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In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
Area 12 was easy to locate. The whole ship’s design was shaped like a clock, with the 12 quadrant at her helm, with the main deck. It was also where, everyone had been briefed after boarding, the main emergency exits were located.
Something serious must have had happened for the Code Red to have been triggered.Captain Rama Shivakumar was trying his best to gather information from the central command, but Finnley was reacting very unusually. Quantum computers and artificial intelligence was still a rather new technology. Remarkably efficient, but its bugs were terribly difficult to understand and fix, and certainly above his pay grade.
Ram’s second in command, Karthikeya Uthayashankar was coordinating the crew’s efforts to sweep the ship for clues. It seemed that Finnley’s sensors had panicked at some unusual and very localized electromagnetic pulse, which could have seriously damaged the navigational systems and put everyone’s lives in dire straits.By looking through the logs, the pulse seemed to have originated from Area 6, in the quadrant that was reserved for the honoured guests, currently occupied by Mother Shirley and her following.
“Captain Ram, did you find anything?” Karthik enquired, fidgeting at the prospect of having to manage beside his crew of ten fellow men, a unruly herd of thirty snotty travelers. He seriously doubted that in times like this, the 21 finnleys would be of sure-footed help to them.
“Relax, Karthik. The computer most likely overheated. See, it already has adjusted its parameters, and there isn’t much we can detect now that’s out of normal.”
“And what about the passengers, Captain?”
“We’ll send them to Mangala. It’s only a day before schedule, it will be fine.”In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
“One moment I was on my way to get coffee; the next I was up there on the ceiling. I looked down and saw a lady lying on the ground with blood oozing from her head and I was thinking ‘someone should help her!’ and then I realised with some surprise it was me laying down there on the ground. ‘How could that be?’ I asked myself. I realised that I must have died. And, do you know what? I didn’t care. I felt amazing. For the first time in my life I felt truly free. I felt no more attachment to the body on the ground than I do to this … “
Flora paused to look around and her gaze finally settled on one of the sofa cushions — a dirty looking thing which was decorated with an embroidered kangaroo.
“… this cushion here.”
She hit it to emphasise her point and a cascade of dust rose in the air. She looked at Mater sadly and continued softly:
“Then I heard a voice telling me it was not my time and next thing I knew I was back in my body with this pounding great headache.”
Flora paused reflectively for a moment while she sipped on the cup of tea Prune had bought her.
“Mater, this experience has changed me. I thought I had it all before: good looks, a fantastic figure—especially my butt—a successful career, but now I realise I was in penury. Trapped by my own brilliance into a shallow empty existence.”
“What’s that you say?” asked Mater, struggling to follow Flora’s very thick New Zealand accent. “And who the devil is Penny?”
She wondered where Bert had got to. One moment he was there and the next he just seemed to disappear.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Flora came to her senses muttering something about a coachload of American tourists in Italy. Bert had been the first to arrive at the scene of the accident. Not one to flap in a crisis, he calmly picked up the injured woman and carried her to the sofa in the living room, instructing Prune to fetch the mop and clean the blood off the floor. By the time Bert had seen to the wound on Flora’s head, she was starting to come round, muttering gibberish and apparently confused.
“Where am I? Is this Florence or Rome? Am I late?” she asked, telling Bert she was perfectly alright now thank you, although she clearly wasn’t.
“No, you aint late, dear, it’s still quite early,” Bert replied soothingly.
“But I must get to the Vatican Library, I must be getting on now,” she said, trying to stand up.
Bert gently but firmly pushed her back down, saying, “Have a nice cup of tea first, plenty of time for that later.”
“What the dickens is going on now?” asked Mater. “What’s all this about Rome? Anyone seen my reading glasses?” she asked, peering around the room from the doorway.
Bert explained briefly, and asked Mater to sit with Flora while he went to make the tea.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
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.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Bert crept past room 8 again, listening. There it was again, the voice of a woman. How the heck did the dusty old geezer manage to smuggle a woman into his room? It didn’t make sense, there were so few people in the town that a strange woman would have been noticed, someone would have mentioned it. And the woman had a strange accent, Bert couldn’t place it, but it wasn’t an accent he was familiar with. Sounded almost old fashioned, although he couldn’t be sure. His hearing wasn’t so good these days. A foreign woman in town, and not a mention anywhere? No, it didn’t make sense.
