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  • #2665

    In reply to: Strings of Nines

    TracyTracy
    Participant

      They were thick as theives, freinds for thousands of centuries, or even more; sometimes thick, sometimes theives, and anything else you might imagine. They got together again and again in this time and that, here, there and elsewhere, just for the fun of it. There was nothing they liked more than a puzzling occurance, or a riddle, or a basket full of clues to ponder over, unravel, and turn around and around, toying with meanings until they found one they liked. They had a home in The City, sort of a home base so to speak, where they met regularly each night in the dream state, regardless of which time or place they spent their waking hours. It was sometimes a releif to meet up at home in The City and always a pleasure: sometimes it was hard to stay under the radar back down on the ground, it was part of the job to stand out in the crowd, which often resulted in a lynching, or a ducking, or the stocks, at the very least. All too often it ended up on top of a bonfire, tied to a stake.

      One day in one of the Decembers, in amongst all the sweet dreams they often shared, they started having some unsettling group dreams, where they all felt like they were betwixt and between, falling through the cracks you might say. It was a feeling similar to dying of thirst, although it wasn’t really a physical thirst, it was more than that, a hungry yearning sort of thing. Some of them had strange nightmares, of a monstrous beast, and some of them actually saw beasts in the daytime too, especially on those falling through the cracks days. When they met up at home in The City, they compared notes about the beasts, and not always, but sometimes they found they were mirroring each others beasts. That often ended up in a heated debate, because the more mirroring that occurred, the more real the beast seemed. Some said that the beasts that appeared when you fell through the cracks were in a deep ravine, in a manner of speaking, and not of this plane at all. Others argued that if the beasts appeared through the cracks, then they were on this plane.

      And so it went on, and on. There were many more puzzling occurances to come, and lots of meanings to be considered, rejected, or taken on board for the friends, as thick as thieves, to turn around and around, and hold up to the mirror for closer inspection and dissection. They were making a tapestry, a huge rich colourful tapestry, and all the puzzling occurences, and even the beasts, were depicted in the colourful threads and patterns. They were the warp, you might say, of the weave. Love was the weft.

      “Congratulations, LizGodfrey remarked drily. “Are you supposed to use three months worth of creative writing challenges in one entry?”

      “Don’t be silly, Godfrey, of course not. Rules are meant to be broken, that’s what they’re for.”

      #2075

      In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud

      TracyTracy
      Participant

        Although done,
        Stranger, mother, everyone, creature
        looks attention:
        Girl, perfect black.
        Ask, perhaps himself free?
        Smile rude.
        Notice Leormn Fellowship Idea,
        “Eye write”
        Box teleport.
        Heard wonder, let Sharon replied.
        Random asked matter:
        Strange sudden (usually inside) particular finally… surely feeling sound, following home… clear…

        Realized, somewhat
        Hear happy laugh
        Mention hot ones
        Magic voice
        :creating_magic:

        #2657

        In reply to: Strings of Nines

        ÉricÉric
        Keymaster

          Yikesy didn’t want to sound ungrateful, nor did he want to hurt Arona’s feeling (all matters of age were a touchy subject at home, even and especially for ageless Arona), nevertheless he did find her a tad on the mother hen side.
          After all, he was nearly 18 now.

          #2381

          Almost unperturbed by the sudden distraction coming from the remarkably head-in-the-clouds Doily, despite her seemingly headlessness-lessness, and applying instead his famous adage, Better stick to one’s own nonsense than follow another’s Mewrich thundered “Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll explain about the beard, so that we can all get back to our business, and you out to your quest (and off my home)”.

          “Yes! Will you finally tell us about the bird, the notes, and all that buggery to get to that Eighth dimension and vanquish the darn blubbits invasion!” Pee Stoll almost cried out.

          Carefully, Mewrich reached out for a tiny peacock in his aviary, a poor thing which was plucking its feathers after all that noise, that he may as well have chosen at random from the menagerie.
          “Take this bird, and make it sing four notes, I said FOUR! not one more, not one less! in front of the great portal of Nibabuz and you should be able to get past the old Keeper… JUST DON’T try to interrupt me, by the coils of the great Snakipooh, you rude tart!” “You have to get past the Keeper, but he’s old and a bit arthritic, so all you’ve got to do is have him walk on his beard, and get past him.”

