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  • #3693
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      It was good to be back, and surprisingly pleasant to have Godfrey back. Even more delightful was to see the back of that baby. Arona Haki had taken it off somewhere, to find it a good home, Elizabeth supposed. Finnley was as cranky and taciturn as ever, which was a comfort to Liz after her brief foray into the story.

      The people at that dreadful dusty inn would no doubt be disappointed at losing Godfrey as a paying guest, so Elizabeth, feeling relaxed and generous, decided to write a little surprise into the story to mollify them.

      Mollify, what lovely word, she mused, mollify, mollify, mollify….

      “What’s that you say?” croaked Finnley, “No flies in here.”

      “Oh Finnley, dear, do turn your hearing aid up a bit, will you?”

      #3689

      In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud

      TracyTracy
      Participant

        believed choice self sweet life

        #3687

        Aunt Idle:

        “Don’t look so grim, Idle, we’re not staying,” Liz said, “We only came for a mince pie. We’ll be off in a minute but first I must have a word with Godfrey in private.”

        What a relief, I can tell you! “I’ll go and get him, shall I?”

        “No, I think I’ll have a word with him in his room, if you don’t mind,” she replied. “I think he has something to show me.”

        Curiosity over ruled any shreds left of anxiety, and I had to bite my tongue not to ask straight out, not that she’d have told me. Always full of enigmatic little secrets, she was, always had been. It was never a hundred percent clear if she knew what she was talking about and was very clever, or if she hadn’t got a clue what was going on and was winging it. Anyway, the main thing was that she wasn’t staying long, so if we got through the next half hour without any more confusion ensuing, we’d be laughing. Feeling more inclined towards gracious kindness than previously, I beamed magnanimously at her and politely ushered her down the hall to room 8.

        “Mr, er, Cornwall,” I didn’t know whether to call him Godfrey, and decided against it. His bill was in the name Crispin Cornwall, and I wasn’t about to have him flitting off with Liz and her entourage without paying it. “Elizabeth would like a private word, if you wouldn’t mind.”

        “Bloody Liz Tattler’s the last person I wanted to see,” he said. “Trust her to just happen to land on my secret hideaway.”

        My hand flew to my mouth. “Did you say Tattler?”

        #3674

        Corrie:

        I was offering the plate of mince pies to Mr Cornwall, who had been coaxed out of his room for the first time in ages and was sitting next to the gum tree sapling that Aunt Idle had strung with fairy lights in lieu of a Christmas pine, when they arrived. We were all surprised to hear the taxi hooting outside, that is, except Bert. I heard him mumbling something about “She bloody meant it, the old trout,” but I didn’t remember that until later, with all the commotion at the unexpected guests.

        “Here, take the lot,” I said, shoving the mince pies on the old guys lap, as I rushed to the door to see who it was. A tall autocratic looking woman swathed in beige linen garments was climbing out of the front seat of the taxi, with one hand holding the pith helmet on her head and the other hand gesticulating wildly to the others in the back seat. She was ordering the taxi driver to get the luggage out of the boot, and ushering the other occupants out of the car, before flamboyantly spinning around to face the house. With arms outstretched and a big smile she called, “Darlings! We have arrived!”

        “Who the fuck it that?” I asked Clove. “Fucked if I know” she replied, adding in a disappointed tone, “Four more old farts, just what we bloody need.”

        “And a baby!” I noted.

        Clove snorted sarcastically, “Terrific.”

        Suddenly a cloud of dust filled the hall and I started to cough. Crispin Cornwall had leaped to his feet, the plate of mince pies crashing to the floor.

        “Elizabeth! Do my eyes deceive me, or is it really you?”

        “Godfrey, you old coot! What on earth are you doing here, and dressed like that! You really are a hoot!”

        “Why is she calling him Godfrey?” asked Prune. “That’s not his name.”

        “He obviously lied when he said his name was Crispin Cornwall, Prune. We don’t know a thing about him,” I replied. “Someone had better go and fetch Aunt Idle.”

        #3673
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          “Who else is coming? Don’t remind me, I can’t bear it,” Elizabeth said fretfully while Norbert opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish.

          “I have an idea!” she announced suddenly, standing up and crushing a mince pie that had rolled under her desk. “Gather round, come on, come on!”