Bert had a few jobs to do, but wanted to keep an eye on the door of room 8. Whoever was in there would need to come out to use the bathroom sooner or later. He decided to ask Prune to keep watch while he fed the chickens, Prune would enjoy keeping a secret, and he wanted to keep quiet about his suspicions until he knew a bit more. Nobody would find it odd to see Prune lurking around in a dark corridor.
“Do you not see that satchel o’er yon upon that fine stout table? Do but hand it this way, noble sir.”
Prune pressed her ear to the door and frowned. It was a woman’s voice, but what was she on about?
“Your Grace, I would sit with thee and spake…”.
Her name must be Grace, deduced Prune, wondering why the old dusty bugger was speaking funny as well.
“…..whence I have received from thee the artefact. Get to it, you lay about excuse for a man, I do ha’e me most urgent and important things to apply my considerable value upon.”
What a rude tart, thought Prune, and she hadn’t even paid for a room. She heard no more from inside the room because at that moment Aunt Idle came roaring and crashing down the corridor with the hoover. Prune scuttled off past her and went to find Bert.
Prune had just started to explain to Bert about Grace when Mater came beetling across the yard to join them.
“Bert, where’s the fish gone?”
Bert and Prune looked at each other. “What fish?”
“The flying fish that’s been hanging on the wall all these years, it’s gone,” she said, pointing towards the house with her walking stick.
Open mouthed in astonishment, Prune raced back to the house to check for herself.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
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.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
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.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
I noticed when Mater left the house early and discreetly. I know all the sounds of the house, and even the light footsteps of my grandmother couldn’t avoid making the floor creak.
I’m mildly curious, as it isn’t every day Mater leaves the house, besides for the Sundays’ mass. She always complained about her cracking joints, and plenty other pains. Must be why she liked to threaten everyone with inflicting some.
She had looked genuinely sad when the furball had died, though. I was too, but my eyes are set on one of the new spaniel pups from a litter that Battista and Gerardo, the funny Italian couple with the pizzeria next door just had.
Battista promised to keep one for me. I lied of course, told her that my aunt had agreed to it. By any rate, Aunt Idle wouldn’t remember giving her approval or disapproval, and would most probably fall gaga for the little puppy. So it would just be a little white lie.
I was about to fall back asleep when I hear the door creak open. My first thought was that it was Mater who’d forgotten her keys, but the loud footsteps weren’t hers.
My heartbeat raised a little while I jump out of bed full of hope.
“Papa Fred!” I almost cried out while flying down the stairs, but then I stopped in mid sentence.
The man in the entrance isn’t father.I would have cried for help, but Aunt Idle and my sisters have a very loud sleep, and I don’t want to look afraid. Father had taught me to stand my ground with wild animals.
“Who are you?” I ask the dust covered man. He had a broad hat, and a thick bushy beard. His coat was covered with cracked mud and dust from the road.
“Apologies for my intrusion young lady. Is that the Flying Fish Inn? Someone told me I could stay there for a while.”
The Flying Fish Inn was passsed down to Abcynthia (the childrens mother) from her father, who had a boarding house during the gold rush. He died just after the mine closed and Abcynthia closed the place up and moved to the city where she went to university and met her husband Fred (name to be arranged later).
Fred was a journalist who aspired to write a science fiction novel. He convinced his wife to give up her career as a corporate lawyer, and raise a family at the old inn in the outback, while he write his novel and earned a rudimentary income from writing articles online, enough to live on. Just after their 4th child was born, Abcynthia had had enough, and left the family to pursue her career in the city.
Fred’s sister Aunt idle was at a loose end at the time, needing to keep a low profile and “disappear” for reasons to be discovered, and agreed to come and help Fred with the children. Fred’s cranky mother had already been living with them for a few years but was not up to the responsibility of the four children while Fred was busy writing.
A few months after Abcynthia’s disappearance, some unexplained incidents occurred in the area around the ghost town and the defunct mines ~ possibly connected to the sci fi novel Fred was writing in some way ~ which Fred wrote articles about, which went viral in the popular imagination and thirst for weird tales, and visitors started coming to the town.
Aunt Ilde started to informally put them up in rooms, and enjoyed the unexpected company of these strangers which relieved her increasing boredom, then as the visitors increased (not so very many, but two or three a week perhaps) decided to officially reopen the boarding house and a B and B.
Fred, though, must have had some kind of a meltdown because he left a cryptic note saying he’d be back, and to carry on without him for the foreseeable future. Nobody really knew why, or where he had gone.
