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  • #3135
    AvatarJib
    Participant

      Anna’s voice and young face trailed off as the Queen emerged from her dream. Confused for a moment, she tried to get rid off the undefinable guilt she always felt when dreaming about her late sister. You simply didn’t speak about Anna. And you couldn’t take pleasure in childish dreams.

      Her guilt soon transformed into a mild irritation and she frowned as she remembered the cavagnol game of the previous night. She had lost again. The amount didn’t really matter, it was more about the principle. She always lost. But she took a momentary pleasure in thinking that Jeanne-Antoinette also lost most of her bets.

      With a sigh, she looked at the big ornate windows. Someone had opened the heavy velvet curtains while she was still asleep, and it certainly didn’t help keep the air warm in that time of year. Nonetheless, she enjoyed seeing the sky when she woke up, even in winter time when it was still dark or like today, when the colours of dawn preceded the Sun. She couldn’t believe she had slept so long.

      It always was a too brief moment alone. As if summonned by magic, three maids entered the room silently, two of them holding her morning dress, that they carefully deposited on a chair, and the other holding the copper basin of fresh water for the Queen’s quick morning ablution. The maid put it on top of the sauteuse chest made of rose wood and carved beautifully. One of her daughters once told her that she swore the chest in her bedroom was alive and would jump on her bed at night to play with her.

      One thought leading to another, she looked at her collection of stuffed toy, unconsciously counting them and checking if they were all in order. She had two cabinets made of rose wood especially for her “friends” as she used to call them. She had begun to buy them after she almost died giving birth so long ago. At first it was just a simple gift from the King. She first thought it to be a lion, but apparently it was one of those Asian dogs. The finish was crude, it had small beady eyes and the curly tail didn’t hold very long on its bottom, but she developed a liking for it. And after a few weeks, she felt it needed a friend, so she had a lion made as a companion for her asian dog.
      Her ladies-in-waiting, began to bring her new ones, little dogs (she had a liking for them), zebras, fluffy cats and dwarf goats, she even had an owl and two rabbits, one white and one cerulean blue.

      Her eyes almost missed the twin ferrets, offered to her by Saint Germain after a gambling party. He had said they would bring her luck. She didn’t really liked them, they were scrawny and heavy, certainly weighted with lead.

      It was time to get up, she had her weekly Polish concert to organize. One of her small pleasures.

      #3127

      They arrived to the tunnel, it was almost dawn. Sanso spotted a ghostly flicker near the entrance. The cave network was guarded by a kind of protective spirits who checked your mission order so they could establish the right connection between the way in and the way out.
      Sanso felt a twinge of irritation as he recognized the ghostly figure.

      “Rifraf”, said Sanso as affable as he could manage.

      “Stop”, said Rifraf with a tone cold enough to freeze your spine. “You know the procedure”, he added with his hand stretched in front of him.

      Sanso looked into his rough leather bag to find the mission order. He could swear that the objects and papers had moved on their own while he wasn’t looking. It was a mess. He looked carefully at the paper he found and handed it to the guard. Rifraf seemed to have slowed his movement on purpose. He looked at the document. He looked at it again, looked at Sanso briefly, and at the document again.

      “This document is incomplete, you can’t pass”, said the spirit.

      Sanso looked at the mission order and realized that he had handed the copy. The original had two curly fleurons on the top and on the bottom. That’s why he didn’t like this one, he was a bit too rigid about the protocole.
      Where was this … document ? Sanso looked in his bag frantically as Rifraf was beginning to disappear. Here it was. “Hold on”, he said to the ghost. he checked quicky if there was no other typo or missing element. Everything was there. He just hoped Rifraf would say nothing about the grease stains.

      The guard snorted and nodded, as if reluctantly. He waved his hand and blue torches began to light up, showing the way.

      “Follow the blue lights”, said Rifraf and he disappeared.

      Sanso felt the warmth flowing back in his bones. When Sadie looked out the window, he was feeling much better. “What is taking so long ?”, she asked with a frown.
      “Administration”, he said with a grin.

      She answered with an eye-roll and her head disappeared in the coach. The sun was rising.

