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  • #4114
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      Liz adjusted her reclining chair and lit another cigarette. Idly, she contemplated getting up to make another cup of tea, but was not thus far compelled to take the necessary action. There were advantages and disadvantages to locking the others in the cellar to work on her anthology. She had to make her own tea, it was true, but the unaccustomed peace was worth it ~ so far, anyway. Glancing out of the window, she noticed the lawns were in need of mowing and the herbaceous borders needed dead heading, but it was still green and pretty, if a trifle unkempt, and the birds still sang in the branches of the plum tree. “Blubbit, blubbit, blubbit,” they seemed to be calling, with the occasional “peakle!” shreik.

      “Can’t get the staff to stick around and mow the grass these days,” the thought popped into her head, which reminded her of something else, something a wise man had once said about certain types of gardeners. “Great at planting the seeds, not so reliable about finishing the weeding, though.”

      A loud rumble like approaching thunder roused Liz from her thoughtful reverie. She was hungry. “I wonder if Finnley had the decency to leave some Peasland soup in the freezer?”

      #4112

      In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

      “And what does it mean?” James asked Gelly.
      “2. The Receptive, ach, es means quietness is gut, ja. Und es ist a good time to ask yourself ‘Am I sincerely pursuing the gut für its own sake, or do Ich have ein hidden agenda?’.”

      Gelly was drawing the I-Ching to help James about his question. He still had doubts about his decision to enroll.

      “Did you have any chance to reach Floverley?”
      “Ach, She is tricky Master, very subtle energy, difficult to draw in, but yes, she has manifested herself a few times. She seems to like my owl sehr much.”
      “I would be interested in connecting with Her, can you setup an appointment?”
      “Oh, that would be interesting, why not, let me put you in… what about… next week? same time?”
      “That would be great thanks.”

      :fleuron:

      Edward removed the VR helmet from his head, and looked at Florence’s pod on the surveillance cam with a forlorn look on his face.

      He was well aware that, like many “normal” people in the Great Simulation, Gelly was just another program developed and maintained by the central system, REYE itself. But sometimes REYE’s programs managed to get buggy, glitchy or a bit on the fringe of the acceptable parameters. Gelly was one of those programs, not completely autonomous, but sort of aware of the beyond of her parameters. In any case, Ascended Master would look for no lesser caliber of persons to enlighten. So, she was quite a potential lure to Floverley, or even Dispersee.

      James was Edward’s completely virtual avatar, and James’ online meetings with Gelly could fit undetected within the acceptable boundaries of the whole program and go beyond the radar of the ever-looking REYE.

      Edward couldn’t wait to meet with Flo next week.

      #4104
      Jib
      Participant

        “Is that lamb head on the menu?” asked Connie with a grimace on her face. “I can’t believe it.”

        “It looks like it, dear”, retorted Sophie offhandedly. “Don’t look at me like that, I’ve seen and eaten worse.”

        “Ewh”, said Connie, “I don’t want to know.” She was not quite honest, her reporter blood was thirsty about good and juicy stories. But she was not here to interview the temp, and the menu was leaving her perplexed. “What’s Hrútspungar ?”

        “You don’t want to know”, said Sophie, “Trust me.”

        Connie craved some vegan food and they didn’t seem to have any vegetables in the hotel restaurant. She pouted and finally gave up. “Take whatever you want, I’ll follow.”

        “You like to live dangerously”, said Sophie.
        “Whatever”, retorted Connie with a sigh. She put a hand on her round belly. “It may be an opportunity to begin that diet.”

        Sophie snorted. She never believed in diet. She had tried them all, just for fun, but she eventually found the rules boring and just forgot about the whole diet business.

        “Nice beehive hair Ladies”, said the waiter with an appreciative look at their heads. “What will you order?” he asked opening his small notebook.

        Sophie smiled at the compliment and closed the menu. “I’ve been told you had a special”, she said.

        The man tilted his head and looked at the old woman with a hint of surprise in his eyes. He shrugged as if it wasn’t his problem after all. Connie gulped, expecting the worse.

