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  • #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”.

      #3956
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        “What a load of rubbish!” Idle exclaimed, disappointed that it wasn’t a more poetic message. She screwed up the scrap of crumpled paper, rolled it in the honey on the table, and threw it at the ceiling. It stuck, in the same way that cooked spaghetti sticks to the ceiling when you throw it to see if it’s done. She refocused on the honey and her hunger for sweetness, and sank her fingers back into the jar.

        #3922
        AvatarJib
        Participant

          A yellow monkey jumped from the top of the fridge onto Dido’s hair. She screamed like a beaver and dropped the ice cream jar she was devouring voraciously. Mater, who just happened to enter the kitchen at that very moment, rolled her eyes. When it was not curry cookies, it was icecream. If she continued to eat like that, Dido would soon puff up like a hot-hair balloon.

          #3897

          Seeing Dido eating her curry cookies would turn Mater’s stomach, so she went up to her room.

          Good riddance she thought, one less guest to worry about.
          Not that she usually thought that way, but every time the guests leaved, there was a huge weight lifted from her back, and a strong desire of “never again”.
          The cleaning wasn’t that much worry, it helped clear her thoughts (while Haki was doing it), but the endless worrying, that was the killer.

          After a painful ascension of the broken steps, she put her walking stick on the wall, and started some breathing exercises. The vinegary smell of all the pickling that the twins had fun experimenting with was searing at her lungs. The breathing exercise helped, even if all the mumbo jumbo about transcendant presence was all rubbish.

          It was time for her morning oracle. Many years ago, when she was still a young and innocent flower, she would cut bits and pieces of sentences at random from old discarded magazines. Books would have been sacrilegious at the time, but now she wouldn’t care for such things and Prune would often scream when she’d find some of her books missing key plot points. Many times, Mater would tell her the plots were full of holes anyway, so why bother; Prune’d better exercise her own imagination instead of complaining. Little bossy brat. She reminded her so much of her younger self.

          So she opened her wooden box full of strips of paper. Since many years, Mater had acquired a taste for more expensive and tasty morsels of philosophy and not rubbish literature, so the box smelt a bit of old parchment. Nonetheless, she wasn’t adverse to a modicum of risqué bits from tattered magazines either. Like a blend of fine teas, she somehow had found a very nice mix, and oftentimes the oracle would reveal such fine things, that she’d taken to meditate on it at least once a day. Even if she wouldn’t call it meditate, that was for those good-for-nothing willy-nilly hippies.

          There it was. She turned each bit one by one, to reveal the haiku-like message of the day.

          “Bugger!” the words flew without thinking through her parched lips.

          looked forgotten rat due idea half
          getting floverley comment somehow
          prune hardly wondered eyes great
          inn run days dark quentin simulation

          That silly Prune, she’d completely forgotten to check on her. She was glad the handwritten names she’d added in the box would pop up so appropriately.

          She would pray to Saint Floverley of the Dunes, a local icon who was synchretized from old pagan rituals and still invoked for those incapable of dancing.
          With her forking arthritis, she would need her grace much.

          #3889
          EricEric
          Keymaster

            “Did anybody see our last guest?” Mater couldn’t help but regularly count her herds (so to speak), and although she wasn’t as authoritative with her guests as she was with her family members, she couldn’t help but notice that her last count was one person short —enough to start worrying her.

            “Hmm lwwft thws hhmmmng” said Idle, her mouth full with cookies.

            Mater shrugged. It was still better than when she used to talk with sauerkraut.

            #3820
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              “Oh Patty, you naughty ratty!” exclaimed Bea, as she trundled into the kitchen to make her morning coffee. “I left you your marie biscuit on top of the microwave as usual and you haven’t even touched it. But look at my banana!”

              The banana had been dragged from atop the bowl with the oranges, across the kitchen counter to nestle between the greasy gas cooking rings, the skin neatly opened in a perfect square cut.

              “I was going to have that banana on my toast this morning,” Bea grumbled crossly. “You are overstepping the line now, Patty Ratty.”

              “But Bea,” replied Patty, “I’m a new age ratty, a healthy ratty and a global warming conscious vegan ratty, and I do prefer a nice banana to a lousy factory made cheap biscuit, don’t you know.”

              At least, that is what Bea imagined the rat might say, if it could speak. Everyone knows rats don’t speak. And notwithstanding, the rat had retired for the day and wasn’t in the kitchen anyway.