      #3000

      “How do you feel now?”
      “Not so bad, considering I just survived a slug indigestion…”
      Ernie and Jett were giving sad glances at their nearly empty glasses of Bourgogne red wine. Ernie’s plate of snails au beurre persillé was barely touched, and Jett who was eyeing at it for a while now as he was sucking on his empty shells decided now was a good time to grab it and switch it with his own empty one while continuing to rant loudly in the French restaurant with his mouth full.
      “You see, that’s why I don’t like those bloody Chinese greasy spoons, especially after a surge. You never know what you’re goin’ to get. Me in’ haffin’ none of it sea bloody bottom-feeders cucumber…”

      Ernie was still looking a bit pale, except for the occasional patches of purple hematomata, that the doctor mentioned would disappear once the body manages to expel the impossible to digest slug.
      “Should have had that blessed surgery, would have been faster” he moaned.
      “Are you kiddin’? Look, don’t want to be gross or anythin’ but last time I had things expelled too fast, it wasn’t a pretty sight!”
      “Oh stop it again with your oily shit fish, that’s a blessin’ disgusting memory I would merrily forget!”.
      “L’addition!” Ernie had had enough of Jett’s snail munching. It was time to get to their next assignment. Even if the occupational medicine doctor had tried to deter him resuming work too quickly, it was better that than dragging around an empty house in flip-flops and pajamas.
      The good thing was that the Disaster Damage Team was never short of assignments. Most of the time they were working in locksteps with the Surge Team, clearing the aftershocks, so they didn’t have to fear about boredom.

      #2885
      EricEric
      Keymaster

        Captain Yang Lang, or Goat as they called him, had reluctantly anchored the Aqua Luna at the Long Poon port to resupply for the next month. The Aqua Luna was his pride, an old pirate ship improved with modern tech, with sails bright vermilion, and polished deck of teck wood, smelling of the forests and brine. Years earlier, he’d vowed to stay off land as much as possible, and use her to remain away from the current lunacy that sprayed over the lands. But strange tides and surges on the ocean had warned him that it seemed to spray further than he’d expected.
        To get to the bottom of it, he was having an appointment at the basement of an old derelict building, on the first floor of which artists had setup an organization named the Long Poon House of Stories; funnily, the basement was full of other kinds of stories. It had served as a training facility back when the Brits had dominion over the seas. It was now recycled into an archive facility for the Surge Team. You usually wouldn’t notice that, but if you paid attention, the bag of sponges sold at the Sinese medicine store full of dried animals, dogs legs and whatnots was unmistakable.

        #2708

        In reply to: Strings of Nines

        EricEric
        Keymaster

          Actually, the mindful reader would be glad to know that Waakaawaakawaawaawaawaawaawaawahuhun (or Wakawah-thirtyfour’n) wasn’t quite as safe as its almost twin city Wookoowookawoowoowoowoowoowoohoohoon (or Wookoowooh-thirty-fiv’n), both lying actually quite close for a bird, or a dragon, anchored at the bottom and at each of the sides of the same mountain.

          While the former’s only attraction was the Kangrawaakaas’ Stadium with its weekly games of morbidly obese people hurling in the mud, the latter was known for its ski resorts and snow trance delixtacies in makeshift melloow yelloow yurts. Of course, W35N benefited from the better sunlight exposure, which made every dweller in the W34N hamlet fiercely jealous of its being favoured by all tourists passing by, while they (they thought) should be instead commanded for their bravery and perseverance.

          And while Arona had her toes meticulously licked in blissful oblivion, little did Vincentius know what trouble was ahead were he to ask a W34N’er if he was in W35N…

          #2805

          In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens

          EricEric
          Keymaster

            “Do leaves really talk?” she wondered as the smoke of the herb tea dissipated off the kitchen’s mirror credence. “Let’s see about that,” she continued, carrying the tray with the cup of tea and the scones to the computer room, from where a few oink sounds were beckoning her.
            Probably her friends asking for a chat, some random rubbish or the last juicy news about the president’s wife who happened to be visiting in the area. In truth, she wouldn’t have even known, had it not be for her foreign friends. The local neighbours really couldn’t give a fig. That was figuratively speaking of course. The fig trees were already full of green fruits, that if odds were good wouldn’t turn up as half-sodden half-rotten food for snails on the cobblestone pathway this year.

            She added a zest of fresh lemon to the tea. She liked it bitter. The leaves were starting to settle at the bottom of the cup while she lit up a cigarette, throwing a cursory glance at the tens of messages waiting for her to peruse. Which was more interesting? She could figure out wavy things as feeble and changing as her cigarette’s smoke in between the leaves patterns, as well as in between the lines of haphazard messages from all the contacts. But those she loved the most were the pages she leafed through her books.

