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  • #4151
    F LoveF Love
    Participant

      “Now, young lady,” said John when Sue had left the room. “Don’t you go upsetting the apple cart. A bit of a chatter about travel and what not … well, that would be a good thing. But spontaneous jaunts and rambles after dark… that is another whole kettle of fish.”

      “I just thought …. “ began Clove.

      “That’s enough!” snapped John. “You watch yourself or you will end up the way of the other lodgers.”

      “What happened to the other lodgers?” asked Clove nervously.

      At that moment Sue bustled in with the tea.

      “Here you are, my lovelies!” she said brightly. “A cup of tea is much more sensible this hour of night. Now I couldn’t remember if you had sugar or not but you can help yourself.”

      “Thanks,” muttered Clove.

      “Young Clove here was asking about the other lodgers,” said John, with a conspiratorial wink at his wife. “But I think that’s a story best left for another time. We’ve had enough upset for one evening.”

      #4138
      ÉricÉric
      Keymaster

        “M’am, I am quite honoured to meet you” Godfrey felt the need to add a creeping “Your daughter always speaks highly of you…”

        “Don’t be silly, dear” cooed the mother “You can call me Felicity, no need to make me feel like a granny.”

        “Traitor” muttered Liz’ between her teeth. She was spread across the sofa while monitoring the developments of her Mother’s coup and trying to gather her wits and plan her next move. Mother wouldn’t be easily defeated. Last time, Liz’ had to resort to a rats and roaches invasion. Made the house unlivable for months. But quite worth it.

        “Has your latest gigolo grown tired of you and thrown you out… again?” she interrupted the amiable chatter of her mother and Godfrey.

        “Dear, dear, don’t brood like that, it makes you look like your father. You know my mother instincts have always been very strong. Call it my antennas if you shall — I can always tell when you’re not right, and I can’t let you down this slope.” She retorted, queenly ignoring the rude comment.

        #4077

        “Well, hello there! My name is Barbara, I will be your host during your stay at the Hidden People Estate of Genethic Rejuvenation. Welcome Ms and Mr Asparagus !”

        Barbara’s luscious mane of blond hair was a sight to behold. Tina was almost jealous. She quickly remembered her guru’s words of the day.

        “ Dogs bark at what they don’t understand: See the Positive

        So despite her hopes for a less effusive (almost annoyingly American) introductions, she got her critical mind busy with quickly finding five things to appreciate about Barbara. It was tougher that it looked. Well, for one, she liked the cleanliness of her white nurse blouse…

        Barbara’s chatter seemed inexhaustible, as they coursed through the grounds of the Estate.
        “Of course, we have arranged for your appointment with the best doctors, they will get you in tip-top shape in no time” she giggled irrepressibly.

        Tina glanced at Quentin. Her cousin was calm as a clam, as usual. He didn’t even seem to register the strangeness of that establishment.

        “I’ll be leaving you to have a hot shower, and refreshments, complimentary of the house of course, and I’ll be meeting you later. Dinner will be served at 7, please be on time. Tomorrow morning, breakfast is served from 7 to 9, and your appointment is at 9:30, with Dr B. In case you need anything, you have my number.” Barbara giggled again, blinking at Quentin in what could hardly be construed as flirting.

        “I’ll skip dinner Q, see you at breakfast tomorrow”, Tina closed the door on her cousin without ceremony.

        She finally collapsed on the bed, crushed by fatigue of the flight, jet-lag and all that road trip through small European winding paths. Made you almost miss Maine.

        #4013

        In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

        Edward Cayper had been absorbed on the mesmerizing display of the large monitoring screens. He’d liked to believe it was a meditation of sorts. The simulation made the most tantalizing displays, ever changing.

        Although there had been flitches. Increasingly. He called them flitches, scratchy flea-like glitches, all small and jumpy, but he had an eye for them. He was, after all, one of the early designers of the Program. REYE – Reality Emergence Yielding Existence. That didn’t mean much, but sounded cool at the time.
        REYE was in its eighth stable upgrade. Despite the flitches, it had evolved at exponential speed.

        Edward swiveled from his chair to look behind his desk. A series of pods was lined up with sensory deprivation tanks hosting hundreds of plugged-in bodies dreaming in synch with his creation.
        He’d been told they were volunteers to participate in the largest mind control experiment in the world. He wasn’t sure it wasn’t a lie, but didn’t care so much.
        REYE was in charge of coordinating the whole program with astronomical and minute precision. Each person linked to the program believed they had become ascended (or something similarly close to their metaphysical belief). Free of the bonding of space, time and corporal existence, they were taught into a very subtle and complex system of attunement to higher truths. A large basket of bollocks of course, but while they were doing it, and deeply believing it to be real, the mind-energy they produced was redirected to certain mind control experiments.

