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  • #4510
    F LoveF Love
    Participant

      Maeve sighed loudly—something she had been doing an awful lot of lately—and checked the time on her phone. If she left now and really hurried it would only take 5 minutes to get to the cafe. On the other hand if she took her time … well, with any luck the others would have already moved on.

      Not that she didn’t like Lucinda, on the contrary she enjoyed her neighbour’s gregarious nature and propensity to talk amusing rubbish — usually in public and at the top of her voice which would cause Maeve to look around nervously and lower her own voice in order to compensate.

      Maeve had made peace with her own introversion years ago. In order to survive with a semblance of normality, she had cultivated an outward calm which belied the activity going on in her head. The downside of this was she suspected she came across to others as muted and dull as the beige walls of her apartment. The upside was it allowed her to hide in plain sight; and she considered this to be a very handy trait. In truth, Maeve was one who liked many and few; she would happily talk to people, if she knew what on earth to say to them.

      ‘Anyway,’ Maeve reasoned, ‘I have to finish the doll.’

      She looked with satisfaction at her latest creation; a young boy wearing a vintage style buzzy bee costume. She had painstakingly sewn, stuffed and painted the cloth doll and then sanded the layers of paint till he looked old and well worn. ‘He looks like he has been well loved by some child,’ she mused. There was just one more step remaining before applying a protective coat of varnish and seating him on the shelf next to the others.

      She went to the kitchen drawer. In the 3rd drawer down there was a cardboard box of old keys. Most of the keys didn’t fit anything in her apartment; in fact she had no idea where they came from. Except one. She picked out a small gold key and went to the writing desk in the lounge, a heavy dour piece of furniture with a drop-front desk and various small drawers and cubby holes inside. Maeve unlocked one of these drawers with the key and pulled out a small parcel.

      ‘Only 3 parcels to go,’ she thought with relief.

      A small section of the stitching was unfinished on the back of Bee Boy, just enough to squeeze the package inside and then rearrange the stuffing around it. With neat stitches Maeve sewed up the seam.

      She checked the time. It had taken twenty six minutes.

      “Want to go for a walk to see Aunty Lulu and her nice new friends? See what she is going on about decorating?” she asked Fabio, her pekingese.

      #4495
      AvatarJib
      Participant

        Shawn-Paul lived in a studio apartment, crammed with bookshelves full of books and trinkets that he gathered during his many walks around the city while looking for inspiration. He hadn’t read all of the books, but he always had the intention to do it one day. One day easily became two and three, and so many.
        Someone with OCD could dust date the different purchases by measuring the thickness of the layer of dust on the books.

        That day, Shawn-Paul was drinking a hot chocolate at his computer on the small desk where some books lied open or closed on top of each others. The top one’s cover claimed in bold red letters “NARRATIVE COACHING, The Definitive Guide to Bring New Stories to Life”. Shawn-Paul had bought it thinking it was a coaching book for writers but it apparently aimed at teaching coaches to tell good stories. The book had proved interesting and especially another occasion to enrich his knowledge about the world or in one word procrastinate.

        Shawn-Paul took a sip of the hot chocolate, which was now more lukewarm than hot and felt the impulsion to open his browser and watch a video about narrative coaching on U-stub. That’s when it all went wrong and myriads of ads popped up and covered the screen and his newly bought writer software were the first word of his novel still waited to appear.

        At first, he panicked and his sudden movements back and fro almost broke the fragile equilibrium of the desk clutter. But then he shrugged, took his phone to call his friend Jeremiad for help and remembered how that went last time when he had to listen to his friend’s imaginary problems, just like imaginary friends but worse. He put the phone back in the clutter and looked at the last ad. A girl with sensuous cherry red lips winking at him with a packet of granola cookies spinning around her head.

        Unaware of what was happening, Shawn-Paul felt hungry and considered his lukewarm chocolate. He smiled as he thought he could make another one and enjoy dipping some cookies in it.
        He went to the kitchen and foraged through the clutter of dirty dishes and empty cookie packets. There were none left. The effect of hunger on Shawn-Paul was square grumpiness. Not round, not rectangular. Square. And it didn’t fit the curves of his stomach.

