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“Who can that be now!” exclaimed May as she made her way to the back door.  A flustered looking woman in odd looking mismatched clothes was standing on the door step.

“I ’ave come to ’elp Finnley wiz ze bedding!” she said by way of introduction, “But I ‘ave lost my baby, ’ave you seen ’er? My name is Fanella.  I ’ave come to ’elp Finnley wiz ze bedding, but I must find my daughter first!”

“You’d better come in,” replied May, wondering what to do.  Until the right baby turned up, she could hardly give this woman her daughter back.  But the poor woman was distraught, and May wanted to ease her distress.  She would have to try to delay her somehow.

“There is no need to worry, er, Fanella, as it happens there is an unexpected baby girl visiting with the bosses son, but they are both fast asleep. They are quite safe, but I am not in a position to disturb them yet. Do sit down, you look exhausted.  Let me get you a drink.”

May handed her a glass of wine. “How on earth did you manage to lose your daughter?”

“I was just about to ring ze bell but I was so nervous I ’ad to pee so I ran quickly be’ind ze bushes. And when I ’ad finished, my baby was gone!” Fanella started to weep.

“Did you say you’d come to help Finnley in the bed?” Suddenly May started to wonder if this was another call girl for Mr August. Was he planning a threesome?

“Yes, I ’ave come to ’elp Finnley,” Fanella replied, “Wiz ze bedding.”

“And you brought your baby with you?”  aghast, May wondered what to do next. Maybe this woman shouldn’t be given the child back after all.  It had been a long night, with far too many babies.

Bugger them all then, Lucinda said to herself, I’ll carry on here without them.

For a time she had been despondent at being abandoned, sinking into an aching overcast gloom to match the weather. Waiting for it to rain, and then waiting for it to stop.

On impulse, in an attempt to snap out of the doldrums, she signed up for a Creative Writing and Rambling course at the local Psychic Self Institute. Institutionalizing psychic matters had been the brainchild of the latest political party to gain power, and hitherto under the radar prophets, healers and remote viewers had flocked to sign up. The institute has promised pension and public health credits to all members who could prove their mental prowess, and needless to say it had attracted many potential scammers: useless nobodies who wanted to heal their diseases, or lazy decrepit old scroungers who wanted to retire.

Much to everyone’s surprise, not least their own, the majority of them had passed the tests, simply by winging it: making it up and hoping for the best. Astonishingly the results were more impressive than the results from the already established professional P.H.A.R.T.s ~ (otherwise known as Prophets, Healers and Remote Technicians).

This raised questions about the premise of the scheme, and how increasingly difficult it was to establish a criteria for deservingness of pensions and health care, particularly if any untrained and unregistered Tom, Dick or Harry was in possession of superior skills, as appeared to be the case. The debate continues to this day.

Nothwithstanding, the Institute continued to offer courses, outings and educational and inspiring talks. The original plan had been to offer qualifications, but the entrance exams had provoked such a quandary about the value and meaning (if any) of qualifications, that the current modus operandi was to simply offer each member, regardless of merit or experience, a simple membership card with a number on it. It was gold coloured and had classical scrolls and lettering on it in an attempt to bestow worth and meaning. Nobody was fooled, but everyone loved it.

And everyone loved the tea room at the Institute. It was thought that some cake aficionado’s had even joined the Institute merely for the desserts, but nobody objected. There was a welcome collective energy of pleasure, appreciation and conviviality in the tea room, and it’s magnetic appeal ~ and exceptional cakes ~ ensured it’s popularity and acclaim.

A small group had started a campaign to get it placed on the Institutes Energetic Cake Connector mapping programme. As Lucinda had said in a moment of clarity, “A back street bar can be just as much of an energy magnet as an old stone relic”, casting doubt over the M.O.S.S group’s (Mysterious Old Stone Sites) relevance to anything potentially useful.

