Search Results for 'continued'

Forums Search Search Results for 'continued'

Viewing 20 results - 201 through 220 (of 286 total)
  • Author
    Search Results
  • #2652

    In reply to: Strings of Nines

    TracyTracy
    Participant

      “We walk, Ia’eh and Minkah, Desher and I,” Elizabeth read the email from Hypatia, “ towards the dark ridge of stone where the books lie hidden, awaiting the day they should be found again…..When Cleopatra ruled, the books numbered 400,000…and this, I think, is true. By the time of Theon of Alexandria, an age in which the books were no loner in the Great Library of the Palace of the Ptolemies, which was also no longer, but housed instead the “daughter” library of the Serapeum, they numbered 360,000. Those lost to the Bishop of Theophilus amounted to a tenth of these. But no matter if full half were lost, that Minkah brought out from Alexandria so many amazed me then; it amazes me still. He not only carried them here, but brought back an account of where each cave was sited, and which jars were placed in which cave.”

      Godfrey, didn’t we know a Minky once, who was a sort of a servant?”

      “We did indeed, Liz, you were the one who inserted him into the story, surely you remember?”

      “Well, the name rings a bell, Godfrey, but where did we meet him?”

      Godfrey snapped his fingers and as if by magic, an excerpt from the Reality Play appeared:

      “Just then a funny little man with a huge cheeky grin appeared and held out a tray. Smoothies! Coconut and berry smoothies, and pink cakes, croissants”

      “Croissants!” interrupted Elizabeth.

      “… and oranges, and a box of cadbury’s chocolates…”

      “Don’t remind me about Cadbury’s” groaned Elizabeth. “I simply can’t bear it that they’ve blinked into another dimension”

      Godfrey continued: “ Dory slurped and munched and gobbled and slurped some more, and underneath where the chocolate was, she saw a brochure.
      On the front cover was a picture of a cave. OOHH A CAVE! Dory loved caves! Let’s go to the cave today, Minky! she said to the funny fellow with the impish grin. Minky winked.”

      “He was going to take Dory to the caves!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “Why didn’t I finish that story thread!”

      “There’s no need to wring your hands like that, Liz” said Godfrey soothingly. “You can continue it now!”

      #2068

      In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud

      ÉricÉric
      Keymaster

        reminded cow sharon harvey strange times
        dark flow magpie cave certainly giving help
        somewhat fellowship continued choose
        certain nobody within otherwise

        #2402

        “What?” The Majorburgmester of Peasland almost laughed of surprise at the incongruity of Fwick con Troll’s idea. “You’re telling that this…”

        “Little spider, yes”
        “Contains a potent venom that could wipe the blubbits off the face of Peasland?”
        “Absolutely, dear Majorburgmester
        “Are you out of your Fwicking mind, Fwick? What breading this nasty spider could possibly bring us any better than a plague of crop-eating blubbits in rut?”
        “I was actually talking of breeding them, sir” Fwick objected
        The Mayor continued unperturbed “Besides, we already have our fierce constable Stoll drill the mythic Eight Dimension for answers.”
        “That would be placing a lot of trust in that foolish venture, I’m afraid to say, Majorburgmester. To date, very few people have managed to return safely.”
        “Oh, who cares if they ever bloody come back Fwick! Come on! All we need to do is extort the answers from his spouse who’s kept all their heads in a safe place, I have no doubt of that.”
        “Well… I wouldn’t place my head on this bet if I were you…”

        “Ah, bugger off then with your stinking spider, and do your bloody experiments… As long as it doesn’t involve my name, and especially in case any misguided and sad assassination should occur, ahahaha. I’m joking of course.” The Mayor’s face (which was framed and hanged on the wall of the Majorburgmester Hall’s main office) suddenly shut any hint of humanity that could have been left on it.

        #2387

        ‘No problem for that’, retorted mac Assar, ‘we bought one of these brand new head-fastener, “they help you keep you head on” the ad says!’ she continued merrily.

        Pee hold his breath and his first thoughts about this kind of accessory; some customers associations were pitting against these head-fasteners as they were said to make you loose your head more quickly with age. The Alsa Meyer syndrome was wreaking havoc on the pea-ceful peaple of New Peasland these days and the medical corpse didn’t know how to stop it. But Pee would be there when she’d loose her head!

