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In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
The bell rang twice. Nobody was giving any sign of opening, until a lanky lad came at the door to open it, in long slow dragging strides on the carpeted floor.
“We’re here for the audition” an excited face pressed on the glass door, staining it with purple lipsticky marks.
The lad discreetly rolled his eyes, looked right and left, as if checking for some unseen danger, then released the magnetic lock. It was stuck, so he gave a yank and the door flung open, almost propelling the woman, and a child inside.
“This way” the lad showed them, guiding them in unnerving slow motion towards a room on the higher floor of the loft. A dozen of people were already waiting here. The lad showed them the ticket dispenser, and the child with the woman understood before her they had to pick one. 39.
The woman brushed the hair of the child compulsively and fought against invisible specks of dust on his coat, before they would sit.
“Twenty two.”
“Twenty. Two.”At the seat next to them, a child raised from his place, his mother pushing him towards the voice. This was as far as she could go with him.
After the child had disappeared in the next room, the purple lipstick woman leaned towards the lonely mother and started to talk to her in brisk hushed voice.
“You must be so proud… I’m proud too.”
Noticing reproaching looks from the others, she lowered her voice more.
“I was so excited when I heard about it… So many years and now. Imagine that, my son could become his disciple, imagine, his one and only disciple in years…”The other woman, who’d been patiently hearing the other one’s cackling suddenly turned red and replied in a voice that bore the certainty of a death sentence:
“Oh, but make no mistake M’am, I have nothing against your son, but no one will beat my Paul to it.”In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“I’m so booooored” Amar sighed, after his eleventh 5-minute break of the morning was over.
He looked at his polished nails, then at his two companions.
“It’s so clean we could eat on that damn sewer’s floor, you should stop cleaning! Come on!”Reginald looked at him with pursed lips and a fist firmly planted on his hips “And, you are suggesting somethin’, or are you just going to rub it in some more?”
“Hell yeah, if we’re going to be stuck here, we could redecorate, and make this place a bit more interesting. I’m thinking an underground club, with art deco sculptures and some bit of goth in the back, a stage with fat pole dancers, a disco ball and silver shimmer metallic glowing paint,… Don’t get me started!”
“Sounds like a lot of work…” Reginald replied after a moment, giving no hint he was buying it.
“But then, we ain’t got much to do, and I’ll be dying of boredom if we don’t shake this thing up. Count me in!”In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
With the aid of the holographic map, Irina, Mr R and little Greenie have been exploring the island.
The next day they found a crashed plane from Aeroflot, not very far from their own landing spot. It was half burried in the mud and covered in green mossy vegetation. The doors were open as an irresistible invitation to enter.“A surprise, Mr R. I thought that this place was on your map. If I remember well, it didn’t show such an object.”
“Forgive me, madam, indeed this plane wasn’t there when I triangulated the map I showed you.”
“You mean it’s fresh ?” Irina’s voice seemed to suddenly carry some interest. “Maybe we can find some survivors”, she added, already doubting it considering all the moss on teh metallic shell.
“I’m afraid we won’t, madam. I didn’t want to bother you with that little detail until I was sure. There are objects on this island that only appear after a certain date. Have you noticed it also happens with the vegetation and the insects ?”
Irina pouted, “I prefer leaving that to your expertise.”
“Of course, madam”, said the robot, affable. “The paradox is…”
“Another paradox ? How interesting.”
“…that it doesn’t seem to include us, or that little person.”
“Any idea what the implications are ?” Irina began to wonder if there was any danger of being stuck permanently on this island.
“I have several hypothesis”, he began, “The most probable is the lost room hypothesis. We arrived there through time space displacement and are not a natural part of this environment, hence we don’t change with its natural environment or inhabitants because we are not under it’s time sequence according to the Lehmon’s law.”Irina pouted. She looked at little greenie and thought of the implications about how their new friend arrived there. Whenre did she come from ? For her to be a bog mummy, she must have been there a long time. Or did she arrived already bogged ?
Something caught her attention about the plane and distracted her of further thinking about the subject of their continuity risk in this place. The logo of the plane looked not so oldish.
“Mr R. ? What do you think the date of the crash was ?”
“The plane was lost in 2112.”Without further thought about safety, she entered the plane, followed first by little Greenie as she have been calling her new protegee, and by the robot who despite still talking about technicalities of accidental space time crossing theory, had turned on his speleo lights.
Interestingly enough, Irina noted the clothes on the chairs or in the alleyways, here a pair of glasses, there a necklace, all layered as if the person wearing them had been puffed away.
“Well, well, what have we here ? The light Mr R, please,” said Irina with as much excitement as a snail. He obliged her with his usual professionalism, revealing a teal blue scarf with pistachio green spirals. She took the cloth and stretched it to have a better look. It was one of those artistic kind of hippy abstract patterns connecting you to the cosmos.
“I can’t think of anybody who would buy that thing, maybe she stole it from one of those duty free shops before they took off,” she said as petulantly as a pitfall trap.
