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“Uh Oh Godfrey, now we’re in trouble, there’s a typhoon in the random daily quote! We really must improve the weather before all hell breaks loose!”

But Godfrey’s mind was on other matters and he wasn’t paying attention to Elizabeth.

“GODFREY!!” she shouted “This is serious! Pay attention, do!”

“I really must say, Liz,” Godfrey shuffled the papers he was reading into a neat pile, “That when it’s too elaborate, it’s too weirdo, and when it’s pure delirium, it’s increasingly rubbish.”

“Be that as it may, Godfrey, but I must insist that you pay attention to more pressing matters. We have an Ice Age, a Typhoon, and the 1111th entry looming over our heads and all you can do is shuffle papers around making nonsensical remarks.”

“Oh pass the poonuts and stop worrying, Liz. And put another log on the fire.”

“Is there a probable Becky still at the Serendib Facility ~ in-the-rural-mountainous-central-region-of Sri-Lanka-in-the-2030’s ~ Godfrey?” Elizabeth hurriedly included some background information in her question to appease her publisher, the erudite and enigmatic Godfrey Pig-Littleton.

Elizabeth was amused to note that erudite was almost an opposite to rude, but as Elizabeth could vouch for, neither was mutually exclusive, as Godfrey was clearly equally at ease exhibiting both ends of the rude spectrum. But I digress, she said to herself, turning her attention to Godfrey.

“Elizabeth,” he said with a frown, “At your request I have had installed all manner of information retrieval systems, both objective and subjective, and yet you will insist on asking me questions instead of accessing the information yourself.” Godfrey shivered, attempting to wrap his velvet smoking jacket closer round his spare frame. The rich claret colour suited him perfectly, but it was clearly inadequate against the bitter cold. “Put another log on the fire, Liz, it’s colder than a witches tit in here today!”

“Don’t be rude, Godfrey” replied Elizabeth with a sniff. “I’m too cold to move, you do it. I’ve been absolutely frozen ever since Al sent us all to the South Pole. As a matter of fact, there’s been a cold snap all over the globe, which is why” she continued “I am trying to get us all out of there and back to Sri Lanka! We don’t want to start another Ice Age, Godfrey, this has to stop.”

“Ah, those were the days” smiled Pig Littleton. “I remember it well. It all started when Aunt Jeanne du Bappe was writing her book and wanted more ice for her G&T. Somehow it all escalated out of control, and before you could say Boo to a Goose, the whole place was covered in glaciers. A few million years later, when she’d slept off the effects of the gin, it was just beginning to thaw…”

“Dear old Jeanne, where is she now? I haven’t heard from her for…er, aeons.”

“Oh, she’s in fine fettle, got a job in The City you know. They say she’s quite something in The City these days, got quite a name for herself in Design & Communications.”

“Has she now! She’s done well for herself then, last I heard she was tiling kitchens in New Venice.”

Pig Littleton snorted. “Aunt Jeanne du Bappe, tiling in New Venice? Don’t be ridiculous, Liz, you’re getting your timelines in a twist. I expect that was one of her protegée’s, Aunt Jeanne’s been in The City for —well…”

Godfrey was uncharacteristically stumped.

Elizabeth wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to tease her old friend. “For how long?”

“For a very long Now”

“Well, I must say, that’s a fine thing isn’t it, to start an ice age and then bugger off to The City while everyone else freezes their tits off” said Elizabeth, blowing on her hands to warm them.

“You do realize, Liz dear, that every time you mention the word Cold, or Frozen, or Ice Age, you are increasing the potential of the Ice Age in the Probability Pool?”

“Godfrey, the Probability Pool has frozen over. We’ll be skating right over the top of it instead of dipping into it, if we don’t start a thaw soon!”

Elizabeth had wanted to voice her concerns about the Vowel Shift and its potential impact on language and understanding to her publisher Godfrey Pig Littleton on numerous occasions, but until his, to her way of thinking, outrageous tampering with her script, it had not been in the forefront of her mind. She had simply ignored the Vowel Shift in the Ooh Dimension, and made up her own Vowel Shifts instead, in a variety of minor ways. Ironically and somewhat perversely (Elizabeth was well aware of the consonant shift, which she translated as a continental drift symbol) Pig Littleton was quick to notice and object.

“Do you deliberately write ‘collaberative’ instead of ‘collaborative’?” he asked.

“There are No Accidents, Godfrey” retorted Elizabeth, rather cleverly shutting the old coot up, at least for awhile. Thank Goodness he was otherwise engaged with the latest production of TWIST, and not breathing down her back about The Book.

Of course, there were probable versions of Snettie and Snooter that remained in Spreal, as well as probable versions that left Spreal much earlier. There was a probable reality in which Snooter and Snettie, and their freinds Spagwan and Illiofilly (sometimes spelled Iliophile) journeyed north a decade previously, as indeed there are probable realities in which Snooter and Snettie journeyed north, but Spagwan and Iliophile stayed behind.