        Silly broke the cone of silence by telling her aunt that her new head-fastener looked like a horse, which made Auntie mac Assar and Dolores laugh heartily, and made Pee blush forcefully.

        ‘Never say that to a lady’, said her aunt.

        #2368

        “Ah there you are at last,” muttered Fwick to the cloaked man. “Before you leave I must get you to sign this form.”

        “What is it?” asked Pee.

        “Good Lord, what the F was that noise!” shouted Fwick, looking around in fright. “Ah! I see you have been endowed with a remarkably raucous voice! You startled me!” Taking some deep breaths to calm himself, Fwick continued.

        “It is a disclaimer … a technical matter, basically saying be it on your own heads …” Fwick paused to chuckle at his own joke, “Ahem as I was saying, basically absolving me from any responsibility should you encounter any difficulties on your excursions into the Eight Dimension, or ED as we Saucerers call it. When you have signed, I can give you the four notes which will open ED for you.”

        #2646

        In reply to: Strings of Nines

        One thing led to another, as it tends to do, while Sanso sat meditating on the enigma of The Dead Cow. Random and seemingly disjointed images flashed through his mind, not unlike a random google had been back in the old days, the first being an odd word, Kogaionon . Accessing further information, Sanso discovered that it was an ancient Transylvaniun skull. The link between the dead cow and the skull was clear ~ it was a bone sync, they both had bones, there was no denying it. Encouraged, Sanso continued to meditate.

        :crystal-skull:

        After some images of a battle at sea , presumably Trafalgar, Sanso intuitively felt, he heard the words “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Wise words, he thought, and appropriate too. He popped these snippets into his indigo clue bag and continued to meditate. An image of a strange creature, half fish and half lion appeared next, a Merlion, which quickly morphed into an entertaining old movie playing across the screen of his minds eye, so to speak, in which someone who reminded him of Becky arrived in Paris during a rainstorm with just the clothes on her back ~ and interesting clothes they were, too! Sanso was glued to the screen, in a manner of speaking, and watched with amusement as a whole new wardrobe was delivered to the puzzled woman, followed by her mysterious benefactor: Georges.

        Well, fancy Georges turning up again like that! Sanso was delighted. Perhaps Georges could shed some light on the mystery of the Dead Cow Blocking the Cave Entrance.

        Sanso returned to his meditation and found himself eavesdropping on a conversation.

        — Well, and Sanso, and Georges then, are they dead or what? How come Dory can see them?
        — These ones are special, they have mastered the crossing of the Worlds, and can move through them. They move differently though. Sanso comes from a lineage of an ancient tribe of Zion, and had learn from them how to activate some portals, but only through the physical world of Dory, in their own time. He is not yet aware that he can also move through time as well, or even through other Worlds — worlds that he has no conception of yet.
        Georges is more consummate in that art. Their meeting is not coincidental. You will see that.
        — Thank you Grandad, it’s becoming a bit less confusing.
        — Just flow with the story my little one, don’t hold on too much, or you will find it too difficult, and you will stop to find fun in it.

        “Their meeting is not coincidental” Sanso repeated to himself, popping it into his clue bag. “Well, I don’t know about Meanings, but at least I have a new bag of clues now!”

        #2645

        In reply to: Strings of Nines

        TracyTracy
        Participant

          Sanso had been hanging around for far too long, trying to make sense of all the funny ideas that people have, and trying to get to grips with all their adventures and escapades, their convoluted ponderings, and all the friends and associates that were continually weaving themselves through the many threads. He’d all but forgotten that he was a wanderer by nature, used to travelling alone. Somehow he’d become stuck in their ways, despite not ever really fitting in completely, and he wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened. Perhaps it had been the broccoli. With a defiant devil may care spirit, he’d eaten the broccoli
          from the jar marked “You Fool”, when all the others had chosen the broccoli in the jar labeled “Thank You”. Well, he’d chosen it, there was no blaming anyone else for it, after all. But the effects had all but worn off, and he was starting to get the old familiar itch to travel again, to explore.

          “You can go in any direction you want” he heard himself say as he mentally transported himself back to a scene in his Story. “You’ll always be at the centre of everything.”

          How very strange that he’d forgotten that. That brocolli was powerful stuff.

