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The early morning sea mist was evaporating as Fanella strolled around the village picking up dog shit. She reminded herself to fully appreciate the damp coolness, before the scorching summer sun enveloped them in a bone warming blanket, and then reminded herself to appreciate the bone warming effects of the full sun later. As she retraced her steps she noted how differently everything looked on a return journey, how piles of dog shit had escaped her notice while going one way, but were obvious on the way back. It reminded her of something she’d read recently in one of the books that Lisa insisted she read to improve her English ~ A Field Guide To Getting Lost . Hah! Had there been a cruel irony in that choice of book? Fanella had felt lost ever since she arrived in 2020. But according to the book, getting lost wasn’t a bad thing, not at all.

To be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery.

Fanella sighed. All sounds very philosophical, but I’m still stuck in the wrong time zone.
Another passage from the book popped into her head:

We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire, though often it is the desire between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing.

Fanella gazed up at the sky ~ the blue of longing was taking over, as the white wisps of clouds dispersed.

The people thrown into other cultures go through something of the anguish of the butterfly, whose body must disintegrate and reform more than once in its life cycle…. how often the early stages of change or cure may mimic deterioration. Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly….No, the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.

Charming, Fanella thought, just bloody charming. Rotting soup of change, that just about sums it up. No wonder I wake up every morning with my bones feeling like mush.

With years of intense Happiness training, and being herself a certified Happiness Coach™ in Rainbow Unified Bliss®, Lisa was reasonably adept at dispelling the occasional bouts of frustration that the six time travelers were experiencing while familiarizing themselves with the new time frame. Learning the new languages, both the local Spanish and the common language of the village tribe, English, was of paramount importance, and Mirabelle in particular was having difficulties. A basic vocabulary was easy enough, but when it came to grammar, Mirabelle was hopeless. Thus her communications were of a very basic and rudimentary nature, and she often felt unable to express her feelings, or her thoughtful observations on the many nuances, similarities and differences and overlaps of the current time and 18th century France. Not only was she obliged to learn two new languages, but was also learning to read and write. Often it seemed like all work and no play, too much pressure to perform, to learn, to do well at her studies, and yet play breaks were always frustrated in some manner because of her difficulties in communicating clearly. The fact that the others were progressing better with the languages made her feel alone, adrift in a sea of her own unexpressed thoughts.
Adeline had a more relaxed approach to the language difficulties, less inclined to struggle with it and more likely to chatter endlessly to Boris instead, and ask him to translate when she needed some help. She had discovered an interest, and some considerable talent, in the art room, experimenting with the paints and materials, and spent many happy hours engrossed in her paintings and playful collages of mundane (but to her, bizarre) objects. She was like a magpie, collecting items that caught her eye. The bright colours and smoothness of plastic appealed to her, especially when transformed in shape by one of those odd little plastic fire making gadgets. Sunglasses were another favourite, especially the different shades of lens. It was not unusual to hear one of the villagers complaining that the lids to the tupperware containers were missing, or all the bottle tops had been removed, to find they had all been glued together, with the flyswatter, a few odd flipflop beach shoes and the mirror lenses out of someones shades. But the villagers were on the whole amused, generously indulgent, and good naturedley rolled their eyes at her creative curiosity.
Boris was practical and capable, and true to form, was learning rapidly. He had no particular desire to express vague rambling thoughts (indeed, he was not a vague and rambling man by nature) and turned his attention to more practical matters. When he wasn’t chatting to Adeline, he was watching Jack tinkering inside car engines, or playing with Pierre’s camera and had quickly learned how to upload and play with the images on the computer. Often in the evenings Adeline would sit beside him and watch drowsily as the images changed in front of her eyes on the screen.
Ivan and Igor were learning what they needed to learn while doing it ~ tending the goats and chickens, working outside on the land, or helping with various building projects. They had taken to the local bars like ducks to water, and spent the evenings downing copious amounts of beer and wine with the locals, all of them babbling and shouting incoherently, but seeming to understand each other in the camaraderie of inebriation.