In reply to: Shamanic Journey Achronicles
Second Journey ~ August 24th, 2014
Duration 24 minutes
Directions : Meet with your power animal, ask them to lead you to the upper realm to meet with your guide. Ask the name of your guide and what they will be likely helping you with. Ask them for your personal symbol and how you can use it. Then follow your power animal into showing you the potential development for the stories.
Accounts
Eric
My snake animal guide appears very fast, I see its eyes first. It shifts into a powerful cobra, and fans out its hood into multiple heads, like Ananta (Shesha Naga), and says I can call him Nagini (like in Harry Potter, that’s also the playful name I give to the plush snake at our doorsteps).
It wraps its multiple heads around me like a ball, and we woosh into the ground to what I guess is the underworld, it seems like a long coiled path around a sort of vortex, after a few moments in a sort of crystal cave, I’m a bit skeptical what we’re doing there, I catch a glimpse of a white horse from the back, so I guess Jib’s Conan is checking on us, and restate my intent.
I go though the light of one of the brightest glowing crystals, and the travel resumes, this time like the giant snake wraps ourselves in coils around a column of rocks, and we climb that high mountain very fast. It reminds me of Mt Meru in Buddhism or the Immortals palace in the Chinese Buddhist tales (like in the 2014 movie The Monkey King).
The place is like a beautiful platform/palace of giant proportions, with a golden light. When we arrive, the snake becomes much smaller, and golden too, and wraps itself around my left arm. It guides me to explore different places, a temple, a place over the clouds where there are dances, etc. I decide to rest under a tree and meditate and be open to possibilities.
The snake shifts around in various forms as if to reflect the nature of my mind, a giant parasol, or a stream of many paths at my feet. It connects me to a picture I saw of a Buddhist painting where the mind represented as an elephant is led by the monkey brain around a snake-like path. I realize the person I saw briefly earlier is the guide that helped Sunwukong (the monkey king) and seems to be the guide I’m looking for.
(I find the name later is Puti or Subhuti).
When I mentally ask for a name, the name Pachacamac comes strongly. He shows me many things related to my symbol. As a spinning cube with the floating feather in the middle and the arrow pointing towards the heart. The spin of the cube creates illusion within illusion, the arrow wobbles but stays towards the heart.
He shows me a chasm and how to create a bridge over the clouds, by showing me the mirror image in my heart chakra. The bridge is built inside. At the same time, I was trying to focus on the music to deepen the trance, and realized outside (one storey below) was Jib’s music played on the speakers, aligned with the one playing in the headset, although a few seconds off, the rhythm was perfectly in synch…
He also shows me another image, of a deep well deep inside the mountain that we can see from above the clouds. The image inside is dark and fluctuates with the water’s surface, and also reflecting quite a small portion of the beautiful landscape around.
He explains that the well is the world we create, the mind and the perception is the water’s surface. It’s the external world, while the heart is all that we perceive as we discuss.
There are other things shared at a subjective level.Francie
After I connected with my power animal, we went to the upper world. We went through water to get there until we came to land.
I asked for my main guide.
I think I took on the characteristics of my guide. by that I mean I felt myself become a different being, and then switched back and forwards between myself and the other. It was very clear. The other was masculine, strong, very alert, very watchful, powerful.
I asked for the guide’s name and received the answer, Carlos.
I asked for the area which the guide would work with me. I have had a sharp pain in my left abdomen under my rib for half an hour. I felt my guide reach in and do something energetically in that area. The pain left and has not returned.
I asked for a symbol and saw what looked like a key-hole shape.
There was a key too.
It was a very particular shape.
There was a door. And the key hole was up very high in the door.
I had to reach up high to get to it. And I put the key in.
I wasn’t sure if those were symbols.
The key hole and the key were shapes.
I was tracing them with my hand.Jib
I settle in myself and arrive directly in a kind of lava world. There are stalagmites and magma puddles, it’s very fiery and earthy. Then I call my horse who just nudge my left shoulder, he was already there.
I ride him first and take time to bond with him. Then ask him to take me to the upper realm to Michel. Without much transition I am there, I feel a definite difference of feeling and texture. I say hi and ask Michel if he can show me the use of my personal symbol or particular aspects to it.
The he focuses my attention to the octagon and the connection with the number eight. He shows me how it connects with the musical octave and sounds as a resonator. It can also be used like the shamanic drum. The coil inside is connected with the circle, the spiral and the labyrinth. My symbol is a kind of labyrinth with the diamond representing the central room where the graal is, so to speak.
He shows me other stuff that I don’t recall at the moment.