        Shawn-Paul put his writer’s jacket and cap on, added a wool scarf because he had a sensitive throat, and it looked cool on him and he winked at his reflection on the mirror hanging on the main door.
        He left, unaware of the smile of the granola girl.

        #4473

        Margoritt looked at the spot where Tak was nestled, under her desk, with a concerned puzzled look albeit mixed with a repressed laughter sparkling beneath the surface.
        No matter how stern she wanted to look, she had a soft spot for the antics of the youngling.
        “What have you done this time, dear? You have as guilty a face upon you as when you pilfered the raw mangoes that Mr Minn brought us, and got yourself an indigestion as a result…” she almost chuckled, but paused and squinted her eyes.
        “Well except you didn’t look so… green.”

        She craned her neck to see better the little face behind the mop of tangled hair.

        “My, my, my… what have we got here!”

        #4355
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          “You incredibly rude fuckers after we were obliged to listen to yours for years,” Elizabeth’s fingers tapped loudly on the keyboard. “It would be at the very least polite to show a little interest, even if it is feigned, but no! Stuck up your own arseholes as usual!”

          “You can’t say that, Liz!” Finnley gasped, looking over Liz’s shoulder.

          “Fuck ‘em!” replied Liz, thrusting her keyboard to the back of the desk with a satisfied smile. “You just can’t get the crowd fillers these days. Now then, were is that tasty gardener?”

          #4174
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            “You do exaggerate so, Finnley,” remarked Liz. “It was much longer than five minutes, and you chose to go when all the rest of the staff were on holidays too. Damned inconsiderate of you all, really! You’re lucky you still have a position here to come back to, my girl.”

            Liz shuffled some papers on her desk in a businesslike manner and then blew the ensuing dust off her keyboard with a flourish.

            “And don’t make those vile gestures behind my back.”

            #4102

            “You!”, said Jeremy Duncan Jasper before jumping on the woman. “You stole my cat! What have you done to Max ?”
            “I don’t have your cat”, said Funley loudly. She was trying to protect her face as an instinctive reaction and pushed on the ground with her feet. The chair had little wheels which allowed her to escape the man’s grasp, but it bumped on Ed’s desk. She was cornered. She jumped out of the chair and ran behind Ed’s desk followed closely by an angry Jeremy.

            “I assume you already know each others”, said Ed, tugging at his mustache casually.

            “Of course I know her”, said Jeremy in a short breath. He showed his fist angrily. “She was supposedly from the hygiene inspection bureau when I worked at the veterinarian clinic. She stole my cat!”

            “I don’t have your cat”, repeated Funley.

            “What have you done with him old crone ? You gave me all those papers to read and sign and when I came back you were gone… with Max.”

            “Tsk tsk”, said Ed. “We have more important matters to attend to.” He lifted his hand to prevent any objection. “You may or may not have noticed, but I have and that’s the more important. Reality has been rebooting repeatedly, and each time people… or animals”, he said looking at Jeremy, “are disappearing.”

            “You see”, said Funley, “I don’t have your cat.” Jasper snorted and showed his teeth.

            “We need to do something”, concluded Ed.

            “Excuse me”, said Duncan, “but what does that have to do with us ? I’m just a bank employee.”

            “A bank employee, who was a veterinarian, a plumber, a taxi driver, a tech guy at the phone company… and more importantly a map dancer. I need a team of gifted people to maximize our chances of survival.”

            Funley raised an eyebrow. “Mr Steam, à propos”, she said brandishing the paper she had found in the trash can.

            #4099

            Funley sniffed loudly as she unhurriedly emptied the trash can in Ed Steam’s office, pausing to read any interesting correspondence which may have wound up there. Looking over towards Ed and finding that his attention was still fixed on the computer monitor, she followed her sniff up with a small snort and then a throat clearing noise. When her sniffs and snorts didn’t capture Ed’s attention, she proceeded to blow her nose explosively.

