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July 31, 2014 at 7:15 am #3344
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Fanella took Sanso’s advice and sobbed heartily. It released vast misty clouds of yellow and green energy that she had been bottling up during the recent traumatic experiences with teleporting. The coloured mist filled the room and poured out of the open window, tinting the sea mist pea green and bile yellow. Fanella was still hiccuping and blowing her nose when Sanso arrived, displacing the yellow green mist with a gust of orange red, and a foul odour.
“Excuse me for a moment dear” he gasped, doubled over clutching his abdomen. “One can only cloak a signal for so long before it goes into spasm.”
Fanella forgot her crying bout at the sight of Sanso on the floor imitating a sagging cow, but was glad she had a tissue handy to cover her nose with when the room suddenly filled with noxious orange gas, expelled with a trumpeting sound equal to the horns of Gabriel.
“AHHHHH” he said, smiling broadly. “I think we should get out of here now.”
“Yes, let’s!” replied Fanella, trying not to choke.
“What a relief! I wasn’t feeling my usual self, trying to digest that signal. Now I feel back to my usual stalwart and trustworthy self.”
“Thank Flove for that!” responded Fanella, also feeling very much better, and ready for the next adventure.July 27, 2014 at 11:46 am #3323In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
The stench of burning thatch filled the scorched air and stung their eyes as they ran towards the river. Fanella struggled to keep up with Sanso, clutching tightly to his arm, sometimes losing her footing in her flimsy sandals and bashing her bare knees on the cobblestones. “Lucky this great fire is a distraction from your unseemly attire, young miss” said Sanso, “Your naked legs are so arousing.” While appreciating Fanella’s charming thighs, Sanso failed to notice that his chopsticks were on fire. A spark had ignited them and they flared bright orange as he threw them down. Within moments they were obliterated into scattered ash. “Chop Chop Cheung Lok, now catch me if you can!” Sanso shouted gleefully.
July 27, 2014 at 7:47 am #3314In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Fanella gazed into the dying flames of the campfire, while her toasted cheese cooled. “2121, here I come!” she said in a confident sounding voice, but she shivered in apprehension. 2121, 2121, she repeated, watching the flames, 21 21 12, 21 12 12 1212….21 12…1212…. her eyes were getting heavy and she started to drift off. Is that a tractor coming up the beach? she wondered, Or a motorbike? The very ground was starting to rumble and vibrate.
Suddenly she was wide awake, and the the flames were towering over her head. The heat was blistering and her head was filled with roaring sounds, and hissing snapping cracks. As she was standing there trying to make sense of her surroundings, someone slammed into her from behind, making her legs buckle ~ there were people running in all directions, carrying babies or buckets of water, portraits or small wooden chests or squalking chickens. It was mayhem in the narrow alleys between the burning houses, showers of sparks and choking blasts, ear splitting shrieks and blood curdling howls assaulted all her senses, as she spun around looking for a way out of this appalling scene.
“Surely this isn’t the island in 2121!” she exclaimed in anguish. “But if it isn’t then where am I? And when?”
“This is Southwark, wench, and I can’t believe we’re having another Great Fire already” replied a man in an arousing blue codpeice who was running along beside her. “If you want to get out of here alive, follow me!”
Fanella was not in the habit of running after strange men, but she couldn’t take her eyes off that gorgeous blue codpiece.July 18, 2014 at 11:04 am #3275In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Pseu deciphered laughter and a rather strange phrase in the burbling language, wondering if she had translated “get your mermaid shoehorns here” correctly. She decided to remove the protocol blindfold for a moment, just to be sure.
It was a strange sight that met her eyes, and she paused for a moment to get her bearings.
Consuela appeared to be in an underwater cave, full of gurgling bubbling creatures the likes of which she had never encountered before. The cave was bright with thousands of crystals, filled with the sweet sounds of music from a multitude of conch shells, chandeliers dripped with hundreds of magical looking keys, and the furnishings were tiled with a million unusual tiles forming a mosaic of endless connecting links.July 18, 2014 at 10:02 am #3273In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Consuela was always the more independent and adventurous. She didn’t realise at first that there was something not quite right about the perilous situation.
Breathing under water was strange, and it felt like a not quite adjusted piece of garment (an ill-motherfucker-fitted thong Maurana would have said), as though her lungs were filled with a light yet mucous fluid.
They’d all struggled and kicked the water in violent spams in the beginning, thinking they were about to die when the wetsuit automatic mucusbags went off, as a security measure for drowning, she’d guessed.
But then, the magic happened and they realised they could breathe like fishes.
