Search Results for 'house'

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  • #3054
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      on going in a different direction ~ I went left instead of right (on impulse), walked up the road and turned left, instead of down the road and turning right. The first thing I noticed, well not the first thing, the first thing was the baby mule and the horses, but the next thing (other than the wildflowers) was the contrast between the writhing gnarled tree shapes against the backdrop of severely rigid pylons. Then a bit further down the lane, and I never knew it was there, one of my favourite things: an abandoned shredded plastic green house tunnel, taken over by climbing wild roses.

      #3009
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        It was the month of mass lunacy, and all through the house, all the creatures were snoring, except the mouse. All mad as Almad on the Rides o9f March, Mari Fe cackled out loud, then pulled a face, remembering the feel of the spongy mouse between her fingers in the kitchen sink. Expecting the blockage in the drain to be dog hairs, the surprisingly solid but spongy feel had been a shock, and the sensation had lingered nauseatingly.

        How long had he been in the mop bucket? Then it dawned on her ~ the dog leg riddle. Of course! He appeared just after the first dog leg clue ~ and no doubt left, via the mop bucket, when the dog leg riddle was solved.

        Mari Fe shivered, it was all rather spooky. No wonder she felt a bit mad.

        #3005
        AvatarJib
        Participant

          The phone rang while she was preparing her cabbage with soy sauce. It triggered a memory of a blue helmet. Quickly gone.
          She hesitated a moment and stopped what she was doing to pick up the phone.
          Her mother began speaking straight away.
          “Where have you been all this time ? You’ll turn me mad. You’re so like your father, keeping to himself all those times when he was out playing mahjong with his friends. But I knew where that bastard was…”
          Her voice was raspy after years of never being able to be speechless, and most astoundingly, she never repeated herself. The woman was even a sleeptalker. No wonder her husband would rather sneak out of the house to play with his friends.
          Aqua Luna had developed an opposite habit, she would find her solace in silence and in doing house cleaning. But this time, the voice of her mother was fascinating. Something in it seemed different.

          A blue flash interrupted her fascination. She almost jumped out of her pajamas.
          Listen carefully”, was saying the blue helmet.

          #3001
          EricEric
          Keymaster

            Ed Steam’s brilliant plan was simple enough. He had dreamt about it a while ago and the idea had grown on him ever since. Now, he had all he needed to make it happen. The land, the materials, and the artefacts and rotes needed to manipulate the bulk of it around.

            It was simple, actually and yet every detail had to be perfect. There were matters of perspective and proportions that were delicate to manage.
            And of course he had to be careful using the artefacts with finesse, to be undetected by the Surge team’s monitoring systems. He had designed most of them, so he wasn’t too concerned, although Cornella’s upgrades may be more efficient.
            He had calculated the project would probably take him years to complete, but he was fine with it, it was a fun adventure, creating your own palace so to speak.

            First, the grounds. That of a glorious castle, with French gardens on a large lightly sloped tumulus. His armoured bears could stay in the surrounding forest where beehives were strategically placed.
            On top of the tumulus, instead of a castle, there was a large mill, a cross between a windmill, castle and lighthouse maybe, with walls white and round, many entrances, rooms and stairs leading to the upper levels. That was where most of the work was to be organized. The whole roof was actually like a city, with narrow streets even.
            Except the buildings where made from entire stacks of full-sized caravans, making living units, each with its own interior and decoration.

            He didn’t know why the stacks of caravans were so appealing to him. Frankly, said like this it could seem like a hill of rubbish dump. However, he had visited this dream place when it was full of people, a fellowship of people living in the caravans and enjoying this particular place. He’d figured, this seems so great and I have the means to create it, so if not me, who else?