        “Two Svið with Gellur”, he said scribbling something in his notebook. “May I suggest some Brennivín?”
        “You may”, answered Sophie. “It can help us gulp the whole thingy”, she explained to Connie.

        “The common error is to go for the head and dismiss the eyes”, said the waiter. “They may surprise you”, he added before leaving.

        Connie looked murderously at Sweet Sophie, whom she would have renamed Sour Sophie in that moment. The old woman had an air of satisfaction on her face. “Why on earth would you pick that ?” asked the reporter.

        “Oh! That was part of the instructions in the letter”, answered Sophie with a shrug that made her beehive tremble.

        #4099

        Funley sniffed loudly as she unhurriedly emptied the trash can in Ed Steam’s office, pausing to read any interesting correspondence which may have wound up there. Looking over towards Ed and finding that his attention was still fixed on the computer monitor, she followed her sniff up with a small snort and then a throat clearing noise. When her sniffs and snorts didn’t capture Ed’s attention, she proceeded to blow her nose explosively.

        This did the trick. Ed jumped and looked at Funley in alarm.

        “Whatever is the matter, Funley? Are you ill?”

        “Sorry, didn’t mean to disturb you,” apologised Finnley, pulling up a chair in front of Ed’s desk and seating herself comfortably on it.

        “Actually, if you are not too busy, there is a small problem I’ve been wanting to speak with you about. I promised I would untangle the threads for you however the entanglement situation is worse than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. Or nightmares for that matter. I don’t know who has been doing the record keeping — although I would hazard a guess at Evangeline — but the cross referencing, where it exists, is appalling and … “

        A tap on the door and the new employee, Duncan Minestrone, popped his head into the office. “You wanted to see me, Mr Steam?” he asked.

        Funley glanced towards the door in exasperation at the interruption and then her expression changed to one of horror.

        “Jasper Grok!” she gasped. “What are you doing here?”

        #4081
        Jib
        Participant

          Sophie looked dubiously at the shampoo bottle. It was smaller than the ones she was used to in the US, and It was written kókosolía. She had no idea what it meant but the picture underneath looked vaguely like two big coconuts.

          She opened it, pressed the bottle to smell what was inside, then poured a bit of the white substance into her palm. No doubt there was coconut inside. She touched it. It was very oily. Maybe it was not shampoo after all. She looked at the other bottles. None smelled as good as the first one. She decided to give it a try.

          After her shower she felt rejuvenated. It was like the old times, with her husband Bob they used to travel a lot and stay in all kinds of hotel. She always loved that moment when she was drying her hair and Bob would sneak in behind her and take her into his arms. She sighed. Nope, that would not happen today.

          She almost jumped when she realized her hair was inflating. She had very thin hair usually and they were rather close to her head, but today it looked like they had a new life. She wondered if it would deflate as soon as she’d stop the hot hair. She hesitated but it looked almost done. She turned off the power and the hair stayed up.

          She heard a knock at the door. She wondered who that could be.

          “Sophie. It’s me”, said Connie’s voice.
          “A moment said Sophie.” She put her old clothes on. She didn’t take much with her in her suitcase, she didn’t have enough room for clothes with all her apparatus. She checked her hair one last time, still up. Then she opened the door.

          They looked at each other and said at the same time : “Oh! You used the coconut shampoo too.”
          “Let’s have diner”, said Connie. “As for the hair, I bumped into other guests, and the ladies all seem to have the beehive haircut.”

          #4080

          In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud

          Jib
          Participant

            Universe process indeed report funny beginning
            Presence towards love
            Key next dido house human nobody
            Cackler age
            Head bar strange due

            #4072

            Aunt Idle was going to visit her old friend Margit Brynjúlfursdóttir. It was all very hush hush: Margit had intimated that there was to be a family reunion, but it was to be a surprise party, and she mustn’t breathe a word of it to anyone. Margit had sent her the tickets to Keflavik, instructing her to inform her family and friends that she had won the trip in a story writing competition.

