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AuthorSearch Results
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December 28, 2012 at 6:27 am #2870
In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves
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.March 15, 2012 at 3:08 am #1305In reply to: scattered grasps
March 14, 2012 at 10:19 pm #1295In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves
“Guess it was about bloody time I got back here” Franlise said, her feather duster firmly clutched in her left hand.
The matronly black woman started dusting vigourously, sending myriads of half-written papers flying in the air.
“My draaafts!” Elizabeth shriek was lost in the gusts of winds.“Bugger, bugger, bugger” the impromptu cleaning lady started to enunciate in a most perfect Queen’s English. “Nothing like some good buggery bugger to start the day and clear the lungs. And many a little makes a damn buggery mickle, isn’t that right darling?”. She said, striking a pilates pose in between the cleaning.
Elizabeth stood aghast, not knowing what to say but a meek “Didn’t I fire you?” to which Franlise knew better than to answer with nought but a smile.
Drawing a sharp letter opener from behind her back, she nimbly leaned toward Elizabeth, with all her white teeth glowing in the dark apartment where even the aspidistras had long gone dried up and wrinkled, their pots now no more than mere ashtrays.“Well, now, what shall we do about all that spider cobwebs you’ve got yourself wrapped in…”
March 11, 2012 at 4:26 pm #1842In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves
The Godfrey2012 campaign started when story characters from all over the world got together to tell other story characters about the fate of the ones left on the shelf in unfinished books. Some wanted to pin the blame all on Godfrey, to make it easier to steal all his peanuts, but the story characters weren’t so daft, they knew that everyone is writing their own story, and what was so great about peanuts anyway.
February 22, 2012 at 2:02 am #2172In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves
“Silence,” commanded a loud voice. “Speak not of the Kraken, or indeed any other matters you do not understand.”
“Well, that covers most things” muttered Flinella.
“Why the bloody hell not?” Eliza was indignant. There was nothing she liked better than to discuss things she knew little about.
The island groaned and rumbled and slowly began to move.
January 24, 2012 at 9:20 pm #2744In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves
What a kraken was doing in Adryattic was anyones guess. Nobody really knew why there were penguins on September 6th bridge in Cairo, either. True, there had been snow in Alexandria that winter, and in Gaza, and the northern lights had been seen as far south as Nigeria, but it didn’t explain the presence of the kraken or the penguins.
November 19, 2010 at 2:37 pm #2825In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
Racy Mc Tartshall had been absent for so long that it was hardly any wonder that nobody remembered her, despite the importance of her mission which had long since been forgotten. Mc Tart, as she was affectionately known (or would have been if anyone had remembered her) was a tartist of the highest calibre, consistently producing hugh class tart (which was of course three grades higher than high, and 2 grades higher than hagh, and so forth). Mc Tart had been investigating Nosebook, sniffing out potential distortions, claritortions, connectortions and myriad other contortions, for the distortium, claritortium, connectortium and contortium, respectively ~ focusing mainly on the connectortium, naturally enough.
While researching something or other that was no doubt relevant at the time but had long been forgotten, Mc Tart met Alfred in the Library. ““Aha! Alfred in the Library with a Book, was it!” she exclamined. “I knew I’d find a clue here”. “It wasn’t me!” he retorted, aghast. “It was Albert in the Chapless Pants club with a Rolling Pin!” Mc Tart, feigning an all knowing expression, replied “Ahhhh” and made a mental note to investigate.
Mental notes, known as m’otes for short, floated like wisps in the air currents and occasionally sparkled in the sunbeams, although more often than not, they clumped together under the bed in bunny shapes, slowly dying of boredom. Thankfully the sheer pointlessness of mental notes ~ m’otes ~ made not a whit of difference in the grand scheme of the connectortium investigation because of the abundant nature of Fluce’s ~ (fucking lucky chance encounters), notwithstanding the heated debates continuing in the Distortium about the precise nature of Fluce’s and their relationship to M’Otes ~ or not, depending on the point one wished to make at any particular time.
And so it was by Fluce that Mc Tart met Blithe, Heck and Walty in “le Tunnel” one dreary grey Noremember afternoon. There was nothing to suggest, on first inspection, any thing of interest for the Connectortium mission, but Mc Tart was not discouraged. “Many a moth maketh maths marbles” she reminded herself as she perused the nenu (which, the reader will deduce, is a hugher class of menu).
[link: high class]
November 16, 2010 at 10:53 pm #2489In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
The Strawberry Aliens entered via the portal near the effigy in Bristol Cathedral. Although they were invisible to the unshifted eye, and their actual entrance had gone entirely unnoticed, Lilac knew they had arrived, and wept.
The world had gone mad overnight.
