Search Results for 'days'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The P’hope could be seen everywhere: leading the Builders to work double shifts to strengthen the collapsing structures of the flying City, exhorting the Magi to contain the failing beliefs of people back to virtuous resilience by ways of special masses held throughout Karmalott, and ensuring with the Sentries that all tremors of civil unrest was properly contained and the ring leaders properly admonished into good conduct.

The situation at the secret political prison known as Gazalbion was alarming. With most of the dangerous interlopers free to roam Abalone, and no walls to contain new prisoners, it could take a while to rebuild its walls, and the P’hope didn’t have the luxury of time on his side. It meant that no civil and belief dissidents could be brought there at the moment, and any spark of disobedience could spread like wildfire.

The P’hope dreaded what could happen if, despite all the efforts, the beanstalk was beyond repair. He knew his faltering belief in it could only hasten its fate, but even so, he wanted to be ready for the worst.
Considering the limited amount of rescue storks which were available off the walls of the city, it was likely that the result would be of apocalyptic proportion. Nevertheless, he refused to consider evacuating for the moment, even knowing it would take days for those on foot to climb down the bean’s tendrils.
Especially, as he was now in the perfect position to be the hero of the day.

…

He had been robbed of his share of light many, many years ago.
At the time, a young boy had arrived from the sea and from an outside world to Abalone. Jube, who was not yet the P’hope, was a striving leader of a group of survivors of the island. The bog’s dangerous and foggy emanations and its wild life were a threat of all instants, and he had soon realized there was strength in numbers. Many lost souls had gathered, but didn’t have the strength on their own to remain focused on a reality they wanted, a dream made reality.

He, Jube the Brave, had such strength in himself. But even so, they were only less than a few dozens of men and women in the camp, and the reach of what they could create was only good enough to sustain them for short periods of time.

But the boy named George had arrived from afar, and things had changed gradually. Jube had found out pretty quickly that the boy had the great potential to bring people together, and hold their beliefs like a mighty rope made of the thinnest of strands of hair. So he had offered to mentor him, while at the same time working his words into suggestions, and shaping the boy’s future to fit his own dreams.

That’s how the beanstalk started. The first sprouts were so tiny and frail, but the more people came and believed in the leadership of the one who was to become their King, the more it grew, and lifted them above the clouds and the fog of their minds.
Years had passed, Prince George became King Artie as another suggestion of the P’hope which had the side-effect to cloak Artie from his memories. The P’hope grew in power, always in the shadows however.

For a while, people were happy. Truly happy. But progress was inevitable, consciousness had to move and grow, otherwise their dream of a City would have been another foggy and soul-numbing projection of their feeble minds.

The first real threat happened when Abalone, in one of its inexplicable changes of time and space, drew to them a stranger. True to their principles, they had welcomed her, nursed her, and given her a place of choice in the Magi’s ranks despite her young age. But she could see clearly between the cracks and the varnish of order. Worse, she could see the P’hope’s intentions were not so pure.

So it become soon apparent to Jube that the young Gwinie had to disappear, and her followers had to be contained. For the sake of the great Karmalott, and to shield everyone from the impending chaos, the same chaos they had came from victorious many years ago.

He and his minions had struck in a very swift and coordinated movement. Gwinie was tragically lost in the bog during her rite of passage. A truce was arranged with her followers, and they were allowed a concession, with enough resources to survive. They ultimately built Gazalbion, which also became, in a mutual arrangement, a political prison for Karmalott, unknown to virtually everyone in the City. The Processor, one of Gwinie’s former followers, was glad to receive prisoners who would add to the strength and mass beliefs of his encampment. The P’hope in return, was glad to be rid of difficult problems.

That was so long ago, but it rang like a warning from no further than yesterday.

They had never found out what the old temple’s ruins were for, or by which civilization before them they were built. They were as old as the island itself, and seemed to be doomed, full of an ominous power he couldn’t and feared to harness. If anything else failed, he would go back there. Maybe that was his only solution.

The Chamberlain was out of options. He couldn’t hide the truth any longer to the P’hope, and had requested an appointment with His P’holiness.

“My dear Downson, what brings you?” the P’hope’s voice was unusually cheery. They both never seen eye to eye, and had an honest and enduring dislike of each other, however they always had put on a façade of politeness and silky manners.
“My dear P’hope, I have a confession to make.”

