Search Results for 'death'

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  • #3525
    matermater
    Participant

      The first time one of the guinea pigs died I went up to my bedroom, closed the door and cried. Not just cried. I sobbed my eyes out. Great gasping sounds such as I had not uttered in many a long year. An old lady shouldn’t be crying like that over a damned rat-like critter so I made sure no one else heard me. It’s peculiar that it took me so hard, because I always disapproved of the children having pets. It was that Prune. Begged and pleaded with her Aunt Dido when they went into town one day. And Dido is so damned soft with the kids. I’m always telling her that. Not that she listens. Spoils them rotten to make up for them not having parents around when what they really need is a good slap across the backside. Of course the lazy child cared for the poor wee things for about 5 minutes before she got bored. So I took over their care. Now another one is poorly and I can feel the familiar fear clutching at my heart.

      Death. He’s got his ugly scent all around this damned town.

      Like that debt collector that came by this morning. I could smell death on him soon as I saw him at the door. I got rid of him quick smart. Told him I couldn’t hear a word he was saying and shook my walking stick at him. It’s not my walking stick—I can still walk just fine. I can even get a bit of a gentle jog going if the situation warrants it. No, I found it at the back of one of the cupboards when we were cleaning out the guest rooms. It sure comes in handy sometimes. Nothing like a bit of walking stick brandishing to show who’s the boss around here.

      He’ll be back of course. With some big fancy official letter and maybe a bit of back up next time. Now he knows who he is dealing with.

      #3502
      F LoveF Love
      Participant

        In this first comment I will try and collate the information from our discussions. It will be quite rough and may not be accurate as we were just brainstorming.

        You might like to use it as a resource to start comments for each character.

        Intents:
        FP: how not to be detached, as opposed to detaching
        EP : Importance, tradition, transmission, life and death
        TP : playful spontaneity
        JP : I need to explore a strong base, something you can count on in your life and that will nourrish and support you

        Starting point : a family member has gone missing / disappearance / mysterious inheritance
        Someone turns up with a letter about mysterious inheritance?
        That someone is in cold terms with the family and has been for years.
        Strong possibility of a ghost. male. tied up with the inheritance mystery. Ghost is either assisting or hindering the search for the mysterious inheritance.
        Location : Australia small town. Possibly called Crowshollow. Mining town
        Family run a Bed and Breakfast called the Flying Fish Inn. There is room for 5 guests at any one time but it is never full. The family are short of money. Tendency in the family to develop unconventional powers, possibly witchy stuff.

        MacGuffin (is this the family surname??) Oh no wait, on further study I see it is a reference to the inheritance. It could be the family surname though. they need one.
        A man is riding on a train when a second gentleman gets on and sits down across from him. The first man notices the second is holding an oddly shaped package.
        “What is that?” the first man asks.
        “A MacGuffin, a tool used to hunt lions in the Scottish highlands.”
        “But there are no lions in the Scottish highlands,” says the first man.
        “Well then,” says the other, “That’s no MacGuffin”.

        Family members : boy twins from jib, a girl from Eric, a matriach granny, twin girls 17, aunt Idle, father ? mother ?ghost?

        mother and father have both gone missing at some stage?. Mother is called Absinthia apparently.

        Tracy: The female twins are called Clove and Corrie. twins born in 2000 for easy reference, so if its concurent timeframe they are 14. Clove is frustrated with ghost town life, and is uncooperative and moody, has violent bursts of anger, but can be very focused when something attracts her interest. Does not take kindly to criticism.

        Corrie on the other hand is the one who will acqueisce to keep the peace, which doesnt always do herself a favour, she often agrees to things just to be pleasing and then regrets it.
        They are interested in boys, although it may be an online crush or an infatuation with a character not present. I bet they do all kind of mischiefs to elude the chaperoning of the not-so-cleveraunt.
        Clove resent the parents absence, Corrie tried to buffer that resentment but is filled with curiosity about them

        Eric: (Prune??) the young girl is bored, because her parents were always arguing, and she’s so smart nobody ever gets her, and she felt abandoned by her careless mother the most, so she builds that facade of carelessness. Prune is bored by the inheritance but interested by the tramp.