November 12, 2010 at 11:58 am #2488In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
While in the other Eightic Dimension, Lilac —catching a new weebit of inspiration— suddenly went off for a good old clue-hunt and some air-fishing of these whoohoo sparkling flying goldfishes (her morning cup of herbal coffree smelt like concrete today) — meanwhile, in the Peasland Dimension, the aliens had indeed departed. Not without leaving behind a sweet smell of peer compote that nobody knew for sure whether or not it should be considered slightly ominous.
As it should, the Saucerers who had been consulted on that matter had nothing better to do but further enhance the confusion. They all started to dread the arrival of a new species… Strawberries aliens.October 29, 2010 at 8:20 am #2739In reply to: Strings of Nines
Arona was starting to get cold in the pinkini. She wondered how the lady with the green hair managed to keep warm with so little (not to say as much as nothing) on her skin.
She probably had some fuel more lasting than just Nhum.
Upon seeing that (not the nakie lady, Flove forbid, but the freezing Arona and the night falling down), chivalrous Vinny and Bucky went to gather some bones and fire to spend the night around a nice bonefire. Just what she needed for a keetle of hot tea.Note from the observing Sue Maffey, who started quickly to get high and delirious on Nhum tea in chippendale cups and mumbled to herself and patient Minky-in-crutches in between a few hiccups: “you knew that a bonfire is actually a fire made of bones, originally said of fires in which the bones of slaughtered animals were burned, allegedly a Gaengelic tradition of the slaughter season in autumn (Samhain, which was soon to come).”
She almost gasped wondering where their camelephants had suddenly gone and why that purple reckless dragon suddenly looked satiated.By now, almost everyone else who was there, including (but not only) Mandrake, Yickesy, Winky-nakie-greenie-Messmeerah-with-her-carved-jamón and Mrs Janet had thought the same at least once. That and wondering whether they’d ever get to see that famed Jiborium.
So much for cheap package tours.August 10, 2010 at 9:12 pm #2805In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
“Do leaves really talk?” she wondered as the smoke of the herb tea dissipated off the kitchen’s mirror credence. “Let’s see about that,” she continued, carrying the tray with the cup of tea and the scones to the computer room, from where a few oink sounds were beckoning her.
Probably her friends asking for a chat, some random rubbish or the last juicy news about the president’s wife who happened to be visiting in the area. In truth, she wouldn’t have even known, had it not be for her foreign friends. The local neighbours really couldn’t give a fig. That was figuratively speaking of course. The fig trees were already full of green fruits, that if odds were good wouldn’t turn up as half-sodden half-rotten food for snails on the cobblestone pathway this year.She added a zest of fresh lemon to the tea. She liked it bitter. The leaves were starting to settle at the bottom of the cup while she lit up a cigarette, throwing a cursory glance at the tens of messages waiting for her to peruse. Which was more interesting? She could figure out wavy things as feeble and changing as her cigarette’s smoke in between the leaves patterns, as well as in between the lines of haphazard messages from all the contacts. But those she loved the most were the pages she leafed through her books.
Yesterday, she started to do something purely daft, as she liked — a sort of challenge, if you will; or perhaps, a strong repressed desire. Sometimes it takes you years to do things you were thinking about when you were but a child. The moment you allow yourself the pleasure to indulge and overcome the resilient beliefs that it’s something forbidden or insidiously wrong is all the sweeter.
And she was tasting it like a sour sweet, with a touch of forbidden and the zest of excitement. Or more like horseradish. Ooh, does she live the green stuff too. Prickly at first, going up to your nose, and living you crying but begging for more. She makes a note to buy some next week (note that she’ll probably forget).
So what did she do? She took some of her precious books and started to tear up and cut through the pages. A blasphemy almost, for someone like her who revered books. Of course, at first she only took the bad ones, the romantic rubbish and the dog-eared now useless kitchen books, but then realized, what would be the point of gathering new information by assembling random pages cut off from a variety of books, if it wasn’t made from quality ingredients. Well, it surely stands to reason, even though her culinary reason had been on voyage the last twenty years as far as she knew. Anyway. Those leafs were starting to talk better than any bloody tea leaves could.[link: talking leaves]
August 8, 2010 at 6:44 pm #2803In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
Sean was going to the forest. He had noticed a big old tree that was swarming with bees the last time he came back from the hunt, and thought he could probably make some nice gift to his pregnant wife with some delicious honey.
The lime-blossom was making the air a sweet and fragrant balm in the spring, and he knew how she loved it too. She had not been able to walk into the forest since the last months of her pregnancy, and she was getting restless in the house.
Sure some lime-blossom honey would appease her.April 24, 2010 at 1:20 pm #2466In 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
April 21, 2010 at 10:14 pm #2463In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Meanwhile, Landelin was perfecting his blubbit duct-tape traps.
