Search Results for 'fresh'

Forums Search Search Results for 'fresh'

Viewing 20 results - 101 through 120 (of 202 total)
  • Author
    Search Results
  • #4335

    In the kitchen, Fox beheaded the chicken in a swift move. He tried not to be horrified when the creature’s body kept on running around, headless like a peaslander. He felt vaguely aware that’s what he’d been doing all that time. Running around without a very clear idea about what he was doing.

    “Don’t let it run around bloody n’all!” said Margoritt, “Who do you think is going to clean that mess?” The old woman, huff and puff, limped rhythmically after their dinner. Someone had heard her scream and came into the kitchen. It was that tall Fae guy, Rukshan, who looked so successful and handsome. Fox felt depressed. The Fae had caught the dead body, which had eventually stopped moving, and put it in the basket Margoritt had taken on the table.

    “Thanks my dear,” she said with a giggle. “Would you be so kind as to pluck it for me?” She then looked at Fox. “Sorry, lad, but with a name like yours I’m not sure I can trust you on this one.” The old lady winked.

    Fox couldn’t be annoyed at Margoritt, he wouldn’t trust himself with a chicken, dead or alive. And the old lady had saved him from the blizzard and from that strange curse. He attempted a smile but all he could do was a grimace. Margoritt looked at him as if noticing something.

    “Why don’t you go with Rukshan,” she said, “A bit of fresh air would do you good.”
    Fox shrugged, and followed the Fae outside.

    “And send me that Eleri girl, I’d like to have a word with her while she clean the blood on the tiling.”

    Outside it was noisier. Fox found the woman arguing with her male friends, one of whom looked like a statue with big wings. She seemed relieved to have a reason to get away from the crowd and her own problems and left with a smile. He wondered how she could stay happy while being surrounded by conflict. Maybe she liked it. Fox shrugged again.

    He walked to the small courtyard, sat on a log and watched the handsome Fae removing the feathers. Rukshan’s hands looked clean, the blood was not sticking on his fair skin and the chicken feathers were piling neatly on a small heap at his feet.
    “Aren’t Faes supposed to be vegetarian,” he said. He cringed inwardly at his own words. What a stupid way of engaging a conversation.

    Without stopping, Rukshan answered: “I think you think too much. It’s not doing you much good, and it deepens the shadow under your eyes. Not that it doesn’t suit you well.” The Fae winked. Fox wasn’t sure of how to take it. He stayed silent. He saw the bag the Fae was always carrying with him and wondered what was inside.

    “It’s a story,” said Rukshan.
    Fox was confused and looked puzzled.
    “In the bag. It’s a story. But it’s not finished.”

    Fox felt warmth rise to his face. If the Fae could read his thoughts… he preferred not to think about it. Rukshan smiled gently.

    “I need help to complete it and better understand the characters. Would you like to help me?”
    Fox wasn’t sure what made him answer yes. Did it matter if it was for the welcomed distraction from his dark thoughts, or if it was for the promise of more time spent with the Fae?

    #4314

    After days and days, there was no signs of the others.

    Rukshan had hoped they would manifest as easily as the Hermit had, without much effort on his part.
    But they had remained silent, and even the ghosts seemed to have subsided in another dimension. He couldn’t feel them any longer. It was as though his realisation had made them disappear, or change course for a while.

    He hadn’t come any closer to the inner ring of trees though, and he’d come to the conclusion that there was surely some piece missing. He was reminded of the map that the cluster of seven had found at the beginning of the story, so they could reach the magic Gem inside the Gods’ Heartswood. There was no telling if such a map existed or if it did, what form it had —after all, the story seemed to be a little too simplified.

    He was trying to figure out which was his character, and which of the curse he had inherited. The curse was rather easy he’d thought… Knowledge. It had always been his motivation, and the encounter with the Queen and the taking of the potion had keenly reminded him that for all his accumulated knowledge, he was missing the biggest part. The knowledge of himself, and who he really was. It was constantly eluding him, and he was starting to doubt even his own memories at times.

    For the past few days, having finished the last morsel of fay bread in his bag, he was subsisting on roots, mushrooms and fresh rainwater cupped in leaves and last bits of snow in treeholes. It was time to get moving, as the weather had started to change. The snow was receding too.

