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  • #3574

    In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

    ÉricÉric
    Keymaster

      Mother Shirley, the head of the Covenant, was smoking in her private capsule despite the strict restrictions and despite the health risks, at her ripe age of 99.

      She liked to quip that nobody had ever told her what to not do and lived to say the tale. She had smoked since age 45, after the death of her third husband, the only one she had shed a tear for. Never turned back since, and maybe it was the reason she was still alive after all. Smoked like a mighty salmon.

      She grinned painfully at her reflection. Ugh. Despite all the beauty treatments, she was starting to look like a decrepit mummy. No amount of wariki body butter and ant royal geel would do the trick now. She had to resort to more extreme measures after no doctor would dare to try a peeling on what skin was left on her face.

      The acrylic mask was always prickly at first, and took a few uncomfortable seconds to adjust. It was now firmly set, and sure, it restrained a bit the movements on her face,… well, she was never one for laughs out loud anyway.

      With her shaking scrawny arms, but her grip strong as ever, she attached the limbs of her exoskeleton, and with now more assurance, finished to dress in proper garments on top of her fishnet corset.

      She was all set for the morning sermon. She would have to strain her voice a bit, and for that the smoke had helped too. She had a lovely raucousness in her vocal chords that made all the old farts of the Covenant thrilled by what she said in hypnotic stances.

      After that would be done, most importantly, they would go forth to the promised land, and she was to spend her glorious next century on a new empty planet she could mould to her vision.

      #3564

      Aunt Idle:

      Tattler, Trout and Trueman. Where had I seen that before? I squinted at what was left of the business card that Flora had been ripping up to use as roaches last night. I could make out tel: 88 , but the rest of the number was missing. There wasn’t much left of the card, no other writing left to see. But where had I seen that name before?

      I shivered; there was a rising mist and it was damp and chilly on the veranda, gloomy as the sun hadn’t quite risen yet. I like it first thing, before anyone else is up. Bert’s usually up, but I never see him, he goes off out the back somewhere. I stood there for awhile watching the mist rise and wondered whether to go and fetch the camera.

      And that’s when I remembered where I’d seen Tattler, Trout and Trueman. It was on that note that I’d hidden inside the camera manual.

      Could it be a coincidence? Should I ask Flora where she got the card, whose card it was? Or did Flora have something to do with the note?

      My hand flew to my mouth. Automatic reaction so you don’t suck any flies down with the sharp intake of breath.

      “Got toothache, Aunt Idle?” asked Prune.

      “Jesus Christ, Prune! You made me jump out of my skin! What are you doing up so early?”

      “Who is that man your friend brought with her? Is he from the desert?”

      “What man? She came on her own.”

      “Well who’s that tall man in the blue robes then? He said his name was Sanso.”

      WHO?” I could almost hear myself say that in italics. “Where? Where did you see him?”
      What did he say?”

      I could see Prune was weighing this up, she wasn’t called shrewd prunes for nothing. I wasn’t at all surprised when she said “He told me not to tell you anything,” and ran back inside, slamming the door behind her.

      #3563
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        Aunt Idle:

        Flora arrived, hot and dusty from the travelling, in the late afternoon. A shower and a well iced gin and tonic soon revived her, and I got the girls to see to supper and the oddball in room 8, and asked Bert to keep an eye on them while Flora and I sat on the porch. It did me a power of good to sit chatting and joking with a friend, a woman of my own age and inclinations, after the endless months of nothing but the company of kids and old coots.

        She looked pretty much the same as I’d gathered from the videos and photos online, although her bum was a lot bigger than I expected considering her slender frame, but she was an attractive woman with a merry gurgle of a laugh and warm relaxing energy.

        I asked her about the video she was planning to make, but it all sounded a bit vague to me. “Frame” it was to be called, and there were various period costumes involved and a considerable amount of improvisation, from what I could gather, around the theme of “frame of reference”. What that meant exactly I really couldn’t say, but she said we were all welcome to play a role in it if we liked.

        We’d been sitting out there until well past sundown, enjoying the cool evening air and a bit of Bert’s homegrown pot, posting selfies together on Spacenook and giggling at the comments, when we heard an ear splitting scream coming from an upstairs window. Flora looked at me with a raised eyebrow, and I just cracked right up for some reason, don’t ask me why. I laughed until the tears were rolling down my cheeks, and my ribs ached. I tried to stand up and fell back in the chair, which made me laugh all the more. I was wiping my eyes with a paper hanky when Clove appeared, saying Prune had had a nightmare.

        “Oh thank goodness for that!” I exclaimed, which set me off again, and this time Flora joined in. I did wonder later when I was getting ready for bed what she must have thought about it all, me having hysterics at the sound of a screaming child. But it did me a world of good, all that laughing, and I was still tittering to myself when I lurched into bed.

