Search Results for 'bet'
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Search Results
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In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Just behind the plumpy panting woman who was coming to the campfire, Balbina could see the most interesting waddling goat she had ever seen coming along.
“And I suspect the goat talks too?” Balbina asked Yuki.
“Oh, yes… lots even… But don’t expect to understand all she says” Yuki added with a bwink.Hahaha, Balbina was amazed. That place was the most delirious dream/out-of-body projection she’d had in a long long time. How entertaining.
“Beh, don’t be fooled, Balbina dear, it’s all real. And you’ll know very soon.” the goat started to greet her.
“And you are?”
“Rafaela, at your service.”
“How many more like you are there here? I’ve never seen such a funny zoo…”
“A great deal actually” answered Yuki “but not so many of them are focused in this form. You still have to meet our dear Armowlle, who is doing some spying business and occasional rescue missions on the island, and our soft Arailynx who is on more subjective missions currently…”Balbina was wondering “and why did you say I’ll know very soon?” she asked the goat.
Rafaela answered with a mysterious smile “Because I’m planning to communicate a way out of this island to two of my little protégés, and I expect some of these people will follow. And you are very likely to meet them in the flesh when they get there.”
“Really?!” Balbina was amazed. This dream was taking qualities of realness she wouldn’t have suspected the least it to have.“Now,” Yuki cut short the amazement moment “we need to have those among our friends willing to leave, to be prepared to leave at dawn.”
“Okay” Anita, who had been seated on the sand quietly till then, rocking gently from side to side in a calm meditation, said softly.
“Oh, she really can feel us talking…” Balbina said more to herself than to anyone else. And looking closely at the girl’s energy field, she could see how expanded it was, reaching those of Yuki, Kay the spirit dog, and Rafaela and even hers in luminous threads.
“Not all of them are leaving tonight” answered Yuki to her unspoken question. “I think Anita and her parents will, but it’s more than probable than the others will stay. Some have business to do here, and others are in vacations huhu…”
“You’re right, seems like the one with the strange energy field is gone already?”
“Oh Claude, you mean. Yes. His mummification experience wasn’t too pleasant, and he has unfinished business with the people of the island; no wonder he prefers to stay here on his own.”(on the beach, around the campfire, in Regional Area 1, or physical reality)
— Awww, plane-crash you say? ‘ow wonderful… Mavis was chatting with Akita. Ye need to come with me, ye can’t stay ‘ere all night. Besides, Shar and Glaw will be so thrilled to see you. And we were starting to think it was all boring ‘ere; didn’t know they would have real survivors like on real-TV!
— Aaron and his family … they would probably need some better shelter, I assume. This probably would be best for us to come with you… Akita answered. And apparently, Claude has left, so that’s just us…
— Owlright then! Mavis beamed, come with me handsome! she said, clutching the soldier’s muscular arm under hers.
— Don’t worry Akita, we’ll follow you, said Anita to the soldier who was visibly appealed by the woman but was also weary to leave Anita alone with her sleeping parents. Besides, we can see the lights behind the trees, it’s very near…— See you there Anita! Akita said to Anu
— Bye Akita! And don’t worry, Kay is always with you she said with a mysterious smile.As they walked side by side to the facility, Mavis said “Kay? A friend of yours?”
“Oh, my lost dog… Nothing to worry about” answered Akita absently.In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
7:33:59 AM 8-19-08 ∞1da Geolocation Time.
days of sleeping slip by. the light on the peaks soft, golden in the cool dawn. a shiver. the water would be cold but thirst is a motivating factor. movement would mean warmth. birds flitting from branch to branch…
stones to perch on. river jade at my finger tips. the babble of a quickly flowing stream. scooping with one hand to drink from a clear pool, the musky scent of cedar and low water.
across the wide stream, a river. actually. no. the amount of water between a stream and a river. a young buck, head bent low also drinking. antlers. how are years marked again? two prongs on each side. is that two years after reaching mating age? or four. no matter. eyes latch across rapidly flowing water. we watch each other. both still, both quiet. both recognizing in each other another survival being of dreams.
