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When Felicity had taken the job, she had thought at first that it was all a big interstellar joke…
Come on… Dead people speaking though living?
But a few recent experiences made her feel there was kind of warmth surrounding her when she started the radiophonic sessions, and that she was feeling… inspired, for lack of a better word.
Words indeed were coming and flowing, and even though she was rarely speechless, the words did have some different quality.
And people enjoyed the show greatly, and mails kept coming to the radio thanking DDT for all of the marvelous advices…

Till then, as she was conscious of the process, she had refrained issuing some definite statements on future events, as the inspiration was pressing her to do at times. As subtle as all of this was, she was feeling it was not really the same energy as the warm one; it was like incursions of a quicker and less stable bouncy energy.
It was pushing her to make cocky statements, on mass events about to come… Oh, not again self-fulfilling prophecies, please! she couldn’t help but think…

At times, Felicity was even wondering whether she was really going completely crazy.
Oh, it was so much simpler to be a genuine fraud…

— Arky, come here at once!
— But, I’ve done nothing…
— Stop being such a jackanapes, will you… You know very well there is no secret…
— Yes…

Despite his being immaterial, it was obvious that the One referred to as Arky was being scolded.

— And you know perfectly well there is nothing to gain in pushing things…
— But I intended well…
— I know that. As generations of focuses of leaders and presidents have been doing. One would have assumed you’d knew better by now… I can see you’re enjoying being with me on the soapbox, but either you find your own, or you better stay clear next time we get a communication.
— Understood.
— Fine, class dismissed.

Before leaving the castle, the fake Viscountess needed to check something on the skull…
Was it a genuine one? She had almost trusted the so-called experts of the auction room, while she knew perfectly well that they only could see what they knew. And they didn’t know as much as her.

To her knowledge, there was only a handful of genuine old crystal skulls. But counterfeits were legions and a plague for such a skillful cat burglar as she was. Well, cat-burglar,… perhaps not as acrobatically as she used to… As a matter of fact, her life-long search for these skulls had suffered the competition of a little embonpoint… — the good thing being that those few sticky superfluous pounds had been perfect to impersonate the Viscountess.
In the past, she had come across a few of these fake skulls and most of them bore very similar indications leaving her to think stakes were high that they were coming from the same con-artist.

She methodically drew a little dagger from a scabbard at her belt. Going to one of the window, she drew one of the curtains a few inches to reveal the pale sun of Shropshire which was already fading.
Then, she turned the jeweled hilt in such a special manner that a soft clicking sound was heard, and a beam of light started to converge from the sun rays into the dagger. She directed the ray coming from the tip of the dagger’s blade into the bottom of the skull, and hold her breath in expectation.

Soon the skull started to glow a bluish light, and light poured out of the skull onto the walls in dancing symbols, while a soft buzzing sound was being heard around, started to drown her in a slightly dissociated state.
She cut the dagger’s beam very quickly, her heart pounding at the validation. It was a genuine skull. One of the six.

She had to hurry, she needed to proceed on her investigations to find the missing ones.

The trunk was there. She took another key that she had around her neck, leaving the first one on the cupboard’s lock for the Viscountess to be freed as soon as she would be out.
With the key, she proceeded to open the high-tech lock of the armored trunk which opened with a blow of air.

Her jumpsuit was here, along with the two turbo-reactor powered condor-wings that she strapped on her jumpsuit in very professional movements.

A few moments later, with her big dark sunglasses that gave her the appearance of an obese fly, Carla was flying high over the countryside of England, enjoying the soft gliding on the slightly damp air.

As soon as she’d come back from her trip, Dory had planned to travel again very soon.
Of course, she had enjoyed tremendously being home, being with Dan and young Becky… yes, she had… the first day for sure…
Well… She was a born wanderer, she couldn’t do against her own nature, no need to beat herself for that, and feel guilty for leaving Dan and Becky periodically. Hopefully, Becky was very understanding, and perhaps that the fact that Dory was her stepmother made things easier for them both, without burdening their relationship with useless obligations towards one another.

On the other side, many exciting destinations were on her list, and she barely knew where to start. One that had attracted her curiosity was the site of Jiroft in Iran, where the famed lost Kingdom of Aratta had been supposedly found very recently. Artifacts had been discovered on this site, predating our commonly supposed invention date of written language, which had fascinated Dory for a while, before she got lost amidst the wide spectrum of her other interests.