Then the shark panic attack happened, which left them swimming for their lives with their prosthetic fins (and more or less graceful movements). But the shark didn’t seem interested after all, or it was driven away by a more juicy prospect, because they soon found themselves following a strange string of parallel lighted dots that dived deeper under water like an oddly placed seacraft runway. At least, that was what she thought at first, until she arrived at the cave’s entrance and realized nobody was actually following her.The others didn’t follow… She only had to hope that they would catch her later with a taxi or something…
The thought of being able to discover the underwater cave trumped all sense of caution, and the lure of the prized crystal of exotic properties was enough to send her further down, despite the feeling of flashing tentacles creeping around in her peripheral vision, then gone in an instant the moment she turned the head around…June 20, 2014 at 10:51 pm #3240In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Yes get lost!” muttered Adeline rudely. “Go back to where you belong and stop depriving some poor village of his idiot!”
Just at that moment the plaintive hoot of an owl was heard in the far distance. Adeline recalled the strange way the flock of birds had been behaving the previous day at the beach. With a feeling of foreboding she remembered her promise to the Virgin Mary in the chapel.
Were the birds a sign sent to warn her?
She was filled with remorse for her cruel thoughts and actions towards Igor. The Queen and her men could not touch her now, but was she out of reach of all those Saints and Angels?
“Would you like some toast with your coffee, dearest Mirabelle?” she asked sweetly, anxious to make amends and appease the powers that be. I promise I will say a prayer for the soul of dear Igor later, she silently vowed.
“Thank you, you dear sweet child,” said Mirabelle. “What a terrible shame though that Igor took that beautiful shell with him. Be a dear will you; run after him and see if you can’t get him to leave the shell here with me. Quick, quick Adeline, don’t dilly dally. Run like the wind or you will miss him!”
June 5, 2014 at 8:40 pm #3188In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
There was a lot of commotion that night.
It all started a little bit before 6 PM, while the winter sun was very pale and slowly rolling behind the horizon. Jean-Pierre Duroy of the Royal Intendancy had the maids rounded up in matching uniforms to finish the cleaning of the Opera House, and ready to start to light the thousands of beeswax candles with almost military precision. This didn’t go without hiccup of course, but they did mostly well, and the Opera House was ready for the comedians before 5:55, leaving them with 5 spare minutes to catch their breath before the eighteen rings of the bell.
Even a little bit before that, Nicole du Hausset who had spent the whole dreaded day in anguish about the Queen’s lost ferrets, while attending to Madame’s every whims, realized after scouring through the Palace and hearing through the grapevine of the maids’ ring of deals in stolen goods that she should slide a word to the Royal Intendant through some unofficial channels (she knew well Helper, who was a great influence on Cook, who then could talk discreetly to Annie Duroy, of the Royal Pastries and Cookies) so an investigation could be carried out without any particular mention of the ferrets. As she would realize later the morrow, not only would the ferrets be retrieved at the Opera House and the Royal Chapel, one for each location, except slightly lighter and cut open, an act that would be seen as a hidden message and possible attempt on the Good Queen’s life, and dealt with appropriately by a specially appointed Inquisitor —but also, and notwithstanding any longwindedness, that it would make little difference as the perpetrators would be nowhere to be found the next day, having vanished, it seemed, in the ensuing confusion (of which we will come to in a minute), stealing in the process the Royal Balloon and a few chouquettes from the Royal Cuisines.
Her duties fulfilled, and being now on the other side of the fateful date of Jan. 5th, 1757, at 17:57 without any significant change to her reality or life, she deducted her mission as the safekeeper of the time-smuggled ferrets was by then accomplished, and she could focus on her more pressing duties.It was only 5:57 PM shy of a few more seconds, that Madame Pompadour, powdered like there was no tomorrow, would be helped by her two maids into her gorgeous John Pol Goatier designer dress, and her lambswool petticoats. She was dressed to kill, and that made her all the more suspicious in the minutes to come, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Madame de Pompadour’s schedule for the soirée was very precise. At 6 PM, she would greet her guests, and the King back from his afternoon at the Parliament at the entrance of the Palace, so they could all head to the Royal Opera, passing through the Chapel into the brightly candelight-lit half-built building where the show would take place.
There was to be a toast first, from fine champagne delivered the morning in zebra carriage (one of the Queens’ daughters idea, which had pleased enough the King that he’d booked them for an evening ride into the Gardens). She was all set, and with great dignity and carefulness, arrived at the spot a mere seconds after her Grace to great the King.At the same time, Jean-Pierre Duroy, who had not seen them as he’d passed through the Chapel the first time (ungagged but still under sleeping curse and tucked in the corner of the stained glass windows depicting the martyrdom of Christ), and as he was getting anxious at the lack of punctuality of the comedians whom he’d thought sleeping in their trailer parked nearby, was notified that the trailer had been found empty by the bellboy he had sent to remind the comedians to be ready in 10.