        Tracy: Aunt Idle. Paternal Aunt. Aunt never married but many relationships
        born 1970. she is very tall and thin and is prematurely grey which she wears in dreadlocks

        #3483
        ÉricÉric
        Keymaster

          Bullet-proofed Summary of the latest instalments of the Abalone adventures

          Most of the key characters find themselves mysteriously drawn to the ancient Temple, a place of power forgotten by most. There, many experience under a form or another the presence of the sphinx / Rene a mysterious presence left as a Guardian of the Temple by the ancient builders of the place.

          • Gwinnie – learning and remembering how to communicate with others, she subtly lead them, via mediations and meditations to the secret location of the Temple. Although some split into their own projections, she manages to go through, accompanied by George, as she was infused with the Island’s energies due to her prolonged stay in the bog. She also grows and blossoms to a woman of her natural age, and later helps reconstruct Abalone with the help of George and Rene, whom she heals.
          • King Artie / George – He remembers his intent and forgotten memories which were repressed and manipulated by the P’hope through his travel following Arona into her adventure. He reacquaints himself with Gwinnie, and together they lead the reborn Island.
          • Irina and Mr R – Initially planning to bring Gwinnie back to Karmalott, her plan changes due to the wilting of the beanstalk. Instead, she and her travelling companions find themselves drawn to the temple by the promise of an escape off the Island, via teleportation stone boxes. Instead, she meets the sphinx / Rene who guides her through her memories. It helps heal her past, and provides her with a plausible disappearance that the Chinese corporation that she escaped from a long time ago with Mr R, would believe. Next, she goes with a more humanoid and self-aware Mr R to Mars in 2121.
          • Arona – She stumbles upon the company of Irina, and recognize Gwinnie as the one she is supposed to deliver secretly to Karmalott. However, the beanstalk’s debacle they experience during a guided meditation puts a stop to her plans, and gives her a new goal. Find the spirit turtle and the mysterious Cup that can promise her to astral.
            After a quest through the undercurrents with Mandrake, and still guided by the sabulmantium, she finally finds the Cup and prepares for her next adventures into the astral.
          • Jeremy / map dancer – He reappears naked from his escape in the midst of Irina’s team with Max his cat. They follow the team to the Temple. Little is known yet of his fate.
          • Cheung Lok (and the Chinese squad) – He escapes the destruction of Gazalbion’s walls where he was detained, and use an elephant to track Sanso, who is actually Lazuli who throws him off track. He ends up teaming up with Berberus, the assassin despatched by the P’hope to track down who he believes is the culprit for the beliefs destruction. Later, he rescues Fanella from an accident of duck hovercraft, and they all enter the Temple on the tracks of the others. Thanks to Rene, Mr R and Irina, he realizes he cannot be really free, and agrees to let go of his memories, his mission and start anew on the new Island. Other members of his squad are offered to be sent back with altered memories of his demise, or to stay back as a teenager on the Island.
          • Jube / The P’hope – After a last ditch effort to rescue the city, he orders its evacuation, through storks, cranes and descent through the beanstalk. He goes his own way, ready to confront the power lurking in the Temple that he avoided carefully and tried to contain many years ago. His fate is unclear but it is hinted that he was offered a similar choice as Cheung Lok, and has accepted to become an adolescent again, forgetting the bad choices he made.
          • Berberus – The assassin dispatches of the management of Gazalbion during his visit there looking for clues as to the disturbances. It only hastens the descent into chaos, while during a stand-off with Sanso, he is disarmed by a tiger slug. His fears get the better of him as he is confronted with them once more inside the temple.
          • Karmalott’s gents – It is believed most managed to escape the crumbling city into a refuge, where they started to rebuild anew, thanks to the leadership of George and Gwinnie.
          • Gazalbion’s gents – formerly dissidents of the P’hope’s order, and later home for refugees of all times and spaces, they also mostly escaped to safety and are in the process of enriching the beliefs blueprints of the Island under the guidance of George and Gwinnie.
          • Fanella (Fanetta) – Ejected brutally off a shapeshifting giant and careless duck Lazuli, she has visions of the sphinx, and seems to find herself deeply attracted to him. It is believed she hasn’t forgotten her friends in time 2020 at the village and visit them from time to time with her new pair of wings that George offered to her.
          • Lazuli, Lisa, Sanso – Little is know of what happened after they reached the tile factory and then the Bay of beliefs.
          • Jack (and the others at the 2020 village) – Little is known of what happened after Jack tried to teleport themselves with an amateur rescue team to the Island that Sanso had disclosed the location previously on a map. It is believed everyone who wanted was allowed to go back to the village or to any other place and time they did fancy.
          • Sha, Glo, Mavis – Believed still under a very long death transition, they project to the Island, where they bump into Fanella and her new duties as a sphinx. She leads them to a new incarnated life of their chosing.
          #3449

          The Master Builder’s verdict was hard to swallow.

