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In reply to: Strings of Nines
Actually, the mindful reader would be glad to know that Waakaawaakawaawaawaawaawaawaawahuhun (or Wakawah-thirtyfour’n) wasn’t quite as safe as its almost twin city Wookoowookawoowoowoowoowoowoohoohoon (or Wookoowooh-thirty-fiv’n), both lying actually quite close for a bird, or a dragon, anchored at the bottom and at each of the sides of the same mountain.
While the former’s only attraction was the Kangrawaakaas’ Stadium with its weekly games of morbidly obese people hurling in the mud, the latter was known for its ski resorts and snow trance delixtacies in makeshift melloow yelloow yurts. Of course, W35N benefited from the better sunlight exposure, which made every dweller in the W34N hamlet fiercely jealous of its being favoured by all tourists passing by, while they (they thought) should be instead commanded for their bravery and perseverance.
And while Arona had her toes meticulously licked in blissful oblivion, little did Vincentius know what trouble was ahead were he to ask a W34N’er if he was in W35N…
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“And what about Waterfringingmelon in Welsh, is that still too short?”“, Mrs bossy-pants Janet asked when she heard of the objections, still too lazy to recount the number of letters in between the W and the N.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Messmeerah started to carve the name of all the funny bunch on a huge jamón from the fifth leg (the meatiest) of a jelly boar of the steppes, starting with her own —name, not leg— as a reminder of the good time they had all together. She was thinking as well that it would taste lovely with some of these Jiborium’s truffles.
She was sad to had to let them go, but frankly her old routines were starting to get too scrambled. For one, she didn’t quite remember if Minky was still a redhair rat in her hair (now she thought of it, breeding tiny shrews in her attic didn’t really work so well), or was now back in his human form with a secret revenge of his own on his mind. But that would be maybe a slight stretch. And gosh, did she abhor stretch marks, even on her lovely brains.
— “Oh come on, dear,” one of the motley participants, a cheery big-boned and outrageously made-up of make-up woman said in a bizarre Lizabethian accent, with a hint of bossiness that showed she had not been used to being contradicted much in her life. “Join us on that trip to Mr Jiborium’s, you shall find yourself a use or two.”
Taken aback by the turn of the events, Messmeerah, also known as Winky, took the jamón under her arm, and against all common sense decided to join the crew —thanking the Mighty Mungibs for the improbable feat of continuity that had appeared as a sign.
— “Well, if you don’t mind…” Yikesy was starting to object, but realized some things are best left unsaid, and it would be easy enough now to slip out of their sight (and off the rapacious motherly attentions of Mrs Janet, the big-boned tasteless-bags lady with an accent.)
In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
Alfred, the clockwork Murganian, suddenly remembered he had an overdue library book.
He picked up the dusty book from the oven, took off his coat, rolled to the door and pulled a key from his shoe to let himself out. It was such a very long time since he had been out and he was most surprised to find that the seeds he had planted in the sky some time ago had grown to such an extent that his pathway was no longer accessible.
What to do? wondered Alfred. He wondered for a few minutes then realised that wondering was getting him nowhere and action was called for.
“Help” he shouted.
{link – key}
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Minky pondered for a long moment before coming to a decision.
“Right then let us all go to Watermelon and cavort with Mr Jib and the Consortium! “
Yikesy sighed loudly. Normally good natured, his patience was beginning to wear thin. Having counted the letters between “W” and “N” and, even making allowances for a degree of “give or take”, he didn’t believe that Watermelon could possibly be the secret destination where they would find Mr Jib. If indeed they even wanted to find this Mr Jib, whoever he may be … and was Watermelon even a destination?
“Cheer up!” encouraged Minky. “Mr Jib is a delightful gentleman. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t have the odd truffle in his pocket either.”
In reply to: Strings of Nines
— Of course, the secret location is Watermelon, interjected one of the participants rather bossily, one must say.
— Give or take a few letters…
— Or in Welsh maybe…In reply to: Strings of Nines
Suddenly the green fairy burst into tears. Yikesy wondered what to do however continued to smile in the meantime. A crying green fairy was unlike anything he had encountered before.