When I realize that it will be all, I ask my guide if he can introduce me to another guide that can help me with the use of my symbol. He sends me in a direction that goes up in a cave world. There are faceless figures, I don’t pay much attention to them. When I arrive, the guide sits me on the ground and a journey inside my symbol begins. With the octagon connecting quite strongly with the lava and earth again. I am in a lava world again, which is strange. I ask the guide what is his name and I suddenly understand it is Athumbra the Dreamwalker from whom I’m fragmented.
He shows me the connection of my symbol to the fire and earth, and the depth of the world. He suggests me that instead of focusing on the shape of the symbol I connect with how the different parts connects together and to other aspects of consciousness, and how they are representative of my own energy personality. Not try to look outside for an answer in a way at the moment.
So I begin to experience the shapes, and it turns like a clock, take different colors, etc.
This will be something I’ll have to do again.
Then I ask my power animal to show me what would be interesting to me to explore in the story now.
He shows me a nest and I connect it with the stork nests I’ve been talking about in the last comment and that I used in the quote of the week picture. Without consciously connecting the two. I’ve written the comment before making the picture.
It will have to do with how the nest is comfortable but don’t make you learn much about life and your potentials.
Then he showed me something related to ants and colonies, that I connected with Mars, the colonies of Mars. There is something about community and social network for me to explore.
Then I asked him to help me decipher the energy transmission Eric sent to me the other day, and it had something to do with networks again and how we create a space of something through our relationships, the space of love, the space of friendship, and we create fields and connective tissues that we nourish through experience and attention and involvement.
At some point in the beginning I briefly wondered what was happening with you guys and felt propelled into something like water and impression of struggling with current, there were two moon crescents holding together by their “backs”, and purple or pink colors.Tracy
The Zebra walked towards me across a grassy plain then I circled him, floating, and we went down a slope through the trees, an old road paved with stones. We wound down and came to a great expanse of metallic pink water, like a wise (typo! wide) river.
There was a guy in much heavy stone coloured rough clothes on with a very old face who didn’t look at me, he was on a raft with a long pole for steering. Asked his name and got Frudo. (was slightly skeptical that I got the name right) The symbol was like a clubs of cards, 3 circles interlocking with an in flow of the stem part. Domain was water, flow and fluidity (and dams, apparently).
We went down with the raft on the wide pink river, and the pace increased and there were people of all kinds lining both banks, watching. The wide river came to an immensely steep and deep waterfall, but there were pools and much smaller waterfalls on either side of it. All the water was pink.
We navigated from pool to pool on the right of the waterfall mostly, each pool had people, some of the pools were dammed, and some were more open and easily flowing to the next pool. Some dams were high and some pools had people looking over the edge at the waterfalls below their pools.
In a pool on the right, a very fat pink baby was sitting in the middle, I picked him up and held him and asked his name and it was Ezekial.
Then a fly landed on my right shoulder and I looked to the right and saw a scrunched up face of my mother, with a tight smile. My breathing started to get constricted and I saw mustard yellow mangle of tubes like intestines in that pool.
Then there was a lot of fingers stroking and pulling threads out of the dam around that pool, like pulling soft pink wax. Breathing continued to be restricted, and some becoming vapour or mist stuff that wasn’t very clear or droplets leaping from pool to pool as an alternative route to surface pools and waterfalls….
Then went down down down into a vast pool of pink water, faster and faster towards a narrow tube at the bottom, and then flipped over onto my back and saw the sun far above and rose slowly floating towards the surface.
Several times I saw purple and light green.
The breathing thing was interesting if not so pleasant.
The personal symbol may be connected to the flow from pool to pool somehow.In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Are you sure this is the right direction ?” asked Sha.
“The young guy at the Hotel d’El Refugio said it was down South the Sea of Bee Leaf, past the mangrove and the mystic wall”, said Glo.
“Are you sure about that ? Look, the brochure indicate the pyramid is past the misty wall”, interrupted Mavis.
“Mystic, misty, what’s the difference anyway ?” Glo tentatively rolled her eyes, but gave up the gym. “The young lad said mystic”, she added, not wanting to let go so easily.
“What young lad ? You mean the one at the swimming pool that tried to flog the helicoleopter trip over the underwater tunnels of Lacuna to Sha ?”
“Oh! I recall him well”, said Sharon, “He told me his name was Jube Lee ? He’s no older than eighteen. Don’t tell me you turned cougar Glo.”
“Bloody hell, what ? Noooo !”
“Here it is, the fog wall looks quite thin.”
They heard the sound of big flapping wings.
