Search Results for 'crew'

Corrie’s findings from elsewhere:

“Mike wasn’t as courageous as his former self, the Baron. That new name had a cowardly undertone which wasn’t as enticing to craze and bravery as “The Baron”.

The idea of the looming limbo which had swallowed the man whole, and having to care for a little girl who surely shouldn’t be out there on her own at such an early hour of the day spelt in unequivocal letters “T-R-O-U-B-B-L-E” — ah, and that he was barely literate wasn’t an improvement on the character either.

Mike didn’t want to think to much. He could remember a past, maybe even a future, and be bound by them. As well, he probably had a family, and the mere though of it would be enough to conjure up a boring wife named Tina, and six or seven… he had to stop now. Self introspection wasn’t good for him, he would get lost in it in quicker and surer ways than if he’d run into that Limbo.

“Let me tell you something… Prune?… Prune is it?”
“I stop you right there, mister, we don’t have time for the “shouldn’t be here on your own” talk, there is a man to catch, and maybe more where he hides.”

“Little girl, this is not my battle, I know a lost cause when I see one. You look exhausted, and I told my wife I would be back with her bloody croissants before she wakes up. You can’t imagine the dragon she becomes if she doesn’t get her croissants and coffee when she wakes up. My pick-up is over there, I can offer you a lift.”

Prune made a frown and a annoyed pout. At her age, she surely should know better than pout. The thought of the dragon-wife made her smile though, she sounded just like Mater when she was out of vegemite and toasts.

Prune started to have a sense of when characters appearing in her life were just plot devices conjured out of thin air. Mike had potential, but somehow had just folded back into a self-imposed routine, and had become just a part of the story background. She’d better let him go until just finds a real character. She could start by doing a stake-out next to the strange glowing building near the frontier.

“It’s OK mister, you go back to your wife, I’ll wait a little longer at the border. Something tells me this story just got started.”

“Aunt Idle was craving for sweets again. She tip toed in the kitchen, she didn’t want to hear another lecture from Mater. It only took time from her indulging in her attachments. Her new yogiguru Togurt had told the flockus group that they had to indulge more. And she was determined to do so.
The kitchen was empty. A draft of cold air brushed her neck, or was it her neck brushing against the tiny molecules of R. She cackled inwardly, which almost made her choke on her breath. That was surely a strange experience, choking on something without substance. A first for her, if you know what I mean.

The shelves were closed with simple locks. She snorted. Mater would need more than that to put a stop to Idle’s cravings. She had watched a video on Wootube recently about how to unlock a lock. She would need pins. She rummaged through her dreadlocks, she was sure she had forgotten one or two in there when she began to forge the dreads. Very practicle for smuggling things.

It took her longer than she had thought, only increasing her craving for sweets.
There was only one jar. Certainly honey. Idle took the jar and turned it to see the sticker. It was written Termite Honey, Becky’s Farm in Mater’s ornate writing. Idle opened the jar. Essence of sweetness reached her nose and made her drool. She plunged her fingers into the white thick substance.”

“But wait! What is this?

Her greedy fingers had located something unexpected; something dense and uncompromising was lurking in her precious nectar. Carefully, she explored the edges of the object with her finger tips and then tugged. The object obligingly emerged, a gooey gelatinous blob.

Dido sponged off the honey allowing it to plunk on to the table top. It did not occur to her to clean it up. Indeed, she felt a wave of defiant pleasure.

The ants will love that, although I guess Mater won’t be so thrilled. Fussy old bat.
She licked her fingers then transferred her attention back to the job at hand. After a moment of indecision whilst her slightly disordered mind flicked through various possibilities, she managed to identify the object as a small plastic package secured with tape. Excited, and her ravenous hunger cravings temporarily stilled in the thrill of the moment, she began to pick at the edges of the tape.

Cocooned Inside the plastic was a piece of paper folded multiple times. Released from its plicature, the wrinkled and dog-eared paper revealed the following type written words:

food self herself next face write water truth religious behind mince salt words soon yourself hope nature keep wrong wonder noticed.”

““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.”

“The paper fell from the ceiling on to Dido’s head. She was too busy stuffing herself full of honey to notice. In fact it was days before anyone noticed.”