Well, all of this was of frenzying interest, but there were dogs and back issues…
Somehow, Dory had been struggling with lots of tensions in her back, and the more she forced herself moving, the worse the pain was. Finally beaten by herself, when no one else, friend, family or doctor could accomplish such a feat, she was stuck to a cushioned armchair for most of the day holding to her pain as to a stuck parasitic hated friend.
And then, there was the dogs.
As she was barely able to move, Dan had renounced to have her come with him and Becky to see Sabine, Becky’s mother, in Mallorca, where she had invited them for the Epiphany.
Secretly, Dory was happy to have to stay at home, and not to have to make pleasing faces to the horrid obsessive woman she could only stand a few minutes without having to go out and empty a whole pack of cigarettes to calm her down.
The only little drawback was that she had to take care of the dogs… And she was running short of dog’s food…

Before leaving, Dan had left her a phone number of their new neighbours, a batty couple of Brits who had just rented the farm nearby, and with whom Dan was occasionally playing golf and lending a hand in small DIY work.
Reluctantly, Dory took the post-it and smiled at the familiar handwriting of Dan…

BEATTIE & LEONORA FLETCHER : 933-157-821

She composed the number in a deliberate slow motion, which strangely felt very empowering.

— Hello! a quavering male voice answered
— Err… Mr Fletcher?
— Ms Fletcher,… herself, what can I do for you?
— I’m Dorothy Mc Leane, one of your neighbour, you probably know my…
— Oh, yes! Dorothy, may I call you Dorothy, Dan spoke of you so much that we were very eager to meet you, weren’t we Leo?

A ruffling sound behind Beattie Fletcher seemed to approve.

— And is there anything we could do for you?
— Well, I’m awfully embarrassed to have to ask you, but I’m stuck at home, and my dogs don’t have much food left…
— Oh my dear! You did so very well to call us, didn’t she Leo? We’ll be at your home in a few minutes!
— But…
— Oh, no need to thank us for that, it’s all natural, after all that your delightful husband did for us! We see you in a moment…

And with that the line was cut. Dory was a bit disconcerted by the strange couple, but decided to dance with what was coming to her doorstep (wishing it would not be flamenco), seeing that having placed these quaint people in her reality could not entirely be a stroke of wild madness… If only…

— Kay, what do you reckon? Is it any good?

Kay had no doubt the marmoset wasn’t actually a marmoset. Being safe wasn’t much of an issue for a spirit dog, for as long as his symbiotic human friend would himself be safe. If that marmoset was actually a hint of another human presence on this accursed island, as Kay believed it was, it would mean that the island wasn’t as separate from the outside as it seemed. Someone had crossed the barriers… He had to find who, and why.

— I suppose it is safe enough, Yikes. I’ve made my decision. We’ll bring that individual to the HQ. Keep the mummy in check, but don’t brutalize it. It may prove useful… — At your beck and call, Kay! answered Robert X. The magpie named “Robert K”, codename Kay, started to morph into a boar, and very delicately lifted the mummy with its powerful snout until it was safely resting on its back, and started to go deeper into the woods, followed by the other magpies.

The buzzing of the telepooh woke up Elizabeth with a flinch, her heart pounding in fast tremolos.

She grumbled restlessly, her throat dry and itchy and her limbs still limp from slumber; she was in a dream, and already, she was feeling the unusual distinct clarity of the dream scenario gently fade as her attention was focusing upon the unwelcome sound which had a distorting quality of her yet poorly focused perception of her surroundings.

The buzzing ceased abruptly. She opened an eye to see the ID of the caller, but it was not displayed. Bugger the caller
Still feeling groggy, she was hanging to the last images of her dreams. It was telling her a story, a legend… Something full of grandeur, like a galactic opera filled with awe, drama and excitement… A renewed fount of inspiration…

The voice of the lady who had been telling her that story was still inside her head, all she had to do was to slightly let herself drift into the numb and warm state of mind in which she was some minutes ago…

You are tapping into a mass event. You are translating but a minute portion of it, though it seems colossal already. It is in fact so wide that it reflects in many other worlds which all live in your imagination. Bound together, they represent more books that you could write in a lifetime, more books that you and any army of ghost-writers could write in a thousand lifetimes…

The voice was delightfully soothing, and Elizabeth was seeing herself drifting again in the blissful sleep bereft of irate publishers’ diktats. Beaming at her, Elizabeth could envision a light feminine figure with flowing dark hair illuminated by green-blue shimmers. How could she ever remember all that was said… She was plagued with such bad memory…

Elizabeth had her dictaphoo under her pillow, ready for such sudden strokes of genius, but her mouth dried up from nicobeck wasn’t ready to spew out words that early in the morning.