“Come here little Greenie, it’s time to make you pretty.”Irina did not have the chance to play with dolls when she was a kid, she didn’t know if she had some psychological lack or a bad doyle dating from that unremembered period of her life. She had compensated by toying with real people, playing with their emotions and deeper needs, or what they thought they needed. She became an expert at manipulating others, which gave her her first job in insurances, and then in the secret services. But then, she dealt with adults, showing emotions, or a certain level of brain activity. She wasn’t used to children stored in bogs.
She tried to put the scarf on Greenie’s head, and to smile like she had seen people do in the movies. Although something unexpected happened. Greenie became suddenly distressed and agitated. Then, she punched Irina in the face and began to mumble incoherent things.
That child is stronger than I thought. And at the same time, she noticed a name in that gibberish. Didnt she just shout : “I frigging love you, Sadie Merrie.”“Her brainwave is showing unusual activity”, stated Mr R. “And my sensors indicate the presence has returned, with some friends. They just appeared outside of the plane.”
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Jeremy was 23 years old and living in a 57 square meters apartment in Brooklyn. He had two passions in life. Dance and maps.
Max growled. Well you could consider Max as Jeremy’s third passion. Max was a ragdoll cat with a tiny little genetic defect. His fur had this faint pink tint as if it had been put into a washing machine with red clothes. Max purred, satisfied.
Jeremy’s apartment was an artwork in itself. He was painting as a hobby and had drawn a few maps on his white walls. He had the precise stroke that dance demands of a dancer’s move, he had the eye of a falcon concerning details and he loved connecting dots. For some of the maps he had used pointillism, and for others the ancient art of collage he had learned with his grand-mother Martha. Inspired by Matthew Cusnik he had made portraits of dancers with maps and other landscapes.
Jeremy has been interested for some time in a particularly beautiful picture of the Abraham Lake that he wanted to render on one of the last remaining areas of his ceiling when Max jumped on his lap, purring like a caress junkie in need of a few strokes. Jeremy obliged his cat distractedly, too engrossed in the meanders of the picture and the few maps he could already see in his mind like a puzzle.
Max jumped on the desk and tried to force his way between the keyboard and Jeremy’s hand. But he didn’t have enough time to fulfill his desire. The cat began to cough as if it had a train of thought stuck in his throat.
“Shit! You’re not going to puke on my keyboard!”
But it was too late, the cat opened its mouth and threw up a little ball of hair which bounced off the keyboard and crashed down on the floor.
“ehw!” said Jeremy who cringed when he saw the hair ball on his carpet. “I don’t know what you ate but it smells like those wheat Polish biscuits.
Jeremy had already taken some tissue to clean the cat’s mess, and the cat, certainly thinking it wasn’t enough was licking his fur again.
“Don’t make another one like that. You know I don’t like it.”He was about to take the ball when it wobbled suspiciously. Then it began to grow. Jeremy blinked several times to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. When the hairball reached the size of a soccer ball, it was obvious there was something inside, it was deformed like the belly of a pregnant woman when the baby kicks in her bowels.
“What on earth have you spawned, Max!” He looked at his cat, horrified that it could be one of those Aliens.Soon it was as big as a corpse bag for two, and Jeremy could tell from the voices that there were at least two people inside.
Sanso got out of the ragdoll hair ball first, perfect hair as usual. Fanella struggled to get out of the mess of hairs, and was a bit disheveled.
“Time for a reality check”, said Sanso. “Am I dreaming ?” When he saw all the maps and the ragdoll cat, he knew he was at the right place.
“Who are you guys ? And how did you get out of Max ?” asked Jeremy.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Mind joining me on an adventure?” Sanso said while continuing to walk at a rapid pace on the trail in the middle of running people carrying buckets of water, as though he knew exactly were he was going. “Of course not” he took no time to wait for an answer, as clearly the young lady was way over her head in her first attempt to teleport.
“I should be called the Sanso Bernar of Teleporting Mishaps, you know, it’s like I have this seventh sense to precisely arrive where stranded teleporters need me… that and lost socks, but that’s an entire different story, although I could recall quite many times where both had me landing on dirty launderettes…”
He paused to look at the panting Fanella. “But you don’t get a word of what I’m saying do you?”
She shrugged timidly, batting her doe eyes in a seductive manner, as she had learnt to do at the Versailles Palace when caught her hand in the honeypot, so to speak.“Oh, never mind.” He went on. “Well,… ugh, burp, excuse me, this sea cucumber isn’t sitting well me…”
Fanella signaled she needed a moment to catch her breath too, and sat on a flat rock, covering her legs with her arms, suddenly self-conscious of her modesty.
“What was i saying already? Oh, yes, I have to deliver a message to a sea cucumber, sorry, I mean a lady cucumber, who may be in grave danger of death… possi—blurp— by sea cucumber indigestion.”He looked at her from head to toes: “Well, you look reasonably pliable… That trick should work. I suppose you don’t have any wax, clay, salt dough or… well never mind, I have… just what I need here…”
All the while babbling on, he started to unfold a large piece of patchwork, which was somehow folded in his satchel.
“The map dancer, you see… well, he’s a bit of a pain in the butt to find. But here, hold that for a moment. With that bit of,… there, put your finger there, no, not here, yes, riiight there… with a bit of patience, and… tada!”