“In fact,” Lucinda continued, surprising herself, ““I’ve only just realized that the energy magnets aren’t going to be secret, hidden and derelict. They’re going to be busy. Like cities.”

Several members of the M.O.S.S group had glared at her.

Lucinda hadn’t really thought much about what to expect in the creative writing classes.

“Bugger,” said Maeve. “I’m out of butter. What shall we do, Fabio?”
Fabio rushed excitedly to the front door.
“Go and see if Lucinda has some butter? Good idea, but you have to do the talking. Okay?”
Clearly, I am in need of human companionship.
An old rhyme from her childhood came to mind. She would say it over and over, fast as she could without tripping over her tongue.
Biddy Botter bought bum butter. Blah said she the butters bitter but if i buy some better butter, better than the bitter butter that will make the bitter butter better.
Lucinda’s door has the number 57 on the front and a skull door knocker. Maeve’s door was numbered 22 so it made no sense at all. Lucinda opened the door a crack and peered out at Maeve.
“Oh Maeve,” she said, “Um, hi.”
“Hi. Is this a bad time? I just wanted to borrow a bit of butter if you have any spare.”
Lucinda hesitated before opening the door and gesturing Maeve in.
“Sure,” she said. “Excuse the mess.”
Maeve spotted the doll right away.
“What are you doing with Ima Indigo!”
Ima was sitting on the shelf near the the window, sandwiched between a cracked concrete buddha head and a dying fern. Maeve picked the doll up.
“May I?” she said, without waiting for a reply.
She turned the doll over and felt the back seam with her fingers. The stitching was rough and the thread didn’t match the tiny stitches on the rest of the doll’s body. She gently squashed Ima. No key.
“Where did you get this? Did you take a key out of her body?”
Lucinda patted Fabio and shook her head, annoyed at Maeve and at the same time feeling guilty.
“I found her at the market.”
“Oh my god,” said Maeve.

“You have NO idea!” announced Elizabeth, dramatically throwing the front door open, “No idea what I’ve been through!”

“We do have an idea,” replied Godfrey, a welcoming smile playing about his lips.

“You have NO IDEA!” Liz glared at him. “You think it was all about family, but no! Oh no!” Liz tried unsuccessfully to remove her long purple scarf with a flourish, but it caught on the hook of the hatstand and tightened around her throat. Finnley came to her rescue ~ rather slowly, if truth be told ~ by which time Elizabeth’s face matched the puce of her scarf. Liz coughed, and then took a few deep breaths.

“Roberto, take care of my suitcase will you? It’s heavy. It’s full of gargoyles. Finnley, put the kettle on!”

It had been weeks since Annabel looked at the old notebooks again, but when she did, she couldn’t help but marvel once more at the synchronicity. Her partner had a couple of dental appointments in the coming days, and a number of teeth were to be extracted ~ more than Annabel would be willing to lose in one fell swoop after her singularly unpleasant experience with an extraction of two adjacent teeth, but her partner Dalgliesh didn’t seem unduly worried.

Annabel felt an affinity to Liz as she perused the yellowing pages of the notebooks, although thankfully she, Annabel, still had most of her own natural teeth and had not yet resorted to plastic, despite that they were a similar colour, indeed a perfect match, to the yellow notebooks.

It wasn’t the first mention of yellow that day, either. Annabel had painted a wall purple and was surprised to find that it made her feel gloomy to look at it. The green accessories looked pleasant enough against it, but she strongly felt there was a need for yellow as well. And yet the idea of that seemed repugnant. Lavender, blue green, and yellow! It sounded ghastly. Annabel was avoiding looking at the wall for the time being, thinking the best solution was probably to repaint the wall a safe neutral scream.

Annabel meant cream, naturally, a safe neutral cream, but the astonishing typographical error was duly noted, in case it was related to the other mention of yellow, which was when not one but two of the local guru’s suggested she be sure and twirl her purples with her yellows, whatever that meant.

