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AuthorSearch Results
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June 13, 2009 at 2:11 am #2243
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
What would be a good last line? asked Harvey.
What for? Lavender was distracted.
I am going to try my hand at creative writing. Seeing as I can’t do my nose lifting any more. So listen:
Sputum & Pistachio, Editors At Large
Lived on the river in an old blue barge
One liked rabbits and the other liked fishWhat do you reckon?
doesn’t bloody matter they all make a tasty dish, suggested Lavender
June 13, 2009 at 2:05 am #2609In reply to: Strings of Nines
June 7, 2009 at 12:19 am #2608In reply to: Strings of Nines
Becky was liking her dancing courses; there was this funny guy with an outrageously bright canary yellow shirt and a funny accent who taught them some Asian-based moves last time, and she’d been puzzled for awhile, frozen in her tracks and speechless for a moment (which didn’t often occur), as the guy was so weird and yet serious looking that she didn’t know if she should laugh hysterically at his preposterous wiggling butt moves, or keep serious like the others.
That’s where she noticed a girl in the class. Like her, she was lost in wonderment while all of the others where respectfully following the teacher’s movements with a polite straight face.As she was feeling bubbles of hysterical laughter desperately struggling to burst at the surface, she quickly exited the classroom, only to find that the other girl was there too.
“Ahaha, is he some sort of wacko or what?” Becky couldn’t help but laugh even if the other one seemed affected somehow, yet not indifferent to the humour of the situation.
“Bloody oath, yeah… Madder than Almad this one”
“You’re not from here are you?” Becky asked, noticing a delicious variation of British accent in the girl’s voice.
“No, from New Zealand. Name’s Tina, Tina Prout. Well you can forget the last name anyway, I’m going to change that.”
“Delighted, I’m Becky Vane. Would you fancy some vegemite on toast?”
“Sure, let’s get out of here quickly.”
“Toot toot! School’s out!… Mmm, looks like it’s ‘pissing down’ outside… Is that how you say in Kiwi?”June 6, 2009 at 11:55 pm #2607In reply to: Strings of Nines
It all came as a surprise to them. At first, they didn’t want to believe the “others” telling them they were dead. Glor went there first, then Shar shortly after. Apparently some side effects of the beauty treatments they’d taken during their trip in the mysterious island of Tikfijikoo.
They started to believe it when they witnessed their own burial ceremonies. Was a bit strange at first, but soon they couldn’t help but gossip about their friends outfits and hairdos. Then all of a sudden, it was funny! They could go anywhere in the blink of an eye, spy on everyone, and get a good laugh together —and not with just any bloody disincarnate ascended being.
— Shar?
— What Glor?
— What we’re going to do now?
— I think whatever they said about it, I quite liked the island. Perhaps we can pop-in there, have a good party with lemurs, especially now that everybody’s been deserting it.
— Oh yes, and let’s get find that doctor, scare him outta his wits force him make beauty treatments for us!
— Now that’s talking lady!May 23, 2009 at 1:14 am #2603In reply to: Strings of Nines
May 21, 2009 at 12:32 am #2595In reply to: Strings of Nines
“Just do it. Either just do it, or just make something up” she told herself. Again. “Either do it, or make it up, but stop thinking about it and talking about it.” Yoland sighed and turned on the radio. It was an old pink one, the kind with the dials that turn, and a pull out antenna. The antenna was a bit rusty at the bottom and didn’t rotate very well, which made it a bit tricky to get a clear reception without alot of preliminary juggling around and fidgeting. The dogs under her desk scratched themselves noisily as Yoland fiddled with the radio.
“In the backwater….”
“…yes you’ve got the Splain Channel loud and clear now all you have to do is focus on what the next word is and then write it down without thinking about the spelling, as you can see you are looking at the keybaord and tryping”, Yoland smiled at the typo, “the words that you are hearing without trying to anallzye them too much now. ok are you ready? We’re going to do some balloon exercise first to get the ball rolling, you see, there are many ways to blow up a balloon, and I’ll be the first to tell you you’re doing it wrong, I am kidding, of course.”