        #3559
        matermater
        Participant

          Mater:

          I am concerned about Dido. The silly trollop has taken up drinking again—in front of the kids too. Mark my words, she will end up back in rehab if it goes on. Like last time. And then where will we all be? Those poor little mites without a father or mother and their Aunt fast turning into a crazy slush. There’s no telling her though. God knows I have tried in the past.

          I can only hope she will settle down when that kiwi friend arrives—Flora someone. Though I don’t hold out much hope really. I have not met a kiwi with a half a brain in their head yet. And that awful accent! I don’t need this aggravation at my age.

          Calm down, remember what Jiemba told you.

          I have not told you yet about my visit to Jiemba, have I? There has been so much going on here, what with the fish going missing and that odd guest staying in Room 8 and Dido’s antics, it nearly slipped my mind.

          It was Prune who hid the fish, of course. Sensitive wee thing — she has always had a particularly strong dislike of the awful old relic and I can’t say I blame her. Dido went ape when Prune eventually confessed, but secretly I found it rather amusing.

          I digress, yet again.

          In the end it was Bert who helped me more than Jiemba. The dear man waited out in the truck for me while I kept my appointment with Jiemba. And he held my secret safe from the others. I am grateful to him for that. It felt nice to have someone who would do that for me. On the trip back home he opened up and told me stories about the town. Apparently in its heyday it even had an ice-cream factory; I hadn’t heard that before. Nor some of the other stories he told me. There are not many left around here with the knowledge Bert has. I feel I may even pluck up courage to tell him what I have seen at the Inn. Perhaps he may have some thoughts on it.

          But not just yet.

          Jiemba gave me some salve made from native bush bark for my aches and pains. It seems he is more modern than his father—things change I guess. I wanted to ask him about the ghost, but what with the dogs and kids running around outside and the heat and the baby screaming in the house somewhere, I could not bring myself to do it. But one thing he said to me has stuck.

          “Live from your heart”.

          It was the way he said it. Very intense. He went quiet and stared at the floor for a long time while I tried not to fidget. As though he was communing with some spirit world I could not see. Though I would dearly love to. I have thought about those words since then, trying to figure out what they mean.

          I’m not sure I can even find my heart, let alone live from it.

          #3557
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            Aunt Idle:

            Those maps got me remembering all kinds of things, not that I was fretting about the note because I wasn’t, but once I’d quit flapping about the note, all kinds of things started popping into my mind.

            Odd little cameo memories, more often than not a mundane scene that somehow stuck in my head. Like that cafe with the mad hatter mural, mediocre little place, and I cant even remember where it was, but that number on the mural was just wrong, somehow. It’s as clear as a bell in my memory now, but not a thing before or after it, or when it was, other than somewhere in New Zealand.

            I kept getting a whistling in my left ear as I was recalling things, like when I remembered that beach on the Costa del Sol, with a timebridgers sticker in the beach bar. I can still see that Italian man walking out of the sea with an octopus.

            I can still see the breeze flapping the pages of a magazine lying on a bench in Balzac’s garden in Paris, something about a red suitcase, but I can’t recall what exactly.

            A motel in a truckstop village in California…the sherry was making me drowsy. I almost felt like I was there again for a moment.

            Conjure up a bowler hat, he said, while you’re out today. I forgot all about it (how often I thank my lucky stars for having a bad memory, I much prefer a surprise) and saw a delightful hurdy gurdy man wearing a bowler hat (In June! I do recall it was June). My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, he was playing. I’m sure to have forgotten that, but I made a video recording.

            All these locations were holes in the maps, those ripped up maps the girls brought home from the Brundy place, just after I got that note. I was beginning to see a pattern to the connecting links between the letters ripped out of the map locations, and the wording in the note (which was made of ripped out letters from place names on a map, and glued onto the paper, as anyone who is reading this will no doubt recall). The pattern in the discovery of connecting links was that the pattern is constantly changing, rendering moot the need to decipher a plot in advance of the actual discovery of spontaneous development of the shifting patterns of discovery, and deliverance of the decipherable delegation of the delighted, promptly at noon.

            #3550
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              Corrie:

              Funny how things pop up. While Clove was taking supper to the guy in room 8, I signed into Spacenook and the first thing on my perusefeed was an article about maps.

              “Cartographies can be altered endlessly to reflect different priorities, hierarchies, experiences, points of view, and destinations.”

              How syncy is that. There was another sync like that yesterday, after the kitten fell off the barn roof. I was just posting a photo of the kitten on Spacenook and glanced at the sidebar and there was an ad for a catnip garden memories of dead cats group thing there. I wonder if that dream I had of our old dog Lilly the other day was because the kitten was a remanifestation of her? Lilly’s name was supposed to be Delilah, that’s what it said on her papers, Delilah, but nobody ever called her that. We always called her Lilly.