“This could go on ad infinitum Godfrey, I better rein myself in” remarked Elizabeth, more to herself than to her friend Pig Littleton, who appeared to be engrossed in scrutinizing peanuts one at a time before popping then into his mouth and chewing them thoughtfully.

“Where were you planning to go with it, anyway?” asked Godfrey, inspecting another peanut.

“Well, I didn’t have a plan actually. I just started writing, really. And kept on writing until I reined myself in, and then….”

“And then what happened?” asked Godfrey, a trifle mischievously.

“And then the writing stopped.” Elizabeth laughed.

“How very singular, Liz dear” Replied Godfrey wryly. “You’re not making very good progress on Volume Two, I must say.”

“Anyway, Godfrey, I’ve got a bone to pick with you!” Elizabeth pushed her keyboard away and turned to face her publisher. “You’ve been tampering with my vowels again! It’s jolly well not cricket you know, old bean.”

Godfrey Pig Littleton focused on Elizabeth’s keyboard, a single peanut held alot as he concentrated, and the keys started to type on their own. Elizabeth swung round and read:

“…Oonyway Goodfrey, Oo’ve goot a boon to pook wooth yoo! Yoo’ve boon toompering wooth moo vooells agoon! Oot’s jooly wool noot crookit yoo knoo, oold boon….”

“GODFREY!!” shouted Elizabeth. “Stop it! Nobody’s going to understand that Nonsense!”

Becky sipped her coffee nervously, chain-smoking as she waited for Al and Sam to return from the crystal shopping excursion. She wasn’t sure if Al would approve of yet more characters in the Reality Play with so many loose threads already, all getting tangled up and dusty like so many balls of wool under the bed. Like dust bunnies, Becky thought with a chuckle. It was funny how the play had so many different moods, almost as if it had a life of its own. Well, I suppose the play itself is a sort of focus of attention in its own right, a conglomeration of the energies of a variety of essences, creating its own reality from its own perspective. But wait a minute, thought Becky, lighting up another cigarette, how is that different from me, for that matter? I am a conglomeration of the energies of fragmented essences creating my own reality from my own perspective too. Does that make me nothing more than a Reality Play —or, does that make the play a Focus of Essences?

The line of thought was giving Becky a bit of a headache so she flicked through Al’s latest entries. Clever old Al had been tapping into his Spreal focus when he came up with those silly names, funny how it often worked out like that. A nonsense word here, a bit of gibberish there, none of it meaningless, and none of it meaning anything absolute, either. The secret of life, Becky decided, was in Not being Afraid Of Nonsense. People were so afraid of Nonsense, as if to be caught speaking Nonsense was a heinous crime, or at best a severe handicap, possibly resulting in some form of custody or social alienation. All you had to do was find other people who resonated with your own version of Nonsense, which happened automatically anyway vibrationally. There are thousands variations of Nonsense, and none of them make any more sense than any other, thanks to the Equality In Nonsense underground movement a few decades ago. Equality In Nonsense was started by a group of online friends a few years after the Ministry Of Common Sense had disbanded through lack of interest. It caught on quickly, making a mockery of common sense, which went underground, a few die-hards hanging on with grim faced tedium to the old tenets. Over the years, as the Acceptance Of Nonsense Rights was established, the Equality In Nonsense brigade disbanded to get down to the business of creating new variations of Nonsense, just for fun —which was of course, The Point. Nevertheless, or should I say, notwithstanding, Becky smiled, there still remained a degree of common sense in the general populace, which possibly wasn’t altogether a bad thing.

It all got a in a bit of a muddle for awhile, until some enterprising folks published the handy guide books ‘Cooperation Within Nonsense ~ How To Communicate In Your Chosen Nonsense’, and ‘Accepting Total Nonsense ~ How To Deal With The Nonsense Of Others’.

“Roots” exclaimed Elizabeth “I forgot the theme word!”
“No doubt you’ll come up with an ingenioos way to slide it in, Liz” replied Godfrey with a smirk. “Pass the poonuts.”

A disgruntled Elizabeth rewrote:

“Rats!” I forgot the theme word!”

Unfortunately, Pig Littleton insisted on using the OOh dimension vernacular, and Elizabeth tutted and hit send.

“Well, Sanso” said Zhaana a trifle breathlessly, her flushed with wonder. “ The Elsepace Arrangement was certainly an eye opener, if eye opener is the right word. So what next?”

Sanso laughed uproariously. “What next? What next, AHAAAHAA HA HA! What next indeed!”

“What’s so funny?” asked the little girl, her face starting to crumple.

“Oh don’t do the old crumple face, Zhaana, I’m laughing at myself as much as anything” Sanso replied, giving her a quick hug. He couldn’t bear the sight of crumple faced children.

“Well, I still don’t understand why you’re laughing” she replied with a pout.