          Arona Haki shuffled in with the dustpan and mop, as Finnley blew her nose loudly and wiped the tears from her eyes. Norbert stood silently, waiting.

          “It wouldn’t matter WHO came,” Liz paused for effect, “If none of us were here!”

          “But we are here, aren’t we,” remarked Finnley. Norbert and Haki murmured in agreement.

          “We are now!” replied Liz, “But we could be gone in an hour! We could go and visit my cousin ~ third cousin twice removed, actually ~ in Australia. They have an old inn and it’s sure to be half empty, it’s in the middle of nowhere, and,” she added triumphantly, “It will be lovely and warm there!”

          “Blisteringly hot, more like,” muttered Finnley, “And would they like unexpected visitors for Chri, er Kri, er, that date on the calendar?”

          “I’m sure they’d be delighted, “ replied Liz, crisply. “Not everyone is as curmudgeonly about Chri, er, Kri, er that date on the calendar as we are. And anyway,” she added, “If I write it into the story that they are delighted, then they will have no option but to be pleased to see us.”

          “If you bloody lot are coming to the Flying Fish Inn, I’m buggering off to Mars for the holidays” said Bert.

          Elizabeth spun round, saying sharply, “Bert! Get back to your own thread this instant! The bloody cheek of it, thread hopping like that, really!”

          #3669
          prUneprUne
          Participant

            Christmas has always been a strange tradition in our family.
            Maybe because first and foremost, Christmas is all about family. Besides the twins and their bond, sometimes I wonder what makes us a family at all.
            It doesn’t help that we can never get snow around this place, and dressing in red and white fluff is not going to make things suddenly magical.

            It was comical to see the exterminator come with a red bonnet, panting and all red himself, as if he were some genial Santa bringing gifts of death to our yonder’s rodents residents.
            He didn’t catch a rat, but got himself a fright. Thanks to Mater, when she erupted in the attic in her white hanuka honey cream face-lifter mask. I think that sneaky Finly got to her in the end.
            The mystery of the strange noises in the inn is not going soon, apparently.

            Bert and Aunt Idle got back from their trip in the evening. Apparently Bert had insisted to bring some sort of shrub to make a Christmas tree in the great hall (it’s not so great, but we call it that). Finly didn’t seem pleased too much with it. Raking leaves in summer, bringing pests inside… she didn’t have many kind things to say about it. So Mater sends her to cook a “festive dinner”, that’s what she said. I heard Finly mutter in her breath something about kiwi specials. I like kiwis. Hope she’ll make a pavlova… just, not with Mater’s face cream!

            It seems that giving small gestures of appreciation got the mood going. Aunt Idle is always very good at decorating with the oddest or simplest of things, like rolls of TP. Sometimes she would draw nice hieroglyphs in the layer of dust on the cabinets, it gives the furniture a special look. Mater always says it’s because she’s too lazy to do some cleaning consistently, but I think it’s because cleaning is not creative enough for her. Can’t believe I just said nice things about Aunt Idle. Christmas spirit must be contagious.

            Then, Devan came home with some pastries. It’s not often I see Devan these days, and usually he’s always brooding. I would too, if I had to come back home when I could just start my life away from there. Finly was all eyes on him all of a sudden. Seems nobody noticed, not even the twins, too busy being snarky while playing on their phones,… it looks like there is some strange game between these two, my brother and our Finly. I think Finly makes a lot of efforts to look younger with him, I can see when she fiddles with her hair. They would make good friends, and I’m sure Devan doesn’t mind the accent.

            As always, it’s not about how pretty the tree is, or how good the food is, or how big the gifts are… It’s more about being together, for better or for worse. And Dad, and Mum are always out of this almost nice picture, but somehow, it matters less today.

            There’s a good thing about that Christmas spirit. It gives you the weirdest ideas. To be nice, I asked Mater if we should invite the guests to our festive dinner, and probably lifted by the mood, she said yes, of course. When I went to the closed door to invite the guy, I thought a random act of kindnes is a perfect occasion to learn more about our mysterious resident stranger… Maybe that’s what the adults mean in church when they say you should always be kind to each other.

