Search Results for 'interest'

One thing led to another, as it tends to do, while Sanso sat meditating on the enigma of The Dead Cow. Random and seemingly disjointed images flashed through his mind, not unlike a random google had been back in the old days, the first being an odd word, Kogaionon . Accessing further information, Sanso discovered that it was an ancient Transylvaniun skull. The link between the dead cow and the skull was clear ~ it was a bone sync, they both had bones, there was no denying it. Encouraged, Sanso continued to meditate.

After some images of a battle at sea , presumably Trafalgar, Sanso intuitively felt, he heard the words “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Wise words, he thought, and appropriate too. He popped these snippets into his indigo clue bag and continued to meditate. An image of a strange creature, half fish and half lion appeared next, a Merlion, which quickly morphed into an entertaining old movie playing across the screen of his minds eye, so to speak, in which someone who reminded him of Becky arrived in Paris during a rainstorm with just the clothes on her back ~ and interesting clothes they were, too! Sanso was glued to the screen, in a manner of speaking, and watched with amusement as a whole new wardrobe was delivered to the puzzled woman, followed by her mysterious benefactor: Georges.

Well, fancy Georges turning up again like that! Sanso was delighted. Perhaps Georges could shed some light on the mystery of the Dead Cow Blocking the Cave Entrance.

Sanso returned to his meditation and found himself eavesdropping on a conversation.

— Well, and Sanso, and Georges then, are they dead or what? How come Dory can see them?
— These ones are special, they have mastered the crossing of the Worlds, and can move through them. They move differently though. Sanso comes from a lineage of an ancient tribe of Zion, and had learn from them how to activate some portals, but only through the physical world of Dory, in their own time. He is not yet aware that he can also move through time as well, or even through other Worlds — worlds that he has no conception of yet.
Georges is more consummate in that art. Their meeting is not coincidental. You will see that.
— Thank you Grandad, it’s becoming a bit less confusing.
— Just flow with the story my little one, don’t hold on too much, or you will find it too difficult, and you will stop to find fun in it.

“Their meeting is not coincidental” Sanso repeated to himself, popping it into his clue bag. “Well, I don’t know about Meanings, but at least I have a new bag of clues now!”

The Great White Botherbrood were gathered at the Great White Detention Halls in the Alter Skye. Hilarionella was leading a chorus of Ascend With Me; the congregation of misfits and miscreants, scallywags and rebrobates joined in the uplifting melody, hoping, no doubt, to ascend the Great White Stairway to The Circle of The Eighth Heaven. A little known fact was that the doors were open to anyone, although not many people knew that. A feast of watermelon awaited them at the Table of The Ascended Party Fillers, headed by that charming old scoundrel, Saint Toblerone of Germaine. That batty old coot Hoomy was Head Waiterless, which meant there was no need to wait for a table when one arrived at The Circle of The Eighth Heaven, which was just as well, all things considered.

Telless was waiting patiently for the Watermelon Party to start, having recently been cured of the lisp that had plagued him for centuries, an unexpected side effect of the Less Telleth More course he had eventually completed, despite being inundated throughout the semester with More, rather than Less, translations to unravel and decipher.

The tables, the watermelon, and other sundries had been procured with the aid of the enigmatic E. Baynoch, whose 21st century mission was to put a spanner in the works, so to speak, of the tightly held exchange mechanism currently ruling the Dense Dimension. He felt it was a key part of the Great Tilt that the inhabitants of the Dense Dimension were experiencing, and had set plans in motion for a new kind of online system in which receiving without exchange was the key factor. An interesting side effect of the new system would be that everyone could get rid of any old rubbish easily, once differences in perception were regarded in a favourable and usefully practical light.

Lady Paula Adoremyanus, not surprisingly, would be providing rest room facilities, providing soothing energy for those who had over-indulged in the spicy Kwan Yin Chow Mein at the Tables of the Feast of The White Parrot. Having a thousand arms was obviously a great help in her work, considering the quantity of hot spices in the Kwan Yin Chow Mein, and the popularity of her Soothing Energy Rest Rooms.

#726

People who unlock this chamber will also wonder: do we know Becky?
She decided to explain about analytical sounds. Obliviousness had seen her smile in other interesting roles of her focus Lola Finn. In the need to feel her warm body, a small shower of thought had cleared now, and everything had a gentle sigh.

Godfrey stood looking up the pigeons sitting on the statue of the Academy’s founding father, Walter Melon, pondering the symbology.

“What do you reckon the symbology of that is, Aaeiulie?” he asked his colleague, this years alien-Xchange visiting professor, Aaeilulie Gub, from the Worserversity in the Slooperniff Dimension.