Mirabelle and Adeline sat in the morning sun on the verandah, appreciatively nibbling the perfectly formed sliced toasted bread and marmalade.
Almost six months had passed since they’d been found on the beach, confused and soaked, babbling incoherently. An early morning beach walker had found them (she had wondered if she was dreaming or hallucinating), and had attempted to engage them in conversation. A rudimentary smattering of French acquired during a grape picking sojourn in France many years ago helped. Much of what the bizarrely clad group said was incomprehensible, but it was clear that they were lost and hungry, so Lisa invited them back home with her. They were reluctant to get into the car, fearing a trap, and when she started the engine, they panicked and scrambled to get back out until Boris calmed them down and suggested they had better trust this stranger because frankly, what were their options? She seemed kind and helpful, even if she was shockingly under dressed with her legs exposed for all to see, and had an invisible and very noisy horse pulling her carriage.
Lisa lived in a relatively new community of creative and forward thinking individuals who were in the process of renovating an abandoned village in the orange groves. They called the village the Trading Post, a name that was a loose play on words on the social media platform where they had first become acquainted and traded and shared posts. They were a diverse assortment of people from all over the world, united with the common goal of experimenting with a new type of anarchist culture, a novel creative and expansive playful approach that was becoming increasingly popular.
Pierre and Étienne’s knowledge of French had come to the rescue upon the first arrival of the group, as they unraveled their strange tale. After much confusing conversation and translations for the rest of the occupants of the village, it became clear that the group were time travelers, although somewhat accidental and clearly unprepared.
While the travelers rested after an unfamiliar but welcome meal, the villagers discussed the situation with much interest and curiosity. It was decided that they would keep the news of the travelers a secret for the time being, and gradually assist them with learning about their new timeframe, current customs and the local languages.

Irina buzzed for her robot, Mr R. All the elite class had robots. Most nowadays were barely distinguishable from humans. However, Irina fancied herself to be someone who did things a bit differently. The design of Mr R was fashioned on the robots from classic twentieth century literature: his “head” a glass bubble sensor unit with moving antennae, his trunk-section a rotating cylinder with controls on the front, extending bellow arms that ended with mechanical claws and bellow legs with tread tractor units. He was able to move with deceptive speed and agility. Personality-wise Mr R was programmed to be the epitome of deference and tact.

“Did you have a pleasant time with Mr Sanso?” inquired Mr R politely. “I believe you have a spot of cucumber on your face. Allow me to remove that for you.” He did this with a deftness belying his dangerous looking extremities. “And how else can I serve you this morning?”

“Thank you, Mr R. Mr Sanso proved to be inscrutable as always. Please provide scanning assistance. Target 2121 Time travel mission 2222.”

“Delighted to oblige, Ma’am!”

Irina scanned the brains of the time travellers. The 3 drag queens were hypnotically sensitive and should be easy enough to manipulate. The girl, Sadie, was more problematic. Her motivation was happiness and her purity of intention meant that she would be difficult to manipulate successfully. Sanso, she knew already, was a law unto himself.

Irina felt a stab of fear as she thought of the 22nd of February 2222. (Fear was an unusual emotion for Irina—in fact all strong emotion was unusual—and it took her a moment to identify it.) All the 2’s in alignment. If the time travellers were successful in retrieving the crystal and decoding the information before that date, what would that fateful morning look like? Would Irina herself even exist? Doubtful.

Life was pretty good for Irina. In 2222 the Elite were free to pursue their goals—without the confines of the ethical and economic considerations of the old days. They were not confined to human bodies either; they could be robotic, animal or some other more exotic design or mythological creature. It really just depended on how the mood took them. Irina, with the expert assistance of Mr R, was planning in meticulous detail a mermaid-like body, complete with gills and a tail, so that she could travel to an underwater location for her next vacation.

It wasn’t like that for everybody though. And this “progress” had not come about without a huge impact on the environment. There were large pockets of people scattered throughout the world who had eschewed the new technology, instead choosing the way of Love.