          “Your Holiness?”

          The P’hope knew his options were limited, but somehow he had hoped, in spite of the King’s disappearance, in spite of the odds, that somehow he could manage to keep the City afloat.
          But the beanstalk’s wilting was not something that could be stopped, and the aphids were just one manifestation of the rampant symptoms. Like all living things, there was an expiry date, a deep-rooted belief in death that trumped all the efforts.
          The only thing they could do was to prepare for a difficult landing, and salvage what could be salvaged of his beautiful City of Karmalott.

          “Your Holiness?”

          “I heard you the first time, Downson.” The P’hope carefully removed his silver zucchetto and put it aside.
          “We need to prepare for evacuation. Have the Sentries prepare all the storks and cranes they can find. Send a detachment of Magi to secure an encampment at a safe landing spot. Then give orders to evacuate all the people you can.”

          “What about you, Your Holiness?” Downson’s question was likely to be pure formality, but Jube answered nonetheless

          “I’ll go to an ancient place, the source of power of this island. I wished I could avoid it, but if there is a glimmer of hope, it is my holy duty to follow it.”

          “Shall we send people to escort you?”

          “No, I would prefer to go there alone. It is the kind of powerful places one would prefer to visit alone than badly accompanied.”

          “Then, good luck to you.”

          “As well, Downson.”

          #3423

          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.

          #3332

          The bell rang twice. Nobody was giving any sign of opening, until a lanky lad came at the door to open it, in long slow dragging strides on the carpeted floor.

          “We’re here for the audition” an excited face pressed on the glass door, staining it with purple lipsticky marks.

          The lad discreetly rolled his eyes, looked right and left, as if checking for some unseen danger, then released the magnetic lock. It was stuck, so he gave a yank and the door flung open, almost propelling the woman, and a child inside.

          “This way” the lad showed them, guiding them in unnerving slow motion towards a room on the higher floor of the loft. A dozen of people were already waiting here. The lad showed them the ticket dispenser, and the child with the woman understood before her they had to pick one. 39.

          The woman brushed the hair of the child compulsively and fought against invisible specks of dust on his coat, before they would sit.

          “Twenty two.”
          “Twenty. Two.”

          At the seat next to them, a child raised from his place, his mother pushing him towards the voice. This was as far as she could go with him.

          After the child had disappeared in the next room, the purple lipstick woman leaned towards the lonely mother and started to talk to her in brisk hushed voice.
          “You must be so proud… I’m proud too.”
          Noticing reproaching looks from the others, she lowered her voice more.
          “I was so excited when I heard about it… So many years and now. Imagine that, my son could become his disciple, imagine, his one and only disciple in years…”

          The other woman, who’d been patiently hearing the other one’s cackling suddenly turned red and replied in a voice that bore the certainty of a death sentence:
          “Oh, but make no mistake M’am, I have nothing against your son, but no one will beat my Paul to it.”

          #3326

          “Mind joining me on an adventure?” Sanso said while continuing to walk at a rapid pace on the trail in the middle of running people carrying buckets of water, as though he knew exactly were he was going. “Of course not” he took no time to wait for an answer, as clearly the young lady was way over her head in her first attempt to teleport.

          “I should be called the Sanso Bernar of Teleporting Mishaps, you know, it’s like I have this seventh sense to precisely arrive where stranded teleporters need me… that and lost socks, but that’s an entire different story, although I could recall quite many times where both had me landing on dirty launderettes…”

          He paused to look at the panting Fanella. “But you don’t get a word of what I’m saying do you?”
          She shrugged timidly, batting her doe eyes in a seductive manner, as she had learnt to do at the Versailles Palace when caught her hand in the honeypot, so to speak.