Suddenly, the P’hope’s hawk eye tensed and looked straight and deep into the Chamberlain’s eyes.
“Is something troubling you Downson? Spit it out, it will leave you more time to repent.”
“The King’s missing.”
“What? Are you sure you didn’t just lose him in the tavern or some other place of holy debauchery?”
“I wouldn’t have troubled you without being absolutely certain.”
“This is indeed a grave matter. You know how the King is an important figure for the stability of this City. How long has he been missing?”
“Three days already. I fear he may have gone out of the City. Before leaving he’d mentioned going to the beanstalk.”
“Folly! How could you let that happen!” The P’hope raised from his chair and started to pace around restlessly.

“With that and the beanstalk crumbling down, I cannot help but see some cause and effect, my dear Downson. Of course, it would be heretic to leave the good people in such turmoil without taking swift and firm action. It seems the Divine calls for a change of leadership, my dear Downson.”

Cheung Lok heard the news of the Processor’s death along with the others.

He’d been parachuted on the island of Abalone some days ago, he started to lose count. Shortly after being dropped by the airplane, with a platoon of a few others that he had lost since, he started to hallucinate elephants falling from the sky, and had wondered for a brief time about the true nature of the island, and the peril he had more or so willingly thrown himself in.

He had not expected the fancy welcome committee. Some comely ladies in alluring flying gowns leading him towards a promise of a nearby city, only to find himself inside a barren walled city.
He would have escaped by now, but something in the newly arrived prisoners (or settlers as they were called) caught his attention, when they started to mention Sanso. He couldn’t actually believe his luck, which made them disappear for a while, then after he realized he had to be more of a believer, he found himself sent forward in the waiting line, just next to the others in the so-called waiting room. He’d learnt the woman was named Lisa, and countless other useless information about dog herding, hair conditioning and lazy bowel movement, but little more about Sanso.

Panic had started to spread among the small city, as huge boulders of earth started to fall from the skies and crack open on the soft land, toppling parts of the walls encircling Gazalbion. The news of the loss of the Processor led to even more confusion.

Cheung Lok decided it was time to pursue his mission, and extract the information the others had not yet given to him, by force if needed —he was a capable qigong master, who would crush nuts with his butt cheeks as a training, and that was the least of his deadly capacities.
But apparently, the woman named Lisa and her travelling companions had disappeared already.
In the midst of the confusion, it was hard to tell where they could have gone.

That’s when he was reminded of the shifting map, that the map dancer had drawn. He took it out of his front pocket, and unwrapped it cautiously.
The island’s lines were shifting even more erratically than before, but somehow there was a smaller concentration of activity at a location not far from where he guessed he was.
One of the rescued elephants would be good to ride out of this mess he thought, looking for the source of the trumpeting noises.

“There!”

The base of the beanstalk was deeply rooted into the murky waters of the bog, and so big and entangled that it seemed like a wall to the little raft carrying Irina, Greenie and Mr R, which was also acting as a propeller engine. And the parrot Huhu seemed to have tagged along, although he would sometimes pop in and out of reality without notice.

Thanks to Greenie’s input, they had been able to lift part of the fog, and it seemed the more they looked at the great plant, the more believable and real it became.

“Madam, if I may, I would advise against climbing that plant; it seems deeply infested by some insects. Extrapolating the size of it by the size of its base, I computed we need probably a few days of climbing and we stand less than 0.9% chance making it to the top without it completely crumbling down.”
“By Jove, don’t they have elevators invented yet?”

Mr R was about to make some helpful comment when they heard the big splash.

A big mouldy thing was struggling on the waters not far from them. After checking it wasn’t one of those dangerous tiger slugs they’d encountered earlier, Irina had Mr R manoeuvre the raft closer to the person in distress.

“Stop fighting! You’re scratching me, my hair! My face!”

After hauling the thing over the raft, it became obvious it was not some wild animal, although one part of it was. A mean wet black cat with its claws deep in the other’s hair. The other was a woman, of indiscernible age.

“Mandrake, that’s enough! You get down there!” she said to the cat. Then turning to the others “Apologies, I forgot my manners. My name is Arona, thank you for rescuing us, the terrain was less… dry and mossy than I expected.”