Yoland smiled, inching forward on the chair to accomodate the dog that had wormed his way round her back, wondering whether or not to move him.
“Your chair is fine the way it is, that’s a very common delaying tactic my freind, and one you are quite familiar with. Now, pay attention once again to simply the words that you hear as you are writing, watching the keys is rather mesmerising is it not….”
Yoland did a quick reality check and agreed that she was feeling a bit mesmerized, and realized that she possibly could feel considerably more mesmerized if she stopped doing reality checks.
“…and as you watch your fingers moving along in a rather detached way, you can detach your attachment to knowing what the next word might be and simply write what you hear; we are practicing the sliding away from the strict hold on trying to anticpate the net words and then you freeze the flow, it shouldn’t be tiring if you let go and relax a bit and simply allow your fingers to move of their own accord while you relax your shoulders…”
What a load of rubbish, thought Yoland, as she adjusted her chair, which had a habit of suddenly dropping down an inch, just enough to make it hard for her to reach the keyboard. Sighing, she wondered about ever getting a satisfactory answer to her Really Big Questions, the ones that nobody had answered so far. All she ever managed to tune into was rambling waffling inane….
“….you feel that your questions are so large that the capacity for distortion is huge, and you feel that other questions are easily answered via other routes and methods, and this is correct.”
Yoland wondered what THAT was supposed to mean.
“Ok we can forget questions then and I will tell you a story.”
Yoland relaxed. That sounded easier.
“Once upon a time there was a beer fisherman from the planet of Oxbloodshire.”
Oh here we go, she thought. What’s coming next…
“Whether or not you find clues in there is entirely your choice to create them, and all are equally valid. This is such a simple thing: that even the most seemingly miniscule sentences contain a myriad of potential diversions and convergences, routes, patterns, nets, from even the tiniest particle of an idea. All of them are boundlessly creative offshoots which become a particular stream, or string.”
Yoland found herself wondering where some of them started, and found she didn’t know where to start.
“With the question of syncronicities every point of them is the start point, the end point, the main point, the moot point, and the connecting links as well, as are all the others. When you get your ball of string in a tangle, it’s easier to throw it away and start a new one.”
Yoland was inclined to agree, but wondered if that sounded like sensible advice.
“Immediately the new one starts linking up all kinds of things in a new interconnected design pattern, and then when that gets in a right tangle, a fresh ball of string awaits; the tangled ones aren’t in a tangle at all when you’re not tangled up within it.”
Well, that certainly sounded resonable, Yoland had to admit.
“And why waste time with old tangles anyway when you can start afresh and just make something up, for no particular reason?”
Bloody good question, why not indeed? Yoland decided to start making things up there and then, and turned her computer off and went to pack her case.
May 3, 2009 at 2:29 pm #2574In reply to: Strings of Nines
“And leave the boys to Gustav! You’re brilliant Shar!”
“WHAT bloody boys, Gloria?” Sharon replied, scratching her head.
“Well you introduced them” Interrupted Godfrey.
To which Ann replied:
“I can’t believe” laughed Sharon “That I forgot all about me ‘usband!”
“I take that back Godfrey” Ann was always willing to admit when she was wrong. “I did introduce them, and I’d forgotten all about them.”
Godfrey sneezed, and disappeared from view.
“So rude the way he just blinks off like that” Ann muttered.
May 2, 2009 at 10:21 pm #2571In reply to: Strings of Nines
“Glor…”
“What dear?”
“Glor, ain’t you bored silly in that cottage?”
“Well Sha, now that our Joe and ‘arry are gone fishin’ all day… and thinking of our glorious days on that island…”
“Tell no more! I was thinking of that too… Would be good to have another beauty treatment for sure…”
“Any idea where that doctor might be now Shar?”
“As a matter of fact, I do…”
“You’re kidding me Shar!”
“I’ve got a cousin in Spain, ya know…”
“Who? Barb?”
“Yeah, Barbie. I’ve got news from her from time to time, when she’s squatting in those tourists houses in Spain while they’re empty in the low season.”
