Search Results for 'ink'
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Search Results
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In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Sadness, whilst not being entirely unheard of, was alot more uncommon during the days of the Gardenation. The weather was kindness itself, and everyone, naturally enough, was at liberty to grow whatever they wanted in their gardens. There were no rules and regulations in the Gardenation; it worked on a sort of expanded “pay forward” system, not that there was any pay, or forward thinking for that matter, involved. The genesis of the new collaberation of independant garden nations (although it was actually more of a renaissance, simultaneous time notwithstanding) had come about as a result of the widespread discontent of the populace with all of the political parties, in just about every nation on the planet.
During a particularly wild and raucous bridge tart birthday party (they were always having birthday parties; it was always somebody’s birthday somewhere, after all) the avant garde shift pioneers, as well as the twelve Wisp rats, came up with a plan ~ of sorts. It was more of an imaginative play really.
One of the children had been bemoaning the fact that his friend in another nation could grow whatever he wanted in his garden, and he couldn’t, in his own nation. He asked the bridge tarts if they could create a new nation, from all the independant garden nations all over the world. The bridge tarts decided that it was a fine idea and set about bridging the independant garden nations all over the world together, in energy.
Some of the bridge tarts worked on the connecting links between the garden nations all over the globe, and some of the bridge tarts were instrumental in innovative new gardening ideas. One of them experimented with pulling funny faces at the seedlings, which resulted in bizarre comical blooms. New ideas bounced from one gardenation to another, originating you might say in all gardenations at the same time, so connected were they in energy.
Given sufficient motivation, the Gardenation might have started sooner ~ notwithstanding simultaneous time. Or perhaps they already did.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
After his failed attempts to gain control over the Land of Peas, and his being thrown out of the Majorburghouse body first and framed head second by an angry mob of infuriated Peaslanders (which was something to be noted, since Peaslanders were usually quite the happy bunch), the Majorburgmester now bereft of anything but his will, was thinking it was high time for a u-turn in his carreer.
His dear blubbits had apparently mostly vanished out of sight, some said trapped in a blinking giant spider’s cobweb blinked out of Peasland, some others said suffocated under shiny duct tape, and even some said baked in ashes and almonds — those last obviously were the maddest of the lot.
It seemed like all the Dimensions had conspired to his defeat.Now hardly a Majorburgmester, the title having now been offered by the cheerful crowd to the raucous and unexpected hero (after they hesitated for a good hour if it should be given to the herald of the liberation, that stupid Gandfleur whatever its name of a dog), he was now again known as B. Weazeltweezel (the B. standing for Bartabous, his mother having a fondness for names in “-ous” like Precious, his elder sister, and Pulpous his second sister; a chance his father was a man of more common sense, otherwise he surely would have been named Houmous himself).
The newfound venture didn’t wait long to manifest. In the not so distant past, he had already suspected something fishy about Lady Fin Min Hoot and now he knew. She was a high member of the Bridge Tarts Order, and though it was a secretive and feminine order, he had always loved a challenge.
He felt he could muster all the tartiness and bridginess needed to be granted access to their secrets.Galvanized as he was, were he to successfully infiltrate the order, he knew he didn’t really stand a chance without something else. By nothing short of a synchronistic chance, Fwick, the saucerer had given him the leftovers of a potion he didn’t know what to make of.
In a gulp (and a few gargppls) Batabous was rapidly changed into a rather convincing dame matron, with slight mustache and ample bosom.
Tarty Bridgies, here I come… he said in a falsetto voice that needed work. … soon everybody will know about Lady… Bartaba
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Peackle dragged his father by the sleeve and showed him the delirious aunt speaking in tongues.
See, dad, I think she got that special direct line with the Eight’s Dimension now…
Oh, I see… a broken Pee saidTheir victory over Mother Blubbit seemed utterly and bitterly Pyrrhic at the moment, considering all the nonsense (damned be the Eighth Dimension) their trip has brought to otherwisely very non-nonsensical Peasland. Would they ever get back to normal again?