Meanwhile, Annabel was giving some thought to the idea of a safe neutral scream, which had rather a catchy ring to it, despite it’s accidental appearance.

When Lucinda called her friend, Shawn Paul felt it was time to go back home. He wasn’t sure if it was his natural shyness, that he had already seen and talk to so many new people today, or if it was the fear of the unknown. What would he tell a stranger? What would she think of him, his outfit and his scarf? All that made it too much at that moment to meet someone new. So he looked at his phone and pretexted something had come up. They agreed to meet at the reception at the French embassy and he left.

Shawn Paul was walking crossing streets on autopilot, lost in his thoughts about the adventures of the day, when a crazy honking that sounded like an elephant fart brought him back to reality in front a bakery. He realised too late that he had forgotten his granola cookies on the table. But he shrugged and smiled when a little yellow butterfly flew by and landed momentarily on the rear light of a red car. He stopped and wondered how such a light creature could live in a city like this. It took off and fluttered around into the general direction of a public garden nearby where children played under the kind presence of their parents.

It took Shawn Paul twenty minutes to go back home. He felt tired enough to take a nap before getting dressed to the Party. In the stairs he met with Maeve and her pekinese.

“Hi.” They said at the same time with the same awkwardness. Maeve’s dog was sniffing out his shoes, making Shawn Paul self conscious of himself. He feared a moment she might think he had a sloppy hygiene.
“Come Fabio.” Maeve said. “Sorry for that. Dogs…”

Shawn Paul smiled in an attempt to hide his embarrassment, and each of them went in their own direction.

Shawn Paul arrived late at the reception because he spent too much time deciding on which scarf would match his new deep purple velvet jacket. The others were already inside and drinking, their body moving more or less in rhythm with the music.

“Your dress suits you so well,” said Shawn Paul bending closer to her hear and making an effort to talk louder. A smile blossomed on her face at the compliment, contrasting with a lingering nostalgia in her eyes. She was wearing one of those black body fit dress which gave her silhouette all the contours they needed to pop out in a flattering way.

“You missed the speech of the ambassador,” she said with a wink. “Nothing memorable, it’s the same every year.”

Jerk was standing on the side, wearing a suit like one would wear camouflage clothing. He seemed to deeply wonder what he was doing there. Shawn Paul, who was wondering the same, addressed the man a sympathising smile. A moment of connection happened and went away. Jerk took a sip of his glass of champagne and Lucinda put a flute in Shawn Paul’s hand.

She took his other arm and said : “Come. There is something I want to show you!”

The red woman led Shawn Paul through small busy streets. Shawn Paul had never seen that many people with dogs and parked bikes all gathered in strategic places each time he was about to catch up on her. He swore he could hear her giggle.
Eventually she entered a cafe called Red Beans. Shawn Paul steered through white tables and chairs made of wrought iron and followed her in, breathless. He had never seen the point in running before. But he still wasn’t sure why he had to catch her. What would he do? Talk to her? Ask her what she did perched on trees and smiling?

There seemed to be only the bartender who was busy with a huge coffee machine, hissing like a locomotive. A colour, a movement on his right made Shawn Paul turn, and he just had the time to catch sight of a red hat going down the stairs. She certainly went to the toilets. He thought that maybe following her downstairs would be too creepy, but at the same time he didn’t want the bartender to talk to him either.

So he went down and waited at the door. The lock was red, showing someone was inside.
Shawn Paul waited. There were many flyers of parties and events pinned on a wall, but he wasn’t the party guy and his eyes flew over the messy images and texts that seemed scattered on the wall.
After five minutes he wondered if something had happened and pushed the door. It was open and the lock was broken, always showing red. He tutted and shook his head. He had been foolish, he thought. There has certainly been nobody there since the beginning. There was no girl sitting on trees with red sandals.

He got out of the cafe and was ready to walk back to his apartment with his granola cookies. When someone called him. He turned and stared at a girl and a guy having drinks on the Red Beans’ terrace.