When the snail rolled her eyes Yikesy felt close to tears himself. It reminded him so vividly of Arona, who was taking such a very long time to rescue him.
“Last one to the emporium buys us all bowler hats!” shouted Minky, hoping to revive the morale of his motley tour group.
“I don’t want to go the emporium and I am not crying!” exclaimed the green fairy indignantly. “I have some bowler hat fiber caught in my eye”.
“I believe Mr Jib’s emporium is currently closed anyway,” interjected the parrot wisely. “I follow Mr Jib on Flitter and it seems he is part of a consortium currently cavorting in a secret destination which begins with the letter W and ends in the letter N and has 35 letters in between.”
“I am confused,” said the lost and confused Yikesy. “Are Mr Minky and the green fairy one and the same?”
“Hahahahahahahahaha” laughed Shelly, surprisingly loudly for a snail. “We are all confused! None of it makes sense so why bother trying. What good is sense anyway? Would you like them to be one and the same?”
“I don’t have an opinion either way really on that one” retorted Yikesy. “I suppose the less names I have to remember the better. What I would really like is a glass of pineapple juice and a dish of black truffles.”
In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
Whether or not Arachne was actually better at weaving than Athena is still a mystery, or perhaps it is a moot point and no mystery at all. Weaving is by no means a solitary endeavour, as Blithe found early one summer morning. The river mist was rising and the air itself was dancing in droplets. It was hard to determine if the droplets were falling or rising, or simply milling around on the air currents. Hard green oranges (clearly oranges had been named in winter, or they would likely have been called greens) were festooned with silver threads, linking orange to orange, orange to tree and tree to wire fence, and back again. It was debatable whether or not the individual spiders were aware of the grand overall design of the early morning web links of the orange groves, just as it was equally debatable whether or not the inhabitants of the various Gibber realities were aware of the network of waterpipes that connected the other inhabitants to themselves and each other, and to the other Gibber worlds. Individuals were individuals, whether they be spiders, or Gibblets, and individuals generally speaking were focused on their own part of the tapestry (and often those of their immediate neighbours). Spider 57 on the east fence might be positioned to catch the first rays of sunshine in the mornings, but Spider 486,971 over near the dung heap was in a better position to catch the afternoon flies. And so on, as somebody famous once said.
As Blithe prowled around the orchard capturing potential clues on her Clumera she inevitably became part of the laybrinthine web of sticky threads herself, as they attached themselves to her hair and clothing. All of the gaps between the solids in the field were joined together with spun filaments, just as the Gibblets were joined together with fun spillaments (although leaking waterpipes were sadly misinterpreted as not-fun all too often, despite that they could be used as an opportunity to view the connections of the Waterpunk more comprehensively.)
The individual spiders lacy parlours were framed in wire squares, several hundred, if not more, along the perimeter fences. Not every wire fence square was filled; there were many vacant lots between established residences ~ whether by practical design or mere happenstance, Blithe couldn’t say. Many of the individual webs were whole and perfect, like the windows of Lower Gibber whose inhabitants kept their lace curtains clean and neatly hung. Many of the webs on the wire fence were not perfect in the symetrical sense ~ some had gaping holes, and there were those that appeared to be unfinished, despite showing great potential. Others appeared to be abandoned, hanging in shreds, not unlike many of the residences in Upper Gibber.
The wire framed residences of the field (and likewise the peeling paint framed residences of Upper Gibber) that appeared to be defunct were not quite as they seemed, however. They were simply being viewed from a different timeframe. It was quite possible to view each wire or peeled paint framed en-trance side by side, notwithstanding that they were, so to speak, located in varying timeframes. All that was required was a more flexible viewpoint, and an ability to view more than one timeframe simultaneously. It was all a question of allowing an entrance to en-trance ~ which was, after all, its function.
{link: misty morning; entrance}
In 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]
In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
Wrick rolled his eyes, which made the TV set zap to a cartoon channel which immediately caught the children’s entire attention.
“So much for trying to get them to focus on depth.” he said looking at the daft-looking goat’s head with its tongue sticking out hanged on top of the altar.“Let’s wheel out of this room and leave it at that.” he mumbled in his breath.