“Oh! Are you an angel ?” asked Sha. “What a beautiful face you have, young lady. As pure as vodka.”
“My name is Fanella”, said the sphinx with a wide smile, “Answer my question and you’ll be free to cross the corridors of time.”
Excited by the perspective of some fun the three ladies listened carefully.
“What’s the difference between a cat and a complex sentence ?”
“What the f*%$k ?”
“Is that your answer ?”
“No, no, no. I’m just thinking aloud”, said Glo.
“That rings a bell”, whispered Mavis to her friends, “I think that’s from one of Steven Kong’s books. It has something to do with the claws and the paws. Yes ! That’s it. I have the answer”, she announced proudly.
“Are you sure ?” asked Glo. “What happens if she give the wrong answer ?”
“You won’t be able to enter the pyramid for ten years.”
“Oh ! That’s all ?” said Sha disappointed, “I thought you were going to devour us or something similar.”
“You must have mistaken me for someone else. As you are already in transition, there isn’t much that we can do to you. So, what is the answer ?”
“A cat has claws at the end of its paws. The sentence has a pause at the end of its clause”, Mavis articulated clearly.
The sphinx smiled, and let them pass.
“Just one last thing”, she added as the three ladies were entering the Lion’s mouthed gate, “As you choose to go through, only go further, don’t stop or try to turn back. You may get lost in time and never come back. If you complete your taks, you may well find a new life.”
She disappeared, leaving only her enigmatic smile in the memory of Sha, Glo and Mavis.In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“We’re going under water, Mandrake, you’re sure you don’t need a suit?” Arona asked her cat.
All she needed was his permission to manifest a scuba diving suit for the cat, but the cat was putting on a brave face, and refused altogether.
“Well then, maybe you want to accompany me under a diving bell, I’m not too reassured on my on” she said with a sweet voice. Reverse psychology always worked with this one.
In no time, they were looking at the underwater cavebed, following the directions of the sabulmantium. The dragon egg enclosing the coloured sand seemed to shield them from the strange effects of the cave, and project fleeting images around the glass bell. Derelict places full of mould and cobwebs, alien places and animals.
Arona resisted being drawn by the images. Her years of living with dragons had taught her to navigate through illusions. That was then that she saw it.
The graceful turtle, silently swimming in front of them, in a curved line up and down, up and down. It was big, much bigger than Mandrake, but in no hurry to get there, wherever there was.“Arona, do you hear that?” Mandrake’s voice was distant, and the sound of alarm was faint and muffled. “Aronaaaa!”
The impact of the rocks shattered the glass bell in millions of small pieces, that went floating like a wave of particles on the wind. Arona and Mandrake, in the big turtle’s wake were propelled through a narrow gurgling exit of the water that flushed them out of the cave into the thundering noise of a cascade.
Struggling with the current at first, Arona managed to let go, and finally emerged with her cat held firmly by the scruff of its neck. The current sent them on the shore of the pool of crystalline blue waters. In the middle of the pool, she could see the Cup, placed on a red cushion, surrounded by the mist of the waterfall, and glowing a vivid radiant light.
It all seems so easy… Arona was already wet, and the Cup was so close.
“Not so feeest, milady”
She had not seen the man emerge from the shadows of the cliffs. He was looking relatively harmless, but had a wild eye and a vagrant’s appearance.“Leave me alone, old man.” was all she wanted to tell him. But for someone to be here, of all places, it had to mean something, and she’d better find it out using tact and diplomacy.
“Good day sir, may I inquire what you are doing here?”
“Fer sure, Ey em the Fisher Count but ye can call me Reney.”
“Mmm, I’ve heard about you. So you are real after all.”
“Indeed Ey em, quite real, huhu.”
“DON’T!” Arona and Mandrake shouted almost at the same time… too late, as the blinking parrot reappeared, flying over them and shrieking “HU HU, FUCK FUCK, HU HU.”“I meant,… DON’T mind the blasted parrot, it’ll go away eventually. It must have a fleck of Sanso, I’m sure.” Arona said, matter-of-factly. “Now, what do I need to do to get to drink from the Cup, dear Sir?” she continued with the best composed smile she could.
“Oh, et is veeely easy, vely vely easy. Ye just need to esk nicely, and as ye already did, there ye go.”
Suspicion and doubts started to come back, as it all seemed much too easy. “What will happen when I drink from it? Will I be able to astral?”
“Oh well, Ey don’t know fer sure, Ey think it is just a nice decoration, but if ye believe herd enough, enything es possible.”
