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In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions
Floverly looked at her agenda, it was pretty busy in this week of now.
Medlik had assigned her more blessing tasks and her aura cleaning duties were lagging behind.
She had also agreed to take an extra soul in need of enlightenment, a recommendation. Normally recommendations worked best, but sometimes they could be extra demanding.She sighed contentedly, looking at the pile of squeaky clean auras. She’d finished just in time, as always.
Her appointment was there and ready now. The little card in her sleeve just stated a name, James, and a little tag to indicate the time and space. She focused inwardly into the little red dot of light on the card.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Corrie’s findings from elsewhere:
“On the empty road, Quentin realized there was something different in the air.
A crispness, something delicate and elusive, yet clear and precious.
A tiny dot of red light was peeking through the horizon line.It was funny, how he had tried to elude his fate, slip through the night into the oblivion and the limbo of lost characters, trying so hard to not be a character of a new story he barely understood his role in.
But his efforts had been thwarted, he was already at least a secondary character. So he’d better be aware, pretend owl watching could become dangerously enticing.”
““There hath he lain for ages,” Mater read the strip of paper, “And will lie Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep..” Buggered if I know what that’s supposed to mean, she muttered, continuing to read the daily oracle clue: “Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; Then once by man and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die…..”
Mater had become increasingly irritated as the morning limped on, with no sign of Prune. Nobody had seen her since just before 3:00am when Idle got up for the loo and saw her skulking in the hallway. Didn’t occur to the silly fool to wonder at the time why the girl was fully dressed at that hour though.
The oracle sounded ominous. Mater wondered if it was anything to do with the limbo of lost characters. She quickly said 22 Hail Saint Floverly prayers, and settled down to wait. If Prune had accidentally wandered into the lost characters limbo, battening upon seaworms would be the least of their problems.”
“You should have thought about it before sending me for a spying mission, you daft tart” Prune was rehearsing in her head all the banter she would surely shower Aunt Idle with, thinking about how Mater would be railing if she noticed she was gone unattended for so long.
Mater could get a heart attack, bless her frail condition. Dido would surely get caned for this. Or canned, and pickled, of they could find enough vinegar (and big enough a jar).In actuality, she wasn’t mad at Dido. She may even have voluntarily misconstrued her garbled words to use them as an excuse to slip out of the house under false pretense. Likely Dido wouldn’t be able to tell either way.
Seeing the weird Quentin character mumbling and struggling with his paranoia, she wouldn’t stay with him too long. Plus, he was straying dangerously into the dreamtime limbo, and even at her age, she was knowing full well how unwise it would be to continue with all the pointers urging to turn back or chose any other direction but the one he adamantly insisted to go towards, seeing the growing unease on the young girl’s face.
“Get lost or cackle all you might, as all lost is hoped.” were her words when she parted ways with the strange man. She would have sworn she was quoting one of Mater’s renown one-liners.
With some chance, she would be back unnoticed for breakfast.”
“Prune turned to look back at Quentin as she made her way home. He’d have been better off waiting for a new chapter in the refugee story, instead of blundering into that limbo with that daft smile on his face. What a silly monkey, she thought, scratching under her arms and making chimpanzee noises at the retreating figure. Look at him, scampering along gazing up into the treetops, instead of watching his step.
A deep barking laugh behind her made her freeze, with her arms akimbo like teapot handles. Slowly she turned around, wondering why she hadn’t noticed anyone else on the track a moment before.
“Who are you?” she asked bluntly. “I’m Prune, and he’s Quentin,” she pointed to the disappearing man, “And he’s on the run. There’s a reward for his capture, but I can’t catch him on my own.” Prune almost cackled and hid the smirk behind her forearm, pretending to wipe her nose on it. She wondered where the lies came from, sometimes. It wasn’t like she planned them ~ well, sometimes she did ~ but often they just came tumbling out. It wasn’t a complete lie, anyway: there was no reward, but he could be detained for deserting his new story, if anyone cared to report it.
The man previously known as the Baron introduced himself as Mike O’Drooly. “I’m a story refugee,” he admitted.
“Bloody hell, not another one,” replied Prune. Then she had an idea. “If you help me capture Quentin, you’ll get a much better character in the new story.”