        Since they started in the 80s, the program had had slow progress. In the beginning, only a few sprouts of channellers appeared near their area, in Nevada. They were quite timid at first, full of doubts about their hearing or seeing voices – still better than the abductions of earlier, when many went completely nuts. But now, progresses were made steadily, and with much less effort. Edward personally believed that the network of waves created by cellphone proliferation had a factor in this trend. Such interconnexion made everything easier.

        Within the program, the flitchy Ascended Masters still had to be reconditioned from time to time. On the vitals of Jane Pierce (a.a.a. “also avatared as” Dispersee within the program), Edward could see there were occasional resistance and stress, which in turn made the glitches more frequent. A change in her drugs dosage would do fine to level the serotonin in her bloodstream. It would be that, or unplugging her.

        Before leaving the room, like every day, Edward switched the monitor to the camera over one of the pods. Florence Vengard (a.a.a. Floverley), was dreaming peacefully, as usual. Since she’d arrived, he’d felt connected to her. He imagined her with long curly red hair floating in the milk bath instead of the bath-cap that made the maintenance so much easier. He was told she had overdosed on pills, and wouldn’t wake up. The program seemed to be tethering her to life, frozen in time.

        A well-oiled machine.
        If you overlooked the small things… that REYE was becoming more inquisitive, and Edward suspected, greedy too. He had seen subtle gaps in the mind-energy gauges, it couldn’t be a coincidence. The program was becoming too smart, maybe too human.

        It couldn’t bode well.

        #3996
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          The following is an e-mail from the past, composed on July 01, 2010. It is being delivered from the past through FutureMe.org

          Dear FutureMe,
          The Absinthe Cafe
          Dawn and Mark had a bottle of Absinthe (the proper stuff with the WORMwood in
          it, which is illegal in France) but forgot to bring it. Wandering around at
          some point, we chanced upon a cafe called Absinthe. Sitting on the terrace, the
          waitress came up and looked right at me and said “Oh you are booked to come here
          tomorrow night!” and then said “Forget I said that”. Naturally that got our
          attention. After we left Dawn spotted a kid with 2016 on the back of his T
          shirt. We asked Arkandin about it and we have a concurrent group focus that does
          meet in that cafe in 2016, including Britta. Dawn’s name is Isabelle Spencer,
          Jib’s is Jennifer….
          The Worm & The Suitcase
          I borrowed Rachel’s big red suitcase for the trip and stuck a Time Bridgers
          sticker on it, and joked before I left about the case disappearing to 2163. I
          had an impulse to take a fig tree sapling for Eric and Jib, which did survive
          the trip although it looked a little shocked at first. As Eric was repotting
          it, we noticed a worm in the soil, and I said, Well, if the fig tree dies at
          least you have the worm.
          At Balzacs house on a bench in the garden there was a magazine lying there open
          to an ad for Spain, which said “If you lose your suitcase it would be the best
          thing because you would have to stay”.
          Later we asked Arkandin and he said that there was something from the future
          inserted into my suitcase. I went all through it wondering what it could be,
          and then a couple of days ago Eric said that it was the WORM! because of the
          WORMwood absinthe syncs, and worm hole etc. I just had a chat with Franci who
          had a big worm sync a couple of days ago, she particularly noticed a very big
          worm outside the second hand shop, and noted that she hadn’t seen a worm in ages
          ~ which is also a sync, because there was a big second hand clothes shop next to
          Dawn and Mark’s hotel that I went into looking for a bowler hat.
          Arkandin said, by the way, that Jane did forget to mention the bowler hats in
          OS7, those two guys on the balcony were indeed wearing bowler hats, and that
          they were the same guys that were in my bedroom in the dream I had prior to
          finding the Seth stuff ~ Elias and Patel.
          Eric replied:

          And another Time Bridger thing; a while ago, Jib and I had fun planting some TB stickers at random places in Paris (and some on a wooden gate at Jib’s hometown).
          Those in Paris I remember were one at the waiting room of a big tech department store, and another on the huge “Bateaux Mouches” sign on the Pont de l’Alma (bridge, the one of Lady D. where there is a gilded replica of Lady Liberty’s flame).
          I think there are pics of that on Jib’s or my flickr account somewhere.
          When we were walking past this spot, Jib suddenly remembered the TB sticker — meanwhile, the sign which was quite clean before had been written all over, and had other stickers everywhere. We wondered whether it was still here, and there it was! It’s been something like 2 years… Kind of amazing to think it’s still there, and imagine all the people that may have seen it since!
          ~~~~

          The Flights

          I wasn’t all that keen on flying and procrastinated for ages about the trip. I
          flew with EASYjet, so it was nice to see the word EASY everywhere. I got on the
          plane to find that they don’t allocate seats, and chose a seat right at the
          front on the left. The head flight attendant was extremely playful for the
          whole flight, constantly cracking up laughing and teasing the other flight
          attendants, who would poke him and make him laugh during announcements so that
          he kept having to put the phone down while he laughed. I spent the whole flight
          laughing and catching his mischeivously twinking eye.
          I asked Arkandin about him and he said his energy was superimposed. I got on
          the flight to come home and was met on the plane by the same guy! I said
          HELLO! It’s YOU again! Can I sit in the same seat and are you going to make me
          laugh again” and he actually moved the person that was in my seat and said I
          could sit there. Then he asked me about my book (about magic and Napolean). He
          also said that all his flights all week had been delayed except the two that I
          was on. He wanted to give me a card for frequent flyers but I told him I
          usually flew without planes ~ that cracked him up ;))
          ~~~