A man of great resources, always ready with plans B to Z (he wouldn’t boast, but the zebras being one of such past plan Z, second only to an unlikely belching toad plan, the details of which we won’t get into just now), the Royal Intendant was ready to put in motion said plans, but the comedians suddenly emerged from the Chapel slightly groggy but apparently ready to take over their duties —especially the two ladies, who were bickering with the two men about being the Controllers of the Ascension. Little did all of them know at this moment that the hot air balloon was being highjacked by a team of rogue maids in cahoots with the Russian Ballet props technicians who had arrived some days before the bulk of the Russian troupe trainees.
The Russian ballet dancers were indeed still stuck in the heavy snows somewhere along their trip to Versailles, so the four comedians with their balloon and tricks were technically, already a Plan B.By then, it was well into 5:59 PM, and the next minute would seem to stretch forever, but for the sake of a patient audience, we will not make it over 10.
In the first half of this fatefulest minute, Casanova had arrived with Father Balbi, his travelling companion, followed by none other than St Germain, all dapper and heavily scented. A score of less important nobilities the names of which we won’t go through were also here.
There were seconds enough in that first half minute, to rub cheeks and say plaisanteries and even utter a few rude witty comments with sweet tongues laced in vinegar, whatever that meant, and also enjoy the sparkling wine served at perfect chilly temperature.
It was only as we entered the second half of this minute that the King arrived, padded in heavy and warm coats and looking exhausted.
Seconds were spent in the same proceedings as above mentioned, if only in a slightly accelerated fashion, and slightly and almost unnoticeably higher pitched voices.That’s only when the mission bell’s sang Welcome to the Eighteenth’s Hour et ali (for naught), in loud and ringing dongs that the unthinkable happened, living all witnesses traumatized enough that nobody could think of anything to do before the third dong had elapsed.
The King collapsed, a knife in his ribs. The perpetrator was caught by the guards before the end of the last dong.While the King was rushed to the RER (Royal Emergency Room), and attended to by Royal Leechers and Clyster Masters who felt it was wise to call the Royal Priest seeing that there was little blood to leech, back at the Chapel and Opera House, the maids and Jean-Pierre were in a rush to blow out the candles, as it was obvious their attention was required elsewhere, and that the show would be cancelled.
Everyone would sigh in relief, but not before a few more hours of the drama, when they realized the King’s heavy padding had saved his life, and that the gapping wound everyone was dreading was no more than a pen’s prick. This would encourage Annie to admonish her children when they wouldn’t eat more of her delightful pastries.Meanwhile, using one of the last candles, the maids and their Russian lovers had lit the tub of lard of the hot air balloon, which rose slowly in the night sky, out of sight when most of the attention was directed towards the King’s fate hanging on a thread.
The four actors where vaguely wondering if they were still dreaming when they saw the carriage of thousands of tinsy frogs croaking through a portal, with brightly coloured dressed lady-men inside, and driven by an unkempt man with a wild gaze and an air of sheer insanity.
Of course, by then, they knew better than to discard it as a mere dream.
May 16, 2014 at 10:39 pm #3062In reply to: Rafaela’s Random Ramblings
flower synch! but her mind was dulled with tiredness and she could not explain, although they questioned her relentlessly.
“Just align with whatever path you are on… it is by far the easiest way” she whispered as she dropped off to sleep.
She woke to find herself on a path. It was dark and only the ground directly beneath her feet was visible. It was hard to move forward under these conditions and she desperately wanted to see more. She fought with the darkness until, eventually, she realised the darkness was an illusion. With that realisation she took hold of the darkness and it fell away in her hands revealing a stage.
The stage was bare, other than an old boot and a plain wooden chair. She sat on the chair and looked around.
“This is a bit gloomy” she said. “I want flowers”. And deep crimson wild sweet peas appeared. “I want lots of flowers! And I want blue sky and sunshine and a few fluffy white clouds and a gentle sun shower for me to dance in and a rainbow to fill the sky with wonder.” And as she wished, the bare stage was transformed to a landscape filled with a vibrant profusion of colour and life.
April 1, 2013 at 2:07 pm #3022In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
“And now, breathe in, a little bit more… and let it out.”
Amanda didn’t think it possible for her chest to expand more than it already had. She swayed her body, hoping that maybe it would allow more air in. It was useless, she had the impression she had lost some air. Perhaps she shouldn’t breath too deeply when Johnette… no, when the goddess speaking through Johnette asks them to breathe in.
She had been introduced to Johnette and the Goddess of the Antic Earth by her friend Mona, whom she hadn’t seen in years and when she fall upon her the other day, she convinced Amanda to come to the Earth Circle Group and try the meditation “because it is so fun”. But Mona didn’t come to the circle the first time, and she hadn’t come either this time. Amanda didn’t know why she came back, she hadn’t felt anything the first time. But they had asked her if she was coming to the next meeting, and she couldn’t say no.