          Dolores was about to add a little flourish, but all of them, the headless Stoll family, and Doily’s eccentric entourage where ushered out of the cave by the angered Saucerer. And every Peaslander knew you wouldn’t anger a Saucerer without having to deal with dreadful consequences. The green wig of Dolores being probably the remnant of one of these consequences.

          #2377

          “Oh, Doily dear, there thoo are!” Mewrich Peamon cried out at the sight of Dolores, almost losing his loincloth in excitement. ‘Doily’ was how he affectionately called Dolores, one of the most fervent admirer of his works, though he strongly suspected she didn’t quite understand them all.

          However the Saucerer was pleased to know the lady, who wasn’t shy of keeping her heads on her shoulders, a custom that most Pealanders would have found outrageously bold and casual, preferring to have their heads at home, (or) just in (suit)case.

          “I was just about to tell your nephews and brother-in-law all about section three twenty one of the Art of Bird Swift Travelling Right Unto Sextion Eight (A.B.S.T.R.U.S.E), but surely you could indulge us in revealing the few caveats I was about to tell them about the beard.”

          “Didn’t you mean bird?” Doily said with a interrogative pout which almost had her lovely green wig fall onto her eyes.

          “Well, of course I meant beard, dear —and always glad to see we’re on the same page on this one!” “Though I fear we’ll soon have to turn to the next…” He added mysteriously.

          #2372

          That’s when a particularly shiny object caught Pickel’s eyes. It was on the table, in plain sight, but it was as if the others couldn’t see it. Of course, they don’t have their head, thought Pickel… but he’d forgotten that he’d left his head at home too.
          As he was approaching the table, Gnarfle noticed that he wasn’t following the bird keeper and the others in the other room and decided to stay with him. Maybe he wanted to play some game and Gnarfle would be glad to indulge him.

          :fleuron:

          The other room was full of birds, and Silly’s throat got suddenly constricted as she let out a raucous gag.
          Which startled both her father and the wise Peamon who let out an indescribable laugh.
          PeAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, it’s just here, thanks little one!
          Pee was a bit confused as he couldn’t see what the wise Peamon was showing them, and the little peagirl was trying not to think of the smell of the aviary… ( how do I know such a word? she thought to herself.)

          #2371

          AHAHAHA” the man in a loincloth greated them “or…” he added with a mischievous wink “perhaps shall I say Oooh ooh ooh.”
          Mewrich wasn’t a man short of a some raspiness and prickliness in his voice either.
          “MY FRIENDS, you are a most welcome and delightful breath of headlessness coming to this house” he said, vaguely designing the moistly and mossy hole behind him.

          “Your cave!?” retorted Lilli a bit bossily and raucously
          “Don’t be rude S’illy!” Pee said through his breath (S’illy was the little family moniker standing for Sis’ Lilli).

          “Yes my cave, dear ones. And I’m not silly!”
          “Well of course you’re not her” Pickel muttered, still angered at the failed appreciation of his earlier prank. He wished he had left his posterior at home too now.
          “Don’t try to confuse me! These confuddling talents would be best kept for when you are in ED. But let us not waste precious and mucous time. Let me show you my bird.” he added without further ado.

          #2367

          Peanelope wiped a tear from her eye as she looked at her mantelpiece. She had removed the blubbit chasing trophies, Pee’s pride and joy, and replaced them with the four heads of her dear family.

          “Come home safe, my pretty ones’” she whispered.

          A moment later, spying something on Pickle’s chin, she leaned forward for closer inspection.

          “Marmite dribble! Good Lord boy, you aren’t going through the portal with marmite dribble on your chin. They will say I am an unfit mother!”

          With a hanky she wiped the offending spot away, relishing the fact that, for once, Pickle could not answer her back. Unfortunately Pickle, although endowed with her own fine looks, had inherited his father’s raucous voice.

          “That’s much better,” she said proudly, “What a fine looking family you all are. Even you, Gnarfle,” she added after reflection. “Sometimes I forget you are a dog, you certainly feel like one of the family.”

          #2647

          In reply to: Strings of Nines

          When Yikes had first asked Arona, when he was like 6 or 7 years old if he had a father, Arona had brushed the question aside with a roll of an eye, and an annoyed flicker of the other.

