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In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“And how do I play these notes?” asked Pee raucously. “I can’t even see them without my head.”
“Mmmh! Yes that could be a problem” acquiesced Fwick. The saucerer scratched his chin for a few seconds as he couldn’t remember where he had put that ancient device.
“Well maybe I could just send you to the bird keeper, and he can give you one of our last Anthornis Melanura…”
“I beg your pardon?” Pee’s voice was more raucous than ever, it was quite disturbing to the saucerer who wasn’t used to talking with a headless Peaman, but he couldn’t show his discomfort though, as he thought of it, the headless Peaman was also eyeless and couldn’t see his discomfort.
“Hum! This is the ancient name of the legendary Bul Bird of New Peasland. Mewrich Peamon, the bird keeper, his family has been breeding these birds since the great Peaphetess Frean Psea found these notes some millenia ago; they are the only ones which can open the ED. Any other sequence of notes would… well we don’t know exactly what could occur. You’re on your own on this one, Pee. ehr, I’m sorry, ehh, But be assured that I’ll take care of Peanelope for you.”“Oh! You’re too kind, Saucerer” said Pee who couldn’t have known that his faithful wife and the Saucerer were having an affair.
A sudden cry from Lilly startled them both. She had burst into tears and her brother was looking like a culprit. But Fwick wasn’t sure as he hadn’t got a head either…
“What have you done, Pickel?” asked Pee with his raucous voice.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“Ah there you are at last,” muttered Fwick to the cloaked man. “Before you leave I must get you to sign this form.”
“What is it?” asked Pee.
“Good Lord, what the F was that noise!” shouted Fwick, looking around in fright. “Ah! I see you have been endowed with a remarkably raucous voice! You startled me!” Taking some deep breaths to calm himself, Fwick continued.
“It is a disclaimer … a technical matter, basically saying be it on your own heads …” Fwick paused to chuckle at his own joke, “Ahem as I was saying, basically absolving me from any responsibility should you encounter any difficulties on your excursions into the Eight Dimension, or ED as we Saucerers call it. When you have signed, I can give you the four notes which will open ED for you.”
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“Good grief, I don’t feel so bad about my face now”, said Phenol, who, as the stranger predicted, had reappeared.
“What sort of help?” asked Lavender suspiciously.
“We would be delighted to offer any assistance we can” gushed Ann, glaring at Lavender.
Ann felt herself being sucked into the spiral of blue light and wondered if the vortex was messing with her head, or perhaps she should cut back on the weeds? “Well, not to worry, this feels like it could be a jolly fun adventure!” Privately Ann thought the stranger was rather good looking too, in a blue sort of a way.
Lavender, who thought the stranger looked weirdo, rolled her eyes and wondered whether to call Harvey. She was becoming concerned about Ann, who seemed a little more blurred at the edges than usual, and whose skin had taken on a slight blue tinge. At least she had stopped all that irritating coughing though.
“When in doubt, hug!” shouted Phenol, throwing ITs arms around Lavender. “Come on! Group Hug!”
“Oh a group hug, how lovely!” giggled Ann, lunging at the stranger, who had become strangely quiet.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Lavender stood up suddenly and hopped around the cafe.
“You know what? Since that masked man stood on my foot, the feeling seems to have returned!” Lavender hopped joyously over to the stranger and gave him a big hug, cleverly removing his mask at the same time, as if by accident.
Ann and Lavender stared in shocked surprise at the vision before them.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Oh damn, not another masked man! thought Lavender. The raucous voice of the hooded stranger was irritating her. On further reading of the previous comment she decided it was a jolly good thing he was saying nothing. So was it the unrelenting heat which was doing her head in? Or maybe it was Ann’s incessant chatter and coughing.
“I want to see your real face, Phenol,” snapped Lavender suddenly.
IT, taken aback by the unexpected outburst from the usually mild tempered Lavender, turned and ran.
“Goodness!” said Ann, startled. “Was there any need to upset Phenol like that?” She looked accusingly at Lavender, who could only hang her head and cough in reply.
“You are a bossy one aren’t you?” said the stranger to Ann, and Lavender smirked to herself. “But, don’t worry, Phenol will return soon.” The stranger smiled mysteriously, although of course the others could not see that as the mask obscured most of his face.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Ann was savooring a coughee with Lavender and Phenol. It was certainly not easy to follow a conversation when you were coughing all the time after a sip of coughee but it was quite savoory and tasty, and Flove knows why it was soo expensive.