          “Oh, never mind.” He went on. “Well,… ugh, burp, excuse me, this sea cucumber isn’t sitting well me…”
          Fanella signaled she needed a moment to catch her breath too, and sat on a flat rock, covering her legs with her arms, suddenly self-conscious of her modesty.
          “What was i saying already? Oh, yes, I have to deliver a message to a sea cucumber, sorry, I mean a lady cucumber, who may be in grave danger of death… possi—blurp— by sea cucumber indigestion.”

          He looked at her from head to toes: “Well, you look reasonably pliable… That trick should work. I suppose you don’t have any wax, clay, salt dough or… well never mind, I have… just what I need here…”

          All the while babbling on, he started to unfold a large piece of patchwork, which was somehow folded in his satchel.

          “The map dancer, you see… well, he’s a bit of a pain in the butt to find. But here, hold that for a moment. With that bit of,… there, put your finger there, no, not here, yes, riiight there… with a bit of patience, and… tada!”

          Fanella looked puzzled at the cloth now wrapped around them, snug and tight.

          “Oh well, I know, the resemblance is passable, but that will do. Believe it or not, I have done a lot of sewing in the past, patchwork quilts, miniature needlepoint rugs for doll houses, curtains, upholstery… Oh sweet times. It’s been a while I’ve had to travel via rag doll. A bit rough, but leaves little trace to follow.”

          Fanella broke her silence “are you making it along as you go, or you really have a plan to get us out of this awful middle age place?”

          Sanso tittered softly, apparently pleased with himself.

          “Now, you may want to relax, the trick is in letting go and drifting through Time’s flow.”

          #3258
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            The curly beard of one of the men caught Lisa’s attention, and she tuned in to what he was saying, her focus fully on the windscreen reflection now, the car and it’s concurrent timeframe having faded from view. “It’s an honour to be killed by a bull , Intu ,” he said to the woman walking beside him. “Your grandfather’s death is heroic, you will appreciate that in time.”
            “Perhaps in time, Balthazar,” she replied, “But I wish he was still here.”
            Balthazar patted her shoulder, and Lisa noticed his ring ~ two dolphins leaping. With a flash she understood that Intu’s grandfather had refocused as a dolphin, many centuries later in the silk like sea off the shores of Faro.
            “You can write a story about him on a stone tablet when we get to Almodovar. And I promise I won’t give you a hard time about continuity.”
            Intu smiled weakly. She did enjoy writing random stories on stone tablets, often wondering if the people of the future would be able to make sense of them and put the pieces together. She had left tablets of stories here and there as she traveled, sign posts to elsewhere and elsewhen, imprinted with the energy of adventure and mystery, laden with clues for imaginative voyagers to unravel in any way their fancies led them.

            #3193

            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.

            #2969

            Evangeline Spiggot put the phone down, and turned to old Flanigan, the cleaning man. “Another request to investigate the death of Ed Steam! Three already, and it’s not even lunch time. I think this is a case for Blithe Gambol.”

            “Lift your feet up, will you, I’m trying to make a clean sweep here” Flannely replied.

            Evangeline obliged and put her feet up on her desk, and put through a call to Blithe. After a few pleasantries, Evangeline explained the case. “So the question is, is Ed Steam really dead, or not?”

            “I can tell you the answer to that right away,” replied Blithe. “Yes, and no.”

            “Er….thanks, I think…”

            “You see, the difficulty with facts these days is that none are true, and all are real ~ well I know you know that dear, but it becomes something of a problem when clients want to know the Truth. Probable realities are pretty loosely woven these days; now, I can stitch together the case, and give you a more definitive answer. Or I can stitch together the case differently, and give you a different answer. The question is, really, what is the answer you want to hear?”

            “I’ll confer with the clients and call you back.”

            #2968
            ÉricÉric
            Keymaster

              Madam Li contemplated the pill-like translucent object glowing bright red which could barely fit in the palm of her delicate hand.
              People usually said that you could try and hide your age as well as possible on your face, but that hands didn’t lie. Hers actually were still a young woman’s fine delicate and smooth work-of-art.
              The snow had stopped immediately, leaving the weather in the Pudding area as it used to be: a pale mist of polluted fog, thus returning Shanghai to its normal weather patterns. The rote was there in her hand, full of the last surge’s energy, a tempting promise of uncontrollable power, but she had seen far too much power struggle and horrors to be really tempted by it.