          “Of course you have, little pooh…”

          It was glaringly obvious that the little Ugling wasn’t bearing any likeness with her handsome model Vincentius, so she didn’t mock the little guy’s intelligence by asking why he was even inquiring of such a thing.
          And for a few years, telling him the story of how he was given to her by the dwarf Palani was enough to calm the torrent of his questions.

          Later though, as he was gaining strength and other skills taught to him by Vincentius, who was ever patient and dedicated to the well-being of Arona and the child, his questions became an obsession, and he took upon himself to discover the truth he could feel was wrapped in fantasy and nonsense —or at least, not told completely.

          Perhaps it was an indiscretion of a glukenitch found in the many caves there were nearby their home, nobody knew for certain. (Glukenitches sharing one mind, they knew many of the secrets of the caves they sometimes deigned to share with strangers…) anyway, nobody knew for certain, but he found out about the mysterious Sanso, and how he became ‘acquainted’ with Arona (whom Yikes had never called but by her first name).

          Yikes was now in his teen years, and wanted more than ever to meet Sanso, although he never quite revealed that secret plan least it would upset the loving and caring Arona. He had to find someone to help him in his research, but where they lived, encounters were scarce.

          One day, a young woman he’d never met before went to see Arona. They were friends apparently, and he overheard Arona call her Salome, while they were discussing about lots of people, whose names he mostly didn’t know. He was feeling uncomfortable around nice ladies, and almost didn’t show up for dinner. However, an embarrassed silence and a sideway glance as a certain “he” was being inquired about by Arona raised his ears, and he took upon himself to try to learn more from the lady.
          So when she left, he followed her to the entrance of one of the nearby caves, and showed up —apparently without surprising the lady called Salome. She was well aware of his presence, and of his desire to find Sanso.
          “The man defies logic,” she then warned Yikes “and you need a riddle outside of logic to catch him and his attention.”
          That was almost all of what she said before disappearing into the damp cave’s tunnel. That and… “no need to beat a dead cow.”

          Yikes had pondered that for days, without success.
          Until the illumination came: all he had to do was become the hunter, and bait his prey.
          For that, he would kill the fatted calf, to welcome the return of the prodigal father.

          And put his bait near the tunnels near the realms from whence he roamed aimlessly.

          #2643

          In reply to: Strings of Nines

          After her little escapade with Yimho, and then with Brennan, and then with Gormitohl, and with each escapade, a new home, new relationships and relatives, Malvina was starting to feel homesick. ‘Home’ wasn’t really any place of course, but we all know when we feel at home or not. And right now, the feeling was clear and loud that she wasn’t.
          Not only that, but her selfless outpouring of love (which dear Arona always found slightly exaggerated for her tastes) had oftentimes put her in awkward situations.
          People weren’t always aware that even though her love was given so strongly to all of creatures, it could be found everywhere, in every creature. Ancients called that stream viwre. The only difference with her and the others was that she wasn’t discriminating and her love was outpourring in every direction, regardless of the intentions of the receiver. And that could become a terrible power.

          Well, after all the traveling with her teal-coloured dragon Leörmn, and occasional visits from the young dragon breeder Irtak she felt more than ever the need to reconnect. It’s been too many years now, and the world of the (still) warring Kingdoms didn’t feel much of a better place. So there was still work to be done.

          Of all people, she knew where to turn to.
          It was too early to start her trip around the world to physically reunite with her sisters. A lifelong project which had strangely stalled ever since they started to mention it.
          But she remembered Kalliona, a beautiful woman living south of the Marshes of Doom. She wasn’t really a woman either, but rather an E’elim of the woods, but she appeared as a beautiful woman to almost anyone.
          She would help her realign with her path.

          Leörmn!” She called “We’re packing!”
          “To where, may I ask?”
          “Olliburthon”
          “Oh great… A stinking harbour now.”