            Yesterday, she started to do something purely daft, as she liked — a sort of challenge, if you will; or perhaps, a strong repressed desire. Sometimes it takes you years to do things you were thinking about when you were but a child. The moment you allow yourself the pleasure to indulge and overcome the resilient beliefs that it’s something forbidden or insidiously wrong is all the sweeter.
            And she was tasting it like a sour sweet, with a touch of forbidden and the zest of excitement. Or more like horseradish. Ooh, does she live the green stuff too. Prickly at first, going up to your nose, and living you crying but begging for more. She makes a note to buy some next week (note that she’ll probably forget).
            So what did she do? She took some of her precious books and started to tear up and cut through the pages. A blasphemy almost, for someone like her who revered books. Of course, at first she only took the bad ones, the romantic rubbish and the dog-eared now useless kitchen books, but then realized, what would be the point of gathering new information by assembling random pages cut off from a variety of books, if it wasn’t made from quality ingredients. Well, it surely stands to reason, even though her culinary reason had been on voyage the last twenty years as far as she knew. Anyway. Those leafs were starting to talk better than any bloody tea leaves could.

            [link: talking leaves]

            #2423

            Sadly, Phurt’s couldn’t make any cobwebs other than all wireless —kind of defeated the purpose, when you gave it thought.
            Reception and connection weren’t any of the new dwelling’s forte for now.

            So she wrapped herself in a cozy dark corner of her new cave, tucked in a blanket of great warmth and subtle mucous design, and her nine eyelids being closed one after the other (from right to left, and top to bottom), started to dream of delicate and headless sheep.

            #100
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              She woke up at noon and it was 100 degrees, or 37 degrees, whichever you prefer, but whichever way you look at it, it was not a good temperature to wake up to. Everything was pointing in the direction of going solo, playing the game on her own for awhile, or at least until she was in a regular habit of giving herself priority, giving more attention to her own creative pursuits, and less time to the futile attempts to keep group projects going. She supposed for a moment that making a start whilst hot, tired, discouraged and confused was not the most ideal mood for a start, but at least it was a start. She wasn’t even entirely sure what it was she was actually starting, but suspected that it didn’t much matter, in the grand scheme (or lack thereof) of things.

              She’d had a moment of inspiration when she started reading a book. She’d only read a few pages and had no idea how the book would turn out, but the format was interesting. Julie had had an idea, simmering on a back burner for years, to write a book. It always seemed to want to be an autobiographical book, and that’s where she always came unstuck because she couldn’t see the point of that, not that she was overly concerned about whether anyone would want to read it or not, but she often came unstuck when she wondered about how all the characters in the book might feel about it, which is why that moment of inspiration in the bathroom the other day seemed like such a good idea.

              She could write a book about a probability party, perhaps called ‘Probably Real’, (maybe with the subtitle ‘Probably Not’.) There would be an occasion, the details of which she hadn’t worked out yet, in which various (not all, she soon realized!) of her probable selves met ~ such as in the Atkinson book, in some quiet desolate place with no interruptions (obviously somewhere with no internet connection, although there was always the danger of picking up a freak broadband WiFi), where they had all the time in the world to tell their tales, compare notes as it were.

              Which was where the fiction idea came in ~ of course! Just call it fiction! Would just one of the probable selves be telling the truth, relating the only true version of Julie’s life? And if so, which one was the real probable self? All the characters in the book would have probable selves and probable lives; which of them was the real probable self, the official version? No-one would ever know.

              Of course, anyone versed in the metaphysical mechanics of probabilities and such would realize that all probable versions are real, at the same time as all being, in a certain sense, fiction ~ made up. The only question was, would that be too unlimiting to contain within the confines of one book, but time (so to speak) would tell.

              Procrastination had set in, as usual, not that that is a bad thing, and things pretty much carried on as usual for a few days. Julie noticed the puppy tugging at a particular magazine from the bottom of the magazine rack over the course of those few days, and eventually the magazine was rather pointedly poking out from the bottom of the pile, it’s title clearly showing: a booklet on How To Write FICTION, with FICTION in big letters.

              Never the less, the procrastination continued, although the clue was duly noted. It hadn’t been the first time a Writing A Book incident had occured.

              It was easy, in this case, to remember that date, because it was right around the time of the 1999/2000 milenium party, right around the time when that particular roller coaster had derailed. While unpacking the boxes of books and putting them on the shelves of yet another rented house ~ a particularly garish and tasteless monstrosity, a drug baron’s dream of unfunctional largeness with hideous coloured glass windows (it’s the sheer randomness of the colours that’s so awful, G had remarked) ~ a book flew off the shelf, quite literally, and landed alone in the middle of the floor some distance away from the bookshelf.

              Becoming A Writer was the name of the book, and the funny thing was that she had been thinking of writing a book but didn’t know where to start, and had been toying with the idea of buying a book on writing a book. So she read the book and started writing, a little bit every day, following the books advice to just start writing, even if it’s just ‘I can’t think of what to write’. There was plenty to write about as it turned out, but circumstances changed, another sudden move of house ensued, another rollercoaster ride, and the writing stopped for awhile.

