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February 4, 2010 at 12:04 pm #2412
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
The Peasland Majorburgmester rubbed his hands with an evil glee.
Fwick was knee deep in kneading for what appeared to be a lunatic idea bound to failure, and more importantly, it’s been weeks that no one had heard back from the expedition to the Eighth Dimension… And frankly, anyone having spent more than a few days in the Eighth Dimension usually was never to be heard of again —or heard speak anything intelligible for that matter, which didn’t make much difference either.
In fact, there had been some reports of sightings of the poor souls’ dog, what was its name already, Gandfleur or something equally ridiculous. But a single dog was hardly a problem, and now he couldn’t see how Peasland would be able to avoid the unavoidable blubbits dominion over Peaslanders.
He’d made that surer than sure; he’d gone again no later than yesterday, concealed under a waterproof floak (a floating cloak for inundated part of the lands), deep into the heart of Peasland’s plains now ridden in burrows to feed the breading mother of all blubbits a healthy dose of blunips. It had cost him most Mungibs he thought he would ever allow to part with, but it was Mungibs well placed. Soon people would plead for a real game changer. And he knew well who would step forward, and it was nothing like those headless twats.He was in such a jolly mood, he’d called for a party. Well not officially called that, of course —Peaslanders were such worryworts about their crops and the famine that may occur… But a little friendly gathering to celebrate their heroes gone to the Eighth for answers. What a masquerade.
He was indeed in such a jolly mood that he took the sinewy and allwardly beautiful Lady Fin Min Hoot by the waist, and invited her to a delirious dance —it was indeed a dandy day for dancing— and for a little after-hour in his carriage when they are done jiggling their bodyparts (at least in public).
That was then, all tied up in leather ribbons and pillows’ owl’s feathers, when he (and Lady Fin) heard the raucous voice calling.
Gnarfle !
Yes, that was it! that was the stupid name of the dog!…How come they’d managed to come back?!
January 21, 2010 at 12:09 pm #2404In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
That silly Mayor’s idea suddenly found an unexpected and potentially interesting grace at the eye of Fwick the saucerer.
After all, without having to go as far as frying the poor thing in breadcrumbs, some backing powder and yeast would actually do a lot of good to boost the immune system of the little spider…
His thought felt almost disturbed by a squeaking sound followed by a muffled squeaghing, coming from the matchbox in his hands.
January 21, 2010 at 10:32 am #2402In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“What?” The Majorburgmester of Peasland almost laughed of surprise at the incongruity of Fwick con Troll’s idea. “You’re telling that this…”
“Little spider, yes”
“Contains a potent venom that could wipe the blubbits off the face of Peasland?”
“Absolutely, dear Majorburgmester”
“Are you out of your Fwicking mind, Fwick? What breading this nasty spider could possibly bring us any better than a plague of crop-eating blubbits in rut?”
“I was actually talking of breeding them, sir” Fwick objected
The Mayor continued unperturbed “Besides, we already have our fierce constable Stoll drill the mythic Eight Dimension for answers.”
“That would be placing a lot of trust in that foolish venture, I’m afraid to say, Majorburgmester. To date, very few people have managed to return safely.”
“Oh, who cares if they ever bloody come back Fwick! Come on! All we need to do is extort the answers from his spouse who’s kept all their heads in a safe place, I have no doubt of that.”
“Well… I wouldn’t place my head on this bet if I were you…”“Ah, bugger off then with your stinking spider, and do your bloody experiments… As long as it doesn’t involve my name, and especially in case any misguided and sad assassination should occur, ahahaha. I’m joking of course.” The Mayor’s face (which was framed and hanged on the wall of the Majorburgmester Hall’s main office) suddenly shut any hint of humanity that could have been left on it.
December 18, 2009 at 5:05 pm #2381In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Almost unperturbed by the sudden distraction coming from the remarkably head-in-the-clouds Doily, despite her seemingly headlessness-lessness, and applying instead his famous adage, Better stick to one’s own nonsense than follow another’s Mewrich thundered “Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll explain about the beard, so that we can all get back to our business, and you out to your quest (and off my home)”.
“Yes! Will you finally tell us about the bird, the notes, and all that buggery to get to that Eighth dimension and vanquish the darn blubbits invasion!” Pee Stoll almost cried out.