          The Dream Bean

          Eric cracked open a special big African bean that is supposed to enhance
          dreams/lucidity so we all had a bit of it. The second night I remembered a
          dream and it was a wonderful one.
          (Coincidentally, on the flight home I read a few pages of my book and it just
          happened to be about the council of five dragons and misuse of magical beans)
          In the dream I had a companion with magical powers, who I presumed was Jib but
          it was myself actually. It was a long adventure dream of being chased and
          various adventures across the countryside, but there was no stress, it was all
          great fun. Everytime things got a bit too close in the dream, I’d hold onto my
          friend with magical powers, and we would elevate above the “adventure” and drop
          down in another location out of immediate danger ~ although we were never
          outside of the adventure, so to speak. At one point I wondered why my magical
          freind didn’t just elevate us right up high and out of it completely, and
          realized that we were in the adventure game on purpose for the fun of it, so why
          would we remove ourselves completely from the adventure game.
          In the dream I remember we were heading for Holland at one point, and then the
          last part we were safely heading for Turkey…..
          The other dream snapshot was “we are all working together on roof tiles” and
          Arkandin had some interesting stuff to say about that one.
          ~~~

          There were alot of vampire imagery incidents starting with me asking Eric if he
          slept in his garden tool box at night, and then the guy who shot out of a door
          right next to Jib and Eric’s, in a bright orange T shirt, carrying a cardboard
          coffin. He stopped for me to take a photo (and Arkandin said it was a Patel pop
          in); then while walking through the outdoor food market someone was chopping a
          crate up and a perfect wooden stake flew across the floor and landed at my feet.
          The next vampire sync was a shop opposite Dawn and Mark’s hotel with 3 coffins
          in the window (I went back to take a pic of the cello actually, didn’t even
          notice the coffins). Inside the shop was an EAU DE NIL MOTOR SCOOTER Share, can
          you beleive it, and a mummy, a stuffed raven, and a row of (Tardis) Red phone
          boxes.
          I had a nightmare last night that I couldn’t find any of my (nine) dogs; the
          only ones I could find were the dead ones.
          ~~~~

          Balzac’s House

          The trip to Balzac’s house was interesting, although in somewhat unexpected
          ways. (Arkandin was Balzac and I was the cook/housekeeper) The house didn’t
          seem “right” somehow to Mark and I and we decided that was probably because
          other than the desk there was no furniture in it. Mark saw a black cat that
          nobody else saw that was an Arkandin pop in (panther essence animal), and Dawn
          felt that he was sitting on a chair, and Mark sat on him. (Arkandin said yes he
          did sit on him ;) The kitchen was being used as an office. Jib felt the house
          was too small, and picked up on a focus of his that rented the other part of the
          house. (The house was one storey high on the side we entered, and two storeys
          high from the road below). There were two pop ins there apparently, one with
          long hair which is a connection to my friend Joy who was part of that group
          focus, and I can’t recall anything about the other one. Dawn was picking up
          that Balzac wasn’t too happy, and I was remembering the part in Cousin Bette
          that infuriated me when I read it, where he goes on and on about how disgusting
          it is for servants to expect their wages when their “betters” are in dire
          straits. Arkandin confirmed that I didn’t get my wages.
          The garden was enchanting and had a couple of sphinx statues and a dead pigeon ~
          as well as the magazine with the suitcase and Spain imagery. Mark signed the
          guest book “brought the cook back” and I replied “no cooking smells this time”.

          #3909
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            Ignoring the peculiar behaviour of Finnley, who seemed to be having a strange turn (Flove only knew what had happened to her during her absence), Liz continued with her explanation.

            “It’s the new exercise in the Mandala of Ascensions group. There are Leader Personalities, and there are Supporter Personalities ~ and let me be perfectly clear, there are no in betweens or other categories in this particular exercise. Members of the group must choose one category only.”

            Liz paused to light a cigarette, and turn down the background chatter emanating from the puerile radio show, which was distracting her from her train of thought.

            #3862
            ÉricÉric
            Keymaster

              In the Void’s state, the Breathe of Story that was the source of the ten thousands characters took a pause, and convened with Itself to discuss the next course of events.

              Soon enough, chatter started again, and It broke down the Formless Dream into a new Multitude of Itself.

              #3845
              ÉricÉric
              Keymaster

                Blecky pointed at the chat log “here, I thought Tilna sounded baldish, rather than raucous, wouldn’t that be more hilarious?”
                Lal chuckled agreeably. “Tilna would surely appreciate the rudiness of this tartismug. I’d vote to change it.”
                “Slam, what do you think?”

