Search Results for 'ella'

It was the first of September and everyone in the village breathed a sigh of relief. Miraculously, it already seemed cooler, although it probably wasn’t, but the promise was in the air. Jack and Lisa stood on the roof terrace watching the migrating vultures glide past on their way to a new story for the winter, exerting little effort as they sailed on the thermals.
“They never flap, do they?” remarked Lisa. “No frantic flapping or struggling to beat back the air, they just float, and steer.”
“I wonder why they always circle our village before continuing south?”
“They’re saying cheerio to us, Jack, although I’m sure you’d prefer a more logical explanation. It’s a reflection that we stopped flapping around with all that teleporting lark, and that we’re all back home now.” Lisa sighed with relief and hugged Jack. “I’m glad you banned teleporting for a year.”
“I didn’t ban it!” Jack said, not wanting to me misunderstood. “You make me sound so dictatorial and bossy. I merely suggested it. Strongly suggested it,” he added. “We all need a bit of no nonsense plain old grounding and balance. It was getting ridiculous, all the drama and comings and goings.”
“Mirabelle says she wants to write a book about it” remarked Lisa. “Which is marvelous really, considering the trouble she had at first with the language. And Fanella’s studying archeology and plans to travel ~ she’s fascinated with sphinxes, not surprisingly, after leaving an energy fleck in that one on the island; not sure how much she remembers about that now though. Adeline has an exhibition coming up in Paris ~ she’s looking forward to that.”
“I think they’re all planning on going to that, even the Russian lads. A trip down memory lane I suppose, but I expect they’ll notice some changes. But that’s another story.”

By the time Mirabelle and Igor had recovered from physical effects of the abrupt emotional catapult during their teleport to find Lisa, Fanella, Ivan and Sanso, they found themselves alone on the sandy beach. Bewildered, they looked around but could find no sign of the others that they had momentarily seen as they landed, before collapsing in bodily distress.
Weakly, Mirabelle sank down onto the sand, and looked at Igor questioningly. “What do we do now? My head is spinning still and I need a drink of water. Where are we?”
Igor, drained of energy and just as puzzled, straightened his back and tried to sound reassuring.
“Something very peculiar has happened. See these mangrove trees? They have grown at least a meter taller since a few minutes ago when we landed. And see this log here, this wasn’t here a few moments ago. It can’t have washed up while I was having a crap behind the bushes. Something has happened to time.”
“You mean we’ve time traveled again? I don’t think I can stand much more of this,” replied Mirabelle, starting to weep.
“Come now Mirabelle, sitting here sniveling won’t help. On your feet, girl, we will walk until we find some kind of civilization.” Igor pulled her to her feet, scanning the surroundings. “This way,” he said firmly, setting off along the beach. “I have a feeling there is something over there,” he said, pointing towards the east.

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.

I’ll be back, muttered Lazuli Galore under his breath, although no one was near enough to hear him. Outmaneuvered by a sphinx, it was an outrage. The damn thing had bewitched the girl, there could be no other explanation. Lazuli Galore vowed to break the spell and resume his intended courtship of Fanella, no matter how long it took him.