            It was Idle’s first trip to Iceland. She had met Margit in a beach bar near Cairns some years ago, just after the scandalous expose on the goings on of a mad doctor on a remote south Pacific island. The Icelandic woman had been drowning her sorrows, and Idle had been a shoulder to cry on. The age old story of a wayward son, a brilliant mind, so full of potential, victim of a conniving nurse , and now sadly incarcerated on the wrong side of the law.

            Aunt Idle didn’t immediately make a connection between the name Brynjúlfursdóttir and Bronklehampton, indeed it would have been impossible to do so using conventional means, Icelandic naming laws and traditions being what they were. But the intuitive Idle had made a connection notwithstanding. The maudlin woman in the beach bar was clearly the mad doctors mother.

            Idle had invited Margit to come and stay at the Flying Fish Inn for a few weeks before returning to Iceland, a visit which turned out to last almost a year. Over the months, Margit confided in her new friend Idle. Nobody back home in Iceland knew that the doctor in the lurid headlines was her son, and Margit wanted to keep it that way, but it was a relief to be able to talk about it to someone. Idle wasn’t all that sure that Margit was fully in the picture regarding the depths to which the fruit of her loins had sunk, but she witnessed the womans outpourings with tact and compassion and they became good friends.

            The fasten your seatbelts sign flashed and pinged. The landing at Keflavik was going to be on time.

            #4067
            F LoveF Love
            Participant

              “Turmeric,” said Finnley succinctly, with a meaningful nod in the direction of the kitchen. “Your creaking is doing my head in.”

              #4059

              The woman sitting next to me on the plane never stopped talking, she must have told me her whole life story, Aunt Idle wrote in her diary. It was a long flight from Australia to Iceland, I’m not complaining ~ it was quite an entertaining story. She said she came from Blue Lagoon campsite in the Adirondacks originally, although that was many moons ago, as she put it. Then she joined the army, but she didn’t tell me much about that, only that she’d been posted to Kenya and had taken to the place, always meant to go back and never did. She’s been married twice, once to a northerner called Bert Wagstaff, but that didn’t last long ~ nice enough guy, she said, but a bit boring. No kids. Then to Trudell. That was another story she said, but didn’t elaborate.

              She said something about investigating fungus but the drinks trolley appeared. She asked for Blue Sapphire gin but they only had Gordon’s, and then she started going on about when she was in India. She had a book in her hands the whole flight, although she didn’t stop talking long enough to read much, it was The Rabbit, by Peter Day, with a picture of an upright man with a rabbit head on the cover, all in white, rather surreal.

              #4054
              F LoveF Love
              Participant

                “I recommend the reindeer stew,” said the waiter with a slight nod towards the menu in his hand, yet not taking his eyes off Connie’s face.

                Connie started with excitement. Reindeer stew? Reindeer was the code word!

                “Ah, yes, thank you but I couldn’t possibly eat … Rudolph,” she replied.

                Sophie snorted from across the table. “Prancer! you idiot,” she hissed. “You couldn’t possibly eat Prancer.”

                “Prancer! I mean Prancer!” Connie giggled nervously however the waiter’s expression remained inscrutable.

                “Very well,” he said, surreptitiously slipping a folded note into the menu and placing it on the table. “Let us see if we have something more to your taste.”

                “Rudolph!“cackled Sophie as soon as the waiter was out of earshot. “Lucky I was here you bonehead. You could have messed up the whole mission.”

                Connie wondered why people tended to preface Sophie’s name with “sweet”.

                Rude, cantankerous, nasty old biddy, she thought and felt a familiar twitching in her clenched fist.

                Taking a deep breath, Connie managed a forced smile. Better to stay on good terms, at least for now.

                “Thanks for that, Sophie. What would I do without you? Let’s see what this note says, shall we?”

                Carefully looking around to make sure they were not being watched, Connie unfolded the note.

                “If you want to learn about elves, you need to go to Elf School”, she read.