          “You interpret the signs however you want to…” the voice of Sanso In Another Scene continued, “and then you act on it. And I’ll tell you this as well, it’s about time you stopped rehashing Old Scenes and started exploring some new ones. Just go, go now! Put one foot in front of the other, and just go ~ go back into the cave.”

          Sanso was on the verge of protesting that he didn’t have a plan, and then remembered how much he liked surprises.

          For the briefest moment, Sanso wondered if he should leave a note for anyone, or get the laundry in before he set off, or pack a suitcase or something, but decided to start off as he meant to carry on ~ alone, impulsive and free to wander the world of his own making.

          ~~~

          There was a large black cow blocking the entrance to the cave. The cow was dead and bloated, although it hadn’t started to smell yet. Sanso wondered whether it was a sign, and decided that it was. It would be rather pointless to create a large dead cow blocking the cave entrance if it had no significance to the story, he deduced, although he hadn’t yet worked out an appropriate meaning for the sign.

          Weighing up his options, Sanso realized there were several choices he could make. He could delete the previous paragraph, and simply walk into the cave. He could wait until the cow decomposed, and then simply climb over the bones. He could wander around until he found another cave entrance, or simply teleport himself into the cave behind the cow.

          However, the only option that he could think of that would include the Meaning of the Dead Cow Blocking The Cave Entrance would be to stay with the cow until the meaning had been found. If he ignored the cow, he might be Missing An Important Meaning. Notwithstanding, the meaning may turn up later, whether he forgot about it or not.

          Sanso decided to sit and meditate on the Meaning of the Cow before proceeding. He could change his mind at any moment if he got bored.

          #2344
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            “Allow me to explain about loom weights,” said the man in the elaborate blue turban. “You create a type of pattern, so to speak, a tapestry. The picture of the tapestry is created in the style, so to speak, of the qualities of the family that you align with. The details and the background threads of the tapestry are the expressions of qualities of the family that you are belonging to.”

            “I knew this tapestry and weaving stuff would fit in somewhere” interrupted LizAnn.

            “Shh!” said Finnley.

            “In this” the man in the blue turban continued, “You may notice certain qualities and expressions throughout your focus that appear to underlie all of your directions that you choose within your particular focus. This is the influence of the family that you are belonging to – in this situation, that of Sumafi.” He looked pointedly at Godfrey. “You shall notice throughout your focus what may be expressed as an attention to detail in the qualities of the Sumafi family, and at times this may be associated within your societal beliefs and definitions as a type of perfectionism.

            “This is counterbalanced by the Sumari” he said with a glance at LizAnn, “Who do not concern their movement with tremendous attention to detail.”

            “Tell me about it” remarked Godfrey drily.

            The man in the blue turban grinned and continued, “The expression and qualities of the Sumari are merely to be creating new directions and offering challenging information which shall spark new explorations of your reality. But the attention of the Sumari does not concern itself with outcomes or endings or detail.”

            “Yes, we had noticed” interjected Finnley, who stuck her tongue out at LizAnn. LizAnn made a rude gesture to Finnley and said “See, I told you I couldn’t help it.”

            Godfrey sighed in resignation and reached for the peanuts. “I suppose the point of all that is that there’s no point in fighting your warp. Or is it weft?”

            #2343
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              “Serenely on her tiny loom she weaves her story with careful art.
              And who am I, with meddling pen to send it’s loveliness apart?

              For I, who am a weaver, too, look on that intricate design,
              And know its daft embroideries are just as beautiful as mine….”

              LizAnn read the poem out loud, subsituting a few words of her own, and pointed out to Godfrey the distinct lack of any mention of spiders.

              “We don’t have to include any actual spiders, Godfrey,” she said firmly. “Forget the spiders! We’re talking here about weaving a story from all the loose threads, not spinning a web with which to ensnare anyone. The myths” continued LizAnn, warming to the subject, “Concerning spiders and weaving are being rewoven anew. The Text Tiles are myriad, and all equally meaningless. The purpose of Text Tiles is no longer a sticky web of beleifs with which to ensnare the unsuspecting traveller, but a patchwork of …of….”

              “Lost your thread, LizAnn?” inquired Gordon, smugly.

              “You rude old coot” she replied, “Have some more peanuts, and allow me to finish.”

              “Finish? Well, that will be a first.”