            This did the trick. Ed jumped and looked at Funley in alarm.

            “Whatever is the matter, Funley? Are you ill?”

            “Sorry, didn’t mean to disturb you,” apologised Finnley, pulling up a chair in front of Ed’s desk and seating herself comfortably on it.

            “Actually, if you are not too busy, there is a small problem I’ve been wanting to speak with you about. I promised I would untangle the threads for you however the entanglement situation is worse than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. Or nightmares for that matter. I don’t know who has been doing the record keeping — although I would hazard a guess at Evangeline — but the cross referencing, where it exists, is appalling and … “

            A tap on the door and the new employee, Duncan Minestrone, popped his head into the office. “You wanted to see me, Mr Steam?” he asked.

            Funley glanced towards the door in exasperation at the interruption and then her expression changed to one of horror.

            Jasper Grok!” she gasped. “What are you doing here?”

            #4098

            Someone had told him once : “Catastrophes are like meteor shower, they come in flocks.”

            Jeremy looked with dread at the smoke coming out of his computer. He had been writing an important e-mail to his new boss at the bank and was about to click the send button when it happened. The tech had said there was a current surge affecting the whole building. Everyone was in deep shit at the moment, they had to close the building to angry customers, and someone in high place was certainly worrying about the intangible money the bank was manipulating daily.
            Oh! and concerning all his data, considering the smoke coming out of the machine, it was certainly irremediably lost.

            Jeremy sighed. His last relocation a few hours ago had made him a 36 year old salesman in a not so well known bank. His ID said he was called Duncan Minestrone, but he couldn’t let go of his old identity and kept on thinking of himself as Jeremy. And he didn’t feel that old.

            His memory of his former life, before the relocation, was fading away. He didn’t remember well what he was doing and what were his passions. The only thing he was sure is that they had confiscated his cat, Max, when they gave him his first identity and he had been on the look for him ever since.

            It wasn’t easy, especially since every other day he was receiving a new identity in his mailbox. At first he had found it odd and not so easy : as soon as he got accustomed to a new persona, he would have to change again. He feared he would soon lose track of who he really was. And he wasn’t sure about what all this was about.

            The phone hanging on the wall rang. It was one of those old public phones. Jeremy had thought it was only for decoration. The tech was looking at him.

            “Are you going to pick up ?” he asked.
            “Me ?”
            “Of course! The phone is in your office, isn’t it ?”

            Jeremy hesitated but eventually got up from his desk. The phone was calling him, but he didn’t really want to take the call. What if it was more problems. They come in flocks.
            It was one of those old ringing tone caused by a mechanical bell inside. The speaker was shaking furiously. Jeremy couldn’t help but notice the dust on the machine.

            “You’d better take the call”, said the tech.

            Jeremy picked up the apparatus which a greasy feeling in his hand.

            “At last! Duncan, in my office! Now!”
            It was the voice of his new boss, Ed, and he didn’t seem very happy.

            #4069

            “Where the devil is everyone?”

            Miss Bossy Pants looked around the empty office with a mixture of disappointment and confusion. She had been anticipating the surprised looks on her colleagues’ faces at her unannounced return —she had no illusions about her popularity and knew better than to expect a joyous reunion—but the room was disconcertingly empty.

            Hearing the door behind her, she spun around in relief. It was the new guy, Prout, carrying a brown paper bag and a take out coffee.

            “Hello!” he said, hoping he did not sound as awkward as he felt and wondering if he could back out the door again. He had only met Bossy a couple of times and found her bluntness disconcerting. Terrifying, even. There was no reply, so, taking a sip of his steaming coffee, he bravely persevered.

            “Welcome back. How are you feeling?”

            “Are you the only one here? Where is everyone?” snapped Bossy Pants.

            Ricardo took a deep breath and focused on a wilted pot plant on the window ledge.

            God, I hope I don’t start rambling.

            Connie and the temp, Sophie, went to Iceland … something about following a lead from Santa Claus and I’ve not heard from them since. And Hilda … I don’t know where Hilda went to be honest. She emailed me a few days ago wanting to know what to feed Orangutans.”