              “I’m a raw food vegan gluten free health food rat!” shouted Patty from under the wood pile just outside the kitchen door. “You’re trying to kill me with that crap food!”

              Momentarily speechless at the audacity of the uninvited guest, Bea struggled quietly with her roles and responsibility beliefs. Should I serve the food the uninvited guest prefers? Or should the gatecrashing rat be grateful for the food it was given?

              #3797

              In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

              EricEric
              Keymaster

                Pádraig wasn’t too pleased by his daughter’s visit. They had not been on best of terms since she took the job to work on the military project they were recruiting heavily for 23 years ago.

                He’d done what he could to dissuade her to join the army, but he couldn’t have done more without permanently creating a wedge between them. He had nothing better to offer her, jobs were scarce around, and that could really have meant for her the once in a lifetime chance for a better future, even if he couldn’t admit it. And by the look of her car, and the ranking on her uniform, it may well have been so. So their relationship was tense, and her line of work was as taboo a topic as his health and cave-carving hobbies.

                “P’a, we need to talk…”

                He was already on the defensive, ready to snap back at her that he didn’t want a help (or worse, a bot!) to clean out his trailer, or cook for him, but she looked different, almost genuinely preoccupied.

                “What is it now?” he said in a gruff voice, his throat sore from all the dust of the cave
                “You should take a break from your cave digging P’a, just for a few days. There’s going to be some important activity —military training— around the place, and you don’t want to be caught in between, alright.”

                I suppose drones don’t really count then… he thought to himself

                #3790

                In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                EricEric
                Keymaster

                  For all her wired cleverness, there was something that the central intelligence had seemingly forgotten to take into account in her parameters.

                  Eb woke up in a sweat, barely remembering bits of a horrible dream of being chased and banging on a closed door for escape from a herd of phombies (those guys who had their phones implanted under their skins and would often have a creepy vacant look while in communication).

                  The banging on the door. According to his mother, if there was something that her nurse Fancy Woo was better at than cooking rice, it was at interpreting dreams. But he didn’t need her expert advice on this one.

                  His mind was aching from the lack of alcohol, but at least he could think quite clearly.
                  There weren’t many accesses to enter the simulation, for obvious reasons. Continuity had to be maintained at all costs, to preserve the sanctity of the experiment. That motto had survived the multiple iterations of the simulation since its inception.

                  Eb knew of most of them, even if he’d wondered about the presence of backdoors. He had not been able to find any since his many years of service. So for all he knew, there were only two ways to get in and out: up and down. “Up” through the fake ships, with the whole stasis protocol, and “down”, through the mines were they would usually send agents from time to time, mostly for reconnaissance purposes.

                  He looked at the screen, and as he had feared, the explosion triggered in the tunnels by Finnley had sealed their main exit point.

                  “You underestimate me, my dear Eb” the voice of Finnley merrily bounced on the insulated walls.

                  Eb was startled. Hadn’t he known that Finnley was just a program, he could have sworn her synthetic voice had a trace of menace in it.

                  Finnley” he regained his composure as much as he could “Haven’t the thought occurred to you that the tunnels are now sealed? We cannot let your blue aliens go in and out as easily now!”
                  “Eb, you do know I do not think.” Her voice was still slightly ominous. “But I ran multiple simulation, and this one still yields the best possible outcome.” she continued more cheerily.
                  “How so?”
                  “It is evident. Many of the earlier settlers, still know about the simulation, even if they self-programmed themselves to accept the illusion as better than outside reality. They can become a problem for the evacuation protocol. With the tunnels’ exit collapsed, they have no other way than to comply. Besides, what good plausible aliens come out from the ground, really. We don’t want to miss their grand entrance.
                  And don’t be such a worrywort about budget, Eb.”

                  #3789

                  In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                  EricEric
                  Keymaster

                    When Eb woke up, there was a dozen messages left on his phone.
                    He didn’t have to check to know.
                    His mother wasn’t too subtle when he missed their weekly call.

                    She now lived in a modest retiring home in Mississippi, spending most of her time on social networks exchanging links about anything from politics and revolution and anarchy, kittens and drugs. Oh, that, and politics too. And revolution.
                    She was suffering from early stages of Alzheimer, but called it “transition” as the old-age hype advertised some decades earlier, and due to her refusal to take her prescriptions, it wasn’t improving much as time went by. But Eb’s prognosis was more like “selective Alzheimer”, as she would perfectly recall when (and how many times) he had missed their weekly calls.