                Al was toying with the thought of deleting that last comment. Too meta, he thought. A story within a story, another rabbit hole, while failing to address the theme. But what was the theme already?

                #3825
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  Gustave jumped when the phone rang, his heart hammering unpleasantly. Get a grip! he told himself sternly. Hesitantly he answered the call, expecting to hear an ear grating cackle.

                  “Can I speak to Leonora, please? It’s Bea here,” the voice requested.

                  “Er, sorry, I think you have the wrong number,” replied Gustave, feeling like a fool as he tried to calm his shaking hands.

                  Leonora Butterworth?” insisted the voice calling herself Bea.

                  Startled, he said “Ah, Butterworth’s the name, but I’m afraid I don’t know anyone called Leonora,” and then, astonished, he heard Bea start to sob and mumble incoherently.

                  “I’m so sorry, was it urgent?” he asked, already feeling a responsibility to help the unknown woman. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

                  “It’s the cackling,” Bea answered with a sniff, “It’s driving me mad. I thought a chat with Leo might help take my mind off it, but I haven’t seen her since the fiasco in Spain and I don’t know where she is, I was hoping this Butterworth number would be her and…..” her voice trailed off disconsolately.

                  “It’s driving me mad too,” Gustave was surprised to hear himself say. “I say, er, Bea,” he cleared his throat, “Would you fancy meeting for a drink in the Spotted Dick Inn? To, you know, take our minds off it?”

                  Gustave had regained his scientific composure somewhat, and was considering the benefits of an unexpected opportunity to research the effects of the cackling on the ordinary population.

                  Bea readily agreed, old tart that she was, and said she would be there in half an hour.

                  #3805

                  In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                  Whenever Nabuco projected to human consciousness, they had the habit of seeing him as a plump looking bearded vagrant, like a Pavarotti turned homeless. It had annoyed him for a while, but now he didn’t mind as much.

                  Nowadays, he was mostly off the bliss addiction of the Rays, so in a sense, it was fitting. If he were still in physical human form, he would probably have taken on quite some weight. And that made him a sort of pariah too, splintering off the great order of ascension, or whatever They called it nowadays.

                  With them, there was no denying he’d lived quite the grand life, being ascended and all. They used to called him Master Nebuchadnezzar — well, often Master Nabuco.
                  He’d gotten on the rayroll almost by luck. He was credited for inventing the chibubble technique, as a way of extracting bubbles and peals of laughter when people get all hot and excited. At the peak of the technique, somewhere around the 1968s, he had recruited and incorporated many gnomes into the fold, as nature spirits known as gnomes had a uncanny knack for extracting laughter off people. With the call for sexual liberation and getting closer to nature, they had plenty of opportunities to get people high, and chibubbles were all the fancy.
                  It had started to go down as fast as it rose, people were no longer interested in nature, gnomes working condition when forced to move to urban environments were a disaster, and the chibubble production plummeted. Now, the industry was a thing of the past ; sometimes there were a few chibubble memorabilia kept by other Masters interested in speculating on its rare value more than for anything else. Now kitten videos on social media had replaced the chibubble gnomes business and driven a new unseen growth of the Gross Divine Product.

                  He didn’t know if the gnomes were responsible for it, but living so close to them and nature for a while, somehow opened his perception to the falsity and the insanity of their quest for power. So instead of finding new venues for innergy extraction as they all did, he’d resigned.
                  Nobody had heard about anybody resigning before, so they suspected him of trying to be original, and maybe disrupt the clever and immutable laws of the universe.
                  Long story short, he’d managed to escape their clutches, and live on his own, and off unhealthy junk thoughts habits. Those were the worse, the craving of decadent thoughts, maintained by the entertainment and news industries, the social media and all of it. In the long run, that or the fuzzy bliss were faces of the same coin, and debilitating in the end.

                  Even when he tried to block them, he could hear the thoughts, prayers and all the inner chatter. The spirit world, or however it is called, was a medium ideal to carry those thoughts and reverberate throughout the whole universe. Like sound waves travelling under water for large distances. Now, he could resist the urge to answer, seduce and insinuate. Many of the thoughts were so naive and would welcome anything. He was still a junkie, and those offerings were never helping getting him off the wagon.

                  Humans hoped for ascension, but ascended masters like him who were trapped in a false blissdom could only hope to resume their path by descending to human form. Such irony.

                  There was one voice that seemed to stand out. It had the flavour of “dangerous” pinned onto it, the kind of bright colours that venomous snakes and toads have on earth to warn predators to keep off, or else. It could only mean one thing, a genuine seeker of truth, someone who had the potential to tear the veils to shreds.

                  He’d seen quite a few of those, they were usually young, and for many of them terribly naive and easily corrupted by displays of power. Search for truth and search for power were sometimes so easily mistaken one for the other. The bright colours would fade over time, but they were still dangerous, too unpredictable to be trusted fully. Learned Ascended Masters knew well to leave those to their own device, while tending to the less critical minds.

