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In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
I am picking some grass for the guinea pigs. Delicate wee things; they don’t handle the heat well and I have moved them to the shelter of the shed. The wind has come up strong and I am enjoying the cooling it brings with it. The long grass bends away from me as though seeking safety from the scissors I hold in my hand. For a moment the wind subsides and I can feel how the sun is burning my neck so I take refuge in the shade of a tree.
Thinking time.
I heard Prune crying out last night in her sleep. She had already fallen back asleep when I went to check on her. It crossed my mind when she cried out that she may have seen the ghost too. I asked her about it in the morning but she did not seem to recall her nightmare.
“I slept liketh a log but I thanketh thou for thy kindness in asking dearest Mater,” she said to me.
”Enough of that cheek!” I told her, but was privately relieved she was okay.
Anyway, It has been twice now. I wake and there he is, over by the antique oak chest in the corner of my room. At first I can’t move or call out. And by the time I can he has gone. When I say “gone”, I don’t mean he walks out the door. He just sort of fades away. He has his back to me so I can’t tell you what his face is like. All I can tell you is that he is tall and he has on a blue robe, in a silky fabric, almost like a dressing gown with a tie in the middle.
There, I have told you now. You may be thinking it is just a silly old woman’s dream. But you don’t get to my age without having plenty of dreams, and this was nothing like any dream I have ever had.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Gliding through layers of consciousness, Belen carried her precious cargo of the Santa Maria and its birds towards her destination.
There were various variations of the same 2222, and she carefully adjusted the course along the 202 years gap, so as to swim to her favourite version of it. It required much love work on her part, addressing, piecing and peacing off many parts of human consciousness, while at the same time tenderly caring for the memories stored with her immense ghost body.
The 2020 version they had just left, she knew, was already on the proper track towards global enlightenment. There were still horrors, concerns and anxiety about the course of the future, but with a greater perspective, it looked like the positive actions were gaining momentum and leaning towards a brighter fuller and richer future.She could feel the Contact Crystal pulsate steadily and it opened her blowhole chakra. Blowing her mind, as it were.
The Big Island was like a beacon, with the flows of lava rippling heatwave signatures in the ocean, and it didn’t take long to enter the stream that would lead them to the pod and the meeting point.
As she sensed they’d arrived in 2222, and that they were floating on the surface of a calm ocean, she gently opened the energy bubble sealing the ghost and alive cargo of birds and vegetation, so they could breathe in the pure air and enjoy discovering around.
“Belen, look at you, not a ounce more of blubber since we last met! You ought to tell me how you keep so fit”
“Batshatsassani!” Belen was pleased the see the great female orca who’d come to greet her.
“Still with your entourage, it seems” her friend said without a hint of malice, blowing a few rings of bubbles around in a relaxed manner. “Let me accompany you to the ceremony.”
“With great pleasure, dear. Rest assured, I won’t carry my entourage along for the time of the ceremony.”
“It would have been cumbersome, no?” Oftentimes humour (and irony in particular) were a lost subtlety on the orca’s mind. Belen just smiled to answer, revealing a great range of ghostwhite perfect baleens.As they swam their way along the beautiful clear ocean, they were greeted by a pod of joyously rambunctious great dolphins, a good half size bigger than their common dolphins cousins she’d seen swimming near the coasts of Portugal. The leader of the pod was doing acrobatics to retrieve and play with a funny scarf made of colorful feathers. It was no surprise the dolphins were playing games, really. That or chasing food took the best of their time. But the scarf was the strangest thing Belen had seen in a long time and it triggered some kind of forgotten memory. Odd thing for her to not remember a memory, unless it was from another probable dimension… She followed the urge to ask.
“Were did they get that?”
“Oh, it’s nothing important… Four strange aquatic thingies went down earlier this morning, making a whole lot of noise around. They looked like one of those aliens, but so clumsy we thought they were probably sickly and left there to die by their tribe. The ‘phins took the fancy red gills from one of them.”
“Are you serious? Are they OK?” Belen huge heart felt panicky at the thought of the small creatures left to die without help.
“Of course they are, I knoooow we have to keep our reputation, you know. Where they are now, I’m not too sure. But the octopi from the camouflage squad are on it, following them. According to the last I know, the aliens have been lost for awhile in the underwater caves. When they’re exhausted, we’ll send them somewhere else… Can’t attract too much attention to ourselves, with the ceremony and all…”In reply to: Rafaela’s Random Ramblings
“The rugby game was also in the ocean.”