Landelin was a quite reclusive man, some Peaslanders considered him even a bit mentally challenged with a reputation for having teafing as a secondary hobby. Yes, secondary. Before teafing, came duct tape ; duct tape always came first.
Landelin had been fond of duct tape since he was a kid, since he’d glued his first nanny to the cellar door and then went off buying more duct tape at the local grocery store with the money he’d teafed from her. Teafing always came second.Plagued as all Peaslanders with blubbits, he’d reasoned, quite reasonably for someone as mentally challenged as him, that blubbits were like worries and warts (and he knew quite a bit about the former and the latter), and none could stand a chance if administered the right amount of duct tape. By right amount, he meant, as much as needed to cover them in silver linings and eventually, maybe erradicate them —but that was a bit besides the point anyway.
Pity there wasn’t more than a few blue pelts’ hair to teaf from a blubbit, he thought quite reasonably again, as his last prototrap worked like a charm and had a few blubbits suffocating under a fair amount of stickiness.
Well, from blubbits, perhaps not so much, but from Peaslanders waiting for naught but a savior, maybe… After all the other treatments have failed, they surely would turn, as they all do, willingly or forcibly, to the raw power of taping.
April 21, 2010 at 7:04 am #2457In 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.”
April 2, 2010 at 7:57 pm #2683In reply to: Strings of Nines
“When I saw Finn waiting for me at the corner of the street I knew at once that something had gone” Yrucik (Yurick oddly spelt) newly opened book knew how to set the tone. Of course, Finn (the real Finn) was nowhere to be found, as it should, discrete as she was —even if Finn in the book was a man, Under the (Fish) Net, that is.
March 3, 2010 at 10:47 am #2434In 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.”
February 12, 2010 at 1:50 pm #2667In reply to: Strings of Nines
Robin Peter’s wife, Felicity, was handing out sample bottles of shampoo on the opposite street corner. Felicity knew that fresh rain water was marvellous for the hair, and often wondered why so many people went to such extraordinary lengths to keep their hair covered during the rain. They ran across roads in front of traffic, and dashed hither and yon, tiptoeing through puddles, racing home to their houses and flats, and then went straight into the shower to get themselves wet ~ after they accidentally got themselves wet outside.
“There’s nowt so queer as folk,” as Felicity’s Granny always used to say.
February 8, 2010 at 3:42 am #2420In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“There is one man to whom I am indebted,” said Shar, with a faraway look in her eyes.
“Blimey, who’s that then Shar?”
“Enric Lemoon is his name. One day he said words to me I will never forget, and at that moment, I knew that the most important thing in the world was that I learn to speak like him.”
“Oh you do tell a good story, Shar. Go on then! I am all goggle eared. What’d that Enric chappy say to you?”
“He said, the grumpy old cat must be white of old age by now.”
“Cor!” said Mavis in awe. “Bloody marvelous! Was it a code? You know, one of them brain teasers like?”
Shar looked at Mavis pityingly and shook her head. “It was poetry, Mavis. Poetry.”
February 4, 2010 at 12:04 pm #2412In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
The Peasland Majorburgmester rubbed his hands with an evil glee.
Fwick was knee deep in kneading for what appeared to be a lunatic idea bound to failure, and more importantly, it’s been weeks that no one had heard back from the expedition to the Eighth Dimension… And frankly, anyone having spent more than a few days in the Eighth Dimension usually was never to be heard of again —or heard speak anything intelligible for that matter, which didn’t make much difference either.
In fact, there had been some reports of sightings of the poor souls’ dog, what was its name already, Gandfleur or something equally ridiculous. But a single dog was hardly a problem, and now he couldn’t see how Peasland would be able to avoid the unavoidable blubbits dominion over Peaslanders.
He’d made that surer than sure; he’d gone again no later than yesterday, concealed under a waterproof floak (a floating cloak for inundated part of the lands), deep into the heart of Peasland’s plains now ridden in burrows to feed the breading mother of all blubbits a healthy dose of blunips. It had cost him most Mungibs he thought he would ever allow to part with, but it was Mungibs well placed. Soon people would plead for a real game changer. And he knew well who would step forward, and it was nothing like those headless twats.He was in such a jolly mood, he’d called for a party. Well not officially called that, of course —Peaslanders were such worryworts about their crops and the famine that may occur… But a little friendly gathering to celebrate their heroes gone to the Eighth for answers. What a masquerade.
He was indeed in such a jolly mood that he took the sinewy and allwardly beautiful Lady Fin Min Hoot by the waist, and invited her to a delirious dance —it was indeed a dandy day for dancing— and for a little after-hour in his carriage when they are done jiggling their bodyparts (at least in public).
That was then, all tied up in leather ribbons and pillows’ owl’s feathers, when he (and Lady Fin) heard the raucous voice calling.
Gnarfle !
Yes, that was it! that was the stupid name of the dog!…How come they’d managed to come back?!
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