Search Results for 'mid'

Penelope and Patty Ratty had packed their bags, procuring the necessary items from Bea’s cluttered house. Candles (it was always so dark behind fridges), bar of soap (some of these human houses were not all that clean, a self respecting rat felt quite filthy after a midnight stroll around some kitchens and needed a good wash afterwards), mince pies, used teabags to use as in flight pillows, and an unexpected prize of a half an antibiotic tablet, thoughtfully left out in a convenient position. Patty often got an upset stomach when travelling in human spaces, and was inordinately pleased to find the pill.

I dreamt about Mater last night. She was her old self, brilliant and snappily dangerous.

It’s been the first dream I’ve been able to remember in weeks. I don’t know why I expected the great beyond space to be less… claustrophobic, but there’s no escaping the confinement.
I was telling her I was missing home, the air, the smell of eucalyptus trees, the rains before winter. I think I even became sentimental about my sisters. Hardly a news from them these days, but how could I blame them. They are always busy on some down-to-earth cause, and I know better than to criticize those on the ground actually doing something to change the wrongdoings of the world.
When I started to cry uncontrollably, Mater told me I was a baby, and that I should man up. Typical Mater. Dido would have called her names under her breath, I think that was her way to express her love for her. People are silly.

In the dream, I stopped crying but the tears had swollen into a river, and I was starting to drown, things became hellish and I could barely breathe, but somehow I could still feel Mater’s presence, like a beacon. I made it out of the torrents onto an island. There were many refugees. The doctors had the strangest blue eyes, and Mater’s voice told me to trust the process but not the doctors. Then I felt all the blue eyes looking at me, and I woke up in a sweat.

Hans is still deep in a peaceful sleep, so I went out of the bedroom to get some water and check on the piggy and her litter. They are always sleeping blissfully too. It’s a wonder when you think of it, that I thought it was just getting fatter when it actually was pregnant from before we left Earth. Now they’re mostly an open secret, as everyone finds them so cute.

The most difficult was to conceal them from the reality TV show’s cameras. The hysterical fans are always scrutinizing every move we all make, and keeping some privacy is tricky, but apart from the external prying eyes, pretty much everyone here know about them and it’s like a game of hide and seek. I like how it fuels the speculations and paranoia of the Mars bunker debunking association, who think we’re all part of a mass cover-up. I’ve spent some time on their website when I couldn’t sleep the first weeks when we arrived. I would probably have never known about it, but I just searched for myself on the web, and found this thread about the new conspirators. I had to laugh at the beginning, but they raise reasonable doubts in the middle of their rants. By now, I know better than to raise the topic, especially after all the religious nonsense. Seems there are some people that get really annoyed when I asked naive questions about it, like Maya.

Like I said. People are silly.

Betty Bloo wasn’t at all happy about her pigmentation, it was much too dark a blue ~ almost navy blue, or perhaps not quite that dark ~ more of a French navy blue, which was going to cause her no end of trouble. A delicate sky blue was what she wanted, even a slightly darker robins egg blue would have been acceptable, but French navy? Oh, brother! That sucked! Everyone knew it was much easier for a refugee alien with a pale blue colour. Dark blue was absolutely fatal ~ often literally.

Betty wondered how many others in the latest batch were as darkly tinted as she was, and looked around the holding camp apprehensively. Huddled in nervous groups at the far end of the room were the darkest midnight and Prussian blue skins (she particularly noticed the tall elegant indigo fellow and made a mental note to make his acquaintance later); in the middle of the room various men in shades of cobalt and turquoise milled around, chatting with the teal and cornflower blue girls, but what caught Betty’s eye was the colours of the newbies spilling out from the pigmentation chamber.

Some of them were such a pale blue they were almost grey: delicate powder blue and baby blue, the palest aqua and faded periwinkle. It almost seemed as if the later ones were a result of the pigment running out. She realized that she must have been one of the first to be created. Surely that gave her some seniority? A superior position in the blue hierarchy? Did blue alien refugees have a system of hierarchy at all, she wondered?

Well, she said to herself grimly, squaring her darkest blue shoulders. We are about to find out. Blue lives matter!

Aunt Idle:

I dozed off while sitting under the Kurrajong tree this afternoon and had a strange dream. I was in a Tardis and it had landed on an expanse of sandy coastal scrub land. There was nobody else in the Tardis except me, and as the door swung open, I could smell the smoke, acrid and eye watering, and I could hear the snapping and crackling of the flames on the dry brush. The Tardis had landed in between the advancing flames and the sea. I ran back in the Tardis and looked around wildly at all the controls, wondering how to operate the thing. How the hell was I going to get out of here before the fire engulfed us? I ran back outside and the flames were roaring closer by the minute; panicking, I ran back inside, ran out again, and then ran as fast as I could away from the approaching fire until I came across a little blue row boat, rotting away on dry land, right next to a crumbling pyramid. I climbed into the boat, sitting on the bench seat between the dry thistles, thinking with relief that I would be safe in the boat. In the dream, I relaxed and closed my eyes and started to hum My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, and then I felt the heat, opened my eyes, and saw showers of red orange sparks like fireworks all around me, and then flames ~ I was surrounded by the wild fire and couldn’t see the Tardis anymore for the flames leaping and dancing around me. I held my head in my hands, weeping, waiting for the inevitable ~ and then I noticed a sapling growing in between the rotten boards at the bottom of the boat. It was growing so fast I forgot the sizzling heat around me and watched it grow, the side shoots bursting forth and the wood of the boat splintering as the trunk grew in girth. When a dried seed pod dropped onto my head ~ that’s how fast this tree grew, when I looked up it was fully mature, and I was sitting in the cool green shade ~ I looked around, and the sandy coastal scrub had gone, and I was sitting on a stone bench in the middle of a plaza. The smell of burning brush was gone and the stench of garum fish paste filled the air. A handsome fellow in a crumpled linen toga was sitting beside me, elbowing me to get my attention…

“I made you a tuna sandwich, Auntie,” Prune was saying, prodding me on the arm. “Did you know that Kurrajong trees are fire retardant plants, and they start to send out small green shoots from the trunk within a fortnight of being burnt?”

