Search Results for 'away'

Much to Pearls amazement the celebrity surge mania that had taken hold of the lower ranks of the surge teams assistants was starting to infest the higher ranks as well. In fact it had started to infect the celebrities themselves, as well as the royal families of several European and Middle Eastern countries. Celebrity mania had surged with an unholy vengeance just after lightning struck the Vatican, when the pope was led away in handcuffs the previous month. Royal princesses, not satisfied with the rank of just one position, recklessly started claiming the lives of feckless celebrities as their own. Celebrities started insisiting that they were directing Directors, and informing cameramen that they were a focus of theirs too. The cameramen wondered whether they even knew what P mode was, and who was in charge now anyway. The King of Spain decided to claim Madonna as his own, and refuted Lady Ga Ga’s claim that she was in fact directing him. A Pointless TV quiz contestant claimed to be directing Stephen Fry, which was clearly rubbish; many dismissed the claim as distorted.

The phone rang while she was preparing her cabbage with soy sauce. It triggered a memory of a blue helmet. Quickly gone.
She hesitated a moment and stopped what she was doing to pick up the phone.
Her mother began speaking straight away.
“Where have you been all this time ? You’ll turn me mad. You’re so like your father, keeping to himself all those times when he was out playing mahjong with his friends. But I knew where that bastard was…”
Her voice was raspy after years of never being able to be speechless, and most astoundingly, she never repeated herself. The woman was even a sleeptalker. No wonder her husband would rather sneak out of the house to play with his friends.
Aqua Luna had developed an opposite habit, she would find her solace in silence and in doing house cleaning. But this time, the voice of her mother was fascinating. Something in it seemed different.

A blue flash interrupted her fascination. She almost jumped out of her pajamas.
“Listen carefully”, was saying the blue helmet.

Aqua Luna had difficulties understanding what the voice was telling her. The words made perfect sense, separately. They were like bubbles floating around her, she could almost see them. Each had a different hue and some where even shining a bit.
“What am I experiencing ?” she asked.
At least it was her thoughts, but she wasn’t sure the voice would understand as each bubble seemed to follow its separate route once out of her mouth.
When more bubbles appeared in the room, it seemed they were coming from all around her, and not from a specific location. She wondered if she was in some kind of whale ship, in its stomach.
When more bubbles came, she began to feel a bit irritated. She smashed one with her left hand and got startled by the booming “SHAKE”. She retreated on the spongy stomach which was emitting bubbles now. She tried to shoo them away and their explosion was more like a squishy sound.
A bigger bubble was coming toward her. It was with shades of pink and blue, very vibrant. She put her hands on her ears before it blew out, but the sound seemed to come from her skin now.

“HAHAHAHA”

When more bubbles came to her, the words she heard were the following

quickly full days told moscow
dragon sounds face earth itself
pin often middle herself under light
katarina warm asked further turned

It made no sense at all, but she was beginning to find it fun.

Have you ever dreamt that you forgot to put your pants on to go to school or to go to work? How did you feel in the dream ? Ashamed ? At ease ? Were you wondering how you got there in your undies ?
Dream memories were flying in Madam Li’s head. It had been a recurring dream in her childhood and her most dreaded fear. She had always checked on twice before living her house that she had a dress or trousers long enough to hide her ankles.

Her cell phone didn’t have any battery left and she was late. She would have to find one in the street. She ran out of her apartment after having checked her outfits twice and reassured took the elevator. She had her bags with warmer clothes inside for when she’d arrive in Harbin for the ice festival. She looked nervously at her cell phone again, still no battery of course. She put it back in her handbag. Someone entered the elevator, 30 more floors to go. She gasped when she realized the man, a westerner, had no pants on. She looked away quickly. Was he not aware of the missing element in his outfit ? She decided to make as if everything was normal.

Things went worse when she got out of the elevator. There were two men and a woman waiting at the check out desk, and they had pink underwears. Apparently the first man didn’t know them and the service apartment employee behind his desk didn’t seem at all surprised by the situation. When it was her turn, he looked at her, and at her long dress. She gave him the keys and as he turned away to put them back on the wall, she noticed that he was bare legs too. Something was wrong. Was it a surge in the population ? Would she have to stay here longer ?

The taser was a long range and when Mari Fe threw it away, it inadvertantly triggered the mechanism. The waiter was at that moment bringing a big plate of very hot soup to the table near Elza’s and was shocked. His body was shaken and Elza watched the soup making an odd design before splashing upon the table just behind her. She took advantage of the confusion to sneak out of the restaurant without paying the bill.