“Mandrake,” she turned to the cat “let’s go do some astralling.”
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Fanella was riding her new zebra friend in a big dry meadow. Something she had never seen before. There were other animals with them and it was delightful. The flight of the cranes transported her up to the clouds while the crocodiles would clap in unison in the marshes.
The zebra had told her his name. Rene he was, and glad he’d met her before it was too late. He also said something that she didn’t quite understand. “Other friends are coming, you don’t have to worry.” Why worry when she was with Rene ? Other friends ? Lisa was coming back for her with Sanso ? “We’ll meet soon”, said Rene. Now she was having hallucinations. He was a tall man, half an ebony skin, half white and black zebra stripes. But he was already fading away.
The return back to reality was harsh. She gagged and disgorged sea water on the beach. It felt as if she had been torn inside out.“There, there. Welcome back young Miss. You’re safe, now”, said a man. He was wearing a smile but she felt it was just a facade.
“Are you okay ?” she asked. Even in the midst of drowning, her maternal instinct was stronger. Surprised showed up on the man’s face.
“What do you mean ?”
“You’re all yellow.”
The man laughed. “I’m quite normal, young lady. Quite normal.” He put his jacket on her shoulders to help keep her warmth as social rules demanded. It was relatively dry, whereas he was drenched. He must have took it off before rescuing her from the sea.“We should have left her to the barracudas”, said another man. He wore a blue turban, casting a shadow on an already hard face. It was marked by a circular fresh scar around his nose, made by countless small sharp teeth. The flesh seemed to pulsate painfully. She shuddered when she saw his hook-leg, the hook half burried in the sand. She didn’t want to imagine what he could do with it.
“Don’t pay attention to Berberus”, said the first man, “We have no business in hurting young beautiful ladies.”
Something in his smile told her that it wasn’t always true. She forced herself a gracious face, as she had learned to do with the noble men back then in Versailles.
“Thank you for rescuing me, Sir.” She pulled on the edges of the jacket as if she needed warmth. “My name is Fanetta”, she added, lowering her eyes.In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Look”, said Arona, “the mist is clearing. It worked.”
“How exciting”, said Mandrake struggling with a yawn.
“Let’s go then”, said George.
Mandrake yawned again.
“What’s wrong with you ?” asked Arona.
“There seem to be a slight rise of air pressure which explains the opening”, said the robot.
“Ah.” She had no idea what the machine was talking about but didn’t want to appear ignorant.
“Thank you Mr R.” said Irina.
“You’re most welcome, Madam.”They packed their stuff and followed the path. The increase of pressure seemed to mostly affect the cats yawning repeatedly, and Greenie who had a headache. George was helping her go forward, concern showing on his face. Jeremy was carrying Max in his arms protectively.
When they arrived on the other side of the wall, they saw a heap of feathers, beak and legs which must have been a bird at some point. Jeremy felt Max stiffen in his arms, but he soon relaxed as it was not moving. At last, he had stopped yawning. They moved passed the pillars toward a small rotunda
“There! That’s the way in”, announced Jeremy. Irina gave him a sidelong glance. The rotunda was build on the lake, no solid base, just water. She didn’t want to get wet.
“The pyramid is huge”, said George.
“My sensors indicate that what you see is only the tip of the iceberg, if I may use this comparison, the edifice is going down to the bottom of the lake.“Welcome to you all, this day of your time!”
They jumped like one and turned round to see who had just talked.
“What’s that… creature ?” asked Arona. She had seen her lot of glukenitch, grizzard and langoat on her journeys, but this time she felt at loss for words.
“It is a sphinx”, stated Gwinie.
“It looks like a gay zebra looking for a fix”, said Irina.
“I’m Rene the unicorn. Are you my friends ?”
“I think it’s broken”, added the green girl, stretching out her hand. Irina looked at the child, the girl really had a funny way to put things sometimes.
“Machines get broken”, explained the Russian, “gay junkie zebras… are cracked or maniac.”
“I think she means it’s the guardian of the threshold”, said Jeremy, “but I don’t know what she means by it’s broken.”
“There doesn’t seem to be anything or anyone here”, stated Mr R. “Apart from an electromagnetic disturbance.”
“We are your friends”, said George on an impulse.
“They are my friends ! They are my friends !” Rene was bouncing around with glee. “Come on, follow me into the labyrinth. Another friend is awaiting us for his bird day party.” The sphinx jumped into the water. A vortex began to form under the rotunda, and soon became a tunnel plunging straight down the bottom of the lake.“Follow the undercurrents”, shouted Jeremy diving in the hole with Max.