“And what? Tell me all, I’m dying Shar!”
“I’ll tell you if you bloddy stop interrupting! Now, last week, she mentioned she heard from a woman in Spain that they saw a doctor during a silly nut-age conference, he was talking of rejuvenating cures, and she even got a sample.”
“A sample?”
“Yeah, a bloody sample. She told me those silly twats gave them to their dogs! Can you believe it Glor’?”
“The silly buggers! Throwing away precious reejoo-whatever samples!”
“Anyway, the doctor was speaking with whales too. Every year he told them (Barbie told me) going upside down in the sea to upgrade his whale speech.”
“Whale speech you say Shar…”
“Kind of rings a bell init?”
“Hell yeah! I remember Vessie told us about those funny swimming suits for the Doctor. Could be him!”
“You know what?”
“What Shar?”
“I’m having a funny brainwave now… I’m thinking we need some vacation in Spain…”
“And leave Gustav to cook the bloody fish for the boys ! You’re brilliant Shar!”May 2, 2009 at 4:47 am #2568In reply to: Strings of Nines
Franlise was pondering the distorted image she knew Ann had of her. Of course Ann was perhaps not the best judge of character. Her seven failed marriages bore testament to that indisputable fact.
It is a bloody good thing, she mused, that I am so confident of my own inner loveliness. All these disparaging remarks could really begin to get me down otherwise.
Casting an admiring sideways glance at herself in the large, and somewhat dusty, mirror hanging from the wall in Ann’s office, she hurried off for her 3pm meeting with the Fellowship.
April 26, 2009 at 12:49 pm #2546In reply to: Strings of Nines
These past few months away from home had been the occasion for a great deal of introspection.
For one, indulging fully into that somewhat frowned upon habit of his, regarding peanuts, had allowed him to gain a great deal of understanding and acceptance as well. Now his daily ration had dramatically decreased and he didn’t fancy as much as he used to the little round things.Another thing that Godfrey had noticed was the reorganisation that had taken place in all aspects of his life, and to be perfectly honest, his life was still a bit messy in places, but he was slowly getting there. How could a publisher publish anything of common interest without a bit of presentation, henceforth order?
Ann wasn’t too keen on the “O” word —especially when doubled— and surprisingly it always managed to give good results so far. So perhaps now he was settling down, and she was getting her own flamboyant creative juices all ablaze, they would manage to get somewhere. Or anywhere, for that matter.
A Tramway to Elsewhere was Ann’s debut novel, and had made her known to Godfrey. It was a brilliant short story about three tourists lost in a huge hotel in Europe, and trying to get an easy escape to Anywhere. And by some uncanny and hilarious succession of events, they were led nowhere but to Elsewhere.Now, something else was giving him a strange feeling. He didn’t know if that was because of the lack of peanut oil in his bloodstream (or the accompanying whiskeys for what was worth), but he was starting to get slightly paranoid.
He didn’t know where he’d got the idea, but he started to suspect the cleaning lady to not just be a cleaning lady. She was doing her best to keep a low profile, but somehow she wasn’t that good an actress. A thing that started his suspicion was that name… Franlise, eerily reminiscent of the obnoxious yet efficient Finnley in Noo York. Elizabeth had told him they’d suspected her for a long time to have inserted some paragraphs in Elizabeth’s novels, especially the most torrid parts that would have made a pimp blush like a nun. What had saved the cleaning lady was that in addition to being rather forgiving, Elizabeth suffered from frequent strokes of forgetfulness and bipolarity which made the investigation difficult if not moot altogether.But there, Godfrey was rather surprised at Ann’s sudden interest in continuity. He’d known of a covert organization known in the milieu as the Fellowship of Unification and Continuity in Knowledge.
Over the years, the hearsay had amounted to just a few deranged people, but recently there had been an increase in mentions of such nature in reports of the Guild of Authors. Strangely, there was less and less books that were published which had not an impeccable sense of continuity.