    Even if his quest wasn’t as sure as before, he knew he had to find a way to reach these six others, and try to figure out what they could do, or undo.

    He had a strong suspicion that the potion maker was linked to this story. Her potion had activated something deep in him, and it seemed to share the same source of power.

    With that resolution in mind, he took the path retracing his steps back to the cottage and the outside world.

    #4293

    The night was almost there, the dwarf would come out of his heavy daysleep any minute now. Fox had been collecting mushrooms along with twigs and branches to make some fire. He hoped the constant drizzle of these last few days had not rendered them too wet.

    The differences of his needs and cravings depending on his being a fox or a human had always amazed him. When he was a fox, he feared fire and would avoid it at all cost. When he was a human, he couldn’t spend a night out in the cold without a fire. His body was simply not good at keeping warmth inside when he had no fur. Today was no exception and Fox was certain the dwarf would also appreciate it to get rid of the cold of the stone.

    After piling up the wood for the fire, Fox smelled his harvest of fresh mushrooms. He imagined them accompanying a good rabbit stew and felt saliva water his mouth. His diet as an animal was mostly meat, whereas as a human he was oddly attracted to vegetables, and even enjoyed the taste of mushrooms. He might not enjoy them so much had he not met a girl once, so long ago when he was a still a cub learning to transform into a human. He remembered the girl had said she was called Eleri, which he had found amusing because in French “Elle rit” means “she’s laughing”.

    “How do you know French?” she had asked.
    “Oh! My master Gibbon teaches me French, he says it would give me another way of thinking the world.”
    “Your master must be fond of Romance stories,” she giggled.

    Fox didn’t really understood what she meant by that, and he thought it was not so important because what she had in her bag smelt so funny.

    “What’s that?” he asked.
    “You want some?” She handed a bunch of butterstache fungi to the handsome redhead boy. “I realise I don’t know your name.”

    “I’m Fox,” he said his eyes fixed on the strange looking things in her hands. He sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “Is it safe?”

    He remembered the look of incredulity in her eyes, her beautiful eyes. She was the first girl he had seen. He didn’t know much about humans except what Master Gibbon had told him in French, which didn’t really make sense at that time.

    “It’s totally safe, you might only have some funny experiences if you take the wrong ones in the forest,” Eleri laughed and Fox remembered the meaning of her name in French. He thought the name suited her well. He accepted her gift, for her eyes, and for her sincere laugh.

    Since that time, eating mushrooms was always coloured with joy and a sense of daring. The last rays of the Sun faded away.

    “It smells like mushrooms, and butterstache if I’m not mistaken,” said the raspy voice of the dwarf.

    #4292

    “Dammit,” said Yorath, “your lyrical way of talking about those old decrepit things reminded me that I’ve promised a fresh load of provisions to the old woman in the forest, what’s her name already.”
    Margoritt Loursenoir?” ventured Eleri, who usually was the one who couldn’t remember names too common. It did help that she was an avid reader, and that Loursenoir happened to be an author that she’d liked.
    “Yes, her. You could come with me you know. There’s surely plenty to pique your interest on the trip to the forest, surely a few discarded things you’d like to grab for a later tinkering.”
    “You know how I hate snow and the cold…” she mused for a while. “But at least some dry air will be welcome…”

    #4291

    Absentmindedly, Eleri put the bones in her pocket and continued to gaze down upon the valley, lost in thoughts of the past. What had that tree said to her, that day it came to life?

    Yorath sat quietly, watching her. He noticed the mushrooms growing on the exposed roots beside him, wondering if he had unwittingly crushed any when he sat down next to the tree.

    “Mushrooms,” he said quietly to himself.

    Eleri didn’t answer, wasn’t even aware that he has said it, but now she was remembering the days of the floods in the lowlands. The wet, dismal months and years when everything was damp, if not saturated or submerged, when mold grew on every surface. Bright green mossy mold, and slimy dank black mold, and fungus everywhere. Nothing would grow like it used to grow and the odour of rot permeated everything. The fruit trees crumbled in a sickly sweet stench into the mud, and the people named it keeg, and started wearing keegkerchiefs wrapped around their faces to keep the stink out of their nostrils.

    “Goodbye, farewell,” the tree had said to her. “We are moving north, migrating. But fear not, little one, there are mushrooms migrating here to replace us.”