Fanella looked puzzled at the cloth now wrapped around them, snug and tight.
“Oh well, I know, the resemblance is passable, but that will do. Believe it or not, I have done a lot of sewing in the past, patchwork quilts, miniature needlepoint rugs for doll houses, curtains, upholstery… Oh sweet times. It’s been a while I’ve had to travel via rag doll. A bit rough, but leaves little trace to follow.”
Fanella broke her silence “are you making it along as you go, or you really have a plan to get us out of this awful middle age place?”
Sanso tittered softly, apparently pleased with himself.
“Now, you may want to relax, the trick is in letting go and drifting through Time’s flow.”
In reply to: Get your Drag Team Queer
Some character development, obviously not quite canon material…
The Arousing Scarf
– a short storyby Ewkmon
Sadie Merrie had always hated derelict Birmingham with its zesty, zealous zoos. It was a place where she felt snappy.
She was a mysterious, freakish, algae smoothie drinker with ginger arms and supple hair. Her friends saw her as a successful, sad saint. Once, she had even helped a clear batty old crone recover from a flying accident. That’s the sort of woman he was.
Sadie walked over to the window and reflected on her dusty surroundings. The storm teased like rampaging rabbits.
Then she saw something in the distance, or rather someone. It was the figure of Sadie’s sister Moanie. Sadie’s sister was an awkward succubus with funny arms and impressive hair.
Sadie gulped. She was not prepared for Sadie’s sister.
As Sadie stepped outside and Sadie’s sister came closer, she could see the mysterious glint in her eye.
“I am here because I want revenge,” Sadie’s sister bellowed, in a glamourous tone. She slammed her fist against Sadie’s chest, with the force of 3750 grumpy cats. “I frigging love you, Sadie Merrie.”
Sadie looked back, even more mad and still fingering the arousing scarf. “Sadie’s sister, I love you,” she replied.
They looked at each other with cheery feelings, like two talented, thankful twin piggies drinking at a very generous funeral, which had jazz music playing in the background and two slim uncles flying to the beat.
Suddenly, Sadie’s sister lunged forward and tried to punch Sadie in the face. Quickly, Sadie grabbed the arousing scarf and brought it down on Sadie’s sister’s skull.
Sadie’s sister’s funny arms trembled and her impressive hair wobbled. She looked vindicative, her body raw like a breakable, blue-eyed broom.
Then she let out an agonising groan and collapsed onto the ground. Moments later Sadie’s sister Moanie was dead.
Sadie Merrie went back inside and made herself a nice drink of algae smoothie.
THE END
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Pierre is following us”, said Mirabelle.
“Well, good for him”, retorted Lisa, “he’s been on the lazy slope lately. I’ve been worrying about him.”
Mirabelle and Adeline gulped.
“He’s not been so lazy, he’s been helping Fanella with her granite box”, said Adeline, thinking it might distract Lisa from the W-word.
“A box ? What box ?”
“It looked more like a stone coffin”, said Mirabelle always picky with words.Lisa stopped. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t been aware of Fanella’s latest fad. She turned, facing Pierre who unconsciously slowed down his pace. His face showing uncertainty.
“The girls told me you were helping Fanella with a box”, said Lisa when Pierre was close enough. He looked at them and down to his feet.
“She said it would help her relax”, he mumbled, “maybe she’s just taking a nap in her box”, he added, his voice trailing off.
“That would be a hell of a nap! Show me.”Pierre took the lead and showed them to Fanella’s atelier. The tools were still there. The granite box was empty. Near the box was a tray with a cup of tea, full, and a few toasts with cheese. The tea was cold. The toasts untouched.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Did anybody see Fanella?” Lisa couldn’t help but regularly count her herds (so to speak), and although she wasn’t as authoritative with her friends as she was with her animals, she couldn’t help but notice those last few times that her count was one person short —enough to start worrying her. And everybody knew what worrying did to her.
“Oh, she’s probably somewhere lost on one of her walks, I’ve asked her to get me some new plastic materials…” Adeline snapped absentmindedly. “And when did you get back from your vacation?”Lisa ignored the last part. “That’s the thing, she hasn’t showed up for a while now, and I’m starting to get worried…”
Everyone suddenly looked at her funny at the mention of the W-word.
“Maybe you’re right, let’s go look for her… Last time she was ranting about getting lost…”
“Did you check her makeshift atelier near the cave on the beach?” Etienne happened to overhear the conversation and somehow always seemed to know about the whens and wheres of everybody.“I don’t know,… yes, you’re right, maybe we can start there…” Lisa said, breathing deeply “I get a feeling something is not quite right …”
She turned to Mirabelle and Adeline “you two are coming with me, you know her better than I do, toot toot!”In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Sanso was tied securely on a Louis XVI chair, inside an ornate room kept mostly in the dark by heavy embroidered curtains that smelt of celery.
He was craving for a tomato juice to go with the smell, and could hardly focus on an empty stomach.He could have easily escaped from his predicament, but he was curious about his captors, and the reason why they had him abducted after he went back to his little love nest in the R&R B&B where he’d hoped to meet again the mysterious Lady Cucumber. That was his name for her.