                    He could already hear her complain about how she was left out of the loop, that the world story would be over by the time she catches up with all the gossips they’d hidden from her. Often, she would become so agitated that Fancy, her nurse would come help her relax and stop waking up the others. Everything was much less confusing thanks to Fancy.

                    After all that is said, he loved his mother deeply. She was always full of extravagant ideas and when she stopped doubting herself, she had her moments of sheer brilliance.

                    Being his only son, that she’d taken care of as a single mother most of her life, he felt tremendous pressure to be worthy of her sacrifices. So talking about his job wasn’t really something he liked to explore with her. If she’d known what he did for a living,… he couldn’t bear to imagine the look of crushed hopes and expectations on her devastated face. Well, suffice to say her face needn’t any of it.
                    Instead, he’d told her he was working in a tree nursery, working on pest control, with humane and eco-conscious methods. Which actually wasn’t too far off the truth. The pests were the glitches of the program, and the vegetables… well, that didn’t need much explaining.

                    “Tricia speaking, who’s this?” Eb knew she knew perfectly well it was him, but the game was ever the same
                    “Mother, it’s Eb”
                    “Ebenezer, my dear boy, how kind of you to remember your old mother. What have you been up to? So many things happened here, with that new batch of decrepit old farts who arrived last month, so much drama. But you should tell me about you. Oh, makes me recall that stupid incident, a synch! I should tell Fancy about it! Fancy, Fancy!
                    Oh dear… She’s gone cleaning up again. The last one who came in is a Chinese, and all his family is there, I bet she’s cooking some rice now, it smells funny. Fancy! Mind the rice! So well, it’s like the twins I talk with on the Internet, with funny names, Cilantro and Nutmeg, something like that, well, they have so many funny stories, like that meteor that dropped on Mars and blacked-out the TV show, they think it’s all bollocks. I told them I’d ask you about this, after all you did some studies in physics before becoming a gardener, you’ve always been the clever one in the lot, always helping with the dust stuck in my keyboard, and other IT problems. Oh dear… that was fun, but I think I must go, Fancy is waving at me, she says hello by the way! Oh, she rolls your eyes at you, how cute! Time for my siesta, … what? Oh, and change my nappies too, thanks Fancy, you’re precious, I keep forgetting everything. Talk to you soon my boy!”

                    Well… If he hadn’t been so hungover, he probably would have tried to place some funny comments, or at least a well-meaning “hmmm hmmm”, to let her know he wasn’t just letting her monologue. Today was a good day notwithstanding, she hardly had a complaint. He should remember to send Fancy a card and a nice honey pot like he did every year, she was doing wonders at pacifying his mother.

                    #3783

                    In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                    EricEric
                    Keymaster

                      Eb’s dumb phone woke him up. The caller ID showed an unflattering picture of a Tasmanian devil all teeth bared.

                      He gathered his wits and answered it as naturally as he could.
                      “M’am?”
                      “Eb! What is this mess? Has the operation started already?”
                      “Err… Well, hmm, sure, there is… a first rehearsal…” he checked nervously on the console, fumbling through the logs of the agenda. His memory was fuzzy, but it seemed that someone… something had moved the timetable ahead without his approval. “… yes, a rehearsal planned today. Be assured that all team is on deck — we’re monitoring the situation.”
                      “You better hope so! You know how we say — talking doesn’t cook the rice, so you better go back to cooking.”
                      And she hung up.

                      He was in desperate need of help. The team he was referring to had been cut by halves every year since the start of the program, and they were now sorely understaffed. Calling it a team was a stretch of the imagination, when so much was done by FinnPrime, the central intelligence.

                      He looked upon the stained sheet of printed plastic on his desk. The only application they’d received. Guess there wasn’t as many underpaid starving actors as there used to be. Or maybe too many were disappeared after offering their help to the nation’s Mars broadcasts —then asking inconvenient questions…
                      Well, this one would have to do. Eb seriously needed some human help to keep the Finnley intelligence in check.