dream memory extending into long ago. no. longer than that. the rules to colonizing a planet. simple universal rules. one band of survival beings with a limited number of nuclear families from any survival being group that wishes to expand into livable planets. set down in one place – with nothing. no food. no implements. not even clothes. if they survive they colonize. if not. well. the universe is full of tried and failed experimentation. The pulse of all that is drawn into a black hole. drawn in and back out through tunnels of light that are trapped within the black hole…
the fact that more than one form of survival being can attempt to colonize one planet at any given time is both an advantage and a disadvantage. they become resource for each other as well as competition – resource and competition, as is all that is within and upon the planet.
still that cave, that First Cave. on the tip of the continent in the southern hemisphere… blue ocean view… a beginning that is long ago. how long ago? 160,000 planet years? 200,000 thousand planet years? late arrivals as we are, this is where our colonization is now. Digging to find those memories and what is left of that initial arrival…
walking up this valley on the other side of a continent, an ocean away from First Cave… funny how time advances forward and backward in both directions – in all directions – and remains the same. This now is the same now as that now and remains the same in both directions as it passes around each of us.
the sun trickling across the tips of trees lower and lower into the valley. another half an hour and it will be in my face.
might as well eat breakfast while I walk. thimble berries, currents, oh! yarrow. i could make tea. – if I made fire. If I had fire… or i could make yarrow tea because i have sun. . .
at peace within because i know i am returning to the High Portal Cave on the mountain, near the timberline. the central entrance, near the ancient pine. The safe harbor of the High Portal Cave, the entrance to a multitude of passageways, interconnecting chambers and stunning connecting points that open beyond this time and beyond this continent – before and after this continent. probably, through the right passage way opening beyond this planet. I don’t know that, it makes sense that it does. I believe I will find out in my memory or in my future. i remember some of these things and places. not all of them. i remember entering, finding the stone trough of water with the wooden drinking bowl on the damp ledge. i remember passageways that lead to incredible places and times. why return now? without knowing i know. this is the way it is because this is the way it will become.
warm sun on my chest. warm from walking. birds, quiet as i approach, resume their constant foraging as i pass. along the shore the constant sound of the river stream like the white noise of the universe, beautiful and ever present so that if i am not mindful i no longer hear it.
a walking stick. ok, a broken branch caught between boulders. still green enough to be strong, almost as thick as my forearm with little taper and altho it is not straight, it is a head taller than i am – perfect. a walking stick. a walking staff. i work it loose from the rocks. strange markings… the hand of an intelligent being – a gift then.
do images become visible on these pages or only the thoughts and sights from within my mind, i wonder. i try to remember not to believe all that i think… if i wonder… then do i attempt to find out? yes, often enough, yes. and why is short hair exciting, new, a sign of adventuring? changes. oh. perhaps. or perhaps it’s a way of changing breath. I smile. I walk on.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Fumbling through the huge pile of paper, Elizabeth cried in anguish “it’s oowful, there’s too much stuff in those jumbled foolders!”
Her cry had made some of the tiny goats faint and as she started to look around, she found herself in the middle of what looked like a battlefield from the Rooman times, with Robert the magpie dancing gleefully on goats all four legs in the air.:goat:
Nervously, she reached for her cigarettes, only to send the pack flying in the trash with her chaotic movements. “booger, booger!”. As she went crawling under the desk, she saw that tooday’s newspaper had a chubby statue on the front page ( Oostrians fete voluptuoos, prehistoric Venoos ).
“What’s that? She looks familiar that one” thought Elizabeth, the form of the statue vaguely reminding her to go check with her aesthetic surgeon if any more work needed to be done since the last time, three weeks ago.And now, look at that, it’s almost like in dear Harry Pooh’ter
“ That Venoos is made from oolitic stone (meaning egg stone)… “
But seeing the cinders of her freshly lit cigarette were almost lighting up a fire from her notes, she almost forgot to put that new thing in her clooh box.
In reply to: The Story So Far
The Alienor Dimension, Georges and Salome
Dory (in our current timeline/space reality) meets Georges in a cave in Madagascar during her trip.
Georges doesn’t explain much, but we get the feeling that, though human, he’s a Traveler, crossing bridges through dimensional veils.
Sanso, who we happen to meet at times, is supposedly another type of Traveler too, but apparently happier to cross earth-bound space veils rather than time or other-dimensional ones.Georges is closely linked to Salome. They are involved in the Alienor Dimension, another parallel universe, which was initially used as the set of the first story bits and in which they are involved at some historical points of importance.