He was hopeless with names, and although he was sure he had heard hers before, he preferred to remember people by associations. With Irina, that was Cucumbers. There! he thought, another proof of the brilliance of this method, as I remembered her name… Iris? Eyrin?, well, Lady Cucumber.
He’d made love to many a lady in his life, a lady in Salmon, even a Lady Mermaid, a Lady Gingerale, a Lady Panty, a ladyboy even. He could go on for hours thinking about them, but the lady Cucumber had spun a spell around his head it seemed.After his last mission on a rescue with Miss Bob and her Sponges Squarepanties team, he’d run back for the 2222 B&B.
No sooner had he arrived that heaven and hell broke loose and things went to rules and “do that or else”‘s, all things he abhorred with a passion. The links, and keys for his chains, that he could suffer, so he focused on it for awhile.He was woken up by a splash of ice cold water on his pants and a raucous voice in his face. Better that than the reverse, he chuckled to himself.
“Something funny now? Tell us, where did she go?”
He knew better than to feign ignorance, so he preferred to feign knowledge, which he’d found usually worked miracles.
“Of course. She stole something from you…”
“Damn right, she steal it, and we want back it.”The accent was difficult to place, he’d known so many inter-dimensional dialects that sometimes it was hard for him to remember.
He would have said some northern Chinese dialect accent, with a bit of kiwi.He needed to know a bit more before disappearing. His curiosity was aroused by the implication that what she stole was certainly valuable. What could it be, a revolutionary hairsplitter, a butt-fluffer, a fringe freckler, ah! his head was teaming with great possibilities it was making him dizzy.
“Don’t be silly Mister Sanso, she steal it robot very precious and advance technology.”
and before he could reply:
“Yes we read your mind, I confirm… You have silly thinks Mr Sanso.”He was starting to think now was a good time to get lost, and started to confuse their mindreader with energy patterns otherwise called gibberish thoughts.
The chains and ropes gave way easily.
His next move was to phase out of the room, but instead he managed to fall on his butt, in the middle of mocking looking Chinese in tuxedos and purple bow ties.“Ah, I see, you have some antiportation technology…” Sanso was a fair player. The temptation was big to run for another exit, if only for the exhilaration of a chase in the corridors of that strange place, but his stomach was thinking otherwise.
“I see you are vely fond of kewcomber, we are no animawls, we will give you delishius kewcomber.”
Minutes after, he was thrown with a certain form of Chinese ceremony in a small cubic windowless room. On a table next to the door, was his meal apparently.
He recoiled in horror when he opened the lid covering his plate. The strong odour of garlic pricked his nose.
“No way! Fucking jokers!”
That was even worse than to eat boiled cucumber chunks in spicy sauce.
Swimming in soy sauce were slices of chewy sea cucumbers that looked more like fat juicy leeches from a filthy bog.He ate reluctantly, arguing with his stomach about the benefits of the collagen in said sea cucumbers, and at the same time realized the Chinese mobsters were probably from the Chinese Robot Incorporated Mission Eternal, a renowned corporation that had managed to free countless people from menial jobs thanks to prodigious advances in robotics.
The Lady Cucumber was suddenly more than a mysterious beauty, she was also a mysterious wanted beauty, and he couldn’t wait to… But he had to guard his thoughts for now.He looked at the bamboo chopsticks with a sly smile. He had not said his last word, and the person who could boast of having Sanso detained was not born yet.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
It hadn’t been easy to obtain Sadie a pay raise. The management always seemed to look for new ways to cut the costs wanted to give her an extra for the good job. Although this time, LP could put the golden balls and the rebirth of the network in the balance. They could have had enough to give the whole team a decent salary. Indeed, it wasn’t really fair that the young queens were not paid at all. Unless of course you counted props, wigs and fake eyelashes. Eventually, Linda got Sadie the extra and the raise she had asked for, and new contracts for the three young queens. She shall not forget the tears of joy in their eyes when she announced them they were part of the big Queer Network family. It had made her feel good and generous even if it was not her money she was giving.
Linda Pol wrapped her luscious lips around an authentic straw and sucked up voraciously the glowing rainbow cocktail. Mmmmm, this new Peas’cocktail is divine, she thought. After the buzz created by their last network and that mysterious quest of Saint Germain for Peasland, peas-thingies were everywhere. She put the glass back on the edge of the Jacuzzi and looked at the little magenta umbrella for a moment. She didn’t know what was the most pleasing, the bubbles gently massaging her back in the water, or the gorgeous scenery of the Merry Otter resort in Maui. Linda Pol hadn’t had good vacation in a long long time, and if she had been in vacation this place could totally be one of her first choices destinations.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t there for vacations or relaxation. She wasn’t there for exercise either. She had been asked to attend a conference and meet with one of those new Random Science scientists specialized in the ambergris tiles. As if it was a joke from the Universe, her name was Amber Graystone. But Linda Pol had long learned that there were no such thing as unusualness, you just hadn’t seen enough of the world.
A boy came to refill her cocktail. Girl, you spend too much time looking at young bums, she thought, ageing beliefs were everywhere. She was feeling drowsy with the bubbles and the alcohol, almost dreaming of whales and ambergris.