Evangeline Spiggot put the phone down, and turned to old Flanigan, the cleaning man. “Another request to investigate the death of Ed Steam! Three already, and it’s not even lunch time. I think this is a case for Blithe Gambol.”

“Lift your feet up, will you, I’m trying to make a clean sweep here” Flannely replied.

Evangeline obliged and put her feet up on her desk, and put through a call to Blithe. After a few pleasantries, Evangeline explained the case. “So the question is, is Ed Steam really dead, or not?”

“I can tell you the answer to that right away,” replied Blithe. “Yes, and no.”

“Er….thanks, I think…”

“You see, the difficulty with facts these days is that none are true, and all are real ~ well I know you know that dear, but it becomes something of a problem when clients want to know the Truth. Probable realities are pretty loosely woven these days; now, I can stitch together the case, and give you a more definitive answer. Or I can stitch together the case differently, and give you a different answer. The question is, really, what is the answer you want to hear?”

“I’ll confer with the clients and call you back.”

Pearl sighed. “I can’t find the location. Even the dog leg method didn’t give me any clues. I’m going to forget this for awhile and have an hour on Flackbook.”

Mari Fe breathed a sigh of relief, and tried to erase Moscow from her mind. But before she had time to refocus, Pearl shouted “Aha! Katarina inserted the address on my newsfeed. Here is it, Mari Fe, look!”

It said:

“19 January at 15:00 in UTC+03

Каждую субботу начиная с 08.12.2012 на Лубянской площади / Every Saturday Moscow, Russia, Bolshaya Lubyanka 2, 107031”

Mari Fe groaned.

“There’s more!” Pearl said, “Baku / Azerbaijan “ ‎12.01.2013 Армия во время митинга в Баку”. She looked at her watch, and frowned.

“Mari Fe, prepare for teleport right away. We have less than 6 minutes to get to Azerbaijan. Toot! Toot!”

“But I only have one pair of thermal socks and one Norwegian wool sweater!”

“Oh cheer up, Baku is among the world’s top ten destinations for urban nightlife, so I’ve heard. And Baku hosted the 57th EuroVision Debt Contest in 2012, too. We’re going to Fountain Square you’ll love it.”

Mari Fe set a strong intention to arrive in summer.

open inside, turned green ~ making work away next face.
busy under odd baltazar fairy…

Cornella had been enjoying the bamboo shoots until she found out about the dog leg broth they were cooked in. “Really, I can eat no more” she said unhappily, pushing away the bowl and glancing around the room. “What the devil is that?” she exclaimed as her eye fell on the tall dark mysterious cabinet. “Where did that come from?”

Lord and Lady Appleton glanced at each other. “I told you to be more careful, Jedward” whispered Mirabelle. “What’s that doing in here?”

“Oh, ha ha, why that’s just a little trinket I picked up in Long Poon, Cornella. It’s nothing, nothing at all.” Lord Appleton cleared his throat noisily. “Just an old cabinet, nothing really.”

“What’s inside?” asked Cornella, moving towards the dark wooden doors. “What an interesting insignia, it reminds me of something.”

“Don’t open it!” shreiked the Appletons. “It’s, er, full of dog legs.”

Cornella frowned, wondering why dog legs kept popping up.

At the same moment in a remote town in a far away galaxy, master yoda took his light saber out, preparing to fight Dookoo. He was trying to sort out all these probabilities where buns were blending with dogs in boobs. It almost got him killed.
“Have you considered suing your brains for lack of support?” said Dookoo with an evil grin.

Luigi’s arthritis was amassing to an all time extreme, and he was unsure if he could take anymore of the pain, when just then, and with amazing timing, a lady walked up to him asking if he wanted any arthritis ointment.

“Well yes… I could use some at this very instant.” Luigi said, as he pondered what sort of miracle occurred that would land him just what he needed, and in the very instant he needed it.

“Your welcome.” said Marsha. She smiled and began walking towards the nearest health foods store.

– – –

The sun was shining and the leaves were green, and Marsha was worried about her health. She had just been reading about all the horrid chemicals that big pharma puts into their ointments, and thought it would be better off if she simply gave away the ointment contained in her purse.

Just then she noticed an ugly looking man clutching his right hand. He was all bent over and wailing, and screaming absurdities.

“Aha!” she thought.

“Who else?, as a matter of fact, Dr Whoohelz,” he winked unapologetically.

“Oh, that?” he added knowingly to the glaring lady. “Did you know pink tutus made from pink panthers’ hides are a symbol of power in most old African countries.”

Meanwhile, Luigi, the hapless driver and his scooter, and the land beneath them had moved and groaned a good few meters further away from the doctor.