“Are you sure this is the right direction ?” asked Sha.
“The young guy at the Hotel d’El Refugio said it was down South the Sea of Bee Leaf, past the mangrove and the mystic wall”, said Glo.
“Are you sure about that ? Look, the brochure indicate the pyramid is past the misty wall”, interrupted Mavis.
“Mystic, misty, what’s the difference anyway ?” Glo tentatively rolled her eyes, but gave up the gym. “The young lad said mystic”, she added, not wanting to let go so easily.
“What young lad ? You mean the one at the swimming pool that tried to flog the helicoleopter trip over the underwater tunnels of Lacuna to Sha ?”
“Oh! I recall him well”, said Sharon, “He told me his name was Jube Lee ? He’s no older than eighteen. Don’t tell me you turned cougar Glo.”
“Bloody hell, what ? Noooo !”
“Here it is, the fog wall looks quite thin.”
They heard the sound of big flapping wings.
“Oh! Are you an angel ?” asked Sha. “What a beautiful face you have, young lady. As pure as vodka.”
“My name is Fanella”, said the sphinx with a wide smile, “Answer my question and you’ll be free to cross the corridors of time.”
Excited by the perspective of some fun the three ladies listened carefully.
“What’s the difference between a cat and a complex sentence ?”
“What the f*%$k ?”
“Is that your answer ?”
“No, no, no. I’m just thinking aloud”, said Glo.
“That rings a bell”, whispered Mavis to her friends, “I think that’s from one of Steven Kong’s books. It has something to do with the claws and the paws. Yes ! That’s it. I have the answer”, she announced proudly.
“Are you sure ?” asked Glo. “What happens if she give the wrong answer ?”
“You won’t be able to enter the pyramid for ten years.”
“Oh ! That’s all ?” said Sha disappointed, “I thought you were going to devour us or something similar.”
“You must have mistaken me for someone else. As you are already in transition, there isn’t much that we can do to you. So, what is the answer ?”
“A cat has claws at the end of its paws. The sentence has a pause at the end of its clause”, Mavis articulated clearly.
The sphinx smiled, and let them pass.
“Just one last thing”, she added as the three ladies were entering the Lion’s mouthed gate, “As you choose to go through, only go further, don’t stop or try to turn back. You may get lost in time and never come back. If you complete your taks, you may well find a new life.”
She disappeared, leaving only her enigmatic smile in the memory of Sha, Glo and Mavis.

The layer of clouds that had been covering Abalone for so many years had cleared up in no time. So much had changed since they went through the labyrinth of time in the old temple three weeks ago. Karmalott and Gazalbion were no more. The giant beanstalk had simply disintegrated after the mass beliefs that kept it standing were reconfigured, and Karmalott had fallen on its land counterpart. It was hard to tell one from the other when they first came back to the place.

Gwinnie looked at the giant storks nesting on the cliffs of the sea of beliefs. Her heart bloomed, she felt appreciation and gratitude over Abalone’s Nature. She had spent so many years in the bog that it had infused her with the wisdom of the island. She had been able to go unharmed through the corridors of time, because she simply knew whenre to go.

As soon as they entered the Lion mouthed door, she had taken George’s hand and whispered : follow me and you’ll be safe. That man was so trusting in life and he had such a pure heart that he did as she said. He’d told her afterward that despite all the images and illusions, his mind was focused on the green light in his heart.

When they arrived in the central room of the pyramid, she had changed. Her skin was still green, but she had found in the corridors the years she had lost in the bog.

They had decided to stay and make a fresh start. The former King of Karmalott was now helping with the reconstruction of the entire island. With his natural leader talent, he’d been creating pooling teams of magi and non-magi for different tasks : clearing the ground of the fallen cities, regrouping the lost souls, soothing the injured and building the new transitional Spas. With Gwinnie’s innate knowledge of Abalone and his innate trust, they could do marvels at bending beliefs and reality.

Actually, the transitional spa was Rene and Fanella’s idea. The two of them had been very helpful, especially since Gwinnie had repaired the sphinx. He was created to guard the temple and warn people who wanted to enter the labyrinth of time with an enigma. The corridors of time were not for the faint of heart, but to help people contact their inner knowledge to grow past their fears and blockages. What his creators had not foreseen was their own departure of the island. Rene was attached to the temple and left behind as they took no material possessions with them.

His flaw was that he needed people, and as no one was coming anymore, with time he became obsessed with the idea of making new friends. Forgetting his other duties and his connection to the timeline of Abalone, his obsession leaked and the island was thrust through time and space, intersecting with earth reality at specific dates and places. It was becoming more and more difficult to control it and the bogs anomalies were becoming harder to contain.