“Allow the divine breath of the goddess to fill your mind and your body with its pranic power of sustentation. And take another deep breath.”
And there, she had been thinking again, she had lost the rythm. She managed to exale silently with a few contortion of her body and caught up the group with shorter and shallower movements of her chest. It was exhausting.
“It’s only been the second time”, she reminded herself. No need to tell that she wasn’t feeling at all the effects of the pranic power of sustentation. Her body was more tense after the sessions. And the worst was her disappointment when all the others would talk about the wonderful experiences with the goddess and her angels. Johnette had told her it would come, and that she needn’t worry. She had to be free of her expectations and certainly not compare herself to the others.The group was composed only of women. Except Norman, but he didn’t count. He was with Bianca. Amanda was sure that she had a wonderbra. She couldn’t have such a perfect breast at her age. And she didn’t seem the kind to have her breast reconfigured. She chuckled at the idea.
“Ahem.”
Amanda winced. Johnette was frowning. Or was it the Goddess. The idea gave Amanda the creeps.
“Now; clear your mind, my friends, for the next location will be revealed.”
Amanda had no idea what the Goddess was talking about. But according to the loud whispers, the others knew, and were expecting it. She noticed that the Goddess wasn’t frowning and caught a fleeting smile.
Johnette’s body began to shake and the most disturbing whale sound filled up the room.“Sorry,” said Bianca, “wrong CD”.
January 16, 2013 at 9:31 am #2982In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
You’re waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can’t be sure…
Josephinella, the train station cleaning lady, was on night duty. And she was tired of waiting for that damned train with that irritating French accent in her ears, her lungs filled with the engines’ fine coal dust and her nostrils irritated by the pigeons’ smell.
But tonight was going to be her night, she would get drunk on fresh air, her hair whipping her face, bugs biting her eyes, while she would sing elated woohoos launched at full speed on the last commuter train left unattended by drunk Freddie. That was such a beautiful plan.“ Another Dreamliner scare… and a train crash coming your way!”
“Sounds like a transportation surge to me!” Björk replied on the internal chatting system to her African Twa colleague Kiki Razwa. Björk was not her real name though —it was just a moniker given to her because she liked eccentric costumes. Her real name was Mæja Valbjörnsdóttir,… so ‘Björk’ was better for everyone in that international team, she’d tried to convince herself.
“Doesn’t internal policy says two makes a clue, three makes a surge ?”
“Oh, who cares… For me it smells dreamception transportation surge.”
“Better that than this Mercury retrograde crap, at least that’s more fun to hunt.” Kiki’s reply came up on the screen.
Björk had come to realize that she would probably have to cover for Mari Fe who was elsewhere but at her post. The last surge being in Europe, so she was in for a trip at the taxpayers’ expense… Not so bad actually, since nothing ever happened on her faraway island.December 28, 2012 at 9:49 pm #2875In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
The lady from North Carolina, To put all her sniffles behind her, Said “My onion filled socks, Though the method sure rocks, Make the bedcovers smell like a diner”.
March 27, 2012 at 9:52 am #2857In reply to: scattered grasps
The air was filled with anticipation. Phurt was feeling it for a few days and it was not the usual intuition stuff. It wasn’t conveyed by the silky threads or her web or of the other webs of the others like her… it was in the air, and it was very exciting.
August 29, 2010 at 3:01 pm #2814In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
While Yuhara and Sylvestrus were exploring Second Life worlds (Frolic Caper~Belle was still on an extended leave of absence), Blithe Gambol, although she didn’t entirely realize it at the time, was exploring First Life worlds on the Coast of Light.
Blithe and her partner Winn set off for the drum festival in the late afternoon heat, with the intention of reaching the Light Coast before sundown. The strong low sun flickered on and off as it hid behind trees and hills, and the hot dry wind whipped Blithes hair into her eyes, leaving the heavy heat of the Coast of the Sun behind and tranforming it into a light bone dry atmosphere that seemed to suck the air out of Blithe’s lungs. She filled the vacuum with smoke, listening to the words of the music playing ~ must be a reason why I’m king of my castle….king of my castle…it reminded her of Dealea’s story about King Author.
When they reached Vejer de la Frontera they made a wrong turning, although they were well aware that no turning is a wrong one. The new direction took them in a circle behind the Vejer promontory, through the umbrella pines along the coast. The sky was golden yellow behind the black sillouttes on one side, with a periwinkle sea on the other, rocky pale grey outcrops blushed with pink paddling in the gently lapping waves.