Lilac stealthily inched closer, curious to see how the Forehead shaved, and what it was that he felt the need to shave, notwithstanding the apparent difficulties. Unfortunately the Forehead was hidden behind the Pate, which was gleaming in the moonlight, but otherwise quite expressionless, giving away nothing.

As any mindful reader, if there are indeed any who have been following this wondrous tale, would surely know by now, the idea that Mandrake would lick Arona’s toes is extremely unlikely. True, Arona did proffer her toes invitingly to Mandrake, however he merely snorted and disdainfully looked away.

“That Wawakawakwaka place with about 35 letters in between the “W” and the “N” sounds very odd doesn’t it?” mused Arona.

“Thirty four letters as a matter of fact.”

Arona rolled her eyes. “Trust you to count them.”

The entrances to Faerie (and indeed to other alternate realities and dimensions) had been shrouded in disbelief for several centuries, but times were changing and the fog of scepticism was dissipating, evaporating like river mist on a hot summer morning. Looking for the entrances deliberately, Blithe found, wasn’t the most efficacious method. Sat Nav alone would be unlikely to reveal them, unless the locating device was used in conjunction with impulse and intuition. Any device and method could be used effectively when combined with random impulse, even Google Earth or Google Moon. Blithe’s friend and colleage Dealea Flare was making good use of this device on her travels, using it as a personal non physical airline and space shuttle service. Dealea could get from A to B and back again in no time at all, or even from A to well beyond Z and back again in no time at all using this device in conjunction with impulse and large dose of intention and focus. Blithe had the impulse down pat but still had difficulty with the focus, which was largely a case of having too many intentions at once, most of them somewhat vague.

The more random and impulsive Blithe was, the better her investigations went, often leading her into a new and exciting exploration which may or may not be linked to the current intention. Such was the case when she went on a mundane shopping trip to the Rock of Gibber. As she sat sipping coffee at the Counterpart Cabana sidewalk cafe listening to the locals conversing in Gibberish, she noticed the extraordinary tangle of pipework on the building opposite. It reminded her of the steampunk world she had been investigating in her spare time. The text book steampunk world was intriguing to say the least, but rather grim, and tediously full of victims and fear. The inhabitants always seemed to be running away from someone. The steampunk world she was beginning to sense in Gibber was quite different in that it was a sunny cheerful alternate reality held together with a vast labyrinthine network of water pipes, scaffold, and connecting cables.

Blithe paid for her coffee and strolled off, noticing more and more scaffolding and tangles of pipes as she climbed the warren of narrow winding streets. The air was different the higher she climbed up the winding uneven steps, the sunlight was sharper and the shadows denser, and there was a crackling kind of hush as if the air was shimmering. Cables festooned the crumbling shuttered buildings like cobwebs, and centuries of layers of crackled sun faded pastel paint coated the closed doors. Open doors revealed dark passageways and alleys with bright rectangles of light glowing in the distance, and golden dry weeds sprouted from vents and windowsills casting dancing shadows on the uneven walls.

The usual signs of life were strangely absent and present at the same time; an occasional voice was heard from inside one of the houses, and there were pots of flowers growing here and there, indicating that a human hand had watered them with water from the pipe network. There was no music to be heard though, or any indication that the cable network was in use, and there were virtually no people on the streets. A lady in a brilliant blue dress who was climbing the steps from Gibber Town below paused to chat, agreeing with Blithe who remarked on the peaceful beauty of the place. The lady in blue said “Si, it’s very nice, but there are many steps, so many steps. If you are coming from below there are SO many steps!”

There was a boy watching a white dog watching an empty space on the pavement, so Blithe stopped to watch the boy watching the dog watching nothing. Eventually Blithe inquired “What is he looking at?” and the boy shrugged and continued to watch the dog watching nothing. Blithe watched for a little while, and then wandered off. A small child was giggling from inside a doorway, and a mothers voice asked what he was laughing at. The child was looking out of the door at nothing as far as Blithe could see.

As the sun climbed higher, Blithe began to descend into Gibber town, winding and weaving through the alleys, wondering how she had failed to notice this place half way up the Rock until now. She came to a crumbling wall with a doorway in it that looked out over the bay beyond the town below. This must be one of the entrances, she deduced, to this alternate world in Gibber. “Entrance”! Blithe had a revelation. “I never noticed that the word ENtrance and enTRANCE are spelled the same.” Later, back at the office, Frolic Caper-Belle said she thought it was probably a very significant clue. “I’ll file that in the Clue Box, Blithe”, she said.

{link: entrance}