Carefully, Mewrich reached out for a tiny peacock in his aviary, a poor thing which was plucking its feathers after all that noise, that he may as well have chosen at random from the menagerie.
“Take this bird, and make it sing four notes, I said FOUR! not one more, not one less! in front of the great portal of Nibabuz and you should be able to get past the old Keeper… JUST DON’T try to interrupt me, by the coils of the great Snakipooh, you rude tart!” “You have to get past the Keeper, but he’s old and a bit arthritic, so all you’ve got to do is have him walk on his beard, and get past him.”Dolores was about to add a little flourish, but all of them, the headless Stoll family, and Doily’s eccentric entourage where ushered out of the cave by the angered Saucerer. And every Peaslander knew you wouldn’t anger a Saucerer without having to deal with dreadful consequences. The green wig of Dolores being probably the remnant of one of these consequences.
December 16, 2009 at 2:52 am #2370In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“HE PUT A BLUBBIT DOWN MY KNICKERS!” sobbed Lilli, loudly.
Unfortunately Lilli too had inherited the Stoll family curse, and her voice raised to such a level caused poor Fwick to cover his ears in horror. Being no fool, and quickly realising that without a head this ear protecting action would do no good at all, he instead decided he must evict these raucous Peaslanders from his abode, poste haste.
“Yes, indeed, Mewrich Peamon is the man you want to see. A strange fellow, lacking sense some may say, but very good with birds notwithstanding. Now, please, don’t thank me again. I mean really, don’t …. “ he muttered, ushering the guests in the direction of where he hoped the door was.
December 15, 2009 at 1:57 pm #2363In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Fwick con Troll, one of the great Wartlocks of Mungibbs, was quite preoccupied with the situation. This sudden abundance of blubbits was no doubt an evil craft at work.
Fwick wasn’t extraordinarily enthralled at the Majorburgmester’s idea to send someone through the Eight Portal, as for one, it was quite an antiquated piece of technology which had not been used since the Great Influence of Haitian Henwan, and second, people from the eighth dimension weren’t really easy people to follow.
Shaped as a big eight, the portal also had some secondary effects of twisting one’s minds into loops of endless wonderment and bedazzlement. Surely no New Pealander in his own mind would dare succumb to these effects so alien to their culture.Nevertheless, he was a bit short of ideas, as most of his spells had failed miserably at evicting the thriving blubbits. He was lost in these thoughts when a frantic barking resounded at his door.
October 31, 2009 at 3:16 pm #2788In reply to: Random RewrEights – The Del’Eights thread
Elizabeth frowned as she hung Finnley.
“crazy!” he’d said. “killing spiders and magpies and lord knows what else”
“Woohoo”
Really, Elizabeth could be exasperating at times
Finnley had been silent hung in frustration floated across of Elizabeth’s closed eyes as she lay on the bed.
She was aware of the breeze and the giraffes heat was intense, heavy.
spiders webs, and the sound of gurgling….
and then silence and the tinkling of windchimes….
Big brown eyes atop gaze at Elizabeth as her eyes flutter open and then close again.
Elizabeth can see the head and shoulders and the serious face, she can see the lips up and down and round and round …..
Elizabeth drifted off to sleep.
September 19, 2009 at 12:16 am #2327In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“So how was your lunch date with your new best friend?” Harvey sounded distinctly sarcastic, even to Lavender’s forgiving ears.
“Oh, you know …”
Harvey raised his eyebrows. No mean feat when you have a book balancing on your nose. He sighed, and let the book fall. A few months ago he was balancing four poster beds, and now he could barely manage a Lemoine novel. Heavy as they are! He sniggered to himself. Oh well, at least I havn’t lost my sense of humour, along with my sense of smell!
“Well, to be honest Harvey .. I think I may have been possessed by those pesky aliens. I suddenly came to and I was talking all this rubbish about ‘random quote generators’ and using words like ‘dear’.
Lavender shuddered in horror at the memory, and then rolled her beautiful eyes and sighed. “Poor Ann, I think she is a really tortured soul.”
The writer wondered if it was time to add a dark side to Lavender’s personality. All this beautiful eyes business was getting a tad irritating, the beauty of Lavender’s eyes not withstanding. Not to mention her lips which she painted a bright shade of amaranth for every day wear, and on special occasions, rose madder. The writer wondered if the last thought made sense and wondered again how to strike out text. The writer decided to try that last line again.