“The honeyed ball of words had dislodged numerous strands of dried spaghetti, which nestled amongst Aunt Idle’s dreadlocks rather attractively, with the paper ball looking like a little hair bun.”

““Oh my god …. gross!“ cackled the cautacious Cackler.”

““Right, that does it! I’m moving the whole family back to the right story!” said Aunt Idle, invigorated and emboldened with the sweet energy of the honey. “Bloody cackling nonsense!””

Corrie’s findings from elsewhere:

“After a few days, Quentin had had enough already of the food. Pickles, pickles, and more pickles. Pickled cabbage, green or red, gherkins and all sorts and sizes of pickled cucumbers, pickled onions and eggs… There was only variety in the type of thing that weird hostel family was able to think of pickling. Even his beard started to smell of pickles. It was slowing driving him nuts.

That, and the strange random cackling at all hours of day and night, which he’d hoped to leave behind after being a refugee from that dreaded town. It had started again. And it seemed to come from the huge framed pea above the mantelpiece. He smirked at the thought that the only reason that pea was framed was that they didn’t find any fitting jar to pickle it.

He was still waiting for an appointment with Aunt Idle, who apparently had forgotten him altogether. That was no small wonder, as he passed in front of her door with the half-unscrewed sign on her door that said “management”, he could smell she was into another kind of pickling altogether. With moonshine rather than with apple cider vinegar.”

“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.

Aunt Idle:

My hands were shaking so much I could hardly light a cigarette after reading the note. I got it lit and sucked in a lungful, exhaled right into the shaft of sunlight and froze. And I don’t mean cold, it’s hotter than hell, I mean I quit shaking and couldn’t move because that smoke was doing some very peculiar things in that sunbeam. Looked like Penmanship with a capitol curly P, written in smoke by an invisible hand, loop the loop of joined up writing and I could see the words, but damn, two seconds later I couldn’t tell you what I just read and by then the first part had wafted apart. So I sat there reading the smoke until the last of it dispersed, and without thinking took another drag of the cigarette. I’ll be honest, I wondered whether to blow the smoke over my shoulder instead, but curiosity got the better of me, and I leaned forward a bit and screwed my eyes up ready to focus and started exhaling slowly into the sun. Not a damn thing this time, nor the next, and I almost lit another cigarette right off the butt of that one. Just to delay looking at that note again I suppose, but I didn’t, I stubbed it out and picked up the note. The smoke distraction did me good, I was over the shock of it and now I was curious.

The note was written in letters cut out of a map, by the look of it. Or maps, hard to say at this stage. The letters were pasted onto a yellowing sheet of stationary paper with a heading embossed on the top: Tattler, Trout and Trueman. Nothing else, just that, no address or phone number, or indication of who they were. There was a brown ring stain, which might be a clue, and a short message. Made me jump when I saw the name at the bottom, because the H was so tiny compared to the ILDE it caught my eye as Idle, which is what the twins call me, and the D I D letters were much bigger than the I E R, making me think it was Dido, which is what the others call me. It’s Delilah but nobody’s ever called me that, although Prune called me Dildo once and got a clip round the back of the head for it. So the note came from Hilde Didier, and I’m ferreting away in my mind and I can’t think of anyone of that name, but it might come to me later.

“Mater’s acting strange, Aunt Idle,” Corrie burst into the room giving me the most unpleasant jolt it made me think I was having a heart attack until I remembered the note in my hand.

“Coriander, darling!” I gushed, admittedly uncharacteristically but I didn’t have time to think, swiveling round to her while slipping the note out of sight. I stood up and hugged her, deftly spinning her around while scanning over her shoulder to make sure the note was hidden from view.

“Bloody hell, not you as well!”

“I’m looking for crew” the stranger said with a thick Russian accent as he bought all the men in the bar a beer, “No experience necessary! I need strong young men to help me sail to the Big Island.”
Igor had no idea where the Big Island was, or indeed how to sail a boat, but he felt a strong overwhelming urge to accept the strangers offer. “Count me in!” he exclaimed in Russian. What a relief it would be to speak in his native tongue. Russia seemed so very far away, both in distance and in time. There was something timely about this mans unexpected appearance in the village bar, something fortuitous. Igor felt it, but couldn’t explain it. All he knew was that he was destined to sail away with this stranger.
In truth, Mirabelle hardly crossed his mind. Leaving her would not worry him, although telling her he was leaving worried him a great deal.
“We leave now” explained the stranger, much to Igor’s relief. “No time to lose, the winds are favourable tonight. Let’s go!”
And with that, Igor left the village, without looking back.

