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AuthorSearch Results
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July 15, 2016 at 9:25 pm #4124
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Corrie’s findings from elsewhere:
“Then she collapse, her body rigid like stone. Actually her skin began to take on a shade of grey, and several colonies of moss found their way into the wrinkles and meanders of the granite like hair.
Mater arrived at that moment.
“Oh! my! Dido, what did you do ?”
The old lady looked at the table, saw the empty jar, the lines of ants already pillaging the sweet spots on the table and on Idle’s fingers. Some of them had already turned into stone. Mater tried to forage into the jar to find the small package. It contained the mantra to release the hungry ghost from the stone trap of the termite honey.
The jar was meant for rats, Mater would feed them with termite honey to change them into stone and sell them on the market. A little hobby. She would never have thought Idle would eat that stuff. It smelled quite awful.”““Well thank goodness for that!” exclaimed Liz, heaving a sigh of relief. “The teleport thread jump was a success, and Aunt Idle is safe.”
“What are you doing here?” said Mater, aghast.
“I might ask you what YOU are doing here, Mater, I left you under a sapling in the woods not a moment ago!” retorted Liz.”
““Are you following me, cousin ?” added Liz with a snort. “I never understood why you chose to hide yourself in that stinky town with your dead fishes. Maybe you are looking for a way out. There is nothing for you where I come from. I’ll never give you the teleportation ab-original codes.”
“Oh you never understood anything about me, or did you ?” said Mater, “You were too preoccupied by your followers. Is Big G still with you ? And that suspicious maid of yours. Is she still moulding dust critters ?”
“Dust critters ? What are you talking about?”
“What codes ?” asked Mater, squinting her eyes.
“Nothing,” said Liz, realizing she might have talked too much. But she couldn’t help it, her body was unable to contain all the words in her mind, they had to get out. She tightened her lips, trying to resist the outburst.
“What was that ?” asked Mater looking around, “did you hear that noise ?”
“Nope”, said Liz, “maybe an earthquake, or a storm approaching.” It had to get out one way or another she thought.
“Don’t talk nonsense with me, I tell you I heard something.”
Devan interrupted them. Liz looked at the young man, her cougar senses on alert.
“I got the paper”, he said.
Paper, with words.
“May I ?” she asked, showing the paper.
“Don’t try to seduce my boy”, said Mater, “I know you.””Corries further findings from elsewhere continued HERE
July 14, 2016 at 10:47 am #4114In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
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?”
July 5, 2016 at 10:21 am #4094In reply to: Cakletown and the Lone Chancers of Custard
Bea had finished taking notes for her last client’s reallocation.
Nowadays, she wouldn’t release the cackle at each and every time.
It was too time consuming to realign her wits after it shuffled reality, and it was actually more effective to do many changes at once.
That much she’d learned. It was like giving dog food to a pack. Much better to give all at once to the hungry dogs, rather than try to organise the melee.She was about to call for the next client, when the walls of her kitchen trembled.
The next minute, she was in a labyrinth, dark and comfortable, with a musky smell, and soft sounds of coconuts thumps on a beach faintly in the distance.
A looming silhouette was here in the dark.
“Hello Bea” it said “welcome to my hut, I am the techromancer.”
March 7, 2016 at 9:33 am #3968In reply to: Cakletown and the Lone Chancers of Custard
Then she collapse, her body rigid like stone. Actually her skin began to take on a shade of grey, and several colonies of moss found their way into the wrinkles and meanders of the granite like hair.
Mater arrived at that moment.
“Oh! my! Dido, what did you do ?”
The old lady looked at the table, saw the empty jar, the lines of ants already pillaging the sweet spots on the table and on Idle’s fingers. Some of them had already turned into stone. Mater tried to forage into the jar to find the small package. It contained the mantra to release the hungry ghost from the stone trap of the termite honey.
The jar was meant for rats, Mater would feed them with termite honey to change them into stone and sell them on the market. A little hobby. She would never have thought Idle would eat that stuff. It smelled quite awful.September 11, 2015 at 3:11 am #3765In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
After a night of restless sleep, Eb’s practical ideas for the plan B were not much.