“I was sure it was you, Shawn Paul,” said the girl. “I thought I recognised you when you ran inside earlier, but you seemed in such a hurry,” said a girl. She had a big grin and a pony tail.

Her face looked familiar, all rosy and cheeky. She had a nice jacquard sweater and a matching skirt, and she was waving at him cheerfully. Her cocktail was full of reds, blues and yellows.
“Remember me? Lucinda, from the apartment on the other side…” she added.

It suddenly dawned on him, they had met once or twice. She had said they should meet again, but they never had. He felt a bit trapped, not knowing what to say.
“Hi,” he said, and he looked at the guy. He had never met him, that he was sure of.
The guy looked as embarrassed as himself by the intrusion.
“Hi. I’m Jerk,” he said.

“Are you going to the party tonight?” asked Lucinda pointing at a flyer on the table. She took a sip of her cocktail.

Shawn Paul was about to decline with a ready made up excuse when he saw what was on the flyer. It was a big red balloon with a red hat on a starry background. It said “Reception of the French Ambassador. Free Buffet with Ferrero Rochers and Champagne”.

Shawn Paul pulled closer one of the heavy metal chairs and sat with them.
“Tell me more about it,” he said instead.

“More drinks!” Lucinda shouted, clapping her hands.
A waiter arrived, limping. Shawn Paul thought he looked like a pirate with his wooden leg, his black hat and small ear ring.

Lucinda could hear the neighbours dog whining through the thin walls between the apartments, but she liked the dog, and she liked her neighbour Maeve, so the noise was a comfort rather than a bother. Moments earlier a movement from the window had caught her eye: fleetingly it looked like some sort of dust devil or whirlwind of dry leaves. Perhaps that was what had upset Caspar.

She went out onto the kitchen balcony and looked across at Maeve’s identical balcony and called softly to the dog. He came sidling out looking guilty, with a lowered head and nervous tail wag. Lucinda noticed that her neighbours tomato plants were ripening nicely, while her own were still hard shiny green, thanks to the shade of the big oak tree. A blessing in some ways, keeping the hot afternoon sun off the kitchen, but not so good for the tomatoes. Not that it was particularly hot so far this summer: glancing down she noticed the guy from the apartment on the other side of Maeve was wearing a scarf as he sauntered out onto the sidewalk. Surely it’s not cold enough for a scarf, though, thought Lucinda. Still, perhaps he’s just wearing it because it matches his socks. A trifle vain, that one, but a nice enough fellow. Always a ready friendly smile, and Maeve said he was quiet enough, and never complained about her dog.

Lucinda had been passing by one day as Shawn-Paul had opened his door, and she couldn’t help but notice all his bookcases. He’d noticed her looking ~ she hadn’t been subtle about her interest and was trying to peer round him for a better look inside ~ and he’d invited her to come round any time to borrow a book, but that he was late for an appointment, and didn’t have time to invite her inside that day. Lucinda wondered why she’d never gone back, and thought perhaps she would. One day. One of those things that for some reason gets put off and delayed.

There was nothing Lucinda liked more than to find a new ~ or a newly found old ~ book, and to randomly open it. The synchronicities invariably delighted her, so she did know a thing or two about the benefits of timing ~ otherwise often known as procrastination. When she did decide to visit Shawn-Paul and look at his books, she knew the timing would be right.

“Don’t lean on me man, la la la la, synchronicity city…” she started singing an old Bowie song that popped into her head from nowhere, barely aware that she was changing the words from suffragette to synchronicity.

Meanwhile unbeknown to Lucinda, Shawn-Paul had just rounded the corner and bumped into the gardener, Stan, who was on his way to the apartments to mow the lawns. They exchanged pleasantries, and patted each others shoulders in the usual familiar friendly way as they parted. The two guys were not friends per se, they never socialized together, but always enjoyed a brief encounter outside with an easy pleasant greeting and a few words. Shawn-Paul always inquired about Stan’s family and so on, and Stan often complemented Shawn-Paul’s scarves.