              But back to the book, Becoming A Writer. For a long time, Julie had no recollection of buying that book, and wondered by what magic had it appeared at her feet. Many years later she perhaps would have simply accepted the magic, and would have known that she created the book in that moment. But at the time she didn’t, and in due course constructed a memory of buying the book some years previously at a car boot sale somewhere along the coast road.

              (We did buy the book, piped up PSJ2, and I actually read it, unlike you, as soon as I bought it. My 5th book is about to be published, a lightweight comedy/detective series about the Costa del Crime)

              PSJ2’s interjection reminded PSJ1 (Good grief, we’ll have to think of a solution to the probable self names, she noted) that she had in fact started writing a book about the Costa del Crime, called Peregrino’s, or perhaps that was the name she’d given to the bar, the central hub, of the book. Of course, that was in the days when bars had been her central hub; she doubted very much if she would choose a bar as the central hub of a book now. She hadn’t got very far with the book, and had burned it when PSA1 got busted, just in case. What to do first, bury the (probable, it must be remembered) pump action shotgun, or burn the book. She had buried the gun, under cover of darkness, in the back garden, wrapping it in plastic bags and blankets, making it look for all the world like the body of a dead child. It was dark, it was raining, and there weren’t many neighbours out there in the orange groves, and she could do no more than hope for the best that she hadn’t been seen.

              No doubt there was a probable self who did choose to create being seen, but if so she hadn’t arrived at the probability party (yet, at any rate) with her tale.

              That it had been a major probability junction was certain. Not just the gun burying incident, which had turned out to be no more than merely incidental, but the events leading up to it.

              #2595

              In reply to: Strings of Nines

              TracyTracy
              Participant

                “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.

                :yahoo_puppy:

                “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.”

                :yahoo_oh_go_on:

                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.

                :yahoo_puppy:

                “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….”

                :yahoo_hypnotized:

                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…”

                :yahoo_chatterbox:

                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….

                :yahoo_sigh:

                “….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.

                :yahoo_straight_face:

                “Ok we can forget questions then and I will tell you a story.”

                Yoland relaxed. That sounded easier.

                :yahoo_big_grin:

                “Once upon a time there was a beer fisherman from the planet of Oxbloodshire.”

                Oh here we go, she thought. What’s coming next…

                :yahoo_rolling_eyes:

                “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.”

                :detective:

                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.

                :yahoo_thinking:

                “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.

                :yahoo_star:

                “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.

                :bounce:

                #2234

                Jeeze, the little brats have stopped me from getting me beauty sleep looking for the darn eggletons! Shar was seating outside sipping her cup of tea while conversing with her old friend Glor.

                I was about to tell you the same Shar!… i need my beauty kip. Yer niece and nephew… Holly Molly…

                Niece and nephew… what you on about? The nephewer the merrier if you ask me

                As if we not got enough with them prescription drugs from the bathroom cabinet stopping us from sleeping!

                Want to see them comin’ near our beds those!

                Oh no, not our beds! Glor recoiled in horror.

                Stupid drugs… Better for ‘em not come close when I’m ‘ere, or we’ll have to learn how to sleep standing!

                Wouldn’t like to see your hump sleeping standing!

                Not hump,… haunch, silly! Wouldn’t be so good anyway covered with blankets… Shar lost her trail of thought in remembrance of her past bedroom encounters.

                A sudden crack in the nearby potting shed raised the ample bottom of the one named Glor in alarm.

                #2511

                In reply to: Strings of Nines

                “Jeeze, the little brats have almost ruined all our naggin plants looking for the darn eggletons!” Shar was seating outside sipping her cup of tea while conversing with her old friend Glor.
                “I was about to tell you the same Shar!… Yer niece and nephew… Holly Molly…”
                “Niece and nephew… The nephewer the merrier if you ask me”
                “As if we not got enough with the does from the forest comin’ for food in our plantations!”
                “Want to see them comin’ near our crops those!”
                “Oh no, not our crops!” Glor recoiled in horror.
                “Stupid does… Better for ‘em not come close when I’m ‘ere, or we’ll have to learn how to cook haunch!”
                “Wouldn’t have your hump for dinner!”
                “Not hump,… haunch, silly! Wouldn’t be so good anyway stuffed with lead pellets…” Shar lost her trail of thought in remembrance of her past hunting skills.

                A sudden crack in the nearby potting shed raised the ample bottom of the one named Glor in alarm.

                #1198
                AvatarJib
                Participant

                  Yann woke up puzzled by his dreams. He’d been walking in the street of a big odd city… an oddicity? He giggled in himself. Yurick was still sleeping and he didn’t want to wake him up.