Lavender shuddered, and then with an enigmatic smile which even her good friend Harvey found hard to decipher, she said softly, “I ate olives for lunch. They were yummy.”
The writer sighed and then noticed the random quote generator said “mean cleaner coming soon.” The writer wondered if it was a sign.
September 17, 2009 at 9:30 am #2310In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“I never knew anyone have so many haircuts!,” Becky said huffily to Tina. “I suppose your latest one is okay though, it has that sort of casual, sexy … I just got out of bed and can’t even be bothered combing my hair look.”
Tina smiled kindly at Becky. Poor old Becky, her hair never really grew back properly after all the stress of the wedding fiasco.
“Well, we will both need new haircuts if we are going to Paris in June for the Be Free, Be Me! conference”, she said cheerfully.
June 20, 2009 at 11:38 am #2627In reply to: Strings of Nines
The word flounder popped into Yolands head, and for want of the inspiration to do anything meaningful, or even useful, she googled flounder. She was astonished to find so many varieties of flounder, and recognized that she was counterparting with quite a number of them.
There was the Crosseyed flounder that she felt an affinity for, at the end of an evening of trying to sort out her photos; Alcock’s narrow-body righteye flounder, which was what she felt like in a bed full of male dogs every night, and she could relate to the Antarctic armless flounder when she couldn’t keep track of the Antarctic thread. Barfin flounder reminded her of the green icon and her friend Finn; Bigmouth flounder ~ Yoland sighed, she definitely felt a connection to that often enough. Blotched flounder, well that sounded a bit like botched ~ there were many occasions when Yoland felt that everything she did was botched, half done and messy. Chain-mail wide-eyed flounder when she dabbled a bit in past lives, and the Disc flounder when she got her music in a muddle. The Dark flounders were the worst, when everything seemed to take on the tone of a horror movie, but they were often followed by a Deep flounder, which sometimes contained a few insights, more often than not promptly forgotten.
Yoland sighed. Imagine counterparting with just about every flounder known to man! She decided she wasn’t the only one counterparting the European flounder, which was a releif, nor was she the only one counterparting the Fantail flounder, although at least it could be said that she wasn’t a complete fan of anyone in particular, dead or alive, she was a fantail of quite a number. There were long spells of resonating with the Finless flounder; Finn was always disappearing, or so it seemed to Yoland. Very rarely she felt an alignment with God’s flounder, thankfuly she wasn’t often prone to dwelling on God things.
Ah, the Gray flounder, yes she’d had a bit of a flounder when Gray sent all those photos of the Beltane Dance, she’d had a flounder for sure in amongst all those. Looking back though, she’d had fun with the mummy and Ella Tindale in the Gulf flounder…
Yoland had to laugh when she came across the Intermediate flounder. Yoland wondered if the majority of her foundering was counterparting with the Intermediate flounder and decided she was probably too intermediate to work it out objectively anyway. She often had a tussle with the Large tooth flounder, lordy, she was always floundering with dental issues. And the Largescale flounder, that really was the biggest ongoing flounder of them all, the sheer vastness of everything.
Every now and again, less than previously though, Yoland had a Melbourne flounder on Saturday nights, and rather enjoyed it, but not as much as she enjoyed a good old New Zealand flounder.
Another flounder Yoland always enjoyed was an Olive wide-eyed flounder, roaming around the ancient olive trees of Andalucia, wide eyed and awestruck with the beauty and history of the place. She also enjoyed a Peruvian flounder on occasion, too ~ she’d even had a dream recently about floundering around by the mysterious doorway of Amaru Muru. The next night she’d had a River flounder, dreaming of the river in the Grand Canyon.
Sand flounders were the best of all though, Yoland recalled many happy flounderings in the world of sand and all its Subulmantium configurations. The trouble with the sand flounder was that it often morphed into the largescale flounder, and got quite out of hand.
Yoland sighed, it had been ages since she’d felt connected to the Seven pelvic ray flounder, what with Dan working nights. She was beginning to feel like a Shelf flounder. However, at least thanks to her new diet of replacing meals with flans, chocolate mousses and ice cream, she was closely aligning now with the Slender flounder.