What the lady with the teal eyes had shown her was an old book of prophecies, which she had named the Last Gospel, unknown yet but which would be remembered as the mass event would be enacted again.
The book spoke of a triad of planets, named M’si, B’si and Earth. Just before Elizabeth woke up, she had seen that Earth was in the process of been isolated from the other parts of the cosmos, for untold reason. Suddenly, she had seen one of the planets, the one named B’si, change her quality and become a “gravitational lense” altering the perception of space from the “Earth” standpoint. The planet B’si became transparent and expanded, as though it was an exploding super-nova, but nothing radiated from the planet. Only the quality of the space was modified.

Elizabeth had the idea of a novel based upon this mass event which could be her next perfect best-seller. She reached out for her typewrooter.

When the World was young, the Powers were roaming in a void full of possibilities.
Initially, Three Syzygies there were. By two came the Six Powers. Three Syzygies, or couples of Light Beings, each Syzygy blessed with unlimited creative powers.

Elizabeth pondered for a moment… She wanted to say many things at the same time, and couldn’t write them fast enough. She started to write notes haphazardly as they came to her mind.

— Two planets for themselves to play; a planet for themselves to dwell. The planets gravitate around a sun on the same orbit. Each of the Powers possess a symbolic scepter power artifact, and each couple generates a crystal or a kind of light seed which allows them to create new sentient beings… When parted, that crystal kind of light is deactivated.
— One planet is home of dragons, created by one of the syzygies, another is home of giant eagles; they all are lesser Powers… The third one have giant-like Light beings…

— What made the planet B’si change its quality? What became of the Powers? (I can sense them desiring to become part of their creations, willing to forget about themselves and their powers… Punishment? Mere playfulness? Perhaps there was a coup organized by the Lesser Powers?)

Phew… Elizabeth yawned. All she could think of now was that she wanted to go back to sleep…

Somewhere during the 23 ^rd century

“aaa AAAA AAAAA Tcheeeew !”
…
“Hiiiiii?! Oh Fracking NOOOoooo!”

The shriek had been heard in the whole facility.

Phefia Beryl was the first on the spot where Vinya Grey had been playing so exuberantly with her vocal chords.

— Vinnie? Are you alright?… What just happened?
— Oh, Pheffy… I think I made an awful blunder…
— What do you mean?
— You know, my last experiment?
— The g…
— Yes!
— What?!
— They poofed away…
— Away?… You mean, all of them? Oh bugger…

A few minutes later, Vinya and Phefia were around a white table sucking on straws picked into white and red polystyrenoid balls.

— Vinnie, you look terrible… That last geomagnetic storm had not done very good on your DNA I’m afraid.
— And the worse is that each time I sneeze, I blow up wormholes… I thought it would go better very quickly, but last one was big and lasted long enough to let the whole experimental herd wander off in another time/space and/or dimension…
— Yeah, that’s pretty bad… But wherever they went, they probably will die very soon… Imagine… With their stiff legs anytime they see something frightening, I guess a mere mapgie could easily have them for dinner…
— Such a pity… I was close to doing something great with them… When we discovered these fossilized blue spiders, I knew it was the first step.
— Bwah, this rehydrated frogrog is the grossest thing I’ve ever drunk… But yeah you’re right, the first results were very promising. The spiders venom could provoke very random and deep mutations.
— And all we needed was a little more control on the direction of the mutations.
— Anyway they’re just goats… You possibly can’t have breached a cosmic law with a handful of GOATS…
— Hope so Pheffy, hope so…

San Demangelo, 1848

Elroy was laughing… Hey Joe, Twi! he shouted A letter from Uncle Ernie!