The ghost galleon Santa Rosa had been sailing the eight seas for many a long century, dust, wind borne particles and bird droppings, richly fertile and full of seeds, accumulating on the decks. Dried beans and grains in the crews provisions had sprouted and grown, and reseeded, and migrating birds had rested their wings many a time and replenished the fine growing compost on the galleons surfaces, depositing varieties of seeds from many a far land. The Santa Rosa was more of a floating garden than a decaying hulk, and the roots of the fruit trees wound elegantly around the skeletons of the long dead Basques in the hold (a sort of Basque bone corset for supporting whale ships flora). Birds had been the only visitors aboard the galleon, and the energy of Rose was strong, nurturing and supporting the prolific vegetation.

Although Basque whaling had been in decline for some years (which is not to say that whalebone basques had declined in popularity), the Santa Rosa whaling galleon had been patrolling the waters of the Bay of Biscay for almost 600 years, a ghost ship, navigated by the ghost of the last whale killed by her crew. Her name was Belen, although nobody knew that was her name. At the moment of her death she had had a premonition, a knowing of a far distant future when whales began the extraordinary pursuit of compiling lists of all their other lives. One in particular, Maria del Mar, a fin whale in the Gibraltar waters of the early part of the 21st century, had connected with her. Maria del Mar had a special interest in time travel, and urged Belen to occupy the ghost ship and keep it afloat as a practice portal for whale teleporting.

Pseu was monitoring the progress of the hot air balloon and its motley crew. The prevailing winds were from the west, which would have blown the balloon towards Siberia, quite the opposite direction to their intended destination of the lighthouse on the Galician coast. Despite protocol which decreed that weather manipulation whilst time travelling should be strictly avoided, Pseu had no option but to reverse the wind direction. Thankfully she had excelled at her weather training in the City, and was adept enough to limit the wind direction change to a narrow swathe of air currents immediately affecting the balloon. (Superstitious peasants working in the fields below upon noticing the strange craft flying rapidly against the wind crossed themselves and scurried away from the shadow of the balloon, fearing eternal damnation.)
The occupants of the balloon were meanwhile appreciating the scenery from an entirely new perspective, oblivious to Pseu’s assistance and merely enjoying the ride and trusting that they would reach their intended destination.

Minky, the desert cave expedition guide, was assembling the list of travellers for the next trip. It was a motley crew, from all corners of the globe, but Minky had a feeling that it would be the most interesting tour group he had ever had.

(same random quote as above link #87)

Actually, thinking of Dory made Quintin remember:

“They are really bit rude around here”.

Dory stretched and yawned, and took in in a cloud of dust.

Dory wondered out loud if she should have an older man with curly grey hair and a long maroon djelaba and a tall narrow brimless black hat and watch him get laid.

I am so easy really, she thought giving it a last fond stroke. She finally surfaced from the flapping tangle of cloth just in time to see a group of people squatting next to a large oblong hole in the ground.

PFFFFFT! Deserted again.

Dory was getting bored waiting for this motley crew, looking slightly bemused, but smiling happily, she set off in search of Dory.

“Any idea what this is all about?” Beattie asked, to nobody in particular. A crowd was gathering at the crossroad.

The crossroad reminded Bea of a movie she’d watched some years previously, called, coincidentally enough, Crossroads. A symbolic sort of place, although real enough, a junction seemingly in the middle of nowhere. There was a large oak tree looming above the intersection, but nothing else could be seen in any direction but endless expanses of fields. There was a wooden signpost, the old fashioned kind, with two slats of wood pinned crosswise in the middle to a leaning post, but the place names had long since weathered away.

It was an odd sort of place and not much traffic passed by. In fact, the only traffic to pass by the crossroad stopped and disengorged itself of passengers..

“Is that a word, Bea?” asked Leonora. “Disengorged?”