                  In that oddiCity, there were many people but as he could feel in his dream they were not necessarily interacting with each others directly, and strangely it seemed that the different individuals were not necessarily at the same time though he could clearly see them in the same place.

                  He was wondering as some people were waving at him… did he know them? As far as he could tell, they weren’t triggering any memory of individuals he had met in his waking life. Some of them seemed somewhat familiar but he couldn’t put a name on their faces. When he was feeling like it he would wave back at them but most of the time he would simply ignore them. No consequences.

                  At some point In his dream, he’d ended up in a big park, very calm and soothing. He could see some people smiling and laughing, and the sound of their laughs was not intrusive, it was merely part of the environment like the birds chirping.

                  He remembered having seen 3 fountains… when he found the second one, he thought he took a wrong turn and was back at the first one, but a closer look let him notice a few definite differences, and it was more obvious with the third one. Though the designs were similar, the water in each of these fountains was behaving quite differently. In the first one, the water was acting just like he was expecting from water: springing from a pipe, from the bottom up and coming down according to the laws of physics. In the second one, it was as if water was magically condensing from somewhere above the surface of the pond and falling down like the rain. Quite beautiful and very hypnotic… no cloud above. The third one could seem a bit chaotic at first glance, but the movements were quite harmonious too and Yann could fathom some kind of rhythm or interactions going on. He couldn’t clearly see where the water was coming from, and he didn’t have the occasion to examine it as his attention was caught by a voices coming from a gathering of people nearby.

                  He found them in a clearing; some people were sitting in front of what appeared to be puzzle pieces. The shapes were quite different from the ones he’d been accustomed to, but it didn’t seem weird at the moment. A man was standing and walking among the others, giving them information and directions on how to manipulate the different pieces.
                  As Yann was approaching closer, he noticed that Yurick… no it was Quintin… it seemed he hadn’t called himself Yurick yet… well he was there too and he seemed quite puzzled and engrossed by what he had in front of him. He only had 2 pieces, but it seemed quite difficult to make them fit together.
                  As Yann was about to call his friend, the man began to talk to him.

                  “Hello. Do you want to try by yourself?..”

                  Yann felt something was not as it should have been… it was as if the man was talking to him, and at the same time continuing with his explanations to the other people. And as he was staring at Yann, waiting for an answer, his attention was also focused on his students going on and on with some endless instructions on how it all functioned and what was the proper use of the pieces…

                  “You’re new in this area, I never saw you here before, though you seem familiar…”

                  That’s when he woke up, puzzled. A bit sad that he’d left the enchantment of the park, but relieved that he wouldn’t have to listen to all the babbling of the man. What was his name again? It had been lost in the huge amount of words, not clearly separated from the names of the tiles or the names of the other students.

                  #1172

                  After he sent his reply to Yann, Yurick took a deep breathe in appreciation of all that had been done the last past days.

                  However tedious, all in all, it had allowed him to stay away from other people’s trauma, and stay focused on his own issues. Now, the feeling of the energy at hand was starting to become lighter. Like a thin ray of light poking through a thick layer of rainy clouds, announcing that the silver lining was more than just a consolation. It was announcing the sun to come.

                  He took the book of stories that had been unburied (like his pleasure to write) from the bottom of the sofa’s cushions when they’d received hosts last week-end, and looked with amusement at the opening note about the “random quotes”.

                  A strong sense of an inkling started to dawn at him.
                  Thanks to the random quotes —or more appropriately said, to convenient synchronicities— “stuff” was never lost or buried in the insides of that ever-growing story, which was eating with gluttony at the edges of its expansion. Things were popping up here and there, reminding of old loose threads, or pertinent inclusions or links to be made.

                  But there was more. He, for a long time, had thought that imagination was expanding things to make physical reality look smaller in proportion than it was. Like when they’d looked at Dory’s pictures, and everything looked so big on them. Even the mere thought of nine dogs was huge. But when they’d met her, and Dan, and the dogs, it was all so much smaller. Even seeing Dory manage her dogs made having nine dogs seem manageable.
                  But the reverse was true: physical reality had its way of dwarfing imagination. Not so much making it smaller, but compacting it, making it fit in an unbelievably condensed and small space.

                  Take that book. Thousands of words, billions of probabilities, endless threads and hundreds of characters, all packaged in a small stack of inked paper. The trick was that when you look at it that way, when you got that small stack of paper in your hands, it all seems so manageable; one starts to get accustomed to it, then fails to see the newness in it each time it’s opened to tell a story.

                  Imagination is the true gauge of the vastness of the universe. It’s so easy to forget…

                  #1132
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    Dory finished the puzzle, yawned and glanced at her watch. There was no sign of the flight to Long Pong leaving any time soon, so she made her flightbag into a pillow and settled herself along the plastic seating for a nap.