Phenol was one of those students at the worserversity with acne and he or she wouldn’t allow another person to see his or her real face. So maybe for convenience only we can call him or her: IT.
It was the only moment you could hear a sound coming out of ITs hood, during thoose coughee sessions it was hard to keep completely silent.
Ann was very curious though, and it could be the only reason that she kept asking Phenol to come. She was still in search of clooes about that when a man arrived.He was wearing a black hood and speaking with that particular raucous voice you only hear in movies… She got the chills and asked him to join their company. Lavender rolled her eyes because the man with the raucous voice stepped on her right foot. Not that she suffered much, because she couldn’t feel her right leg since that accident a few years ago.
The man ordered a coughee with croombs and stayed there, saying nothing. That was not unpleasant at all, since Ann was chatting and coughing, taking the coughs of the others as a yes or a no to her questions. At least an acknowledgment that she was heard.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
When Yikes had first asked Arona, when he was like 6 or 7 years old if he had a father, Arona had brushed the question aside with a roll of an eye, and an annoyed flicker of the other.
“Of course you have, little pooh…”
It was glaringly obvious that the little Ugling wasn’t bearing any likeness with her handsome model Vincentius, so she didn’t mock the little guy’s intelligence by asking why he was even inquiring of such a thing.
And for a few years, telling him the story of how he was given to her by the dwarf Palani was enough to calm the torrent of his questions.Later though, as he was gaining strength and other skills taught to him by Vincentius, who was ever patient and dedicated to the well-being of Arona and the child, his questions became an obsession, and he took upon himself to discover the truth he could feel was wrapped in fantasy and nonsense —or at least, not told completely.
Perhaps it was an indiscretion of a glukenitch found in the many caves there were nearby their home, nobody knew for certain. (Glukenitches sharing one mind, they knew many of the secrets of the caves they sometimes deigned to share with strangers…) anyway, nobody knew for certain, but he found out about the mysterious Sanso, and how he became ‘acquainted’ with Arona (whom Yikes had never called but by her first name).
Yikes was now in his teen years, and wanted more than ever to meet Sanso, although he never quite revealed that secret plan least it would upset the loving and caring Arona. He had to find someone to help him in his research, but where they lived, encounters were scarce.
One day, a young woman he’d never met before went to see Arona. They were friends apparently, and he overheard Arona call her Salome, while they were discussing about lots of people, whose names he mostly didn’t know. He was feeling uncomfortable around nice ladies, and almost didn’t show up for dinner. However, an embarrassed silence and a sideway glance as a certain “he” was being inquired about by Arona raised his ears, and he took upon himself to try to learn more from the lady.
So when she left, he followed her to the entrance of one of the nearby caves, and showed up —apparently without surprising the lady called Salome. She was well aware of his presence, and of his desire to find Sanso.
“The man defies logic,” she then warned Yikes “and you need a riddle outside of logic to catch him and his attention.”
That was almost all of what she said before disappearing into the damp cave’s tunnel. That and… “no need to beat a dead cow.”Yikes had pondered that for days, without success.
Until the illumination came: all he had to do was become the hunter, and bait his prey.
For that, he would kill the fatted calf, to welcome the return of the prodigal father.And put his bait near the tunnels near the realms from whence he roamed aimlessly.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Ann realized she was late for her Flimsy Unravelled Continuity Knowledge class. A couple of months late, in point of fact, as Worserversity classes had resumed two months previously.
“Where have you BEEN?” Lavender whispered as Ann slid as inconspicuously as possible into the seat beside her, while the professor at the front of the class was facing the blueboard.
“Do I know you?” asked Ann, with a puzzled expression. The girl beside her did look vaguely familiar.
“Oh how rude you are, Ann. Are you trying to be funny?”
“Oh no, not at all!” Ann’s eyes filled with tears.
Lavender frowned. It wasn’t like Ann to start blarting and blubbering in public. “What’s the matter?” she asked kindly.
“I’ve lost my memory!” exclaimed Ann. “I can’t remember a thing!”
“Oh, is that all,” replied Lavender dismissively. “I’d have thought you’d be used to that by now.”
“No, no, you don’t understand! I can’t remember anything at all now, it’s all gone, poof! Gone!” Ann wept and started to wring her hands.