“Shouldn’t we be a bit more cautious ?”, inquired Arona. “That sphinx didn’t look quite normal.”
“What’s normal here ?” asked George before following in the map dancer’s step with the others.
“I think we don’t want to stay here alone”, said Mandrake. He bounced out off her arms and trotted to the rotunda hole. “There is a column of air to slow down the fall. Are you coming ?”
Arona rolled her eyes, picked up the cat and plunged into the dark hole.In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Lazuli Galore in the shape of the mandarin duck looked over his shoulder, grinning mischievously at his passengers.
“Fasten your seat belts!” he shouted.
“What bloody seat belts?” asked Lisa. “Hey! Steady on!”
Lazuli the duck accelerated like a speedboat, ripping across the tops of the swelling waves and performing eye watering figure of eights, tilting the passengers first this way then that way as they held on to the feathers with all the strength they could muster, fearing for their lives, yet wildly exhilarated.
Lazuli whooped with the exuberance of wild abandon, failing to notice that Fanella had slipped off his back into the brine, and unable to hear the cries of the others amid his own gleeful shouts and the roar of the wind rushing past.
Fanella rolled and flailed in the backwash, eventually surfacing and gasping for breath. In vain she looked for the duck but it had disappeared from sight. The shore looked too far to swim to, but she knew she must try to reach it. Holding down the panic as best she could, she started to swim towards the mangrove trees lining the beach, barely visible in the descending fog. The striped shadows shimmered in the mist; was it an optical illusion of stripes and mists that it seemed as if a section of shadows was heading towards her? The zebra waded into the breaking waves, and calmly and purposefully swam towards the drowning girl.In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Glancing up from watching the plum dolphins, while cresting a wave on the mandarin ducks back, Fanella imagined she saw a zebra motionlessly watching their progress from the shore. The duck dipped down with the next ebb and she lost sight of it. Rising on the next wave, she could only see the streaked shadows of the mangrove trees along the beach. I must have imagined it, she thought. But the image of the watching zebra lingered in her mind.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Lisa felt constipated and feverish. It was the first signs of nicotine withdrawal. She shouldn’t have used so many patches before they left for the Island. And she hadn’t thought of bringing some for this journey. With the monotony of the landscape, her attention kept drifting away from their goals. She was thinking of Jack again. Was he able to manage all the dogs ? Had he neutered all the cats ? She had dreamt that he was bitten by Flint.
When they arrived near the coast, she felt disappointed. It was kind of greyish. And the drizzle, which started falling shortly after they left Gazalbion, felt cold on her cheeks. This wasn’t helping cheer up her mood. Besides, despite all the fun of ass traveling, after some time, your own eventually hurt.
“Where are the bamboos?” asked Fanella.
Lisa was shivering, the wind had become stronger, which oddly reinforced her feeling of isolation, and the sea looked agitated.
“Yeah! where are the bamboos?” she said, allowing her irritation to blurt out in her tone. Although, in a way she was relieved that they wouldn’t have to build their own raft. Maybe they could even rest a little. She looked at the greenish sand. Maybe not.
Her ass brayed something unintelligible, emitted a small surprised bark, then cleared his throat.
“Sorry for that, after a while, what you shapeshift into begins to run into you”, said Lazuli Galore.
“You must be shapeshifting quite often”, added Sanso pensively.
Lazuli didn’t know how to take that and decided to snort.
“I must have lost track”, he continued, “or the island have changed since the last time I went there, which was when I arrived on the island, and… that’s funny I don’t remember when. Anyway, I can still shapeshift into something else and carry you on the other size.”
“A whale!” said Fanella, excited at the idea.
“Not a whale!” countered Lisa, horrified. “He might think he’s one and make us sink with him.” Her teeth were chattering, she didn’t know if it was because of the cold or because of her withdrawal.
“A duck would be perfect”, she said with a resolute tone. “Ducks float quite well and we could get some warmth under the feathers. We should have taken blankets when we left.”
The ass looked at her, a bit puzzled. “Have you ever seen a duck ?” he asked, “they are quite small.”
Lisa was going to retort something she could have regretted, but Sanso spoke before she could.
“According to my experience, size is not an issue for you, Lazuli”, he said.
Fanella frowned, then put her hand to her mouth and tittered.Before she could say Jackass, Lisa felt the ass grow between her legs. Soon enough, they were all comfortably settled on the back of a giant mandarin duck, floating away from the grey shore into the unknown.