He’d weighted multiple options, even toyed with mad ones like playing a sort of second coming, 3 days of night and so… but none had yet the potential to elegantly solve the issue at hand. Not that it was a matter of being elegant, but Eb liked elegant and simple solutions.
He flipped the calendar to today’s picture. Run away, and don’t look back it said. “Great… If only…” he started to mumbled to himself.
He poured himself a drink, and dragged his feet towards the console, eyes still swollen by the lack of sleep. His brother, Jeb, would have told him to do some wegong energxices to keep the juices flowing, but hell, there wasn’t much room in his cubicle, and for better or worse, he preferred to stick to booze.
He liked to observe his ant farm, there were so many quaint and endlessly fascinating people in there. He liked the girl with the piglet for instance. She was often opinionated and sometimes oddly quiet. He had bent the rules for her, and didn’t report the piggy she’d brought to Mars with her. What harm could it bring.
Now she was talking to it. He waved at the console to zoom in and put the speakers on.Remember, those odd stories Mater used to tell us. The Peaslanders and the blubbits was one of her favourites, she would go on and on about it, and laugh at our faces when we didn’t understand where it was going…
She was lost in thoughts for a moment.
It started like this “There was trouble in New Peasland. A plague of hungry blubbits had wiped out the pea crops.” Mater used to say it was from an old book of tales, and that the author had surpassed herself. She chuckled I guess for a long time, she was the only one to believe that. Now look at us…”Eb cut the sound before the inevitable complain about missing Earth blahblah. But Peasland? That was new… He wasn’t one to dismiss an out-of-the-blue clue, and did a quick research on the network to learn more about the tale. It took a while for the Central Intelligence to run the search. It had to go deeper than usual.
After half an hour of waiting, he’d almost run out of scotch. Thankfully, the CI had found it. Pressed by time, and impatient by nature, Eb asked the CI to do a quick summary of the plot.
The central intelligence almost bugged at the request, and could only apologize for not being able to degibberize it.It took him a few hours to read the book on the holographic screen, and at the end, couldn’t say if it was just a waste of time. Preposterous story, with no head nor tail, literally… But then his genius elegant solution appeared as an evidence.
He’d known people were more likely to comply and control if they are told a plausible lie, within the frame of their accepted reality. He just had to bridge the discontinuity of their reality, with the reality of everyone else on the planet. The tale had reminded him of this popular movie about blue aliens. Blueus ex machina, that was it!
He spoke at the console “Record this and run simulation parameters:”
The blue men are from another planet —or rather the Mars settlers are led to believe they are from another planet.
They bundle them all into a fake spaceship
and take them on a fake spaceship ride
and deliver them back to Earth. where they have been all along of course
da dah!The answer came back after another painful hour of scotch-less waiting.
“Probability of success: 68%”
Well, that was the best Eb had in days. He was about to go with it when the CI chimed in“We took the liberty of running a modified simulation based on your setting, which we believe can yield a ratio of 97% of success.”
Eb was surprised at the initiative by the machine, and was curious to hear about it.
“We adjusted two points:
1. We can simulate some event on Mars like earthquakes to increase the likelihood of a willing departure from the planet.
2. The blue aliens may be a future inconvenience if they are fake actors, when the Mars colony comes out of simulation and back to Earth. We would rather suggest using religious beliefs and invisible hand of God or non-corporal aliens.”Eb was annoyed by the machine’s dismissal of his blue aliens. Kill his darlings?
“CI, any other suggestion for point 2?” he asked.
“Indeed. We can create artificial intelligence blue bodies based on my algorithm, which would make convincing aliens that can later interact with your governments and continue the disinformation.”
Eb was too drunk to realize he was about to make a devil’s pact when he agreed to launch the secret order for cybernetic blue bodies.