“I’ve nothing left to lose, child. And no idea what my story will be or what role I will play.” Perhaps it’s already started, he wondered.
“Come on, then! If we don’t catch him quick we might all end up without a story.”
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Corrie’s findings from elsewhere:
“You can’t leave without a permit, you know,” Prune said, startling Quentin who was sneaking out of his room.
“I’m just going for a walk,” he replied, irritated. “And what are you doing skulking around at this hour, anyway? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
“What are you doing with an orange suitcase in the corridor at three o’clock in the morning?” the young brat retorted. “Where are you going?”
“Owl watching, that’s what I’m doing. And I don’t have a picnic basket, so I’m taking my suitcase.” Quentin had an idea. “Would you like to come?” The girls local knowledge might come in handy, up to a point, and then he could dispose of her somehow, and continue on his way.
Prune narrowed her eyes with suspicion. She didn’t believe the owl story, but curiosity compelled her to accept the invitation. She couldn’t sleep anyway, not with all the yowling mating cats on the roof. Aunt Idle had forbidden her to leave the premises on her own after dark, but she wasn’t on her own if she was with a story refugee, was she?”
“Seeing Dido eating her curry cookies would turn Mater’s stomach, so she went up to her room.
Good riddance she thought, one less guest to worry about.
Not that she usually thought that way, but every time the guests leaved, there was a huge weight lifted from her back, and a strong desire of “never again”.
The cleaning wasn’t that much worry, it helped clear her thoughts (while Haki was doing it), but the endless worrying, that was the killer.After a painful ascension of the broken steps, she put her walking stick on the wall, and started some breathing exercises. The vinegary smell of all the pickling that the twins had fun experimenting with was searing at her lungs. The breathing exercise helped, even if all the mumbo jumbo about transcendant presence was all rubbish.
It was time for her morning oracle. Many years ago, when she was still a young and innocent flower, she would cut bits and pieces of sentences at random from old discarded magazines. Books would have been sacrilegious at the time, but now she wouldn’t care for such things and Prune would often scream when she’d find some of her books missing key plot points. Many times, Mater would tell her the plots were full of holes anyway, so why bother; Prune’d better exercise her own imagination instead of complaining. Little bossy brat. She reminded her so much of her younger self.
So she opened her wooden box full of strips of paper. Since many years, Mater had acquired a taste for more expensive and tasty morsels of philosophy and not rubbish literature, so the box smelt a bit of old parchment. Nonetheless, she wasn’t adverse to a modicum of risqué bits from tattered magazines either. Like a blend of fine teas, she somehow had found a very nice mix, and oftentimes the oracle would reveal such fine things, that she’d taken to meditate on it at least once a day. Even if she wouldn’t call it meditate, that was for those good-for-nothing willy-nilly hippies.
There it was. She turned each bit one by one, to reveal the haiku-like message of the day.
“Bugger!” the words flew without thinking through her parched lips.
looked forgotten rat due idea half
getting floverley comment somehow
prune hardly wondered eyes great
inn run days dark quentin simulationThat silly Prune, she’d completely forgotten to check on her. She was glad the handwritten names she’d added in the box would pop up so appropriately.
She would pray to Saint Floverley of the Dunes, a local icon who was synchretized from old pagan rituals and still invoked for those incapable of dancing.
With her forking arthritis, she would need her grace much.”In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Corrie’s findings from elsewhere:
“It was no coincidence that “Elikozoe”, his nom de plume (he was born Albert (Al) Yokoso, from a father of Japanese descent and a mother of Cajun descent) had been sent to the Pickled Pea Inn (formerly known as the Flying Fish Inn).”
I thought about leaving that one out, as it seemed so nonsensical, this place has never been called the pickled pea, but I’m leaving it in for now. Might make some kind of sense somewhere down the line.
“This morning was quiet, but his mind was not.
There were always the nagging thoughts that something ought to be done, the restless fear of forgetting something of importance.
But this morning was quiet.
A bit too quiet in fact.