Fanella simply recognized Rene as the tall ebony man in her vision. She told them the yellow man, that had saved her from drowning, had disappeared quickly as soon as they entered the labyrinth, but the hook-legged man had seized her and they were caught in the most horrid nightmares. She was saved because his hook got stuck in a tiger slug pit. Rene swore he had nothing to do with it, although it was clear he had a soft spot for the young maid.

A week after they got out of the labyrinth, the girl had come to Gwinnie in the Garden of El Refugio. The green woman was helping with the introduction of new species of plants to Abalone’s circle of life.
“What is this plant ? “, asked Fanella.
“It is an okra. I’ve found it in the memories of one of the recently disengaged person from Earth.”
“The fruit has such an unusual shape.”
The silence that followed lasted for a few minutes. Gwinnie was focused on establishing a fulfilling symbiotic relationship between the plant and the island ecosystem, transforming one to acclimate the other and vice versa.
“How are your friends ?” asked the green woman.
“My friends ? Oh! They are good. Enjoying the spa and the new attractions.”
It was clear the young person had something in mind. Her loving glances to the sphinx during the last week had made it clear to everyone. The girl finally blurted it out.
“You know, Rene,” Fanella blushed as she said the name, “with the recent arrivals of transitioners, he’s got a lot of work for just one sphinx.”
“Oh! I’m sure he’s going to be just fine with that.”
“Yes, but, you know he’s been alone for such a long time.”
“Yes, Fanella?” Gwinnie stopped to look at the girl. She seemed frail, but she had this inner strength that helped her cross time and space before she ever came to Abalone.
“I want you to make me a sphinx so that I can be with Rene.” She said that without blushing, but pink colored her cheeks at the mention of the name.
If Gwinnie ever had a doubt of being in transition, it was dissipated. Her surprise almost broke the delicate connection of the okra with the island.
Becoming a sphinx wasn’t a trivial request. They still had to discuss about it, of course, and when it was obvious it wasn’t just a passing fancy, Fanella was granted her wish.
As a sphinx-wedding gift, George gave her his wings.
“They are robust and will serve you well”, he told her.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity of white knuckle hair raising maniac mandarin maneuvers with no respite, not for even a second, the Lazuli duck landed on the beach at the innermost coastline of the Bay and shapeshifted back into his usual human form. As soon as Lisa could straighten out her fingers, seized into a gripping feathers position, she punched Lazuli right in the middle of his joined up long black eyebrow. Then she howled in pain as her tense knuckles met the hard bone of his forehead.
“You fucking asshole! You jackass show off useless twat!”
Lazuli looked mildly surprised and asked, “That wasn’t fun?”
“Flun!! Flinking flool, flu flipped Flanella floff, and flow flea flost fleur!” Lisa was distraught, and with the additional feelings of outrage (feelings are meant to be fleeting, but this one was sticking around) at Lazuli’s reaction, was having difficulty forming words. “I flope flu flan flive with florself, flu fuckflit!!”
In exasperation Lisa howled, beating her fists upon Lazuli’s chest, then she collapsed to her knees, weeping.
The intensity of emotion she was projecting attracted Mirabelle and Igor, who made a spontaneous maneuver mid teleport which landed them on the sand beside Lisa.
Mirabelle retched violently upon landing, while Igor stumbled in haste to evacuate his bowels behind a mangrove tree, both of them giddy and sickened by the abrupt change in direction and the gut wrenching intensity of the situation.
The unexpected arrivals arrested Lisa’s sobbing mid flow. “Fliraflelle!” she exclaimed, and then added in increasing agitation, “ Oh, for flucks flake! Fly fan’t I fleak flopperly!”
“Why don’t you just shut the fuck up for five minutes until you’ve calmed down, Lisa” Sanso suggested calmly.
Lisa took a deep breath and let it out with a full body shudder. “Oh Flanso…”

“Shhhhh,” he replied gently, “Shhhhh.”