            Bossy had paled. She seemed to shudder slightly and put out a hand to steady herself on a nearby desk.

            “They eat mostly fruit,” he continued, “but other stuff too of course. Insects and flowers and stuff like that. Honey I think, if they can find it I guess, and bark. And leaves. Mostly fruit though.”

            That’s probably enough about the Orangutans. She is clearly not into it.

            “I got a bit held up actually; there is a young boy outside drawing maps. Quite young … youngish. I am not sure how old really but he was little.They are bloody good too—there is quite a crowd out there watching him draw.”

            “Iceland,” whispered Bossy, her face a deathly white colour.

            “Yeah, Iceland. Keflavik … Miss Bossy, are you sure you are well enough to be back? You don’t look so good. I mean, you look good … attractive of course … I don’t mean you look bad or anything but you do look sort of pale. Are you okay?”

            “Santa Claus.” Bossy sat down slowly.

            “Yeah … I know, a bit crazy, right? They seemed to think it was a really hot lead.”

            “Stupid idiots; the lead wasn’t from Santa Claus— I will bet my life that it was from that depraved scoundrel, Dr Bronkelhampton! I heard through the grapevine he had gone to Iceland with a new identity after the Island fiasco destroyed his reputation—we covered the story at the time and it was huge—and now he is clearly after revenge. Dear God, what have they got themselves into?”

            #4048
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              “Oh, there you are Hilda, can I have a word?”

              Hilda started guiltily at Connie’s voice, and pushed her teacup behind a stack of papers on her desk. Slurping down the last of the tea before making her way to the airport for the Boston flight, she hadn’t been able to resist looking into the dregs for a minute or two. What she’d seen had made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. But what was she to do about it? And now here was Connie, fidgeting in the doorway. Well, see what she wants first, Hilda told herself, and then decide.

              “Do you know anything about these?” asked Connie, thrusting the flight tickets in front of Hilda. “And what’s the background on the old crone, Sophie? I thought she was just a temp?”

              Hilda’s head was spinning. Should she say nothing, let Connie take the flight, and hope for the best? Or try and prevent her making the trip, just in case? How accurate was her tea leaf reading really? What if she had misinterpreted the signs? It could be too embarrassing. Better just hope for the best and say nothing.

              “Sorry Connie, must dash.” Hilda quickly gathered her things together and shoved them in the flight bag at her feet. Pushing past Connie she said, “Er, have a good trip!” and with a sickly smile she fled.

              When Hilda arrived at the airport an hour later, she made a snap decision to change her flight. Luckily there were a few seats left to Keflavik in Iceland. She really hadn’t fancied Boston and the crotch grabbers anyway. She wouldn’t tell the others she was already in Iceland, but at least she would be there to monitor events as they unfolded.

              #4047
              AvatarJib
              Participant

                Back at her desk after a crash course at zumba with the Chinese team, Connie was sorting her e-mails (meaning sending them to trash). Nothing fancy, nothing catchy, nothing to grab her attention span for more than a minute.

                The noise of the open space was making her feel drowsy. Maybe a coffee would help her wake up, or maybe if something could happen to stir the pot. Connie deleted a few more e-mails to show the others that she was a busy reporter before leaving her desk.
                Passing by the desks of her colleagues, Connie looked surreptitiously at their computer screens and saw that everyone was playing the busy game. It was sad to recognize that good news (meaning bad news) were hard to come by nowadays.

                In times like these, she had to resist the tentation to create her own news, it was not that kind of press. But still toying with the idea and making up some outrageous stories with her team was a way to make time fly away more quickly. Once, Hilda had even reused one of the titles for a real stories that sadly happened shortly after she had made it up.
                Rumour had it that Hilda’s great grand mother was a gypsy and could do palm reading. The gran even used palm tree leaves to do her reading when there was nobody, you just had to cut the leave in the shape of the person you wanted to read the future and she would tell you all about them. She was good.
                “It runs in the family,” Hilda had said. “It’s helpful to be at the right place at the right time.” And for sure she was the most prolific reporter of the agency.
                Connie sure would have used some of Hilda’s medium inner sight to know when something would happen.