    At the time Eleri had thought it was a ridiculous idea, imagining trees packing their trunks and pulling their roots out of the ground, and stomping off into the sunset. A few years later, she understood what the tree had meant.

    Before the last of the fruit trees crumbled into the swamps, the people has resorted to eating the snails and the mushrooms, unwillingly at first, missing the bright colours and refreshing juices, but as time went on, they found more and more varieties of fungi springing up overnight. There came more and more bright colours, and more interesting flavours. It wasn’t long before they noticed the healing and restorative properties of the new varieties, not to mention the recreational effects of some of the more elusive ones. There was no need for any organized farming of the fungi, because they simply sprang up overnight: the days menu would be whatever had appeared that morning.

    And so it was considered a gift from the gods in times of trouble, and the people were grateful. Their faith was restored in the earth’s capacity for magic and abundance, and they were inspired and rejuvenated. Eleri vowed never to forget the earth’s magic providence, in the form of mushrooms

    #4286

    A bird brought it early in the morning. It had a camphor’s bark brown colour, made of coarse wool with a double overhand knot at one end neatly arranged in beautiful symmetry.
    Kumihimo took it and contemplated for a while, to see where she would put it in her collection. It could be the seventh thread she was waiting for.
    When she took it from the stone where it was coiled, she found some traces of fresh wet purple clay on it, and it smelt strongly of artic fox den and of dragon breath. A very unusual combination indeed. Definitely some rare ingredients that could braid well with the six others…
    She had some preparation to do.

    #4269

    The cave’s entrance was glowing in a golden light. The fresh snow had blanketed the entrance that the midday sun was bathing with warm rays through the fog.

    The cave was hanging perilously on the precarious slopes of the mountainous ranges, where only a few woolly goats could safely reach its heights without fear of breaking their necks. It was a safe haven for the Hermit.
    Below the cave, the vast expanse of the Forest was almost entirely white, except for its fringe, far from the mountains, where the cities had flowered, and except from its center, the darker Dragon Heartwood with its reds and greens that seemed almost black in contrast.

    She was known as the Hermit by most of the Faes living in the forest, a honorary title if not slightly belittling when they called her that. To others, she was often known by different colorful names. Sometimes when she was seen flying in her bird skin, accompanying the giant raptor birds from the plateaus with her long white hair flowing to the wind, surveying from above the life of the land, she would gain other names as well.
    Her shaman name was Kumihimo, or weaver of threads. In the cave, many threads were carefully hanged onto a long line, without particular noticeable pattern, either by colors and material. All were different. Her birds friends, big or smaller would often bring her threads from many great distances. She would hang them here, without particular care, or so it seemed to the naked eye.

    It had been a long time she had weaved any of them, or had the impulse to.
    But she had dreamt.
    She never dreamt. To dream for her was a matter of crucial importance.
    She had dreamt of seven threads.
    It was time she made a new braid.

    #4249

    Margoritt Loursenoir wrapped a thick blanket around her shoulders. The window of her lodge was open to the chill outside, but she would keep the windows open as much as she could bear, for she’d missed the fresh air for a long time inside the city.
    The view of the forest was also a renewed pleasure, she could stay in meditation in front of the window for hours, as if looking at a moving picture, a better work than any painter from the city would ever accomplish.
    Besides, she liked being wrapped in a shawl like these women from the far away east she admired so much for their strength and independence.

    She’d come there to rekindle her inspiration. In the City of the Seven Hills, she had risen to quite a fame with her literary works, even though her works were deemed fictional, and that she was a woman.
    To her, they weren’t fictions. They were just the order of things revealed, the natural evolution of things, a glimpse of what was to come if the civilisation were to keep its greedy pace.

    That rheumatism is killing me she looked at her hands, swollen after yesterday’s rain. An old lady like me, and that lifestyle… for how long… She would need to return for a needle session in the City. Already the supplies she’d brought were becoming scarce. She would go find some mushrooms and roots later, but for now she didn’t want to worry about that.
    There was something irremediably irreconcilable about life here and life there. She was aware of the artificial nature of her escapades, but every time she moved out of the bustling city, into the enchanted woods, she would see it. Magic was still alive here, not as strong as before, but still very much alive.