Fanella was riding her new zebra friend in a big dry meadow. Something she had never seen before. There were other animals with them and it was delightful. The flight of the cranes transported her up to the clouds while the crocodiles would clap in unison in the marshes.
The zebra had told her his name. Rene he was, and glad he’d met her before it was too late. He also said something that she didn’t quite understand. “Other friends are coming, you don’t have to worry.” Why worry when she was with Rene ? Other friends ? Lisa was coming back for her with Sanso ? “We’ll meet soon”, said Rene. Now she was having hallucinations. He was a tall man, half an ebony skin, half white and black zebra stripes. But he was already fading away.
The return back to reality was harsh. She gagged and disgorged sea water on the beach. It felt as if she had been torn inside out.

“There, there. Welcome back young Miss. You’re safe, now”, said a man. He was wearing a smile but she felt it was just a facade.
“Are you okay ?” she asked. Even in the midst of drowning, her maternal instinct was stronger. Surprised showed up on the man’s face.
“What do you mean ?”
“You’re all yellow.”
The man laughed. “I’m quite normal, young lady. Quite normal.” He put his jacket on her shoulders to help keep her warmth as social rules demanded. It was relatively dry, whereas he was drenched. He must have took it off before rescuing her from the sea.

“We should have left her to the barracudas”, said another man. He wore a blue turban, casting a shadow on an already hard face. It was marked by a circular fresh scar around his nose, made by countless small sharp teeth. The flesh seemed to pulsate painfully. She shuddered when she saw his hook-leg, the hook half burried in the sand. She didn’t want to imagine what he could do with it.

“Don’t pay attention to Berberus”, said the first man, “We have no business in hurting young beautiful ladies.”
Something in his smile told her that it wasn’t always true. She forced herself a gracious face, as she had learned to do with the noble men back then in Versailles.
“Thank you for rescuing me, Sir.” She pulled on the edges of the jacket as if she needed warmth. “My name is Fanetta”, she added, lowering her eyes.

Lazuli Galore in the shape of the mandarin duck looked over his shoulder, grinning mischievously at his passengers.
“Fasten your seat belts!” he shouted.
“What bloody seat belts?” asked Lisa. “Hey! Steady on!”
Lazuli the duck accelerated like a speedboat, ripping across the tops of the swelling waves and performing eye watering figure of eights, tilting the passengers first this way then that way as they held on to the feathers with all the strength they could muster, fearing for their lives, yet wildly exhilarated.
Lazuli whooped with the exuberance of wild abandon, failing to notice that Fanella had slipped off his back into the brine, and unable to hear the cries of the others amid his own gleeful shouts and the roar of the wind rushing past.
Fanella rolled and flailed in the backwash, eventually surfacing and gasping for breath. In vain she looked for the duck but it had disappeared from sight. The shore looked too far to swim to, but she knew she must try to reach it. Holding down the panic as best she could, she started to swim towards the mangrove trees lining the beach, barely visible in the descending fog. The striped shadows shimmered in the mist; was it an optical illusion of stripes and mists that it seemed as if a section of shadows was heading towards her? The zebra waded into the breaking waves, and calmly and purposefully swam towards the drowning girl.

Glancing up from watching the plum dolphins, while cresting a wave on the mandarin ducks back, Fanella imagined she saw a zebra motionlessly watching their progress from the shore. The duck dipped down with the next ebb and she lost sight of it. Rising on the next wave, she could only see the streaked shadows of the mangrove trees along the beach. I must have imagined it, she thought. But the image of the watching zebra lingered in her mind.

Lisa sneezed. She had forgotten she was allergic to fluff.

“Are you sure that the temple will be there ?” asked Sanso who’d been thinking about those strange properties of the island.
“I’m not sure”, cackled Lazuli Galore, “but that’s worth a try, don’t you think ?” He was wagging his tail, obviously happy to swim in the sea.