          #2066

          In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud

          TracyTracy
          Participant

            summer himself choose sanso
            home continuity within perfect felt

            #2304

            The summer Holidays were nearly over, or the Hollow Days, as they were known to some. The last days of summer had been a bit hollow for Ann at any rate, rattling around inside her own head, not really knowing whether it was full or empty. Ann had spent most of the summer sleeping, and with virtually no dream recall, it seemed as if half of the summer was missing. Probably just as well, what with it being such an odd summer. She wondered if she would simply sleep through the shift, like Ned Young slept through the mutiny. Didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

            “Normally” the Worserversity students started rolling back towards Poubelleville round about now, but the word “normally” was becoming obsolete. What was normal, what could be expected? Ann didn’t know. She packed her coloured pencils, her detachable hand and her wooden men, and fished out her homework assigments for the holidays that she had only just remembered.

            Alliteration. Bugger bollocks and blast, blimey but what a bother, too bloody hot and bored.

            That’s a bit bloody depressing, she muttered to herself, try another letter.

            Sweltering summer of sweat and sand, sleeping and sleeping, sublime surruptitious snooze, sail away in the sunset swell, sunrise surrender, ships ahoy!

            Fan the flames, far sighted fellows! There’s a flash in the funnel for fast falling fishermen. Far flung, fun fueled, oh fast fleeting fantasies, follow the folks with the flags! Flounder not, fresh fishies, for fun feels fantastic!

            Ah, wallow in wisps of wordless wonderings, weather the winds of wandering whispers, while weighty wells of wishes work winsome wonders, woven with worn wool and worrisome white weathered windows. Whether we will, whether we won’t, who will win, what will work, will we watch it water the weeds….

            #2298

            Home made LSD was a bit tricky. Amaury Flipswitch had tested some in his last potion and now he was having difficulties focusing.
            Speaking with Ann, he was seeing her blinking in and out with all the discrepancies in the communications that it could generate.

            He didn’t know if she had heard his last answers to her questions… but whatever… he couldn’t hear her last question either.
            ‘Yes’ he answered.

            #2271
            F LoveF Love
            Participant

              Now Class. Your homework is to write about your first sexual experience, in any way you wish. Have a good week, and see you next Wednesay.

              My FIRST! God there have been so many. Who was first? Not to worry, it was fiction, she would make it up as she went along. Ann was visibly thrilled at the idea of her assignment. Already a limerick was forming somewhere in the depths under that long red wig ….

              #2625

              In reply to: Strings of Nines

              When Phoebe had recovered all her memories she’d felt particularly annoyed at the Baron snatching her prize from her.
              So far, that crystal skulls quest had been only a disaster. She’d been warned, but the temptation had been too great for her.

              Now, she wanted to get back as soon as possible (which was her nicest way of saying “NOW”) to her dimensional interstitial home —that place that uninformed people would have called her evil lair, but that she preferred to think of as her little cottage.

              However, to be able to travel through interdimensional puddles would have required to gain some speed, and without something like a tuned motorbike, it wouldn’t be easy nor practical. She hadn’t got that much time to spend on recreating her tools from scratch.
              Brilliant as she were, it would still have required at least a few weeks, and the days she’d spent at this place had already been far too much to her taste for her to suffer one more —handcuffs entertainment notwithstanding.

              Her hopes were high that Vincentius, her talking parrot would find her and bring her the key that was needed.

              Then she would focus on her next quest. The artifacts of Rumbold the Pale, the famous Byzantine architect from the Renaissance.

              #2614

              In reply to: Strings of Nines

              F LoveF Love
              Participant

                Tina sighed AND rolled her eyes. A charming habit which she was not able to rid herself of.

                Becky, she said in a slow and careful voice. She sighed again. If I may use an expression from my home land of Noo Zooland, trying to keep you on track is worse than herding bloody sheep.

                #2593

                In reply to: Strings of Nines

                ÉricÉric
                Keymaster

                  When Franlise reemerged from the building, it was almost dark, and Godfrey was starting to think that after his twenty-seventh drink, he might as well come back home unless he wanted to sleep on the counter.
                  Curiously he noticed, she wasn’t heading towards home, but she was going to the subway, en route to the red district.

                  That inner lovely Franlise could compromise herself in such a dreadful place was beyond his understanding… well, probably after the twenty first drink, most of reality was now far beyond understanding anyway.
                  Perhaps she was doing some research work?

                  #2570

                  In reply to: Strings of Nines

                  Jorick and Gybrielle were quite proud of their early attempt at building artificial intelligence by sampling data from a variety of sources on the web.