    Rising from her chair, she put the last of her bread’s crumbs on the windowsill. The crumbs she’d put yesterday were still there, untouched. There were hardly any birds left during winter, merely a few suspicious crows who never came too close.

    It was time for her morning writing session.

    #4244

    Fox ran through the city, enjoying his transient invisibility. He didn’t have to care about people, he didn’t feel the social burden of being himself. He had fun brushing past the legs of men to frighten them, biting the dresses of women to make them drop their baskets. One of them contained some freshly baked meatloaf. Fox got rid of the bread and swallowed the meat. He laughed with his fox’s laugh at the puzzled look of a child seeing the meat disappear in mid air.

    At first, Fox enjoyed being invisible tremendously. Then, he felt a bit lonely. No one was there to see him have fun. Furthermore, he had no idea how long of it remained. The woman had said one hour. His problem was that in his fox form, he wasn’t so good at keeping track of time. The fun of the invisibility wearing off, he decided to go back to the forest. He would get back his clothes and meet with the woman in his human form.

    He followed the scent of the autumn leaves.

    After barely five minutes, he noticed that people were going in the same direction. How unusual, Fox thought. He kept on running. After another five minutes, he felt a tingling feeling. Then, he heard the familiar shout accompanying his being seen.

    Fox had mixed feelings. At the same time he felt relieved —he was happy to be back into the world—, and he felt annoyed by what he considered to be an unnecessary mishap. He felt his heartbeat speeding up and prepared himself to the chase. But nobody seemed to care about the shout. People looked hypnotized and simply didn’t pay attention to him even though they looked at him running past them.

    How unusual, he thought again.

    Fifteen minutes later, he stopped in front of a fence that wasn’t there in the early morning. It was not so high that he couldn’t jump over it and continue on his way to the forest. But he stayed there a few seconds, too startled to think anything. He got out of his own puzzlement when he heard a whine. It was coming from his own mouth. It was so unusual that it helped him got rid off the spell that surrounded the fence. It seemed to be powerful enough to make people believe they couldn’t go past it into the forest.

    Very clever, he thought. Whoever erected this fence, they were no ordinary man or woman. Fox thought about the old young witch who gave him the potion but readily shook the idea away. This is something else, he decided. His nose became itchy, Fox needed to find out who created this thing. Maybe they knew about the burning smell.

    Fox left the flow of people still following the fence to some unknown destination and jumped over into the forest. The feeling was the same on the other side. A repelling spell. But once on this side of the fence, it had a different flavour. This one talked about danger of leaving the forest, whereas in the city it whispered about the danger of going into the forest. Fox didn’t feel surprised. It was simply another odd occurence.

    He took a deep breath, enjoying the rich scents of the soil and the trees. The smell of the little animals close to the ground, and those of the birds in the air above. The odorant track left by a wild boar. Among all those scents, one was quite unique and remarkable. The gentleman of the forests, Fox thought. What is he doing here? Whatever the explanation was, the wise ape and would certainly have answers. After all, he was the one who taught a little fox the art of human shapeshifting.

    Fox began to run deep into the forest. His heart beating fast at the idea to see his old master. He had totally forgotten about the dwarf and his strange companion, or about the kind witch and her potions. He only felt hope in his heart and cold winter air on his snout. Leading him to some resolution.

    #4223

    So, her nocturnal thief had struck again!

    Glynis had left a freshly brewed batch of ‘Dream Recall’ potion on the window ledge to soak up the energy of the full moon overnight. And now one jar was missing.

    She didn’t mind; in fact it gave her a warm feeling of satisfaction whenever anyone wanted her potions. And she was not afraid because she sensed no harmful intent. But she was curious as to the identity of her visitor.

    Perhaps she should set a trap to unmask the thief?

    Later, maybe. Today, she was taking her potions to one of the outdoor markets in the city where people peddled all manner of handmade and home grown products. She was long overdue for a visit. She would put on her burka, tattered now but still functional, and trek through the forgotten paths of the enchanted forest, hidden to most, pulling her little cart of wares behind her.

    And when she comes close to the outskirts of the city, she will hunch her back and begin to walk slowly as though she is someone of very advanced years. She will set up her stall and a crowd will quickly gather, pushing and jostling to be first, for her potions are in high demand.