“And hope the cook will cut on the shallowts, it gives me such a bad breath, actually”.In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
Grandpa Wrick interrupted “did I mention that your first story needs a beginning and an end, of course? The snowflake must be complete so that others can expand on it.”
Take an example: Alice in Wonderland. You could start with : “A young girl follows a rabbit, falls down the rabbit hole, meets all sorts of strange people and in the end she wakes up to find out it was probably only a dream”. Then built up from that. Ideally to create something like a book-length worth of clues and details and all… For instance, you could detail the rabbit’s habits, or the strange people, putting it in perspective of the initial blurb or following developments. It would be like re-re-rewatching a beloved movie, only to pay attention to the finer details in the background…
Topic: Snowflakes of Tens
“Let’s play a new game, shall we”, Grandpa Wrick said to his hectic and untamable grandchildren.
“We will start a snowflake. Only rule of the game, is that you have to go into the story. You can only insert things inside, and go inwards, and develop what’s already put into place by what’s been in the thread. That’s the only way you can expand the story. By expanding its details.”“How so?” asked India Louise who never paid attention.
“Just like that”, Wrick said, “if what I just told you was the beginning of a snowflake, you could develop things about the place we’re in. Think about it as a spatial story, frozen in time. And use the objects of events put in places by others as triggers and as portals to a more refined and in-depth view of the story.”
“Shall you start with your story Indy?”
In reply to: Strings of Nines
The sun was streaming through the window when she awakened, a soft diffuse brightness behind the lengths of gauzy white fabric that fluttered gently in the air currents. The bed was in the middle of the room, a large spacious high ceilinged space on an upper floor; completely uncluttered ~ there was nothing else in the room, or so it seemed, it was all white, but the white of lightness, not the white of colour lack. She sat up, slowly stretching, filled with a feeling of warm promise, an unhurried optimism for the bright new day. She was still in that first moment of awakening, before any plans or expectations intruded, leisurely luxuriating in the promise of warmth and light, still relaxed from sleep, but free of details, free of mundane specifics or intentions; quite simply the uncluttered serenity and joy of the promise of a bright new day.
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
“Make the wind blow the other way!” suggested someone in the crowd.
“Yes! A west wind, blow it west!” piped up another.
“Wait!” shouted another. “That would be an east wind, not a west wind!”
“A westerly?”
“No, an easterly is what we want!”
“Let’s get this right, or we’ll have a fucking tornado” suggested Nasturtium grimly.
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
“Finally the answer we need! Let’s release the damn bird and get back home now! Besides its cage needs cleaning and it’s starting to smell, and I can’t stand this place any longer…” Doily couldn’t be stopped.
Foolishly getting by that that Doily had understood most and perhaps all of the Cloud’s mysterious riddle, and that she even had managed to remember it, by a chance even slimmer than that of crossing the Eight’s Portal alive, Pee agreed with a nod of his neck.
Once the birds’ released (with a good manly slapping as the feathery creature was a bit reluctant and groggy from being rocked in its cage), they were instantaneously and quite unsurprisingly back again near the Saucerer’s house, all safe in their beloved Peasland, ravaged by blubbits holes.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“You know, I could sit on a beach til the end of time” Shar remarked, letting the sand run through her fingers as they watched the sun go down over the sea, “and I’d never really understand how we started off as Sand ~ A Shard is nothing like Sand. Window, yes, I can see how a Shard came from Window, that makes sense ~ but SAND?….”
In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
Although done,
Stranger, mother, everyone, creature
looks attention:
Girl, perfect black.
Ask, perhaps himself free?
Smile rude.
Notice Leormn Fellowship Idea,
“Eye write”
Box teleport.
Heard wonder, let Sharon replied.
Random asked matter:
Strange sudden (usually inside) particular finally… surely feeling sound, following home… clear…Realized, somewhat
Hear happy laugh
Mention hot ones
Magic voice
In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
“Green years help often book!”
Elizabeth hand surprise.
Head Sanso: “Let dragons…..”
Finnley: “Dory fishes quickly!”
nothing answer…..
notice appeared remembered spiders,
speaking raucous Dolores:
“Stranger bird gift,
looks deep matter!”
“Write”, supposed young Phenol, whether himself less knows inside.
“Monica bloody apparently, probable cow”.