                    She dreamed first of her grandparents in their old house in Slurbridge. The house was the same, but her grandparents, Florence and Samuel, were much younger than she had ever known them during her lifetime. They were preparing for guests, and Florence was rearranging the bedding in the upstairs bedrooms. Apparently one more guest was expected than previously arranged, and she had squeezed in a single camp bed next to a double bed. Dory had an idea the camp bed was for Dan’s niece, Aurelia. Funny that, as Florence and Samuel had never known Aurelia ~ or Dan for that matter.

                    The dream landscape changed then to an island. The “Others” were coming and she and her friends had to hide. “Let’s hide in the pyramid” one of them had said, but Dory replied “No, we must hide somewhere less obvious, until we know what the “Others” are like.” They weren’t afraid, but they were taking precautions. Someone had been looking after the dogs and cats, but when Dory went to check on them, they had been ‘kept safe’ in a freezer. As Dory opened the door, a half frozen black cat emerged and ran off. “I reckon she’s better off taking her chances out there than in the freezer!” said Dory. At the bottom of the freezer were some frozen parts of Tom, Captain Bone. There was no sign of the others, but strangely, Dory wasn’t worried.

                    Next to the freezer was a cupboard, and Dory grabbed a handful of magnetic fridge letters, thinking that they would come in handy as clues while they were hiding from the “Others”.

                    “Yukailli Airlines direct flight leaving for Tikfijikoo Island at Gate 57 and three quarters” the bag lady prodded Dory, amidst a shower of electric blue sparks. “Wake up!”

                    #1055

                    As she was sinking to the bottom of the raging sea, Madame Chesterhope first felt like a boiling rage inside her, at all the thwarted attempts, all the unfulfilled promises.
                    Not a solid thing on which to carve a few runes or symbols to get herself out, not a single living being to use at her profit, she was alone, at the mercy of gravity.
                    Not unexpectedly, flashes of her life, of her many lives, flickered like incoherent pieces of an unfinished mosaic in her mind.

                    When did it went wrong? she thought… When did she lose touch with her magic.
                    Not the mundane magic, not the one she used for these parlor tricks devoid of meaning, like that beautiful flying motorbike which was drowning even faster than her… She was speaking of her inner magic, her sense of connection with the elements, with herself, Phoebe.

                    What had become of the frail grey-haired lady the apparency of whom she was so fond of taking years ago?
                    She was tempted to blame many things; the twenty-first century of her own dimension, for one, which had made her rough and tough, out of need perhaps, and perhaps a bit out of laziness. It was out of tiredness mostly, tiredness to have to constantly justify her appearance to others, that she had chosen a more convenient one; that of the crone with more rotund forms, of whom one would only expect austerity and strength.
                    You can see where it had led you. she was thinking.

                    A few more miles further down, and perhaps she would meet the mermaids, like the guy said in that Big Blue motion picture
                    Maybe there was some purity left in her heart, that would make the inhabitants of the depths greet her wretched soul. Or perhaps they all died before her, from the pollution of this strange world mutating in pangs and spasms of a painful childbirth.

                    And what would you do now, if you have the choice? that sweet voice, like that of a thin grey-haired mermaid, was it her own, testing herself?
                    The quest for magical artifacts seemed so far away at this moment. It had begun a long time ago, led her to discover new other-dimensional places… new tricks, all of them for what? To gain control over the elements, the others, everything that could threaten her, force her to change. How ironic. That the fear of change made her change so drastically.
                    She wanted to make peace with all of that. The mermaids weren’t coming, but her own voice was still there for her. Perhaps she could muster the strength. To continue…

                    Mustering all her force, she forcibly expressed the most propelling “prout” she’d ever made. Of course, she’d been learning a few tricks from the legendary Fartiste back in her youth when she went to Paris to perform at the Moulin Rouge… Sweetest time of her life, she had to admit…

                    :fleuron:

                    On the surface of the waters, bubbles started to form.

                    #998
                    EricEric
                    Keymaster

                      “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…”

                      #985

                      The door of the garage opened with a creaking sound, and Madame Chesterhope sped up into the gritty alley.
                      In that dimension where she had hidden her command base, people were a bit sloppy about roads and tarmac, so she had designed a little modification on her machines to be able to levitate in some of the less practical areas; but she had to admit,… she loved the vibrations and bumps that the motorbike created with the friction of the ground surface.
                      She started to giggle, all enthusiastic about the speed and the wind in her hair, that she ignored the road sign indicating that the road was flooded some miles ahead. The rain had been pouring cabbages all past hexades, so much so that her leather suit was in all honesty the best thing she could have worn, not to mention the fact of course, that it was making her totally sexy.
                      Two peasants were coming her way, looking at her with wild eyes like they had just seen something otherworldly. Ahahah she laughed, the fools would soon have forgotten everything about it (another handy and sly magical modification she nodded to herself). Looking in her rear mirror, she could still see them wiggle their hands in a frenzy… What the fl…!