July 12, 2015 at 8:37 pm #3743In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“There are times when only complete nonsense will do, Percy,” stated Elizabeth with an air of triumph as she leaped out of her chair and started pacing the room. “Praise plastered particles pinched primly, pointedly, pairing plump parrots in pink painted plantpots!”
Striking a pose by the fireplace and pausing dramatically, she continued, “ Hail heavy heart handling harpsichord harpies home; hell bent high water, high hopes, heaving half hanging helplessly, hunkered and hungry.”
She sunk to the floor, overwhelmed with emotion.
“Sing softly,” she whispered, rising. “Sail slight, slanting sun shadows, sand sifting surrender, oh softly, so softly,”
Elizabeth swept over to Percy with outstretched arms, imploring, “Swill silkily slithering serpentine whispers waft willowy, willingly, winsomely waywardly west.”
“Quite,” replied Percy succinctly.
December 24, 2014 at 4:40 pm #3675In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
There was a rat tat tat tat on the door, and Sonia started barking excitedly, hoping that it was someone coming to feed her. She would have been more hungry had she not licked up all the crushed mince pies off the floor. The barking and incessant knocking on the door roused the ex, who was sleeping off the eggnog in the spare room. Eventually he shuffled out and opened the door; the knocking had become dangerously insistent.
“Yes?” he said to the woman in the red cape standing on the doorstep. Inwardly, he groaned. “Batwoman, I presume?”
“Get out of my way, Alvin, you good for nothing lush, and what are you doing here anyway?”
“No idea, Gertrude, more to the point, what are YOU doing here?”
“Tis the season of good will, you arsewipe, where’s that idiot daughter of mine?”
November 28, 2014 at 7:36 am #3573In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
Commercial Spaceline MX757#33, Mars orbit
Finnley, the board computer of the mothership had started to wake up the suspended animated bodies in preparation for the landing as per its usual instructions.
The craft had arrived in vicinity of the planet just a day ago (counted in SET, or Standard Earth Time), and was in stationary orbit over the main settlement and de facto capital of Mars.
Smaller pods would be flown from there to land the various cargo and the travelling guests, as soon as they would have had time to acclimate.Everyone was becoming quite excited, and hungry as well, once the initial shock was passed. Finnley’s synthetic voice was as smooth and silky as the modelled butt of her twenty one robotic bodies.
All of her guests were accounted for. A large number of them were sent by a rich Covenant of Holy Elietics, which hoped to enlighten the natives.
A second group was sent by a mining corporation for prospecting purposes.
Finally, travelling in the economy section were a pair of winners from a worldwide raffle that sent people to a promised new life. It was believed to be largely a scam, but the one-trip tickets were valid. That was the only thing that was provided to the winners, the rest was up to them.Finnley had been craftily programmed to display a wide range of human emotions, although she didn’t really feel them as human did. If that were the case, she would have logged in her journal her feeling to be in a great hurry to get rid of all the now terribly noisy humanity in her ship.
September 15, 2014 at 7:12 am #3527In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
“Just wait a minute for Mater to join us, kids. The dinner will wait a bit longer,” Aunt Idle said, while scraping the bottom of the pan, filling the kitchen with the smell of blackened burnt stew.
“But she’s late again, and we’re hungry now!” I said, and Clove chipped in “It’s fucking almost ruined now anyway.”
“Hey! less of that rude language, Clove,” Aunt Idle said, so I asked her why a word is ruder than being late. “Yeah, and why is barging in to her room ruder than being late?” my sister added. “Why haven’t you taught the old bag some manners, Aunt Idle?”
“Clove, really!”
“What old bag?” asked Mater, crashing open the door with her stick.
“You” replied Prune, “They’re calling you a rude old bag. OUCH! Clove just kicked me!”
“Aunt Idle, Mater didn’t say sorry for being late, isn’t that rude?”
“Only when you do it, now shut up and eat.”July 31, 2014 at 1:01 am #3341In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Is that… a flying drone?” the woman asked, pointing at the buzzing monster that just flew past them
“Nope, it’s a cicada. The ones around here are huge”
“No way! That thing was carrying a cat!”