              Ed’s demise had taken her by surprise. Although she did look young, it was her heart who really betrayed her. She hated people leaving her, and she would have expected Ed to survive her own death. It was the first time she was considering ever so briefly the thought of retiring. Of course, she still would need to find a replacement at her post, but China was full of eager potentials, that wouldn’t take too long.
              Putting the rote in the diplomatic case, her gaze trailed on the invitation, still on the table. She wasn’t ashamed to admit her first thought went to the cleaning lady who had been careful to dust all around it, without moving it an inch off the glass table top.
              Spain just came as an afterthought, already having lost its appeal as soon as summoned.

              Wrapping herself in her white fur coat, she called for a taxi. She would be just in time for the ice festival in Harbin with a warm dog legs’ soup and some yak butter tea.

              #2967
              ÉricÉric
              Keymaster

                “Doesn’t it strike you as odd?” a perplexed Lady Appleton turned to her husband (the fifth and last of them) Lord Appleton.
                “Yes, I know, dear, it has been all so sudden…”
                “What?”
                “You mean, Ed’s death, don’t you?”
                “Well, of course I do, but that’s not it…” She fidgeted the ornate golden disk at the center of the tall dark mysterious cabinet.
                “What it is my dear? We can very well continue with the plan notwithstanding his unexpected demise…”
                “Oh sure, that we can, so long as Cornella remains unaware of it… Last time was too close… But anyway, that wasn’t what I meant at all. You see, if Ed was really dead, one would expect he would take no time contacting us. I wonder if he’s stuck in transition, or if the surge’s energy had something to do with this improbable leave of absence…”

                #2955
                ÉricÉric
                Keymaster

                  While stroking his mustache fondly, Ed Steam had the clearest realization that although he’d done that quite a few times in the past mostly to his advantage, it was a lot of work to rewrite timelines and figure out the hows and whens of everyone in his team.
                  Maybe it was actually time for him to restore the original timeline while disappearing — by faking his own death to be certain nobody would thwart his carefully thought retirement plan. Then, he could also stop dyeing his mustache he figured… So many things to take care of, retirement would be so sweet.
                  Although the Egyptian timeturner gave him all the time in the world, he actually felt like he’d lost already a great deal too much of it, and started to enact his plan without further ado.

                  Procuring a body double was actually not so hard. The last surge had brought a few of them in Thrifteen’s Alley in their Moreguest Facility. A switch and a twist of the pocket portal and a zap and a blink of the miniaturizer was enough to get there and come back in seconds with a frozen pocket-size life-suspended body from the testing stock, with convincing enough miniaturized slim lips, safely put in a test tube in his waistcoat pocket.
                  A six-shot cudgel from his artefact war trove was all he needed to make sure the amateur assassin in red robes they’d hired would be taken care of easily.
                  Then, an enscombulator bedazzler ray spray would be enough to convince Mari Fe she’d managed to hit him, buying him time enough to then deminiaturize the thawed slim-lipped body double, to slip in his stead.
                  Last, but not least, he would then have a few seconds to discombobulize Mari Fe while disappearing with a backup transportable portal. The plan was perfect. The original timeline restored in pristine conditions.
                  Only for a few minor details of course. He’d almost forgotten to reprogram the mini-man in his pocket with enough memories for him to be a convincing Ed-himself sans la moustache of course. At least, for the short time he would survive (surge victims discovered still alive were placed in life suspension by the team, but this was mostly for medical analysis as they usually wouldn’t survive their conditions).
                  Oh, and the bloody mustache of course… A squeeze of foolicle solventilator would be enough to make it temporarily invisible.

                  Simple enough… Well, sandbagging Mari Fe would have probably conveyed similar results with minimal efforts, although the elegance of his plan, as well as the fact that he was loath to hit ladies did unmistakably weight in favour of it.

                  And with that, he would be back in time for dinner.
                  In fact, he already was.

                  #2858

                  In reply to: scattered grasps

                  ÉricÉric
                  Keymaster

                    “Oh no! Last night’s frost has killed all the blibilong plants!” exclaimed Snettie, shivering in the unnatural cold. “Honestly, this global freezing is spoiling everything. If blibilong plants can’t stand this cold, then nothing will grow here anymore, and I am sick to death of eating leopard seal with no greens.