“… Graystone is taking her job too seriously”, said a man’s voice.
Linda Pol opened her eye, just enough so that her fake eyelashes could still hide she was awake. When she was young, her curiosity had put her in trouble more times than the number of her pair of shoes. She had developed strategies and an incredible butt recognition skill. It had helped her win many contests in her youth and avoid boring conversations later on.
The two men wore bath suits. Linda could clearly see that one of the butts was slack and lifeless. Almost avoiding the contact with the fabric. An American butt fed with hamburgers and soda. The rest of the silhouette seemed to naturally spread out from its central component.
The other one moved like a mustang, the shiny red lycra was only here to help you see more clearly the outline of the flesh, not hide it. The curve of the bottom of the spine indicated a Russian ancestry. She felt a rush of adrenaline. She loved how Russians rolled their Rs. They could do many things with a rolling tongue.
“You want me to take carrre of herrr ?” asked a voice carrying ice.
“No, just remind her to whom she owes her subsidies. And her results.”
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“That’s amazing”
“How wonderful!”
“Wow, so great!” … For a moment, was all they could say, in varying lengths and tones of “ooo’s”.While they were looking at the show from a distance, Sadie realized they were not alone.
“Madam, if I may disturb, it seems you have dropped your key”
The robot which had suddenly appeared looked vaguely like the one which had dropped them underwater, except for the octopus costume. After all, all robots looked the same.
Sadie took the key a bit suspiciously, and in the second she took to examine it and as she was about to reply it wasn’t hers, noticed the robot had already vanished.“How strange it looks just like the sister key to the one Maurana got in France, the key from the ferrets… Wonder never ceases…”
“Honey, may I interrupt your voovvvs and borrow your key for a minute” she asked Maurana.
The two keys seemed to match, and when pressed together, clicked and became one, without any visible seam.
Without notice, it suddenly escaped Sadie’s grasp, and darted towards the crystal, as if activated by it.Sadie covered her ears, thinking it would shatter the crystal, but its vibration absorbed the key, and it started to glow more wildly.
A voice started to echo deep under.
“My name is Adamus St Germain, please ask your three questions.”
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
When Huhu arrived at his destination, Irina was sunbathing to the last rays of a big red gorgeous sunset that painted the waves in iridescent shades of purple.
At the same time, the sun’s course had already started a new day on the shores of New Zealand, where her sister was living, and she surely would be thrilled. Long had she waited for the 2222-2-22 marker.
Here, in Hawaii, they would still be in 2222-2-21, for a few more hours.
Irina started to shiver. 22°C her watch read. As if she needed to be any more quirky about this date…“Good boy!” she said to the parrot, taking the key it was carrying. Huhu tittered in contentment, cracking some of the pistachios she fed him distractedly.
She’d just received additional information from the Management. Elusive as usual, and leaving a great deal to interpretation, including the interdiction.
They’d promised to get her her dream island as a retirement plan. Some said it was the original land of the mermaids (who used to have as much feathers as Rio Carnival’s samba dancers), right off Italy’s Amalfi’s coast. Among its perks, it boasted to incorporate 8 staff, and a private grotto — that, if anything else than her fine waist line, would surely entice Sanso into other steamy booty calls.
She’d seen the pictures of the properties, her first thought though was that she needed to shoot the interior decorator. In short, it was almost her moral duty to get it, and change the decor. On the whole, she was convinced the island would do her good.So, when she looked back at the previous instructions to see how good she’d done on her mission’s objectives, she shrugged a little. She’d understood instinctively right when it was delivered that it was a clever cipher, especially given the late date shift. So she had reinterpreted the actual commands, and leisurely waited for the travellers to appear, and get comfy. By now, she was certain they trusted her telepathic commands well enough, so that solved the trust conundrum.
Basically, she was a major proponent of her own interpretation of old Ho’oponopono rituals. Instead of the usual mantra “I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.” hers was a bit more straightforward and was around the lines of “Green sickness to you. Peace be with you, and bugger off.”
Said a few times with proper intonation and inner work, and it was know to her to alter dramatically any block or resistance into a great flow of pure unfettered energy. So she had adamant faith that all she needed to do to complete her mission was to focus on herself and solve the resistance within by letting go.The last message was short.
22 the code
* whale that *BOIt could only mean one thing. 22 was a clever cipher meaning conundrum as in a catch 22, but also an obvious reference to the temperature. So it could only mean one thing: tamper with the code on the 22nd, and send it on the way to the whales, with a bug on it.
“Mr R, please, fetch!”
The discrete, yet always present robot caught the key with grace, and on her careful instructions, proceeded to alter the code of the key.
Irina was enjoying herself immensely, and found it a pity nobody could witness her true genius. “The ones who’ll read that key later, well… they are in for such a wild goose chase!”
The second part of St Germain’s encoded hologram was now ripe with wonderful and bewildering information about blubbits and the magic kingdom of Peasland with obscure and arcane references of magic numbers like 57, that would have anybody sane turn mad as a hatter in no time. Hopefully the whales would be immune to the nonsense, but probably not humans.Now was the final part of the plan.