Before Irina had time to present herself and the others, a voice overhead and wings flapping sounds started to speak “You should have waited for me, sweet darling muppet Arona!”

“I guess, that is a bit too late for a sassy code name now…” a wet Mandrake snickered vindictively.

“What a…” King Artie almost lost his smile after being dumped by Arona on the edge of the cliff.
Fear not, little chipmunk, I will have you soon wrapped around my finger…

He looked inside his bag for the precious bottled elixir. He’d managed to steal it from the P’hope’s apothescary. Among a bizarre collection of dried insects, the P’hope had some vials of pure waterbee’s royal jelly mixed with p’hopolis.
Collecting the essence of flowers from all over the kingdom and distilling the mass beliefs into this life-sustaining elixir, the waterbees royal jelly and p’hopolis had many properties, a bit like a wish-fulfilling gem in liquid form.
He knew using it would probably trigger some false notes in the mass belief organ of the P’hope, risking alerting him, but he had no choice, the damsel was already getting out of view, and he couldn’t spend days crawling down the shaky beanstalk.

“Who said we couldn’t grow wings” he said after a gulp of the precious potion. That was the magic formula he needed.

The smile returned as wings started to sprout out of his back, and without a second’s hesitation, he followed the sexy flying squirrel in mouldy cloak-wings.

King Artie was walking in the gardens along with the Chamberlain, on his way for a cooling bath in the rainwater tanks carved below the castle.

They stopped on the edge of the main courtyard, from which a large part of the land nearby could be seen. Plumes of steam where raising around the areas where the river’s water fell onto the land below. For the palace and the land were built high in the sky, believed to be latched upon an immense lump of earth, raised from the island by the roots of a giant beanstalk.

King Artie had never ventured outside of the castle. “Tell me Downson, is it true what they say, about that giant beanstalk? I’d like to see it sometime.”
The Chamberlain replied shaking his knuckle-less hand in the air. “Oh well, Majesty, a trip can be arranged, for certain. It would require some magi to guide us, but it can certainly be done. And of course, yes, it is true. Might not have been the case before, but you know, matter and reality sinks their roots deep into beliefs. Whatever the good people believes is, in fact,… actually true.”

But King Artie’s mind was already quickly gone to another topic, not being too fond on dwelling on the metaphysical.
“Any word from Parsifal? Seems to have a unusual high activity of lost souls in the fog down below…”
“No, your Highness, no word yet from the Royal Sentries. Indeed, there has been unusual activity. Some people, I believe with a very active mind and quite an imagination. We had to ask our Priests to conduct a mass to repair a huge hole that appeared a few days ago.”
“Good. You should ask them to have the good people pray for some rain too. That damn heat is unbearable.”
“Of course, Sire. But you know, the good people’s beliefs are fickle, and apart from the farmers, a lot of the townsmen would prefer endless sun and no clouds. Hopefully our dear P’hope Jube the Brave will pray some sense into them.”
“Indeed. Otherwise, a good fall down the Fog Abyss will sure clean up our mass beliefs of those heretics, I expect.”

“Hence the importance of complimenting a child on his first poops” were the concluding words of the lecture by Choanna Doyle, PhD, under a loud burst of applause.

Sadie was pleased to have joined the Happiness Institute alumni’s yearly conference and was handling leaflets to the parents who were thinking about enrolling their children.

When everyone had left the blue and purple amphitheatre, decorated with pink ribbons and heart-shaped reflective balloons, she went back behind the pulpit to gather her bag, only to be startled by Choanna, who was still here while she was expected in the main hall for her book signing.

“Interesting lecture” Sadie said, as a way to sound polite, as the doctor was probably more used to, and expecting over the top fan reactions.

“Oh, not that interesting, but thank you for your polite protestations of interest” she said with a soft smile.

Sadie couldn’t help but blush, being at a loss for words.

“The crap…” Choanna said
“What?!” Sadie was confused
“I guess, that’s the crap that got you off. It does the same for most people. The poop comment is actually quite pertinent.”
“I don’t doubt that.” Sadie didn’t know what to say, but was sure she wasn’t too keen on more poop conversation. When she’d came back to her apartment after being absent for more than a week in linear time during her network assignment, her pet rabbit had playfully hidden bits everywhere and it had taken her days to get rid ot them, and of the smell.