                  But what did he have to waste, especially now? Nabuco zoomed towards the origin of the thoughts, observing at a distance, the young Domba.

                  #3778

                  In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                  ÉricÉric
                  Keymaster

                    It was a quiet day in the mines.
                    Godfrey’s teams were operating at less than 10% of the usual. Most of the Indian guys who worked there had taken unpaid leaves for the observance of the Ganesh festival.

                    It was all a bit silly, come to think about it, for so many reasons.
                    One obviously, was that the dates were aligned on Earth’s calendar, for supposedly practical reasons, but which had nothing to do with the environment they were living in now. What good was a lunar calendar when Mars had two main moons, the lovely named Fear (Phobos) and Dread (Deimos), and of course completely different day times and years.
                    Anyhow, that wasn’t the least of the incoherences. You’d normally have to find a natural body of water to immerse the elephant clay statues. Good luck with that on Mars. But there was no stopping the rituals to find ways to survive. He’d heard an artificial pool would be temporarily erected at the Matrimandir to allow for the ritual to be performed.
                    A waste of good water, if you asked him.

                    The only good thing about it was that there was more calm than usual, mostly robots diligently carving the walls, and harvesting the yellow stones.

                    The day before, there had been an unusual ruckus after a heated speech by the Head Nutter of the Religious Nuts, the old wrinkled as a prune Mother Shirley. She spoke of dread and doom, and having to repent and all. Gosh, did she put on a show.
                    He smirked. All that was missing was a human sacrifice, and they would be irrevocably back to the good old ways of the religious fanatics…

                    Even his Hindu friends seemed to have been affected and shown a renewed fervour at their own rituals. After all, their Lord Ganesh was supposed to remove obstacles. Or well, truth is, He was also supposed to create obstacles for the demons. But you’d never know whether you were on his good side or not.

                    Maybe the unusualness of that day gave him some heightened attention, but Godfrey started to notice some other strange patterns.
                    The Finnleys on duty were acting glitchy this morning. Looking through the console, he’d noticed there were some logs for the past days’ activity missing, and an unusual activity around some of the old tunnels which were used for temporary storage of the sulphur’s crates.

                    An irrational doubt started to creep on him, enhanced by the feeling of unusually low activity inside the dusty bowels of the red planet.
                    There was really no reason to worry, he tried to reassure himself, but as he’d liked to repeat, better be safe than sorry.

                    He pushed the intercall button and called for an emergency evacuation drill.

                    #3769

                    In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      Betty Bloo wasn’t at all happy about her pigmentation, it was much too dark a blue ~ almost navy blue, or perhaps not quite that dark ~ more of a French navy blue, which was going to cause her no end of trouble. A delicate sky blue was what she wanted, even a slightly darker robins egg blue would have been acceptable, but French navy? Oh, brother! That sucked! Everyone knew it was much easier for a refugee alien with a pale blue colour. Dark blue was absolutely fatal ~ often literally.

                      Betty wondered how many others in the latest batch were as darkly tinted as she was, and looked around the holding camp apprehensively. Huddled in nervous groups at the far end of the room were the darkest midnight and Prussian blue skins (she particularly noticed the tall elegant indigo fellow and made a mental note to make his acquaintance later); in the middle of the room various men in shades of cobalt and turquoise milled around, chatting with the teal and cornflower blue girls, but what caught Betty’s eye was the colours of the newbies spilling out from the pigmentation chamber.

                      Some of them were such a pale blue they were almost grey: delicate powder blue and baby blue, the palest aqua and faded periwinkle. It almost seemed as if the later ones were a result of the pigment running out. She realized that she must have been one of the first to be created. Surely that gave her some seniority? A superior position in the blue hierarchy? Did blue alien refugees have a system of hierarchy at all, she wondered?

                      Well, she said to herself grimly, squaring her darkest blue shoulders. We are about to find out. Blue lives matter!

                      #3734

                      In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                      “Your first assignment will be rather simple my dears.”
                      Master Medlik ignored the side-way chatter and drama that Lady Master in training Blather was occupied with and projecting around in their shared simultaneous now.
                      “Find yourself the clearest vessel, and see how you can share energetically and discourage their tendency for fluffy words. Direct energetic contact and sharing of unity-love.”

                      “Like a rote?” Blather said, getting out of her distractions.
                      “If you will, yes. You can chose your favourite Gem Ray to work with. Then, study how they integrate and develop the subtle amount of energy you share with them. This will be the first step before integrating more energies.”

                      He resumed after a pause. “A word of caution though. Remember to balance compassion with wisdom, and not to offer more than is asked. You may disrupt their body consciousness if you proceed too… buoyantly.”