The Alienor dimension is composed (as we know now) of a central sun named Alienor, and a few planets.
One of these planets is the Duane, which is a planet similar to Earth, except having easier access to magic, and having dragons, where the characters of Malvina, Arona, Leörmn, Irtak, Badul, Tomkin etc. are supposedly living. A map of parts of that planet was drawn somewhere in the archives.
There are two major historical plots occurring; one in a time parallel to our own, with Malvina, Arona, Badul’s explorations etc. And another, occurring what we would call centuries earlier, with Lola and her dragon, and the Yellow Princess Atiara story-arc (see Araili’s notes).
Somewhere in between, many years before Arona’s timeline, there is a subplot with Franiel, the monastery succession, the chalice and other magical artifacts. As far as we know, it ties to the other epochs thanks to Madame Chesterhope and Vincentius’ story.
Madame Chesterhope is, we found out, known to Georges in his youth, when he first met Salome. Madame Chesterhope is originally from our dimension (Earth, around 1800s something?) but has learned how to travel and is thus able to move through dimensions, and has a few special powers, presumably thanks to artifacts she gathered along her trips.Another twin planet is the Murtuane, where there are giant eagles (counterparts of dragons), “mermaids”, zentauras (zebra-centaurs), green-skinned people, and purple beaches. This planet remains to be explored more in depth.
The third planet, the Phreal, is rarely spoken of, as its vibration was changed before even the first epoch, and is no longer ‘seen’. Guardians, a special race of this Alienor Dimension with great mastery of the energy manipulation powers are involved within most of the historical changes, and in this one in particular.
Malvina’s explorations are linked to those of her two “sisters”, each paired with a dragon. Initially she’s a healer, but recent developments have made her change locations a few times in space/time, and those alterations have inserted probabilities in the “past”. She has known Leonard, who is also a Traveler and who is linked to Franiel’s subplot.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Finnley looked appraisingly at her reflection in the mirroor of the staff toiloots. She turned her head, surveying herself from different angles. Sure, her hair was cut very short, but she had always thought it looked quite fetching and stylish, and so easy to care for.
She turned over the empty cleaning bucket so she could stand on it to get a better view of her body in the mirroor. Perhaps the baggy blue cleaning dungaroos she wore were not the most flattering on her slim figure, yet incredibly practical nonetheless, with 6 large pockets. She had bought several pairs on special, so she could alternate them.
That Elizabeth Tattler was clearly just one of the mindblown ones. Mad as Almad.
And getting worse by the day!
Perhaps it was just THAT time of the moonth, but for some reason Elizabeth’s insistence on referring to her as a male had really hurt Finnley today. Ever since she had attempted to help Elizabeth with the Island story by modifying the love scene , just slightly, Elizabeth had been intent on undermining Finnley’s sexooality. Not only that, she appeared to be fabricating Finnley’s involvement with the noovel she was writing. Just yesterday she had overheard Elizabeth telling her publisher, Bronkel, that Finnley was telepoothically implanting evil suggestions in her head.
Finnley shook her head again, this time in bewilderment. For Foocks sake, someone should do something about that woman, before it is too late!
Studying herself in the mirroor again she undid the top 3 buttons of the shirt she was wearing under her dungaroos and made a mental note to buy a poosh-up bra after work today. She mussed her hair up in what she hoped was a sexy look and made her way to clean the computer gooks office.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Images floated across the dark screen of Elizabeth’s closed eyes as she lay on the bed. She was aware of the trees rustling in the breeze outside her window, and the soft breathing of the miniature giraffes curled up by her feet. The afternoon heat was intense, heavy and soporific.
An island, strewn with debris; fallen trees and unidentifiable mangled wreckage of a stainless steel tubuler kind; splotches of blue everywhere dried and cracked into oddly shaped human-like-alien forms, and the telltale battered paint can with the word Azure showing, unscathed.
Darkness, damp smells, grey stones and spiders webs, slippery underfoot, bone coldness, and then a glimpse of lime green maidenhair ferns, a shaft of light and the sound of gurgling water….
Water sounds becoming surging tides, roaring pushing sucking head spinning weighty and then silence and the tinkling of windchimes….
