Search Results for 'aunt'

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  • #4118
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      Corrie’s findings from elsewhere:

      “The old woman looked him up and down before pushing past him, curtly telling him to knock because they were all asleep. Quentin quaked inwardly. He’d arrived at his new location, a dilapidated old hotel, although not without a certain other worldly charm, at an ungodly hour of the morning. Hovering on the porch, he was unsure whether to risk waking his new hosts. He didn’t want to make a bad first impression. He felt even more dejected and confused when he realized he had no idea what kind of first impression he wanted to make.

      His first encounter saddened him, and he hoped they all weren’t as unwelcoming as she had been. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling like such a stranger, or so nervous and shy. What made it even worse was that Quentin was quite well aware that his lack of confidence would be bound to make everything worse.

      “You’re not another one of those story refugees are you? Did I frighten you?” the girl asked, as Quentin jumped at her sudden appearance from behind the spider plant.
      “My name’s Prune, are you Quentin Quincy? Aunt Idle’s expecting you, but she’s not up yet. Are you going to be in the new room ten story?”

      #4117
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        Corrie:

        Sometimes I wish I’d never started this, but somehow I can’t stop. It’s daunting, with bits of the story here, there and everywhere (and sometimes, nowhere). A bit like starting a huge jigsaw puzzle when you wonder where to begin, or what even is the point. But then all it takes it that little flutter when two pieces fit together to spur you on to find the next.

        When I’d chanced upon Aunt Idle’s private blog, coincidentally on the same day that I’d found mater’s old paper spiral notebook with that loopy old fashioned writing, I had an idea to put together a story, the story of the flying fish inn. Because there was something funny going on here, and I wasn’t sure what it was, but it felt like the story wasn’t over yet. So some of the pieces were nowhere yet, obviously, but many had fallen elsewhere, for various reasons.

        #4110
        EricEric
        Keymaster

          Liz’! We’re all waiting for you now, it’s been nearly a week you’ve been soaking in that bath of yours, I’m dreading how wrinkled you may look now, and the amount of virgin coconut oil you will need to moisturize everything, but I digress. Liz’ get out now!”

          Godfrey was supervising an unusual and unexpected commission.
          The Anthology of Her Works.
          It was a working title, but the idea was simple enough, and yet completely nuts and daunting. Put together the massive material that Liz (and her ghostwriters) had amassed all those years.
          That someone would want to sponsor the adventure seemed completely crazy, so they would have to hurry before the anonymous donor came back to his or her senses and realize the whole futility of the adventure.

          LIZ’!” There was urgency in his voice.

          COMING, FOR BLUBBER’S SAKE! STOP THAT RACKET AT ONCE GODFREY OR I’LL HAVE YOU FIRED.”

          Liz’ finally emerged out of the room, in full regalia, with her silk dragon-patterned black bath-gown, definitely a bit wrinkled at the scalp, but overall looking completely re-energized and ready to embraze the magnitude of the work to be done (meaning: ready to boss everybody around to get it done).

          “So what’s that all about Godfrey? Have we run out of peanuts?”

          “Good Lord no, perish the thought.”

          “So why are you here at the table with Finnley and the handsome gardener, what’s his name already?”

          Roberto “ ventured Finnley, modestly rolling her eyes at such pathetic attempt at continuity.

          “Yes, that’s right,… Alberto. Thank you Finnley, you’re a dear. So what is it, that has you all here plotting around? I’m not paying you to roll blubbit’s droppings in batter…”

          Liz’, it’s serious. We have to start…” Godfrey was about to explain the whole thing to Liz’, but suddenly realized she had just given her approval.

          “So that settles it: the Peasland’s story!” He, Finnley and Roberto acquiesced and nodded at each other conspiratorially.

          #4096
          prUneprUne
          Participant

            I don’t know exactly when it struck me first. The passage of time.
            When you are young, it’s easy to miss it, some would say “you’re a child, you don’t know about such things”, and maybe they are right.

            In a few months, it will already be 2 years that we reopened the Inn. The results have been mixed, we haven’t gotten any richer, but it definitely helps pay the bills.