No raucous cackling to stir the soft velvety dust from the wooden floorboard.Quentin was wondering whether the story makers had lost all interest in moving his story forward. Yet, he was more than willing to move it notwithstanding, his efforts seemed of little consequence however. Some piece was missing, some ever-present grace of illumination shrouded in scripting procrastination.
His discussion with Aunt Idle had been brief. She’d told him with great intensity that she had a weird dream. That she looked into a mirror and saw herself. Or something like that,… she was not a very coherent woman, the ging wasn’t helping.
Maybe his task was done. Time to leave the Pickled Pea Inn.
His friend Eicnarf seemed eager to see him. Or maybe that had been a typo and she really meant to sew him, or saw him,… she could be gory like that…No matter, a trip out of the brine cloud of this sand coated place would do him good.”
And good riddance, you cheeky bugger, I can’t help thinking.
““Did anybody see our last guest?” Mater couldn’t help but regularly count her herds (so to speak), and although she wasn’t as authoritative with her guests as she was with her family members, she couldn’t help but notice that her last count was one person short —enough to start worrying her.
“Hmm lwwft thws hhmmmng” said Idle, her mouth full with cookies.
Mater shrugged. It was still better than when she used to talk with sauerkraut.”
I had better ask Clove to remind me how to do italics I suppose. This could get confusing.
In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions
“And what does it mean?” James asked Gelly.
“2. The Receptive, ach, es means quietness is gut, ja. Und es ist a good time to ask yourself ‘Am I sincerely pursuing the gut für its own sake, or do Ich have ein hidden agenda?’.”Gelly was drawing the I-Ching to help James about his question. He still had doubts about his decision to enroll.
“Did you have any chance to reach Floverley?”
“Ach, She is tricky Master, very subtle energy, difficult to draw in, but yes, she has manifested herself a few times. She seems to like my owl sehr much.”
“I would be interested in connecting with Her, can you setup an appointment?”
“Oh, that would be interesting, why not, let me put you in… what about… next week? same time?”
“That would be great thanks.”
Edward removed the VR helmet from his head, and looked at Florence’s pod on the surveillance cam with a forlorn look on his face.
He was well aware that, like many “normal” people in the Great Simulation, Gelly was just another program developed and maintained by the central system, REYE itself. But sometimes REYE’s programs managed to get buggy, glitchy or a bit on the fringe of the acceptable parameters. Gelly was one of those programs, not completely autonomous, but sort of aware of the beyond of her parameters. In any case, Ascended Master would look for no lesser caliber of persons to enlighten. So, she was quite a potential lure to Floverley, or even Dispersee.
James was Edward’s completely virtual avatar, and James’ online meetings with Gelly could fit undetected within the acceptable boundaries of the whole program and go beyond the radar of the ever-looking REYE.
Edward couldn’t wait to meet with Flo next week.
In reply to: Cakletown and the Lone Chancers of Custard
Jeremy beamed at Ed, holding what looked like a foiled contraption vaguely reminiscent of a sun oven to his face.
“Get that out of my mustache, and tell me what it is!” Ed had no patience this days where reality was still dangerously shifty, and Bea nowhere to be found.
“That’s the solution to locate your patient zero, Mr Ed! I’ve reconfigured your Transfocal Thingy and made a few improvements on the wirigly compensator and…”
Ed interrupted “I have no idea what you are talking about, son. Make it plain English before I start doubting about you having been rebooted…”
“Mr Ed, Sir, you know, the device that your friend Pr Blaze Ingle gave you before he was rebooted to a goat-herder in the Andalusian mountains…”
“Yes, I’m aware, the Transfocal Thingy, that is helping us all to retain more or less our identity, of course I remember! What about it? Don’t tell me you’ve broken it!”
“On the contrary! I’ve amplified it. And with this drone connected to it, we can scan larger areas. We’ll find her, Sir. Wherever she’d hiding, we’ll find her.”
“And end her and this madness…” Ed twirled his mustache lost in deep thoughts. It was good to have his Team back, to take care of all the little things. More or less.
In reply to: Newsreel from the Rim of the Realm
“Look,” Ricardo pointed out to Bossy, “Seems you’re worrying too much, I just got a SMS from Connie, they’re all fine.”