    It has not always been that way. At first, people were wary of her, the crooked old crone in her tattered robe. Only her bright blue eyes visible, eyes which dart quickly to the ground if one looks too hard. But it took just a few, lured closer to her table by curiosity or desperation—or perhaps it was pity for she must look a sorry sight. After that, it didn’t take long for word to spread.

    #4217

    The fire in the wood stove had gone out when Eleri awoke but she didn’t rekindle it. The dream of the girl with the dragon face filled her thoughts, and the mundane actions of the morning were not a primary interest yet. The face was perfect to replicate into stone, with an interesting texture that would lend itself perfectly to her paint effects, but no extreme protuberances to cause potential problems during the process. The inch long horns would not present too much of a problem, provided they didn’t grow too much. (and what was that in centimeters anyway, she wondered, and why was she dreaming in imperial measures? Perhaps it was a clue to the location of the owner of the dragon face.) But how was she to find that face? And if she found it, would she be able to take a mold of it? There must be a way, she pondered, to take a rubber mold of a dream character somehow.

    Rousing herself, she decided to ask Yorath about it. He was always full of surprises, and knew so much more than one ever imagined about multitudes of diverse topics. Eleri started to become excited at the thought of what this could mean to the development of her project. With the addition of the anti gravity animating ingredient, she could bring dream characters to life in a way never seen before in the physical world.

    And Yorath had returned as promised, and just at the right time. Despite doubting her abilities to use the elerium when he first introduced her to it, she had developed a simple enough technique to incorporate it into the statues.

    It was good to see him again, although she was disappointed to see he was not wearing that red silk jacket this time. But he had the goods, and that was the important thing. And he might have an idea about the dream casting. She would treat him to a breakfast of fresh picked mushrooms and then ask him.

    #4213

    Rukshan had hardly any time to think about the trees of his area of enchantment in the past days. Actually, he’d rushed to the Clock every morning at dawn, and was busy until dusk, after which he slept like a log, to start the cycle again.

    As he looked into the mirror in the morning, observing the hints of fatigue under his green eyes dulling the glow of his dark olive skin, he realized that there was only so much that his morning yoga could do to help rejuvenate.
    He sighed and tied his sleek dark hair into a top knot.

    The trees and the profound wisdom of their calm silence was still here, at his fingertips, in such contrast to the daily activities, that he wondered if the workings of the heart completely eluded him. After all, he couldn’t say he loathed his overseeing and mending job, not could he say that he didn’t pour his heart in it. But still, something about it felt artificial in some ways.

    When he arrived at the Clock Tower in the morning, the air was still fresh, and the stairs wouldn’t yet smell of the usual cat piss. The clock’s time was still a smidgen behind. Usually, he would just to the best he could, and just let things patch themselves up, but it seemed as though this time, the change of structure was more profound, requiring from him to go… for lack of better way to put it,… the heart of the matter.

    From the top of the tower, he would usually hardly go lower than the first level where the 12 mannequins were stored and revolved around the central axis to appear at each hour, until noon and midnight were they would all play an elaborate dance.

    Below that level laid the belly of the beast. An intricate assemblage of copper wires, brass mirrors, lanterns and scalipanders, accessible by simple steps coiled around the central axis, hiding below a round wooden hatch.

    #4211

    Glynis rose at dawn to gather herbs for her potions—it is the best time to collect the flowered herbs, just as the dew evaporates and before the heat of the day. And usually she loves the freshness of the early morning but her night had been long and restless, full of strange dreams which had left her with an uneasy feeling.

    The grass is cold on her bare feet and so she treads lightly and with haste. She stops though to pat the statue of a dwarf on his small concrete head. “Hello, Mr Cutie-Pie,” she says, as she does every day when she passes by. The dwarf is the only statue in the garden and she often wonders how he came to be there; he seems a lonely little chap.

    When she first came upon the house, although house is not really a grand enough word for the beautiful mansion it must once have been, she spent hours exploring its many rooms. It seemed the occupants had left in a great hurry without ever returning for their things. This seemed strange to Glynis, for only one wing was badly damaged by fire. The rest was largely intact although over the years had fallen into disrepair and now was home to all manner of small critters.