              “What I was trying to say is that the weaving of the story can’t be contained inside the confines of the linearly constructed Reality Play. One only needs to focus on ones own weaving, in and out of the warped story, and the weft wide world outside, so to speak. The same principle applies to the other weavers and the Text Tile viewers. Each comment may be considerd to be a single Text Tile, or patchwork piece. These indiviual Text Tiles may be arranged in multitudes of ways according to the manner in which they are woven into an individuals own story weaving experience.”

              “That’s as may be, LizAnn, but what about loom weights? To anchor the warp? Or is it the weft…”

              #2341
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                As far as the Ooh-dimension was concerned, the shift of Vowellness was probably complete

                “Thank Flove for that!” Ann (or was it Elizabeth?) exclamied. She continued to read the contents of the large manila envelope that had been delivered several weeks late due to the postal strike.

                “Postal strike?” Gordon (or was it Godfrey?) inquired sarcastically. “Ann ~ or is it Liz? ~ surely you just made that up! Do you need an excuse?”

                LizAnn chose to ignore her old freind Pig Littleton and continued to read.

                And she couldn’t find anything new being published by Ms Tattler in all now probable directions she was looking into.

                LizAnn snorted.

                She was of course ignoring the disrupted echoes from the Jumbled Eights thread, which were probably the brainstorming board of ideas of the writer, which she had the greatest difficulty to follow (she wondered if even the writer could).

                Reaching for her handkerchief, LizAnn snorted again. “No the writer bloody can’t follow it” she muttered. “But does it bloody matter!”

                Her own thread and the details of the history of the Wrick family was always sketchy and full of holes;

                “Aha Ha Ha Ha”

                she’d attempted at learning more about the elusive Becky , but she kept blinking in and out of continuity, too quickly for her to follow her anywhere in her explorations

                “Yes, where the devil IS Becky, Gordfry? or is it Godon?”

                #2328

                Ann spent the morning (or a mere half hour, if truth be told) enjoying her physicality in the gentle autumn morning sun before returning indoors. The drop in temperature was still new enough to remember to appreciate fully. She felt at peace with her world, a happy balance of words and sunbeams, that is until she perused the latest additions to the BA (Bash Ann, by the looks of things) group project.

                Ann frowned. Who the heck was Harvey? It was almost the last straw, despite Ann’s sunny mood. The very idea of trawling back through the paperwork to find out who he was, and indeed who everyone else was, was too daunting. “If it’s not fun don’t do it!” That’s what they all said. Over and over again they said “if it’s not fun don’t do it”.

                The writing was fun, and the random reading was fun, but it wasn’t fun ~ in fact, it gave her a headache ~ to try and remember who and when and where everyone was. Perplexed, Ann wondered if she simply wasn’t cut out for working in a group. On the other hand, she simply wasn’t a loner either.

                “Be remebering,” the disembodied voice whispered in her left ear, “That they are all YOU.”

                Oh! Right, yes….herm….well where does that leave me?

                “Right at the centre of it all, as always,” the voice replied.

                Er, so it’s all MY story, then? The whole thing is all me, all mine? All the characters are ME?

                “Quite!”

                So I can do whatever I want, then?

                “Of course!”

                Right then, so I can write whatever I want, which is fun, and not write what I don’t want, which isn’t fun, and that will be quite alright, will it?

                “Correct!” the voice chuckled indulgently. “And it may behoove you” it continued in a conspiratorial tone, “To remember than any flak from the others in the group, is in fact, YOU giving YOURSELF a flakking reflection.”

                Oh. Well Right Ho, then. Toot! Toot!

                #2323

                “Let’s put it this way” Ann continued, “Tis better to allow the snippets to flow out than to bottle them up, which is where the expression ‘to rack ones brains’ comes from. Rows and rows of bottles of thoughts on metal racks in a dusty cellar, contained within the confines of the glass, denied freedom of expression, and all because the Bottle Rack Attendant, or BRA for short, refused to set them free to find their own way in the world of infinite individual storylines.”

                #2322

                “You see, by no manner is it an issue if things aren’t continuous” Walter was saying, which immediately brought to Ann’s mind the latest development at her end of the group project. For some reason lately she found that she was permanently signed in, as opposed to previously, when she’d had the dickens of a job to stay signed in long enough to make an entry. Permanently connected, as it were.

                “….and I know it’s almost blasphemous to say that” Walter continued, causing Ann to raise an eyebrow, “…but the crux of the matter lays in the measure with which things are expanded and linked together.”