“Glad they’re putting the newspaper subsides to good use…” snickered Bossy, thinking about the rather large phone bills Hilda used to put on her expenses. She could only wish that Connie would be more reasonable with overseas phone calls. “Anyway,” Bossy sighed “what is it exactly that she managed to say in less than 160 characters?”
Ricardo fumbled over his phone’s message history “She, she just replied… hang on, here:”
We're fine. Sophie is her usual weird, and we are following a lead to a nearby clinic. PS: Food's horrid, and the latest fashion is from the 60s.“You stupid boy!” Bossy jumped out of her chair. “Don’t you see she’s sending you a clue. Not is all fine. There’s only one explanation for that 60s fashion resurgence, and you better hope it doesn’t smell like coconut!”
In reply to: Cakletown and the Lone Chancers of Custard
It didn’t take too long to Ed Steam to find her. By his count, only a few hundred reality reboots.
It could have been more, but keeping a steady count of all the trigger-cackles was tricky.
He never was quite the same person each time. Hopefully, he’d noticed after the 57th reboot that something new had happened — since that particular reboot, it had seemed easier to keep track of his identity from reboot to reboot.As if Zero-point Bea had realized something, and honed her entangling capabilities.
Ed had tracked her at the border. Funnily, nowadays she was more or less the only unchanging thing in the whole universe.
She had rented a small apartment near the border, and was offering reallocation services on an ad-hoc basis.There were still many characters refugees who were looking for a story placement, and that’s what she provided them.
Ed was there for one thing: termitate her. His reality now was quite different from the one he originated, but despite all the changes, he was still in charge of preventing the surges wherever they happened.
It was a moral dilemma. Already so many persons had been displaced by the cackling surges and Bea’s uncontrolled shifting realities. Not even a map-dancer could now keep track of all the transfocal encounters and reallocation. The world was a much different place now, on shifting grounds and sandy whorls with no minute of fame.Ed was next in line, dreading that he couldn’t get to her before the next cackling reboot.
The success of his mission was paramount to the security of the fabric of reality.In reply to: Coma Cameleon
The waiter stood to the side of the of the tables and chairs on the pavement, smoking a cigarette and listening to the babble of conversation. Holiday makers exposed themselves in the sun, in shades of white, pink and red striped flesh, while the regulars were seated closer to the cafe in the shade of the awning.
Across the road, a bone thin ebony skinned man carrying a small brown suitcase paused, and scanned the street. Laying the suitcase down, he opened it and removed a tattered cloth which he spread out upon the sidewalk and proceeded to display an assortment of sunglasses and cheap glittery watches. The man sat down behind his small display of wares, leaning against the wall. The waiter felt a physical pang in his gut as he registered the expression on the face of the watch seller: resigned hopelessness. A palpable lack of optimistic anticipation. The waiter wondered how he managed to sell any watches, indeed how he managed to get out of bed in the morning, if indeed he had such a thing as a bed.
The waiter stubbed out the cigarette butt and lit another one. A group of five teenage girls picked at their pastries while passing around a bottle of sun protection lotion, giggling as they showed each other photos on their phones. An older couple bickered quietly between themselves at the next table, the wife admonishing her husband over the amount of butter he spread on his toasted baguette. A younger woman with two neatly attired and scrubbed faced children waved away a stray wisp of cigarette smoke with a righteous frown, and glared in the direction of nearby smokers.
None of them had noticed the watch seller with the small battered brown suitcase across the road. The waiter caught his eye and nodded, giving him a good luck thumbs up sign. The watch seller acknowledged him with an unenthusiastic lift of his hand.
The waiter sighed, ground his cigarette butt out with his heel, and went back inside the cafe.
In reply to: Newsreel from the Rim of the Realm
“Well, hello there! My name is Barbara, I will be your host during your stay at the Hidden People Estate of Genethic Rejuvenation. Welcome Ms and Mr Asparagus !”
Barbara’s luscious mane of blond hair was a sight to behold. Tina was almost jealous. She quickly remembered her guru’s words of the day.
“ Dogs bark at what they don’t understand: See the Positive “
So despite her hopes for a less effusive (almost annoyingly American) introductions, she got her critical mind busy with quickly finding five things to appreciate about Barbara. It was tougher that it looked. Well, for one, she liked the cleanliness of her white nurse blouse…
Barbara’s chatter seemed inexhaustible, as they coursed through the grounds of the Estate.