“Mr R?”
“Madam?”
“I hope you are ready for this delicate reinsertion mission. Do you still have that octopus suit of yours ready?”
“Of course, Madam. Right away Madam.”In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Isn’t that the greatest thing about those underwater goggles”
After the shark threat had vanished, Sadie had contemplated for quite some time her new-found underwater abilities, and how to shift the weight of her body gracefully underwater. And then, she realized she could roll her eyes in the most peculiar way, with the membrane of the transparent skin massaging her eyeballs in the most relaxing manner. She’d never felt so good about rolling her eyes, and that was saying something.“BrllllSssadiieeee” came the urging sound in bubbles and gurgles, with a hint of despair dragging her out of the lovely eyeball massage session. The underwater acoustics needed some fine-tuning, so she had her wits to thank for understanding quickly the situation.
Despite what might have looked like her sending messages on her ezapper, at the same time she was having in-her-body experiences, she was merely testing experimental echo-localization to pinpoint the spot where the pod of whales would be most likely found. The feedback buzzing had prompted her minutes ago that it had found 6 potential spots, and one only which was the most probable and located less than an hour’s diving distance. One thing she knew was that you had to be careful with automatic location instructions, so she’d run a second independent check and was waiting for the results when the alarmed look of Maurana turned and rolled in front of her face, almost giving her a fright.“Gbbbllood gracious, Maurana, what’s the matter?”
“Gbblbl wooohoooglllbb bbbllrsfffftt plk plk plk skwooobbll!”“Oh, for fucks sake,” she telepathied “will you stop nattering in French, be more articulate.”
“The others are drowned and I no longer see them, it’s awful, what should we do?!” the thought came back with force and a bit of campiness.“Well, that would depend what it is you want” straight answers were not Sadie’s forte.
“I want to have our party with costumes and dances, I want to be the black pearl of the Ocean, I want to have more glitter and less molluscs, more chic and less kelp…” she started to sob profusely, half-choking and breathing from her tears. “I want my friends, and to be back hooooome”
“Bloody hell, Reggie, now is not the time to lose your shit, pull yourself together dammit.”The reaction was immediate, the telepathic swearing was so out-of-the-ordinary that Maurana looked twice at Sadie, with her bob cut surrounding her face like a heavenly halo. Suddenly self-conscious, Maurana started to reapply some waterproof mascara to cover the stains.
“I found them,” said Sadie with infectious calm “the ezapper’s first scan took them for a pod of whales or octopi for some reason. Let’s go get them, then we go visit the whales. But first, you have to try this, it will soothe you…”, as she started to show some more rolling motion of her beautiful blue eyes.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
It wasn’t important to the techromancer how long he had been living in this hut in Hawaii. A very special hut connected to many realities and times at once, a perfect representation of his mind. People would get lost in it, they did not understand how it worked. He just had to emit the intention of whenre he wanted to be and let his body follow the sound patterns. It worked very similarly to that sarcophagus in Giza. He helped in its making.
For now, he simply wanted to take a bath. He didn’t like being in contact with too much light, which always triggered a benign itching, soon spreading across his pale skin, erupting in red patches that only long immersion in water would sooth. His little sister used to say he was a dollfinn. It seemed strangely distant and yet close to this time-space reality.
The roughness of his rags didn’t help with the itching. He liked to think of them as his Jedi costume. The fabric, plain and rough, helped him remember that he was also made of flesh. A most difficult idea to keep in mind, as his was expanded in many times and realities at once. It helped cover his pale skin from light contact as well as create an aura of mystery with the few people who managed to find him. He had been most surprised by the last one, Sadie was her surface name. Memories of futures past rushed through his mind hut, momentarily disrupting the sound flux leading to the bathroom, and amplifying the itching. Now was not the right time and place.
Darkness and stillness are the basic components of awareness, he focused on that simple thought that would bring him peace and stability of mind. Keep the floughts away. It was easy to understand that for him darkness was as light is for us.
The bathroom he had chosen was in almost total darkness, for us. Even if it had a window, it was night outside. The window was only for the gentle breeze. He didn’t need light as his inner vision could see the patterns of movements of his reflected mind. He took off his rags. In the absence of light, his pale silhouette was almost glowing. The patches of red now looked like continents on a ocean of milk. One could notice a dark spot on his sacral bone. The tattoo of a black scorpio with a red dot. Red was also the color of his eyes. He was an albino, with red eyes like a rabbit.
He sank into the water with a gush of pleasure piercing through his mind. The multidimensional walls of the hut trembled.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Gliding through layers of consciousness, Belen carried her precious cargo of the Santa Maria and its birds towards her destination.
There were various variations of the same 2222, and she carefully adjusted the course along the 202 years gap, so as to swim to her favourite version of it. It required much love work on her part, addressing, piecing and peacing off many parts of human consciousness, while at the same time tenderly caring for the memories stored with her immense ghost body.
The 2020 version they had just left, she knew, was already on the proper track towards global enlightenment. There were still horrors, concerns and anxiety about the course of the future, but with a greater perspective, it looked like the positive actions were gaining momentum and leaning towards a brighter fuller and richer future.She could feel the Contact Crystal pulsate steadily and it opened her blowhole chakra. Blowing her mind, as it were.