The ongoing slug issue with the cat food was obviously because she was still strongly aligned with the Slime flounder. Notwithstanding, Yoland was rather pleased to note that despite her morose and petulant mood this morning, it had to be said that she often counterparted with the Smooth flounder; although that was easy to forget in moments of quiet desperation when the floundering got out of proportion.
Smiling, Yoland remembered the dream of feet touching when she noticed there was a Sole flounder too. And how often the Spotted flounder popped up, she was always spotting clues. Well spotted! she would tell herself. Oh, and the Stone flounder, wasn’t that the truth! Yoland was aligning strongly with that lately, smoking more than ever, somehow striving for either inspiration, or perhaps oblivion.
Oh well, I guess this is just a Summer flounder, it will pass, Yoland decided (who was secretly glad that she was nearing the end of the list of flounder names). And sure enough, the next on the list was the Three spotted flounder, surely a good sign! A probability change perhaps! As if to validate Yolands impression, she noticed the Tile-colored righteye flounder. There was even a Warthog flounder, which seemed to ring a bell with a recent entry to the Reality Play.
Best of all was the Windowpane flounder, Yoland felt she would even go so far as to say that this was her new focus animal. Well, she thought, if I am making this all up, I can make that up too!
Thankfully Yoland reached the end of the flounder list, rather pleased that it had ended on such an amusing and encouraging note.
Being closely aligned with flounders wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
June 17, 2009 at 1:37 pm #2624In reply to: Strings of Nines
The newly deceased Shar and Gor…
“Shouldn’t he say something less grim you think?”
“I definitely agree my dear Shar”
“Something like in-ceased, or up-ceased… We’re ascended after all!”
“I’m not so sure it sounds better, but…”Well, them being up-ceased, involved a new challenge for the writer(s) of this story, as the two blusterously boisterous ladies were in a desperate move to attempt sending communication to the objective world —officially to discover the extent of their influence. Their new-found access to the collective subconscious made them all the more a trouble for the writer(s).
Anyway, as we speak, Shar and Glor, were… or are actually trying to influence some characters and hence co-authors of this work of fiction to test their own ability to manipulate some of these individuals.
So far the extent of their experiments had fared tepid results.
“OK. Let’s try with these two. I’m beaming something down to them!”
To which, moments and some non-physical sweating on Glor’s brow later, one of the two subjects of this experiment (the blond one) blurted out without knowing from where it came: “Spiggot on the spike freak, Lingenburg Dash”
“What the hell was that Glor?”
“Good Lord, I don’t have any idea!”
“What was it supposed to be then!?”
“I just beamed them ‘Speaking now without mike – leap if you ain’t dead’!”
“Good grief… Those two might as well be hopeless…”Of course, unbeknown to them, in other potential realities, what she really beamed to them was entirely different; something like ‘Speaking now – dead to the living – leap and bound if you catch’… Subsequently, Ann’s catch was in fact an indication of great disposition to tune into more than one probabilities at a time, the benefits of which were lost to the poor dabbling souls.
But this point notwithstanding, as they were speaking, another potential just appeared at the horizon. A woman named Yoland, with an improbable ability to express strings of thoughts inspired from above (anywhere that ‘above’ might be) without much distortion.
“Have to tread carefully with that one, Glor”
“Yes, I reckon dear…”
“We could even manage to fully channel her body, she seems a perfect candidate!” Sharon would have rubbed her hands with glee if she’d had hands still.
“Innit a bore though that she would ask for such grand truths…”
“Not to worry, we’ll invent them as we walk. I’ve even got an idea for session one with her: the great cluster of Mamarose of energy essential oils.”June 14, 2009 at 2:57 am #2259In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
And please just stop barging in here unannounced! Unless you are back to explain the “Eau de Nil” remark, called out Lavender from her bedroom where she a moment ago she had been snoring like a wart hog.
June 14, 2009 at 2:47 am #2256In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Lavender stormed off to her bedroom, and threw herself on the bed. The flu was making her irritable, and she knew she was being snarky but couldn’t seem to stop herself. She sighed, and tried to relax. Within minutes she was fast asleep, snoring like a wart hog.
June 3, 2009 at 2:01 am #2048In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
Gave large,
Easily.Bed leave:
Remember world forgotten?
Heard building events?
Book?Against stories,
Future…Whatever!
May 29, 2009 at 8:50 am #2240In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Lavender was not really sure she understood what Harvey was talking about.