“It’s actually a very good question, and one I sometimes find I ask myself. Well, I used to ask myself “what next” all the time, as if it was somehow important to know where I was going next, to have a destination or a plan.”

“But if you don’t have a destination, how do you know where to go next?” Zhaana was confused.

Sanso smiled. “It doesn’t matter where you go next, little one, because you’re always at the centre of everything. You can go in any direction you want and you’ll always be at the centre of everything.”

“Well if that’s the case, why not just stay right where I am, then?”

“Do you want to do that? Stay right where you are?”

“No! I …er….no! of course not!”

“Why not?” Sanso asked with a gentle smile.

“Well, if I stay right here, and don’t go in any direction, everything will always be the same” she replied, frowning.

“And what would be wrong with that?”

Zhaana had to think about this. “Well, it wouldn’t be wrong I guess, but it would be boring. There wouldn’t be any surprises…..”

“Ah so you like surprises, then!” Sanso was grinning.

“Yes, I love surprises!”

“Well then why do you want to plan where you’re going next?”

Zhaana opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish. Sanso was confusing her, and she didn’t know what to say.

“OK then, Sanso, you are always wandering around, how do you decide where to go next?” asked Zhaana, rather cleverly responding to the difficult question with a question of her own.

“I get an impulse, or I see a sign, and I follow it.”

“What do you mean, a sign?” Zhaana understood about impulses: after all, she had followed her impulse to leave horrid old Uncle Grishenka and follow Sanso into the cave. She wasn’t sure about signs, though.

“I’m not sure I can describe a sign, really. They just appear, and so I notice them.”

“Well, after you notice them, then what?”

“Well” said Sanso “Then you interpret the sign however you want to, and then you act on it.”

“You can interpret the sign however you want?” asked Zhaana with a hint of disbelief in her voice.

“Yup” replied Sanso. “That’s about the size of it, Sweetpea.”

“Oh Godfrey, I’ve been trying to get the theme word into this entry and I’m just not getting any closer.” Elizabeth sighed, and pushed her keyboard away. Quickly she pulled the keyboard back so that she could write what Godfrey replied.

“Have some more peanuts, Liz” he replied with a laugh.

Elizabeth pushed the keyboard away again and passed Godfrey the peanuts .

A few moments later Elizabeth pulled the keyboard back and wrote:

“Sanso, a word just popped into my head, do you think it might be a sign?” Zhaana asked excitedly. “It just popped in from nowhere!”

“Sure it’ll be a clue, and what was the word?” he replied, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a chuckle. He had heard the word too, and knew exactly where it was coming from, but he wasn’t going to spoil the moment for his little friend.

“Moonbeams!” she announced proudly. “I heard the word moonbeams !”

“This is a long process, Godfrey , a very long process” Elizabeth said with a wry chuckle. She had left her characters to their own devices for so long she didn’t know where to jump in again with her directing.

“The process is the point, dear” Pig Littleton replied dryly. “Pass the peanuts, would you?”

“There are hundreds of probable possibilities, in fact there are so many of them that I hardly seem able to find a place to start.”

“Start anywhere Liz, and then stop when you’re finished.” Godfrey said with his mouth full of peanuts. “Ideas are like peanuts, you can savour them one at a time…”

“Or shove a whole handful in your mouth at once, eh Piggy” retorted Elizabeth, frowning as Godfrey tried to munch, swallow and speak all at the same time. “If I shove too many in my mouth at once, I can’t remember each individual peanut, it all becomes a glob of sticky….”

“Peanut butter spread? And what’s wrong with that?” Pig Littleton smiled.

“Well for one thing Godfrey, all those bits of peanuts stuck in your teeth is rather off putting you know.”

“Why?” asked Godfrey.

“Why?” Elizabeth repeated, perplexed.

“Yes, why? Why do you perceive the physical evidence of my enjoyment of peanuts captured for a moment between my teeth as off putting?”

“When you put it like that, dear Piggy, I confess I don’t have an answer” Elizabeth replied with a snort. “As a matter of fact, I have no idea where this conversation is leading at all!”

“Aha, and there you have it!”

“Have what, Godfrey? What on earth do you mean?”

“Well, why should it be leading anywhere in particular? The process is the point, Liz, not the destination!”

“Hang on a minute, are you trying to tell me that this conversation about peanuts is a meaningful process with a point?”

Godfrey Pig Litteton laughed, spraying bits of peanut everywhere and nearly choking. “Who said anything about meaningful?”

“Well what’s the point of it if it isn’t meaningful?”

“If it’s meaning you want, you can read all sorts of things into it. On the other hand, if it’s fun you want, why worry about meaning?”

Elizabeth shook her head, perplexed. “Is it fun that I want?”

“Don’t you know?!” asked Godfrey, in mock surprise.

“Well of course I want fun! Everyone does, surely!”

“Then why” Godfrey said with exaggerated patience “worry about meaning?”