                      :fleuron:

                      On the road, the two peasants wondered what in the name of Shaint Lejus was that rider… But worse, it was heading straight to the pool that the swollen river had made recently, outpouring on fields and little sniggly and thorny paths, like this one. Making desperate signs to be seen and warn it, they watched in horror the black podgy thing with flabby flapping schpurniatz arms sink straight to the bottom of the pool.

                      :fleuron:

                      The landing was a bit bumpy, but she found her balance quickly. Those transdimensional puddles were a bit rough to get accustomed to, but once you knew how to manipulate it, you couldn’t forget it.
                      Now, all she needed to got to the location she was heading to was to hop through a few more transdimensional puddles.
                      Actually, all sorts of puddles could do the job, water puddles, even oil puddles… or run-over poodle puddles for that matter. She preferred water ones, for the quality of water was very fluid, and allowed for easier defocusing. Lately she had tried transdimensional exhaust fumes clouddles, but that was a bit disorienting more than helping.
                      As far as she could tell, this first one had been projecting her to a dimension in between Earth and the Duane. Incorporating vibrational qualities of the two, with a little more rigidity though. The machine needed a little time to stabilize and get prepared for the next transdimensional jump.
                      As far as she could tell, she was in a place that was not unlike her birthplace, in the countryside of England. There were occasionally some giveaways that she still wasn’t quite there yet, like an erratic flying schpurniatz, but she was close now.
                      A few meters in front of her, she could see a lovely puddle that could do for the next jump. A bit small for her… well, motorbike, what were you thinking… but that would probably do it. She took another breath, then pushed the TDPP (Trans-Dimensional Puddle Propeller) button.

                      :fleuron:

                      Flof-flof-flof-flof…
                      Bugger, bugger…. What the bloody heck!

                      Straw was flying all over her hair, and obfuscating her vision… Darn last puddle had to much mud in it, and her concentration went off for a split second, heading her towards a field of barley.
                      Turning round and round for a moment in complete disorientation, she finally pushed the levitation button to take a little altitude.
                      Oh, now,… at least she could tell she was in England, because she knew that place.
                      How perfect! She could now just move into the dimension to the Pacific island. The GPS included in the modern expensive motorbike had been bipping as soon as it had found again the satellites, and it was now pointing the direction.
                      Giggling again, she pushed a new button and disappeared into the sky in a supersonic puff of smoke.

                      :fleuron:

                      a few days later, Chestershire, UK

                      AFP - 2008-07-21 - An new amazing design has been reported by eye-witnesses
                      on a crop of barley of a local farmer along with reports of strange booming sounds
                      and orbs of light. A sight to behold, the delicate intricacy of these interwoven
                      patterns is believed by many to be the work of the Crop-circle Makers, some
                      alien intelligence desiring to communicate with us. The theme of this crop-circle
                      is thought to be a variation on planet Venus cycles, and would be highlighting
                      the number of cycles lefts until the notorious end-date of Mayan calendar,
                      Dec. 21st 2012. Scientists have brushed off the allegations of elderly pranksters,
                      as this one seemed to have required levels of astronomical knowledge far beyond
                      human intelligence.
                      #900

                      START! said Tina.

                      Becky and Tina were doing a meditation together, and Becky decided to just write whatever popped into her head. She could always delete it afterwards, or edit it, she reasoned.

                      “Bagpush got out of the washtub”, Becky scribbled, “ And scooted down along the river line to the marks butty big one by the farm. Heavens above, fishly, what’s that brown thing on the water butt? Gawbsmacker said, don’t be talking like that, shekeltons in a hide to ho where and its first light, fair bright and hey ho the wash go. Abbon Ipswich, slaty flats of corncake, hey dee on the wash bucket, spittin in the hole hey down dooly. Margaret Apsworth laying on the white cotton cake spread, fair dooly down the one hooly. Ay and its a hey ho fair fooly down by the wash pooly, drum rolling in the har fool haley, down by the dash darnly. I said, hey ho the brown tooly, hoggin all the raw tooly, stewing in the far fooly for eight pence an hour. Said Mavis of the green sportwear, theres may flowers in the far horse hair, weel butter in the spar for tucker and muck down in the cow butter, said bree in the bird barny, a flying for the far fooly, well its knees up and out your dooly for the green hay beer fair. Its a fine night for a hooly in the row bottom in the far fooly, said mavis of the tom fooly, in the wash bucket down stairs. Once more, sell a nickel farthing, in the morning and in the darning, and say way more is in the star sign than a wash bucket down stairs.”