Poor thing. Does he feel like a frog with no sense of purpose? she wondered. The injury to his nose had been devastating of course, yet Lavender firmly believed that there was purpose to all things.
If you don’t believe that, then the whole system falls down, she had said to Harvey, in her sympathetic AND adorable voice.
What system is that? asked Harvey gloomily, wishing he had a voice like Lavenders. Since the accident there had been a distinct nasal twang to his voice. He thought miserably of how quickly W.A.R.P.E.D. had released him from his contract following a complaint from Sha and Glor after he had dropped the four poster bed. The additional weight of dear Lavender had just been a little too much, even for HIS nose. Not only that, he had he lost his weightlifting vocation and his good looks were also severely compromised. The surgeons had not been overly optimistic that his nose would ever completely recover.
well you weren’t really THAT good looking, said the softly voiced Lavender, hoping to cheer Harvey up.
May 21, 2009 at 2:17 pm #2602In reply to: Strings of Nines
Ann was chuffed to see that she’s accidentally nabbed the 111th comment.
May 21, 2009 at 2:14 pm #2601In reply to: Strings of Nines
Yoland decided to stick to fiction for awhile rather than the reporting of facts. She would even go so far as to disguise the facts to look like fiction, because fiction never got you into trouble, so she was inclined to think after the mornings rude awakening. If she simply said ‘I made it up’ in future, well, it seemed an easier way. Yoland decided to talk to herself for the forseeable future too, rather than to anyone else. She would make up characters to talk to, but it would all be made up, none of it would be the reporting of facts. She was through with facts, facts were too much trouble. Making it all up was easier.
While she was eating her marmite buttered toast, she opened the book at random that she had taken to bed with her the previous night, but hadn’t opened.
Once again, Yoland exclaimed “What a coincidence”, and wondered if coincidences would ever cease to be enchanting and fun. She doubted it, somehow. Each coincidence was always such a tiny tantalizing glimpse of so much more.
“…..you merely perceive a small portion of any given action,” Yoland read, “and when you cease to perceive it then it seems to you that the action itself ceases, and so an artificial boundary is erected.
“It has not occured to you, you see, to attempt to look OVER this boundary, so to speak, because you have taken it for granted that nothing exists on the other side. I am not here speaking necessarily of death, though this is the obvious instance of course. I am speaking of something much more subtle. I am speaking of ANY small seemingly insignificant action that you perform during an ordinary day, and HERE we are coming close.”
Yoland reckoned Seth was pretty close to what she’d been saying the previous night.
“You percieve only the most initial elements of such an action. It is as if you threw a ball, and could only follow the ball three inches away in space ~ then the ball would seem to vanish to you. The action would therefore seem completed. You would think it idiotic to imagine what happened to the ball when you could see it no longer, for habit would work in such a way that the disappearance of the ball would seem natural and normal, and a part of the nature of things.
“So, comparing the ball to an action, you perceive but the smallest portion of any given action, even one performed by yourself. It does not occur to you that there is more to perceive.”
Yoland was inclined to agree. Then she suddenly remembered that she was making it all up from now on, and went for a stroll around the Kasbah.
April 30, 2009 at 10:13 am #2564In reply to: Strings of Nines
Yoland woke up feeling lighter somehow. The sun was shining, the young puppy, Phunn, scampered about without a care in the world as she perused the morning mail. The random daily Circle of Eight’s quote once again delighted her, synchronizing with her recent meditation.
“Fiona woke suddenly from a dream. In her dream she had been communicating with her online friends, through drawings and messages. She had been trying so hard to convey something, and the more she tried to say it, the more distant they felt to her.
She had woken feeling saddened. Her energy was greatly disturbed, and, unable to get back to sleep straight away, she meditated. She felt herself connect with the energy of a Snowy Owl, who invited her wordlessly to ask her questions. The Owl’s eyes seemed to have such a depth of wisdom and kindness, and no sooner had her thoughts begun to ask their questions, than she would feel the Owl’s answer merge with her own knowing.
She felt herself being able to say without words what she had tried so hard in her dream to convey, and understanding there was no need for any effort, she felt greatly comforted, and peaceful sleep swept over her again.”