A dog barks in the distance, waking the miniature giraffes. Big brown eyes atop slender necks gaze at Elizabeth as her eyes flutter open and then close again.
Last orders gentlemen PLEASE! and a jostle of bodies in the smoke and laughter and babble of voices. A crush of humans across a long wooden barrier for large glass vessels full of foam topped amber liquids. A hush. Silence falls as a glass box perched high in a corner begins to speak. Elizabeth can see the head and shoulders and the serious face, she can see the lips moving, but the silence is total and she can’t hear the words being spoken. The Big Hush, she heard herself think.
Hurdy Gurdy music and a merry go round…..grinning white horses up and down and round and round …..
Elizabeth drifted off to sleep.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Elizabeth frowned as she hung up the telephoone. Finnley’s news was rather disturbing.
“Al has gone crazy!” he’d said. “He is sending everyone to the island and killing spiders and magpies and lord knows what else; that couple with the bad skin, they’ve been stuck inside their hotel room for weeks….”
“Whoo, whoo there, slow down a minute, WHICH couple with bad skin?” Elizabeth asked.
“Your couple with bad skin! They were your characters!” Really, Elizabeth could be exasperating at times, Finnley thought, and not for the first time.
“Oh, yes, them. HHHMMM.” Elizabeth had been silent for so long on the telephoone that Finnley hung up in frustration. He would communicate with Elizabeth telepathically instead.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
First there was a loud bang, that she perceived as a shock wave rippling all around.
Then, she felt a strange flabby thing with bat arms fall into the ocean, while the other energy was coming their ways. “Wow,” she couldn’t help but think; “they’re having unusual nightly activities around for such a small isolated island.”
The dog resting by the fire got alerted then, and tried to wake up the others. But apparently, they seemed oblivious to it.
Then, something stranger happened. The small white rabbit started to talk, as if it had been aware all along.
“It’ll take a while for him to see you again Kay, just don’t yap like a silly dog… Besides, you’ll disturb our guests”
“Guests?” the dog answered back.The moment after, the rabbit had disappeared from the girl’s lap, and was standing between her and the dog.
“Welcome, Balbina”, he told her.“How do you know my name?” she was aghast, unable to say if it was for the talking rabbit, or for the fact it knew her name.
Unperturbed, it continued “It’s a busy night. There are lots of things happening, and we hope you’ll stick around. It may be helpful for our friends here.”
“Er… why not… I mean, yes, sure. And you are?”
“Yuki, at your service. I’m not really a rabbit of course, but that form is convenient”
“And cute too…” she said tentatively
“Thank you”Balbina had never thought a rabbit could blush, but she would have bet it was the closest thing to a blushing rabbit she had just witnessed.
“Sorry to interrupt you,” Kay said, but who are the other guests?
a shrilling voice came as an answer “OOOOooohh a campfire! How cuty pooh! Wait till Sha and Glo see that, we could have some roasted marshmallows and pork chops! I’m feeling soooo hungry…”
“Great… So much for our little secret expedition,” Claude sighed as he woke up.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
4:21:44 PM 8-8-08 1da Geolocation Time.
sometimes the flow climbs a mountain.
pause. step. quick step. pause again. step. upstream another step. the stones solid, smooth, settled beneath my feet with the timeless passing of water. the path of gravity. the rising of a mountain. a rapid, considered, going on pace. sand between the stones. the moments of time. light on the rippling waters flickering. the air transparent, timeless, crisp, cool.
knowing i’ve passed this way before, i pass again for the first time.
it’s good to be back. returning. beginning.
knowing my destination. the cave far above beneath the ancient pine. the boulder near the rough and gnarled trunk, slick and smooth. so hard the sense is of softness gliding with my fingers over the iridescent surface. soft to sit upon, to watch the valley far below extending forever into the distance. soft to recline upon, arcing my back. the warmth of the day in the stone, lingering far into the night to heat my bones. …knowing my destination, i take the next step into all that is new.
sitting near the water. deep transparent pools of green/blue. the setting red sun. a shelter beneath driftwood high on the bank. a myrtle tree draping a blanket of scent over me, opening my soul. with each breath. i watch the light fading into the words echoing through my skull… life is hard… the song…
Life is hard
Anyway you cut it
Life is sweet,
Like a berry from a tree
Life is temptation, baby,
Every single day
Life is hardLife is funny,
I dont mean ha-ha
It‘s not always sunny,
When it needs to be
Life is frightening,
Nothing lasts forever
Life is hardMy time
Is next to nothing
My time
Falls on you, yeah
Everything
Is in motion
Life is hardLife is precious,
No matter how you see it
Life is crazy,
Like yellow fishes in the street
Life is lonely
When you‘re not with me
Life is hardGentlemen
Is that you story?