                “My word,” said Sophie. “How delightfully delphian.”

                #4048
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  “Oh, there you are Hilda, can I have a word?”

                  Hilda started guiltily at Connie’s voice, and pushed her teacup behind a stack of papers on her desk. Slurping down the last of the tea before making her way to the airport for the Boston flight, she hadn’t been able to resist looking into the dregs for a minute or two. What she’d seen had made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. But what was she to do about it? And now here was Connie, fidgeting in the doorway. Well, see what she wants first, Hilda told herself, and then decide.

                  “Do you know anything about these?” asked Connie, thrusting the flight tickets in front of Hilda. “And what’s the background on the old crone, Sophie? I thought she was just a temp?”

                  Hilda’s head was spinning. Should she say nothing, let Connie take the flight, and hope for the best? Or try and prevent her making the trip, just in case? How accurate was her tea leaf reading really? What if she had misinterpreted the signs? It could be too embarrassing. Better just hope for the best and say nothing.

                  “Sorry Connie, must dash.” Hilda quickly gathered her things together and shoved them in the flight bag at her feet. Pushing past Connie she said, “Er, have a good trip!” and with a sickly smile she fled.

                  When Hilda arrived at the airport an hour later, she made a snap decision to change her flight. Luckily there were a few seats left to Keflavik in Iceland. She really hadn’t fancied Boston and the crotch grabbers anyway. She wouldn’t tell the others she was already in Iceland, but at least she would be there to monitor events as they unfolded.

                  #4047
                  Jib
                  Participant

                    Back at her desk after a crash course at zumba with the Chinese team, Connie was sorting her e-mails (meaning sending them to trash). Nothing fancy, nothing catchy, nothing to grab her attention span for more than a minute.

                    The noise of the open space was making her feel drowsy. Maybe a coffee would help her wake up, or maybe if something could happen to stir the pot. Connie deleted a few more e-mails to show the others that she was a busy reporter before leaving her desk.
                    Passing by the desks of her colleagues, Connie looked surreptitiously at their computer screens and saw that everyone was playing the busy game. It was sad to recognize that good news (meaning bad news) were hard to come by nowadays.

                    In times like these, she had to resist the tentation to create her own news, it was not that kind of press. But still toying with the idea and making up some outrageous stories with her team was a way to make time fly away more quickly. Once, Hilda had even reused one of the titles for a real stories that sadly happened shortly after she had made it up.
                    Rumour had it that Hilda’s great grand mother was a gypsy and could do palm reading. The gran even used palm tree leaves to do her reading when there was nobody, you just had to cut the leave in the shape of the person you wanted to read the future and she would tell you all about them. She was good.
                    “It runs in the family,” Hilda had said. “It’s helpful to be at the right place at the right time.” And for sure she was the most prolific reporter of the agency.
                    Connie sure would have used some of Hilda’s medium inner sight to know when something would happen.

                    She made herself a cappuccino and with the milk drew the face of Al Pacino. Many years at a press agency and you learn a few tricks to impress your friends.
                    She heard the slow and uneven pace of sweet old Sophie behind her. She sighed, she didn’t want to have to answer another of her dumb questions about the future. If Hilda could read bits of the future, Sophie was always thirsty about it. Maybe that’s why Hilda was more often in the field and not so often at her desk.

                    Connie turned and almost dropped her cappuccino as the old lady handed her a Fedex envelop.
                    “Sorry,” said sweet old Sophie, “That just arrived for you. I wonder what it is.”
                    “I’m sure you do,” muttered Connie.
                    “It’s from Santa Claus,” said the old lady with a conniving smile.
                    Connie looked at the old lady, with a forced smile. Was insanity a cause to get rid of one of your employee ? She took the package with one hand. Heavier than she had expected. When she saw the address, she couldn’t believe it was real. The sender’s and city’s names were certainly fake. Jesus Carpenter, Santa Claus, AZ
                    Sophie was still there, looking at Connie with a big smile.
                    “What are you waiting for ?” the reporter asked.
                    “Aren’t you opening it?”