            It definitely helped to pay for Aunt Idle’s rehab, after her nervous breakdown last March. Well, rehab is a big word. We got professional help from some friend of Mater, Jiemba, who knows someone who knows someone.
            Of course, we had to package it nicely for Didle to take the bait. She would have none of that rehab thing of course. But she was sold at the first syllable of Banisteriopsis caapi vine and Psychotria viridis leaf, well aya for short.

            After that, seems she wanted to travel to Iceland. Got to figure how she gets all that fancy money. Mater says it’s her sugar daddy lovers. Not Mater’s, you silly. Dido’s.
            Mater says that without any judgment, which is rare. She still calls her a tart and all sorts of nice things, but it’s like she’s proud that she made it in the world —or just that she slowed down on the gin bottle.

            Speaking of Mater, she hasn’t been so well. After she tried to grab some can of chicken broth from the shelves, she broke her hip bone. Of course she couldn’t stand staying at the hospital and got herself discharged as soon as her doctor looked the other way, but I can see she’s not completely healed. Finnly is doing her best with the circumstances, adding nursing to her housekeeping skills. And Bert’s been around to support with the inn maintenance.

            Well my twin sisters are another story altogether. They’ll be moving out, they said, live in the big city. They had no intention of going to college anyway. Seems they are looking for a full-time blogger job. I’m betting they’ll be back soon enough. Nothing beats Finnly’s mince pice and charbroiled spicy huhu skewers.

            It’s been a while I’ve seen Dev’. Always working at the gas station. Mater always says his lack of ambition will save him from trouble.

            So yes, time has passed. It’s funny how nobody else seems to notice.

            #4072

            Aunt Idle was going to visit her old friend Margit Brynjúlfursdóttir. It was all very hush hush: Margit had intimated that there was to be a family reunion, but it was to be a surprise party, and she mustn’t breathe a word of it to anyone. Margit had sent her the tickets to Keflavik, instructing her to inform her family and friends that she had won the trip in a story writing competition.

            It was Idle’s first trip to Iceland. She had met Margit in a beach bar near Cairns some years ago, just after the scandalous expose on the goings on of a mad doctor on a remote south Pacific island. The Icelandic woman had been drowning her sorrows, and Idle had been a shoulder to cry on. The age old story of a wayward son, a brilliant mind, so full of potential, victim of a conniving nurse , and now sadly incarcerated on the wrong side of the law.

            Aunt Idle didn’t immediately make a connection between the name Brynjúlfursdóttir and Bronklehampton, indeed it would have been impossible to do so using conventional means, Icelandic naming laws and traditions being what they were. But the intuitive Idle had made a connection notwithstanding. The maudlin woman in the beach bar was clearly the mad doctors mother.

            Idle had invited Margit to come and stay at the Flying Fish Inn for a few weeks before returning to Iceland, a visit which turned out to last almost a year. Over the months, Margit confided in her new friend Idle. Nobody back home in Iceland knew that the doctor in the lurid headlines was her son, and Margit wanted to keep it that way, but it was a relief to be able to talk about it to someone. Idle wasn’t all that sure that Margit was fully in the picture regarding the depths to which the fruit of her loins had sunk, but she witnessed the womans outpourings with tact and compassion and they became good friends.

            The fasten your seatbelts sign flashed and pinged. The landing at Keflavik was going to be on time.

            #4060
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              Disappointed at the lack of interesting activity in Iceland, Hilda made a snap decision to catch the first flight to Liverpool. The news of the mysterious plague doctor roaming the streets of Chester had piqued her curiosity.

              Was it an omen or just some fool in a fancy dress costume? Maybe it was a time traveler. If so, it would be worth investigating further.

              #4059

              The woman sitting next to me on the plane never stopped talking, she must have told me her whole life story, Aunt Idle wrote in her diary. It was a long flight from Australia to Iceland, I’m not complaining ~ it was quite an entertaining story. She said she came from Blue Lagoon campsite in the Adirondacks originally, although that was many moons ago, as she put it. Then she joined the army, but she didn’t tell me much about that, only that she’d been posted to Kenya and had taken to the place, always meant to go back and never did. She’s been married twice, once to a northerner called Bert Wagstaff, but that didn’t last long ~ nice enough guy, she said, but a bit boring. No kids. Then to Trudell. That was another story she said, but didn’t elaborate.