              Anyway, they come and they go, we’ve had hundreds of cats wander through this town, but they always come back. I saw a rat the other day and it reminded me of Boozer, the old sheepdog we had when we were little.

              Funny thing was, yesterday morning I’d posted this poem by Mary Oliver:

              “…. Tell me, what else should I have done?
              Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
              Tell me, what is it you plan to do
              With your one wild and precious life?”

              Made me feel a bit better when I read it again later, because I did wonder if I’d got there quicker when I heard it crying, when it must have been halfway done falling and stuck on a branch, it might not have ended up the way it did. It must have been meant to be that way I suppose. Well, she’ll be back. They always come back sooner or later.

              Sighing, I refocused on the article.

              “Maps produce new realities much as they seek to document current ones. Maps are always a going-beyond the space-time of the present.”

              No mention of a room full of map covered mannequins in the Brundy place though.

              #3548
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                The knock on the bedroom door awakened Crispin Cornwall.
                “Yes? Who is it?”
                “It’s Clove, I’ve brought your supper, sir.”
                Crispin eased his limbs into action and shuffled over to the door. As soon as he’d been shown to his room in the early hours of the morning, he’s lain down on the bed and slept like a baby, not stirring until the knock on the door. It had been seventeen weeks since he’d last slept, not that he needed sleep in the usual sense, but sometimes even the Great Travelers needed a complete break with the physical. Dragon’s teeth, he said to himself, it made a body stiff though, all those hours of inactivity.
                “It’s beans on toast, Aunt Idle said you weren’t fussy,” the girl said, politely enough, though she looked him up and down. “The laundry and shower room is down the hall, thataway, sir.”
                Crispin took the plate off the girl, the corner of his lip curling up in amusement. “Look like I need a wash, do I?”
                “Sorry sir, didn’t mean to be rude, it’s just that most guests ask for a shower when they get here, dust on the road and all. Will there be anything else you want? Pot of tea? Bottle of wine?”
                But Crispin Cornwall had already closed the door. Clove heard the lock click. Rude filthy old fart, she thought to herself.

                #3545
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  Corrie:

                  It was the look on Aunt Idle’s face when she saw them that scared me. There’s something strange going on, and not just everyone acting weird, that’s pretty normal around here, but this was a different kind of weird.

                  When Aunt Idle nearly suffocated me with that big hug while she was trying to hide that piece of paper, I didn’t think anything of it. Probably hiding another bill I thought, not wanting us to worry about the debts piling up. Mater wandering off like that was pretty strange, but old people do daft things. I knew all about it because I’d been reading up on dementia. They imagine things and often feel persecuted, claim someone stole their old tea set, things like that, forgetting they gave it away 30 years ago, stuff like that. So I wasn’t worried about either of them acting strange when Clove and I decided to go treasure hunting in the old Brundy house, we just decided to out and explore just for the hell of it, for something to do.

                  The Brundy house was set apart from the rest of the abandoned houses, down a long track through the woods, nice and shady in the trees without the sun glaring down on our heads. Me and Clove had been there years ago but we were little then, and scared to go inside, so we’d just peeked in the windows and scared each other with ghost and murderer stories until we heard a bang inside and then ran like hell until we couldn’t breathe. Probably just a rat knocking something over, but we never went back. We weren’t scared to, it was further to walk to the Brundy place and there were so many other abandoned houses to play in that were closer to home.

                  We weren’t scared to go inside this time. It was a big place, quite grand it must have been back in the day, big entrance hallway with an awesome staircase like in Gone With the Wind where Scarlett fell down the stairs, but the stair carpet was all in shreds and some of the steps banisters were broken, but the steps looked sound enough so up we went, for some reason drawn up there first before exploring the ground floor rooms.

                  Clove turned left at the top of the stairs and I turned right and went into the first bedroom. My hand flew to my mouth. I wonder why we do that, put a hand over our mouth when we’re surprised, well that’s what I did when I saw the cat mummy on the bed. I didn’t scream or anything, not like Clove did a minute later from the other side of the house. It wasn’t a mummy with bandages like an Egyptian one, it was just totally desiccated like a little skeleton covered in bleached leather. It was a fascinating thing to see really but the minute I heard Clove scream I ran out of the room and down the landing. It’s not like Clove to scream. Well who screams in real life, the only time I ever heard screaming was in a movie. People usually say what the fuck or oh my god, they don’t scream. But Clove screamed when she saw the room full of mannequins because to be fair it did look like a room full of ghosts or zombies in the half light from the shuttered windows. She was laughing by the time I reached her, a bit hysterically, and we clutched each other as we went over to open the shutters to get a better look. It was pretty creepy, even if they were only mannequins.

                  They were kind of awesome in the light, all covered in maps, there were 22 of them, we counted them, a whole damn room full of map covered mannequins in various poses, men, women and kid sized. Really clever the way the maps were stuck all over them, looked like arteries and veins, and real cool the way Riga joined up with Boston, and Shanghai with Lisbon, like as if you really could just travel down a vein from Tokyo to Bogota, or cross a butt cheek to get from Mumbai to Casablanca.