In a way, it had been perceived at first in literary circles as a blessing for the authors who had not to contend with fans and geeks of all kind who were hunting down each and every detail to prove or disprove unsaid theories. But Godfrey was starting to see some not so perfect points in that. It would be like wanting to string together all the eyelets of your shoes even if they do not belong to the same shoe (or the same pair of shoes). Soon, you’d be embarrassed to find a way to walk without looking like a penguin.Anyway, though all allegations made as to the existence of such secret organization had been mostly derailed as utter nonsense, he couldn’t help but find some inexplicable appeal to them as sound explanations for all the glitches he kept noticing.
He would carefooly spy on Franlise.April 22, 2009 at 11:02 pm #2535In reply to: Strings of Nines
“Oh bloody hell, Godfrey, I can’t get the font thing to work today either.” Ann wondered if it was anything to do with the tuna imagery she kept getting, then decided that she was clutching at straws. “Who was it that said something about increasingly rubbish?” Ann suddenly wondered.
April 17, 2009 at 4:36 pm #2235In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“Uh Oh. I think Gustav’s got his communication centre jammed again. Bloody ‘ell” exclaimed Gloria. “Any idea how to fix it?”
“Well, I always fix things by giving them a good slap, Glor.” replied Sharon. “The telly, the keyboard, anything really, seems to do the trick, just shake him a bit and give him a good wack.”
April 15, 2009 at 3:35 pm #2507In reply to: Strings of Nines
Bloody hell! Yoland shouted as her last post disappeared
January 14, 2009 at 11:10 am #1284In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Bronkel was stern as ever, yet you could feel in his eyes that he was troubled.
— “What? That’s roobish, isn’t it?”
— “No! Elizabeth! Not at all! It’s your best book in years! Poople will want more!”
— “Well, we’ll see… For now, I think my moose needs some rest”Her detox had done her great. Her beautifool violet eyes weren’t as bloodshot as before, and she could even see some of her hair grow back in places. Elizabeth in some surge of energy had collected all the bits written here and there, loose paper flying at times with some missing (perhaps used during her poohnuts hazes to light fires in the office).
Some of these paper she wasn’t even sure were hers, or writing attempts by Finnley, but she didn’t care; they were all so funny and interesting.For instance, she wasn’t too soore that she’d have Veranassasss —whatever her bloody name was— go off with the pilot of the plane, but that sounded nice for her. So she’d used that part too.
Of course, the Spanish couple, Paqui and Jose had reemerged at the boulder moving party after a long trip in the underground space-traveling tunnels. Leo and Bea were not so glad they’d reappeared so early, but had found it was time to move on, and continue their quest for more bizarre and entertaining artifacts. And they wanted to go to Morocco anyway, in this gorgeous blue city…
Young Becky decided she wanted to go abroad to travel the world. “And study too” had said Dan who wasn’t as shifty as Dory, a thing for which she thanked heavens profusely every day.Sharon, Gloria and Mavis after some more bizarre adventures among the Masai tribes finally found their way back home, while Akita continued his explorations of this strange shifting world of the 21st century.
Even the bizarre animals stories in the ZOO she’d kept. They’d even found Arky the Aardvark. He had been accidentally buried under Oligan the Oliphant’s pile of poop. The poor Oliphant had suffered from an excess of mangoes in his diet, and Arky was so eager to collect poop for his garden of flowers that he hadn’t noticed the harbingers of it.
Pawanie the lady Panda and Barry the White Bear had since then decided to take care of the little Aardvark, and provide it with their own poop to fertilize the flower garden. Theirs was a garden to behold, with the most beautiful flowers to be seen in miles. Attracting creatures from all over the place.There were a few points Elizabeth had left deliberately unanswered; the mad doctor, who was probably still alive somewhere, and most important of all… if, after all this children bearing with Sean, Becky ended up with Sam or not.
One thing was sure though, they were all moving to the City. The sooner the better.January 6, 2009 at 2:11 am #1282In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Speaking of toomoorroow, Elizabeth,there is something I have been meaning to say to you for some time now. Godfrey cleared his throat nervously. Somehow with all our deep, and incredibly meaningful philosoophising about life, I clean forgot to mention it.