Fanella had long stopped thinking about goals and directions, she didn’t mind where they were going. She was enjoying the fun of the ride, and even the rain seemed welcome. She was looking at the plum dolphins who had been following them since their departure. One of the young ones was particularly playful, he was swimming around the giant duck, and jumping out of the water each time he passed near the young maid.

Lisa felt constipated and feverish. It was the first signs of nicotine withdrawal. She shouldn’t have used so many patches before they left for the Island. And she hadn’t thought of bringing some for this journey. With the monotony of the landscape, her attention kept drifting away from their goals. She was thinking of Jack again. Was he able to manage all the dogs ? Had he neutered all the cats ? She had dreamt that he was bitten by Flint.

When they arrived near the coast, she felt disappointed. It was kind of greyish. And the drizzle, which started falling shortly after they left Gazalbion, felt cold on her cheeks. This wasn’t helping cheer up her mood. Besides, despite all the fun of ass traveling, after some time, your own eventually hurt.

“Where are the bamboos?” asked Fanella.
Lisa was shivering, the wind had become stronger, which oddly reinforced her feeling of isolation, and the sea looked agitated.
“Yeah! where are the bamboos?” she said, allowing her irritation to blurt out in her tone. Although, in a way she was relieved that they wouldn’t have to build their own raft. Maybe they could even rest a little. She looked at the greenish sand. Maybe not.
Her ass brayed something unintelligible, emitted a small surprised bark, then cleared his throat.
“Sorry for that, after a while, what you shapeshift into begins to run into you”, said Lazuli Galore.
“You must be shapeshifting quite often”, added Sanso pensively.
Lazuli didn’t know how to take that and decided to snort.
“I must have lost track”, he continued, “or the island have changed since the last time I went there, which was when I arrived on the island, and… that’s funny I don’t remember when. Anyway, I can still shapeshift into something else and carry you on the other size.”
“A whale!” said Fanella, excited at the idea.
“Not a whale!” countered Lisa, horrified. “He might think he’s one and make us sink with him.” Her teeth were chattering, she didn’t know if it was because of the cold or because of her withdrawal.
“A duck would be perfect”, she said with a resolute tone. “Ducks float quite well and we could get some warmth under the feathers. We should have taken blankets when we left.”
The ass looked at her, a bit puzzled. “Have you ever seen a duck ?” he asked, “they are quite small.”
Lisa was going to retort something she could have regretted, but Sanso spoke before she could.
“According to my experience, size is not an issue for you, Lazuli”, he said.
Fanella frowned, then put her hand to her mouth and tittered.

Before she could say Jackass, Lisa felt the ass grow between her legs. Soon enough, they were all comfortably settled on the back of a giant mandarin duck, floating away from the grey shore into the unknown.

Trudging along being Sanso and the others on the way to the coast, Lisa’s feet began to blister. “Lazuli, how much further is it? What I don’t understand is why aren’t we teleporting there? I mean, why are we walking when we could just teleport?”
“Yeah!” agreed Fanella, limping from the dog bite on her foot. She had accidentally trodden on the little mongrel while traipsing around the ruins of the tile factory. “Why aren’t we teleporting?”
“That’s a good question!” answered Sanso. “And there is a very good answer! If we teleported everywhere, we would never encounter strangers on the journey, nor would be find any unexpected clues.”
“Not only that,” added Lazuli, “We will soon be coming to some watery lowlands with plenty of bamboo growing, and we need some sturdy canes to make a raft to sail across the bay.”
“I thought we’d just hire a boat!” said Lisa with some surprise. “We have to make our own raft? I’m starting to wish I’d stayed home.”
“You can teleport back home whenever you want to, Lisa” said Sanso. “But then, your island game would be over. Are you finished playing yet?”
Lisa thought about it. Eventually she replied: “ No. But I’ve had enough of all this walking. Why don’t you and Lazuli shapeshift into something useful that Fanella and I can ride?” and continued to mutter something under her breath about chivalry and the good old days.
There was a slight disturbance like a whirlwind of dust, and then Fanella clapped her hands in delight. “What a lovely pair of asses!”