When Dove mentioned barnacles being like belief attachments (or something) Trove googled Barnacle Bill (the sailor), and listened to some rugby songs. She had recalled the rugby songs and how rude they were when she had overheard the bawdy conversation in the dressing room of The Twitz.In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Though the more Ann thought about Monica, the funnier it seemed. Guilt was such a tiresome emotion.
“Fancy old Bronkel deciding to go for a sex change! I must have sensed something when I wrote him in as the crazy, brilliant, cross dressing Dr Bronkelhampton in the Island novel!”
She thought for a moment, “did I ever finish that novel?”
Ann sighed. What was she like eh! Always starting novels, never finishing them. No wonder old Bronkel, ahem, Monica, got so fed up with her.
Anyway, perhaps she would give Monica another chance as her pooblisher? He … she… was certainly much kinder and easier to deal with now. That Godfrey, or whatever the heck his name is, wasn’t doing much for her career.
The writer wondered again how to strike out text and correct the inadvertent slip into the Ooh dimension.
An idea for another novel was forming in the murky convoluted depths of Ann’s brain, something about a gorgeously cuddly big teddy bear man, with his unruly tumble of brown curls and his colourful FairIsle sweaters, who had flown the nest from a potato farm in deepest darkest Idaho to pursue his dream of being an Elsespace Guide at the Worserversity.
“Brilliant, Moonica will loove it!”
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Becky sneezed again, and shivering, reached for the box of tissues. She was choosing to align with those old fashioned ‘catching a cold’ beliefs because, frankly, she wanted to spend a few days wrapped up in her dressing gown idly flicking through magazines and taking naps and not doing anything much.
Sean appeared with a tray.
I’ve made you a nice pot of Earl Grey, and buttered some scones for you, dear. How are you feeling? I’ve done the laundry but I think the nun outfit has shrunk.
Becky blushed. Oh well never mind that, eh.
I’ll get you another one, Sean said hopefully.
Maybe a trench coat and some thigh boots instead, suggested Becky, recalling her drenching in the park in the tarty nun outfit. More practical.
Sean grinned and sloped off to do some dusting. Call me if you want anything, he called over his shoulder.
Becky picked up another magazine from the pile next to her. Crisp, it was called, and had a photograph of Sue Flay and the Ova Tones on the front cover.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
India Louise shivered in the draughty corridor and glanced furtively over her shoulder. Bill! she hissed into the keyhole. She tapped softly on the door again, afraid of waking Manon in the next room. It would be difficult enough to explain to Bill, let alone trying to explain to the nosy and rather batty cook.
She wrapped her dressing gown tightly round her, and felt the weighty key clunk against her thigh. Eugenia and India Louise had been playing ‘let’s pretend’ with the key that Grandad Wrick had thrown on the bonfire (that India found in the ashes the next day and thought would make a super present for Eugenia….. they both loved odd little gifts).
For days they’d been wandering around the many corridors and wings of the Wrick castle, and Eugenia’s ancient rambling Sandlebright Hall. On fine days they’d explored the grounds, the aviaries and stables and hay barns, the meadows and follies, the lodges and farm cottages, through the spinney to the river and the boathouse, and back through the rose arbours… imagining themselves in different times and places, as different people, making up stories and weaving the key into each little story…… the murder at the boathouse and the key to the mystery… the key to the kitchen and the affairs of the cook… the parrots and the key to the bird cage…… the key to the captains trunk in the attic…
Until they found the place where the key didn’t fit into the story…that is to say, the one place that should have needed a key, The Locked Room that only great grandad Wrick ever went in, was unlocked.
India Louise couldn’t wait to tell Bill all about it.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Cuthbert woke up with a start, and called for Nanny Gibbon. What a horrible nightmare he was having!
CURSED HAND, YOU HAVE GIVEN ME NOTHING BUT GRIEF. I WOULD RATHER NOT HAVE A HAND THAN HAVE SUCH A WICKED, EVIL APPENDAGE ATTACHED TO MY BODY.
Cuthbert trembled and checked his hands. Phew! they looked normal.
GOOD RIDDANCE HAND. MAY YOU ROT IN THE BOTTOM OF THIS RIVER AND NEVER AGAIN INFLICT YOUR EVIL ON ANY OTHER POOR UNSUSPECTING SOUL.
Nanny I just had an awful dream! Cuthbert clutched Nanny Gibbon’s dressing gown, and shuddered. There was this madman, Nanny, by a river, and he kept shouting about an evil hand….
There, there, Bertie, it was only a dream. How about a nice piece of Manon’s Yorkshire parkin and a cup of cocoa?