Hanging religion
From a tree, yeah
My time
Is next to nothing
Life is hardMy time
Is next to nothing
My time
Falls on you, yeah
Everything
Is in motion
Life is hardMy time
Falls on you, yeah
Life is hard
Life is hard– J. Mellencamp – while on the planet earth.
ok. life is also beautiful. – 1da
it’s a cruel crazy beautiful world – J. Clegg – also while on the planet earth.
stars flickering in the fading twilight. the silence of a light breeze as pine boughs begin to whisper. the ache of tall trees swaying in the night with a moan like countless masts on the tall ships of a planet. blink. and i sleep.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Elizabeth was beginning to realize that there WAS no ‘end of the road’, no grand finale, no finish line. Whenever her characters appeared to be nearing the proposed grand point of the story, she found herself following another thread in the impossibly huge tapestry. Maybe she didn’t want it to end, or perhaps it was that there was no ‘point’, no end point to aim for, that it was all just a process, a continual weaving of marvelously coloured threads. Some threads were gaily coloured silks, some were rough and coarse, some were woolly and comforting, and others were plain and functional. There were threads of the most unusual and unexpected fibres, other worldly threads tying the myriad dimensions and chapters together somehow. It really was the most fabulously intricate and absorbing construction.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
“Oh just leave the reader to do the proof reading, Yurick! If ‘there are no accidents’ then a few misspellings or a bit of mangled grammar might contain a clue for someone somewhere, somewhen….
it might be best to leave them in. You never know, you know… and anyway, I have this funny feeling that the pages aren’t quite as officially fixed as we might be inclined to think. Not quite cast in stone, as it were….Don’t ask me what I mean, Yurick,” Dory said with a laugh, “Because I can’t explain it.”Yurick knew better than to ask Dory to explain anything, and remained silent, with one eyebrow raised quizzically as Dory rambled on.
“It’s like the branches of a tree,” Dory continued, with a faraway look in her eyes. “The branches on a tree look like such a tangle, but they are all connected to the trunk ~ the roots might look like a hopeless tangle too, if we could see them, but they do know what they’re doing ~ feeding the trunk or the core which sprouts out all over the place. There’s a bird in the tree, hopping from branch to branch. Does he care if he hops from one branch to another? No! Imagine if the bird was so rigid that he had to hop all along one branch from start to finish before changing to another branch.”
“Hahahah,” Yurick laughed, “A Sumafi bird?”
“You might say the little bird is the present moment, free to hop onto any branch at any time, or even fly to another tree…” continued Dory, who hadn’t heard Yurick.
“Another tree?” asked Yurick with a mock pained expression. “I have enough trees on my plate already.”
“And the thing is with trees, there isn’t really a place to start hopping or a place to stop hopping, from the birds perspective.”
Dory turned to Yurick with a grin. “It’s a book that you can read from any starting point. No beginning, and no end… maybe we can have all the pages loose with no numbers on, sort of a do-it-yourself assembly…”
Yurick laughed, a trifle nervously, and asked Dory if she would like a cup a coffee.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Elizabeth just had a brilliant idea actually.
Why not just print her rumbled heap of scattered notes… just as it is. In four volumes if needed.What Lemone was saying in his Words of Comfort for the Descended already?
It’s not the writer’s job to piece the stuff life is made of together, it’s the job of the reader.
“Bloody good point,” she’d be keoon saying.
Trust the reader to take what they want, read on impulse… Whatever or not… She had a feeling that in the future when people are reading her stuff, that it will make more sense to them than to current day average readers.
She was so leading-edge.Of course, her editor would make a fuss, but he would have no other choice than recognize her genioos.
How exciting it all was.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
The truth was the book was nowhere near finished. In fact the island story she was working on currently was becoming more and more complex. Elizabeth put it down to her own wonderfully complex nature, this insatiable need to add more and more characters, all converging on the island for the dramatic finale.