                “If I may be so bold as to interrupt, sir,” Ann couldn’t restrain herself from interjecting, “Surely that is what readers are for? Is not the purpose of the writer, or indeed any artist, to simply offer particles, or pieces, for the viewer to add, or not, as they choose, to their own continuous storylines?”

                Walter opened and closed his mouth like a godfish. (Ann had to laugh at the typographical error.)

                “For example” Ann continued, warming to the subject, “When I random read book pages, then channel surf the TV, followed by a random roam around online, interspersed with perhaps a few phone calls, or various incidents throughout the day, I’m making a continuous story of my own, with pages and screenshots and conversation snippets borrowed, if you like, from many external sources (and before you say anything, I am aware that no source is external, but don’t let me start digressing). The era of being ‘told’ a story to beleive in its entirety is over! Everyone knows these days that we each make our own story, with a bit of this, and a bit of that. It’s The Age of Random Tips & Snippets, after all, everyone knows that! It’s T.A.R.T.S. time now!”

                #2288

                “And anyone” continued Professor Gub “who hands in their assignment written in Slooperniff instead of English will be eligable for the draw for the trip to the Worserversity in September. Any questions?”

                :yahoo_bug:

                #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.

                  #2621

                  In reply to: Strings of Nines

                  ÉricÉric
                  Keymaster

                    “Well, you’re not going to make Franlise believe you outdid yourself in Continuity Course by stringing a slew of comments all made by yourself in less than an hour darling” Godfrey said Ann, wishing he would have briefed her more about being an infallible agent-double for the Fellowship

                    “And there are risks you know” he said lowering his voice “if they unmask you, they may do something dreadful, perhaps even go as far as a character annihilation…”
                    “Sometimes I fear you take our reality just too lightly” Godfrey continued with a misery look on his face. “If you really want to bring down the Fellowship, you got to be more cautious to first understand how they work.”

                    Godfrey didn’t know why, but it suddenly felt as though all the subtleties of the dangers involved in this mission somewhat (if not completely) eluded the befuddled Ann.

                    #2616

                    In reply to: Strings of Nines

                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      “It’s the 57th Creative Challenge theme, so I have to do it,” Ann remarked to her editor. “Obviously”, she added.

                      “What do you mean, obviously?” asked her editor (Ann had forgotten his new name in the second book, and toyed breifly with the idea of making up a new one ~ perhaps Rumbold the Pale?)

                      “Well, I would have thought that was obvious, Godfrey!” Ann replied tartly, secretly delighted that she’d remembered the old boy’s name. Notwithstanding, Ann continued to make little ‘cuh’ and ‘tut’ noises, and rolled her eyes a bit, until Godfrey eventually replied.

                      “Spiggot on the spike freak, Lingenburg Dash”.

                      “I beg your pardon?” Ann looked at Godfrey in astonishment. “Holy Moly, I said that earlier myself, whatever does it mean?”

                      “I haven’t got a clue, dear,” he replied. “Just popped into my head, you know, how it does…” His voice trailed off as he stared into space.

                      “I’ll google it.” As Ann started the search, she realized she’d completely forgotten that she was doing the 57th Creative Challenge entry. “Blimey O Riley, what am I LIKE” she said to herself, with a wry grin ~ she wasn’t altogether sure what wry meant, but somehow she felt it was wry ~ “Now what was the theme again?”

                      “Misery Loves Company” Godfrey piped up. “And dare I say, it’s rather obvious what has occurred here.”

                      “What do you mean, obvious?” retorted Ann, somewhat snarkily, although nowhere near as snarkily as Lavender might have said it.

                      Godfrey resisted the urge to respoond with a few little ‘cuh’s’ and ‘tut’s’, and chose to simply smile enigmatically.

                      Ann scowled at her old freind and said “If you don’t spell it out, you maddening old coot, I’ll write you out of this story. I’ll delete you.”

                      “You can write me out of YOUR story if you wish, but I may continue to write YOU into MY story.”

                      “Oh Gawd, WHAT?” Ann said to herself. “Where did that come from?”

                      “Ann, let me explain.”

                      “You sound just like Elias, Godfrey!”

                      “Ha! Ha! Ha!”

                      “Ahahahahahahah”

                      “Now shut up and pay attention”

                      Elias would never say that”

                      “That’s YOU saying that, Ann, to yourself,” said Godfrey.