                    #2843

                    In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                    White Panther
                    Participant

                      His immediate impulse propelled him to lunge forth and discover the contents of the book that was strewn purposefully on the floor of aisle 57, but he remembered the dire foreboding of the cardinal Timoteus: “Do not read any of these books, not so much as even possess the desire to peer into the covers, on pain of your own death.”
                      He shook his head and shuffled back towards his monitor screen, but his arthritic hand was convulsing so violently, at the events he witnessed, that the black coffee was jumping and spilling out of the polystyrene cup as he creaked to the monitor. He eventually reached the solace of the table, and in a moment of exhaustion heaved himself upon the small wooden chair, taking a deep breath. 4:45- 4:45?? How was this possible? Had all of the events transpired in less than a minute? The beams of light, the book falling, his slow shuffling towards his desk- one minute?
                      He rubbed his eyes, and stood up to refill his cup of coffee. As he walked, he couldn’t help but ponder the contents of the open book, and why the cardinal forbade him- and anyone else- from touching the book without permission. As he was filling his cup with the blackest of coffee, another beam of light- of energetic light- flashed right before him, leaving him temporarily blinded. He dropped the cup, staggered across the room and knelt on the ground. When he regained sight, he was smack in front of the open book, and the words were as clear as daylight: CANARIA.

                      #2636

                      In reply to: Strings of Nines

                      On their way to the volcanic lands, Yann and Yurick had to smile when they saw a magpie drop with a bell-shaped curved on top of the cars. They knew it was a sign of their friend Finn, as the car in front of them was having FCK concealed in its license plate number. “Fellowship of of Continuity in Knowledge”… to sexy it up.
                      Of course, they didn’t even mention the dime a dozen 57’s who weren’t as subtle and spy-like in nature, and far more all over-the-place (as it should).

                      At that same moment, Yurick had the vision of a disturbing short-motion movie suddenly burgeon in his imagination with a daredevil magpie as a involuntary heroine.
                      In a sort of bizarre paralleling of Jonathan seagull, the magpie would plunge at high speed onto the cars of the freeway so as to discover the untold exhilaration and awe that the strange vehicles were certainly feeling speeding that way. In the end, she would only to discover bored-to-death commuters inside, probably in what would be her last glimpse of this world…

                      Somehow Yurick wondered if the exhilaration of the dog sticking its tongue out of the car was much of a big deal.
                      Sure it certainly seemed so from afar, perched high in the branch from above the madding cars, but inside… the experience was another complete different thing.

                      #2601

                      In reply to: Strings of Nines

                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        Yoland decided to stick to fiction for awhile rather than the reporting of facts. She would even go so far as to disguise the facts to look like fiction, because fiction never got you into trouble, so she was inclined to think after the mornings rude awakening. If she simply said ‘I made it up’ in future, well, it seemed an easier way. Yoland decided to talk to herself for the forseeable future too, rather than to anyone else. She would make up characters to talk to, but it would all be made up, none of it would be the reporting of facts. She was through with facts, facts were too much trouble. Making it all up was easier.

                        While she was eating her marmite buttered toast, she opened the book at random that she had taken to bed with her the previous night, but hadn’t opened.

                        Once again, Yoland exclaimed “What a coincidence”, and wondered if coincidences would ever cease to be enchanting and fun. She doubted it, somehow. Each coincidence was always such a tiny tantalizing glimpse of so much more.

                        “…..you merely perceive a small portion of any given action,” Yoland read, “and when you cease to perceive it then it seems to you that the action itself ceases, and so an artificial boundary is erected.

                        “It has not occured to you, you see, to attempt to look OVER this boundary, so to speak, because you have taken it for granted that nothing exists on the other side. I am not here speaking necessarily of death, though this is the obvious instance of course. I am speaking of something much more subtle. I am speaking of ANY small seemingly insignificant action that you perform during an ordinary day, and HERE we are coming close.”

                        Yoland reckoned Seth was pretty close to what she’d been saying the previous night.

                        “You percieve only the most initial elements of such an action. It is as if you threw a ball, and could only follow the ball three inches away in space ~ then the ball would seem to vanish to you. The action would therefore seem completed. You would think it idiotic to imagine what happened to the ball when you could see it no longer, for habit would work in such a way that the disappearance of the ball would seem natural and normal, and a part of the nature of things.

                        “So, comparing the ball to an action, you perceive but the smallest portion of any given action, even one performed by yourself. It does not occur to you that there is more to perceive.”