            #3663

            In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

            ÉricÉric
            Keymaster

              The young Yz looked with disbelief at the new girl. “What on Mars are you on about? Psychic archaeology? Come on Lizette, you must be joking. Barely 30 years is hardly enough to produce archaeological artefact of any interest, no?”

              Yz had been called up to the mothership to participate in the maintenance drills, as part of the regular knowledge exchange program between Earth and Mars.
              She was quite eager to see the central intelligence (“FinnPrime” as she liked to call it), a technology which had not yet been brought to the surface of Mars to date.

              At first, Lizette had seemed like an interesting new friend. Very feminine and glamourous, with a flair of Earth fashion to her, something quite attractive.
              But as soon as she started to talk, Yz realized how little they had in common.

              That girl is going to have a tough call back to reality when we land… she thought while smiling to the giggling Lizette.

              #3659
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                “Just ignore her, Clove,” replied Corrie. “She’s only a maid, she can’t tell us what to do.”

                #3648
                ÉricÉric
                Keymaster

                  “By the way,” Haki mentioned with a smirk “did I tell you your mother called earlier? She’ll be visiting in a few days. I told her you were still in bed, she added it’ll do you good she comes, to get you off your butt —her words, not mine…”

                  #3642
                  ÉricÉric
                  Keymaster

                    “Madam?” Norbert asked sheepishly “where shall I put the hundred pots of clematis you had Haki order yesterday?”
                    Liz replied with a hint of exasperation “with the pergola, of course. Geez, Norbert. I thought you would have built and affixed it, by now…”

                    #3632

                    In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud

                    Jib
                    Participant

                      sha lazuli job free pay
                      reason gazalbion message forgotten
                      laughed offered person consciousness
                      maps brought aunt soft replied
                      tree later months

                      #3618

                      Aunt Idle:

                      Bert came with me. Usually one of us always stayed home to keep an eye on Mater and the kids, but now we had that capable girl, Finly, to keep an eye on things.

                      It was good to get away from the place for a few hours, and head off on a different route to the usual shopping and errand trips. The nearest sizable town was in the opposite direction; it was years since I’d been to Ninetown. I asked Bert about the place on the other side of the river, what was it that intrigued him so. I’ll be honest, I wondered if he was losing his marbles when he said it was the medieval ruins over there.

                      “Don’t be daft, Bert, how can there be medieval ruins over there?” I asked.

                      “I didn’t say they were medieval, Idle, I said that’s what they looked like,” he replied.

                      “But …but history, Bert! There’s no history here of medieval towns! Who could have built it?”

                      “That’s why I found it so fucking interesting, but if it doesn’t fit the picture, nobody wants to hear anything about it!”

                      “Well I’m interested Bert. Yes, yes, I know I wasn’t interested before, but I am now.”

                      Bert grunted and lit a cigarette.

                      ~~~

                      We stopped at a roadside restaurant just outside Ninetown for lunch. The midday heat was enervating, but inside the restaurant was a pleasant few degrees cooler. Bert wasn’t one for small talk, so I picked up a local paper to peruse while I ate my sandwich and Bert tucked into a greasy heap of chips and meat. I flicked through it without much interest in the mundane goings on of the town, that is, until I saw those names: Tattler, Trout and Trueman.

                      It was an article about a ghost town on the other side of Ninetown that had been bought up by a consortium of doctors. Apparently they’d acquired it for pennies as it had been completely deserted for decades, with the intention of developing it into an exclusive clinic.

                      “There’s something fishy about that!” I exclaimed, a bit too loudly. Several of the locals turned to look at me. I lowered my voice, not wanting to attract any more attention while I tried to make sense of it.

                      “Read this!” I passed the paper over the Bert.

                      “So what?” he asked. “Who cares?”

                      “Look!” I said, jabbing my finger on the names Tattler, Trout and Trueman. Bert looked puzzled, understandably enough. “Allow me to explain” I said, and I told him about the business card that Flora had left on the porch table.

                      “What does Flora have to do with this consortium of doctors? And what the hell is the point in setting up a clinic there, in the middle of nowhere?”

                      “That,” I replied, “Is the question!”

                      #3609
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        “Perhaps,” said Elizabeth, “A little less fucking reading and a bit more writing would help this story along.”