He preferred to believe she’d just again overindulged on Peaskol, the famoul (famously foul) alcohol brewed from overripe peas known though all Peasland to clean old clogged pipes. That and smoking tea leaves of course…
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“Really, Godfrey, do you think it’s wise to let the children play tea parties down there? Every time I take a peek, it looks like they’re making a hell of a mess,” asked Elizabeth with a worried frown. “Just look at the mess they’re making with that cake. I dread to think what will happen when they ice it.”
“I think part of the problem” Godfrey replied wryly “Is that they iced it before it had finished rising.”
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“Hot cakes!” Nasty shouted. “HOT CAKES!”
Lilac rolled her eyes. I don’t think I can take much more of this nonsense, she thought.
Nasturtium knew what Lilac was thinking and added “Hot cakes is the clue, Lilac! YEAST!”
“Yeast?”
“Yes, yeast! There was too much yeast in the furcano mixture. Too much yeast and what happens? It rises too much! We must find a way to neutralize the yeast!”
“Well I think I can help you there” replied Lilac helpfully. “I’ll give old Dophilus a ring. Never been a saucerer better at sorting out yeast problems. You know Horace Dophilus!” she added, seeing Nasty’s blank look. “He was a guest speaker at the Worserversity once, remember? In some circles he’s known as the Biotic Man.”
“Oh, HIM! Go on then, give him a ring.”
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“Are you saying that all we need is a giant blinking teabag?” inquired Lilac politely.
“Yeah, I think if you get the guage right on the net, it should work like a dream.”
“And what do we do with a giant teabag full of volcano dust?”
“Lava dust tea? Are you kidding? Sells like hotcakes in some dimensions. The bridge tarts are always smuggling it through portals.”
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Suddenly it all became clear to Nasturtium. The Releasing of the Bird had gone awry with The Tampering of The Code. The giant invisible spider web tea bag that was to enclose all that annoying blubbit nonsense that was wreaking havoc all over Peasland had blinked out while nobody was focused on it.
Obviously, as any well versed bridge tart would know, it could just as easily blink back in.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“I think, and I am sure that Finn(ley) will agree, that what is needed for this fish(y) net is a new thread, or two or three” remarked Annabel to Finn(ley) in particular.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
And good luck with making any sense off THAT! the evil Messmeerah hissed in a fitful and raucous laugh which made her blink and wink like mad.
Turning to her shrine, she started to prepare the right tools for the job… a fine bloody ritual.
Boy, did she loved carpaccio.In reply to: Strings of Nines
That’s the moment Minky was waiting for to come out of the shadows and shanghai the boy away.
“Yikes!”
In reply to: Strings of Nines
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Mother Blubbit unlike her progeny wasn’t actually blue.
She had a more pinkish rosy tint that turned red around the ears, and probably should have been called a Rosbit —a deranged thought that crossed young Peackle’s head (still on the mantelpiece in Penelope’s pristinely clean house) as he was gasping before the sizable, yet furry, and giant, roasted blubbit saddle his aching stomach was making him see instead of the now puzzled creature.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
As if they had conspired to make it funnier, Yurick found on his answering machine twice the same question later in the day: “Are you still there?” had asked both Malika and Dory.
That was without counting Finn’s “when you’re back, welcome back.”
Maybe he was just blinking without noticing it.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Deep within the Furcano, the Mother of the Blubbits was growling. Her belly actually. She’d spent days and days, like every good blubbit alien mother, spawning a furry and ungrateful progeny.
For each of the blubbits captured and slaughtered, she was compelled to balance the loss. Balance was her motivation —at first. Now she was starting to think that maybe drowning them in baby blubbits would be a better and quicker way to end their (and her) suffering.
That was at that precise moment that something round and hairy rolled at her feet with a funny movement and strange soft sounds. How funny she thought, she suddenly felt compelled to balance that odd thing on her nose.