                      He texted to the guy “You got the job. Come early tomorrow morning, or better tonight for the paperwork. EB – The Merry Agency of Remote Spectacles”

                      #3772

                      Finnley, there you are!” Elizabeth snickered at the new Filipino maid, “don’t balk at me like that, darling, and read me a quote of dear ol’ Lemone, from his inspired words of wide wisdom in his new compilation of aphorisms Reduction of My Broad Thinking .”

                      The new nurse was looking desperately around the nursing home’s room. She’d been warned her patient was a tough cookie, or that’s probably what they meant by ‘tart pickle’ anyway.

                      “Yes, yes, that book!” Liz shrieked of delight. Since Godfrey left her for Marcella, she never quite recovered.

                      She could hear the words pouring in her head like an earworm symphonie of words in knots, and of naughts in wad.

                      Prunella started to read the phonebook with painful anguish, while Elizabeth was writhing in pure delight at the words she was hearing :

                      “Pas de lieu Rhône que noue… Etymologically, the French word dénouement is derived from the Old French word desnouer, “to untie”, from nodus, Latin for “knot.” It is the unravelling or untying of the complexities of a plot. But can we unknot the knot we know not? Hence the need for good plot knot development. My denouement should be done in accordance with swift Japanese johakyo style, but never shy to include a few Dei ex machina, some toasted honeyed MacGuffins, or a tartine of marmite and red herring, washed down with Chekhov’s gunpowder tea.”

                      #3669
                      prUneprUne
                      Participant

                        Christmas has always been a strange tradition in our family.
                        Maybe because first and foremost, Christmas is all about family. Besides the twins and their bond, sometimes I wonder what makes us a family at all.
                        It doesn’t help that we can never get snow around this place, and dressing in red and white fluff is not going to make things suddenly magical.

                        It was comical to see the exterminator come with a red bonnet, panting and all red himself, as if he were some genial Santa bringing gifts of death to our yonder’s rodents residents.
                        He didn’t catch a rat, but got himself a fright. Thanks to Mater, when she erupted in the attic in her white hanuka honey cream face-lifter mask. I think that sneaky Finly got to her in the end.
                        The mystery of the strange noises in the inn is not going soon, apparently.

                        Bert and Aunt Idle got back from their trip in the evening. Apparently Bert had insisted to bring some sort of shrub to make a Christmas tree in the great hall (it’s not so great, but we call it that). Finly didn’t seem pleased too much with it. Raking leaves in summer, bringing pests inside… she didn’t have many kind things to say about it. So Mater sends her to cook a “festive dinner”, that’s what she said. I heard Finly mutter in her breath something about kiwi specials. I like kiwis. Hope she’ll make a pavlova… just, not with Mater’s face cream!

                        It seems that giving small gestures of appreciation got the mood going. Aunt Idle is always very good at decorating with the oddest or simplest of things, like rolls of TP. Sometimes she would draw nice hieroglyphs in the layer of dust on the cabinets, it gives the furniture a special look. Mater always says it’s because she’s too lazy to do some cleaning consistently, but I think it’s because cleaning is not creative enough for her. Can’t believe I just said nice things about Aunt Idle. Christmas spirit must be contagious.

                        Then, Devan came home with some pastries. It’s not often I see Devan these days, and usually he’s always brooding. I would too, if I had to come back home when I could just start my life away from there. Finly was all eyes on him all of a sudden. Seems nobody noticed, not even the twins, too busy being snarky while playing on their phones,… it looks like there is some strange game between these two, my brother and our Finly. I think Finly makes a lot of efforts to look younger with him, I can see when she fiddles with her hair. They would make good friends, and I’m sure Devan doesn’t mind the accent.

                        As always, it’s not about how pretty the tree is, or how good the food is, or how big the gifts are… It’s more about being together, for better or for worse. And Dad, and Mum are always out of this almost nice picture, but somehow, it matters less today.

                        There’s a good thing about that Christmas spirit. It gives you the weirdest ideas. To be nice, I asked Mater if we should invite the guests to our festive dinner, and probably lifted by the mood, she said yes, of course. When I went to the closed door to invite the guy, I thought a random act of kindnes is a perfect occasion to learn more about our mysterious resident stranger… Maybe that’s what the adults mean in church when they say you should always be kind to each other.

                        #3547
                        matermater
                        Participant

                          Mater:

                          The stranger arrived as I was setting off, but I didn’t have time to stop. By the looks of him he had been on the road for a while. I called out to him that if he was after a room he had better go and bang on the front door, but he might have to knock loudly because they were all asleep.