Clean is hardly the word I would have used whilst anywhere in the vicinity of this ooffice, muttered Finnley, mostly to herself, as she attempted to dislodge a large spooder web from the corner of the ceiling.
Godfrey hesitated. He looked down and with somewhat unusual preoccupation made spiral patterns in the thick layer of dust on the window ledge.
Godfrey, what is it? asked Elizabeth starting to feel some alarm. Oh in the name of Floove, you haven’t found another Felicity have you!
No, nothing like that. The thing is, you see … well …
Spoot it out! You are driving me Madder than Almad! snapped Elizabeth, losing patience, and craving nicobeck. She knew that meddlesome Finnley would take great delight in reporting her to Mr Arak if she smoked in the ooffice.
Godfrey sighed and looked up, directly into Elizabeth’s beautiful violet, albeit rather bloodshot, eyes.
I have been offered a position managing a poonut farm in Noo Zooland. I start immediately. It is a dream come true for me Elizabeth. I had to accept.
No! screamed Elizabeth.
Yes, I am afraid so. Goodbye dear Elizabeth. We both knew I was a rubbish pooblisher. Why don’t you see if that chap Bronkel will come back?
Good riddance I say! said Finnley as Godfrey walked out the door. You two have done nothing but speak noonsense in a hooty tooty accent since that man arrived.
December 31, 2008 at 2:24 pm #1279In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
With the flood of water that was spilled on the land after the crash of the plastic-wrapping-the-now-melted-iceberg-ship dragged along by the strong pull of the engine for miles inside the lands, a huge pool had started to form that began to gather animals around.
The blessings of the fresh water was in fact such that, not long before they managed to have their feet back on terra firma, the three valiant musketeers Sharon, Gloria and Mavis with their chivalric Akita and his faithful spirit dog Kay were surrounded by the most diverse fauna they’d been seeing in days.
— Lookit that! Can ye believe it?!
— Zebra, zebra,… ZEBRA!
— What’s up with your underwear Glor’?
— Zee-bras, no bloody brassieres! See?!
— Well, no bloody wonder, it just looks like the Serengeti
— What bloody gothic serum?
— Jeeze, Serengeti! In Tanzania… Africa, the land of the Maasai, bloody Lake Victoria et cætera
— Oh, you don’t start getting that snotty tone again…Leaving for a moment the ladies at their cultural talks, Akita went for a walk with Kay, looking for some clues on how to get moving in this faraway place. He’d hoped to reach Egypt and the Suez Canal to get the ladies back to Europe, but obviously the single-use strange iceberg-ship was planned for Africa, and not much further.
Kay always had most puzzling associations to bring up in their conversations. “Well,” he’d say “besides all these blue bulls isn’t it funny that the zebras are a variety of indigo’s…”
“You’re a funny dog”, Akita told him “what is that supposed to mean?”
“Obviously it’s an analogy…”
“A bit too bloody subtle” Akita was starting to talk awfully like the ladies…
“Zebras are symbols for a people who have a funny way of blending in… Or actually to not blend in. They’re symbols of the weirdos of your societies. Affectionately said, of course. I do consider you and your girlfriends a bit on the weirdo side by the way…”
“Well, that’s nice… I suppose?”
“It’s all symbols, and it’s dream-time, so pay attention dear one.”
“If you say so” Akita said with a shrug
“It is not uncommon to find in dream interpretation books some funny sentences likeDreaming of zebras running fast indicates you are interested in fleeting enterprises. If you dream of a wild zebra in its native environment, you might try a pursuit that could bring unsatisfactory results. Beware of those with multicolored stripes.” The Everything Dreams Book
“Now,” Kay was continuing his near-monologue as they were still walking “what is that supposed to mean; if that were a dream you were dreaming, would you use that one-fits-all approach to interpret that zebra dream?”