In an effort to shake off the troubling feelings that lingered long after she awoke, Mirabelle went to find Jack to tell him about her dream. She found him hunched over his computer, frowning.
“Ah, Mirabelle, pull up a chair and let me tell you about the strange dream I had last night.”
Intrigued, Mirabelle listened, saving her story until after he had finished relating his.
“There are too many coincidences for this to not mean something ~ something important. The parallels are everywhere! Look!” he said pointing to the screen.
“Crumbling cities, structures smashed to smithereens and clouds of dust, facades of houses blown off revealing ordinary objects and furnishings in hideous juxtapositions, and crazy angles. And look here” he said, “ nothing as far as the eye can see but rubble, but one wall left standing, almost intact, with the map still hanging on the wall.”
Jack turned to Lisa with a tear in his eye, and with a shaking voice he said, “I dreamed of a city like this last night, with all the facades blown off the constructs, and all the people were faceless as if they were wearing masks, but no! not like masks, there were empty holes where the faces had been, like bottomless black holes that made me dizzy to look at them.”
“But it was just a dream Jack” replied Mirabelle, wondering if she was reassuring Jack or herself. “It doesn’t mean anything, probably that cheese you had for supper.”
“Lisa was in the dream” Jack replied. “And Ivan, and Fanella.”
Mirabelle shivered. “They’ve been gone a long time, do you think something’s happened to them?” she paused and then added, “I had a disturbing dream too. It was my parrot, HuHu. He was calling me, oh! he was calling and calling, but I couldn’t see him in the fog, as I tried to follow the sound of his squalking in the swirling mist, I’d hear him behind me ~ no matter which way I turned he was always behind me, as if I was always facing the wrong way.”
“Well” said Jack, squaring his shoulders. “Faced with these two dreams, and with the delayed return of Lisa, Ivan and Fanella, I think we should face up to it and send a search party to the island. Now, enough of that long face, Mirabelle! Run along now and find Igor, and tell him to prepare for teleporting. He can go with you.”

A man on a donkey making his way through the dust and rubble of the crumbling city elicited no attention, it was a common sight that attracted no attention. Sanso covered his hair and face with a blue shawl, more to keep the acrid cement dust out of his eyes that for purposes of concealment.
The destruction was appalling, but wonderfully symbolic ~ there were buildings still standing like lone sentinels amid the piles of smashed grey blocks and mangled steel girders, but the huge gaps where the great wall had been allowed a view of the rolling plain beyond. The heat shimmered across the golden dry vegetation, silver grey olive trees gnarled haphazardly on the gentle slopes, and far off a milky haze rose above the distant sea.
The donkey picked his way nimbly though the wreckage, scurrying figures clutching babies and assorted items rushed towards the holes in the perimeter wall, where the ragtaggle crowds fanned out as they ran through to the other side, as wild shouts of jubilation ~ as well as plaintive cries for loved ones lost in the chaos ~ ricocheted through the gutted buildings.
The donkey stopped at a site of devastation indistinguishable from all the others, and indicated to Sanso by bucking him off his back that this was the ruined tile factory, and then Lazuli shapeshifted back into his usual human form ~ short but stocky, black haired and brown eyed, with eyebrows that met in the middle ~ for ease of communication.
“Over there, look!” Lazuli pointed to wisps of dust rising from a depression in the rubble.
Shading his eyes from the glare of the sun, Sanso could make out four bent figures searching the debris, pulling out stones and tossing them aside, evidently searching for something.
“Fanella! I have come back for you!” Sanso cried, stumbling and banging his shins as he rushed over to her.
“And I have come for you too!” added Lazuli, following Sanso, and hoping to make a favourable impression on the girl, smitten with her long golden hair, elfin features and slender body.
“About bloody time, Sanso” said Lisa tartly, easing her aching back into an upright position. “You may as make yourself useful, and help Pseu find the tile she’s looking for and then we can get out of this godforsaken hellhole. Jack will be wondering where we are.”