                        Yoland was inclined to agree. Then she suddenly remembered that she was making it all up from now on, and went for a stroll around the Kasbah.

                        :mummy:

                        #2600

                        In reply to: Strings of Nines

                        Sha had been more enduring than Glo, that was hardly a surprise, but as much as it pained him to say, he had to proclaim their official death. Obituaries wasn’t his forte, and the fact they were plants notwithstanding, it wasn’t making things much easier.
                        At least, the ginger root had made new leaves like the tiny palm tree. He was starting to believe plants didn’t want to be around.

                        #2562

                        In reply to: Strings of Nines

                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          Yoland felt tired and deflated somehow. Weary, perhaps that was it, weary of the way she always felt when the animals were sick or dying. It was all very well to look at it logically, that with so many animals with such relatively short natural life spans that there would always be some coming, some going, but it was the way it made her feel that was so tiring. Responsible, as if she could have done more, or guilty that they were reflecting her energy somehow. It was all very well to say that the animals were creating their own reality, that would be easy enough to accept in some cases such as old age and diseases, but Yoland almost wished she’d never learned that they reflect her own energy, that always made her feel even more responsible than she already did.

                          The black cat was dying. Yoland had made up her mind to take her to the vets that morning. That was another dilemma she’d faced often enough, too ~ would the animal prefer to die naturally at home? Or was it in too much pain, and would it prefer to end it quickly? How could she know? Yoland supposed she did always know, in the end, which was to be the choice, but there was always the agonizing period of time beforehand when she wondered which decision to make. But the black cat had disappeared and she couldn’t find her to take her to the vets after all.

                          When she’d made the decision to take the black cat to the vet that morning, Dean accidentally knocked a photograph of her first dog, Joe, off the wall. He was the first of her dogs to go, and a good age for a big dog, fourteen years old, and Yoland had known all along that he would die at home, and sure enough, he had. One day Yoland knew he was close to the end, and less than 24 hours later, he lay on his bed, and just gradually stopped breathing. Yoland hadn’t even been quite sure of the moment in which he went, as she held his head, she asked Dean, Do you think he’s dead? Dean replied, If he’s not breathing he is. It was a silly question, really, of course Yoland knew that if you weren’t breathing you were dead. As deaths go, it was peaceful and easy. They took him in the car to a place in the woods and buried him, somewhere where the ground was soft enough to dig; it was high summer and the ground was hard and dry. It wasn’t until Joe was covered with earth that Yoland cried.

                          Yoland cried again as she remembered Joe, and then she wondered if perhaps his photograph falling off the wall that morning was a message ~ perhaps a message that the black cat was choosing to die at home too, her own little niche somewhere, wherever that might be, wherever the roof cats slept. Maybe Joe was reassuring her that he’d be there when the black cat got there, in that field of flowers where the animals played while they waited for us to join them.

                          It was a comforting thought. Yoland reached for the tissues.

                          :heart:

                          #2225

                          Annabel Ingram was chatting the tourists through her guided tours, but most of the time, her mind was wandering elsewhere.
                          As a matter of fact, she often thought she should have been named “Wandering Elsewhere” instead. These were her two favourite words in the whole Manilvan language. Scholars had made fancy claims like basement portal or something of that ilk was the loveliest words combination, but she’s never been one to follow the trends and fleeting modes anyway.

                          All in all, it was probably time she got herself a new job; touring the tourists in the middle of “ohs” and “ahs” to the Doorway of the Goddess Amarylis Moo Rue? Not for her any longer.
                          To be bluntly honest she was beginning to find herself a little of a fraud, as she tried to maintain a decent level of excitement at the ridiculous amazement of the tourists when they recounted their litanies of visions of Goddess Amarylis surrounded with cohorts of naked ladies and bare butt cupids holding wreaths of flowers. Amarylis was the Goddess of Flove. A glorious goddess representing the duality of the aspects of love and death. Quite a hype for people coming from the cities, eager to get a quick shot of esoteric experiences.

                          But she’d seen Amarylis more than once, and it was not all that pretty behind the scenes. She was not as mean as herself, but she wasn’t the last to poke fun at people for whisking unwarranted followers to the altars. Anyway, that and her perfumes, honestly you had to wonder. Lavender and decaying morue (cod), what a blend… :yahoo_rolling_eyes:

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