                  We hadn’t noticed at first that we’d been shuffling through a load of paper on the floor. The floor was covered in ripped up maps, must have been hundreds of maps all torn up and strewn all over the floor.

                  “There’s enough maps left over to do one of our own, Corrie” Clove said, reading my mind. “Let’s take some home and stick them all over something.”

                  “We haven’t got a mannequin at home though” I replied, but I was thinking, why not take a mannequin home with us, and some maps, and decide what to do with them later.

                  So that’s what we did. We gathered up the biggest fragments of map off the floor and rolled them all up and used my hair elastic to hold them together, and carried a mannequin all the way home. The sun was going down so we had to hurry a bit down the track. Clove didn’t help when she said we must look like we’re carrying a dead body with rigor mortis, that made us collapse laughing, dropping the mannequin on its head. Once we got the giggles it was hard to stop, and it made our legs weak from laughing.

                  We got home just as the last of the evening light disappeared, hauled the mannequin up the porch steps, where Aunt Idle was standing with her hand over her mouth. Well, that was to be expected, naturally she’d be wondering what we were carrying if she was watching us come up the drive carrying a body. It was later, when we unfolded the maps, that the look on her face freaked me out.

                  #3539

                  Aunt Idle:

                  My hands were shaking so much I could hardly light a cigarette after reading the note. I got it lit and sucked in a lungful, exhaled right into the shaft of sunlight and froze. And I don’t mean cold, it’s hotter than hell, I mean I quit shaking and couldn’t move because that smoke was doing some very peculiar things in that sunbeam. Looked like Penmanship with a capitol curly P, written in smoke by an invisible hand, loop the loop of joined up writing and I could see the words, but damn, two seconds later I couldn’t tell you what I just read and by then the first part had wafted apart. So I sat there reading the smoke until the last of it dispersed, and without thinking took another drag of the cigarette. I’ll be honest, I wondered whether to blow the smoke over my shoulder instead, but curiosity got the better of me, and I leaned forward a bit and screwed my eyes up ready to focus and started exhaling slowly into the sun. Not a damn thing this time, nor the next, and I almost lit another cigarette right off the butt of that one. Just to delay looking at that note again I suppose, but I didn’t, I stubbed it out and picked up the note. The smoke distraction did me good, I was over the shock of it and now I was curious.

                  The note was written in letters cut out of a map, by the look of it. Or maps, hard to say at this stage. The letters were pasted onto a yellowing sheet of stationary paper with a heading embossed on the top: Tattler, Trout and Trueman. Nothing else, just that, no address or phone number, or indication of who they were. There was a brown ring stain, which might be a clue, and a short message. Made me jump when I saw the name at the bottom, because the H was so tiny compared to the ILDE it caught my eye as Idle, which is what the twins call me, and the D I D letters were much bigger than the I E R, making me think it was Dido, which is what the others call me. It’s Delilah but nobody’s ever called me that, although Prune called me Dildo once and got a clip round the back of the head for it. So the note came from Hilde Didier, and I’m ferreting away in my mind and I can’t think of anyone of that name, but it might come to me later.

                  “Mater’s acting strange, Aunt Idle,” Corrie burst into the room giving me the most unpleasant jolt it made me think I was having a heart attack until I remembered the note in my hand.

                  “Coriander, darling!” I gushed, admittedly uncharacteristically but I didn’t have time to think, swiveling round to her while slipping the note out of sight. I stood up and hugged her, deftly spinning her around while scanning over her shoulder to make sure the note was hidden from view.

                  “Bloody hell, not you as well!”

                  #3540
                  ÉricÉric
                  Keymaster

                    That Liz had started to become a few sandwiches short of a picnic when she’d hit her 57th birthday was an open secret.
                    Her editor had to personally recruit frequent replacements for her dame de compagnie, whom, no matter how different they looked, she would invariably call ‘cleaning lady Finnley’, stuck with her remembrance of a certain period of her life.

                    Godfrey often had wondered… were he to resign, and be replaced like so many Finnleys before this one, would she also call his replacement “Godfrey”? The though made him titter, as he put the kettle on the stove.
                    At times he wanted to scream that he wasn’t her bloody man-servant, but her personal doctor had made a point to explain to him that Elizabeth’s frail grasp on reality would only be strengthened if everyone continued to play the charade of her life.

                    Truth was, she really did seem to grow younger as the years passed, and as she was bossing around everyone with great enjoyment, Godfrey had often wondered if she wasn’t in cahoots with her physician to have everyone believe she was truly losing it.
                    He had to admit, she was doing a terrific job at it.

                    #3536

                    In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                    ÉricÉric
                    Keymaster

                      John was about to leave the pod for the airlock when a sharp voice startled him.