“Yep. They tend to get hungry that time of year. The mating and all…”She gasped for air, unconsciously voicing her thoughts “How come those things became so enormous?”
The guy replied calmly “There’s a theory… That gaping hole…
“The one that appeared in the ground a few weeks ago, the size of a football field?”
“Yeah, that one…”
“I thought it was the reason why they called the Surge Team, although it’s a bit late, now. What about it? “
“It’s not really the reason why we called you. The hole was benign, the region was inhabited for years. But it released cubic tons worth of oxygen in the atmosphere.”
“So what?” she was puzzled.
“Well, that theory states that insects size is proportional to the amount of oxygen in the air… Supposedly the reason why there were giant insects in the prehistoric ages…”
“WTF?”
“Yep,… wait till you see the size of the mosquitoes”, he said handing her a shotgun.June 15, 2014 at 11:42 am #3221In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Mirabelle and Adeline sat in the morning sun on the verandah, appreciatively nibbling the perfectly formed sliced toasted bread and marmalade.
Almost six months had passed since they’d been found on the beach, confused and soaked, babbling incoherently. An early morning beach walker had found them (she had wondered if she was dreaming or hallucinating), and had attempted to engage them in conversation. A rudimentary smattering of French acquired during a grape picking sojourn in France many years ago helped. Much of what the bizarrely clad group said was incomprehensible, but it was clear that they were lost and hungry, so Lisa invited them back home with her. They were reluctant to get into the car, fearing a trap, and when she started the engine, they panicked and scrambled to get back out until Boris calmed them down and suggested they had better trust this stranger because frankly, what were their options? She seemed kind and helpful, even if she was shockingly under dressed with her legs exposed for all to see, and had an invisible and very noisy horse pulling her carriage.
Lisa lived in a relatively new community of creative and forward thinking individuals who were in the process of renovating an abandoned village in the orange groves. They called the village the Trading Post, a name that was a loose play on words on the social media platform where they had first become acquainted and traded and shared posts. They were a diverse assortment of people from all over the world, united with the common goal of experimenting with a new type of anarchist culture, a novel creative and expansive playful approach that was becoming increasingly popular.
Pierre and Étienne’s knowledge of French had come to the rescue upon the first arrival of the group, as they unraveled their strange tale. After much confusing conversation and translations for the rest of the occupants of the village, it became clear that the group were time travelers, although somewhat accidental and clearly unprepared.
While the travelers rested after an unfamiliar but welcome meal, the villagers discussed the situation with much interest and curiosity. It was decided that they would keep the news of the travelers a secret for the time being, and gradually assist them with learning about their new timeframe, current customs and the local languages.January 4, 2013 at 3:36 pm #2904In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Lulla Spinosa and Vera Pappaloosa were set to meet in Pohnpei , at a few nautical knots and cable length (as the gulls fly) from the Marshall Islands in the beautiful deeply aquamarine middle of the Pacific Ocean. 🐳
Lulla was the first to arrive, and feeling hungry after the sea trip with the amphibian red corvette, bought a pan seared squid skewer from the street vendor at the jetty. Something Vera would certainly have disapproved of, with her uppity glances, perfect gloss lipstick and mascara. Not the kind to nibble on such barbaric foods. Anyway, too bad the street vendor had run short of garlic, she would have gladly paid extra for it, just for the priceless look on the princess’ face while they would ride for the next hours in the confined car to their assigned destination.
September 28, 2010 at 4:56 am #2817In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
“Hark is that a knock at the door I hear! asked Phlora, “Flowyn must have forgotten his key again.”
However when she opened the door she was surprised to see 3 emaciated strangers.
“Forgive us for the intrusion,” said the skinniest of the trio. “But we are hungry Murganians and we smelt burnt cake. Burnt cake is our favourite.”
{link – Murganians}
September 27, 2010 at 11:54 pm #2816In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
“Oh I have burnt the cake! So occupied was I reflecting upon the joys of home, and now the blessed cake is ruined!” exclaimed Phlora. “And soon Floywn and Hywrik and the family winged horse will return, no doubt hungry as Murganians!”