    #4205

    The day had been inordinately hectic.
    He had been working on the Town’s Clock till dawn, and was still none the wiser about why it had stopped to work, and moved the whole town into disarray. A problem with a few redundant cogs, and some pipes apparently.

    He wouldn’t know for sure such things, he wasn’t a master technician, just an Overseer. Chief Overseer, another word for Master Fuse, he used to say jokingly.
    It wasn’t an usual job for Fays, who were usually using their gifts of faying for other purposes, but mending complex systems was quite possibly in the cards for him.

    On his way down from the Clock Tower, late during the night, he had noticed the energy has started to flow again, not very regularly, in spurts of freshwater moving through rusted pipes, but it would have to do for now.
    The Town Clock wasn’t completely repaired, and still prone to subtle and unexpected changes —it was still 2 and half minute behind, and some of the mannequins and automata behind the revolving doors were still askew or refusing to show up in time. But at least the large enchanted Silver Jute, emblem of the City, managed to sing its boockoockoos every hour. So, his job was done for today.

    He put on his coat, noticing the wind chilling his bones under the large white moon. He was walking in long regular strides in the empty streets, vaguely lost in thoughts about how clockwork was just about showing the energy the way, and leaving it to do the rest, and how failures and breaking down would appear at the structural weakest places as opportunity to mend and strengthen them.

    Before he knew, his feet had guided him back to the alley of golden ginkgos, and he was drawn from his thoughts by the wind chiming in the golden leaves.

    The idea emerged at once in his head, fully formed, incomprehensible at first, and yet completely logical.
    He had to assemble a team of talents, a crew of sorts. He wasn’t sure about the purpose, not how to find them, but some of them were being drawn to the light and made clearer.
    Beside himself the Faying Fay, there was a Sage Sorceress, and a Teafing Tinkeress, and also a Gifted Gnome. There were others that the trees wouldn’t reveal.

    It seemed there was a lot more they wouldn’t say about. He guessed he would have to be patient about how it would reveal itself. It was night after all, Glade Chi Trolls would be lurking in the shadows menacing to erase his revelations, so he would have to find shelter soon and recover his strengths for tomorrow’s new round of Clock repair.

    #4077

    “Well, hello there! My name is Barbara, I will be your host during your stay at the Hidden People Estate of Genethic Rejuvenation. Welcome Ms and Mr Asparagus !”

    Barbara’s luscious mane of blond hair was a sight to behold. Tina was almost jealous. She quickly remembered her guru’s words of the day.

    “ Dogs bark at what they don’t understand: See the Positive

    So despite her hopes for a less effusive (almost annoyingly American) introductions, she got her critical mind busy with quickly finding five things to appreciate about Barbara. It was tougher that it looked. Well, for one, she liked the cleanliness of her white nurse blouse…

    Barbara’s chatter seemed inexhaustible, as they coursed through the grounds of the Estate.
    “Of course, we have arranged for your appointment with the best doctors, they will get you in tip-top shape in no time” she giggled irrepressibly.

    Tina glanced at Quentin. Her cousin was calm as a clam, as usual. He didn’t even seem to register the strangeness of that establishment.

    “I’ll be leaving you to have a hot shower, and refreshments, complimentary of the house of course, and I’ll be meeting you later. Dinner will be served at 7, please be on time. Tomorrow morning, breakfast is served from 7 to 9, and your appointment is at 9:30, with Dr B. In case you need anything, you have my number.” Barbara giggled again, blinking at Quentin in what could hardly be construed as flirting.

    “I’ll skip dinner Q, see you at breakfast tomorrow”, Tina closed the door on her cousin without ceremony.

    She finally collapsed on the bed, crushed by fatigue of the flight, jet-lag and all that road trip through small European winding paths. Made you almost miss Maine.

    #4014

    That cackle again! Blue Bit Bea was at it again.
    Ed just had time to recall some of the past clues, fresh from the shower head which had now turned into a big celadon turnip with electric wires.
    He couldn’t still figure out what caused those surges and reality ripples. That was quite a discomfiture.

    #3978
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      A strange peacefulness enveloped Idle as she stood immobilized beside the sapling. A feeling of imperturbability washed over her, the grace of stillness. She glanced down at her legs and rather liked the smooth cold marble effect; so much more attractive that purple veins and loose skin. While her neck still had a degree of flexibility, she looked around, appreciating the hard still silent trees, their infinite serenity and refreshing lack of hustle bustle.