— Uncle Ernie? How’s the old bat doin’? asked Twilight
— He’s sending his greetings for the new year, and babbling about last dead people in the neighborhood. But there’s something funny. He’s saying that he’d just acquired some funny goats. Like popped in, out of nowhere. At first he’d thought of a joke, but apparently no one’s been claiming them. He’d thought them dead, they were a dozen laying stiff on the ground, but when they started to wake up, they went down again like broken dolls. Apparently the magpies on top of the tree had been scaring them. Ahaha… Where does he get such strange stories…
— Well, magpies are scarey, Twilight said meaningfully, with a side glance at Joe…
— Whatever… At least he’d been giving us a good laugh. He’s saying he’s gonna breed the horny beasts, and start a Fainting Goat Fair (or FGF) in Marshall County. Perhaps we could get there next Thanksgiving…
— Depends when the Freak Show’s coming to town, mused Twilight, I hope to see them soon…

“Hang on a minute” he shouted to his friends as soon as they were out of the grocery store, burden with the loads of the bags.
Molly, Harvey and Francis looked puzzled at their foreign friend.
Then with a shrug, Harvey sat on a pile of snow that had fallen from the roof, and leaned against one of the pillars of the square place dimly lit by a buzzing orange light.

He run to the chalet on the left, which was apparently closed, but he knew there would probably be someone in there.
He opened the creaking door, not startled by the bells tinkling at his left ear, and went straight to the counter, as though he had always known the place. A young man with a goatee was there, busy sorting old papers for the annual closing of the hostel.

— Do you have a glass of water please? the stranger asked
— Oh yes, sure… And with that?

The man seemed to expect an answer… The stranger felt as if he knew that answer…

— Yes… one of your… you know… chocolate things, with the wolf on it.
— Exactly! the tenant was smiling.

The stranger fumbled in his pocket, not having thought of requiring any money for a glass of water. But now…
Phew, there was a coin in his left pocket. He drew it out, looked at it… A 3 euros coin? He didn’t know such a currency existed…

— Oh, I won’t have the change I fear, the man answered… But I can make you a credit memo.

He had no idea he would come back here soon, but the familiar place as much as the obliging man made him think that anything would be okay. At worse, he would have lost a few euros, which was no big loss.

— Sure.

The man showed him a red ticket, and leaning on the counter, proceeded with some explanations.

— This is your credit memo. Additionally, as the hostel won’t be fully rented, you can use this as a reservation for next week. It’s for Mr Arkandin. You will be able to enter the special exhibit and join the guided tour. It’s a laying down travel. People are expected to go nowhere, yet they will travel. Pillows and blankets will be provided.

He had a strange image in his mind of people laying on their backs and gliding on the floor in patterns leaving some tracks on the ground with various colours.

— It is supposed to show people some beliefs about monogamy. And keeping track of their own travels…

That was most puzzling… He wasn’t sure he would still be here next week, but that sounded intriguing enough to not be thrown in the bin right away…
He thanked the man after having had his glass of water and putting the wolf-brand candy and red square of paper in his pocket.

— There you are, sighed Molly, and what have taken you so long?

It’d been two hexades that the Abbot Hrih Chokyam Lin’potshee had been laying in bed in poor condition.
At first, he had wanted to be as strong as he had always been towards hardships, but he’d finally admitted that quelching the pain wasn’t doing any good to him. So he had agreed to be taken care of by a young monk, and to lay in bed as long as was necessary.
He knew that he was very likely not to get out of that bed but with his body covered by a white sheet, nevertheless, the thought was still something distant. The pain in his body was making him so present to himself that the only thing that was still blatant was that he was.
More than the body, it was all his faith that was shaken. He had thought he would leave this life without mess, without pain, probably very discreetly in his sleep… But now, his head was wincing at every noise, even the nature’s sounds that once felt like music to his ears, he was eschewing them now as much as he could. His very skin was hot and couldn’t bear even the soft contact of the bedsheets.
What was the point of all of this? He had never doubted that everything had its purpose, but now, he was doubting…
He was even trying to find some reasonable reasons for what was happening, he who never trusted in reasonable reasons in the first place. Perhaps that was because of his seating under the chilly air and the warm sun in front of the Meditation Wall, reading for all of the poems that had been written by the monks who had dared to write. Perhaps he had “taken cold”, whatever that means…
“Perhaps not” the voice kept saying softly in his head.

Now, his whole succession was feeling like a moot point. After all, he was not even capable of saving himself from anything, then how could what he created make the slightest difference? These were all like an extension of his body, bound to decay and come back to Earths.

Not so many monks had dared write upon the Wall about their highest truth. A few jokesters had begun at first, helping the others to participate.
One in particular had had Hrih laugh for quite a while.

A toad is a toad
Unless kissed
Endless Bliss

Then a dozen of others had flourished upon the wall, until Aum Geong decided to write his own. He’d not wanted to go first, to allow the others to express without the burden of comparison, and also to have some more time to write something deep and thoughtful. But that profusion of nonsense between some occasional pearls of wisdom made him write his own.