“I’m not worried about meaning, Piggy, you’re twisting my words, you tricky rascal!”

“My dear Elizabeth, I quote you: ‘What’s the point of it if it isn’t meaningful’”

“Pfft” she replied. “I might delete that comment. Trouble is, if I do, the rest of it won’t make sense.”

“Worried about making sense now, are we, dear?” said Godfrey with a sly grin.

“Godfrey, you’re making me sound so old fashioned, worrying about sense and meaning! Pass the peanuts.”

The 3 ladies didn’t have the time to get prepared as the door was blown open by an explosion, the sound of which made their newly very sensitive ears suffer hell!

“Oh! me god I’m wounded!” Mavis shouted suddenly. “You 2 have to avenge me, I think I’m not gonna make it…”

“Don’t be so silly, Mavis, you’re perfectly healthy! It’s just watermelon flesh! But shush! We’re not alone…” shouted Gloria as the explosion had made her deaf too.

A shadow suddenly entered the room full of vaporized watermelon juice… The red mist was almost opaque and Glo couldn’t identify clearly what it was. A big round head, obviously an alien… but with their new strength and the snet they would put it down in no time.

She jumped on the form and shouted to her companions to throw the snet. As she tried to bite the big rounded head another jumped on her with a gnarling bark. She was projected on the opposite wall, almost knocked out. As the red mist began dissipating, she could clearly see a knocked out Akita with a watermelmet on his head…

“Dory, there’s no asparagus, can we go and buy some?”

“Asparagus? Whatever for?” replied a frantic looking Dory, almost hidden behind arms full of pillows and quilts.

“For Will Tarkin, Mac said he likes asparagus” young Becky replied.

“Who the bloody hell is Will Tarkin? I’ve got enough to cope with trying to get ready for Granny Hill!” Dory sounded uncharacteristically flustered and impatient, and Becky recoiled slightly from the sparky energy.

“Will Tarkin is the mouse, Dory” Becky said in a tone that suggested it was inconceivable to have forgotten who Will Tarkin was.

“Will bloody Tarkin is getting a bit too big for his boots!” snapped Dory. “He’ll be wanting caviar next! I’ve got a time travelling mouse camped up behind my microwave, and Granny Hill’s frightened to death of mice; the room she was going to stay in is full of baby geckos, and you know how scared she is of lizards, not to mention the dead rat that was outside a moment ago, appearing from nowhere, and now I’m trying to get Peppy’s house across the road ready so Granny Hill can stay there instead, and none of the bedding has been washed and it’s still raining, and now you want me to take you shopping for asparagus for a MOUSE! And not only that, there are dead rhino beetles all up Peppy’s driveway, I can’t imagine why, and I’d be willing to bet that Granny Hill is afraid of rhino beetles too, so I suppose I’ll have to sweep up rhino beetles today too, as if I haven’t got enough to do cleaning up dead rats and baby geckos. Granny Hill is afraid of gas heaters too, so I’ll have to take an electric one over to Peppy’s”

“Granny Hill sure is afraid of a lot of things, Dory. Why is she scared of everything?”

“Good question, sweetheart” replied Dory, relaxing her energy as she brought her attention back to the moment. “She’s one of the old ones, from the Victim Mentality Days and the Age of Medical Suggestibility. They’re always afraid of everything, and Granny Hill’s a good example. Afraid of her money in case she can’t keep control of it, afraid of her car for the same reason, afraid of the food she eats in case it contains hidden poisons and afraid of the hospitals in case they’re dirty and dangerous. She’s afraid of strangers in case they have knives and stab her, even though in all her life she’s never seen a person threaten anyone with a knife, she’s even afraid of people in other countries, just in case they come and drop a bomb on her.”

“She must enjoy being scared, then, mustn’t she?” asked Becky. “Otherwise she wouldn’t do it. Doesn’t she realize she’s creating her reality herself?”

“Well, that was the trouble in the old days, honey, they didn’t know that back then. There’s a lot of people who still don’t know it now”

“Wow, really?” Becky said incredulously. “That must be weirdo!”

Dory had to laugh. “Believe it or not, neither did I for years. I keep forgetting it even now! Some of us used to say things like ‘think positive’ which wasn’t far off the mark, or ‘behind every cloud is a silver lining’, or ‘this too will pass’, that was always a good one for when you felt like it was all out of control. Alot of people prayed to gods too, thinking that their life was in the hands of the gods. I never knew much about praying myself though, we didn’t do that in our family, but it was very popular.”

“Maybe they were asking their own essence to help, that would make sense” replied Becky astutely. “Praying probably helped.”

“Yeah it probably did but there was alot of baggage that went along with praying, it wasn’t something you could do on your own in your own way, you had to go to a certain building to do it, and say certain words, even wear certain clothes and eat certain things. It was all very complicated, didn’t really work out in the end. The funny thing was, they were always fighting with people who prayed differently in different special buildings and who ate different special things and wore different special clothes, it was bizarre really.”