“Well the first thing you need to do is stop that bloody snivelling and wipe your nose. Here” she said, handing Ann a tissue. “And the next thing you need to do is stop worrying about it, and just fake it until you get your memory back. Worrying about it won’t help, you must focus on the things you do remember.”
“But it’s all jumbled up and muddled in my head, I remember bits, you know? But I can’t fit them all together. I CAN’T FIT THEM ALL TOGETHER!”
“SHHH!” snapped Lavender. “Try not to draw any attention to yourself! I’ll help you, don’t worry.”
“You’re so kind” Ann smiled weakly. “What did you say your name was?”
“Lavender. My name is Lavender, and I’m going to help you remember. Just remember this, for now: what you can’t remember, don’t worry about, the important thing is to carry on. Just CARRY ON REGARDLESS, ok?”
“OK.” Ann sighed with releif. “What’s the Professor going on about?”
“The next assignment. We’re to read that cryptic old classic book Circle of Eights and try to decipher it.”
“Good greif! Nobody has ever managed to decipher that book!”
“You see?” said Lavender. “You can remember that! Well done, girl!”
In reply to: Random RewrEights – The Del’Eights thread
The sky was most unusual. Something definitely weird was happpening.
Yann was looking at a TV show in which a clown was trying to juggle with his clothes.
Yann switched off the tv set and chose to go the cat in her basket.
“There you are!”
“Absolutely Sir”.
“Good very Good.”
Taking deep puffs of his pipe, he looked like a botle green velvet sofa, and that, combined with the crazy Baron of the nearby village, was the surest way of being left alone.
“The curious police want to know the details?” asked the Baron
“Not really … well now you make me think of it .. I reckon a bit.”
“ahahahahaha!” the manic laughter was infectious. Strange bugs were dancing. little dark skinned performers, tickling like an army of ants.
Rather than laughing, he’d taken a moment to consider the options. Obviously he couldn’t refuse help as his business had recently been pregnant, giving birth to conjoined twins.
So to speak.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“I blame the Elsespace Arrangement” Monica said in response to Ann’s long winded diatribe. “Nothing’s been quite the same since it got so popular.”
“You’ve got a point there, Mon” Ann agreed. “We didn’t used to have all these mix ups before, did we?”
“Well speak for yourself, dear, I don’t get mixed up,” Monica said a trifle pompously.
Not ‘arf you don’t, Ann said to herself, smiling sweetly at her freind.
“I heard that” Monica replied.
“Soory, Monica.” Oh my god, look at that typo. “Sorry Monica” Ann corrected herself. “The thing is, I’ve been feeling so odd lately. Disconnected, somehow. But the others seem to think they’ve been offending me, but it’s not that.”
“Well, what is it then?” asked Monica kindly.
“I’m not going to tell you. Ah ha ha ha ha.”
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Ann had to admit it wasn’t a bad idea. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of that herself. Why haven’t I been expressing more of the perecption in front of my eyes, I wonder? The more she thought about it, the more confused she became. It did sound like a good idea, and she was pleased that she had created another ‘her’ as it were, to mention it.
On the other hand, of course, there was nothing stopping Walter (or was it Gordon? No, Godfrey…wait, wasn’t it Al?) from creating another one of his ‘hims’ masked as an Ann to express more of her perceptions in HIS own ‘It’s All You’ story.
Am I getting this right? Ann whispered to her left ear.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Ann sighed. She suddenly realized that she’d spent the summer time travelling, back to the Summer Before the Great Shift Trauma. She’d completely forgotten that the Worserversity was Post Shift. Oh well, she would write a historical account of The Times Before The Great Trauma Started.
“What Great Trauma?” asked Monica, who had been reading her mind again. “There was no Great trauma in MY shift experience.”
“Really?” Ann was momentarily puzzled. “There wasn’t in mine either.”
“If you’re going to write about trauma, you’ll have to make it all up.” Monica replied.
“Why would I want to do that?” Ann was still puzzled.
“For the fun of it?” Monica suggested.
“Oh yes, of course…for the fun of it…”
Ann was still puzzled.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
For her new course, Pr. Moose was a dolphin.