But the sunflowers did look so very pretty and Phlora was not one to be downhearted for long.
{link – home}
April 20, 2010 at 8:41 am #2445In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Lilac frowned. “But I am too hungry to stop the blubbits.”
“Lilac, this is an unprecedented situation, we must stop the pea dust,’” said Naturtium, rather sternly.
“Well I am confused, are we stopping the blubbits, or the pea dust?”
Naturtium, a rather charming nickname bestowed on her when she was young – her christened name was Nasturtium, looked thoughtful for a moment. “Right” she said at last, “You go and eat. I am going to study the situation carefully. It is imperative we get this right and save the Peaslanders. I suspect they are going to need their heads back …..”
February 12, 2010 at 1:35 pm #2665In reply to: Strings of Nines
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, Liz” Godfrey 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.”
February 4, 2010 at 12:25 pm #2413In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Fwick’s bladder was boiling, and pressing him for a release. That was that little minute of inattention that cost him the equally little spider, and nearly his life.
While he was blaming and swearing at the bitter butter, he had not noticed that the amount of butter he’d prepared wouldn’t nearly have been enough to bread the spider, since the spider had already ingested the mighty yeast —as much by an insane curiosity as by bouts of bloody hunger— and as it happens, the yeast was starting to take effect.
As the weather was still a tad on the cold side in Peasland, there was a sane amount of logs piled up against the stove, which was roaring in delight well-fed as it was. It was giving the little spider ideas, as well as a newfound strength and breadth (and some beard too, but it didn’t really matter… yet, at least).
So while Fwick was moaning of delight at emptying said bladder into the loo, a bloody blunder was looming more than he could see.
The little spider started to outgrow the little matchbox, which ceded without much resistance, nor any noise.
The middle-sized spider then started to outgrow the table, which in turn ceded in a mild crack.
Finally, the big-sized spider now dying for a breakfast the size of a cow jumped by the window which jarred at the impact and finally, as all objects learn in good time when dealing with the spider, ceded to release the hungry bearded nine-eyed now-not-so-little deadly spider with a squeaking mwahahing voice.That was the voice of the spider by the way, not that of the window, which didn’t have a voice to start with, even in Peasland.
December 14, 2009 at 2:19 am #2354In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
There was trouble in New Peasland. A plague of hungry blubbits had wiped out the pea crops. Peas being the main staple in New Peasland, usually mixed with marmite and made into a tasty sauce, meant that the future looked grim for the increasingly hungry New Peaslanders.
In desperation it was decided to send a volunteer through the portal to the Eigth dimension, where it was rumoured that the inhabitants were kind hearted but rather directionless and random, and would no doubt be happy to be given some pea producing purpose.
October 25, 2009 at 11:15 am #2781In reply to: Random RewrEights – The Del’Eights thread
Arona got imperiously brave, or stupid, and moved slowly out into the light.
Holy Arona found herself always flattered at the reaction.
“I heard the music, and enjoyed the distraction. If this riddle will allow to listen” at last a box with no corn or a gold tree inside?
she leapt up on the eggs too, all morning eggs had been coming to her hungry right now, but maybe Dory was her animals in her life. She had a quite funny thing Fiona noticed. She had a box of Angel cards, and had the music card guide herself, beautiful music …
May 3, 2009 at 3:12 pm #2576In reply to: Strings of Nines
“Arthur, DAHling, how good of you to come!” Ann hugged her old freind.
“Ann!” Arthur smiled broadly, his grey eyes twinkling merrily. “You don’t look a day over 3757 years old, how do you do it!”
“Oh, Arthur” Ann blushed “Go on with you! You’re looking rather sprightly yourself, for an old coot. Come on inside, the new cook’s preparing a snack lunch, you must be hungry after your trip. Tajine von Snork’s her name, and she makes a mean bacon buttie. Jibblington will see to your luggage.”
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AuthorSearch Results