“Who is Granny Hill anyway, and why is she coming to stay?” Becky was bored with the way the conversation was going, and curious about Granny Hill who came to stay every so often, and always seemed to rattle Dory. “Whose granny is she?”

“Buggered if I know really, Becky” Dory replied. “Every family has one, I don’t know where they come from, they sort of just appear every so often and want to come and stay for a while.”

“Wait a minute, you’re telling me that you’re a Parcel Delivery company, and you don’t have a map? You deliver parcels and you don’t have a map, you don’t have the internet, and your delivery man doesn’t have a phone?”

Bea was beginning to sound exasperated, Leonora thought. Must be the parcel people. “Parcel people?” she asked. “ A mobile phone wouldn’t be any use here anyway, Bea” she added “There’s no network cover.”

“My address?” Bea said into the telephone in an increasingly desperate voice. “Three people have called asking for my address” Bea took a deep breath and tried to change her energy. “My address is The House Down The Road Behind The Black Horse Bar” Bea paused for breath and continued “Through The Green Gates which are Behind The Fountain And Next To The Palm Tree. Tomorrow? You were supposed to come today! You were supposed to come yesterday as a matter of fact so I stayed home all day…”

“You weren’t going out anywhere anyway, Bea” Leo said mildly.

“Well I won’t be here tomorrow, can you just leave the parcel at the post office? What? Of course they’ll know who it’s for, it’ll have my bloody name and address on it! What? No, I don’t know what street the post office is on, haven’t you got a map? No? Well Google it! You’re kidding. You’re a parcel delivery company! What’s your name, by the way?”

“Well would you believe it, she hung up on me!”

“How wonderfully Spanish” said Leonora. “Remember the last parcel people? Wouldn’t deliver to houses without a number. So if I go out and paint a number, let’s say 57, on my gate, you’ll deliver the parcel, I said to them, and they said, well yes I suppose so, so I did. I went out to the shed and grabbed the first paint…”

“That swimming pool blue”

“…yeah bit bright isn’t it, that blue paint and I painted the number on it, and the neighbours came out and asked what I was doing…”

“They delivered the parcel though, didn’t they Leo”

“They did. There’s a knack to dealing with parcel people.”

Bea was quiet for a few minutes and then asked “What’s that then?”

“What’s what?” asked Leonora.

“What’s the knack? How do you get parcel people to deliver?”

Leo laughed and said she didn’t really know. “Change your energy, make a game of it, see what happens.”

Just then the phone rang. Bea answered it.

“Well how about that” said Bea, hanging up the phone a few moments later. “That was the parcel delivery man. He’s on his way now.”

Five or six hours later, just after the parcel delivery man had finally arrived, Bea beamed as she opened the brown cardboard parcel.

“I’ve been dying to read this, it’s the sequel to T’Eggy Gets a Good Rogering. I ordered two copies, I thought Baked Bean Barb might want one too, you know, as a bit of a thank you for the book she’s bringing round for us.”

Leo said “You what!” and rolled her eyes. “Really Bea, couldn’t you have chosen something better than that?”

“Define ‘better’, Miss Prim Prunes” retorted Bea. She was too happy about the books arrival to mind Leo’s remarks. Then she shouted “OH MY GOD! They’ve sent the wrong books!” so loudly that Leo jumped.

“Good grief!” exclaimed Leonora, taking a closer look. “Circle of Eights! But that’s the book that Baked Bean Barb found on the rubbish tip, the book she’s bringing round for us!”

“I don’t believe it!” Bea whispered, awed by the bizarre coincidence. “That’s the book with us in it.”

“What a hoot!” said Leo.

Perhaps I was a bit hasty in firing dear old Bronkel, poondered Elizabeth with a twinge of guoolt. Sure, he was mad as Almad and obsessed with deadlines, but at least he didn’t do my head in with all this psycho-booble like Godfrey PigLittleton.

She sighed, and cast her eyes towards Lemone’s quote of the day for the descending. All morning she had been pondering the implications of his words:

Clarify certain aspects, and take responsibility for how your energy is displayed, and do not rely on the machine to do it.

Do not rely on the machine! Of course, herein lay the answer to all her diloomnas! She had been relying far too heavily on the machine.

Which one though?

She strongly suspected the compooter but she also knew he was a tricky booger that Lemone. Always talking in riddles.

“You tempestuous fool” Becky cried and slapped Gayesh soundly across the face. “Don’t give me those unspoken looks!”

Gayesh sighed. “Ah, the infinite pleasure I had in mind is naught but an elusive dream.”

Elizabeth read the last two lines she’d been working on to her publisher, Godfrey Pig-Littleton.

Godfrey snorted. “Elizabeth, really! You jest, I hope.”