It was a fancy-dress course entitled: ‘Act out your characters’.Pedro was naked, and when she asked him in what kind of disguise that could be, he told her “I’m the Universe”. She was, a moment, hypnotized by his so blue eyes that she’d forgotten her question. She gulped, speechless and looked at him more closely, appreciating the physique of his body…
— Is it real? she asked.
— It’s the Universe.
— Well, ok then, go get a seat and let’s begin our course.Following him with her eyes, or more precisely following his butt with her eyes, she also noticed a few other students. Ann was wearing a nine-titsed alien costume and there were two glowing ladies with fishes stuck to their ghostly bodies…
This butt, she thought again, her attention distracted from the other students.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Monica was asking Pedro about Pr. Moss last assignment. Everybody had been very impressed by his story teller talent and she wanted to know more about it. He was quite secretive though, and maybe it was because he was not a native English speaker, but nonetheless she wanted to know about some details.
Before he could say anything, she felt an excruciating pain in her belly and the announcing signs of intestine problems…
— Are you ok, asked Pedro? What was that strange noise?
— Nothing! she eluded quickly. I need to go to the bathroom, excuse me.Another spasm almost made her fall on the ground.
Damn Pr. Flipswitch! she thought, I shouldn’t have accepted to try the herbs he gave me after his herbal course.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Professor Gub smiled kindly at the young student. It was a common trait of the individuals in this dimension that they needed endless repetitions of information before they could assimilate it, and Prof Gub assumed that this was simply another example of the density of the inhabitants. It hadn’t occured to him that his words weren’t clear enough, as in his own dimension, the words were always accompanied by the clarity of the energy of the meaning behind the words.
“The assignment is to explain the symbolic significance of a statue of Walter Melon with pigeons sitting upon it. “ he explained. “Simple and profound, lengthy and convoluted, the choice is yours.”
Turning to Lavender, he asked “Are you understanding?”
“Oh yes, thank you, now I am” replied Lavender politely. The student sitting next to her, the enigmatic and dashingly handsome Dieter had helpfully passed her a note with Prof Gub’s words translated into plain English.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“Yes, sorry Sir, can you repeat the assignment please Sir?” asked Lavender, politely. Having just recently enrolled in the writing class, at Harvey’s suggestion after the appalling Limerick fiasco, she was finding Professor Gub’s strong Slooperniff accent rather hard to decipher.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Godfrey stood looking up the pigeons sitting on the statue of the Academy’s founding father, Walter Melon, pondering the symbology.
“What do you reckon the symbology of that is, Aaeiulie?” he asked his colleague, this years alien-Xchange visiting professor, Aaeilulie Gub, from the Worserversity in the Slooperniff Dimension.
“No idea, God, I’ll use this as my next class assignment, see what the students come up with. Anything else, or just the statue and the pigeons? Keep it simple, profound? Or convoluted but with lots of options?”
“Oh keep it simple, if I know those students, they will manage to convolute even the simplest ideas.”
“If they didn’t, we’d be out of a job” said the alien.
“We don’t call them ‘jobs’ anymore, we call them S.M.I.L.E.S, or Something Marginally Interesting, Lucrative & Enlightening.”
With a perfectly straight face the alien replied “What rubbish.”.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
G3 (short for GGG, which was shorter for Good God Gordy) asked as if to himself “Anyone met the Fisherman yet?”
Gremwick put down the Psychic Politics book he’d taken for his assignment, his five words written on a lemon coloured sticker:
Oof… here we go, “state — briefly — fisherman — library — pigeons”… There’s a bit of challenge here. he sighed, mostly uninspired.
“Perhaps I should have stayed with the easy words like ‘more, is, less, think, true’”. “Do you mean the Fisherman’s coming? How long has it been already?” Ann started to count briefly on her chubby fingers.
“Well, I guess if you’d be more assiduous in Pr. Rose’s class in bird divination, you’d found out that the pigeons’ flight was unmistakably precise on that matter.”
“I tried, believe me, I tried to pay more attention,…” Ann said, “but frankly, I prefer direct experience of the broom cupboard to the draughty corridors of the library…”
“Oh, I should say I’m a bit disappointed at you; I’ve always believed the state of dustiness would have been an incentive to you rather than a deterrent.”“Don’t underestimate the incentive of detergent” Monica said almost mischievously under her breath.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
It was a pleasant walk to the Academy from Ann’s student digs, the leafy suburbs of Poubelleville were dappled with sunlight and sweetly scented with lilac blossom. Bird twittered in the trees and miniature zebras nibbled at the grass verges as Ann made her way to class. As she walked past a sidewalk cafe she spotted Monica, or rather Monica spotted Ann, and called her over to join her for a cup of rhubarb tea. Ann had forgotten she was late for class, and gave Monica the customary seven kisses ~ three on each cheek, and a final one on the nose ~ and pulled out a chair.