                    Connie considered opening the package, but the avidity on the old face was making her uncomfortable. “Nope,” she said. With her cappuccino and the package she went back to her desk. Sweet Sophie was still looking at her with that greedy smile on her face. Connie shivered and shook her head. It was obvious, the old tramp was mad.
                    She touched the package, trying to guess what was inside. As no convincing guess presented itself in her mind, she stripped it open. There was an iPhone 5 SE with 64Gb memory in it, two plane tickets for Keflavik in Iceland, and a note.
                    ‘If you want a good story prepare your suitcase. Bring Sweet Sophie with you. We’ll contact you once you are there.’

                    Connie thought of a joke. She checked the package and no matter how many times she looked it was still her name. She looked toward the cafeteria and she shuddered. Sweet Sophie was still looking at Connie with that strange smile, as if she knew. Or as if she had sent the package herself, the reporter thought.
                    “Someone knows where Hilda is ? I need to talk to Hilda.”

                    #4045
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      “She aint been right since she covered that emotion show thing, has she?” remarked Flanigan, pushing the broom along with his arthritic bony fingers, and jerking his head in Connie’s direction.

                      “Bloody ridiculous if you ask me, asking for trouble,” replied the young trainee janitor, Godwin. “I could have told her, it’ll come to no good tampering with mother natures emotions,” he added, wiping a tear from his eye.

                      “Steady on, what are you crying for? Pull yourself together, boy, and go and clean them toilets.”

                      Godwin gave Flanigan a withering look, and stomped off towards the lavatories, sniffing loudly.

                      #4044

                      “What?” Ricardo was the first one to notice the slanderous pamphlet in the competing gazette.

                      “… the catchy headlines which deceivingly sells awe and amazement aplenty, while in the end amounting to the least possible information, and not even accurate or substantiated, makes you wonder if the dutifully reported oddities are not coming from the brains of their satirical redaction cousin The Courgette.”

                      Bossy wouldn’t like that. Nor would Connie. Oh no, not like it at all.

                      #4043
                      F LoveF Love
                      Participant

                        “Doubt it is headed anywhere,” snorted Finnley.

                        #4038

                        Connie looked at the Bossy Pants instructions, her face inscrutable.

                        Hilda was not up yet, probably passed out on her couch after a night of debauchery and snorting pepsain. As usual, she’d left a heap of links on her blog for Connie to choose from. Well, and of course, to sexy-bait them up. There were times she was glad she didn’t have to face all the people herself and interview them. Today was not one of them.

                        She gestured at the awkward new intern. He passed a head through the door. She didn’t give him the time to open his mouth. “Another chamomile tea,… thaaank you.” He disappeared hurriedly.

                        “At least this one gets me.”

                        For today, chamomile was the least of evils. Anything stronger would have her go full contact on any one daring to even look at her. If people knew the efforts she made daily.
                        Her self-defence instructor knew something about it. She almost sent him to the hospital last week.

                        Glancing upon the list of notes, she noticed that Hilda had made a highlight to double check on the gouda cat-like man. That was strange. Hilda wasn’t one to come back on stuff once shared and published. Definitively not the past-dwelling profile. There must have been something more.

                        “Well, know what, old tart: early bird gets the worm.”

                        She rose from the swivel chair, taking her purse swiftly and aiming for the exit door with the path of least eye-contact when the odd guy appeared again with the damn tea. She’d forgotten about that. Again, her brains firing at full speed, she didn’t leave him time to tell or ask anything.

                        “You don’t know where Joel is? Of course not…” The photographer was probably on another assignment. Had not been seen for weeks it seemed. Not that she cared, he would have been more like an alibi for her to go an a follow-up mission.

                        Sometimes her brains would also make her do the darnedest thing. She couldn’t stop herself from telling to the hapless intern.

                        “You look too happy Ric. Take your coat and come with me.”