            #3000

            “How do you feel now?”
            “Not so bad, considering I just survived a slug indigestion…”
            Ernie and Jett were giving sad glances at their nearly empty glasses of Bourgogne red wine. Ernie’s plate of snails au beurre persillé was barely touched, and Jett who was eyeing at it for a while now as he was sucking on his empty shells decided now was a good time to grab it and switch it with his own empty one while continuing to rant loudly in the French restaurant with his mouth full.
            “You see, that’s why I don’t like those bloody Chinese greasy spoons, especially after a surge. You never know what you’re goin’ to get. Me in’ haffin’ none of it sea bloody bottom-feeders cucumber…”

            Ernie was still looking a bit pale, except for the occasional patches of purple hematomata, that the doctor mentioned would disappear once the body manages to expel the impossible to digest slug.
            “Should have had that blessed surgery, would have been faster” he moaned.
            “Are you kiddin’? Look, don’t want to be gross or anythin’ but last time I had things expelled too fast, it wasn’t a pretty sight!”
            “Oh stop it again with your oily shit fish, that’s a blessin’ disgusting memory I would merrily forget!”.
            “L’addition!” Ernie had had enough of Jett’s snail munching. It was time to get to their next assignment. Even if the occupational medicine doctor had tried to deter him resuming work too quickly, it was better that than dragging around an empty house in flip-flops and pajamas.
            The good thing was that the Disaster Damage Team was never short of assignments. Most of the time they were working in locksteps with the Surge Team, clearing the aftershocks, so they didn’t have to fear about boredom.

            #2988
            EricEric
            Keymaster

              Ed Steam’s Rally Update:

              Where is your Surge Team now?

              Other recurring characters in the same timeline:

              • Ed Steam • last seen fomenting a sinister plot in his secret hideout after faking his own demise and looting the Surge HQ artefacts warehouse (#2946)
              • Aqua Luna • last seen at an unknown location, in a mysterious ship after a probable alien abduction in Long Poon (#2945)
              • Belle (Bee) Endwhistle • last seen flushed out-of-body in the magic E-map, but didn’t yet reappear unlike Pearl and Mari Fe (#2902)

              Recurring other-dimensional characters in the same timeline:

              Other characters in the future timeline:

              #2981
              AvatarJib
              Participant

                Have you ever dreamt that you forgot to put your pants on to go to school or to go to work? How did you feel in the dream ? Ashamed ? At ease ? Were you wondering how you got there in your undies ?
                Dream memories were flying in Madam Li’s head. It had been a recurring dream in her childhood and her most dreaded fear. She had always checked on twice before living her house that she had a dress or trousers long enough to hide her ankles.

                Her cell phone didn’t have any battery left and she was late. She would have to find one in the street. She ran out of her apartment after having checked her outfits twice and reassured took the elevator. She had her bags with warmer clothes inside for when she’d arrive in Harbin for the ice festival. She looked nervously at her cell phone again, still no battery of course. She put it back in her handbag. Someone entered the elevator, 30 more floors to go. She gasped when she realized the man, a westerner, had no pants on. She looked away quickly. Was he not aware of the missing element in his outfit ? She decided to make as if everything was normal.

                Things went worse when she got out of the elevator. There were two men and a woman waiting at the check out desk, and they had pink underwears. Apparently the first man didn’t know them and the service apartment employee behind his desk didn’t seem at all surprised by the situation. When it was her turn, he looked at her, and at her long dress. She gave him the keys and as he turned away to put them back on the wall, she noticed that he was bare legs too. Something was wrong. Was it a surge in the population ? Would she have to stay here longer ?

                #2941

                Godfrey, I can’t help but wonder if all this imagined mayhem in my house (Mari Fe’s house, not Ed’s although Ed did choose some of Mari Fe’s furniture, when they were lovers in the past, as you know of course you old peanut) caused the electricity blackout lasting several hours last night.” mused Elizabeth. “I feel sure there is a connection, especially as the ten dogs all appeared (or not, as the case may be) to be wearing invisibility cloaks in the dark.”

                #2930
                AvatarJib
                Participant

                  Janet heard a door squeak like an agonizing mouse. Her heart jumped in her chest when she recognized the half bald man who came through… and the implications. The old clock rang. Janet didn’t know Mari Fe had such an antique in her house. Maybe it was on the other side of that door.

                  Riff Raff… “, she said. Her throat was suddenly tight and she could barely swallow. “What are you doing here ?”

                  “It’s astounding, time is fleeting
                  Madness takes its toll
                  But listen closely, not for very much longer
                  You’ve got to keep control”

                  “Who’s that man,” asked Pearl, “he’s ugly. And why is he singing… and sweeping the old clock ?”
                  “I think we’re in a time wart, again”, said a crestfallen Janet.