                      #3563
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        Aunt Idle:

                        Flora arrived, hot and dusty from the travelling, in the late afternoon. A shower and a well iced gin and tonic soon revived her, and I got the girls to see to supper and the oddball in room 8, and asked Bert to keep an eye on them while Flora and I sat on the porch. It did me a power of good to sit chatting and joking with a friend, a woman of my own age and inclinations, after the endless months of nothing but the company of kids and old coots.

                        She looked pretty much the same as I’d gathered from the videos and photos online, although her bum was a lot bigger than I expected considering her slender frame, but she was an attractive woman with a merry gurgle of a laugh and warm relaxing energy.

                        I asked her about the video she was planning to make, but it all sounded a bit vague to me. “Frame” it was to be called, and there were various period costumes involved and a considerable amount of improvisation, from what I could gather, around the theme of “frame of reference”. What that meant exactly I really couldn’t say, but she said we were all welcome to play a role in it if we liked.

                        We’d been sitting out there until well past sundown, enjoying the cool evening air and a bit of Bert’s homegrown pot, posting selfies together on Spacenook and giggling at the comments, when we heard an ear splitting scream coming from an upstairs window. Flora looked at me with a raised eyebrow, and I just cracked right up for some reason, don’t ask me why. I laughed until the tears were rolling down my cheeks, and my ribs ached. I tried to stand up and fell back in the chair, which made me laugh all the more. I was wiping my eyes with a paper hanky when Clove appeared, saying Prune had had a nightmare.

                        “Oh thank goodness for that!” I exclaimed, which set me off again, and this time Flora joined in. I did wonder later when I was getting ready for bed what she must have thought about it all, me having hysterics at the sound of a screaming child. But it did me a world of good, all that laughing, and I was still tittering to myself when I lurched into bed.

                        #3526
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          Another bang on my bedroom door, my hands suspended over the keyboard. “Go away Prune!” I shouted, exasperated. “If you bang on my door again, I’ll come out and give you such a wallop, now bugger off, will you!”

                          “It’s me, Corrie” came Clove’s voice. Walked over to the door and unlocked it. A chat with my sister might help me with this project. Unlike Prune, who would be guaranteed to disrupt my train of thought.

                          Locking the door again I tell Clove what I’m writing about. We don’t go to school, me and Clove, we’re what they call “homeschooled” but what that actually means in our case is that we’re left to our own devices most of the time. Aunt Idle asks us (when she remembers) what we’ve been working on, and as long as we’ve been writing something or researching something, she’s happy.

                          So when I saw the group project about alternative timelines to avoid the disaster timeline, I had some ideas. Well, to be honest, I didn’t have any definite ideas until I saw the other suggestions. All Americans, and all of them talking about changing the timelines by changing the results of presidential elections!

                          “Not much chance of a different timeline there then!” remarked Clove astutely.

                          “Exactly!” I knew Clove would get it, she knows were I’m coming from, but then, everyone knows twins are like that.

                          “So this is what the plan is, right: “The goal of this exercise is to discuss amongst the group and choose significant past moments, and then As a Group, focus on creating alternate histories, thus sparking alternate timelines. We should vividly imagine moving forward from those probability forks and creating a more viable and desirable future.” Oh, and this bit here: “ our current timeline is convoluted to the point where many probabilities are leaning towards a disaster scenario simply to shake out of the current focus.” And then all these suggestions about different presidents, and then this: “My suggestion would be also to consider how we would like our current time frame to appear,” so I’m thinking…”

                          “I’m thinking” interrupted Clove, continuing my train of thought, “Of all those states and communities that got with the programme ten years ago, and took their kids out of school and built those Earthships so they didn’t need money for water and electricity..”

                          “And started cooperative worker owned businesses like they do in South America….”

                          “And they all started a guaranteed basic income years ago, so everyone was doing what they did best, especially the kids, cos they had such great ideas and weren’t stuck in boring schoolrooms…..”

                          “and there was no poverty, and nobody without a home…”

                          “Yeah, and they all stopped paying taxes so there was no money for the military, and then loads more people stopped paying taxes too…”

                          “Good one, Clove!”

                          “So nobody gave a fuck what president was elected anyway, because they were all sorting themselves out, and those states and communities were doing so well…”

                          “Because they’d already been doing it for years” I added.

                          “…that other states and communities started doing it too.”

                          “So that it snowballed, like dominoes, and there were more and more of these places..”

                          “And they had exchange students and stuff like that to learn from each other, and shared stuff online..”

                          “So when the disasters struck, it wasn’t half so bad because there were already a bunch of people managing perfectly well without dollars or oil, and they could help the people in the disaster. Makes more sense that electing another blimmin president, huh?”

                          “Bloody obvious if you ask me” replied Clove. “Pity we don’t have basic income, did you see Mater’s face when she was talking to that debt collector?”

                          That made me laugh, remembering her waving the stick around. “Her face was as purple as her cardigan.”