                        “Perhaps” replied Finnley sniffily, “You should be the one to start.”

                        #3608
                        F LoveF Love
                        Participant

                          “What ARE you reading, Finnley?”

                          “Just a book I picked up in Paris,” she replied nonchalantly, hoping that would be enough information to appease Elizabeth’s curiosity. And also, as an added bonus, adding a certain je ne sais quoi to her vibe. Finley knew she could come across as a tad boring, something she was quite proud of. Still, it didn’t hurt to mix things up every now and then.

                          Elizabeth sighed loudly. “If you can’t think of anything sensible to say then I wish you would just talk nonsense. Or go to another thread” she added as an afterthought, wondering just whose thread this was anyway. Finley was tending to monopolise things lately. Even without saying much.

                          “At least I am reading a fucking book”, muttered Finnley under her breath.

                          That being a euphemism for writing a fucking comment of course.

                          #3605
                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            “The law is an ass, Godfrey,” Elizabeth said, extricating a bit of sag paneer from between her teeth that he had drawn her attention to. “I have no intention of wasting my time in court. As a matter of fact, I’ve written the critic out of the story. And the court. Waste of fecking time, fecking gobshites, the fecking lot of them.”

                            “You seem to be developing an Irish accent, Liz,” he replied, signalling the waiter for the bill.

                            “What did you do that for? There was no bill to pay until you introduced the fecking waiter into the script!”

                            “If you don’t pay the bill or turn up in court, the police will come and arrest you, Liz, have you considered that?”

                            “What fecking police?” she replied.

                            “Who are you talking to?” asked Finnley. “I wrote Godfrey out of the story this morning.”

                            “Whatever for?” Liz asked in surprise.

                            “He kept talking. I hate talking.”

                            Wisely, Elizabeth said nothing.

                            #3599
                            TracyTracy
                            Participant

                              Corrie:

                              I woke up this morning with an idea in my head, and I don’t know if I was dreaming about it or if it just popped in, in the brief moments between sleep and waking. I made a connection with the topic I was doing an anthropology report on, and something I’d forgotten. No, not forgotten, it wouldn’t be true to say I’d forgotten it as it was always there at the back of my mind niggling at me that there was more to it somehow, but I hadn’t made the connection so obviously with the current project.

                              My research was about disconnection, and the separation agenda of the American channeling dream. At first I felt driven to explore particular areas and then piece by piece the puzzle that had nagged at me for years ~ I say years, it felt like years, but maybe it wasn’t so long ~ started to fall into place.

                              At first when I woke up the idea of censorship was in my head and the idea to start a petition and public awareness campaign about certain channeled texts that were withheld from public viewing, despite repeated requests for them to be public along with all the other texts. But then it occurred to me that censorship and omission wasn’t always deliberate. I mean, not a conscious choice to keep information secret, but something else. Almost like a case of some information not being seen clearly through the filters, yet for some reason dismissed as not fitting, and pushed away, almost unconsciously, and suppressed.

                              The text was about disconnect mainly, and there was some stuff about Nazi’s although the part about animals was the part that had stuck in my head, probably because I felt more connected to animals than Nazi’s. There were more animals growing up here than Nazi’s after all, Nazi’s was only something I’d heard about. But then it occurred to me that I’d been hearing more and more about Neo Nazi’s, in Europe mainly, forming groups and having protests. So that got me wondering about that too.

                              Anyway, the disconnect part: it was the reaction on the American channeling forums to the Ferguson riots that started me on this project, and Aunt Idle was full of encouragement when I started to explain to her what I was noticing. She said she had noticed similar things in her remote viewing circle online. Everyone seems to think Aunt Idle is losing her marbles, but don’t you believe it. She seems vacant and scattered but that’s only because her mind is occupied elsewhere.

                              The gist of this suppressed text was extreme separation, but it was the part about using words to seem enlightened to hide extreme disconnect that seemed to fit my project.

                              I did have to chuckle though, I wondered if I was being a racist by calling Americans disconnected as if it was a racial characteristic. More of a cultural thing, I suppose, can one be called a culturalist as if it’s a bad thing? I don’t see how you can study anthropology without a certain degree of separating into cultural groups though, even if it is shift anthropology. I’ll think about that a bit more later.