                      YOU said that Godfrey, it’s right here in black and white!” retorted Ann.

                      “It’s never black and white, Ann, and it’s only here in black and white as ME saying it because YOU wrote it.”

                      “Well there’s no answer to that” replied Ann. She went to put the kettle on.

                      Ann returned to her computer with a steaming mug of tea.

                      “Now, shall we get back to the point, Ann?” inquired Godfrey, with a wry grin.

                      “I must look up that word later”, Ann mused. “I seem to be inordinately fond of the word wry tonight, I wonder why. I Wonder Wry…”

                      ANN!” Godfrey shouted. “Back to the point!”

                      Ann looked pained. “What point?”

                      “The point of this story, and the obvious occurence therein.”

                      “Welp, you’ve lost me there, Gordon, there was a point?”

                      “Oh My God, this could go on all night” Gordon was wringing his hands.

                      “Good God Gordon, didn’t see you come in!” exclaimed Godfrey.

                      Ann was giggling helplessly. She was rather pleased with the way she covered her faux pas over the editors name.

                      “‘Ann was giggling helplessly’; you see Ann, there is your clue!” Godfrey said excitedly, as he read aloud what Ann had just written.

                      “OH! NOW I get it! D’oh! Nonsense loves company! Giggling loves company! No wonder I couldn’t stay focused on misery!”

                      #2583

                      In reply to: Strings of Nines

                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        ~ “We are broadcasting today from planet Xavier.”~ wrote Rich Kendall, who was also online having a go at the radio exercise. ~ “The Happiness index on the Xavier stock exchange has gone up 75 points. It seems that a fellow named Morris Fishbaum has decided to stop berating himself for his supposed failures in the past, and has embraced a new self image. This change in Mr. Birnbaum has had a ripple effect automatically lifting up many others who also had been dwelling on past “mistakes.” Mr. Fishbaum’s metamorphosis leads analysts to forecast a new all time high for the Happiness Index within the next month. That’s the story from the Xavier financial markets and have a nice day.” ~

                        He continued: ~ “Morris Fishbaum is alive and well and living off the coast of Gibraltar
                        And rumor has it Morris has become very good friends with a local celebrity in Gibraltar that shall not be named except for the initials TM” ~

                        “Otherwise known as Teleport Moll”, Yoland pointed out.

                        ~ “Roy Gilroy was also mentioned in an article as to spending lots of time with Morris Fishbaum but that’s a whole other story.” ~

                        #2547

                        In reply to: Strings of Nines

                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          Ann wasn’t altogether sure what Godfrey meant when he referred to her new interest in continuity. Ann had always been interested in connecting links, yes, of that there was no doubt, but with so very many connecting links, and so many possible strings of connecting links, with so many possible divergences into yet more strings of connecting links, Ann really couldn’t fathom how anyone could possibly keep track of all those threads of continuity. Even a seemingly discontinuous assortment of unconnected links, once connected into a nonsense thread, became another continuity string. Furthermore, Ann continued ~ in a continuous fashion ~ to ponder, if everything is connected, then what, in actuality, was all the fuss about continuity? What exactly then WAS this concept of continuity? It seemed to Ann to be more like a string of barbed wire, or one of those flimsy but effective electric wire fences, boxing in the free flow of continuity, so that the objectively perceived continuity stayed rigidly within the confines of the preconceived tale. The inner landscape knew no such boundaries, although admittedly the inner landscape was far too vast to map.

                          Ann smiled to herself as she imagined trying to push pins into various inner landscape locations, tying strings from one to another, in an effort to map and label the inner continuity connections. Of course she was imagining it in a visual manner, because it was hard to imagine all those connections and strings being invisible and not taking up any space, and before long Ann’s inner map of pins and strings quickly resembled a tangle of overcooked spaghetti, perilously speckled with sharp pointy pins.

                          The image of the glutinous tangle dotted with sharp shiny pointers led Ann off on another tangent, but it was a tangent that soon became utter nonsense. Or was it, she mused. Perhaps it was those symbolically sharp pointy bits that in fact pointed out the immense variety of potential other continuity threads to choose from. Indeed, it could easily be said that having one of her characters dumped in Siberia in the previous story, painful though it was, was not unlike being pricked by a pin amidst the tangle of sticky pasta, a brilliantly effective pointer towards unlimited new directions.