“No idea, God, I’ll use this as my next class assignment, see what the students come up with. Anything else, or just the statue and the pigeons? Keep it simple, profound? Or convoluted but with lots of options?”

“Oh keep it simple, if I know those students, they will manage to convolute even the simplest ideas.”

“If they didn’t, we’d be out of a job” said the alien.

“We don’t call them ‘jobs’ anymore, we call them S.M.I.L.E.S, or Something Marginally Interesting, Lucrative & Enlightening.”

With a perfectly straight face the alien replied “What rubbish.”.

Ann glanced vaguely over the bookcase, wondering where her dictionary was. Did people still use dictionaries in book form? I suppose any book will do for the purpose, she decided, and reached for the nearest book, a book about Rembrandt. She opened it randomly five times, using a ball point pen as a pointer, and selected five words for Prof Underbaker’s assignment.

…now…excite…

What a coincidence, I might be able to kill two birds with one stone here, Ann thought, with a slight shudder at the bird killing metaphor (if it was indeed a metaphor, Ann tended to skip the Labelling Words classes)…

…someone…

Ah, but who? Who shall I excite?

…pointed…

Pointed in the right direction? Addressed someone pointedly? Not to put too fine a point on it…

….time

Ann was interested to note that her selection of words started with the word NOW and ended with TIME, and popped it into her clue box in an effort to stay on course and finish the assigment.

There was no time like the present. Indeed T’Eggy was well aware that All is Now, she’d heard about that theory in Wicks, the online magazine that she’d found so enlightening. She’d been reading a copy of Wicks (a reproduction, the originals were now collectors items and very valuable ~ in an artifact rather than a monetary value kind of way, monetary value having been devalued in the early part of the century) in the teleport waiting room when she met the handsome foreignor in the dusty blue robes. Of course, it was not unusual to meet foreignors in the teleport waiting room, not unusual at all, but the tall, dark, and handsome stranger had excited her. Perhaps it was the flash of long lean tanned thigh that she glimpsed as his robes caught on the door knob. Of course, even the ‘waiting room’ was a retro touch, because there was no need to ‘wait’ for teleport travel. It seemed ironic in a way that folks in the old days had perceived ‘waiting’ as an onerous thing, an somewhat unpleasant period of clock watching and crossword puzzle books. These days ‘waiting rooms’ were popular places to meet people and choose probability pools. The latest trend was Turtle Nights, and Frog Nights, where men and women gathered in waiting rooms to choose partners, to find that special someone, loosely based on the old Hen and Stag nights.

“Do teleport stations have door knobs, Ann?” Pedro interjected.

“Oh!” Ann was momentarily non plussed.

“Non plussed? Is that a word?” asked Pedro.

“Pedro, stop interrupting! The assigment isn’t to design a teleport station!”

The teleport station had been designed in retro style, a facsimile of the Atocha train station in Madrid. Lack of need for physical details had not resulted in a lack of appreciation for physical detail simply for it’s artistic merit, not to mention historical educational value, and the TRANS (Teleport Relative to Any Now Space) Station was an award winning example of old fashioned detail. Why, it even had doorknobs, even though doors had been dispensed with several decades ago.

“I thought the assigment wasn’t to design a teleport station?” asked Pedro.

“Does it bloody matter?” retorted Ann, with a hint of exasperation. “The overall point is to write rubbish, and that’s what I’m doing!”

“I’m glad you pointed that out, Ann” remarked Pedro helpfully.

“Oh my god, look at the time!” Ann exclaimed. “It’s time for class!”

“Bugger that!” snorted Pedro. “I’d rather hear about what happened with T’Eggy and that tall dark stranger!”

Arona had no idea what dimension she was in. Or indeed, whether she was where she was at all. Oddly enough, and it was not often now that Arona found anything odd, she was finding the experience rather freeing.

“Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Hoooooooooooooooooo” she shouted, and holding her arms wide open, began to whirl joyously around, till dizziness overcame her and she landed in a heap on the ground. She expected to land in a heap on the ground in a soft meadow with pretty spring flowers, but to her consternation realised that she had landed on what felt like polished concrete. She was even more concerned when she realised that she had a large audience watching her with interest, although at that stage all she really took in was a sea of feet around her. On further inspection she appeared to be in what looked like an enormous building full of shops, and, shoppers.

“Are you okay?” A kindly gentleman asked her in a concerned voice. At least that is what Arona thought he said. Although the words were familiar, the accent was strange, and not one she had heard before.

“I am fine, thank you,” replied Arona, trying her best to appear composed and rise gracefully from her sprawled position all at the same time. She must have looked convincing because, after a few more curious looks in her direction, the crowd began to disperse.