              She said something about investigating fungus but the drinks trolley appeared. She asked for Blue Sapphire gin but they only had Gordon’s, and then she started going on about when she was in India. She had a book in her hands the whole flight, although she didn’t stop talking long enough to read much, it was The Rabbit, by Peter Day, with a picture of an upright man with a rabbit head on the cover, all in white, rather surreal.

              #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.

                #4011

                In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud

                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  round aunt characters matter
                  talk working latest ascension run
                  honey open mission perhaps
                  leader close free reading window
                  land cleaning times

                  #4009
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    As Prune spoke the magic words releasing her aunt from marbledom, an unforeseen chain reaction of uncrusting began. One by one the concrete statues and animals that Idle had been collecting became more yielding, less rigid. They didn’t all start gallivanting around at once, it was a slow process depending on the length of time they had been solid.

                    The buddha by the fish pond had had his knees bent for so long it would be some time before he could straighten them, but it was with great joy that he raised a hand from his lap to scratch the fly droppings off the tip of his nose. He was just about to make a remark about foolish idle people and wise diligent ones when it occurred to him that he’d been completely idle for quite some time, and that it hadn’t been his fault. The unaccustomed questioning of his rather rigid beliefs accelerated the uncrusting process, and he was able to turn his head to see the odd looking cat approaching, but unable to move his arm quickly enough to stop it spraying him with piss.

                    You have no idea how long I’ve been holding that, said the cat, somewhat telepathically.

                    A loud gravelly sounding laugh echoed across the pond, coming from the direction of the green man plaque on the wall. The unfamiliar cackle drew Clove out from the kitchen to see who it was.

                    “I have so much to say!” the green man cleared his throat, spitting out some moss that had become stuck between his teeth, “And I’ve waited so long to say it! You there, you! Don’t go away!” The green man immediately realized his predicament. He had a face but no body. He would have to wait until an audience came to him to listen.

                    But Clove was interested and inched closer. She had just been researching Dionysus for a project; what a fortuitous coincidence that a replica of him had come to life. She would be able to interview him for her report. She’d just read that “It is perhaps an indication of the Green Man’s power as an archetype that he was able to transfer so seamlessly from one culture and one set of beliefs to another.”

                    This was exactly the angle she was after.

                    #3997
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      “Cheer up, old bean,” Liz said kindly, reading his mind. “There’s a rendezvous at the Absinthe Cafe soon. Aunt Idle (and I do often wonder why you all insist on calling her Dido; it’s nothing more than a deliberate confusion tactic for the poor reader) will teleport over. It’s a fancy dress party, and my suggestion Godfrey is that you dress up as a particularly dashing superhero, in tights. She won’t be able to take her eyes off you.”

                      #3979
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        “Well thank goodness for that!” exclaimed Liz, heaving a sigh of relief. “The teleport thread jump was a success, and Aunt Idle is safe.”

                        “What are you doing here?” said Mater, aghast.

                        “I might ask you what YOU are doing here, Mater, I left you under a sapling in the woods not a moment ago!” retorted Liz.

                        #3978
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          A strange peacefulness enveloped Idle as she stood immobilized beside the sapling. A feeling of imperturbability washed over her, the grace of stillness. She glanced down at her legs and rather liked the smooth cold marble effect; so much more attractive that purple veins and loose skin. While her neck still had a degree of flexibility, she looked around, appreciating the hard still silent trees, their infinite serenity and refreshing lack of hustle bustle.

                          But her quiet reverie was not to last long. The sudden appearance of a partly clad woman sent flocks of birds squalking away from the treetops in alarm.

                          The woman immediately set to removing her shirt and rearranging it across her torso in an attempt to gain some kind of conventional modesty, dislodging the sticky paper scraps.

                          Devan, who had chanced upon this usual scene in his search for his aunt, failed to notice the paper at first, so entranced was he with watching the attractive woman attempt to cover her voluptuous body with a gardening shirt. Mater, breathing heavily from the exertion of the search, came up behind him and slapped him soundly on the back of the head and gave him a push.