The Big Island was like a beacon, with the flows of lava rippling heatwave signatures in the ocean, and it didn’t take long to enter the stream that would lead them to the pod and the meeting point.
As she sensed they’d arrived in 2222, and that they were floating on the surface of a calm ocean, she gently opened the energy bubble sealing the ghost and alive cargo of birds and vegetation, so they could breathe in the pure air and enjoy discovering around.
“Belen, look at you, not a ounce more of blubber since we last met! You ought to tell me how you keep so fit”
“Batshatsassani!” Belen was pleased the see the great female orca who’d come to greet her.
“Still with your entourage, it seems” her friend said without a hint of malice, blowing a few rings of bubbles around in a relaxed manner. “Let me accompany you to the ceremony.”
“With great pleasure, dear. Rest assured, I won’t carry my entourage along for the time of the ceremony.”
“It would have been cumbersome, no?” Oftentimes humour (and irony in particular) were a lost subtlety on the orca’s mind. Belen just smiled to answer, revealing a great range of ghostwhite perfect baleens.As they swam their way along the beautiful clear ocean, they were greeted by a pod of joyously rambunctious great dolphins, a good half size bigger than their common dolphins cousins she’d seen swimming near the coasts of Portugal. The leader of the pod was doing acrobatics to retrieve and play with a funny scarf made of colorful feathers. It was no surprise the dolphins were playing games, really. That or chasing food took the best of their time. But the scarf was the strangest thing Belen had seen in a long time and it triggered some kind of forgotten memory. Odd thing for her to not remember a memory, unless it was from another probable dimension… She followed the urge to ask.
“Were did they get that?”
“Oh, it’s nothing important… Four strange aquatic thingies went down earlier this morning, making a whole lot of noise around. They looked like one of those aliens, but so clumsy we thought they were probably sickly and left there to die by their tribe. The ‘phins took the fancy red gills from one of them.”
“Are you serious? Are they OK?” Belen huge heart felt panicky at the thought of the small creatures left to die without help.
“Of course they are, I knoooow we have to keep our reputation, you know. Where they are now, I’m not too sure. But the octopi from the camouflage squad are on it, following them. According to the last I know, the aliens have been lost for awhile in the underwater caves. When they’re exhausted, we’ll send them somewhere else… Can’t attract too much attention to ourselves, with the ceremony and all…”In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
After they’d jumped in the robot (which had shapeshifted into a sand buggy big enough for them), they had to cling tight to the railing of the light vehicle, as the robot was driving recklessly into a jungle of unexpected leaves and green vegetation tentacles.
It wasn’t long before they were back on the gorgeously rugged Hawai’ian beach, taken on an unexpected dune racing along the coast.
The queens looked exhilarated, but Sadie was a bit overwhelmed, especially after what the Techromancer had told her.The wetsuits fitting session passed in a blur, as the breathable elastic material was made to adapt to their bodies. Really, the only thing left to choose would have been color, but it was able to change itself at will, with very little shades it couldn’t replicate to perfection, even the Bollywood shine and twinkle that was all the craze in the 2019s.
“But we’re in the 2222s now!”, Maurana had voiced her disapproval of her choice of glittery fashion. Little did Sadie care about it. Her mission seemed to stretch to sidetracks and unneeded distractions on her path to Great Happiness.
All four of them clad in their fancy bathsuits and looking more like hippy frogs than sassy mermaids, they followed the robot on the miles-long deck that led to the horizon.
After half an hour of walking on the narrow bridge, they were at a good distance from the coast and Terry started to pant and breathe heavily in her green sardine scales costume.
“Stop! I got to catch my breathe, how long it’s going to be now? We were promised a soirée! Not a walk on the wild side!”The robot, rolled back a few steps, and turned briskly.
“Actually, Sir, this is a perfect spot for your whale training”And before they realized, the robot had opened the deck under their feet, plunging all of them in the ocean screaming.
Thanks to her excellent training and natural sharp reflexes, Sadie was the first to realize a few things.
- They were all alive
- They were able to breathe underwater
- Their suit enabled them to talk and understand each other in what sounded like whale-speech.
- A looming shape was quickly closing on them, looking dangerously like that of a giant toothy white shark.
- Her mind was a mysterious thing.
Why? Simply because the previous thought was coinciding with another one which was saying unequivocally that she still hadn’t found a proper dragqueen’s name for herself, and yet another one, even more funny than all others, saying in between bursts of infectious laughter that her last words could well be whale speech, and would make a hell of an epitaph.
She floated for a time moment stretched into an eternity, weighing all the rippling probabilities and wondered what her next move would be, as she was in the void of creation, hovering under a vortex of thoughts, with a sea of twinkling stars beckoning her further down the ocean’s clear bottomless depths.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
The early morning sea mist was evaporating as Fanella strolled around the village picking up dog shit. She reminded herself to fully appreciate the damp coolness, before the scorching summer sun enveloped them in a bone warming blanket, and then reminded herself to appreciate the bone warming effects of the full sun later. As she retraced her steps she noted how differently everything looked on a return journey, how piles of dog shit had escaped her notice while going one way, but were obvious on the way back. It reminded her of something she’d read recently in one of the books that Lisa insisted she read to improve her English ~ A Field Guide To Getting Lost . Hah! Had there been a cruel irony in that choice of book? Fanella had felt lost ever since she arrived in 2020. But according to the book, getting lost wasn’t a bad thing, not at all.