But Choanna chose to ignore the cue, and continued “you have to acknowledge this is serious business for the children, it’s their first real creation. This is an important development step for the future adult.”
Sadie nodded politely, dying to roll her eyes, but sending waves of hearts instead, to cancel out any potential poop jinx.
“Later, you see, it also will help the adult to not throw in the towel at the first failure. Huhu, I like to quote this analogy, it’s like a sculptor who would throw a lump of clay on the ground and immediately complain that it didn’t turn out well at the first try…”

Sadie wanted to leave, and butted in a timid “Sorry, but…”

“Exactly. People are always sorry, but you see, I did something very interesting today. I have decided to only speak of it if it synched with the events of the day, and you provided me with the synch when I saw you flinch at the bottled water earlier during my presentation. Did you know that blind tests of the best tasting water consistently ranked tap water the tastiest ? Now, sewers and poop now seem relevant all of a sudden…”

“I’m getting late for my signing, that was nice talking to you!” she concluded mysteriously before leaving in a huff “But think about it!”

What a bizarre yet endearingly odd mad woman this one, bless her heart… was all Sadie could think after the dust had settled in her wake. And that blessed tart conveniently forgot to mention that interesting thing of hers…

“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”.

Pooh
– An Original Song
by Consuela
I get on with life as a writer,
I’m a loose kinda person.
I like basketball on Sundays,
I like diving in the week.
I like to contemplate scooter.
But when I start to daydream,
My mind turns straight to exercise mat.

Boom boom shake da boom-boom-boom!

Do I love exercise mat more than scooter?
Do I love exercise mat more than scooter?
I like to use words like ‘pooh,’
I like to use words like ‘tart.’
I like to use words about scooter.
But when I stop my talking,
My mind turns straight to exercise mat.

Boom boom shake da boom-boom-boom!

Do I love exercise mat more than scooter?
Do I love exercise mat more than scooter?

I like to hang out with Godfrey,
I like to kick back with Flove,
But when left alone,
My mind turns straight to exercise mat.

Boom boom shake da boom-boom-boom!

Do I love exercise mat more than scooter?
Do I love exercise mat more than scooter?

I’m not too fond of italian bank,
I really hate germans,
But I just think back to exercise mat,
And I’m happy once again

Boom boom shake da boom-boom-boom!

“There is a fine balance between touch ups and shoehorning”
Jonbert was half-listening to the rant of his tailor and shoemaker, as he was trying on a new outfit and tartan kilt.
Jonbert’s temper had improved slightly, and he was up to moderate amount of grumpiness as he’d learnt of the arrival of the elder whale, and of the throwing of his guests in the midst of the cetaceans. That explained how he could tolerate much of it.

“You can’t just shoehorn any pattern under the pretext that you fancy it. It has to be in harmony with the moment, in pure synchronistic bliss.” His tailor, Erldrich Lumoncelli, was often prone to bouts of philosophical ramblings that Jonbert had to suffer to get the perfect tailored suits he wanted.

“Oh, bugger that nonsense,” he suddenly shouted, unable to suffer more of the airy monologue. “You’ll give me that gold and orange tartan and those yellow dots on my green shoes if I tell you so. Orange will bring out my shiny hair and light complexion I reckon.”

Color-blind Jonbert wasn’t obviously as savvy for colour matching as he was for time-travelling business, but Erldrich knew better than to infuriate him with aesthetic negotiations.
“Very well Sir.”
He finished taking the measurements quickly, folded back the swatches of textile, and bowed out as if his house was on fire.

Jonbert pulled back his heavy mane of hair into a neat French catogan, truly a unapologetic snobbishness on his part, as it didn’t look very different from a usual ponytail, but somehow sounded more distinguished. Nobody likes to be compared to a pony, do they?
He walked past the great central hall of the submarine, into the Sightseethroughing Dome Room, and considered for a moment to visit the butterfly nursery, in case the new butterflies were hatched yet. But if butterflies had taught him something is that you couldn’t hurry and cut open a cocoon before the butterfly was ready. There was no such thing as a mythical half-caterpillar half-butterfly creature, every change was a complete change, and it had its own timing.

But now things were back on course, and the 22nd of February 2222 was still days ahead. Time again was on his side.