As soon as Lisa and her companions were safely beneath the manhole cover, Pseu shapeshifted back into her usual self.
“On the way to the ancient temple, I’d like to stop off at the remains of the tile factory ~ oh don’t worry, it’s on the way!” said Pseu, noticing Lisa’s expression. “We don’t even need to make a detour. And” she added, “You will be pleased to know that there are already some breaches to the walls. There has been some earth shifting due to a beanstalk infestation, fortuitously landing on the wall. As soon as we have collected the tiles, we find a breach and make our exit.”
“What about Sanso?” asked Fanella. “Shouldn’t we try to find him?”
“Oh, I heard a rumour that he was in the wrong story. Don’t worry about him, he’ll find a way back sooner or later” replied Pseu. “Come on! This will be fun!”

Lisa awoke first, sticky with sweat. Quietly, she jiggled her leg which was dead from lack of circulation, letting the others sleep. There may not be much time for rest, she reasoned, we know not what the next chapter will bring, or where it will lead. She closed her eyes again, and contemplated the feeling of restriction, thinking about other times when she had felt restricted or blocked.

There was that time when she joined the creative collaberative writing group many years ago, with the intention of developing a free flow of inspiration and imagination. Indeed that was what the advertising bumph had professed, that it was to assist people to release themselves from their writers blocks, unleash their imaginative potential, free their souls to express themselves unhindered by protocol or hidebound tradition. It had all seemed like just the ticket, just what she wanted, and she had dived into the project and gloried in the unexpected things that were born from simply letting the words flow. But then a strange thing started to happen. Every time she went to the class, her contributions were criticized, scoffed at for not following the plan, despite that there was no plan ~ no plan had been mentioned in the small print when she signed up, anyway. But other people had made plans for what she was to write, and it confused her greatly. It was troublesome because the more she enjoyed the process of writing itself, the more discouraging the group became with it’s constant criticisms of the right way to approach the process. Instead of promoting less restrictions, it was constantly advocating more restrictions, more rules to follow, endlessly complicating it all. What made it all the worse was that she so enjoyed it, looked forward to it, and benefited so much from it. Well, she had used the experience to practice not minding about other peoples opinions and to carry on regardless, not restricting herself to acquiesce to other peoples expectations, exploring her own stories and connecting links and layers with other stories ~ wasn’t that what life was all about? take what you want, and leave the rest? Steer your own ship?

Her meandering thoughts led her to the words of the old dead guru, Elbutt. Love doesn’t mean liking every comment, he had said, Love means knowing and appreciating the whole story, the whole scenario. It didn’t mean you had to find something likable about each and every role, but to acknowledge and appreciate the whole and that the roles that were played within it were a part of that whole, regardless of whether you liked them or not. That definition of love had made a great deal of sense to Lisa, who was not one to use the love word overmuch.

A cockroach climbing on her foot distracted Lisa from her thoughts, and she absentmindedly brushed it off. The cockroach was not deterred, and returned to climb on her foot repeatedly until Lisa suddenly remembered Pseu. The cockroach, once it was sure it had Lisa’s attention, scurried out into the courtyard adjoining the Processing department waiting room, stopping on a manhole cover, and then returning to Lisa’s foot, and then returning to the manhole cover.

“Are we to go down there?” whispered Lisa, pretending to cough as a guard walked past. The cockroach did a pirouette as if to confirm. Lisa furtively looked around. The guard had gone; it was time to wake Ivan and Fanella.

The sweltering hours of the afternoon limped along, and despite the lack of comfortable furniture in the Processing Department, Lisa and her two companions dozed off. Lisa dreamed of a folly in the City, and met a woman called Pseu who she was explaining her predicament to. When Lisa became lucid, she called Fanella and Ivan into the dream, while they discussed the situation.