                        #4036

                        Ricardo had finished cleaning the tea cups in the empty office. He liked the job alright, it was a bit silly of him to surmise people would clean their own cups, and do their own teas. That was what he’d meant with the team job comment.

                        Connie and Hilda were right, totally right about it; he couldn’t expect too much, he’d just arrived, he was just a simple intern in a prestigious journalistic establishment. He’d come here to learn the tricks of the trade, when he’d answered the wanted: secretary and cleaner ad of last week.
                        So far, there was only so much golden nuggets of weirdo news he could find. You’d need some serious training to get to the level of Hilda and Connie, the dynamic duo.

                        For now, he was content to being put to menial tasks, it helped know the colleagues better, support them as he could with the pressure on the deadlines. And also, improving the typos and legibility by cleaning up the loose letters dropped during typesetting.
                        His own headline baiting skill was still rather low —it was an art to create the perfectly sexyied up heading, not too tacky, but enticing enough to captivate the readership’s attention.
                        If Hilda was the queen of headline fishing, Connie was undoubtedly the empress of headline baiting.

                        #4034

                        “You’re lucky it wasn’t your hands,” said Tina. She had visited Quentin after Connie had left. Strange reporter that one. Kind of short sized with big eyes that never blinked. Tina snorted and dismissed the memory with a roll of her eyes, then looked at Quentin straight in the eyes, awaiting for his answer.

                        “What do you mean ?” asked Quentin. Tina didn’t expected the answer to be a question. She rolled her eyes as if Quentin had missed the obvious.

                        “The giant gouda ball, you’re lucky it didn’t roll on your hands.”

                        Quentin looked at Tina with a bit of concern in his eyes. She had been acting weird lately and making odd random connections between events and comments. He looked at his friend more closely. She had a bird nest on her head. With two eggs. It was a fake nest. He certainly hoped the eggs were too. He had no idea

                        “Anyway,” Tina said, “I won a trip to some island of the hidden people from the http://travellerofworlds.tp website. Wanna come with me, Quentin?”
                        He thought of his options. The most obvious response would be that he had no idea what a hidden people could be. If it was hidden it could very well be that it was hiddeous and needed to be hidden. On the other hand… Quentin looked at his other hand. It was empty.

                        “They say it’s on the rim of the realm,” added Tina as if she had read Quentin’s thought and need for a motive.
                        Now, he thought, the rim of the realm, that sounded quite an interesting unexplored territory to discover.
                        “When do we leave ? I need to ask Yannosh to pack my suitcase.”

                        #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.

                        #4022

                        Final nail in the coffin, indeed.

                        Despite the overwhelmnity of the situation, Ed couldn’t fathom why nobody would take some time to stop and ponder on the incoherences, the gaps in the net, so to speak.

                        It behooved him to do so. The deranged cackler, like a mockery of the divine breath, ruling over the bizarro earth he had been sworn to protect — it had to be stopped.

                        But where was the elusive cackler hiding, he would seemed to appear anywhere and everywhere. And what to make of those cases of mistaken identities, or all the althreadnarrative-realities jumping. The occurrences were piling up. He couldn’t even seem to count on assembling his old fierce Surge Team. All gone bizarro too.

                        Pouring over his copious notes, he remembered how it all started. The strange case of Baked Bean Bea.
                        She seemed to have breached through, and quite frankly shattered in all likelihood some old reality limitation, and somehow, she now was able to unwittingly shape the world to new strange alternate realities at her every whims.

                        He painfully tried to recall, what he was, who he had been in the course of the last months. Blaze, his old genius inventor friend had left him some device, a transfocal whatever thingy. Usually it would change shapes as well, reconfigure itself with each realities. But its function was more or less the same. Reconnect him to his previous alternate realities. Which was handy, when you couldn’t even trust the notes you took. Obviously Bea wasn’t Baked Bean Bea before… or was she?

                        Now the Transfocal Thingy seemed to have relocated in the bathroom. The shower head with the wires seemed a bit of a giveaway.
                        Ed put on the water.

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