                          Whichever way she looked at it (and Ann was aware that she might have gone down a side string) she simply couldn’t comprehend how anyone on this side of the veil could possibly even begin to understand the ramifications of the concept of continuity at all. Or how there could ever conceivably be a lack of it.

                          What was really intriguing Ann at this particular juncture of the experimental exploration of the story was the concept of the World View Library. This wasn’t unconnected to the continuity issue, far from it, it was all tied in (Ann sniggered at the unintentional pun) and connected. There were any infinite amount of potential continuity threads leading from, say, one persons desire or intent, to a particular world view in the library.

                          AHA shouted Ann, who at that moment had an ‘aha’ moment. Pfft, it’s gone, she sighed moments later.

                          Ann tried to catch the wisp of an idea that had flitted through her awareness. She had a visual impression of the library, endlessly vast and marvellously grand, with countless blindfolded characters dashing through, grabbing random pages or sentences, bumping into each other, snatching at phrases willy nilly, dropping notes along the way, and racing back out again into the ether. A stray thought here, a picture there, a name or a date, all on separate bits of crumbled paper clutched in the sweaty palms of the blindfolded characters as they rushed headlong back to their own realities to proudly share the new clues. Like magpies they were, snatching at anything that glittered brightly enough.

                          :magpie: :magpie: :magpie: :magpie: :magpie: :magpie:

                          “I thought you said they were blindfolded?” interrupted Franlise.

                          Ann ignored the interruption, and continued ~ in a continuous fashion ~ to ponder the imagery of the library.

                          What the undisciplined purloiners of random snatches didn’t notice on their pell-mell excursions into the library were the characters in the library who weren’t wearing blindfolds. They smiled down from the galleries, calmly watching from above the mayhem that the news of the unlimited library access had occasioned, chortling at the scenes of chaos below. They smiled indulgently, for they too had first visited the library blindfolded, snatching at this and that, and racing home again to inspect the booty; they too had fretted and pondered over the enigmas of the incomplete snippets. Eventually (or not, it was after all a choice), they had bravely removed the blindfolds, slowed the mad race into a sedate stroll through the library, opened their eyes and looked around, sure of the way back home now, and not in a desperate hurry to blast in, snatch anything, and run back home.

                          After awhile, they began to realize that all the enchanting glittering jewels scattered around to catch their eye would still be there later, there was no urgency to grab them all at once ~ although, as Ann reminded herself, that too was a choice ~ some may well choose to be eternally snatching at glittering jewels.

                          Ann frowned slightly and wondered if she’d lost the thread altogether, and then decided that it didn’t matter if she had.

                          It was a choice, therefore, to remove ones blindfold, and stroll through the library ~ a choice to perhaps choose a book, sit down at a polished oak table and open it, a choice to stay and read the book, rather than ripping out a page and dashing back home. That would be one choice of continuity, a coming together of strings.

                          Ann wondered whether that would then be called a cable, or a rope ~ well perhaps not a rope, she decided, that had other associations entirely ~ but a cable, yes, that had associations of reliable and regular communications. There were always strings of continuity, then, strings of connecting links, between anything and everything, but when one stopped dashing about clutching at the sparkley bits, one might form a cable.

                          Or not, of course. Thin strings of continuity and connections were not ‘less than’ thick cables of reliable and regular communications. It has to be said though, Ann reluctantly admitted, that thick cables often made more sense.

                          She decided to hit send before embarking on a pondering of the meaning of Sense.

                          #2228
                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            “I just had the strangest dream, Rob” Jane said to her husband. “About a future probability, but it was really kind of silly.”

                            “What was it about?” he asked, leaning over the kitchen table to turn down the volume of the radio. Leon Russel’s new Back To The Island was playing, the waves rolling onto the shore mingled with the trucks thundering past on the busy road outside.

                            “Well, I’m pretty sure it was in the future, around 2009, and the kids were creating having a day off from school by throwing a peanut at the school building.”

                            Rob smiled at his wife, shaking his head.

                            “The class of ’75 today,” Jane continued, “Create a day off school by making a prank bomb scare phone call, but those kids in the future just threw a peanut at the place!”

                            “You sure do explore some far out probabilities, honey.”

                          Viewing 20 results - 201 through 220 (of 286 total)