                      “Where are you going on your own Johnny? You know the rules!”

                      He could tell she was only pretending indignation. She had this fun smirk at her pursed lips that he knew by heart. She was most likely vexed at not being asked to come along for the venture past curfew.

                      At 15, Yz was 5 years younger than him (in Earth years), and only half his height, but her brains were razor sharp, as well as her tongue. She was also a gifted mechanic, and a fearless young girl.

                      They exchanged a conniving smile. No more than three minutes after, she was back, silent as a cat, and suited up for the harsh environment of Mars.
                      Over the years, small adjustments had been made to the suits, some purely out of fashion, but the main elements remained the same, which little change from one Earth cargo to the next. Ensuring their survival at minimal cost to their movements and senses.
                      Survival outposts were also planted all across the area, so as long as they stayed at safe distance to their pod, they were in no real danger.

                      The sand scooters were always free to take for a ride. A matter of life and death, it would be a crime to put locks on them. At any moment, anybody could be in dire need for a ride. And besides, in all that expanse of land, where to run to?

                      #3533
                      matermater
                      Participant

                        Mater:

                        I feel myself moving slowly today. The thought of death and my poor little guinea pig is still nagging. It occurs to me that perhaps I am walking slowly because I don’t want to move too fast into the inevitable.

                        Or perhaps it is just that I did not sleep so well last night. It is so damned hot and night time offers little respite from the heat.

                        At least the kids have stopped fighting. I worry about them. Always shut away in their rooms on that internet thing.

                        I am so tired. More tired than I should be. It is not the usual aches and pains. Something feels wrong. I have made up my mind to go and visit Jiemba, the local aboriginal healer. It is a wee bit of a walk, so I will need to start early, before the heat gets up. I don’t want to ask Dido to take me. “Just go and see the doctor in town!” she will say to me. For all her alternative ways, Dido can still be pretty closed minded about some things—and she thinks I am a crazy old fool anyway.

                        But I think Jiemba has the gift—special healing powers—and he comes from a family of aboriginal healers. His father was a healer and his grandfather too. I went to see him once, his father, years ago. My back was bad and the doctor in town said I would need an operation. He did some chanting, calling up spirits I think, put his hand on my back and pulled out a stone. He said the stone was the sickness causing my back pain, or some such thing. I was sceptical at the time, but my back never did give me any more bother. I’ve read up on it since then and I think there is something in it all. The older I get the more I realise I don’t know it all.

                        Besides, there is something else I want to ask him about and I don’t know who else I can talk to. That’s the problem with getting old—one of the problems anyway—people tend to assume you are losing your marbles if you say anything out of the ordinary.

                        But I think the Inn is haunted.

                        #3526
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          Another bang on my bedroom door, my hands suspended over the keyboard. “Go away Prune!” I shouted, exasperated. “If you bang on my door again, I’ll come out and give you such a wallop, now bugger off, will you!”

                          “It’s me, Corrie” came Clove’s voice. Walked over to the door and unlocked it. A chat with my sister might help me with this project. Unlike Prune, who would be guaranteed to disrupt my train of thought.

                          Locking the door again I tell Clove what I’m writing about. We don’t go to school, me and Clove, we’re what they call “homeschooled” but what that actually means in our case is that we’re left to our own devices most of the time. Aunt Idle asks us (when she remembers) what we’ve been working on, and as long as we’ve been writing something or researching something, she’s happy.

                          So when I saw the group project about alternative timelines to avoid the disaster timeline, I had some ideas. Well, to be honest, I didn’t have any definite ideas until I saw the other suggestions. All Americans, and all of them talking about changing the timelines by changing the results of presidential elections!

                          “Not much chance of a different timeline there then!” remarked Clove astutely.

                          “Exactly!” I knew Clove would get it, she knows were I’m coming from, but then, everyone knows twins are like that.

                          “So this is what the plan is, right: “The goal of this exercise is to discuss amongst the group and choose significant past moments, and then As a Group, focus on creating alternate histories, thus sparking alternate timelines. We should vividly imagine moving forward from those probability forks and creating a more viable and desirable future.” Oh, and this bit here: “ our current timeline is convoluted to the point where many probabilities are leaning towards a disaster scenario simply to shake out of the current focus.” And then all these suggestions about different presidents, and then this: “My suggestion would be also to consider how we would like our current time frame to appear,” so I’m thinking…”

                          “I’m thinking” interrupted Clove, continuing my train of thought, “Of all those states and communities that got with the programme ten years ago, and took their kids out of school and built those Earthships so they didn’t need money for water and electricity..”

                          “And started cooperative worker owned businesses like they do in South America….”

                          “And they all started a guaranteed basic income years ago, so everyone was doing what they did best, especially the kids, cos they had such great ideas and weren’t stuck in boring schoolrooms…..”