As they entered the village of Canos de Meca, they slowed to crawl behind the inching cars, as tanned people in brightly coloured clothes wove in and out of the traffic, and in and out of the exotic looking bars and restaurants. Blithe remembered the Second Life worlds she had been exploring earlier that day, and wondered if Second Life came with the smells of sardines barbequeing on the beach, or a warm breeze wafting past laden with snatches of laughter and conversation. Visually, certainly, Second Life would be hard presssed to beat the visual appeal of Canos de Meca at sunset on an August evening. There were plenty of opportunities to observe the people and the hostelries, as the traffic got progressively worse until it eventually came to a standstill. The narrow lanes were lined with parked cars, and throngs of people carrying coolers made their way to the sand dunes near the lighthouse.
Eventually, after several slow drives past looking for a miraculous parking space that didn’t appear, Blithe and Winn found a restaurant in between the coastal villages that was strangely empty of people. Even Winn, who was much less inclined towards fanciful imaginings than Blithe, remarked on how surreal the place was. It could have been anywhere in Spain, so strangely ordinary was its appearance in comparison to the Moorish beach hippy style of the villages. They ordered food, and relaxed in easy silence in the oasis of calm ordinariness. Blithe wondered if the place actually existed or if she had created it out of thin air, just for a respite and a parking place, and a clean unoccupied loo. Another First Life world, perhaps, constructed in the moment to meet the current requirements of ease.
At 11:11, after another two drives through the crawling cars and crowds, Winn turned the car around and headed for home. At 12:12 they reached the Coast of the Sun, shrouded in sea mist, and at 1:00am precisely, they arrived home. Later, as Blithe lay on the bed listening to the drums playing on the music machine, she closed her eyes and saw the sunset over the Atlantic, and felt the ocean breeze of the fan. She projected her attention to the dunes of Trafalgar ~ which, incidentally, didn’t take two hours, it was instant. In another instant, she was back in her bedroom, sipping agua con gas on the rocks and chatting to Winn. Seconds later, she was in a vibrant nightclub overlooking the beach, dancing in spirit between the jostling holidaymakers being served at the bar. She imagined that one or two of them noticed her energy.
Clearly, teleporting from one place to another had its benefits. The question of parking, for example, wouldn’t arise. But Blithe wouldn’t have wanted to miss the late afternoon drive to the Coast of Light, and the golden slanting lightbeams flickering between the cork oaks making their cork shorn trunks glow red, or the ocean appearing over the crest of a hill. And if she had arrived in an instant at the location she was intending to visit, then she would never have encountered the sunset from the particular angle of the approach via the wrong turn. Variety ~ and impulse, and the opportunities of the unexpected turns ~ was the weft of weaving First Life worlds ~ or was it the warp?
link: weaving worlds
August 27, 2010 at 12:54 pm #2813In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
Whether or not Arachne was actually better at weaving than Athena is still a mystery, or perhaps it is a moot point and no mystery at all. Weaving is by no means a solitary endeavour, as Blithe found early one summer morning. The river mist was rising and the air itself was dancing in droplets. It was hard to determine if the droplets were falling or rising, or simply milling around on the air currents. Hard green oranges (clearly oranges had been named in winter, or they would likely have been called greens) were festooned with silver threads, linking orange to orange, orange to tree and tree to wire fence, and back again. It was debatable whether or not the individual spiders were aware of the grand overall design of the early morning web links of the orange groves, just as it was equally debatable whether or not the inhabitants of the various Gibber realities were aware of the network of waterpipes that connected the other inhabitants to themselves and each other, and to the other Gibber worlds. Individuals were individuals, whether they be spiders, or Gibblets, and individuals generally speaking were focused on their own part of the tapestry (and often those of their immediate neighbours). Spider 57 on the east fence might be positioned to catch the first rays of sunshine in the mornings, but Spider 486,971 over near the dung heap was in a better position to catch the afternoon flies. And so on, as somebody famous once said.
As Blithe prowled around the orchard capturing potential clues on her Clumera she inevitably became part of the laybrinthine web of sticky threads herself, as they attached themselves to her hair and clothing. All of the gaps between the solids in the field were joined together with spun filaments, just as the Gibblets were joined together with fun spillaments (although leaking waterpipes were sadly misinterpreted as not-fun all too often, despite that they could be used as an opportunity to view the connections of the Waterpunk more comprehensively.)
The individual spiders lacy parlours were framed in wire squares, several hundred, if not more, along the perimeter fences. Not every wire fence square was filled; there were many vacant lots between established residences ~ whether by practical design or mere happenstance, Blithe couldn’t say. Many of the individual webs were whole and perfect, like the windows of Lower Gibber whose inhabitants kept their lace curtains clean and neatly hung. Many of the webs on the wire fence were not perfect in the symetrical sense ~ some had gaping holes, and there were those that appeared to be unfinished, despite showing great potential. Others appeared to be abandoned, hanging in shreds, not unlike many of the residences in Upper Gibber.