Yoland had sent an email to her freind KX about her meditation, as her freind had unexpectedly popped up in it, in a wonderful pastel watercolour world:
The elevator stopped with a shudder and the doors slammed open. The landscape looked a bit too airy fairy for me (not real enough, haha!) and I nearly got back in the elevator. It was all aqua blue and pastel and floaty, like a watercolour world. Then I saw you, waving your arms around, painting the air with trails of pastel colours with your fingertips. You were smiling and wearing a pale blue shirt. You wrapped me round with spirals of colours from your fingertips and then I flew upwards into the dark blue. You tossed me a paper toilet roll to use as a silver cord, which I tossed back to you after a bit cos it felt a bit silly, and then you sent a burst of colours as an acknowledgement
KX had responded:
“Yoland!!That is very very cool! I’ve been “out there”! I’ll bet you I was changing the toilet paper roll at the moment you were in the Watercolor World ! Meanwhile so many things are coming together for me in how to create and how to hold my attention where I want it… Imagination is a key ~ Love you! I will beam over in a minute. KX”
Smiling, Yoland checked the latest blog updates. Sahila had posted some Possum photos, and the first thing that Yoland saw was the white owl in the fork of the tree behind the possum.
April 29, 2009 at 11:45 am #2562In reply to: Strings of Nines
Yoland felt tired and deflated somehow. Weary, perhaps that was it, weary of the way she always felt when the animals were sick or dying. It was all very well to look at it logically, that with so many animals with such relatively short natural life spans that there would always be some coming, some going, but it was the way it made her feel that was so tiring. Responsible, as if she could have done more, or guilty that they were reflecting her energy somehow. It was all very well to say that the animals were creating their own reality, that would be easy enough to accept in some cases such as old age and diseases, but Yoland almost wished she’d never learned that they reflect her own energy, that always made her feel even more responsible than she already did.
The black cat was dying. Yoland had made up her mind to take her to the vets that morning. That was another dilemma she’d faced often enough, too ~ would the animal prefer to die naturally at home? Or was it in too much pain, and would it prefer to end it quickly? How could she know? Yoland supposed she did always know, in the end, which was to be the choice, but there was always the agonizing period of time beforehand when she wondered which decision to make. But the black cat had disappeared and she couldn’t find her to take her to the vets after all.
When she’d made the decision to take the black cat to the vet that morning, Dean accidentally knocked a photograph of her first dog, Joe, off the wall. He was the first of her dogs to go, and a good age for a big dog, fourteen years old, and Yoland had known all along that he would die at home, and sure enough, he had. One day Yoland knew he was close to the end, and less than 24 hours later, he lay on his bed, and just gradually stopped breathing. Yoland hadn’t even been quite sure of the moment in which he went, as she held his head, she asked Dean, Do you think he’s dead? Dean replied, If he’s not breathing he is. It was a silly question, really, of course Yoland knew that if you weren’t breathing you were dead. As deaths go, it was peaceful and easy. They took him in the car to a place in the woods and buried him, somewhere where the ground was soft enough to dig; it was high summer and the ground was hard and dry. It wasn’t until Joe was covered with earth that Yoland cried.
Yoland cried again as she remembered Joe, and then she wondered if perhaps his photograph falling off the wall that morning was a message ~ perhaps a message that the black cat was choosing to die at home too, her own little niche somewhere, wherever that might be, wherever the roof cats slept. Maybe Joe was reassuring her that he’d be there when the black cat got there, in that field of flowers where the animals played while they waited for us to join them.
It was a comforting thought. Yoland reached for the tissues.
April 26, 2009 at 2:25 pm #2547In reply to: Strings of Nines
Ann wasn’t altogether sure what Godfrey meant when he referred to her new interest in continuity. Ann had always been interested in connecting links, yes, of that there was no doubt, but with so very many connecting links, and so many possible strings of connecting links, with so many possible divergences into yet more strings of connecting links, Ann really couldn’t fathom how anyone could possibly keep track of all those threads of continuity. Even a seemingly discontinuous assortment of unconnected links, once connected into a nonsense thread, became another continuity string. Furthermore, Ann continued ~ in a continuous fashion ~ to ponder, if everything is connected, then what, in actuality, was all the fuss about continuity? What exactly then WAS this concept of continuity? It seemed to Ann to be more like a string of barbed wire, or one of those flimsy but effective electric wire fences, boxing in the free flow of continuity, so that the objectively perceived continuity stayed rigidly within the confines of the preconceived tale. The inner landscape knew no such boundaries, although admittedly the inner landscape was far too vast to map.