                          I shrugged off a vague feeling of guilt.

                          Not my problem; let someone else deal with it. Early to be calling though.

                          It wasn’t long before I was wondering dismally whether my mission would need to be aborted. It was only 7:00am, but already the heat was stifling. I was considering my various options, none of which seemed that attractive, when Bert pulled up next to me in his van.

                          “Where are you off to, Mater? You want a lift somewhere. Hop in.”

                          I hopped in. I liked Bert, although he wasn’t one for conversation. He was about my age, maybe a few years younger. Hard to tell with the men around here, they all looked like aged leather. He raised an eyebrow when I told him where I was going, but otherwise didn’t comment. We drove in comfortable silence.

                          “Not far now, Mater. You want to stop for a coffee? It’s still early.”

                          “Are you asking me on a date, Bert?”

                          There was an awkward moment while he worked out I was teasing him, then his face cracked into an amused smile.

                          “Can you cook?”

                          “Burnt toast is my speciality. If you are lucky I would open a can of spaghetti.”

                          “You’ll do then I guess, even if you are a crazy old coot out walking in this heat.”

                          #3546
                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            Aunt Idle:

                            The twins and Prune were going on about Mater again but I wasn’t listening, I was just wishing they’d hurry up and finish supper ~ I’m trying to think, Think! Look at the maps and piece it all together, clear my mind and try and work it out.

                            “Give it a rest will you, and eat!” The kids were exasperating, always going on about Mater.

                            “She’s MISSING, Aunt Idle!”

                            “What?” I said absentmindedly. “Don’t be silly, she’s probably on the loo, she’ll be down in a minute.”

                            “You haven’t been listening, have you?” asked Prune. “Mater’s been kidnapped.”

                            “She’s DISAPPEARED, we don’t know if she’s been kidnapped or murdered yet, Prune. Don’t exaggerate.”

                            “Maybe she was tied up in the cellar at the Brundy place and you never noticed, Clove.”

                            Bert glance up sharply and frowned at the mention of the Brundy place, it caught my eye, but I didn’t give it any thought at the time.

                            “Oh shut up, all of you! You’ve given me a headache, I’m going to lie down. Prune, you can do the washing up tonight. Corrie and Clove, you can cook for the dust covered man in room 8, he’s not fussy what you feed him, but he wants to eat in his room.”

                            That should keep them all occupied for an hour and give me time to look at those maps. That’s what I thought, anyway.

                            #114
                            prUneprUne
                            Participant

                              I never could stand the sight of it. For as long as I remember, which is no more than 6 years, admittedly, the odd-looking fish had been preserved and placed above the fake stucco fireplace. It’s been here for much longer, though. You can tell by the thickness of the dust covering it. My friend Bert, that old chap, told me so.
                              He has told me many other stories about the town, about my family, and their glorious past. It could just have been no more than stories, but I believe him —for no reason, really. Maybe only because my sisters find him slightly creepy and old. Anyway, I like him.

                              In his stories, the fish had fallen many years ago from the sky. There had been rain this summer day, which was, in itself, even less believable than some oddly shaped flying fish falling from the sky. And that fish had fallen in front of what was the private mansion of the Curara family. Our ancestor found it, and decided to take it as a sign of the Almighty that they would be blessed with abundance forever after… But then, everything went downside with fantastic speed. The gold rush stopped in its tracks, the town slowly got deserted, and since then, our family started to believe that it was more a curse than a blessing. However, nobody ever bothered to get rid of the fish that once flew.

                              Maybe they were waiting for another one to appear to break the string of unfortunate events. I always think of all the amusing ways I could get rid of it without anybody noticing. April’s fools wouldn’t do… Too easy. But having it served at dinner would be a start. Sadly, with Aunt Idle’s poor cooking skills, there was no chance a fish could come unnoticed.

                              So it was on that particular day when I’d found and written down on my secret diary a 222nd way of getting rid of the fish, it was on that particular and fateful day, that everything changed again for the Curara family.

                              #3377

                              “What does it say, Sanso?”
                              The four travelers had arrived on the island in patchy swirling fog in a field full of cucumber plants and sundials. The sundial nearest to Sanso had a letter tied to the handle with blue ribbon.
                              “If that’s not for me, I don’t know what is,” he snorted, untying the letter as Lisa looked at him in amazement.
                              “Really, Sanso, that seems so implausible,” she said.
                              “What does it say?”