The wire framed residences of the field (and likewise the peeling paint framed residences of Upper Gibber) that appeared to be defunct were not quite as they seemed, however. They were simply being viewed from a different timeframe. It was quite possible to view each wire or peeled paint framed en-trance side by side, notwithstanding that they were, so to speak, located in varying timeframes. All that was required was a more flexible viewpoint, and an ability to view more than one timeframe simultaneously. It was all a question of allowing an entrance to en-trance ~ which was, after all, its function.
{link: misty morning; entrance}
July 31, 2010 at 4:52 pm #2802In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
After having had a wheel ride in the garden, Grandpa Wrick came back a little less in-tense.
“Mmm, I suppose this game isn’t as much fun as I expected. I want to give it another try, adding a little something more.” he said to the kids when their cartoon had finished. India Louise, Cuthbert, and their friends Flynn and of course Lisbelle (who had been quiet in the background, playing with her pet rabbit Ginger) started listening with a mild interest —the whimsical Lord Wrick having proved countless times he had no qualms at making a fool of himself, and thus at entertaining children.
“What I want to achieve, by playing this game of snowflakes,” he said after a pause “is paying more attention at your stream of consciousness.”
“You see, I’ve been reading the classical Circle of Eights countless times in my young age, and dear old Yurara didn’t have much interest in creating links between her narratives. This is what I want to do with this game: pay attention to the links.
In this game of snowflakes, the stories (flakes) matter less than the links you build between them, and thus the pattern that is created.
We have the choice to continue and detail the previous story, in which case, the link is obvious, or we may want to start another one. But we need to know what, from the previous entry, prompted you to create that special new story you are about to write or tell.Just like in a dream, when you explore a scene, some object will jump at your attention, and propel you to another dream story. Just like that, I want to spend more time exploring the transitions between each scenes and story blurbs that we tell. The links don’t necessarily have to be an object, of course not.
It can be an idea, a theme, a music, virtually anything, provided that it can make some sense as to why it is used as a transition…”Seeing the children waiting for more, he pursued: “a good introduction to this game would be for you to try to follow your train of thoughts during the day. Try to do mentally that small exercise before you go to sleep, and remember the transitions of your whole day, and you’ll see how complex it can become, how often you pass and zap from one thing to another.
Take even one event that lasts a few minutes like eating a honey sandwich at breakfast, can make you think of dozens of things like the texture of the bread, the fields of wheat, or the butter, the glass jar filled with honey and the bees that made it, the swarm of bees can carry you even further into another time, or towards a bear or into a movie maybe.
I want that you pause to take time to break this down, so that your audience can follow the transition from one story to another, and that it makes perfect sense for them.”
May 18, 2010 at 11:18 am #2692In reply to: Strings of Nines
The sun was streaming through the window when she awakened, a soft diffuse brightness behind the lengths of gauzy white fabric that fluttered gently in the air currents. The bed was in the middle of the room, a large spacious high ceilinged space on an upper floor; completely uncluttered ~ there was nothing else in the room, or so it seemed, it was all white, but the white of lightness, not the white of colour lack. She sat up, slowly stretching, filled with a feeling of warm promise, an unhurried optimism for the bright new day. She was still in that first moment of awakening, before any plans or expectations intruded, leisurely luxuriating in the promise of warmth and light, still relaxed from sleep, but free of details, free of mundane specifics or intentions; quite simply the uncluttered serenity and joy of the promise of a bright new day.
November 22, 2009 at 10:03 am #2347In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Ann realized she was late for her Flimsy Unravelled Continuity Knowledge class. A couple of months late, in point of fact, as Worserversity classes had resumed two months previously.
“Where have you BEEN?” Lavender whispered as Ann slid as inconspicuously as possible into the seat beside her, while the professor at the front of the class was facing the blueboard.
“Do I know you?” asked Ann, with a puzzled expression. The girl beside her did look vaguely familiar.
“Oh how rude you are, Ann. Are you trying to be funny?”
“Oh no, not at all!” Ann’s eyes filled with tears.
Lavender frowned. It wasn’t like Ann to start blarting and blubbering in public. “What’s the matter?” she asked kindly.
“I’ve lost my memory!” exclaimed Ann. “I can’t remember a thing!”
“Oh, is that all,” replied Lavender dismissively. “I’d have thought you’d be used to that by now.”
“No, no, you don’t understand! I can’t remember anything at all now, it’s all gone, poof! Gone!” Ann wept and started to wring her hands.
“Well the first thing you need to do is stop that bloody snivelling and wipe your nose. Here” she said, handing Ann a tissue. “And the next thing you need to do is stop worrying about it, and just fake it until you get your memory back. Worrying about it won’t help, you must focus on the things you do remember.”