Granola, temporarily rustling around in the big oak tree, noticed all of this and immediately recognized the connecting links, and peered eagerly at the three people in turn to see if they had noticed. They hadn’t. Not one of them recalled the time when they were all three suffragettes chained to the railings near an old oak tree.

Margoritt’s left knee was painful that day. Last time it hurt so much was twenty years ago, during that notorious drought when a fire started and almost burnt the whole forest down. Only a powerful spell from the Fae people could stop it. But today they sky was clear, and the forest was enjoying a high degree of humidity from the last magic rain. Margoritt, who was not such a young lady anymore dismissed the pain as a sign of old age.
You have to accept yourself as you are at some point, she sighed.

The guests were still there, and everyone was participating to the life of the community. Eleri, who had been sick had been taken care of in turn by Fox and Glynnis, while Rukshan had reorganised the functioning of the farm. They now had a second cow and produced enough milk to make cakes and butter that they sold to the neighbouring Faes, and they had a small herd of Rainbow Lamas that produced the softest already colourful wool, among other things. Gorrash, awoken at night, had formed an alliance with the owls that helped them to keep the area clear of mice and rats and was also in charge of the weekly night fireworks.

The strange colourful eggs had hatched recently giving birth to strange little creatures that were not yet sure of which shape to adopt. They sometimes looked like cuddly kittens, sometimes like cute puppies, or mischievous monkeys. They always took the form of a creature with a tail, except when they were frightened and turned into a puddle. It had been hard for Margoritt who mistook them for dog pee, but Fox had been very helpful with his keen sense of smell and washing away the poor creatures had been avoided. Nobody had any idea if they could survive once diluted in water.

The day was going great, Margoritt sat on her rocking chair enjoying a fresh nettle lassi on the terrace while doing some embroidery work on Eleri’s blouse. Her working kit was on a small stool in front of her. Working with her hands helped her forget about her knee and also made her feel useful in this youthful community where everybody wanted to help her. She was rather proud of her last design representing a young girl and a god statue holding hands together. She didn’t think of herself as a matchmaker, but sometimes you just had to give a little push when fate didn’t want to do its job.

Micawber Minn arrived, his face as long as the Lamazon river. He had the latest newspaper with him and put it on Margoritt’s lap. Surprise and a sudden sharp and burning pain in her knee made her left leg jerk forward, strewing all her needles onto the floor. Margoritt, upset, looked at the puddle of lassi sluggishly starting to covering them up.
“What…” she began.
“Read the damn paper,” said Minn.

She did. The front page mentioned the reelection of Leroway as Lord Mayor, despite his poor results in developing the region.
“Well, that’s not surprising,” Margoritt said with a shrug, starting to feel angry at Minn for frightening her.
“Read further,” said Minn suddenly looking cynical.
Margoritt continued and gasped. Her face turned blank.
“That’s not possible. We need to tell the other,” she said. “We can not let Leroway build his road through the forest.”

Eleri’s eyes began to feel heavy and she blinked, trying to resist the increasingly strong urge to nod off to sleep, as a gust of wind rustled the branches overhead allowing the moonlight to illuminate something that looked very much like dragon scales. Eleri blinked again and shook her head slightly to shake the illusion back into some kind of realistic image. The sudden wind had dropped and the trees were motionless, the path below them dark. It was impossible now to even see what had looked like dragon scales in the brief flash of moonlight. All was still and silent.

With nothing to see in the darkness and nothing to entertain her, Eleri’s mind started to wander, wondering if her grandmother being a dragon (as her father had often said) meant that she was one quarter dragon herself. It occurred to her that she very rarely thought of the dragon that was her grandmother, and wondered why she was thinking of her now. She had been a strong woman, who would fight tooth and nail to get what she wanted, always on the move wanting to get her teeth into a new project, leaving discarded suitors along the wayside as she swept along, grandly announcing to all and sundry, “Do you know who I am?”