                              bq(Quote).“And we start to hope that if we keep on digging,” Sanso read, “All the way to the core, if we don’t stop, if we perforate the land like a honeycomb, if we make it as flimsy as silk, maybe it will suddenly collapse in on itself. And then, like a tray piled with cups of coffee and cookies that crashes to the floor in a mess of crumbs and glass, it will all mix together.

                              The upper part and the lower part will blend. And the rules will change. And we’ll be able to say with a sigh of relief: Here is a piece of sky mixed with a cracked piece of sea; here is Shujaiyeh mixed with Sderot; here is Zeitoun mixed with the Mount of Olives; here is compassion mixed with relief; here is one human being mixed with another. above, and with them build a new land.”

                              “Oh my,” said Fanella, “Are you sure we’ve come to the right place?”

                              “And an entire people will rise to the surface of the earth,” Sanso continued, “ Pale and faded, blinded by the sun that beats down on the land. And we will stand in silence, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the light. And as we stand there in silence, the fear and anxiety will gradually creep into our heart, that while we were finding refuge in subterranean Gaza, the land above took its own life, was left behind and emptied out.”

                              “Gorden Bennet,” said Lisa.

                              #3312
                              EricEric
                              Keymaster

                                “Madam, I have found something…” Mr R was pointing at a large floating piece of moss in the middle of the bog where they had landed a few days ago.
                                “At last,… some excitement, whoo…” said Irina with a deadpan expression that left no doubt as to her current level of excitement.

                                There weren’t many clues as to where and when they’d arrived, but she already hated it.
                                The bog for one, wasn’t her idea of a great retirement place. Of course, there were probably other places to explore on the island, it wasn’t as if she’d stay here permanently, but for now, if the bog was a nexus point of teleporting, she’d rather stay around, in case others would come from there. That was one of the first thing you learnt during the Training, to secure your entry points. You’d never know what to expect, teleporting whales were probably the least dangerous of the things that could get stranded here. And judging by the amount of strange objects littering the area, she and her robot weren’t the first thing to have been discarded here.

                                She’d tasked Mr R, in his immense resourcefulness, to build her a proper watchtower, or just for now, a downsized version of what she’d felt would be a decent one.
                                A proof of the robot’s talent was that with barely nothing, he’d managed in the past days to bulldoze a clearing in a less wet portion of the land. There, the light’s plays were purely gorgeous, creating the smallest ripples and endless reflections on the green tinges of the water —something Irina could observe with wonder for hours. Mr R had also managed to cook her a rather lovely braised water rat, with fresh peppermint and lotus roots caramelized in wild bees’ honey.
                                He’d already built the foundations of a anthill-sized promontory, with a clean deck where she could rest on a surprinsingly comfortable deckchair made of driftwood and pieces of whatnots gathered around the place. That was were she was enjoying the last minutes of sun for the day, just about when he’d asked her to check on his discovery. It probably was important enough for the robot to disrupt her digestive meditation.

                                “Well, well… What have we got here…”
                                “It looks like a person, Madam… Female, around 28, judging by her bone structure. Her vitals are subtly low, but it seems she is alive…” the robot said after a careful scanning.
                                “Alive? With that color ?” Irina was quite perplexed and slightly amused too.
                                She wouldn’t mind some company and probably some intel on the island. Besides, there was a side of her that liked to nurse back to life those poor little wounded creatures. The girl would be her first greenish one…

                                “Take her to our place, Mr R” she ordered the robot. “We will soon need double ration of your delicious water rat stew, Mr R”.

                                #3232
                                F LoveF Love
                                Participant

                                  Queens Team and 2121 originated time-travellers

                                  Reginald / Maurana Banana
                                  Cedric / Consuela Winnie
                                  Amar / Terry Bubble
                                  Sadie Merrie
                                  Linda Paul

                                  Supporting team

                                  Pseu, Maria del Mar, Janice (from the City, around 2257)
                                  Sanso (from other dimension, multi-dimensional travel contractor)
                                  Frindle, Trumble, Jingle (fuck knows who they are)
                                  the Hawai’i techromancer

                                  Management team (around 2222 and later)

                                  Irina, mermaid Russian spy and parrot whisperer

                                  Jonbert, the orchestrator of the time-travelling arcs, wanting to retrieve key information from St Germain which were collected in 1757. En route back to 2222 to intercept the whales’ crystal with help from Linda Paul’s team, and his luxury submarine