Well, I just looked at her, with my mouth hanging open in astonishment. Then the horrid child shoved the tuna sandwich in it, and then scampered off before I could slap her.

When you get to the “bottom” of the barrel, and “life” seems tedious and ho hum, and like a hamster you go “round” and round, it’s time to make a comment out of the word cloud. Elizabeth felt that she had “opened” the floodgates and the “water” of unfettered garbling was “heard” for miles, or even light years. The new “project” to “ride” the package holiday trip to galaxies unknown, open to “queens”, commoners, and all and sundry, although not necessarily “parents”, was a mixed “bag” of “lost” marbles and elusive memories. You must position “yourself” in the “middle” of the story, notwithstanding the pre ordained itinery, which “usually”, although not always, creates an “abalone” type random insertion which one endeavours to have the “strength” and fortitude to decipher, despite the “fucking” configurations of the puzzle. One should always aim to place oneself “above” the puzzle, so to speak, in order to familiarize “himself” (or herself, or indeed, itself) with the wider picture. Failing that, one might choose to “sit” the next one out.

bottom life round opened water heard project ride queens parents bag lost yourself middle usually abalone strength fucking above himself sit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aunt Idle:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bert grunted and lit a cigarette.

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

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

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

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

“So what?” he asked. “Who cares?”

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

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

“That,” I replied, “Is the question!”

Deep in thought, Devan didn’t notice Finly watching him from the end of the porch. As he clumped down the steps and made his way towards the clapped out banger that served as transport to work, she weighed him up, pausing for a moment with the window cleaning cloth poised in mid air.

He was young, but then, she liked them young. Virile, energetic, easily controlled. The rebellious ones were not so rebellious towards an older woman of experience in their bed. Not that she was all that much older than he was, but the difference in age was enough to create an air of experience. Finly liked to keep on top of things ~ both her cleaning duties, and her young men.

Nice ass, she said to herself, with a warm tingle of anticipation, rubbing the windows with renewed vigour. She licked her lips, smirking at her reflection in the glass, and then blew herself a kiss. A slight movement caught her eye. Prune bobbed her tongue out, and then disappeared from view.

“God damn it, my headpiece! I forgot my headpiece!” croaked Mother Shirley when she heard the command to assemble in Area 12. She looked around desperately for the final piece of her attire but it was nowhere to be seen.

Mother Shirley hated to be seen without her headpiece. Other than a few wiry grey hairs, she was bald—a fact which under normal circumstances her veil and wimple disguised admirably. It was a devil of a thing to get on though.

As the alarms sounded for a second time, she grabbed a pyramid shaped receptacle from the small desk in her capsule, and placed it on her head, where it perched precariously.

“God help us,” she grumbled, as she stiffly creaked her way to Area 12.

Mater:

I am picking some grass for the guinea pigs. Delicate wee things; they don’t handle the heat well and I have moved them to the shelter of the shed. The wind has come up strong and I am enjoying the cooling it brings with it. The long grass bends away from me as though seeking safety from the scissors I hold in my hand. For a moment the wind subsides and I can feel how the sun is burning my neck so I take refuge in the shade of a tree.

Thinking time.

I heard Prune crying out last night in her sleep. She had already fallen back asleep when I went to check on her. It crossed my mind when she cried out that she may have seen the ghost too. I asked her about it in the morning but she did not seem to recall her nightmare.

“I slept liketh a log but I thanketh thou for thy kindness in asking dearest Mater,” she said to me.

”Enough of that cheek!” I told her, but was privately relieved she was okay.

Anyway, It has been twice now. I wake and there he is, over by the antique oak chest in the corner of my room. At first I can’t move or call out. And by the time I can he has gone. When I say “gone”, I don’t mean he walks out the door. He just sort of fades away. He has his back to me so I can’t tell you what his face is like. All I can tell you is that he is tall and he has on a blue robe, in a silky fabric, almost like a dressing gown with a tie in the middle.

There, I have told you now. You may be thinking it is just a silly old woman’s dream. But you don’t get to my age without having plenty of dreams, and this was nothing like any dream I have ever had.

To look at the grizzled weathered face of Bert Buxton, sex might be the furthest thing from your mind. You would be unlikely to imagine him as a participant in outrageous kinky goings on in the back rooms and bedrooms of the local hostelries, or wild midnight romps under the stars, but things had been different in Bonemarsh when the mines were busy, when he was a virile young man.

The miners were a strange breed of men, but not all cut from the same cloth ~ they were daring outsiders, game for anything, adventurous rule breakers and outlaws with a penchant for extreme experience. Thus, outlandish and adventurous women ~ and men who were not interested in mining for gold in the usual sense ~ were magnetically drawn to the isolated outpost.

After a long dark day of restriction and confinement in the mines, the evenings were a time of colour and wild abandon; bright, garish, bizarre Burlesque events were popular. Bonemarsh, strange though it may seem, had one of the most extensive wig and corset emporiums in the country, although it was discretely tucked away in the barn behind a mundane haberdashery shop.