Finale! She snoorted derisively. Having no idea where it was all going ,if the truth be told, then there was not much likelihood of a finale for quite some time.
A tentative knock on the door. It was that bloody Finnley! Since the sex scene fiasco Elizabeth had banned her entry to her office. Quite a rookus there had been. Still, she had to grudgingly admit, the girl had writing talent! Perhaps she could make use of her. Elizabeth quite fancied herself in the role of a leader, and the idea of Finnley in a sort of subservient underling capacity was tremendoosly appealing to her.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Where in the name of Floove is it?
Elizabeth Tattler held the telepooh away from her ear, and reflected serenely on the dust particles illuminated by the sunlight streaming in the window, while she waited for Bronkel to end his tirade.
She was proud of herself for managing to keep her voodish nature in check and attributed this new found calm to the latest book by Lemone, although unfortunately, with all the brain foog she was experiencing lately she was unable to recall the name of it …. Wisp Away Your Energy Balls?
Well no matter, something like that anyway ….
And what was that bloody man going on about? WHAT deadline for her book! 8/8/08 ???
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Bea sighed loudly, and dragged a tissue across her sweaty face. Leonora obviously hadn’t heard her, so Bea sighed loudly again.
What’s up with you now? asked Leo, who wasn’t really paying attention to Bea’s incessant whining.
Oh I dunno, I just don’t know what I want to do, Bea grumbled. My head’s in a fog. I’ve got hundreds of ideas, but I don’t want to do any of them badly enough to even think about starting anything. So then I try to sort a few thing out, you know, so I can bloody find things again, and I just end up with a big pile of bloody miscellaneous. It’s the bane of my life, all the miscellaneous stuff that defies categorizing. I should have been called Miss A. Laneous. I start to sort things out and then I get sidetracked; I never finish any sorting out, I just end up with more and more miscellaneous….her voice trailed off miserably.
Leo swiveled round in the computer chair, took off her glasses and glared at Bea. Bea, you know you always find what you need by trusting that you’ll find what you need when you need to find it. You’ve told me that time and time again. You’ve droned on and on about that, how you love finding ‘just the thing’ and ‘by accident’ and now you’re sitting there moaning and groaning because for some inexplicable reason ~ Leonora rolled her eyes ~ you think that having things neatly ordered would be a better way.
Well, it would be nice to be able to find what I’m looking for, Leo, Bea retorted.
Well if you found what you were looking for right away, you silly cow, you wouldn’t find all those other magical bloody surprises by friggen accident, now would you?
There’s no need to be rude, Bea said sniffily.
Now it was Leo’s turn to sigh. Why don’t you bugger off outside and find something to appreciate, you grumpy old bat. “Oh! look at this, Bea!” Leo exclaimed, “Look what I just found by accident!”
Leo swiveled the computer screen round so that her friend could see.
“Illi sat up and surveyed her surroundings. The sky was a deep azure blue, the sun was making twinkling stars on the waters of the lagoon, a warm gentle breeze rustled the coconut palm leaves, and birds sang and twittered in the foliage. It was indeed idyllic, and Illi decided to simply enjoy it, while her new ideas formed into a reality.
Illi was enjoying a new found freedom in her contentment, in not pushing her energy in frustration, and meandered happily around the island taking mental snapshots of a thousand delightful and marvelous wonders, appreciating even the smallest most insignificant things. Time lost all sense of meaning: there were deep velvet indigo skies full of sequins, and there were abstract multicoloured sunrises and sunsets; there were cottonwool clouds in cartoon shapes suspended on a canvas of blue. It mattered not the day or night; there was no longer a sense of time passing, just a glorious collage of appreciation and beauty.”
Bea read the excerpt reluctantly, and harumphed.
Oh for Gut’s sake, Bea! Leo was getting exasperated. Try appreciating miscellaneous floundering fog then.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Becky was undecided. Add to the last entry? Or start another? Grinning wickedly, she started another.
Her second impulse selection was a slightly late coincidence, but a coincidence notwithstanding. It was about Sand Dragons . A Few days previously Becky had been to an auction. She bid for and won a first edition copy of Wisp magazine; it had cost her an arm and a leg, but she was delighted with her purchase. It would increase in value, and was a delight to read some of the first published articles of the many authors, poets, artists and photographers who would later become famous. The article about sand sculptures had reminded her of the T.R.A.P. day out.