In reply to: Rafaela’s Random Ramblings
“The zebra’s gifts include seeing in black and white, clarity without filters, balance, agility, uniqueness, power, sureness of path, keeping up individuality within the herd.
Questioning reality and illusion is common amongst people with zebra medicine, though an over analytic intellect can be a hindrance for some with this totem. In others the imagination must be awakened.
The zebras pattern of black on white, or white on black implies that what you see is not always what you get. Occult knowledge seen and unseen, dimensional shifts, new journeys and worldly endeavours are all aspects of this.
Zebras are master magicians, who utilise the energy of light and dark to shift realities and expand our consciousness, helping us see past our preconceived beliefs as they lead us into the mystery and magic of the unseen. Zebras seek balance in what they do, and they are sure of themselves, standing confidently in the middle of opposing forces. Those with this power animal are taught similar skills.
When the zebra comes into your life, change is signified in one or more areas of your life and hidden knowledge will be uncovered. Stand strong, develop trust and simply flow with the rhythm of a new creation. “
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Cheung Lok felt himself fall suddenly with nothing to hold on to, when the elephant he was riding suddenly shrank to human size knocking him down to the ground, partly unconscious after the event.
This Sanso, sure is 麻烦 [¹]. I must to start to believe harder in my luck was his thought before he lost consciousness.On the other side of Sanso, a strange man with a turban was struggling with a bizarre striped dog-sized sea cucumber with teeth. Meanwhile, his target, Sanso seemed to leave back to the encampment’s ruins with… his elephant turned… something else.
That was all he could remember when he woke up a few minutes later and wondered what had happened and how Sanso could have slipped away again.
Noticing how he was tracking a man that seemed to make a point at having no discernible pattern, the realization came in a flash of blinding certainty that Sanso knew probably nothing at all about Irina, and surely didn’t care at all about warning her. In other words, Cheung Lok was on his own, and the painful clarity was soothed in equal measure by the other realization that he could let go of this 王八蛋².Looking around, he noticed the guy with the turban still struggle with the appetizing stripped sea cucumber.
“Hold steady pal, I’ll ezap that bugger.”
The other who had turned almost purple took a series of short breaths when he was released from the monster. “Thanks mate, those things are my bane.”
“No need to thank me, I’ll deep-fry it for us later. Care to join?”
“Hell why not. Name’s Berberus by the way. And you shouldn’t trust elephants here. It is known.”
“Thanks for the tip, pal. Cheung Lok.”
“You’re going back after Sanso?”
“No, it’s pointless, I just happened to find him on my way to a series of turbulences on the island and couldn’t pass the opportunity, but that one is more slippery than a wet snail during monsoon.”
“What is monsoon?” Berberus asked perplexed by the yellow faced man with the strange accent.
“Don’t you mind that. Shall we go?”___
[¹] 麻烦 máfan in Chinese, can be roughly translated as ‘irritating piece of hemp’, meaning being trouble or vexatious —or some may argue, in this case, unbelievably lucky and difficult to keep track of, in a continuous way or any other way.
[²] 王八蛋 wángbā dàn : “The King’s eighth egg”, a colourful Chinese way of insulting people, meaning roughly “bastard”.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Despite rumours to the contrary, Sanso was not in another story, although, technically it could be said he was in another storey of reality.
The elephant’s trampoling had come as a surprise, and came as a shock that was welcome.
For a moment, he was in a dream environment, probably influenced by sea cucumber digestion of his entrails, where a Chinese cat-looking soothsayer was reading him the Yiking. “51, she said, is the AROUSING!”
She purrsued “The shock of unsettling events brings fear and trembling. Move toward a higher truth and all will be well.”
What the heck does that mean he thought, thinking of his arousing French travelling companion.
“Stay still, you rascal, and hear me out: The tendency of human beings is to rely on the strategies of the ego: to desire, plot and strive. When we do this, our spiritual development stops, and the Universe must use shocking events to move us back onto the Path. This sign, young man, indicates an IMMEDIATE need for self-examination, self-correction, and a re-devotion to following the path of the Sage.”With that being said, she rang her huge bell twice loudly, which awoke Sanso right back where he started, in the midst of people running everywhere at the borders of crumbling Gazalbion.
He could spot an elephant riding at him, which seemed a nice way to travel, until he realized the man riding it was none other than Cheung Lok.
As Sanso was ready to make a strategic yet hasty retreat, he noticed another dangerous grim looking man with a hook-leg and a turban was coming at him with a grin that meant business.