Imagine the expression (yes you’d have to imagine it, because they didn’t have one) on the faces of our favorite Peaslanders when they came into the cave running after the rolling head to see said head balanced on the nose (pink and soft) of a giant and furry Mother Blubbit.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“I think they’re lost beyond hope” Muckus went back reporting to the evil Majorburgmester
“Oh good!”
“Probably more hopelessly lost than being in the Eighth if you ask me, last time I checked on them, there was a woman running for her head to the Furnace of the Furcano, and all the others following her…”
“Sounds hairy.” the Major couldn’t help but add with a smirk on his face (framed and hanged to the wall) and a twitch in his left nostril.In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“These old ezines and blogs are fascinating” remarked Periwinkle, passing the one she had just been reading to Daffodil. “Thank goodness some folks had the foresight to print some of them!”
“I know, imagine if they hadn’t. We’d have no artefacts for the collection. Well, we have all those flat discs, but no way to decipher them. Oh, did I tell you? Bignonia found something even older than the discs!”
“NO!” exclaimed Periwinkle “Do tell!”
“Yes, even older! Funny looking contraption, with two reels and a ribbon. An information storage device, so they say, although they haven’t discovered how to decipher it.”
“I wonder why we’re still not simply accessing that information without, well, without messing around with the physical contraption, you know?”
“Wouldn’t be any point in being here in the first place, if we weren’t going to mess around with physical things, silly” replied Daffodil.
There was no answer to that, so Periwikle didn’t answer. She continued to thumb through the printed pages.
Periwinkle and Daffodil sat together on the patio in the warm spring sunshine, sipping lemonade
and leafing through the papers. Bright white clouds in cartoon shapes romped across the blue sky,
and the birds chattered in the trees,
occasionally landing on the printed pages and cocking their heads sideways to read for a moment, before flying off to tell their friends, which was usually followed by a raucous group cackling.
“Dear Goofenoff” read Daffodil, “This one looks interesting Peri, someone here is asking for advice on a problem.”
“What’s a “problem”, Daffy?” asked Periwinkle. “For that matter, what does the word “advice” mean? Oh, never mind” she said as she noticed Daffodil rolling her eyes, “I’ll look it up in my pre shift dictionary of defunct words.”
“She’s asking the Snoot too, about the same problem. Oh, I think I’ve heard of them! It’s coming back to me, the old Snoot’n‘Goof team, they were quite famous in the beginning of the century, I remember hearing about them before in a Shift History discussion.”
“Well, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of them, but then, I’ve never been into history like you, dear. So what is this “problem” all about, then?”
“I’ll read it out to you, it’s way too convoluted to put in a nutshell. Lordy, they sure did complicate matters back then, it’s almost unbeleivable, really, but anyway, here goes:
Dear Goofenoff,
I don’t know what to do! I am confused about which probable version of a blog freind, let’s call him MrZ, I have chosen to align with. The first probable version was ok, nothing to worry about, and then I drew into my awareness the probable versions of MrZ that some of my freinds had chosen to align with….”
“Blimey”, interrupted Periwinkle, who was starting to fidget. “Is it much longer?”
“It’s alot longer, so be patient. Where was I? Oh yes:
“….and while that was very interesting indeed, and led to lots of usefully emotionally heated discussions, I started to align with their probable version, at times, although not consistently, which led to some confusion. So then I had a chat with someone who was more in alignment with my original probable version, although there were aspects of that probable version that were a little in alignment with the other folks probable version, notwithstanding. I suppose I was still in alignment with the other folks probable version when it came to my attention that there was another individual that might be aligning with a probable version, and my question is, in a nutshell, is it any of my business which probable version the new individual on the scene is aligning with?”
“Well, I can tell you the answer to that!” exclaimed Periwinkle.