“But it’s all jumbled up and muddled in my head, I remember bits, you know? But I can’t fit them all together. I CAN’T FIT THEM ALL TOGETHER!”
“SHHH!” snapped Lavender. “Try not to draw any attention to yourself! I’ll help you, don’t worry.”
“You’re so kind” Ann smiled weakly. “What did you say your name was?”
“Lavender. My name is Lavender, and I’m going to help you remember. Just remember this, for now: what you can’t remember, don’t worry about, the important thing is to carry on. Just CARRY ON REGARDLESS, ok?”
“OK.” Ann sighed with releif. “What’s the Professor going on about?”
“The next assignment. We’re to read that cryptic old classic book Circle of Eights and try to decipher it.”
“Good greif! Nobody has ever managed to decipher that book!”
“You see?” said Lavender. “You can remember that! Well done, girl!”
April 2, 2009 at 3:16 pm #2498In reply to: Strings of Nines
Yoland was inordinately pleased with her purchases, trifling though they were. She smiled at the little bottle of cherry red nail varnish, imagining how it would look on sun browned and callous free toes. Painted toe nails was one of life’s simple pleasure, she reckoned. Nothing fancy or expensive or uncomfortable, like her new brassiere, which had never the less given her spirits a bit of a lift, as well as her breasts, with its bright blue moulded foam shape. She wondered if she could suspend the brassiere and its contents from something other than her shoulders for once, but couldn’t see how it could be arranged and still allow a modicum of freedom of movement. Perhaps some of the new scientific discoveries that she was eagerly awaiting would include some kind of gravity and weight defying device, possibly helium filled foam support. Perhaps even in the future, anyone with a high squeaky voice would be described as a bra sucker. Or perhaps one day breasts worn on the waist would be fashionable. This thought made Yoland a bit uncomfortable, as she hadn’t really believed she was following fashion, but maybe she was after all.
Yoland wondered if she was verging on the ridiculous again, and decided that it didn’t matter if she was. There was something rather splendid, she was beginning to discover, about the mundane and the silly. Something serenely pleasurable about ~ well about everything she’d been taking for granted for so many years. The things she hadn’t really noticed much, while her mind was busy thinking and pondering, replaying old conversations, and imagining new ones, sometimes with others, but often with herself, inside the vast jumble of words that was her mind.
It was always a wonderful change of pace to go away on a trip, with its wealth of new conversations and words, events and symbols to ponder over later at her leisure, the many photographic snapshots providing reminders and clues and remembered laughs, but it was the renewed sense of appreciation for the mundane that was ultimately most refreshing about returning home.
The word home had baffled Yoland for many years. For most of her 51 years, if the truth be told. So many moves, so many houses, so many people ~ where, really, was home? She’d eventually compromised and called herself a citizen of the world, but she still found herself at times silently wailing “I want to go home”, but with the whole world as her home, it didn’t make a great deal of sense why she would still yearn for that elusive place called home.
Of all the words that swam in her head some of them seemed to keep bobbing up to the surface, attracting her attention from time to time. That was the funny thing about words, Yoland mused, not for the first time, You hear them and hear them and you understand what they mean, but only in theory. The suddenly something happens and you shout AHA, and then you can’t find any words to explain it! Repeating the words you’ve already heard a hundred times somehow doesn’t even come close to describing what it actually feels like to understand what those words mean. That kind of feeling always left her wondering if everyone else had known all along, except her.
Yoland was often finding words in unexpected places, and these were often the very words that were the catalysts. (Even the word catalyst had been one of those words that repeatedly bobbed to the surface of her sea of words). Her trip had been in search of words, supposedly, channeled words (although Yoland suspected the trip had been more about connections than words) and yet there had only really been one word that had stood out as significant, and oddly enough, that word had been watermelon.
That had been a lesson in itself, if indeed lesson is the right word. Yoland had been attempting to exercise her psychic powers for six months or more, trying to get Toobidoo, the world famous channeled entity, to say the word watermelon ~ just for fun. She couldn’t even remember how it all started, or why the word watermelon was significant ~ perhaps a connection to a symbol etched on a watermelon rind in Marseilles, which later became a Tile of the City. (Yoland wasn’t altogether sure that she understood the tiles, but she did think it was a very fun game, and that aspect alone was sufficient to hold her interest.) By the end of the last day of the channeling event Toobidoo still hadn’t said the word watermelon which was somewhat of a disappointment, so when Yoland saw Gerry Jumper, Toobidoo’s channel, in the vast hotel foyer, she ran up to him saying “Say watermelon.” The simple direct method worked instantly, where months of attempts the hard way had failed. Yoland felt that she learned alot from this rather silly incident about the nature of everyday magic, and this particular lesson, or we might prefer to call it a communication, was repeated for good measure the following day in the park.