                          In unison, we both starting singing Start Wearing Purple and dancing around, acting the fool. I had a purple wig hanging on the back of my chair, so I put that on, and Clove grabbed a purple feather boa off the coat stand. No shortage of wigs in this town, though god only knows why. Just about every damn trunk in every empty house is full of wigs.

                          #3460

                          Lisa felt constipated and feverish. It was the first signs of nicotine withdrawal. She shouldn’t have used so many patches before they left for the Island. And she hadn’t thought of bringing some for this journey. With the monotony of the landscape, her attention kept drifting away from their goals. She was thinking of Jack again. Was he able to manage all the dogs ? Had he neutered all the cats ? She had dreamt that he was bitten by Flint.

                          When they arrived near the coast, she felt disappointed. It was kind of greyish. And the drizzle, which started falling shortly after they left Gazalbion, felt cold on her cheeks. This wasn’t helping cheer up her mood. Besides, despite all the fun of ass traveling, after some time, your own eventually hurt.

                          “Where are the bamboos?” asked Fanella.
                          Lisa was shivering, the wind had become stronger, which oddly reinforced her feeling of isolation, and the sea looked agitated.
                          “Yeah! where are the bamboos?” she said, allowing her irritation to blurt out in her tone. Although, in a way she was relieved that they wouldn’t have to build their own raft. Maybe they could even rest a little. She looked at the greenish sand. Maybe not.
                          Her ass brayed something unintelligible, emitted a small surprised bark, then cleared his throat.
                          “Sorry for that, after a while, what you shapeshift into begins to run into you”, said Lazuli Galore.
                          “You must be shapeshifting quite often”, added Sanso pensively.
                          Lazuli didn’t know how to take that and decided to snort.
                          “I must have lost track”, he continued, “or the island have changed since the last time I went there, which was when I arrived on the island, and… that’s funny I don’t remember when. Anyway, I can still shapeshift into something else and carry you on the other size.”
                          “A whale!” said Fanella, excited at the idea.
                          “Not a whale!” countered Lisa, horrified. “He might think he’s one and make us sink with him.” Her teeth were chattering, she didn’t know if it was because of the cold or because of her withdrawal.
                          “A duck would be perfect”, she said with a resolute tone. “Ducks float quite well and we could get some warmth under the feathers. We should have taken blankets when we left.”
                          The ass looked at her, a bit puzzled. “Have you ever seen a duck ?” he asked, “they are quite small.”
                          Lisa was going to retort something she could have regretted, but Sanso spoke before she could.
                          “According to my experience, size is not an issue for you, Lazuli”, he said.
                          Fanella frowned, then put her hand to her mouth and tittered.

                          Before she could say Jackass, Lisa felt the ass grow between her legs. Soon enough, they were all comfortably settled on the back of a giant mandarin duck, floating away from the grey shore into the unknown.

                          #3453

                          The mirage was no longer a fleeting evasive picture.
                          They could see the pyramid’s top quite clearly, drawing them to its spot. By the robot’s estimation, they should already have reached it two days ago.
                          But it stood there, unmovable, and somehow still out of reach, an always moving horizon line.

                          “May I suggest a drumming session?” Jeremy asked around the campfire.
                          Arona raised her head silently but intrigued. The rude cat jumped on a flat stone and questioned him “What do you know about drumming, young boy?”
                          “Well, obviously that place is protected from intrusion, and we have to find the key to its entrance. I found drumming can help align our intents and give us inner clarity. Maybe one of us will find clues.”

                          It took them some time to discuss about technicalities, assemble a drum with a piece of Arona’s cape, and silence out their chatters, but after an unmeasurable and undetermined amount of time, they were all drawn into a pridanic journey to the rainbow world.

                          When they came out of the trance, Jeremy looked at them, amazed and excited by what he had seen.

                          First, they had travelled, guided by a herd of unicorns, to the heights of Karmalott, only to find it deserted, with faceless spirits leaving it.
                          When they shared their accounts, it seemed they all had seen in some form, the old City descending, with the wilting beanstalk bearing its weight with increasing difficulty. A flight of storks guided many to a safe place, and they’d seen most people would be fine.

                          It was then that they saw the P’hope mounted on a creature flying awkwardly like a bat, descending towards the pyramid. Greenie recognized him and with him painful feelings of betrayal came back. George as well remembered old secrets, and why he was the King, and how his departure had precipitated Karmalott’s fate.
                          As for Irina, riding on a spirit zebra, she’d found that people from her past were after her and her dear Mr R, and had followed her on the island. Using the teleporting boxes of the temple could send her to a safe place. Maybe on one of Mars’ posts.
                          Arona realized, there was little hope she could claim her bounty, as there was no longer a City to bring Greenie back to. But then, a spirit tortoise showed her the Cup she was promised was lying deep in the underground clear lakes under the temple.

                          Jeremy was quick to point it out. “That’s it! The entrance is from below, we have to follow the underground currents.”

                          #3421

                          “What? Teleportation sandpapered granite boxes in an old forgotten temple? You really want to stretch my beliefs to the point of rupture, little one”, Irina looked surprised at Greenie after their little meditative chit-chat.