“Looooooooove!” Irina rolled her eyes and Mr R chuckled politely on cue.

If Irina had her way they would dispose of the time travellers the moment they arrived. Or better yet, send a team back to 2121 and dispose of them there. Management had forbidden this route, not for any ethical reasons—there were few moral guidelines nowadays—but out of caution. The vote had been close. Apparently there were some documents from the early channellers foretelling disastrous consequences if the time travellers were unable to return to their century. Management had decreed instead that the time travellers must be diverted from their goal.

The crystal itself was closely guarded by the whales until the so called Chosen Ones arrived with the key.

“Are we nearly there yet?” asked Fanella, who was easily bored. The balloon had been drifting steadily westwards for almost two days. It had been decidedly chilly at that altitude, but the occupants had kept themselves warm with lashings of champagne and cognac and hard boiled eggs (much to HuHu’s disgust), thanks to Boris’s basket of provisions, but they had drained the last drops several hours ago.
“We will have to land soon to replenish our supplies” said the practical Boris. “We have a long way to go yet, and we will soon be flying over the sea.”
Perfect! thought Pseu, I will have an opportunity to acquire a bleu and white Quimper tile for my collection for the Folly in the City.
“But it’s almost dark, Boris, can we land this thing in the dark?” asked Adeline.
“It will be a perfect time to land, under the cloak of darkness. We don’t want to be attacked by superstitious peasants brandishing pitchforks.”
“Oh splendid, will we be doing a spot of raping and pillaging?” asked Igor, cheering up at the thought.
Mirabelle glared at him. “Pillaging, yes. Just the supplies that we need, and then back to the balloon!”

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.

Much to Pearls amazement the celebrity surge mania that had taken hold of the lower ranks of the surge teams assistants was starting to infest the higher ranks as well. In fact it had started to infect the celebrities themselves, as well as the royal families of several European and Middle Eastern countries. Celebrity mania had surged with an unholy vengeance just after lightning struck the Vatican, when the pope was led away in handcuffs the previous month. Royal princesses, not satisfied with the rank of just one position, recklessly started claiming the lives of feckless celebrities as their own. Celebrities started insisiting that they were directing Directors, and informing cameramen that they were a focus of theirs too. The cameramen wondered whether they even knew what P mode was, and who was in charge now anyway. The King of Spain decided to claim Madonna as his own, and refuted Lady Ga Ga’s claim that she was in fact directing him. A Pointless TV quiz contestant claimed to be directing Stephen Fry, which was clearly rubbish; many dismissed the claim as distorted.

The pond was full of black tadpoles. The creatures were wriggling restlessly, following invisible currents, connecting dark stains packed with thousands of them. Benjamin Goat immersed a small plastic bottle into one of the biggest node, it sucked the little buggers like a fat syringe.
“Such a small container won’t reduce their population too much”, he thought. Indeed, he had always wondered why there were so many of them in the early stages and why you would see so few frogs or toads. The remaining tadpoles were beginning to gather around his hand. He repressed a shiver. A new idea for a movie just sprang up from his subconscious. Something to do with man-eater tadpoles. That would certainly hit the box office for months.
He smiled. There were enough of them in the bottle.

“Yuck!” said a fat pink lady before licking her strawberry ice cream.

“It’s for my son”, said Benjamin just before realizing he was justifying again. His psychiatrist had told him there was no need for justifying, it was like apologizing, and he needn’t apologize, he was the great Benjamin Goat after all. He snorted and mimicked drinking from his bottle. This time, she was disgusted. She made the mistake to hold her ice cream too far from herself and one of those Gib’s monkey with the pink ass stole it. She was shouting now, people would pay attention to her instead of him. People always pay attention to what’s more annoying.
Paradoxically, he felt a pang of jealousy. He was not used to let go of others’ attention.