Daffodil rolled her eyes. “Yes, dear, WE know the answer, but the point is, SHE didn’t know the answer at the time, which is why she asked Goofenoff.”
“If you ask me, she knew the answer all along” Periwinkle intuited. “What did Goofenoff say anyway?”
“He said:
Are you requiring a short or a long answer?”
Daffodil turned the page to continue reading. She frowned, and flicked through a few pages.
“What a shame, some of these pages appear to be missing! Now we’ll never know what Goofenoff said.”
Periwinkle laughed. “Well, never mind that anyway, have you seen the random story quote today? Rather synchronistic I’d say, listen to this bit:
Illi felt much better, and was sitting at the breakfast table, basking in the warm shafts of sunlight filtering in through the window, and listening to the birds singing in the lemon tree outside.”
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Did you notice that, Pee? THE CODE HAS BEEN TAMPERED WITH AGAIN!
Isn’t it back to how it was in the first place, Doily? Pee scatched his, er, shoulders. (he couldn’t remember if he had his head with him or not)
NO! It bloody well isn’t, it’s a good jib I’m here with you, you’d have been hoodwinked just like the others. It’s MEANT to look like it’s as it was, but it isn’t, Doily said grimly.
What was it in the first place, then? asked Pee.
Buggered if I know, replied Doily, scratching her elbow.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Doily said matter-of-factly to her little troop of headless travellers “Fancy a cup of tea?”
As none of them really cared to answer to the obvious fact that they didn’t have any teapot or sugar not to mention milk, lemon, and of course tea (other than a few random leaves that could have been used as an ersatz) she pursued her inspired tirade “Did you know that the Reunited Landers invented tea-bags by the way?”
Silence again.
“I just suddenly remembered, and it’s the funniest thing believe me… Those bloody Yorkies were sent some tea samples in silk pouches and they thought it the next best thing since the invention of boiled water and asked for more!…”
“Perhaps we should catch the blubbits in silk pouches…” she added after a moment.
“Frankly, anyone wanting to get home?” she then said with a bit of alarm in her voice “This Eighth Dimension doesn’t really got the promises of fun they sold us.”“I was starting to think the same,” Pee answered raucously, startling everyone off their self induced Kuzhedoor trance state.
In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
fun summer somewhat hand free random wish heard whispered seen yurick alone life hear suppose raucous
“surprise others!”
“cave heads suddenly body!”
“sudden self popped!”“ come words, following wondered told often; replied:
~ “thinking thank fingers!” ~
certainly thread moment, perhaps lovely away…..
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Messmeerah (Winky) Maymhe, High Priestess of the Pendulous and Loose Otherworldly Threading, was going for a bath into the Pool of Rejuvenation. Her ineffable beauty had started to show the early signs of time tampering —signs she’d learnt to notice as soon as they’d appear. Luckily, the moons were in perfect alignment for the rituals of Spring Beautusk*.
News were good, very good indeed —which would certainly help in maintaining her perfect brow and forehead in pristine smoothness.
News were so good that she’d sent her minion Minky fetch the boy just right after her white crow Saggin had came back with news of finding him… after all those years (not that years did matter to her anyway, she prided herself on that).It’d been close to an eternity, and she weighted her words… (in actuality it was a few teens and futile years at most) that she’d been trying to recover the boy, but the dwarfs had played her, and had managed to hide him from her sight.
She had not thought he could be concealed by anyone powerful enough, and it was surely not by the magic of that headless Malvina and her pesky dragons. In fact, the boy had been concealed even after Malvina and her menagerie had left the boy and his caretaker. She was thinking the caretaker in question had a concealment charm far more powerful she thought could exist.But Minky would surely take care of that.
—
- It should be said that one of the effects of the rituals of Spring Beautusk were a slight stiffness of the overall face (and other dipped body parts), which earnt Messmeerah the cute and albeit ironic sobriquet of Winky, as she hardly managed to blink and was often victim of bouts of winking when she tried too hard.