Ann smiled to herself as she imagined trying to push pins into various inner landscape locations, tying strings from one to another, in an effort to map and label the inner continuity connections. Of course she was imagining it in a visual manner, because it was hard to imagine all those connections and strings being invisible and not taking up any space, and before long Ann’s inner map of pins and strings quickly resembled a tangle of overcooked spaghetti, perilously speckled with sharp pointy pins.
The image of the glutinous tangle dotted with sharp shiny pointers led Ann off on another tangent, but it was a tangent that soon became utter nonsense. Or was it, she mused. Perhaps it was those symbolically sharp pointy bits that in fact pointed out the immense variety of potential other continuity threads to choose from. Indeed, it could easily be said that having one of her characters dumped in Siberia in the previous story, painful though it was, was not unlike being pricked by a pin amidst the tangle of sticky pasta, a brilliantly effective pointer towards unlimited new directions.
Whichever way she looked at it (and Ann was aware that she might have gone down a side string) she simply couldn’t comprehend how anyone on this side of the veil could possibly even begin to understand the ramifications of the concept of continuity at all. Or how there could ever conceivably be a lack of it.
What was really intriguing Ann at this particular juncture of the experimental exploration of the story was the concept of the World View Library. This wasn’t unconnected to the continuity issue, far from it, it was all tied in (Ann sniggered at the unintentional pun) and connected. There were any infinite amount of potential continuity threads leading from, say, one persons desire or intent, to a particular world view in the library.
AHA shouted Ann, who at that moment had an ‘aha’ moment. Pfft, it’s gone, she sighed moments later.
Ann tried to catch the wisp of an idea that had flitted through her awareness. She had a visual impression of the library, endlessly vast and marvellously grand, with countless blindfolded characters dashing through, grabbing random pages or sentences, bumping into each other, snatching at phrases willy nilly, dropping notes along the way, and racing back out again into the ether. A stray thought here, a picture there, a name or a date, all on separate bits of crumbled paper clutched in the sweaty palms of the blindfolded characters as they rushed headlong back to their own realities to proudly share the new clues. Like magpies they were, snatching at anything that glittered brightly enough.
“I thought you said they were blindfolded?” interrupted Franlise.
Ann ignored the interruption, and continued ~ in a continuous fashion ~ to ponder the imagery of the library.
What the undisciplined purloiners of random snatches didn’t notice on their pell-mell excursions into the library were the characters in the library who weren’t wearing blindfolds. They smiled down from the galleries, calmly watching from above the mayhem that the news of the unlimited library access had occasioned, chortling at the scenes of chaos below. They smiled indulgently, for they too had first visited the library blindfolded, snatching at this and that, and racing home again to inspect the booty; they too had fretted and pondered over the enigmas of the incomplete snippets. Eventually (or not, it was after all a choice), they had bravely removed the blindfolds, slowed the mad race into a sedate stroll through the library, opened their eyes and looked around, sure of the way back home now, and not in a desperate hurry to blast in, snatch anything, and run back home.
After awhile, they began to realize that all the enchanting glittering jewels scattered around to catch their eye would still be there later, there was no urgency to grab them all at once ~ although, as Ann reminded herself, that too was a choice ~ some may well choose to be eternally snatching at glittering jewels.
Ann frowned slightly and wondered if she’d lost the thread altogether, and then decided that it didn’t matter if she had.
It was a choice, therefore, to remove ones blindfold, and stroll through the library ~ a choice to perhaps choose a book, sit down at a polished oak table and open it, a choice to stay and read the book, rather than ripping out a page and dashing back home. That would be one choice of continuity, a coming together of strings.
Ann wondered whether that would then be called a cable, or a rope ~ well perhaps not a rope, she decided, that had other associations entirely ~ but a cable, yes, that had associations of reliable and regular communications. There were always strings of continuity, then, strings of connecting links, between anything and everything, but when one stopped dashing about clutching at the sparkley bits, one might form a cable.
Or not, of course. Thin strings of continuity and connections were not ‘less than’ thick cables of reliable and regular communications. It has to be said though, Ann reluctantly admitted, that thick cables often made more sense.
She decided to hit send before embarking on a pondering of the meaning of Sense.
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