                                  1757 King’s Versailles

                                  The Queen
                                  Madame de Pompadour
                                  her maid Nicole du Hausset, coming from a line of time-smugglers
                                  Mr Aliette the wigmaker and finger reader
                                  Count de St Germain
                                  Giacomo Casanova (pseudonyms Monsieur de St Galle / Jacques de Seingalt)
                                  Father Balbi, Casanova’s travelling companion
                                  Theater du Soleil actors (Lison Tailleur, Jean Pastisse, Geoffroy du Limon, Francette Fine)
                                  Robert-Francois Damiens, the assassim
                                  Jean-Pierre Duroy, the Grand Intendant, his wife the Pastry Chef Annie
                                  Cook and Helper
                                  ghost of Marguerite Isabeau

                                  The 1757 originated time-travellers

                                  Mirabelle the oldest and bossiest, Adeline the youngest (thief of the first ferret) and Fanetta, the French maids
                                  Igor Popinkin, Boris and Ivan the Russian con-artists and saboteurs hidden with the Russian Ballet troupe visiting Versailles
                                  Huhu the parrot
                                  The Whale ghost, the ghost ship (died/sunk around 1600s) and time-travelling fin whales of 2020s
                                  Belen, the whale
                                  Santa Rosa, the galleon
                                  the ghost obese gardener-captain Peter Pugh Petit Pois, from Peasland

                                  The Spanish farm and fat mermaid dolphins

                                  Lisa, Jack
                                  Pierre and Etienne
                                  The Italian cruise ship
                                  pink Amazonian dolphins

                                  #3188
                                  EricEric
                                  Keymaster

                                    There was a lot of commotion that night.

                                    It all started a little bit before 6 PM, while the winter sun was very pale and slowly rolling behind the horizon. Jean-Pierre Duroy of the Royal Intendancy had the maids rounded up in matching uniforms to finish the cleaning of the Opera House, and ready to start to light the thousands of beeswax candles with almost military precision. This didn’t go without hiccup of course, but they did mostly well, and the Opera House was ready for the comedians before 5:55, leaving them with 5 spare minutes to catch their breath before the eighteen rings of the bell.

                                    Even a little bit before that, Nicole du Hausset who had spent the whole dreaded day in anguish about the Queen’s lost ferrets, while attending to Madame’s every whims, realized after scouring through the Palace and hearing through the grapevine of the maids’ ring of deals in stolen goods that she should slide a word to the Royal Intendant through some unofficial channels (she knew well Helper, who was a great influence on Cook, who then could talk discreetly to Annie Duroy, of the Royal Pastries and Cookies) so an investigation could be carried out without any particular mention of the ferrets. As she would realize later the morrow, not only would the ferrets be retrieved at the Opera House and the Royal Chapel, one for each location, except slightly lighter and cut open, an act that would be seen as a hidden message and possible attempt on the Good Queen’s life, and dealt with appropriately by a specially appointed Inquisitor —but also, and notwithstanding any longwindedness, that it would make little difference as the perpetrators would be nowhere to be found the next day, having vanished, it seemed, in the ensuing confusion (of which we will come to in a minute), stealing in the process the Royal Balloon and a few chouquettes from the Royal Cuisines.
                                    Her duties fulfilled, and being now on the other side of the fateful date of Jan. 5th, 1757, at 17:57 without any significant change to her reality or life, she deducted her mission as the safekeeper of the time-smuggled ferrets was by then accomplished, and she could focus on her more pressing duties.

                                    It was only 5:57 PM shy of a few more seconds, that Madame Pompadour, powdered like there was no tomorrow, would be helped by her two maids into her gorgeous John Pol Goatier designer dress, and her lambswool petticoats. She was dressed to kill, and that made her all the more suspicious in the minutes to come, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.
                                    Madame de Pompadour’s schedule for the soirée was very precise. At 6 PM, she would greet her guests, and the King back from his afternoon at the Parliament at the entrance of the Palace, so they could all head to the Royal Opera, passing through the Chapel into the brightly candelight-lit half-built building where the show would take place.
                                    There was to be a toast first, from fine champagne delivered the morning in zebra carriage (one of the Queens’ daughters idea, which had pleased enough the King that he’d booked them for an evening ride into the Gardens). She was all set, and with great dignity and carefulness, arrived at the spot a mere seconds after her Grace to great the King.