To be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery.
Fanella sighed. All sounds very philosophical, but I’m still stuck in the wrong time zone.
Another passage from the book popped into her head:We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire, though often it is the desire between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing.
Fanella gazed up at the sky ~ the blue of longing was taking over, as the white wisps of clouds dispersed.
The people thrown into other cultures go through something of the anguish of the butterfly, whose body must disintegrate and reform more than once in its life cycle…. how often the early stages of change or cure may mimic deterioration. Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly….No, the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.
Charming, Fanella thought, just bloody charming. Rotting soup of change, that just about sums it up. No wonder I wake up every morning with my bones feeling like mush.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“You look just like your father” was Lisa’s mother’s only remark when Lisa had thoughtfully sent her a couple of photos from Portugal. No compliment coming from her, thought Lisa, rolling her eyes. And it wasn’t even true ~ she looked nothing like her father, something else must have triggered her mothers comment, some other association.
“Remember your new policy, dear, don’t take it personally” Mirabelle reminded her. “Just another cranky old crone stewing on an old trigger. Besides,” she added, “What about Frank and Molly? Can you get a more specific remote view? Stuck in a carob tree could be almost anywhere.”
“You’re rather sweet for such a bossy tart” replied Lisa with a grateful smile. “Shush now then while I access their location.”
Lisa closed her eyes and waited for the images to appear. There was an explosion of purple and a great deal of static before an image began to appear of carob pods on a car windscreen. As Lisa viewed the glass a strange thing began to happen and she started to focus on the reflections. There were dozens of people approaching, all wearing brilliant white robes trimmed with gold. The robes were short, and revealed a considerable amount of tanned muscled leg, and a murmur of appreciation escaped her lips. What handsome fellows, she thought, but there’s something odd about them. Either this is a fancy dress party on a dry dusty hill, or another time zone.In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Linda Pol was struggling with the contracts formulation. Things had evolved almost too swiftly in the past —or should she say future, it could be confusing at times—, and now they had to rephrase a few paragraphs. Of course, the herd of lawyers were doing all that, but she had to check after them, she had to be sure they didn’t make a mistake.
The e-zapper buzzed. First, Linda Pol dismissed it as she would have done with a fly of no importance. But you know how flies of no importance can really bother you when they keep buzzing around when you are trying to focus on something arduous. The fly kept buzzing until Linda Pol couldn’t stand it anymore. She looked at the name on the transparent screen and caught herself whining inwardly.
It was her mother.
She breathed deeply twice and prepared herself. All that took a lot less time that it took to write it. She answered with a deep male voice.
“What do you want mum ?”
“Your father and I…”
Linda Pol shrieked silently. It wasn’t good when her mother began her conversation with those words. But she waited patiently.“… have been discussing about this book you told us to read. The Sands of the Species I think it was.”
“Spices”, Linda Pol corrected automatically. And she winced about that. She could see her mother smile triumphantly. She had her son’s attention.
“Well, that’s what I said.”
No point arguing with that, Linda thought, _you know that’s what she’s looking for.“Anyway”, continued her mother after a pause, “your father and I have been discussing about who the grand-father really is. He thinks that it’s the main character’s mother after her operation and time travel, but I’m sure it’s his second grand son that was also his uncle and his niece.”
Linda sighed, they already had that conversation before, and he struggled not to use that excuse with her mother, which would certainly start an argument, and he didn’t really had time for that with the new contracts. His mind noticed that it had started to rain. The drops rhythmically punctuating her mother’s sentences at the beginning, and then as the one way conversation went on, one drop per word. She always had a sense of rhythm, it was in her genes. Or that’s what people said anyway. Unfortunately, with his mother, that sense was mostly coupled with irritation and restraint.
But the brain works in almost magical ways, and the rhythm of the drops associated with his assistant’s bum made him thought of something.
“Mum”, she said when she could place a word, “I’m sending you a link that explains it all. Sweet dreams, I love you too.” She hanged up quickly. Don’t let her place one more word.
The drag asked her e-zapper to find the link and send it to her mother. It’ll keep her mother busy for a moment, enough for Linda to finish her reading the contract. She realized that it made a lot more sense now.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
By the time Lisa and Mirabelle arrived in Lisbon, it was too late. Frank and Molly were already heading south in a stolen car, the whale portal tile on the back seat, next to an assortment of other tiles of various colours and sizes. They were approaching a small town not far from the coast when Madam Li the navigation robot said turn left at your peril in Chinese. Frank hadn’t mastered the arts of intonation fully in his efforts to learn the language, and merely heard “turn left” and something else as incomprehensible to the ear as any other Portuguese town, and besides, the narrow goat track looked marvelously less traveled and enticing.