      But her quiet reverie was not to last long. The sudden appearance of a partly clad woman sent flocks of birds squalking away from the treetops in alarm.

      The woman immediately set to removing her shirt and rearranging it across her torso in an attempt to gain some kind of conventional modesty, dislodging the sticky paper scraps.

      Devan, who had chanced upon this usual scene in his search for his aunt, failed to notice the paper at first, so entranced was he with watching the attractive woman attempt to cover her voluptuous body with a gardening shirt. Mater, breathing heavily from the exertion of the search, came up behind him and slapped him soundly on the back of the head and gave him a push.

      “The paper!” she hissed. “Get the paper!”

      #3971
      Jib
      Participant

        “What happened to you, Finnley ?” asked Liz. The maid, usually neatly permed looked dishevelled and had forgotten to remove her cucumber mask.
        “The delivery man”, began Finnley, “He said someone ordered 30.”
        “30 what ?”
        “30 crates of carrot champagne.”
        “Carrot champagne ? I didn’t know they could make alcohol out of carrots,” said Liz. She pouted lasciviously, thinking of what she could do with all that champagne. She had never taken a bath in champagne, that could be a first. She would have to be careful with the carrot tan though.
        “They can do alcohol with anything”, added Godfrey.
        “Who ordered that ?” asked Liz, “And why 30 crates ?”
        “Apparently, it’s your cousin Badul”, said Finnley. A cucumber fall off her face.
        Liz’ lips closed tight at the mention of her cousin.
        “It’s Badul’s intention to have the wedding at your property.”
        Liz dropped her spaghetti hat on the freshly mown grass. Roberto bent over, showing even more of his crack, to pick up the hat before it attracted ants. Liz bit her lips.

        #3890

        In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

        ÉricÉric
        Keymaster

          Readjusting to Earth had not been as easy as John had thought.
          At the beginning, everything seemed overwhelmingly bright and noisy. The huge blue sky was a wonder to behold, but his eyes couldn’t look at it for long time periods.

          Within a few days, the shock was wearing out, and the gradual realization started to settle, that there was no going back to that place where they were. That moment in space and time was so eerily starting to dissolve in his memory, feeling more and more like a distant fairytale, some story of the past, nothing more than an illusion.
          Yet, it was that place where all his experiences were had. Where he had forged his character, had played, laughed, dreamt, feared, loved.
          It all was almost meaningless. People were looking already at making movies and more distorted illusions of it for pure entertainment.

          So, readjusting himself wasn’t going to be easy, if at all possible.

          They’d released them in the end, not without giving them new identities. Seemed to be a fad these days, not only for protection of international security secrets, but also as a way to escape your irrevocable internet trail. Everything that was documented since your birth, since before you could even give your consent, and realize what was done. More and more were those who wanted a fresh start. What better solution to recycle a bunch of Mars stranded migrants into the fray of life itself.

          #3733

          In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

          Geraldine von Truff, also known as Gelly by her friends was sweating profusely and had opened all the windows to get air.
          “Fracken hot flashes” she said, taking a wet towel to freshen up. It was barely start of spring, and the temperatures were doing yoyo in the most peculiar fashion.

          She logged onto Spayce to check if her next client was there. Maybe she’ll put him on audio, because at the rate she was undressing, he would wonder whether he’d signed on the right account. After all, she was a licenced psychoregressor and helped her clients connect to their subconscious in hypnotic trances. This was all very serious.

          Actually, to be honest, she was quite baffled by the crock of bollocks the subconscious was telling at times, but hell, it was cathartic for her clients, and their well-being was her utmost priority.

          “James? Are you here?”
          James was her client from Glasgow, an affable middle-aged man, who seemed to have taken to her robotic German accent and her hypnoregressive sessions.

          “Yes, Doctor” the sound came in all distorted. “Is it normal I don’t have visual?”
          “Ja, alles ist gut my friend, the internet is playing tricks today. Let’s have it just audio, OK?”
          “Alright then.”
          “I think our session today will be splendid. I already feel all the energies building up.”

        Viewing 20 results - 101 through 120 (of 202 total)