Good Grief, where am I now? she wondered. Determined not to be alarmed and to go with the flow, however rapid that flow may be, the intrepid Arona set off to explore her new surroundings.

“Wait!”

Arona looked around. It was the strangely spoken gentleman who had first offered assistance. He was brandishing a book towards her.

“Take this book. It is no good for me.”

Arona hesitated. The last time she had heard those words she had ended up with a funny little baby to look after. The man was insistent though, so, thanking him politely Arona accepted the gift.

“Hmmmm, How to Write Fiction, how very peculiar!” Flipping it open randomly she read:

[Random Words Epigraph] Step One: Randomly choose 5 entries from your dictionary. Just flip through the pages, close your eyes, and put your finger down on the page. Copy down the word that is closest to your finger. If your finger lands on a word that you don’t know, you can choose the word just above or just below it. For the purposes of this assignment, count paired words as a single entry (for instance, “melting pot” is listed as a single entry). Step Two: Shape your list of dictionary entries into a poem or story, using all of the entries.

“bugger that,” snorted Arona.

interesting thread ~
direction deep!
tina sound, seeing otherwise…
once yoland thought,
room wish ~ usual odd dogs
beginning order knew dear
already

:yahoo_nerd:“I dont know how you can read that paper, Franlise, really I don’t.” Ann said sniffily.

“Oh I like to keep up with what’s going on, it’s interesting, it’s the end of an era you know, fascinating really,” her cleaner replied.

“Yeah, you’re right, it is interesting,” Ann had to admit that Franlise was right. It WAS interesting, and newpapers like The Old Reality Harbinger wouldn’t be around for much longer. She made a mental note to buy some to put away in case they became valuable artifacts in the future.

“Well interesting it may be, but only in small doses. I prefer The Simultaneous Times, myself.”

“The Daily Mirror’s my favourite” replied Franlise.

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.

“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.

The fact of the matter was that Ann had been intending to write about Cordella’s twin sister Flagella, but had been hopelessly side tracked when Godfrey had thrown that curve ball. Flagella had been wanting to slap herself rather badly and Ann was more than willing to oblige her by entering a scenario into the Play. The way things had panned out highlighted some interesting parallels with Yoland’s current state of affairs too. Obviously Flagella had chosen not to slap herself after all, although she appeared to have chosen to effect that in a somewhat convoluted manner. It was the unknown factors that were baffling Ann, the missing links in the convoluted manners; she felt painfully aware that she simply wasn’t seeing the whole picture.

Unsure of her footing, that’s what it was, at least that’s what Yoland had noticed. With the puppy always climbing over her feet or somewhere underfoot, she hadn’t been able to take a normal step in a fortnight. It was making her tense and tired, and jittery. Every step she took was halted, mid step, which made her feel permanently off balance.

Flagella had wanted to slap herself for being irritated, which was becoming immensely irritating in itself. Being irritated wasn’t fun at all, it was irritating! The most irritating thing of all was that she didn’t know why she’d started getting irritated in the first place.

Ann wanted to butt in and tell Flagella a thing or two about how dense she was being, but didn’t think there was much point. It wasn’t as if Flagella hadn’t already heard whatever Ann might have to tell her a thousand times or more, so it was doubtful that more words would be any help.

She doesn’t need any help, full stop, Ann reminded herself, and neither does Yoland.

Harvey cursed when he dropped the bed, which hit the floor with a loud crack.

Hopefully nobody had heard him! although it was rather unlikely. He particularly didn’t wish to alert the two ladies, his new employers Miss Sharon and Miss Gloria, to his interest in weightlifting. Harvey was working undercover for the World Association Requiring Prompt Eradication of Dreaming ( Dream Order: Newbie), otherwise known as W.A.R.P.E.D. The New Dream Order had spent considerable time and expense training robots to infiltrate bedrooms everywhere on the planet in a concerted effort to wipe out superfluous and unnecessary sleep, which had been the scourge of the planet for generations. The planet had reached crisis point with the abundance of sleep, mainly in the hysteria and confusion that had resulted when a fictional account of The Magical Nightmare, which had been published in the old Reality Times newpaper. It had caused widespread panic as the populace began trying to nap on everything in sight in a frantic attempt to control The Nightmare.

Harvey had been employed by the two ladies ostensibly as a butler. Conveniently for Harvey, the pair of old slappers had not had the luxury of staff in their hitherto adventurous, albeit common lives, and were blissfully unaware of Harvey’s many improprieties and errors. Whenever Harvey behaved oddly, the two ladies would remark “One simply can’t get the staff these days, my dear”, followed by a bit of thigh slapping and raucous laughter