                  #2889
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    Pearl wrapped the jars of apple pie moonshine carefully inside a beach towel, and placed them in the middle of her suitcase. Her flight was at midnight, and eveything was ready for her trip to Andalucia to assist the surge team on the night of the three kings parade. But there was a problem: the snow had all but submerged her house, her car was nowhere to be seen beneath the white drifts, and the roads were silent and impassable. Pearl called Skye in London, and asked her to send a red car.

                    #2885
                    EricEric
                    Keymaster

                      Captain Yang Lang, or Goat as they called him, had reluctantly anchored the Aqua Luna at the Long Poon port to resupply for the next month. The Aqua Luna was his pride, an old pirate ship improved with modern tech, with sails bright vermilion, and polished deck of teck wood, smelling of the forests and brine. Years earlier, he’d vowed to stay off land as much as possible, and use her to remain away from the current lunacy that sprayed over the lands. But strange tides and surges on the ocean had warned him that it seemed to spray further than he’d expected.
                      To get to the bottom of it, he was having an appointment at the basement of an old derelict building, on the first floor of which artists had setup an organization named the Long Poon House of Stories; funnily, the basement was full of other kinds of stories. It had served as a training facility back when the Brits had dominion over the seas. It was now recycled into an archive facility for the Surge Team. You usually wouldn’t notice that, but if you paid attention, the bag of sponges sold at the Sinese medicine store full of dried animals, dogs legs and whatnots was unmistakable.

                      #2884
                      benjaminbenjamin
                      Participant

                        Meanwhile, in a not to distant probable reality, Greenflow, the turtle, was hiding in his shell due to the loud racket that started just moments ago.

                        Bang, sounded his shell once again, an this time even louder than the last one.

                        “Holly Molly, that one was too close to be anything other than a sign,” said Greenflow.

                        “I had better pop out and take a look about and see what the dickens is making all this racket!”

                        Just then a tiny green snout eased out of a house, which was the brilliant green color, and with odd looking symbols etched into its body.

                        Greenflow immediately noticed a silvery shiny ball just inches from his nose, and it was ever so slightly embedded into the brown mud. “What could that be?” he thought.

                        #2870

                        In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                        EricEric
                        Keymaster

                          The world didn’t end that day.
                          But maybe it should have, or at least the endless list of senseless rules, silly obligations, half-compromises and clever-yet-too-often-outdone-by-stupidity ploys to defeat them.
                          Stuck in the middle of his twelfth failed attempt at booking a flight for the Land of the Long Cloud, he found himself dreaming of buying… well, no— buying was sorely overrated nowadays. With all the rules on how you could or could not spend your money, he’d found it impossibly difficult to buy his friend the new camera of his dreams.
                          So, let’s dream of building something instead: a dream submersible airborne trailer, or maybe just a flying house with giant wheels, to soar above the pettiness of this world, and to go unfettered wherever fancy called.
                          He knew why the shark tank in the department store had exploded last week, killing only the sharks and turtles. It probably wasn’t being boxed, as much as being forced to look everyday at the headless consumers that killed the creatures. Whatever the reason might have been, in all fairness, they’d managed to boldly go beyond the end of their world.

                          #2868

                          In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                          AvatarJib
                          Participant

                            The end of Being Veronica’s season four coincided strangely with the end of time day. She had eventually become a channeler. Still full of images and sounds of time travels, space projections and probabilities, Yann decided it was time for him to go fetch some Shanghainese food for the evening. They were going to Taipei for the week end with Yurick, meeting with an artist friend who’d promised to show them around.

                            Outside the air was chilly, it almost had that peculiar smell Yann associated with frost. When he first decided to come to Shanghai, it was with the secret hope it would be warmer than Paris, but currently it seemed to be as cold and chilly a city. At least, Taipei would feel a bit warmer, he thought with a misty sigh, the weather forecast announced at least 23°C. What better occasion for the beginning of the new timeline.