Formidable armed with a rigid crocodile (possibly baby dragon skin) handbag and matching shoes, stately and considerably girthy notwithstanding the stiff corset, her grandmother was not one to easily ignore. Dressed in dragon scale twinsets, in no nonsense crimplene navy blue and white, many were quite charmed by her forthright manner and the spirited ~ some would say arrogant ~ toss of her peroxide lacquered waves. Others were not so enchanted, and found her imperious manner unpleasant.

It was a simple matter of teeth, when it came to disabling her. The difference was remarkable. There was no actual reason why her lack of teeth should change her so ~ she still had the matching shoes and handbags, but the regal stance and the arrogant tilt of her chin was gone. Not having any teeth made her seem shy and evasive, and she mumbled, saying as little as possible. She lost the power of manipulation along with her teeth, and although nobody really understood why, many wished they had thought of hiding her teeth years ago. It was such a simple solution, in the scale of things.

And the moral of that story is, Eleri concluded with a wry but not too dentally challenged smile, Toothless Dragons Don’t Bite.

The sky had darkened ominously as Yorath and Leroway stood chatting beside the toll booth, thunder rumbling in the distance. Yorath nodded politely as the old mayor described the contraption he was currently working on, a team of mechanical Bubot’s capable of cutting quantities of bamboo swiftly, for the construction of sunshades and pleasure rafts and the many other things that could easily be made out of the versatile plant, for the pleasure, leisure, comfort and entertainment of his townspeople.

With one eye on the approaching storm, Yorath asked where Leroway had in mind for the harvest. Surely the bold innovator wasn’t thinking of sending the Bubot’s to cut swathes of the bamboo forest down.

“But Leroway, old boy,” replied Yorath in consternation upon hearing the confirmation that this was indeed the plan, “Are you quite sure that will meet with public approval?”

“What’s that you say, public approval?” Leroway beamed, missing his point. “They’re going to love it!” He went on to describe at length his plans for making use of the canes for the public good.

The first fat drops of rain plopped down. Yorath made peace with the idea of a thorough soaking as it was entirely inevitable at this juncture, and continued to listen, showing no indication of impatience. There were more important things at stake here than wetting ones jacket, even if it was a rare igglydupat silk in a shade of iridescent primrose yellow ~ that was, incidentally, a good match for the tundercluds flowering at his feet, not to mention the encroaching eerily sunlit thunderclouds rapidly approaching. For a brief moment his attention wandered from the inventors monologue, engulfed as he was in the effervescent yellow sensation.

“This is all so very interesting,” Yorath interrupted, having a brainwave, “That I am going to make a detour, and come and visit your town. Lead on, my good man!”

Leroway beamed, once again misinterpreting the travelers meaning.

The trip to the city would have to wait.

At first, I think the continuity will, by design, seem to be disjointed. The reader will start off confused. But yes, I think there will start to be things that carry over as he begins to remember and assemble a personality that transcends the individual stories. This eventual personality, may or may not match up with his original personality from before the coma…probably not…but he’ll definitely begin to remember who he was. And perhaps there will be a meaningful contrast between his new transcending personality and his old real life personality.

The idea is that each story puts him/her in a situation and there’s always something about that situation that resonates with him/her. That resonating is a clue to their original real life from before the coma started.

And so the aspect that resonates becomes a part of the transcending personality and begins to carry over into the next stories.

There’ll probably be situations where there’s a conflict between the transcending personality and the story personality that he/she naturally wants to flow with.

Like, the story that they’re in might have them as a female in Greece, and he/she wants to flow with that story, but the transcending personality is there in the back of the mind, resonating as a male, for instance.

This would be like an allegory for multiple lives, perhaps, but without bringing up reincarnation, and encapsulating it into a story that any reader can believe and resonate with. Almost like tricking the reader into learning something about multiple lives and essence.