“Don’t butt in to the narrative part Leo, or the story won’t make any sense.” hisssed Beattie, “Wait until you’re supposed to speak as one of the characters.”

“Well alright, but I don’t suppose it will have much effect on the making sense aspect, either way. Do continue.”

To say it was a motley crew gathering would be an understatement.

“You got that right,” Leonora said, sotto voce, surupticiously scanning the assortment of individuals alighting from the rather nautical looking yellow cab. Bea glared at Leo. “I suppose I’ll have to include your interrupions as a part of the story now.”

“Good thinking, Batman!”

“Oh for Pete’s sake, Leo, don’t go mad with endless pointless remarks then, ok? Or I will delete you altogether, and that will be the end of it.”

“You can’t delete me. I exist as a character, therefore I am.”

“You might have a nasty accident though and slide off the page,” Bea replied warningly.

“Why don’t you just get on with it, Bea? Might shut me up, you never know…”. Leo smirked and put her ridiculously large sunglasses on, despite the swirling fog..

“Oh I thought it was sunny” said Leonora, taking her sunglasses back off again. “You hadn’t mentioned weather.” She put her sunglasses back on again anyway, the better to secretly examine the others assembled at the crossroads.

“Why don’t you go and introduce yourself to them and see if anyone knows why we’re here, Leo, while I get on with the story.”

“Who will write what they say, though?”

“I’ll add it later, just bugger off and see if anyone knows who sent us that mysterious invitation.”

“Right Ho, sport, I’m on the bobbins and lace case” replied Leo. Bea shuddered a bit at the mixture of identities bleeding through Leonora’s persona. “Och aye the noo!”

Dear god, thought Beattie, I wish I’d never started this.

“Godfrey, don’t say I didn’t warn you! Have you seen today’s random quote?” Elizabeth said with increasing alarm. “Finnley! Put another log on that fire! And please put that bloody magpie outside!”

Finnley mumbled something about job description as she shuffled over to the log basket, and then Elizabeth could have sworn she heard her mutter something about basket cases, but she wasn’t quite sure.

“It’s a funny thing, you know Finnley” Elizabeth said “But yesterday Dan asked Dory if she remembered the ‘Fuck Wits’, those lads that came to visit them years ago, and not only that, yesterday I was thinking about the storm crew and I couldn’t for the life of me remember their names.”

“The Not-So-Random Daily Quote they should call it, eh, Liz” replied the good natured Finnley. “Oh by the way, I’d like shorter hours and more pay.”

“Of course dear, take whatever you like,” replied Elizabeth generously, “But be sure and take that magpie with you.”

“Norm! NORM!!” Sue Flay shouted. “We’re filming the garden scene now, where are you?”

But Norm was nowhere to be found. He’d stumbled upon an unexpected problem while filming T’Eggy & Phlynn with Sue Flay ~ a problem too embarrassing to mention, and one he could hardly keep a secret, given the nature of the P Movie. He’d managed to excuse himself during the last scene, feigning illness, but what if it happened again today?

“You’re focusing on what you don’t want again, Norm.” The voice made him jump. He’d thought he was alone in the treehouse, he thought no-one would find him hiding there in the leafy depths of the spinney, high up in the foliage. He looked around, wondering where the voice was coming from.

“You haven’t generated me physical, Norm, but you can if you wish” the voice said.

“How do I do that?” asked Norm.

“Allow, that’s all” the voice replied.

“Oh what rubbish!” Norm said in an agitated whisper. “What stupid advice!”

“Ha ha ha! As you wish, my friend” replied the voice, sounding rather amused.

“If you hadn’t just given me such stupid advice I might have felt more inclined to ask you for some advice about this awful problem” Norm whispered crossly.

“Are you asking me for advice or not?”

“Well if you’ve got anything USEFUL to say, then say it!”

“If you go down to the garden today,
You’re sure to have a surprise.
There’s a herb growing there and you don’t have to pay,
It’s growing in front of your eyes.
The magic you see is everywhere
It never runs out of stock
Go down to the garden, if you dare….”

“I asked you for advice, not a daft bloody poem!” Norm hissed.

“You wish to be hard as a rock?”