                          “and there was no poverty, and nobody without a home…”

                          “Yeah, and they all stopped paying taxes so there was no money for the military, and then loads more people stopped paying taxes too…”

                          “Good one, Clove!”

                          “So nobody gave a fuck what president was elected anyway, because they were all sorting themselves out, and those states and communities were doing so well…”

                          “Because they’d already been doing it for years” I added.

                          “…that other states and communities started doing it too.”

                          “So that it snowballed, like dominoes, and there were more and more of these places..”

                          “And they had exchange students and stuff like that to learn from each other, and shared stuff online..”

                          “So when the disasters struck, it wasn’t half so bad because there were already a bunch of people managing perfectly well without dollars or oil, and they could help the people in the disaster. Makes more sense that electing another blimmin president, huh?”

                          “Bloody obvious if you ask me” replied Clove. “Pity we don’t have basic income, did you see Mater’s face when she was talking to that debt collector?”

                          That made me laugh, remembering her waving the stick around. “Her face was as purple as her cardigan.”

                          In unison, we both starting singing Start Wearing Purple and dancing around, acting the fool. I had a purple wig hanging on the back of my chair, so I put that on, and Clove grabbed a purple feather boa off the coat stand. No shortage of wigs in this town, though god only knows why. Just about every damn trunk in every empty house is full of wigs.

                          #3525
                          matermater
                          Participant

                            The first time one of the guinea pigs died I went up to my bedroom, closed the door and cried. Not just cried. I sobbed my eyes out. Great gasping sounds such as I had not uttered in many a long year. An old lady shouldn’t be crying like that over a damned rat-like critter so I made sure no one else heard me. It’s peculiar that it took me so hard, because I always disapproved of the children having pets. It was that Prune. Begged and pleaded with her Aunt Dido when they went into town one day. And Dido is so damned soft with the kids. I’m always telling her that. Not that she listens. Spoils them rotten to make up for them not having parents around when what they really need is a good slap across the backside. Of course the lazy child cared for the poor wee things for about 5 minutes before she got bored. So I took over their care. Now another one is poorly and I can feel the familiar fear clutching at my heart.

                            Death. He’s got his ugly scent all around this damned town.

                            Like that debt collector that came by this morning. I could smell death on him soon as I saw him at the door. I got rid of him quick smart. Told him I couldn’t hear a word he was saying and shook my walking stick at him. It’s not my walking stick—I can still walk just fine. I can even get a bit of a gentle jog going if the situation warrants it. No, I found it at the back of one of the cupboards when we were cleaning out the guest rooms. It sure comes in handy sometimes. Nothing like a bit of walking stick brandishing to show who’s the boss around here.

                            He’ll be back of course. With some big fancy official letter and maybe a bit of back up next time. Now he knows who he is dealing with.

                            #3522

                            In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                            ÉricÉric
                            Keymaster

                              A major solar flare was under way. It would blackout the communications with Earth for some time, but for everyone here, it didn’t matter too much. The timelag for communications to travel the Mars-Earth distance still made them too cumbersome for a regular use —much like snail mail was to their parents who were born with the digital area of instant communication.
                              The real thrill was that they lived close enough to the pole, and with some luck, there was some chance of spectacular views.

                              #3511
                              TracyTracy
                              Participant

                                “Godfrey, I do know what a window is.” Godfrey looked a bit miffed, so Liz added, “But thank you for the informative article notwithstanding.”
                                Finnley snorted, which made a dreadful mess all down the front of her overall.

                                #115
                                ÉricÉric
                                Keymaster

                                  2049. 22 years after the original settlers had landed on Mars, where they had since been followed by more and more pioneers looking for the next frontier of civilization.

                                  A lot had changed since they arrived, they were now a few hundred strong, and the first generation of Martian born babies were entering adulthood.

                                  Maia would celebrate her 50th birthday tonight. In Earth years. By Mars’ count, she was younger by half. Still, she was the eldest of the mission, and had learnt so much during these years. Her son, John had grown into a fine young man. He was named after John Carter of course. He wasn’t the first born here, but was the first to have survived. He always had the will to explore more, despite the dangers, he wanted to make the planet his own.

                                  She knew he was destined to greatness. She had a dream a long time ago, one dream that made her enlist into the program. She’d dreamt of Mars as a lush planet, that mankind had managed to terraform with a vaporous atmosphere, more dense than on Earth, but breathable. The light of the evening sky was misty and a pale grey-green. Maia hoped she would live to see her dream come true, that somehow they found a way to venture out and breathe the new air, having succeeded in making the best out of the immense resources of the red dust planet.

                                  #3500
                                  TracyTracy
                                  Participant

                                    Clove and Coriander Curara, identical twin girls born in the year 2000, the year 2000 being easily remembered and open to symbolic interpretation, as indeed is the date of their birth, the Day of the Dead, November the first ~ at 19:19. Clove was born first but merely minutes and so none of the family made tired old jokes about her being the older twin.