                She made herself a cappuccino and with the milk drew the face of Al Pacino. Many years at a press agency and you learn a few tricks to impress your friends.
                She heard the slow and uneven pace of sweet old Sophie behind her. She sighed, she didn’t want to have to answer another of her dumb questions about the future. If Hilda could read bits of the future, Sophie was always thirsty about it. Maybe that’s why Hilda was more often in the field and not so often at her desk.

                Connie turned and almost dropped her cappuccino as the old lady handed her a Fedex envelop.
                “Sorry,” said sweet old Sophie, “That just arrived for you. I wonder what it is.”
                “I’m sure you do,” muttered Connie.
                “It’s from Santa Claus,” said the old lady with a conniving smile.
                Connie looked at the old lady, with a forced smile. Was insanity a cause to get rid of one of your employee ? She took the package with one hand. Heavier than she had expected. When she saw the address, she couldn’t believe it was real. The sender’s and city’s names were certainly fake. Jesus Carpenter, Santa Claus, AZ
                Sophie was still there, looking at Connie with a big smile.
                “What are you waiting for ?” the reporter asked.
                “Aren’t you opening it?”

                Connie considered opening the package, but the avidity on the old face was making her uncomfortable. “Nope,” she said. With her cappuccino and the package she went back to her desk. Sweet Sophie was still looking at her with that greedy smile on her face. Connie shivered and shook her head. It was obvious, the old tramp was mad.
                She touched the package, trying to guess what was inside. As no convincing guess presented itself in her mind, she stripped it open. There was an iPhone 5 SE with 64Gb memory in it, two plane tickets for Keflavik in Iceland, and a note.
                ‘If you want a good story prepare your suitcase. Bring Sweet Sophie with you. We’ll contact you once you are there.’

                Connie thought of a joke. She checked the package and no matter how many times she looked it was still her name. She looked toward the cafeteria and she shuddered. Sweet Sophie was still looking at Connie with that strange smile, as if she knew. Or as if she had sent the package herself, the reporter thought.
                “Someone knows where Hilda is ? I need to talk to Hilda.”

                #4013

                In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                Edward Cayper had been absorbed on the mesmerizing display of the large monitoring screens. He’d liked to believe it was a meditation of sorts. The simulation made the most tantalizing displays, ever changing.

                Although there had been flitches. Increasingly. He called them flitches, scratchy flea-like glitches, all small and jumpy, but he had an eye for them. He was, after all, one of the early designers of the Program. REYE – Reality Emergence Yielding Existence. That didn’t mean much, but sounded cool at the time.
                REYE was in its eighth stable upgrade. Despite the flitches, it had evolved at exponential speed.

                Edward swiveled from his chair to look behind his desk. A series of pods was lined up with sensory deprivation tanks hosting hundreds of plugged-in bodies dreaming in synch with his creation.
                He’d been told they were volunteers to participate in the largest mind control experiment in the world. He wasn’t sure it wasn’t a lie, but didn’t care so much.
                REYE was in charge of coordinating the whole program with astronomical and minute precision. Each person linked to the program believed they had become ascended (or something similarly close to their metaphysical belief). Free of the bonding of space, time and corporal existence, they were taught into a very subtle and complex system of attunement to higher truths. A large basket of bollocks of course, but while they were doing it, and deeply believing it to be real, the mind-energy they produced was redirected to certain mind control experiments.

                Since they started in the 80s, the program had had slow progress. In the beginning, only a few sprouts of channellers appeared near their area, in Nevada. They were quite timid at first, full of doubts about their hearing or seeing voices – still better than the abductions of earlier, when many went completely nuts. But now, progresses were made steadily, and with much less effort. Edward personally believed that the network of waves created by cellphone proliferation had a factor in this trend. Such interconnexion made everything easier.