“YES!” spat Norm in frustration, blushing furiously. What’s the friggen garden got to do with it?”

“There’s a herb in the garden called Horny Goat “

“Oh PulEASE…..” Norm rolled his eyes.

“Horny Goat Weed will do the trick.
And straighten up your droopy…”

“ENOUGH! Good Grief, I get the message. What am I supposed to DO with it, roll in it? Eat it? Smoke it?”

“It matters not, my friend. That’s the magic of it all. You can choose any method”

“Are you sure about this?” asked Norm, who was willing to try anything at this point. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“Ha ha ha! Trust youSELF, Norm!”

“Who are you anyway?” Norm asked suspiciously.

But the voice chuckled and faded, leaving Norm in a quandary in the treehouse.

“Oh bugger it, I may as well give it a go. I can’t stay here forever, and anyway, I’ve run out of cigarettes.”

Norm climbed down the tree and marched over to the the film crew.

“Oh THERE you are Norm!” Sue came rushing up to him. “What perfect timing, we’re breaking for lunch.” She gave Norm a spontaneous hug. She really was rather nice, Norm thought, smiling at her.

“Would you like some soup? We put lots of fresh herbs in it from the garden.”

The interior of the Fly-boat was a bit like a Tardis, in that it was very much bigger on the inside than it appeared from the outside, and quite a different shape, too. While the exterior of the fly-boat resembled a cross between a duck and a bee, the interior was circular. There was a high point in the centre of the ceiling, and richly embroidered tapestries draping down to the floor in sumptuous folds, looking for all the world like a yurt.

Yukailli Airlines has a decidedly exotic and oriental air, Dory thought as she perused the in flight magazine, which was written in a charming but indecipherable script resembling the Voynich Papers.

“This is your captain speaking” a disembodied voice boomed. “Welcome aboard! My name is Ignoratio Elenchi, and I trust that you will have a most enjoyable flight with Yukailli AirBoats. There will be no obligation to fasten your seatbelts and you may smoke all through the flight. Our cabin crew will be preparing Vedic Stew over an open fire in the central area of the craft at 11:11. For your in-flight entertainment, up on the open air flight deck there will be a continuous light show by Aurora Borealis. If you want us to stop the flyboat at any point to take snapshots” continued Ignoratio, “Please don’t hesitate to ask.”

Ella Marie put the encounter to the back of her mind, and whistled loudy and kept her eyes averted when dusting the mummy case during the following months. It wasn’t until the floods of the following spring that she heard Elioctyl’s voice again, urging her to take action, that now was the perfect opportunity.

Pssst! Ella! Do it now, NOW!

NO! shouted Ella Marie.

Suit yourself, Honey, replied her husband Arthur, pouring himself a cup of coffee from a thermos and screwing the lid back on.

Ella Marie spun round, saying HUH? Yes, I mean yes, please.

Arthur raised an eyebrow and tutted. You said No, Ella, who was you talking to anyway?

Oh Lordy, Art, I was just saying NO to all the flooding, NO more rain, and all….Ella Marie replied, but her mind was racing.

Art Honey, why don’t you wade round to your mothers and see if she’s ok, why dontcha, and I’ll start moving stuff up into the attic. River’s gonna burst its banks tonight, I reckon, we oughta do what we can now.

Don’t get lifting nothing too heavy, ya hear? Leave anything you can’t manage for me, I’ll do it when I get back, Arthur replied.

As soon as Art was out of the door and down the porch steps, Ella Marie raced out the back door and into the garage. The adrenaline was pumping through her veins, and she felt light as air, and fit as a twenty year old. Her flashlight beam swept the garage…she didn’t know what, precisely, she was looking for, but she knew she’d find it.

Aha! Ella Marie spotted a coil of washing line rope, and a tarpaulin. Stuffing the flashlight into her pocket, she grabbed the surfboard off the hooks on the wall and dragged it outside, the rope and tarpaulin under her arm. Quickly she tied the tarpaulin to the surfboard, tethering it to the garage door handle while she went back inside for the oars out of the uninflated dinghy. The flood water was past her ankles now, inching towards her knees, as she set off for the museum, pulling the surfboard behind her, thankful for the power blackout and the dark streets.