Unattainable is the Truth
For in the Dust of things
All in our View is bleak

Doing Wrong we forswear
For Dust to be lifted
And Wisdom we seek

In the deed of the Elders
And the Faith in the Community
Light and Trust bespeak

All the monks had been quite impressed, but Hrih had not been entirely satisfied by it… To be honest, he even completely disagreed with it.
Now, however, stuck in this bed, the poem was playing in his head and suggesting that the Worlds were something terrible that he had not yet understood, or be willing to avoid seeing. Perhaps Aum Geong was wiser than he was.
Perhaps all that Hrih had put as foundational to his life had all been Dust…
“There is no Dust, and you know that” the voice whispered softly.

Now that he is about to die, what difference will it make anyway…
He reach out for a bowl of water, and almost let it fall, as the weight of it surprised him. He was becoming so weak… He never had been so self-conscious in many many many years.

After he had propped himself up to drink a few burning swallows of the lukewarm water, he noticed something folded on his bedside, that had been put under the bowl… Young Franiel had been the one attending him with Jog Lam, so it must have been the doing of one of them. He intuited that was Franiel.

As he read the stanzas, tears were in his eyes…

I am the driftwood
the wave carried me
I was buried in sand

I am the flower
the butterfly touched me
I fell in love

I am the raindrop
the cloud released me
I became the ocean

The Young monk had probably not dared write it on the Wall, especially after most of the monks’ vocal appreciations of Aum Geong’s poem…
“Perhaps not” the voice again spoke.
Another reason for it formed into Hrih’s mind. Franiel perhaps didn’t feel ready for such responsibilities and his role and fulfillment in this community was not form rules nor to continue it.
It was more to inspire them, and perhaps to start his own discoveries.

Hrih wrote a note behind the paper. He wanted to leave something for Franiel, for him to keep faith in his coming adventures during these coming times of change.
After a deep breath, he took another paper that was with him for already such a long time, wrote down some words, and signed it, the aura of his hand burning a glyph that was his signature in the paper. He then called for Jog Lam.

— Jog Lam, my friend…
— Elder?
— I’m dying…
— I know Elder
— Let me continue. (Jog Lam nodded)
First, will you give that paper to Young Franiel after the cremation ceremonies. (Jog Lam nodded again)
Second, I want you to relay that I have made my decision, and that Aum Geog will succeed me (Jog Lam’s surprise was noticeable in his eye). He is, to date, the most adequate successor for this monastery.
— I will do as you want.
— Thank you my friend.
— Elder…
— Farewell, my friend, I am always with you.

When Jog Lam stoically left the room, Hrih Chokyam laid down, his eyes on the ceiling. His body was so weak that all he could do was to project behind his closed eyelids and see the starry sky, even if he would have wanted something different for his death. He would have loved something like a nap in a sunlit meadow with a little singing brook.
But seeing the actual World was something even more precious to him. The barren mountains of the icy season, the clear unclouded sky. His mind was so full of energy that his body lacked.

With a deep feeling of gratitude for his body, he bid it farewell.

— So he wants us to paddle down a river of pea-soup, is that it, sweetie?
Al was asking Tina, while playing with his teeth and gums…

— Oh, I don’t have any clue really, sighed Tina who began to feel annoyed by Al’s constant fiddling with his mouth.
— Well, not to worry then, except I’ve got focuses dead from poisoned pea-soup as far as I remember, so I am not overly enthusiastic about the whole pea-soup adventure… Better make it some more fluid…
— And will you tell me what you’re doing now with that mouth of yours Albert? Last time that was the hair, then the nails… it seems you can’t get enough of these explorations of your body consciousness, can you? Tsss… Tumold aligned people…
— Oh, this is fascinating, can’t you see, how fluid this all area is, despite the appearances.
— If you say so…
— Look!
— Oh now, you’re being gross! Tina was positively appalled by Al’s behaviour
— Oh, it’s funny, look… I can make my gums as malleable as marshmallow, and have my teeth float on that gum-soup…
— Yikes!
— Entirely fascinating… And I can also grow some new ones, what would you say of pointy teeth like cannibals?
— Oh, come on, Tina was now no longer impressed… Have fun as you want, I’m going for a walk to help Becky buy her wedding dress… She wants something that looks “tribal” she said…

Tina went outside shrugging at the toothy grin Al gave her.