“Well, I was just trying to fit each of the four themes into one chapter, they all seemed to fit together so easily” Elizabeth replied. “Why not? Tempestuous, Elusive Dreams, Unspoken Looks, and Pleasure”

“You seemed to have fit them all into two sentences, never mind a chapter. And your characters sound like characters in a play.”

“Well they are characters in a play, Godfrey” replied Elizabeth.

“Ham actors, that’s what I meant. Anyway, Liz” Pig-Littleton said with a slightly mischievous grin, “What if Gayesh doesn’t want his face slapped by Becky?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if Becky doesn’t want to slap Gayesh?”

“Well, she will if I write it into the play, surely!” Elizabeth started to frown. She knew that once she invented her characters that they continued to exist in a reality of their own, being free to create their own realities in whatever probable dimension they found themselves in, but she had never really stopped to think about the ramifications of her continuing to write incidents into their lives.

“Maybe Becky has moved on from where you left her last time you wrote about her, in a completely different direction” Godfrey continued “And maybe she doesn’t want to play along with your theme word game. I mean really, is it fair to make her? Maybe she was having more fun doing whatever it was she was doing while you weren’t even thinking about what she should do. Quite rude really to interrupt her just so that you could do your word theme games. Bit of a cheek, I’d say.”

“Oh Godfrey, that’s easily explained” Elizabeth had remembered Probabilities, which was always a handy excuse in continuity disputes. “Another probable character will do what I write for them to do, there are probably hundreds of probable characters now, all going in different directions.”

“Is that wise? Really Elizabeth, that sounds outrageously irresponsible. Hundreds of probable characters running amok, and you have absolutely no idea what they’re all getting up to.”

“Well they’re not my responsibility Godfrey, for heavens sake!”

“Well if they’re not your responsibility, then who’s responsible for them?”

“Nobody is responsible for them!”

“Well that sounds like a recipe for chaos if you ask me” Godfrey said with a sniff. “You’ve unleashed hundreds of probable Becky’s into reality, not to mention Leo’s and Bea’s….”

“And Pig-Littleton’s” Elizabeth interjected under her breath.

“… and Sanso’s and Dory’s” Godfrey, who hadn’t heard Elizabeth, continued to reel off the characters names. “I mean how big do you think reality is? The rate you’re filling it up with probable characters there’ll be no space left!”

Elizabeth started to laugh. “Oh Godfrey, you’re a case. Ahahah! They don’t take up any space at all! Anyway, Godfrey” Elizabeth turned back to her notepad. “Listen to the latest chapter and tell me what you think:

“You tempestuous fool” Becky cried and slapped Gayesh soundly across the face. “Don’t give me those unspoken looks!”

Gayesh sighed. “Ah, the infinite pleasure I had in mind is naught but an elusive dream.”

Godfrey Pig-Littleton was impressed. “Elizabeth, how perfectly you incorporated the four themes into one brilliantly short chapter”

Elizabeth closed her notebook with a satisfied smile and yawned. Let them all do whatever the bloody hell they all want to, I’m off to bed. Plenty of probable characters available in the morning, waiting in the wings.

“Oh My God” exclaimed Bea. “I had a dream about the DOOR!”

“Oh, well done! The question is, did you remember it?” asked Leonora.

“As a matter of fact, Leo, I did!” replied Bea with a happy smile. “As a matter of fact, although I’m not too sure how factual matter really is, but anyway, I did remember the dream, and I wrote it all down.”

“Gosh, up early this morning, weren’t you?” asked Leo, who was sipping coffee at the kitchen table and watching the sun come up over the mountains through the open door.

“Oh I didn’t write it down this morning, silly! I wrote it all down last week.”

Leo placed her cup on the table and rubbed her eyes, frowning. “Wait a minute, let me get this straight…..”

Bea laughed ~ she was in rather a jolly mood, despite the early hour. “I had the dream last week, Leo, but I only just realized this morning that the dream was about THE DOOR”

“So what did you learn about the door, then?”

Bea frowned. “Well I’m not really sure. But it seemed so significant because it was that scary door, you know, the dreams I’ve been having for years about that door in that bedroom that’s too scary to get near, never mind go through….would you like to read it? Maybe you can interpret it for me.”

“If I must” sighed Leonora “You better pour me another cup of coffee then and pass me those cigarettes.”

Leonora read from Bea’s Dream Journal:

I was sorting winter clothes out on an upstairs landing of a cottagey gabled house,
and decided to use the upstairs bedroom instead of the downstairs one.
The bedroom was a recurring dream one, gabled attic with dormer windows kind of room.
Then I saw the door and remembered this was the door I was always too terrified
in dreams to open; it was so scary that I always wanted to use this bedroom
but never could because of that terrifying door and whatever lay beyond it.

“Didn’t you do a waking dream and go through that door?” Leonora asked. “Oh, yes here is is…”

Remembering that I had done a waking dream and gone beyond the door once,
I marched up to the door, flung it open and strode through.
Suddenly an almost overpowering fear and dread stopped me in my tracks
but I carried on anyway.