                Within the program, the flitchy Ascended Masters still had to be reconditioned from time to time. On the vitals of Jane Pierce (a.a.a. “also avatared as” Dispersee within the program), Edward could see there were occasional resistance and stress, which in turn made the glitches more frequent. A change in her drugs dosage would do fine to level the serotonin in her bloodstream. It would be that, or unplugging her.

                Before leaving the room, like every day, Edward switched the monitor to the camera over one of the pods. Florence Vengard (a.a.a. Floverley), was dreaming peacefully, as usual. Since she’d arrived, he’d felt connected to her. He imagined her with long curly red hair floating in the milk bath instead of the bath-cap that made the maintenance so much easier. He was told she had overdosed on pills, and wouldn’t wake up. The program seemed to be tethering her to life, frozen in time.

                A well-oiled machine.
                If you overlooked the small things… that REYE was becoming more inquisitive, and Edward suspected, greedy too. He had seen subtle gaps in the mind-energy gauges, it couldn’t be a coincidence. The program was becoming too smart, maybe too human.

                It couldn’t bode well.

                #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”.

                  #3986

                  Ed Steam was all but overwhelmed by the complexity of the situation.

                  He was up to his moustache in paperwork as he attempted to resolve the thread entanglement dilemma. At the same time he was striving to keep tabs on the various cacklers and manage the PR for the crowd gas experiments.

                  “What a jolly brouhaha,” he moaned.

                  “I am sorry to add to your woes,” said Evangeline cheerfully, “but there have been recent reports of a Cautacious Cackler cackling in various threads, although this may just be a typo for the Audacious Cackler or another strong possibility put forward by the experts is that the Cautacious Cackler has been confused for the Contumacious Cackler.“

                  She paused to see the effect this information was having on Ed, noting with pleasure the drops of sweat forming on his brow. She leaned over the desk and gently mopped them away with her handkerchief.

                  “And there have been unverified reports of a possible granite termitation on this thread,” she said softly.

                  It was too much for Ed.

                  “I want you to trace it back to when the first signs of entanglement began,” he screamed at Evangeline.

                  #3875

                  Cornella giggled, dusting off her keyboard before leaving the office. Ed Steam might have something to say about it when he saw the new lists of identities in the morning, but it had been worth it. A little alliteration helped to pass the day, after all. For the most part the story refugees either didn’t notice, or at any rate didn’t complain. They were relieved that the endless process was over, or too nervous about starting a new story to notice.

                  Zoe Zuckerberg to Zimbabwe was one of her favourites; and Quentin Quincy to Queensland. What did it matter that Zoe, previously known as Madam Li, had no desire to go to Zimbabwe, or that Ted Marshall had family in Spain? It was up to them to make up whatever they wanted once they started the new story. Her job was assigning names and locations, the rest was up to them.

                  She’d laughed out loud when one of them sat down at her desk, clearing his throat nervously. Current name and location? she asked.
                  Percy Piedmont from Paris, he said, I have a brother in Shanghai who has a new story, he said he’d insert me into his.

                  Cornella couldn’t help wondering who had assigned him his last character role, and if they were playing games in the office to pass the day, too.

                  Alright Percy, how about Shane Shylock?

                  #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”

                    #3673
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      “Who else is coming? Don’t remind me, I can’t bear it,” Elizabeth said fretfully while Norbert opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish.

                      “I have an idea!” she announced suddenly, standing up and crushing a mince pie that had rolled under her desk. “Gather round, come on, come on!”

                      Arona Haki shuffled in with the dustpan and mop, as Finnley blew her nose loudly and wiped the tears from her eyes. Norbert stood silently, waiting.

                      “It wouldn’t matter WHO came,” Liz paused for effect, “If none of us were here!”

                      “But we are here, aren’t we,” remarked Finnley. Norbert and Haki murmured in agreement.

                      “We are now!” replied Liz, “But we could be gone in an hour! We could go and visit my cousin ~ third cousin twice removed, actually ~ in Australia. They have an old inn and it’s sure to be half empty, it’s in the middle of nowhere, and,” she added triumphantly, “It will be lovely and warm there!”