“Who cares, really, it’s not as if I’m dreaming anyway…”
“Of course, you’d know better; but anyway, that brings me to the multicoloured zebras. There are children who have started some years ago to manifest en masse on this planet with different views, a wildly different approach on life. People around your world have started to label them “indigos”, another shade of blue if you will. I wouldn’t be so circumspect in my dealing with funny coloured animals, if I were you…”
“I’ll be damned if I understood a word of what you just said… Perhaps you’re right and I’m dreaming after all…”
“You can say that again.”December 17, 2008 at 9:47 pm #1256In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
— We’re running out of coffee!
— Bloody ran out of cigarettes for days now!
— There’s a more serious thing here… We’re running out of steam!
— Are we landing yet?!
— Where’s my suntan lotion!?
— Brace yourself, it’s gonna be a crash landing!
— eeEEEK!December 14, 2008 at 1:05 pm #1251In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Siobahn had a few more cages to rattle before she she made her way to the meeting. The Freakus management had invited a spokesman from the S.E.C.R.E.T. department (otherwise known as Special Exploration Corps of Really Entertaining Trivia) to give a speech on the art of C.R.A.P.S. (also known as the Coordinated Redistribution of Ambiguously Protected Secrets). All staff were expected to attend the meeting, which unfortunately meant that Siobhan had to refuse an invitation to the F.U.N. picnic (otherwise known as Foundation of Unimportant Nonsense to Those In The Show, which, dear reader, you will recall are also known as T.I.T.S.)
Siobhan rattled the last few cages on her list, and made her way back to her caravan. She had an hour to relax before the meeting so she turned the portable channelvision on and settled herself comfortably on the sofa to surf through the channels. The first channel she landed on was twitching and shouting, ‘The present is not a result of the past, orlright? Orlright, orlright’; the next channel was chuckling and saying with a sly grin, ‘…that would be your choice…”. Flicking through a few more channels, hearing the words ascended higher density love and light and light and love and all is one stuff, Siobahn kept surfing. Sheesh, they are all just saying the same thing, over and over again, she thought to herself, same old same old, blah blah blah… what she wouldn’t have given for some new channel to say something completely different.
Pfft. Siobahn turned off the channelvision and stood up. She made up her mind in the moment to go to the F.U.N. picnic anyway, and bugger the meeting. Maybe she would even start channeling something completely different, just for some bloody variety. Cage Rattling was in her blood, after all, she was a born Cage Rattler and it seemed to her that the whole channelvision empire was getting altogether too samey.
December 3, 2008 at 1:34 pm #1240In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
“‘ere, what’s that bloody dog got? I fought it was a bone, but it don’t look like a bone from ‘ere, Sha” said Gloria lifting up her sunglasses to get a better look. “It looks like some kind of artifact, where’d ‘e get that then?”
“‘E ‘ad that since before we left, d’int yoo notice? ‘e was diggin’ in the snow for days, ‘e was” replied Sharon, “I ‘int touching it, it’s covered in ghost dog ether-dribble, if yoo wants a closer look, Glor, then you ‘ave a look, I ‘int touching it.”
December 3, 2008 at 12:12 pm #1239In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
“That looks good this cruisin’ floatin’ icecub !” Sharon said.
On the deckchairs next to hers, Glor and Mavis were sunbathing tucked under warm rug blankets, appreciating the pale glimmers of sun that started to show up on this new day.
“Friggin’ fantastic!”
“It’s the bloody best holidays ever! The sun is so warm, we’ll be in Africa in no time, with Akitooh at the ‘elm!”
“Didn’t he say it was operated by Yuksomesilly cruise line?”
“Maybe Mav’, why you wonder?”
“It’s like it rings some kind of bell…”Indeed, Akita had discovered a funny logo at the command board, and instructions left for the captains with headers coming from Yukailli Corp. He never heard of them before, which was not so strange after all, as he had missed a few years since his disappearing at the beginning of WWII in the Sargastic Seas, but they seemed rather organized for what had only seemed a simple iceberg in a giant plastic bag.
Now, he wondered, would they make it safely through the seas, without encountering typhoons, or… pirates? Kay was reassuring, but well, he was a ghost dog, so not really on the front line…
Good thing was that they still had some watermelbombs… -
AuthorSearch Results