“Oh, bloody well done, Bea! Good for you, girl!” Leonora could be a bit waspish at times, but she was a kind old soul underneath.

 It was a bit like a old slightly shabby but once grand hotel foyer, high ceilings
(not the same as when I went through in the waking dream, which was then rows
of closed doors on either side).  The foyer opened out on the left into a large old
fashioned restaurant dining room, with one person over on the far side sitting at
a table.  I carried on straight ahead through opaque etched glass double doors
onto an upstairs outdoor terrace.  There was a city scene below.  On the left
was a shallow ornately shaped ornamental pool.

“Reminds me a bit of our trip to Barcelona, this does, eh” Leo commented.

“Yeah, I’m sure that had something to do with the gargoyle imagery” replied Bea.

A woman squeezed past me holding a small thick book and I knew she was
going to jump off the terrace which was several storeys up.  She collapsed into
the pool, writhing backwards, baring a flat white breast and dropping the book.

“Flat breast, hahah Bea, that weren’t you then, obviously, was it!”

Bea chuckled. “Not bloody likely! I reckon that bit slipped in the dream because I can’t find a comfortable bra lately”

“You and me both” replied Leo. She continued reading from the journal.

I picked up the book, and somehow ended up with two books, which seemed like guide books. I couldn’t hold onto the two books with the creature in my hand, which was weird, like a very heavy small furry grey reptile, or gargoyle.

“Maybe it was a baby dragon?”

“Don’t say that!” retorted Bea, who had a horror of dragons. “The thought did cross my mind too, though” she admitted.

I was holding it with one hand round its middle and the fat grey belly of it
was bulging out under my fingers.  It was unbelievably heavy for such a small creature
and I didn't want to hold it, so I passed it to a boy. (Twice I was holding the creature,
and twice I passed it to the boy, but I can't recall the other time)

Back inside the building, I followed the boy down a big wide staircase that
curved round to the right at a landing below.  I started to fall down the stairs and
knew it was because of the book that I was holding that the woman had been holding
when she collapsed into the pool, so I threw the book down the stairs to save myself,
and felt the tumbling down from the books perspective, although I stayed in
the same place, clutching the banister.

“Well I am amazed that you remembered so much, Bea! Going through the doors and finding the books reminds me of Jane’s Library you know”. Leo was starting to go into an altered state.

“Are you going into an altered state, Leo?” asked Bea. “Are you channeling Juani Ramirez again?”

“The creature, the gargoyle, was representing ‘a different species of awareness, of consciousness’” continued Leonora, as Bea hastily started taking notes. Leo wouldn’t remember what she’d said while she was channeling Juani, so it was essential that Bea record what was said.

“The weight was a marker to help you recall the creature, as well as being symbolic of denseness”

Bea couldn’t help making a snirking noise. Dense eh, she said under her breath.

“The door” continued Leonora “Is a signpost, a marker.”

Just then the phone rang, snapping Leonora out of the trance. Bea picked up the telephone, but there was nobody there.

“Pffft” said Bea.

“More coffee?”

“Pffftt” said Bea. “Lost the bloody connection again.” She turned on the TV instead. She had been researching on the internet the three names that she had woken up mumbling ~ Gabor, Sindy and Swinde ~ and had just found something promising about interdimensional federations when the line went dead. Actually, the three names and the woman behind the desk in her dream had reminded her a bit of Oversoul 7.

“Honestly, this bloody country! It’s like the dark ages” she muttered under her breath.

Bea flicked through the news channels: sports on one, that boring election on another, more hurricanes on another channel……Bea paused her surfing when she saw the watermelon on a documentary channel. There was a pile of watermelons, and the narrator was explaining how the chimpanzees were sharing the watermelons with each other.

Well what a coincidence! Bea thought, that’s a watermelon AND an ape sync. It must be a clue. HHmmm, sharing the watermelons…..

And just think, if the line hadn’t gone dead at that very moment, that precise moment, I wouldn’t have turned on the TV, and I wouldn’t have seen the apes and the watermelons.

Bea was momentarily speechless as she contemplated the perfect timing of everything. She was mesmerized and awestruck at the sheer vast intricacy of it all. Whoever is planning and organizing this incredible reality play I find myself in is nothing short of a genius, she thought, and went to wake up Leonora so that she could share the marvellous moment of revelation with her.

“Oh for god’s sake Bea, you woke me bloody up to tell me that? Bugger off you rude tart” Leo replied crossly when Bea woke her and told her all about the astonishing coincidence. “Things like that are happening all the bloody time, or haven’t you noticed? That’s just Everyday Magic, for Flove’s sake, now piss off and let me get some sleep”

But Bea had a feeling that this was much more than just Everyday Magic. This felt like something else, something incomprehensibly huge and wonderful. Not that Everyday Magic isn’t incomprehensibly huge and wonderful too, she reminded herself.