                          The angel guy with bad tastes of clothing, who said he was named George, interrupted rudely.

                          “I think she’s right, it rings a distant bell. I don’t know how I know about it, but somehow getting out of Karmalott altered my memories… But I think it’s true, they were used to travel on and off the island, also to other places. Why they’ve been lost is a mystery… But they should be getting us back up to the City in no time…”
                          “Or out of the island…” Irina gave a look to Mr R. “Let’s find these precious ruins”.

                          :fleuron:

                          Thanks to the sabulmantium’s information, Arona had recognized the strange travelling companions of the young girl she was supposed to find. It was no coincidence she’d dropped on that awful bog water so near to the raft. She had actually aimed for it before Mandrake panicked at the sight of the murky waters and got them both in for a swim.

                          She’d decided to stay with them, and reveal her purpose at an appropriate moment, while trying to keep the stranger’s hands off her butt.

                          She was pleased to see Mandrake was also struggling being left alone by the blinking parrot.

                          #3379
                          F LoveF Love
                          Participant

                            At first, Sadie did not realise she was invisible.

                            It was only when she looked in the bathroom mirror she realised something was missing, and even then it took a moment to register. Thinking about it later, it seemed strange to her that something as monumental as being invisible could have gone unnoticed for at least 5 minutes. Yet she had risen that morning with her usual feeling of happiness that everything was right with the world—it was a feeling she had worked hard to cultivate after many hours of selective brainwashing and meditation practice at the Academy.

                            After the initial shock, Sadie realised what must have happened. Before bed the evening before, she had finally plucked up courage to do the set of exercises given to her by the Techromancer in 2222. He said it would assist her in her attempts to leave her body and explore other dimensions. Clearly, something had gone very askew.

                            ”Right then”, said Sadie, trying to remain calm and rather relieved she could still hear her voice, ”I am going to have to message Linda Pol and explain the situation. I will request to be returned to 2222 so that I can have another chat with that Techno weirdo.”

                            ………………………………………….

                            Linda Pol was delighted to get Sadie’s timely message on her e-zapper. But she had no intention of returning her to 2222.

                            Not just yet, anyway.

                            #3226

                            With years of intense Happiness training, and being herself a certified Happiness Coach™ in Rainbow Unified Bliss®, Lisa was reasonably adept at dispelling the occasional bouts of frustration that the six time travelers were experiencing while familiarizing themselves with the new time frame. Learning the new languages, both the local Spanish and the common language of the village tribe, English, was of paramount importance, and Mirabelle in particular was having difficulties. A basic vocabulary was easy enough, but when it came to grammar, Mirabelle was hopeless. Thus her communications were of a very basic and rudimentary nature, and she often felt unable to express her feelings, or her thoughtful observations on the many nuances, similarities and differences and overlaps of the current time and 18th century France. Not only was she obliged to learn two new languages, but was also learning to read and write. Often it seemed like all work and no play, too much pressure to perform, to learn, to do well at her studies, and yet play breaks were always frustrated in some manner because of her difficulties in communicating clearly. The fact that the others were progressing better with the languages made her feel alone, adrift in a sea of her own unexpressed thoughts.
                            Adeline had a more relaxed approach to the language difficulties, less inclined to struggle with it and more likely to chatter endlessly to Boris instead, and ask him to translate when she needed some help. She had discovered an interest, and some considerable talent, in the art room, experimenting with the paints and materials, and spent many happy hours engrossed in her paintings and playful collages of mundane (but to her, bizarre) objects. She was like a magpie, collecting items that caught her eye. The bright colours and smoothness of plastic appealed to her, especially when transformed in shape by one of those odd little plastic fire making gadgets. Sunglasses were another favourite, especially the different shades of lens. It was not unusual to hear one of the villagers complaining that the lids to the tupperware containers were missing, or all the bottle tops had been removed, to find they had all been glued together, with the flyswatter, a few odd flipflop beach shoes and the mirror lenses out of someones shades. But the villagers were on the whole amused, generously indulgent, and good naturedley rolled their eyes at her creative curiosity.
                            Boris was practical and capable, and true to form, was learning rapidly. He had no particular desire to express vague rambling thoughts (indeed, he was not a vague and rambling man by nature) and turned his attention to more practical matters. When he wasn’t chatting to Adeline, he was watching Jack tinkering inside car engines, or playing with Pierre’s camera and had quickly learned how to upload and play with the images on the computer. Often in the evenings Adeline would sit beside him and watch drowsily as the images changed in front of her eyes on the screen.
                            Ivan and Igor were learning what they needed to learn while doing it ~ tending the goats and chickens, working outside on the land, or helping with various building projects. They had taken to the local bars like ducks to water, and spent the evenings downing copious amounts of beer and wine with the locals, all of them babbling and shouting incoherently, but seeming to understand each other in the camaraderie of inebriation.

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