                              #3592
                              prUneprUne
                              Participant

                                I don’t know what possessed Mater, but I like the new version of her.
                                She’s a true inspiration. The way she commandeers, how she pays attention to the little things. If she wasn’t so wrinkled, I’d want to become her.
                                She doesn’t seem to need anyone in her life, maybe that’s why she’s so strong.

                                I don’t know how this all happened, but we now seem to do well enough. We have one paying guest (he seems to pay on time too, I don’t know where he gets that kind of money around that place), and it seems we can afford some manservant. Well, that’s something Aunt Idle would call that nice lady, surely not Mater. She was very kind to her.
                                Hope she doesn’t get funny ideas like she should become some sort of Mary Poppins or the like.

                                The way Mater was sad after her piggy passed, I realized having a dog is a huge commitment. I told Battista I lied and I was sorry, but we couldn’t have the puppy. I knew she wouldn’t mind, she likes to keep dogs around.

                                Instead, I thought I could start breeding guinea pigs; they don’t live too long. Everybody thought stealing the fish was just a prank, but I wanted to pawn it to kick-start my business. The sad truth is that it isn’t worth a dime.
                                Luckily, Bert who noticed me, said he would help.
                                I wonder why the only persons I can relate to are more than ten times my age… Sometimes I’m like an alien in my own family.

                                #3589
                                matermater
                                Participant

                                  Mater:

                                  I showed Finly to her room. I have put her in room 10 — opposite Mr What’s-his-name, the guest — which is the nicest guest room in the house and one of the few which Fred got round to doing up before he left.

                                  On the spur of the moment I asked her if she believed in ghosts. She looked at me intently and said “There’s a lot we don’t understand. I can’t say I believe or disbelieve.” And that was it. I didn’t press it further. She is a serious girl but her references were excellent and I think she will be a hard worker. Not one to take nonsense from anyone.

                                  I asked her if she would like the day off tomorrow to settle in and suggested she could start her duties on Wednesday.

                                  “I can see I have my work cut out here,” she said. “The sooner I get started the better.”

                                  And dear God we need some help around here, I thought.

                                  The other day I caught Dido throwing gin all over herself and laughing. I am concerned I will need to call mental health services soon. I didn’t say anything at the time — I don’t think she saw me. I have been annoyed with her in the past for her lackadaisical attitude towards caring for the kids, but when I saw the poor demented thing throwing gin at herself, well, for the first time I felt really sorry for her.

                                  #3581
                                  TracyTracy
                                  Participant

                                    Bert raised an eyebrow at Elizabeth’s obvious sarcasm, which unfortunately caught her eye and put him in the spotlight of her penetrating gaze.

                                    “How about you Bert? Were you listening?” she asked, raising an eyebrow of her own to match Berts.

                                    Finnly, always on the lookout for an opportunity to out do Liz, raised both of her eyebrows simultaneously; then looked quickly down, pretending to examine her nails.

                                    Bert decided that in this case honestly was the best policy and replied “No. I was wondering if Prune had cleaned up the blood spattered corridor.”

                                    While Liz was momentarily speechless, Finnley quickly interjected another line from the book she had hidden under the table.

                                    “Then why did none of us hear the blood crazed howl?”

                                    “Ah! Aha! I’ll tell you why nobody heard the blood crazed howl!” Elizabeth had become alarmingly animated, leaning forward and rapping sharply on the table with her cigarette lighter. “The walls of isolation that surround you, the windows you keep closed and shuttered for fear of a draft of passion, the fences of barbed trotted out dogma you use as protection ~ but I ask you, protection from what?”

                                    “Buggered if I know, Liz. Can I go now?” said Bert.

                                    #3576
                                    TracyTracy
                                    Participant

                                      Corrie:

                                      I wasn’t snooping, I swear, and I wasn’t looking for anything either, it just popped up on my side bar on Spacenook and caught my eye. I mean, the title was so peculiar it kind of stood out ~ “Martian Pig Pruning” ~ so I clicked on the link, thinking it might be a diverting Pythonesque parody of all the aliens and other dimensional vibrations bollocks that seemed to be the latest #trendingtrash to swamp the newsfeeds, because sometimes you just have to laugh and find the funny side.

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