                                    #3497

                                    “Where’d everyone go?” asked Sanso, laughing loudly and slapping his thigh. It amused him greatly to watch all the dramas and escapades of the fledgling teleporters, but in truth he wasn’t sorry to see them go. He fully expected to bump into them again, somewhere, somewhen, down a tunnel or strung along some thread in another story, woven into another crazy quilt of patchwork tales.
                                    “I’m going down, old chum,” he turned to Lazuli Galore, who was looking glum. “Down the tunnel under the old temple. See where it takes me. Are you coming?”
                                    “May as well,” replied Lazuli.
                                    “Well buck up then, no long faces! Time to rekindle your sense of adventure, be playful my friend! A lightness of step, as we delve down into the depths of the next adventure. Come on!”
                                    Lazuli made a rude gesture behind Sanso’s back, but he followed him down the old stone steps beneath the temple. Why not?

                                    #3493
                                    Jib
                                    Participant

                                      Soul loss and soul recovery
                                      Whenever you are in a situation with intense pain, grief, loss, or intense joy, excitement, you may lose part of your soul, or vital energy, it’s also called dissociation by the psychologist. You usually do it to make it stop, or it is an automatic action to stop the intensity of what’s going on.
                                      You separate yourself form an aspect of yourself, and you are not aware of it, most of the time. It can manifest as chronic fatigue, depression, feeling numb, addictive behavior, etc.
                                      In order to get back this energy, you have to reclaim it. And as a shaman, you do it through the process of soul recovery. Today you’re going to learn how to do it.
                                      It is relatively simple. First, you are going to go in the lower world, find your main power animal. Thank it again for all that it does for you and ask them if they are the one to help you in the process of soul recovery. If not, ask them to lead you to your soul recovery animal. When you get acquainted to this new animal, you can ask them their name, and how you can call them when you need them. Thank them for their help and presence with you.
                                      When you do a soul recovery, you may not know what you are going to recover. You may not really know what you have lost, or you may not be aware of symptoms. Just tell your Soul Recovery Power animal (SRPA) that you want to recover a part of your soul that you are missing at the moment. They’ll guide you through the process. Follow them, trust them.
                                      They may take you through different places or spaces and times to go find that lost soul piece. It may be from your childhood, from another life, or dream situations.
                                      You are going to be presented to that piece of your soul and you have to ask them what happen. Most of the time they are frightened and don’t want to come back. You have to convince them, and ask them what you have to do to show them that you’ll not do the same “mistake” that make them leave in the first place. It may require you change something in your behavior, in your attitude toward certain things, it might be simple or huge. Depends on what you find. And it’s up to you to see if you’re up to the challenge.
                                      you can also take some time with your power animals to get to know them better and learn from them.
                                      If you don’t know how to manage the situation with the lost piece of soul, you can ask your soul recovery power animal to help you do the “negotiation” part
                                      but you’ll have to do what’s required by the soul so that it comes back definitively sts
                                      If you still have time, you can go on a second recovery.
                                      And remember, this is not a race, take your time, don’t rush, enjoy the journey.

                                      Eric
                                      Before the music starts, I have the feeling of “Nagini” my snake power animal: it’s looking patiently at me with golden eyes. I also get the first impression of a spirit panda as a soul retrieving power animal. There are two aspects of it, a docile and friendly one, and another more fearsome, they seem to shift depending on his mood. As the music starts, I sift through few fleeting impressions (one of a lemur), then some stronger.
                                      The panda comes back but I also have other animals who seem to present themselves in order, as if in different directions, and I remember there are no rules as their number, so I let myself welcome them. The panda is on the right, it seems connected to childhood memories, (call it “Panda”) then, on middle right, there is a spider (“Anansi”), it connects to the jumping spiders I’ve seen a few times the past days, and
                                      one this morning I put outside instead of letting it drown.Middle left, coming from above and perched on a tree, there is a firebird/phoenix (“Fawkes”). There is another one, I remember a bit later that appeared further left, as if from the direction behind me, it’s an ape (“Hanuman”).
                                      The serpent circles around them. I have the impression I can choose any of them, and they will lead me to different realizations, and I have the impression of the buddhist emanations, where enlightened being manage to split themselves into many as one. So I decide to ride them all at once. Actually, I start with the first three ones, and as I ride on the land, I suddenly remember the ape which was very discrete initially,but seems to be willing to show me stuff too.
                                      The land we ride into is dark, almost volcanic in nature, as if scorched. There are trails that spread to different directions, and each ride goes down one of them. There are various visions, moments and memories from the past connected with strong emotions.
                                      At one end, there is a little boy that shoots magma out of his incandescent body. It irradiates the land through veins of lava, and as it cools down it darkens the land even more. He seems to be caught up in a circle of rage or fear, fear of never seeing the light again. I listen to him without words, and realize he’s afraid of letting go.
                                      I’ll show him the light is covered by his own cinders, and he needs to cool down and let nature grow back again around him, and I’m showing him I’m willing to help. It seems to resolve as light opens in the sky, and a tree starts to grow again… At the end, I seem to connect the scene to certain memories.
                                      There is another one that comes in, where the ape is doing a certain pose where it walks on its hands. The posture catches my attention, as if to remind me of something. I’m encouraged to turn around to see the world as it sees it. As I do it, the world changes and spins, and the music starts to indicate the end of the trip. I thank the animals and finish with the snake before leaving…
                                      the end
                                      well, it’s very condensed, there was lots happening
                                      It’s like I was doing many stuff at the same time