                      “Blisteringly hot, more like,” muttered Finnley, “And would they like unexpected visitors for Chri, er Kri, er, that date on the calendar?”

                      “I’m sure they’d be delighted, “ replied Liz, crisply. “Not everyone is as curmudgeonly about Chri, er, Kri, er that date on the calendar as we are. And anyway,” she added, “If I write it into the story that they are delighted, then they will have no option but to be pleased to see us.”

                      “If you bloody lot are coming to the Flying Fish Inn, I’m buggering off to Mars for the holidays” said Bert.

                      Elizabeth spun round, saying sharply, “Bert! Get back to your own thread this instant! The bloody cheek of it, thread hopping like that, really!”

                      #3587

                      In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                      F LoveF Love
                      Participant

                        “God damn it, my headpiece! I forgot my headpiece!” croaked Mother Shirley when she heard the command to assemble in Area 12. She looked around desperately for the final piece of her attire but it was nowhere to be seen.

                        Mother Shirley hated to be seen without her headpiece. Other than a few wiry grey hairs, she was bald—a fact which under normal circumstances her veil and wimple disguised admirably. It was a devil of a thing to get on though.

                        As the alarms sounded for a second time, she grabbed a pyramid shaped receptacle from the small desk in her capsule, and placed it on her head, where it perched precariously.

                        “God help us,” she grumbled, as she stiffly creaked her way to Area 12.

                        #3551
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          Aunt Idle:

                          I took the rolled up bundle of torn maps into my bedroom and locked the door. I turned the key silently, almost furtively, and then leaned my back on the door. If there had been a security cam in the room, I’d have looked to anyone watching like I was over dramatizing. Ham acting drama queen. Hoped none of the Laptop Lazuli’s, my remote viewing buddies, were tuning in. Thinking about them gave me an idea, but I’d think about that some more later.

                          After spreading the maps on the floor and sending a half dozen dust bunnies scampering off, I went over to my desk to get the note. I found it in the end, after flapping a bit when it wasn’t where I thought I’d left it.

                          It didn’t take long to start matching up the letters on the note with the holes in the maps. I started jotting the place names down as best as I could work it out, and of course there were plenty of letters on the note without a corresponding map segment. But it was clear that the letters on my note had come from these maps.

                          The funny thing was, and it was more creepy than funny, was that all of the places on the map with a missing letter were places of particular significance to me. Either I’d been to that place, or it was a place in The Tales, the stories I’d been writing with the Lazuli’s online.

                          One of the I’s was from Paris, one from Sri Lanka and another from Siberia. There was an R from New York, a D from London and an H from Shanghai, and so on. After awhile I started to notice that all the letters on the signature of Hilde Didier were from locations in The Tales, and that the content of the note, so far, was constructed of letters ripped from places I had been to. Places I’d been to where I’d left in a hurry.

                          I needed to find the rest of the maps to complete the picture.

                          #3529
                          prUneprUne
                          Participant

                            I don’t like the sound of shouting, so I retreated in the silence of the billiard room.
                            It was still smelling of the tobacco that father was smoking when he spent hours working there, on the small desk next to the bookshelves.

                            I don’t know why I’m always the one who got kicked. Being the youngest isn’t fair. I never got to know my mother for as long as my stupid sisters. And now, father’s absences are stretching for longer and longer ; I dread that I soon won’t see him either… forever…

                            I curl into the old teal blue sofa eaten by mites, and rock myself silently.

                            I always wanted to escape my strange family, the inexorable fate of a meaningless life in a meaningless town. Yeah, I’m precocious, and I even studied maps to see how far I could get. Unlike so many movie stars wannabes wanting to live a life in the city, and who always ended up back were they came from, often sadder and disillusioned, I will take all the time I need to make sure I will succeed. Much of my plans stay in my head though. Will never write them, can’t trust it with my snooping sisters around.

                            For now, I will continue to play them all. I will continue to be the little behaving girl who asks for the cute puppy dog. And pray in silence for father to come back, wishing for him to tell me stranger stories from the beyond of the town.

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