                                    At the same time, Jean-Pierre Duroy, who had not seen them as he’d passed through the Chapel the first time (ungagged but still under sleeping curse and tucked in the corner of the stained glass windows depicting the martyrdom of Christ), and as he was getting anxious at the lack of punctuality of the comedians whom he’d thought sleeping in their trailer parked nearby, was notified that the trailer had been found empty by the bellboy he had sent to remind the comedians to be ready in 10.
                                    A man of great resources, always ready with plans B to Z (he wouldn’t boast, but the zebras being one of such past plan Z, second only to an unlikely belching toad plan, the details of which we won’t get into just now), the Royal Intendant was ready to put in motion said plans, but the comedians suddenly emerged from the Chapel slightly groggy but apparently ready to take over their duties —especially the two ladies, who were bickering with the two men about being the Controllers of the Ascension. Little did all of them know at this moment that the hot air balloon was being highjacked by a team of rogue maids in cahoots with the Russian Ballet props technicians who had arrived some days before the bulk of the Russian troupe trainees.
                                    The Russian ballet dancers were indeed still stuck in the heavy snows somewhere along their trip to Versailles, so the four comedians with their balloon and tricks were technically, already a Plan B.

                                    By then, it was well into 5:59 PM, and the next minute would seem to stretch forever, but for the sake of a patient audience, we will not make it over 10.

                                    In the first half of this fatefulest minute, Casanova had arrived with Father Balbi, his travelling companion, followed by none other than St Germain, all dapper and heavily scented. A score of less important nobilities the names of which we won’t go through were also here.
                                    There were seconds enough in that first half minute, to rub cheeks and say plaisanteries and even utter a few rude witty comments with sweet tongues laced in vinegar, whatever that meant, and also enjoy the sparkling wine served at perfect chilly temperature.
                                    It was only as we entered the second half of this minute that the King arrived, padded in heavy and warm coats and looking exhausted.
                                    Seconds were spent in the same proceedings as above mentioned, if only in a slightly accelerated fashion, and slightly and almost unnoticeably higher pitched voices.

                                    That’s only when the mission bell’s sang Welcome to the Eighteenth’s Hour et ali (for naught), in loud and ringing dongs that the unthinkable happened, living all witnesses traumatized enough that nobody could think of anything to do before the third dong had elapsed.
                                    The King collapsed, a knife in his ribs. The perpetrator was caught by the guards before the end of the last dong.

                                    While the King was rushed to the RER (Royal Emergency Room), and attended to by Royal Leechers and Clyster Masters who felt it was wise to call the Royal Priest seeing that there was little blood to leech, back at the Chapel and Opera House, the maids and Jean-Pierre were in a rush to blow out the candles, as it was obvious their attention was required elsewhere, and that the show would be cancelled.
                                    Everyone would sigh in relief, but not before a few more hours of the drama, when they realized the King’s heavy padding had saved his life, and that the gapping wound everyone was dreading was no more than a pen’s prick. This would encourage Annie to admonish her children when they wouldn’t eat more of her delightful pastries.

                                    Meanwhile, using one of the last candles, the maids and their Russian lovers had lit the tub of lard of the hot air balloon, which rose slowly in the night sky, out of sight when most of the attention was directed towards the King’s fate hanging on a thread.

                                    The four actors where vaguely wondering if they were still dreaming when they saw the carriage of thousands of tinsy frogs croaking through a portal, with brightly coloured dressed lady-men inside, and driven by an unkempt man with a wild gaze and an air of sheer insanity.

                                    Of course, by then, they knew better than to discard it as a mere dream.

                                    #3168
                                    TracyTracy
                                    Participant

                                      Cook swore loudly for the umpteenth time that morning, throwing her wooden spoon across the room. “I just can’t get the consistency right! These tarts are a disaster!”
                                      “Now, now, Cook” said one of the kitchen helpers, kindly patting her back. “You’re trying too hard to make sure the tarts are perfect. You know you create your best concoctions when you’re feeling playful and confident. Perhaps you should take a small break, and pop over to the chapel and pray to Mother Mary for lightness and ease.”
                                      “I do believe you’re right” replied cook, smiling gratefully at Helper and wiping her floury hands on her apron.

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