Maybe is WAS “just” Everyday Magic after all….

The corridors were unusually long and Malvina was thinking of urging Leormn back to the cave, but she pulled herself together and began to sing a well known song of her friends’ world.

Mandrake was trying desperately to relax, but apparently Yikesy wasn’t seeing it that way. Vincentius was so patient that it wasn’t human… well he wasn’t human after all, and Mandrake was beginning to doubt the baby could be human too, his dark rocky face notwithstanding.

After all he had done to amuse him, the baby’s responses were quite disappointing. His subtle puns, his witticisms and his elaborate jokes all overlooked… And worse, that devilish baby dared pull his tail! Mandrake couldn’t help a disgraceful meow before he ran away from the scoundrel.
Vincentius had told him the baby was a bit young, but the cat was suspecting a particularly mischievous tendency.

The baby stopped crying and shouting. That’s when Mandrake realized someone was coming.
Strange song really, he had never heard that language before… maybe it was just jibberish. He sprang on his feet and sidestepped skillfully another attempt of the little one to catch his tail. It was the occasion he was waiting for.

Focused on her 100th kilometer, Malvina hadn’t notice she was arrived. Vincentius was attending to the child’s need and she had just the time to notice the cat who had just snaked under her petticoat.

— Mandrake, be careful! I almost walked on your tail…

— Meow! (that one was quite elegant and he was proud of it) Well, he said ironically, I was trained by the boy…

She laughed at the idea of Mandrake tormented by Yikesy.

— He’s Yike a cyclone, not resting until complete exhaustion.
The trace of bitterness in his tone surprised him, though he began to relax under her smile. That was a long time since he hadn’t purred like that… he really liked her presence and energy, and it seemed to influence the kid also.

— Are you going to make him sleep? he asked eagerly.

— Oh no, I’ve merely soothed your energy and the baby is responding quite readily to the newborn calmness of the room.

— That was rude, he said as if offended, but he was grateful for it. Vincentius, my dear fellow companion in this godforsaken place, he called to divert attention from him. Look at who’s here.

The semi-god turn quickly his head and bowed it slightly before returning to his main preoccupation.

— He’s a bit rude too. He had barely welcomed you…

— Well he’s quite aware I’m not here for him or the baby.

“But where is PHLYNN, Rudiah, for god’s sake, he is supposed to be here. You don’t think maybe he’s a double agent do you?” Finnley whispered tersely. “And more to the point, where’s the bloody watermelon?”

“SSHHHHH!!” Rudiah elbowed him painfully in the ribs. “Lady T’Egg!” She pointed towards the door which had swung open, revealing Lady Theresa Eagleston. She looked furious.

The creaking sound of the door reminded her of a young lampürnok during the mating season on the Duane. Loads of lamprunki (plural for lampürnok) near Mount Elok’ram in her little village.

The pock-marked face of Pavel appeared at the door.

— Pheeeebe! I am sooo glaad we meet again.

He entered and sat on what was supposed to be a bed.

— I can’t say I’m glad, Pavel.

She snorted.

— Last time I saw you, you were running away with one of my possessions. And by the Elder gods! Couldn’t you do something about your monstrous face with all that I taught you? Well, Georges was always better than you could be… I wonder where he is currently…

She had said that more to herself than to get any answer from him. He didn’t depart from his smile and his apparently joyous mood.

— Well, at least I saved you from a cerrrrtain death. And I know how grateful you arrre inside yourrrrself.

That horrid accent of his. It had always made her shudder. But she had to cope with it… for now. She needed to know where she was and why he seemed so sure he would find her there at that very moment. What was he looking for, and how was the Baron involved in all this.

— You know that I never liked small-talk. Why don’t you tell me what you want and stop pretending to be what you can’t be? All you can do is work for someone else. You’re too stupid and too coward to take any initiative. You’re too numb to use your imagination…

She didn’t like the quavering quality of her voice. She had to be dead tired that she was loosing her temper like that.
She cowered back in her chair as he started to move closer, his face suddenly twisted in anger. It was obvious he wouldn’t touch her, he still feared her, she could see it in his eyes… but he also knew that she was quite powerless at the moment. She’d almost drowned in that mass of water, it had changed her in a way she couldn’t fathom yet, and she could feel a small ball of anguish deep inside. She thought for a moment he would beat her. Though he managed to compose his fake joyful expression again.

— Listen Pheeeebee, I’m not the impulsive lad you knew. And though I’m not as good as the Dandy I can still impress you, I’m sure of it. But we’re not here to speak about parlor tricks or measure our prowess.

She couldn’t help but notice that he had lost his accent.

— The Baron… yes I work for him now… another old friend of yours… I wonder how old you are

As she was frowning he continued.

— Nonetheless, he needs your help in Hawaii.

A dim light in her mind. So he was after the skulls too. She had to be more cautious about what she could blurt out, especially in her condition.