                  Their first model codenamed ‘Gustav’ was far from perfect, yet they had managed to sell the prototype to a wealthy firm and had gathered from it not only a fair amount of money to pursue their research, but also a substantial experience in making organized consciousness emerge from an inorganic and seemingly inert body.
                  Of course, at that time, they didn’t know that their research would fare a lot more than just a few battery robots used to spread watermelons on every home in a futile attempt.

                  Their next project was codenamed “Jobrid”, an obvious hybrid blend of their names, but also of their personalities. They were feeding it an enormous amount of data, which was made so easy by current technology. The experiment seemed to exceed their expectations, and even if the “Jobrid” was experiencing some occasional “blink-out”, its consciousness was gradually starting to organize itself.

                  #2562

                  In reply to: Strings of Nines

                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    Yoland felt tired and deflated somehow. Weary, perhaps that was it, weary of the way she always felt when the animals were sick or dying. It was all very well to look at it logically, that with so many animals with such relatively short natural life spans that there would always be some coming, some going, but it was the way it made her feel that was so tiring. Responsible, as if she could have done more, or guilty that they were reflecting her energy somehow. It was all very well to say that the animals were creating their own reality, that would be easy enough to accept in some cases such as old age and diseases, but Yoland almost wished she’d never learned that they reflect her own energy, that always made her feel even more responsible than she already did.

                    The black cat was dying. Yoland had made up her mind to take her to the vets that morning. That was another dilemma she’d faced often enough, too ~ would the animal prefer to die naturally at home? Or was it in too much pain, and would it prefer to end it quickly? How could she know? Yoland supposed she did always know, in the end, which was to be the choice, but there was always the agonizing period of time beforehand when she wondered which decision to make. But the black cat had disappeared and she couldn’t find her to take her to the vets after all.

                    When she’d made the decision to take the black cat to the vet that morning, Dean accidentally knocked a photograph of her first dog, Joe, off the wall. He was the first of her dogs to go, and a good age for a big dog, fourteen years old, and Yoland had known all along that he would die at home, and sure enough, he had. One day Yoland knew he was close to the end, and less than 24 hours later, he lay on his bed, and just gradually stopped breathing. Yoland hadn’t even been quite sure of the moment in which he went, as she held his head, she asked Dean, Do you think he’s dead? Dean replied, If he’s not breathing he is. It was a silly question, really, of course Yoland knew that if you weren’t breathing you were dead. As deaths go, it was peaceful and easy. They took him in the car to a place in the woods and buried him, somewhere where the ground was soft enough to dig; it was high summer and the ground was hard and dry. It wasn’t until Joe was covered with earth that Yoland cried.

                    Yoland cried again as she remembered Joe, and then she wondered if perhaps his photograph falling off the wall that morning was a message ~ perhaps a message that the black cat was choosing to die at home too, her own little niche somewhere, wherever that might be, wherever the roof cats slept. Maybe Joe was reassuring her that he’d be there when the black cat got there, in that field of flowers where the animals played while they waited for us to join them.

                    It was a comforting thought. Yoland reached for the tissues.

                    :heart:

                    #2547

                    In reply to: Strings of Nines

                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      Ann wasn’t altogether sure what Godfrey meant when he referred to her new interest in continuity. Ann had always been interested in connecting links, yes, of that there was no doubt, but with so very many connecting links, and so many possible strings of connecting links, with so many possible divergences into yet more strings of connecting links, Ann really couldn’t fathom how anyone could possibly keep track of all those threads of continuity. Even a seemingly discontinuous assortment of unconnected links, once connected into a nonsense thread, became another continuity string. Furthermore, Ann continued ~ in a continuous fashion ~ to ponder, if everything is connected, then what, in actuality, was all the fuss about continuity? What exactly then WAS this concept of continuity? It seemed to Ann to be more like a string of barbed wire, or one of those flimsy but effective electric wire fences, boxing in the free flow of continuity, so that the objectively perceived continuity stayed rigidly within the confines of the preconceived tale. The inner landscape knew no such boundaries, although admittedly the inner landscape was far too vast to map.