Pseu expressed a strong interest in meeting them inside the walled Gazalbion when they awoke. She had coveted some coordination point tiles from the ruins of an old temple long buried, and then rediscovered, in one of the tunnels.

Visibly relieved, Ivan remarked “If you know where the tunnels are, then we can escape!”

“Oh, we won’t escape through that tunnel, that tunnel leads down into the cities below. I have a better idea, leave that to me. I’m thinking of parachuting elephants landing on the wall itself, that was rather clever of old Lazuli Galore. Very creative, we’ll explore that idea further when the time comes.
But first we must find the tunnel and the tiles. When you awaken in the Processing Department, look out for me, I will be shapeshifting according to the circumstances. Only you will notice me, but do pay close attention to the messages I am conveying, and follow me to the tunnel.”

The three travelers were not the kind of people to limit themselves to safety and comfort ~ indeed if they had been, Lisa would have stayed in the village, never having met Fanella who would have stayed in Versailles, who never would have met Ivan who would have stayed in Russia. They all had an underlying courage and sense of adventure to be on the island at all. They were not, however, inherently stupid. As they approached the great walls of Gazalbion, they became uneasy. It looked more like a vast open air prison than a welcoming city.
“I’m not sure about this” Lisa whispered to the others, “Once we’re inside there, how will we get out? It might be a trap.”
“But you’re always saying we create our own reality Lisa, how can anyone else trap us?”
asked Fanella.
“We create being trapped as a reflection of restricting ourselves, that’s how it works. It’s not always black and white. And it’s not always easy to resolve that in a demanding and unsettling situation. It would behoove us to proceed with caution.”
“That doesn’t sound right Lisa, that doesn’t sound like trust, and you’re always telling us that trust is the key.”
“And space” added Ivan, “Space is a key, too.”
“Yeah but what does that mean exactly anyway?”
“Fucked if I know” replied Ivan.

Lazuli Galore noticed the hesitation of the travelers, and decided to change tactics. They were only a few hundred meters from the entrance to Gazalbion, and it was starting to look as if the new arrivals would not enter willingly. He dispensed with the elephant form, exploding it into a pack of grey wolves which circled behind the travelers, and chased them into the city.

“Olution! Olution!” the crowd chanted, for there was always a crowd gathered at the gate to witness new arrivals. “Olution! Olution!”
Nobody actually knew what the word Olution meant, but they had seen it on tv so many times that they simply repeated it, and the more people that repeated it, the more the frenzy grew.
“Olution! Olution!” the crowd screamed and Lisa, Fanella and Ivan were surrounded by the people, thousands of them, all covered in colourless grey cement dust, even their hair and faces were a ghastly dusty grey.
“Now we’re in trouble,” Lisa remarked grimly.

“Follow the elephant before it disappears again” suggested Ivan to Lisa and Fanella who were visibly distraught at Sanso’s unexpected disappearance into the depths of the marshy field beneath their feet.
“That elephant must be connected to some sort of human civilization, elephants don’t parachute on their own,” Ivan deduced, grateful that he had watched so many nature documentaries at the village, and that he could appear knowledgeable to the frightened women.
“Shouldn’t we look for Sanso?” asked Fanella. “Does that strange letter provide any clues? Has he been pushed through a perforation into the honeycomb? Something to do with the underground faded pale people?”
“If we find some of the local inhabitants, we can ask them for help. If we start wandering around here in this mist we will surely get lost, or even struck by another falling elephant.”
“Are we assuming the natives are friendly?” asked Lisa nervously.
“Yes, at this point, we are” replied Ivan. “Until we find proof indicating otherwise. And we must assume that Sanso can look after himself, and that he will join us later.”
“The elephant did look friendly” added Fanella. “Look, he keeps looking back to see if we’re following him. Come on!”