                                      Flove
                                      (no recollection)

                                      Jib
                                      I have difficulties stabilizing my attention first, there is this kind of veiled perception I’ve been having lately. As I call my power animal for soul recovery I have a strong impression of a bear and then a raven. There is a kind of snake too, and I also feel a wild boar. I refocus back on the whale and say I’ll come back later. The whale leads me in the depth of the earth to a magma chamber. It becomes scrambled again and I just take a moment to refocus on my penguin.
                                      First soul recovery
                                      I ask him to find the piece of soul that would be best for me to recover now, and we go fly above something. The penguin flies like a rocket, super fast. I soon find a kid feeling presence. I have no real visual, and I keep having visuals of lemur, or raccoon interfering.
                                      Then I feel that the presence is also camouflaging behind projections to be left alone. He left me when I was little, around 8 because the world seemed to disappointing. I have some difficulties at first to convince him to come back with me, and I show him what I’m already doing that’s fun and that’s worth doing and exploring. After a while, he agrees and I feel a nice warm feeling inside my belly as he is reintegrating me. I thank him for coming back. The only thing I need to do is take the time to reassure myself when the world seems too dangerous.
                                      Visiting the bear and the raven
                                      Then I decide to go back visit the bear and the raven.
                                      I’ve already seen them before and they seem to be there for me. There is an impression of power with the bear and also mother here for her kids. With the raven, it’s more a mystical stuff, and the power of observation and seeing through things.
                                      I am offered a kind of raven skull symbol of power and energy manipulation staff or something like that. I take it and it feels quite powerful, I have the impression the energy or the “spirits” would follow it when I demand it. Like make blocked energy move.
                                      Second soul recovery
                                      I decide to do a second soul recovery and ask the whale to lead me. I have the impression of changing plane, the focus is different, I am more on the middle world, and we go somewhere icy like Antarctic. Maybe near a shipwreck. There is a man, depressed and gloomy. I begin to ask him why he’s here, but he seems to want to come back and don’t ask anything. I feel very warm and loving. The drums begin to beat the return and I thank everyone for participating and come back. Saying I’ll take time to assimilate.
                                      Eric’s account remind me of a few stuff
                                      that reminded me a few stuff too because at one time I had to follow a spider and with the raven I flew over a magma land and the raven became a phoenix to be able to fly because it was so hot
                                      thanks I forgot that

                                      Tracy
                                      went down the stone steps, the unicorns on the left looked up as I passed. Zebra joined me from the right, said thanks but forgot his name! Then a white bear joined me, said his name was Waldo (or at least that name would do for now, impression)
                                      He was huge but was very light on his feet the whole time. Came to a tall tree with a single very red apple on it. The white bear scampered up the tree and I followed. Various other fruit but mainly the red apple stood out.
                                      At the top of the tree leveled out to a large plaza with gameboard design, the white bear demonstrated frolicking from one part to another playfully leaping in lightness.
                                      Flash to me as a small child being woken up in the night by concerned parents for nasty medicine for chicken pox.
                                      Same house but in the field behind, me as a small child alone by the wigwam of sticks dad made, frowning, alone. Next door to the neighbours pond, frozen over. White bear kept dancing on the thin ice part that we didn’t skate on, huge heavy bear, such a light step didn’t break the ice
                                      Zebra was hanging around incidentally, kept feeling reassuring warm breath and muzzle on my shoulder. Breathing restrictions started, left the pond, down a path in the woods, came to a fork. Went left ~ papers everywhere, letters, words, snowed under with words and letters, monkeys pulling sheafs and sheafs of letters and papers and words.
                                      Then a school of tiny silver fishes swan inside me and started chomping at all the letters in my solar plexus and spewing out coloured threads and ribbons from my mouth.
                                      Breathing difficult. (several times just sank into intense colours for awhile with no imagery, plenty purple and green). I started doing sort of swimming motions with my arms with the breathing and fishes, had a sudden blast of energy in the chest and then later a much stronger one just before the video ended.
                                      I should add the impression of less thinking/intellectualizing, less buried under a mountain of words, in favour of more purely physical expression

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