                      Ann smiled to herself as she imagined trying to push pins into various inner landscape locations, tying strings from one to another, in an effort to map and label the inner continuity connections. Of course she was imagining it in a visual manner, because it was hard to imagine all those connections and strings being invisible and not taking up any space, and before long Ann’s inner map of pins and strings quickly resembled a tangle of overcooked spaghetti, perilously speckled with sharp pointy pins.

                      The image of the glutinous tangle dotted with sharp shiny pointers led Ann off on another tangent, but it was a tangent that soon became utter nonsense. Or was it, she mused. Perhaps it was those symbolically sharp pointy bits that in fact pointed out the immense variety of potential other continuity threads to choose from. Indeed, it could easily be said that having one of her characters dumped in Siberia in the previous story, painful though it was, was not unlike being pricked by a pin amidst the tangle of sticky pasta, a brilliantly effective pointer towards unlimited new directions.

                      Whichever way she looked at it (and Ann was aware that she might have gone down a side string) she simply couldn’t comprehend how anyone on this side of the veil could possibly even begin to understand the ramifications of the concept of continuity at all. Or how there could ever conceivably be a lack of it.

                      What was really intriguing Ann at this particular juncture of the experimental exploration of the story was the concept of the World View Library. This wasn’t unconnected to the continuity issue, far from it, it was all tied in (Ann sniggered at the unintentional pun) and connected. There were any infinite amount of potential continuity threads leading from, say, one persons desire or intent, to a particular world view in the library.

                      AHA shouted Ann, who at that moment had an ‘aha’ moment. Pfft, it’s gone, she sighed moments later.

                      Ann tried to catch the wisp of an idea that had flitted through her awareness. She had a visual impression of the library, endlessly vast and marvellously grand, with countless blindfolded characters dashing through, grabbing random pages or sentences, bumping into each other, snatching at phrases willy nilly, dropping notes along the way, and racing back out again into the ether. A stray thought here, a picture there, a name or a date, all on separate bits of crumbled paper clutched in the sweaty palms of the blindfolded characters as they rushed headlong back to their own realities to proudly share the new clues. Like magpies they were, snatching at anything that glittered brightly enough.

                      :magpie: :magpie: :magpie: :magpie: :magpie: :magpie:

                      “I thought you said they were blindfolded?” interrupted Franlise.

                      Ann ignored the interruption, and continued ~ in a continuous fashion ~ to ponder the imagery of the library.

                      What the undisciplined purloiners of random snatches didn’t notice on their pell-mell excursions into the library were the characters in the library who weren’t wearing blindfolds. They smiled down from the galleries, calmly watching from above the mayhem that the news of the unlimited library access had occasioned, chortling at the scenes of chaos below. They smiled indulgently, for they too had first visited the library blindfolded, snatching at this and that, and racing home again to inspect the booty; they too had fretted and pondered over the enigmas of the incomplete snippets. Eventually (or not, it was after all a choice), they had bravely removed the blindfolds, slowed the mad race into a sedate stroll through the library, opened their eyes and looked around, sure of the way back home now, and not in a desperate hurry to blast in, snatch anything, and run back home.

                      After awhile, they began to realize that all the enchanting glittering jewels scattered around to catch their eye would still be there later, there was no urgency to grab them all at once ~ although, as Ann reminded herself, that too was a choice ~ some may well choose to be eternally snatching at glittering jewels.

                      Ann frowned slightly and wondered if she’d lost the thread altogether, and then decided that it didn’t matter if she had.

                      It was a choice, therefore, to remove ones blindfold, and stroll through the library ~ a choice to perhaps choose a book, sit down at a polished oak table and open it, a choice to stay and read the book, rather than ripping out a page and dashing back home. That would be one choice of continuity, a coming together of strings.

                      Ann wondered whether that would then be called a cable, or a rope ~ well perhaps not a rope, she decided, that had other associations entirely ~ but a cable, yes, that had associations of reliable and regular communications. There were always strings of continuity, then, strings of connecting links, between anything and everything, but when one stopped dashing about clutching at the sparkley bits, one might form a cable.

                      Or not, of course. Thin strings of continuity and connections were not ‘less than’ thick cables of reliable and regular communications. It has to be said though, Ann reluctantly admitted, that thick cables often made more sense.

                      She decided to hit send before embarking on a pondering of the meaning of Sense.

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