Wailon, the other world famous channeled entity who was the star attraction of the Words Event, had proudly displayed photographic evidence of orbs at the lecture. Like Yoland had tried with the watermelon, he was choosing an esoteric and unfamiliar method of creating orbs, suggesting that the audience meditate and conjure them up to show on photographs, rather than simply creating physical orbs. Yoland and her friends Meldrew and Franklyn had chanced upon a beautiful glass house full of real physical glass orbs in the park, underlining the watermelon message for Yoland: not to discount the spontaneous magic of the physical world in the search for the esoteric.
It had, for example, been rather magical and wonderful to hear Gerry Jumper explain how he had mentioned watermelon to his wife on the previous day in the dining room ~ mundane, yes, but magical too. It would have been marvellous to create Toobidoo channeling the word watermelon for sure, but how much more magical to create an actual slice of physical watermelon in the dining room and have Gerry remark on it, and to have an actual physical conversation with him about it. Who knows, he may even remember the nutcase who spent six months trying to get him to say watermelon whenever he sees one, at least for awhile. It might be quite often too, as his wife is partial to watermelon. Yoland wondered if this was some kind of connecting link, perhaps the connection to Gerry and Cindy started in Marseilles and watermelon was the physical clue, the pointer towards the connection.
Perhaps, Yoland wondered, the orbs were the connecting link to Wailon, although she didn’t feel such a strong connection to him as she did to Toobidoo and Gerry Jumper. She had been collecting coloured gel orbs for several months ~ just for fun. There was often a connecting link to be found in the silly and the fun, the pointless and the bizarre, and even in the mundane and everyday things.
In the days following her return home ~ or the house that Yoland lived in, shall we say ~ she felt rather sleepy, as if she was in slow motion, but the feeling was welcome, it felt easy and more importantly, acceptable. There was nothing that she felt she should be doing instead, for a change, no fretting about starting projects, or accomplishing chores, rather a slow pleasant drifting along. Yes, there were chores to be done, such as watering plants and feeding animals and other things, but they no longer felt like chores. She found she wasn’t mentally listing all the other chores to be done but was simply enjoying the one she was doing. Even whilst picking up innumerable dog turds outside, she heard the birds singing and saw the blossom on the fruit trees against the blue sky, saw shapes in the white clouds, heard the bees buzzing in the wisteria. The abundance of dog shit was a sign of a houseful of happy healthy well fed dogs, and the warm spring sun dried it and made it easier to pick up.
It was, somewhat unexpectedly, while Yoland was picking up dog shit that she finally realized what some of those bobbing words meant about home, and presence, and connection to source. It seemed amusingly ironic after travelling so far (not just the recent trip, but all the years of searching) to finally find out where home was, where the mysterious and elusive source was. (Truth be told, some printed words she found the previous day had been another catalyst, by Vivian channeled by Wanda, but she couldn’t recall the exact words. Yoland had to admit that words, used as a catalyst, were really rather handy.)
Wherever you go, there you are ~ they were words too, and they were part of the story. Now that Yoland had come to the part where she wanted to express in words where home, and source, was, she found she couldn’t find the right words. In a funny kind of way the word vacant popped into her head, as if the place where the vast jumble of words was usually housed became vacant, allowing her to be present in her real physical world. It really was quite extraordinary how simple it was. Too simple for words.
February 17, 2009 at 8:17 am #2218In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Decimus Spurius rubbed his eyes and scratched his head, befuddled. He’d been dreaming of Antonia Ludicrus, his sweetheart, and at first in the dream they were strolling along the beautiful beach at Baelo Claudia, upwind of the garum pots. But then they were inside some kind of building, and Antonia was pressing little black squares with numerals on each one, but they were strange numerals the like of which he’d never seen, interspersed with a few familiar ones. She leaned over the greyish black slab, frowning, glancing up occasionally to a brilliant square light placed in front of her on the table.
Decimus sighed. The dream made no sense at all, but he was filled with longing to see Antonia again. It had been months since he’d seen her, and he hated Saltum , hated that he’d been reposted so many days walk from her.
December 24, 2008 at 6:18 pm #1271In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Many people were gathered at the Soft Pool in the Garden of The Orientations.
Some of them were sitting here still and smiling, their eyes closed and open to the different energies surrounding them. Some of them were standing others walking around and a few ones were running following seemingly random patterns. Their movements were the perfect match of the energy connections between each participant, physical and non physical.It was like a shining crystal, some rays of light/attention creating an instant connection and an instant energy exchange which need not be continuously maintained, many different connections were being created and were lasting as long as necessary, sometimes a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes, and others mere moments.
His interactions fulfilled, Sam gathered his attention toward his new goal and he left the crowd at its game, the energy of the experience still present inside his energy field.
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