                          “The paper!” she hissed. “Get the paper!”

                          #3973
                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            Aunt Idle wandered around, wondering where everyone was. Had everyone gone out on a day trip or a holiday? Had she forgotten? She clumped across the yard looking for Bert. If she could find Bert, he would know ~ but where was he? Her feet felt dry and heavy. I really must do something about those dry callouses, she thought ~ perhaps a long hot soak in the bath. But first, I must find the others.

                            Idle continued her search, but her legs began to feel like lead. Funny how some days gravity seemed so much stronger. It was becoming harder to put one foot in front of the other. What was it that guy on the internet had said about a lightness of energy? The unbearable lightness of being ~ well this was more like the unbearable heaviness of feet.

                            A pair of butterfly’s scampered through the air, fluttering and darting around Idle’s sticky dreads. Be light like the skipping of a butterfly, that guy had said. Hah! she croaked. Easy to say! Unable to walk any further, Idle grabbed onto a straight little eucalyptus sapling to hold herself up. Her fingers felt stiff and inflexible as she grasped the slender trunk.

                            It’s just too hard, she thought with a heavy heart. It’s too hard to move.

                            #3969
                            AvatarJib
                            Participant

                              Devan!” called Mater. She couldn’t find the spell, and if they didn’t hurry, Idle would be lost, transformed into termitegranite forever.

                              The boy happened to be in the house at that moment. And he asked quite proud of himself. “What’s the matter Mater ?”
                              If she had had time to roll her eyes, she would have.
                              “I’m looking for a small package, it was hidden into the termite honey that your aunt swallowed.”
                              “Termite honey ?” asked Devan, “I didn’t know termite made honey. Are you sure it was not something else ? Like bees ?”
                              “Don’t play games, there’s no time. Look for a package, or a paper,” said Mater. I hope that tart didn’t swallow it with the honey.

                              #3966
                              TracyTracy
                              Participant

                                It was clearly not entirely deserted, as Aunt Idle was picking up on a questioning energy, and quite near by. But who was it? Idle set off to investigate.

                                #3963
                                TracyTracy
                                Participant

                                  “Now then, you lot! Where were we?” cried Aunt Idle. “Everyone, back on the right thread, if you please! No cackling!”

                                  But Idle was quite alone. Her words echoed off the walls forlornly. There were no characters here anymore ~ it was a ghost town.

                                  #3961
                                  TracyTracy
                                  Participant

                                    “Right, that does it! I’m moving the whole family back to the right story!” said Aunt Idle, invigorated and emboldened with the sweet energy of the honey. “Bloody cackling nonsense!”

                                    #3959
                                    TracyTracy
                                    Participant

                                      The honeyed ball of words had dislodged numerous strands of dried spaghetti, which nestled amongst Aunt Idle’s dreadlocks rather attractively, with the paper ball looking like a little hair bun.

                                      #3949

                                      Aunt Idle was craving for sweets again. She tip toed in the kitchen, she didn’t want to hear another lecture from Mater. It only took time from her indulging in her attachments. Her new yogiguru Togurt had told the flockus group that they had to indulge more. And she was determined to do so.
                                      The kitchen was empty. A draft of cold air brushed her neck, or was it her neck brushing against the tiny molecules of R. She cackled inwardly, which almost made her choke on her breath. That was surely a strange experience, choking on something without substance. A first for her, if you know what I mean.

                                      The shelves were closed with simple locks. She snorted. Mater would need more than that to put a stop to Idle’s cravings. She had watched a video on Wootube recently about how to unlock a lock. She would need pins. She rummaged through her dreadlocks, she was sure she had forgotten one or two in there when she began to forge the dreads. Very practicle for smuggling things.

                                      It took her longer than she had thought, only increasing her craving for sweets.
                                      There was only one jar. Certainly honey. Idle took the jar and turned it to see the sticker. It was written Termite Honey, Becky’s Farm in Mater’s ornate writing. Idle opened the jar. Essence of sweetness reached her nose and made her drool. She plunged her fingers into the white thick substance.

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