True to form ~ for Monica was the Academy’s best known gossip ~ after the inital pleasantries, the conversation soon turned to the latest scandal. Max the janitor, one of the students, and Professor Moose had been caught engaging in a menage a trois in the broom cupboard.
“All in aid of an assignment, so they said” explained Monica. “Who did you choose for your menage a trois, Ann? You’re in old Moose’s class, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t translate the assigment that way.” Ann frowned. “Gosh, I wrote a haiku about slobber instead, everyone will think I’m all prim and prunes.”
“Well, we only need one more” replied Monica with a sly grin.
“What?” Ann blushed as she cottoned on. “Oh!”
Monica wriggled about in her chair, revealing an expanse of lean tanned thigh, not altogether accidentally.
“Mind if I join you?” asked Good God Gordy, calling to the waiter for a cup of Hornygoatweed tea.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Ann glanced vaguely over the bookcase, wondering where her dictionary was. Did people still use dictionaries in book form? I suppose any book will do for the purpose, she decided, and reached for the nearest book, a book about Rembrandt. She opened it randomly five times, using a ball point pen as a pointer, and selected five words for Prof Underbaker’s assignment.
…now…excite…
What a coincidence, I might be able to kill two birds with one stone here, Ann thought, with a slight shudder at the bird killing metaphor (if it was indeed a metaphor, Ann tended to skip the Labelling Words classes)…
…someone…
Ah, but who? Who shall I excite?
…pointed…
Pointed in the right direction? Addressed someone pointedly? Not to put too fine a point on it…
….time
Ann was interested to note that her selection of words started with the word NOW and ended with TIME, and popped it into her clue box in an effort to stay on course and finish the assigment.
There was no time like the present. Indeed T’Eggy was well aware that All is Now, she’d heard about that theory in Wicks, the online magazine that she’d found so enlightening. She’d been reading a copy of Wicks (a reproduction, the originals were now collectors items and very valuable ~ in an artifact rather than a monetary value kind of way, monetary value having been devalued in the early part of the century) in the teleport waiting room when she met the handsome foreignor in the dusty blue robes. Of course, it was not unusual to meet foreignors in the teleport waiting room, not unusual at all, but the tall, dark, and handsome stranger had excited her. Perhaps it was the flash of long lean tanned thigh that she glimpsed as his robes caught on the door knob. Of course, even the ‘waiting room’ was a retro touch, because there was no need to ‘wait’ for teleport travel. It seemed ironic in a way that folks in the old days had perceived ‘waiting’ as an onerous thing, an somewhat unpleasant period of clock watching and crossword puzzle books. These days ‘waiting rooms’ were popular places to meet people and choose probability pools. The latest trend was Turtle Nights, and Frog Nights, where men and women gathered in waiting rooms to choose partners, to find that special someone, loosely based on the old Hen and Stag nights.
“Do teleport stations have door knobs, Ann?” Pedro interjected.
“Oh!” Ann was momentarily non plussed.
“Non plussed? Is that a word?” asked Pedro.
“Pedro, stop interrupting! The assigment isn’t to design a teleport station!”
The teleport station had been designed in retro style, a facsimile of the Atocha train station in Madrid. Lack of need for physical details had not resulted in a lack of appreciation for physical detail simply for it’s artistic merit, not to mention historical educational value, and the TRANS (Teleport Relative to Any Now Space) Station was an award winning example of old fashioned detail. Why, it even had doorknobs, even though doors had been dispensed with several decades ago.
“I thought the assigment wasn’t to design a teleport station?” asked Pedro.
“Does it bloody matter?” retorted Ann, with a hint of exasperation. “The overall point is to write rubbish, and that’s what I’m doing!”
“I’m glad you pointed that out, Ann” remarked Pedro helpfully.
“Oh my god, look at the time!” Ann exclaimed. “It’s time for class!”
“Bugger that!” snorted Pedro. “I’d rather hear about what happened with T’Eggy and that tall dark stranger!”