Well, how about that! exclaimed Becky, reading the rest of the comment. Wish House is one of my most favourites, and I chose it by accident!
She read:
“Illi used to play a game with Cranky (as she affectionately called nanny Chraddock) in the long months while her parents were away, called Wish House. Every room in the sprawling Elizabethan house was a different time and place, and the moment they entered the room they imagined themselves to be different people, in other times. Petunia Duster the maid loved to join in too; consequently not alot of housework got done, but with Gus and Flora always off travelling, nobody minded. Playing was, after all, so much more important than dust. In fact, a thick layer of dust made the rooms all the more mysterious and magical.”
Becky ran her finger along the dust on her desk and smiled.
OH! Becky jumped. I almost forgot to make a note of the number, now what was it? she mused, scratching her head. I think it was 171
Becky wondered whether or not to start another entry. Intuitively, she chose not to. Her third random choice was another synchronicity with the first edition of Wisp: it was about pyramids in Spain. The first edition of Wisp magazine was particularly valuable as it was the first mention in print of the discovery of the Iberian pyramid culture.
Number 835 she noted
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Tina scowled: “What?”
Six at the top means: A goat butts against a hedge.
“Oh, that must be another of Becky’s evil doing…”Al added after a moment: “when I scrap the last line, the draw is not bad either …”
“Oh,” he said, looking at the numbering… “Eighteen to go in eight days…”
“Yes,” said Tina, “we will have to slow down now, better tell Becky that, or she will see our entries and go crazy with new ones”
“Ahahaha” Al couldn’t imagine how Becky would react at someone telling her NOT to do something
— it was like playing “you won’t dare” with a child 
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
“Okay,” Al started.
“At the essence of I Ching, is the notion that everything is mutable, and changes. Everything changes, except the law that says that everything changes.
“In many ways, the I Ching is like a book where the pages numbering change every time you start to read it. Not unlike our story composition.”“I get that,” answered Tina, interested by what would come out.
“So,” Al continued, always disagreeably pondering, Tina would say. “usually, when people are drawing to read from the I Ching, they have six numbers that give an hexagram. And these numbers are carrying into them their potential change, which usually gives another hexagram to read.”
“In our stories, the entries have a fixed identity, which is given by the system; this is our starting point. For your comments, this is ’4-191-328’.
“But as everything evolves, our entries are given an order in the book; this order is changeable, and that’s what I will use for the second hexagram; in your case it’s ’2-151-223’.”
“If you say so…” Tina sighed, a bit lost.
“Oh, I’m inventing the rules as we speak,” Al said trying to reassure her somewhat.
“I don’t know if that makes me feel better” she said.“Okay. Now, I need to create the hexagrams; hexagrams are defined by six straight or broken lines; zero or one, binary system. Here, Chinese usually use the convention that odd is straight, and even is broken… Ahaha, doesn’t seem to make sense, but odd is male, unbalanced into action, and is associated with single, straight things. Broken is paired, complete in reflection, unbalanced in passivity.”
“And I wonder when we actually start to hear something that makes sense?” whispered Tina, a bit crossly.
“Okay, the thing I see, is that I have trouble making one hexagram with seven numbers, ahaha”, Al laughed a bit embarrassed.
“Oh, then no point in wiggling like that” said Tina very sweetly, “Scrap any bit that bothers you”.
“Okay, anyway we can go deeper into them afterwards if needed; I’ll scrap the first number rather than the last, because you see, 2 and 4 are both even, and thus there is no mutation here.”
Original Mutation 8 ╌ 3 — 2 ╌ 2 ╌ 3 — 2 ╌ 1 — 1 — 9 — 5 — 1 — 1 — 4 ╌ 2 ╌ “So here we are, if we scrap the bottom one, we get…”
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Hang on Al!, said Tina, although there was really no need as Al, still pondering, did not seem to be in any particular hurry to enlighten her on all this I-Ching business. I think Becky is trying to telepathically communicate a limerick to me.
Oh well, said Al philosophically, Better to speak nonsense than to be dead or sorry.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