“Of course, we have arranged for your appointment with the best doctors, they will get you in tip-top shape in no time” she giggled irrepressibly.Tina glanced at Quentin. Her cousin was calm as a clam, as usual. He didn’t even seem to register the strangeness of that establishment.
“I’ll be leaving you to have a hot shower, and refreshments, complimentary of the house of course, and I’ll be meeting you later. Dinner will be served at 7, please be on time. Tomorrow morning, breakfast is served from 7 to 9, and your appointment is at 9:30, with Dr B. In case you need anything, you have my number.” Barbara giggled again, blinking at Quentin in what could hardly be construed as flirting.
“I’ll skip dinner Q, see you at breakfast tomorrow”, Tina closed the door on her cousin without ceremony.
She finally collapsed on the bed, crushed by fatigue of the flight, jet-lag and all that road trip through small European winding paths. Made you almost miss Maine.
Topic: Coma Cameleon Background
NOTES FROM GROUP DISCUSSION:
[unnamed protagonist] finds themself in a coma, but they don’t realize it. It’s like they’re in a dream state, moving through worlds, gradually discovering their past and what’s happening. The person knows that they’re trying to find their way home, which in reality is them trying to wake up.
Once they remember their past and what happened leading up to the coma, they wake up…but remember nothing.
So, as I was trying to structure this, I initially wanted the first book to be their normal waking life and the second book being the coma and the third book being post coma and relearning stuff. But then I figured it would be best to combine the first and second books.
I wanted the reader to start out confused, just like they would be and gradually learn the back story as they went
The only thing is, that would mean that this thread has to remain written as coming from their perspective
we are all writing about ONE character essentially. obviously there are gonna be other characters, but the main thread is this one person
feel free to incorporate any and all previous characters and locations from your other threads. The protagonist will be moving through them. So he/she finds themselves in these other worlds.
They’re being swept up into an adventure right from the start without knowing a thing
let’s drop them into the middle of something exciting
It’s any time
It’s a big dream
In real life, the protagonist is in a coma right nowBut, also, you’ll have a lot of freedom to create those on the spot because neither you nor the reader nor the main character knows them until you write them
The characters in this story won’t have too much staying power because the main character is moving through so many worlds. Nearly everyone is incidental,
unless characters appear that are central to the main characters ongoing story, like a nurse for example or family
At max, there might be two or three reoccurring characters that tend to pop in more often than not as helpers
Oh, yeah, family from the back story would come in to play a lotIn reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
It was with undisguised delight that Liz realized that Finnley wasn’t right after all. A glimmer of hope had whistled in with the wind, stirring the dust laden cobwebs festooned across the threads. The clouds parted, sending shafts of sunlight to spear the dark recesses, illuminating the aimless floating of dust motes and dislodged detritus.
Godfrey stirred, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and called for Finnley.
In reply to: Newsreel from the Rim of the Realm
Connie noticed the old woman was frowning a lot this morning, and thought to herself, Not so sweet after all, the old trout. In a funny sort of way, it endeared her to Connie in a way that the endless cheery sweetness had not.
“There’s no Elf School in the directory, but there is a Tw’Elf Centre, do you suppose this is the one?”
“May as well check it out,” replied Sophie.
“Representatives of the twelve continents of the earth?” Connie read, adding, “Sounds like some kind of mumbo jumbo fringe nutjob stuff if you ask me.”
“What, less nutjob than an Elf School?” replied Sophie with a snigger. Connie laughed, beginning to warm towards the old dear. “I’d be interested to hear more about the anticipated merger with the Bermuda Triangle.”
In reply to: Newsreel from the Rim of the Realm
Connie looked at the Bossy Pants instructions, her face inscrutable.
Hilda was not up yet, probably passed out on her couch after a night of debauchery and snorting pepsain. As usual, she’d left a heap of links on her blog for Connie to choose from. Well, and of course, to sexy-bait them up. There were times she was glad she didn’t have to face all the people herself and interview them. Today was not one of them.