                            The store was not very far from the house, you just had to turn left at the corner and it was right here after the laundry service. It was a small shop, with only tangerins, oranges, a few apples and bananas. The shopekeeper and his wife greeted him. Yann was still feeling shy with the Chinese, mostly because he couldn’t speak their language yet. He’d begun taking lessons, but there was so much to learn. He smiled and quickly resumed his focus on the fruits. Some bananas were calling him, quite ripe actually. He hesitated, took them and almost put them in a plastic bag, but he noticed they were maybe too ripe, the skin was cracked in some areas and he could see the white flesh of the fruit turning brown. He nonchalently put them back on the stall as the shopekeeper was showing him the strawberries.

                            Yann smiled and he couldn’t remember how to say no, so instead he laughed and waved his hand in protest. The man didn’t insist and went back to the counter. He didn’t seem to be concerned by the end of time.

                            #2867

                            In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                            TracyTracy
                            Participant

                              ‘I had lived in Shanghai for about two months when I learned that behind every building which fronts the street is a second and far more enticing world: a labyrinth of winding lanes and alleyways that contains all kinds of eclectic little businesses and historic houses.’ Emily Prager failed to add that the second more enticing world of Shanghai, or indeed anywhere, was quite immune to the solar frights and rubber mutations of the disturbing period prior to the annual global rapture “fuck off to higher realms if you can” event. Behind every construction lies an intriguing world of signs, signs of the timeless, signs of the damp sometimes making landmass patterns on the peeling wallpaper, and signs of jubilation, coloured paper streamers fluttering in the tail end of the tornadoes, and floating on the subsiding waves.

                              #2866

                              In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                              EricEric
                              Keymaster

                                “Solar flares alert at noon, take shelter” the electronic sign was saying when she left the building. Rubber masks coated with lead-like substance were designed to alleviate the exposure to what authorities qualified as dangerous radiations, but she was wondering what good it had brought her, listening to those darned authorities. Of course now, there was a variety to contend with every possible taste: one could find designer masks on the market, even ones that made you look like Jeanne Roberts, the famed actress from the naugthies québecquoise telly series “Sept ETs à la maison” (inaptly translated as “Sethies at home”).
                                However, dissident reports had transpired that the flares were not the health hazard they talked about, and maybe could actually be good for you. Theories were that they helped trigger beneficial mutations of your body, that would then go through a slightly disturbing period of adaptation and heightened hypersensitivity, but that later… your potentials would start to get limitless, well, whatever that meant.
                                She wondered what good becoming a limitless housekeeper would bring her… more bloody work, that one was certain.

                                #2865

                                In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                                TracyTracy
                                Participant

                                  “Rendezvous at Hunchies in an hour” whispered the housekeeper, furtively looking over her shoulder as she pulled off her rubber mask. The elevator doors opened as she was shaking out her sweaty red hair, the lank strands whipping the bowler hat of the man who was rushing out.

                                  #2863

                                  In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                                  EricEric
                                  Keymaster

                                    She was right. Maybe he needed a job as a janitor instead, and draw on walls, or write some sotteries pardon my Medieval French.
                                    “I’m leaning towards valuing the imagination parts of me.” he’d answered, not quite convinced, as though it were told by someone else, or something he’d read earlier somewhere, on a wall probably.
                                    The vole was still there when she’d left. She’d kept moving back to give it space to run off up the dry road, but no, the little thing even held its hand up when she tried to pick it up as if to say NO! thank you I’m fine.
                                    He too was fine, surrounded by converging ripples of emotions, but oddly calm.
                                    “Too neatly organized stuff gets dusty and boring” he’d said to her.
                                    “I know,” she’d answered, ending their brief encounter with a limerick

                                    The housekeeping lady of China,
                                    Said she’d never seen anything finer,
                                    than a wacom of dust,
                                    that she sponged and brushed,
                                    that housekeeping lady of China…

                                    #2855

                                    In reply to: scattered grasps

                                    TracyTracy
                                    Participant

                                      Before Pee could even think of objecting, Peanelope had swept the three of them out of the kitchen in a dexterous manner fit to a perfect housewife of the Peaslands (which were renowned for the cleanness of its houses).

                                      #2717

                                      In reply to: Strings of Nines

                                      TracyTracy
                                      Participant

                                        The TIme TRavel PArty YUrt had just landed on Ferris Island, in Frobisher Bay, for a special performance of the Aurora Borealis. Dr Ferris of Frobisher House, Dolphin Square, was one of the guests, oddly enough.

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