                      Good greif, exclaimed Becky, What was all that about?

                      What a load of twaddle, Becky, said Tina with a laugh.

                      Well you know what? It was kind of fun and refreshing to just write nonsense
                      I am sick of things MEANING something, Becky said, and then, warming to her subject:

                      Lets have some good old fashioned MEANINGLESSNESS!

                      #1759

                      In reply to: Synchronicity

                      F LoveF Love
                      Participant

                        SOME OF TODAY’S SYNCHS:

                        EGGLETON
                        reading a magazine in cafe, kept seeing the name Elise Eggleton … a journalist, seems to report mainly on appearance medicine type stuff .. (wonder if she knows about Dr B?) :face-kiss:

                        PINK PIXIES/PIXELS AND EASY
                        Jib mentioned this morning pink pixies .. pixels? Today a woman emailed with a request for an accommodation gift voucher. I have not done gift vouchers before as the whole thing felt a bit complicated to organise … however decided it would be EASY so said YES we do gift vouchers. I looked at the clock on the computer and it was 1:23 just to confirm this easiness. She emailed straight back and said she wanted to go ahead and could i send her one in electronic format? Well I felt a bit stressed by this and not very creative and under time pressure :yahoo_worried: so looked up gift voucher templates. There were quite a few, one was called PINK PIXELS. After trying all of them out I decided to use this one, and with some modifications it actually looks really good. :yahoo_kiss: thank you Jib for your help. (not so easy to post gifts :yahoo_sad: )

                        PINK AND POOH AND PANDA SYNCHS:
                        This afternoon i went to visit my friend Katie. This might not seem momentous but the thing is she is one of my closest friends but i have not seen her for about 2 years. She only lives 10minutes drive away. We did not have a falling out or anything, but I just stopped making contact with people and have been quite introverted. Anyway there was no sense of not having seen each other for ages or anything … just the strange thing for me was that her children seemed to have grown so much. The two youngest ones, Emily and William, both were playing with bright pink balloons :balloon: and even though it was a hot day Emily had bright pink tights on. William wanted to show me his book. There were two pictures he loved and pointed out for me .. one was of a Panda which he said was the “cutest picture in the book”. The other one he loved he said was “POOH” and he was quite delighted with this. Well yes it was a picture of pooh believe it or not. It was a design of a castle and showed a big “long drop” and a man shovelling pooh at the bottom of it.

                        RAT SYNCHS :mouse:
                        A short while ago I googled rats as pets, not because I wanted one, just out of interest. I found it fascinating all the anecdotes about what good pets they are and how intelligent etc etc. :agreed: I found it interesting as they are an animal which is commonly hated by many people. Anyway Katie told me that her other daughter, Ella, came rushing home from Kindy School the other day saying she really REALLY wanted a rat as a pet and is quite determined to get one. Katie was not happy about this. I was able to share all my positive rat information with her and now I think Ella will get her rat. :yahoo_nerd:

                        NUMBER PLATES
                        On the way home I thought how wonderful all the synchs were, and as I thought this I saw YES 57. For a short while on the way home i followed ERIC 1. I also saw BEEZ. Also HONEY8, which is another variation of the HONEYB one I saw. I do find it interesting all these bee related number plates within such a small area. Related to this, Sir Ed was on the news tonight as the Queen had a memorial service for him today at St Georges Chapel in Windsor Castle. (sir Ed was the original HONEYB synch on the day he died at the age of 88, he was a HONEY BEE keeper as well as mountain climber – this explanation is for Tracy who finds it hard to remember things)

                        555’S
                        still seeing lots of these, the last two evenings have logged on at 5:55pm

                        MISC:
                        Mr X bought me some cookies with hunks of ginger in them. Also I bought myself some passionfruit yoghurt. But I don’t think that was a synch really. I think I bought it because I had been talking about them.

                        oh that’s right, the girl buying the pink pixels gift voucher was also named Emily

                        F :heart:

                        #2143

                        In reply to: Story Timeline and Map

                        EricEric
                        Keymaster

                          Another step for the maps and timeline, is that the dataset is now available in the form of a shared spreadsheet from which the timeline and maps directly query, so that it’s not only more easily editable, but also more easily updated…

                          If you are interested in being able to modify it, just notify me. (The usual faithful contributors should be able to do so by clicking “Edit” at the bottom of the sheet and registering with their gmail adress)
                          Just to reassure the anxious, the revisions are saved, so it’s not really possible to mess it all completely ;)

                          A feed of the data is also available , for what it’s worth…

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