She gestured at the awkward new intern. He passed a head through the door. She didn’t give him the time to open his mouth. “Another chamomile tea,… thaaank you.” He disappeared hurriedly.
“At least this one gets me.”
For today, chamomile was the least of evils. Anything stronger would have her go full contact on any one daring to even look at her. If people knew the efforts she made daily.
Her self-defence instructor knew something about it. She almost sent him to the hospital last week.Glancing upon the list of notes, she noticed that Hilda had made a highlight to double check on the gouda cat-like man. That was strange. Hilda wasn’t one to come back on stuff once shared and published. Definitively not the past-dwelling profile. There must have been something more.
“Well, know what, old tart: early bird gets the worm.”
She rose from the swivel chair, taking her purse swiftly and aiming for the exit door with the path of least eye-contact when the odd guy appeared again with the damn tea. She’d forgotten about that. Again, her brains firing at full speed, she didn’t leave him time to tell or ask anything.
“You don’t know where Joel is? Of course not…” The photographer was probably on another assignment. Had not been seen for weeks it seemed. Not that she cared, he would have been more like an alibi for her to go an a follow-up mission.
Sometimes her brains would also make her do the darnedest thing. She couldn’t stop herself from telling to the hapless intern.
“You look too happy Ric. Take your coat and come with me.”
In reply to: Newsreel from the Rim of the Realm
“Bird poo is good for your hair,” said Tina scathingly, once again reading Quentin’s thoughts. “When these little ones hatch… “ She trailed off, not feeling the need to elaborate further.
Meanwhile in another part of town (or possibly in another dimension … it is not clear to the writer at this point but the writer is determined to carry on regardless — the editorial staff can clean it up later), Miss Bossy Pants managed to crawl her way out of bed, just long enough to send an urgent message:
Can’t possibly write today. One of you will need to do my contribution for the story. Thanks.
She contemplated adding a smile emoticon but feeling such a strong urge to punch it in the face decided that it was extraneous.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Liz gasped and almost choked on her soda mojito when she saw Godfrey’s strange attire.
“Where the hell are you doing like that ?” asked Liz.
“There is that party in another thread. The dresscode is Bring your Codpiece. As I didn’t have one, I asked Sandro the new gardener for some advice.”
“Why?” asked Liz speechless.
“Oh! My therapist told me I needed to get in touch with my manliness and Sandro is Hispanic, they are known to being manly.”
“Do you really think watermelon rind is a good choice?”In reply to: Cakletown and the Lone Chancers of Custard
Final nail in the coffin, indeed.
Despite the overwhelmnity of the situation, Ed couldn’t fathom why nobody would take some time to stop and ponder on the incoherences, the gaps in the net, so to speak.
It behooved him to do so. The deranged cackler, like a mockery of the divine breath, ruling over the bizarro earth he had been sworn to protect — it had to be stopped.
But where was the elusive cackler hiding, he would seemed to appear anywhere and everywhere. And what to make of those cases of mistaken identities, or all the althreadnarrative-realities jumping. The occurrences were piling up. He couldn’t even seem to count on assembling his old fierce Surge Team. All gone bizarro too.
Pouring over his copious notes, he remembered how it all started. The strange case of Baked Bean Bea.
She seemed to have breached through, and quite frankly shattered in all likelihood some old reality limitation, and somehow, she now was able to unwittingly shape the world to new strange alternate realities at her every whims.He painfully tried to recall, what he was, who he had been in the course of the last months. Blaze, his old genius inventor friend had left him some device, a transfocal whatever thingy. Usually it would change shapes as well, reconfigure itself with each realities. But its function was more or less the same. Reconnect him to his previous alternate realities. Which was handy, when you couldn’t even trust the notes you took. Obviously Bea wasn’t Baked Bean Bea before… or was she?
Now the Transfocal Thingy seemed to have relocated in the bathroom. The shower head with the wires seemed a bit of a giveaway.
Ed put on the water.In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions
Edward Cayper had been absorbed on the mesmerizing display of the large monitoring screens. He’d liked to believe it was a meditation of sorts. The simulation made the most tantalizing displays, ever changing.