Connie excused herself from an after dinner drink with Supposedly Sweet Sophie, pleading indigestion from the sour berries in the reindeer stew. It was only half a lie: she did feel sour, but she didn’t know why. Locking the hotel bedroom door behind her, she leaned on it and let out a long sigh. Being annoyed all the time was starting to get so annoying.

In an attempt to lighten her mood and release some pent up energy, she found an exercise video and pressed play. When she saw the fitness instructor using weights on her ankles she had an idea. Scanning the room, she noticed a pair of matching concrete buddhas either side of the balcony doors. Perfect! Connie thought, and with gritted teeth strapped one to each ankle with a couple of brassieres. Now when I take them off, I’ll feel the impossible lightness of being.

“What is the name of your father ?”
“My father ?”
“Yes, your new father”, said the man. “We offer the possibility for you to choose your parents. That’s a rare thing in life, you know. I think that’s why the new world has so much appeal. People are just tired of the lack of control in their life.”
“And can you change if you get bored by your new parents ?”
“You can do it twice, after which the choice is definitive.”
“That’s an illusion of control, then.”
“Well… People just quickly get into their new role and they forget that they had the choice. Most of them don’t even use their first possibility.”
“Do I have to choose among parents that already exist in the new world?”
The man looked annoyed. He put his big hands on the table. Sam looked at them fascinated.
“You can choose whatever parents you want. If they don’t exist in the new world, you can then choose if they are deceased or just in vacation outside of the new world. In which case whenever someone matching your parents description apply for the new world, we can arrange for a poignant family reunion.”
“I just have a last question”, said Sam.
“Ok, make it a quick one. Other people are desirous to start a new life in the new world, you know.”
“Yes, I know. But still, I wonder if the persons who apply for an identity that matches my new parents. I can see in your file that you never ask their date of birth. They couldnt be younger than me, could they ?”
The man scratched his head with his left hand. Sam wondered what it was like to have such huge hands.
“Theoretically, that could happen. But you know, we offer you a new life in the new world, not a perfect life in a perfect world.”

It feels like it has all been a dream. And not a particularly good one, too.

I look through the window, and the blue sky of Earth shines brightly though. Only a few more days before the quarantine is over, if I’m to believe the hazmat-suited staff, and I should be able to get out to wherever I want to. You can go back to your family the nurse had said with a smile. They surely must miss you.
Obviously, the well-intentioned nurse had no notion of her family…

The TV set they’ve put in the rooms is more helpful to piece together the fragments of memory of what happened. The news had kept mum about the aliens, or about our return for that matter. It seems they can’t explain how we came back so fast, without telling more. Maybe that’s the real purpose of the quarantine… brainwash us into forgetting, returning back to our lives quietly, and be happy that we could get back in one piece. Funny they should even bother at all, actually.

I don’t know if there’s any coming back to how life was before. Surely the Inn and Aunt Idle would still be there, if only both more derelict than before. But would I want to get back? Do what? Only Mater’s sharp wits were ever a match, and she is gone too.

This is the end of the Mars story.
With some chance, I’ll start a business with Hans — raise Guinea pigs, rats and maybe a couple of those cute African pygmy hedgehogs. That would be a lot more fun.
Squeals and cackles, and truckloads of cuteness.

The fishnet tights in cobalt blue were actually made of cannabone, the relatively new hemp replicator compound, which was lightweight, flexible, and supportive. The attractive dark haired woman’s loins were girded in a matching cobalt blue cannabone loingirder.

Liz went to the patio followed by her rat poodle who was wearing a pink adidas jacket matching perfectly with Liz’ pink rabbit sleepers.
“Oh gosh, I forgot the little dirty thing”, she said rolling eyes.
Sonia, that was the dog’s name, barked like only rat poodles know how to bark, with a classy snappy high pitched tone.