His cell phone vibrated, three long vibrations and seven short ones. The code for his secret society. It was a great idea to put it in his last movie, unfortunately it hadn’t had the desired effect. People were so gullible that they would believe everything that came out in a fiction movie.
“The Jesuit is in the place”, said a vocoded voice. That was all. It could only mean one thing. It was all going according to the plan. He smiled and handed out the bottle to a kid. He wouldn’t need that after all.

“Early retirement!” Skye said, “Bloody cheek! Undercover operation, very hush hush, it was. The noteworthy case of the Welsh Leaves of Absinthe, a very interesting case indeed. Fifty Seven bottles in that case, and each one different. I had to case the joint first of course, then proceed with the utmost abandon. Absolutely crucial to work this one to the book ~ intuition and impulse, and absolutely no planning.”

“I can’t wait to hear all about it” said Pearl. “ I heard about the Rose surge while you were there, and something about a radioactive grafitti surge originating in an abandoned nuclear plant in the mountains?”

“Absolutely true, Pearl. I heard about that one on the way back to the airport, spontaneous radiactive grafitti appearing and it’s heading east. That’s the bizarre thing, it’s working its way across the country, and each new sighting is east of the last one.”

“Sounds nasty, what’s the plan to divert it?” asked Pearl.

“Liverworts.”

The blizzard mircaulously stopped as soon as the fountain erupted, and the icicles on the trees in the square twinkled, casting long blue shadows on the snow. Mari Fe and Pearl had just finished a second helping of cake, and were feeling optimistic and relaxed in the warm cafe.

Mari Fe sighed in contentment. “You know what Pearl? I’m considering retiring early. Because quite frankly, I prefer eating cake.”

“Can’t you eat cake and carry on? You’re eating cake now, and you haven’t retired yet.”

“Well I suppose that’s true enough. And shopping for flying carpets is hardly grueling labour. But all the sudden portalings, and the problem of weather, and clothes…it does get tedious. The evenly temperate global climate is a long time coming!”

“It’ll come alot quicker if we do well at our job!”

“I suppose there is that…”

“Take a look out there, Mari Fe ~ look at the weather in the square now! Sun’s shining, birds are singing, children are coming out to play…but it’s still snowing in Moscow.. Come on, let’s go and see about the carpets, and make tracks for Moscow.”

“What’s the cake like there?”

“Sweet, beautiful, as light as air, just like the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova?”

Yikesy, who had been quietly observing the assembled gathering, gave a whale-like shout. Fortunately, he had remembered to wear his voice-muter gadget, and for most of those gathered in the room his shout was nearly imperceptible.

Sanso, who had his voice-muter-deactivator turned up full volume, leapt up in alarm. In the process, poor Janet went flying, landing on Sir Ed, who had been starting to stagger unsteadily to his feet. The impact of Janet’s ample frame hitting him full-force caused Sir Ed to lose his footing and, in his descent, he knocked his head on a charming wooden replica of a Tahitian dancing girl. (This was actually the same one which had earlier been mistaken for a hippopotamus.)

“What is the matter, Yikesy?” asked Sanso, managing to keep a clear focus in the midst of the ensuing chaos.

Yikesy smiled smugly. “I knew there was something strange about this map, and I have cleverly worked it out: there are 257 place names and all of them, except 12, have 5 letters and start with the letter E.”

“Of course, I should have spotted that!” exclaimed Sanso. “Well done, Yikesy.”

In the corner of a nearby street, Todd reverted back to his prefered form. That of a brown dwarf. His dream was to be a star, so he liked the irony of it.
“Finally done with this irritating ex-pron star and her antics” he said chewing on a bone leftover while heading for his ride, a red convertible, gift of the Sh’elves. “She had it coming after all, she should have libned quietly like she was supposed to.”

Next on his plans was to liaise back with Neb, but he feared his friend had not in him to complete his mission. Hopping in the car, he wished he wouldn’t be too late on his way to the ranch, with all those cracks and holes in the road.

Wiping his mouth still full of blood, an insidious concern crept into his mind. What if he too had been affected by the bloody fwicking kraken disease. But that was too early to say.