                            But wait! What is this?

                            Her greedy fingers had located something unexpected; something dense and uncompromising was lurking in her precious nectar. Carefully, she explored the edges of the object with her finger tips and then tugged. The object obligingly emerged, a gooey gelatinous blob.

                            Dido sponged off the honey allowing it to plunk on to the table top. It did not occur to her to clean it up. Indeed, she felt a wave of defiant pleasure.

                            The ants will love that, although I guess Mater won’t be so thrilled. Fussy old bat.

                            She licked her fingers then transferred her attention back to the job at hand. After a moment of indecision whilst her slightly disordered mind flicked through various possibilities, she managed to identify the object as a small plastic package secured with tape. Excited, and her ravenous hunger cravings temporarily stilled in the thrill of the moment, she began to pick at the edges of the tape.

                            Cocooned Inside the plastic was a piece of paper folded multiple times. Released from its plicature, the wrinkled and dog-eared paper revealed the following type written words:

                            food self herself next face write water truth religious behind mince salt words soon yourself hope nature keep wrong wonder noticed.

                            #3947

                            Mike wasn’t as courageous as his former self, the Baron. That new name had a cowardly undertone which wasn’t as enticing to craze and bravery as “The Baron”.

                            The idea of the looming limbo which had swallowed the man whole, and having to care for a little girl who surely shouldn’t be out there on her own at such an early hour of the day spelt in unequivocal letters “T-R-O-U-B-B-L-E” — ah, and that he was barely literate wasn’t an improvement on the character either.

                            Mike didn’t want to think to much. He could remember a past, maybe even a future, and be bound by them. As well, he probably had a family, and the mere though of it would be enough to conjure up a boring wife named Tina, and six or seven… he had to stop now. Self introspection wasn’t good for him, he would get lost in it in quicker and surer ways than if he’d run into that Limbo.

                            “Let me tell you something… Prune?… Prune is it?”
                            “I stop you right there, mister, we don’t have time for the “shouldn’t be here on your own” talk, there is a man to catch, and maybe more where he hides.”

                            “Little girl, this is not my battle, I know a lost cause when I see one. You look exhausted, and I told my wife I would be back with her bloody croissants before she wakes up. You can’t imagine the dragon she becomes if she doesn’t get her croissants and coffee when she wakes up. My pick-up is over there, I can offer you a lift.”

                            Prune made a frown and a annoyed pout. At her age, she surely should know better than pout. The thought of the dragon-wife made her smile though, she sounded just like Mater when she was out of vegemite and toasts.

                            Prune started to have a sense of when characters appearing in her life were just plot devices conjured out of thin air. Mike had potential, but somehow had just folded back into a self-imposed routine, and had become just a part of the story background. She’d better let him go until just finds a real character. She could start by doing a stake-out next to the strange glowing building near the frontier.

                            “It’s OK mister, you go back to your wife, I’ll wait a little longer at the border. Something tells me this story just got started.”

                            #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.

                            #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.

                              #3869

                              Sam woke up the next morning feeling puzzled. There was no apparent reason for it, so he thought it might be related to the new moon or to some singular configuration of space time crossing with the known universe. He scratched his 3 days and a half beard a few times. He liked the sound of it and did it frequently. Only then would he get out of bed and prepare some breakfast.
                              When he came to the kitchen, the tv was on. A certain Godfrey was speaking about an upcoming wave of migrants due to lack of rafts in the sea of confusion. Sam thought he wasn’t the only one feeling puzzled.
                              “Do you have all your papers ready ?” asked Al, already dressed up as if he was going to a wedding.
                              “I like when you wear your tuxedo”, said Sam. Al looked absolutely delicious. “And yes, I have all my papers ready. But I wonder… Why do you need papers when you’re asking for a new identity?”

                              #3859

                              Flinnley plicked up Glodfrey’s head, that was still swilming with the ramifications in the cacklwarium, and plut it black florceflully on the man’s bloody blody.
                              “Gloss” said Arona with a disglusted flace.
                              “Thanks, Finnley. Godfrey, doln’t be so pleaslandish”, said Lelizabeth to Glodfrey, “there lare and will lalways be more lants in all the probable versions of Earth than there will be chlaracters in a stooly.” She tlook some tlime to appreciate what she had just said, finding it would sound good for the plosterity.

                            Viewing 20 results - 221 through 240 (of 414 total)