Although there had been flitches. Increasingly. He called them flitches, scratchy flea-like glitches, all small and jumpy, but he had an eye for them. He was, after all, one of the early designers of the Program. REYE – Reality Emergence Yielding Existence. That didn’t mean much, but sounded cool at the time.
REYE was in its eighth stable upgrade. Despite the flitches, it had evolved at exponential speed.Edward swiveled from his chair to look behind his desk. A series of pods was lined up with sensory deprivation tanks hosting hundreds of plugged-in bodies dreaming in synch with his creation.
He’d been told they were volunteers to participate in the largest mind control experiment in the world. He wasn’t sure it wasn’t a lie, but didn’t care so much.
REYE was in charge of coordinating the whole program with astronomical and minute precision. Each person linked to the program believed they had become ascended (or something similarly close to their metaphysical belief). Free of the bonding of space, time and corporal existence, they were taught into a very subtle and complex system of attunement to higher truths. A large basket of bollocks of course, but while they were doing it, and deeply believing it to be real, the mind-energy they produced was redirected to certain mind control experiments.Since they started in the 80s, the program had had slow progress. In the beginning, only a few sprouts of channellers appeared near their area, in Nevada. They were quite timid at first, full of doubts about their hearing or seeing voices – still better than the abductions of earlier, when many went completely nuts. But now, progresses were made steadily, and with much less effort. Edward personally believed that the network of waves created by cellphone proliferation had a factor in this trend. Such interconnexion made everything easier.
Within the program, the flitchy Ascended Masters still had to be reconditioned from time to time. On the vitals of Jane Pierce (a.a.a. “also avatared as” Dispersee within the program), Edward could see there were occasional resistance and stress, which in turn made the glitches more frequent. A change in her drugs dosage would do fine to level the serotonin in her bloodstream. It would be that, or unplugging her.
Before leaving the room, like every day, Edward switched the monitor to the camera over one of the pods. Florence Vengard (a.a.a. Floverley), was dreaming peacefully, as usual. Since she’d arrived, he’d felt connected to her. He imagined her with long curly red hair floating in the milk bath instead of the bath-cap that made the maintenance so much easier. He was told she had overdosed on pills, and wouldn’t wake up. The program seemed to be tethering her to life, frozen in time.
A well-oiled machine.
If you overlooked the small things… that REYE was becoming more inquisitive, and Edward suspected, greedy too. He had seen subtle gaps in the mind-energy gauges, it couldn’t be a coincidence. The program was becoming too smart, maybe too human.It couldn’t bode well.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
As Prune spoke the magic words releasing her aunt from marbledom, an unforeseen chain reaction of uncrusting began. One by one the concrete statues and animals that Idle had been collecting became more yielding, less rigid. They didn’t all start gallivanting around at once, it was a slow process depending on the length of time they had been solid.
The buddha by the fish pond had had his knees bent for so long it would be some time before he could straighten them, but it was with great joy that he raised a hand from his lap to scratch the fly droppings off the tip of his nose. He was just about to make a remark about foolish idle people and wise diligent ones when it occurred to him that he’d been completely idle for quite some time, and that it hadn’t been his fault. The unaccustomed questioning of his rather rigid beliefs accelerated the uncrusting process, and he was able to turn his head to see the odd looking cat approaching, but unable to move his arm quickly enough to stop it spraying him with piss.
You have no idea how long I’ve been holding that, said the cat, somewhat telepathically.
A loud gravelly sounding laugh echoed across the pond, coming from the direction of the green man plaque on the wall. The unfamiliar cackle drew Clove out from the kitchen to see who it was.
“I have so much to say!” the green man cleared his throat, spitting out some moss that had become stuck between his teeth, “And I’ve waited so long to say it! You there, you! Don’t go away!” The green man immediately realized his predicament. He had a face but no body. He would have to wait until an audience came to him to listen.
But Clove was interested and inched closer. She had just been researching Dionysus for a project; what a fortuitous coincidence that a replica of him had come to life. She would be able to interview him for her report. She’d just read that “It is perhaps an indication of the Green Man’s power as an archetype that he was able to transfer so seamlessly from one culture and one set of beliefs to another.”
This was exactly the angle she was after.
In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions
