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In reply to: Strings of Nines
When Yikes had first asked Arona, when he was like 6 or 7 years old if he had a father, Arona had brushed the question aside with a roll of an eye, and an annoyed flicker of the other.
“Of course you have, little pooh…”
It was glaringly obvious that the little Ugling wasn’t bearing any likeness with her handsome model Vincentius, so she didn’t mock the little guy’s intelligence by asking why he was even inquiring of such a thing.
And for a few years, telling him the story of how he was given to her by the dwarf Palani was enough to calm the torrent of his questions.Later though, as he was gaining strength and other skills taught to him by Vincentius, who was ever patient and dedicated to the well-being of Arona and the child, his questions became an obsession, and he took upon himself to discover the truth he could feel was wrapped in fantasy and nonsense —or at least, not told completely.
Perhaps it was an indiscretion of a glukenitch found in the many caves there were nearby their home, nobody knew for certain. (Glukenitches sharing one mind, they knew many of the secrets of the caves they sometimes deigned to share with strangers…) anyway, nobody knew for certain, but he found out about the mysterious Sanso, and how he became ‘acquainted’ with Arona (whom Yikes had never called but by her first name).
Yikes was now in his teen years, and wanted more than ever to meet Sanso, although he never quite revealed that secret plan least it would upset the loving and caring Arona. He had to find someone to help him in his research, but where they lived, encounters were scarce.
One day, a young woman he’d never met before went to see Arona. They were friends apparently, and he overheard Arona call her Salome, while they were discussing about lots of people, whose names he mostly didn’t know. He was feeling uncomfortable around nice ladies, and almost didn’t show up for dinner. However, an embarrassed silence and a sideway glance as a certain “he” was being inquired about by Arona raised his ears, and he took upon himself to try to learn more from the lady.
So when she left, he followed her to the entrance of one of the nearby caves, and showed up —apparently without surprising the lady called Salome. She was well aware of his presence, and of his desire to find Sanso.
“The man defies logic,” she then warned Yikes “and you need a riddle outside of logic to catch him and his attention.”
That was almost all of what she said before disappearing into the damp cave’s tunnel. That and… “no need to beat a dead cow.”Yikes had pondered that for days, without success.
Until the illumination came: all he had to do was become the hunter, and bait his prey.
For that, he would kill the fatted calf, to welcome the return of the prodigal father.And put his bait near the tunnels near the realms from whence he roamed aimlessly.
Topic: Probably Real
She woke up at noon and it was 100 degrees, or 37 degrees, whichever you prefer, but whichever way you look at it, it was not a good temperature to wake up to. Everything was pointing in the direction of going solo, playing the game on her own for awhile, or at least until she was in a regular habit of giving herself priority, giving more attention to her own creative pursuits, and less time to the futile attempts to keep group projects going. She supposed for a moment that making a start whilst hot, tired, discouraged and confused was not the most ideal mood for a start, but at least it was a start. She wasn’t even entirely sure what it was she was actually starting, but suspected that it didn’t much matter, in the grand scheme (or lack thereof) of things.
She’d had a moment of inspiration when she started reading a book. She’d only read a few pages and had no idea how the book would turn out, but the format was interesting. Julie had had an idea, simmering on a back burner for years, to write a book. It always seemed to want to be an autobiographical book, and that’s where she always came unstuck because she couldn’t see the point of that, not that she was overly concerned about whether anyone would want to read it or not, but she often came unstuck when she wondered about how all the characters in the book might feel about it, which is why that moment of inspiration in the bathroom the other day seemed like such a good idea.
She could write a book about a probability party, perhaps called ‘Probably Real’, (maybe with the subtitle ‘Probably Not’.) There would be an occasion, the details of which she hadn’t worked out yet, in which various (not all, she soon realized!) of her probable selves met ~ such as in the Atkinson book, in some quiet desolate place with no interruptions (obviously somewhere with no internet connection, although there was always the danger of picking up a freak broadband WiFi), where they had all the time in the world to tell their tales, compare notes as it were.
Which was where the fiction idea came in ~ of course! Just call it fiction! Would just one of the probable selves be telling the truth, relating the only true version of Julie’s life? And if so, which one was the real probable self? All the characters in the book would have probable selves and probable lives; which of them was the real probable self, the official version? No-one would ever know.
Of course, anyone versed in the metaphysical mechanics of probabilities and such would realize that all probable versions are real, at the same time as all being, in a certain sense, fiction ~ made up. The only question was, would that be too unlimiting to contain within the confines of one book, but time (so to speak) would tell.
Procrastination had set in, as usual, not that that is a bad thing, and things pretty much carried on as usual for a few days. Julie noticed the puppy tugging at a particular magazine from the bottom of the magazine rack over the course of those few days, and eventually the magazine was rather pointedly poking out from the bottom of the pile, it’s title clearly showing: a booklet on How To Write FICTION, with FICTION in big letters.
Never the less, the procrastination continued, although the clue was duly noted. It hadn’t been the first time a Writing A Book incident had occured.
It was easy, in this case, to remember that date, because it was right around the time of the 1999/2000 milenium party, right around the time when that particular roller coaster had derailed. While unpacking the boxes of books and putting them on the shelves of yet another rented house ~ a particularly garish and tasteless monstrosity, a drug baron’s dream of unfunctional largeness with hideous coloured glass windows (it’s the sheer randomness of the colours that’s so awful, G had remarked) ~ a book flew off the shelf, quite literally, and landed alone in the middle of the floor some distance away from the bookshelf.
Becoming A Writer was the name of the book, and the funny thing was that she had been thinking of writing a book but didn’t know where to start, and had been toying with the idea of buying a book on writing a book. So she read the book and started writing, a little bit every day, following the books advice to just start writing, even if it’s just ‘I can’t think of what to write’. There was plenty to write about as it turned out, but circumstances changed, another sudden move of house ensued, another rollercoaster ride, and the writing stopped for awhile.
But back to the book, Becoming A Writer. For a long time, Julie had no recollection of buying that book, and wondered by what magic had it appeared at her feet. Many years later she perhaps would have simply accepted the magic, and would have known that she created the book in that moment. But at the time she didn’t, and in due course constructed a memory of buying the book some years previously at a car boot sale somewhere along the coast road.
(We did buy the book, piped up PSJ2, and I actually read it, unlike you, as soon as I bought it. My 5th book is about to be published, a lightweight comedy/detective series about the Costa del Crime)
PSJ2’s interjection reminded PSJ1 (Good grief, we’ll have to think of a solution to the probable self names, she noted) that she had in fact started writing a book about the Costa del Crime, called Peregrino’s, or perhaps that was the name she’d given to the bar, the central hub, of the book. Of course, that was in the days when bars had been her central hub; she doubted very much if she would choose a bar as the central hub of a book now. She hadn’t got very far with the book, and had burned it when PSA1 got busted, just in case. What to do first, bury the (probable, it must be remembered) pump action shotgun, or burn the book. She had buried the gun, under cover of darkness, in the back garden, wrapping it in plastic bags and blankets, making it look for all the world like the body of a dead child. It was dark, it was raining, and there weren’t many neighbours out there in the orange groves, and she could do no more than hope for the best that she hadn’t been seen.
No doubt there was a probable self who did choose to create being seen, but if so she hadn’t arrived at the probability party (yet, at any rate) with her tale.
That it had been a major probability junction was certain. Not just the gun burying incident, which had turned out to be no more than merely incidental, but the events leading up to it.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“Any idea what this is all about?” Beattie asked, to nobody in particular. A crowd was gathering at the crossroad.
The crossroad reminded Bea of a movie she’d watched some years previously, called, coincidentally enough, Crossroads. A symbolic sort of place, although real enough, a junction seemingly in the middle of nowhere. There was a large oak tree looming above the intersection, but nothing else could be seen in any direction but endless expanses of fields. There was a wooden signpost, the old fashioned kind, with two slats of wood pinned crosswise in the middle to a leaning post, but the place names had long since weathered away.
It was an odd sort of place and not much traffic passed by. In fact, the only traffic to pass by the crossroad stopped and disengorged itself of passengers..
“Is that a word, Bea?” asked Leonora. “Disengorged?”
“Don’t butt in to the narrative part Leo, or the story won’t make any sense.” hisssed Beattie, “Wait until you’re supposed to speak as one of the characters.”
“Well alright, but I don’t suppose it will have much effect on the making sense aspect, either way. Do continue.”
To say it was a motley crew gathering would be an understatement.
“You got that right,” Leonora said, sotto voce, surupticiously scanning the assortment of individuals alighting from the rather nautical looking yellow cab. Bea glared at Leo. “I suppose I’ll have to include your interrupions as a part of the story now.”
“Good thinking, Batman!”
“Oh for Pete’s sake, Leo, don’t go mad with endless pointless remarks then, ok? Or I will delete you altogether, and that will be the end of it.”
“You can’t delete me. I exist as a character, therefore I am.”
“You might have a nasty accident though and slide off the page,” Bea replied warningly.
“Why don’t you just get on with it, Bea? Might shut me up, you never know…”. Leo smirked and put her ridiculously large sunglasses on, despite the swirling fog..
“Oh I thought it was sunny” said Leonora, taking her sunglasses back off again. “You hadn’t mentioned weather.” She put her sunglasses back on again anyway, the better to secretly examine the others assembled at the crossroads.
“Why don’t you go and introduce yourself to them and see if anyone knows why we’re here, Leo, while I get on with the story.”
“Who will write what they say, though?”
“I’ll add it later, just bugger off and see if anyone knows who sent us that mysterious invitation.”
“Right Ho, sport, I’m on the bobbins and lace case” replied Leo. Bea shuddered a bit at the mixture of identities bleeding through Leonora’s persona. “Och aye the noo!”
Dear god, thought Beattie, I wish I’d never started this.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
The word flounder popped into Yolands head, and for want of the inspiration to do anything meaningful, or even useful, she googled flounder. She was astonished to find so many varieties of flounder, and recognized that she was counterparting with quite a number of them.
There was the Crosseyed flounder that she felt an affinity for, at the end of an evening of trying to sort out her photos; Alcock’s narrow-body righteye flounder, which was what she felt like in a bed full of male dogs every night, and she could relate to the Antarctic armless flounder when she couldn’t keep track of the Antarctic thread. Barfin flounder reminded her of the green icon and her friend Finn; Bigmouth flounder ~ Yoland sighed, she definitely felt a connection to that often enough. Blotched flounder, well that sounded a bit like botched ~ there were many occasions when Yoland felt that everything she did was botched, half done and messy. Chain-mail wide-eyed flounder when she dabbled a bit in past lives, and the Disc flounder when she got her music in a muddle. The Dark flounders were the worst, when everything seemed to take on the tone of a horror movie, but they were often followed by a Deep flounder, which sometimes contained a few insights, more often than not promptly forgotten.
Yoland sighed. Imagine counterparting with just about every flounder known to man! She decided she wasn’t the only one counterparting the European flounder, which was a releif, nor was she the only one counterparting the Fantail flounder, although at least it could be said that she wasn’t a complete fan of anyone in particular, dead or alive, she was a fantail of quite a number. There were long spells of resonating with the Finless flounder; Finn was always disappearing, or so it seemed to Yoland. Very rarely she felt an alignment with God’s flounder, thankfuly she wasn’t often prone to dwelling on God things.
Ah, the Gray flounder, yes she’d had a bit of a flounder when Gray sent all those photos of the Beltane Dance, she’d had a flounder for sure in amongst all those. Looking back though, she’d had fun with the mummy and Ella Tindale in the Gulf flounder…
Yoland had to laugh when she came across the Intermediate flounder. Yoland wondered if the majority of her foundering was counterparting with the Intermediate flounder and decided she was probably too intermediate to work it out objectively anyway. She often had a tussle with the Large tooth flounder, lordy, she was always floundering with dental issues. And the Largescale flounder, that really was the biggest ongoing flounder of them all, the sheer vastness of everything.
Every now and again, less than previously though, Yoland had a Melbourne flounder on Saturday nights, and rather enjoyed it, but not as much as she enjoyed a good old New Zealand flounder.
Another flounder Yoland always enjoyed was an Olive wide-eyed flounder, roaming around the ancient olive trees of Andalucia, wide eyed and awestruck with the beauty and history of the place. She also enjoyed a Peruvian flounder on occasion, too ~ she’d even had a dream recently about floundering around by the mysterious doorway of Amaru Muru. The next night she’d had a River flounder, dreaming of the river in the Grand Canyon.
Sand flounders were the best of all though, Yoland recalled many happy flounderings in the world of sand and all its Subulmantium configurations. The trouble with the sand flounder was that it often morphed into the largescale flounder, and got quite out of hand.
Yoland sighed, it had been ages since she’d felt connected to the Seven pelvic ray flounder, what with Dan working nights. She was beginning to feel like a Shelf flounder. However, at least thanks to her new diet of replacing meals with flans, chocolate mousses and ice cream, she was closely aligning now with the Slender flounder.
The ongoing slug issue with the cat food was obviously because she was still strongly aligned with the Slime flounder. Notwithstanding, Yoland was rather pleased to note that despite her morose and petulant mood this morning, it had to be said that she often counterparted with the Smooth flounder; although that was easy to forget in moments of quiet desperation when the floundering got out of proportion.
Smiling, Yoland remembered the dream of feet touching when she noticed there was a Sole flounder too. And how often the Spotted flounder popped up, she was always spotting clues. Well spotted! she would tell herself. Oh, and the Stone flounder, wasn’t that the truth! Yoland was aligning strongly with that lately, smoking more than ever, somehow striving for either inspiration, or perhaps oblivion.
Oh well, I guess this is just a Summer flounder, it will pass, Yoland decided (who was secretly glad that she was nearing the end of the list of flounder names). And sure enough, the next on the list was the Three spotted flounder, surely a good sign! A probability change perhaps! As if to validate Yolands impression, she noticed the Tile-colored righteye flounder. There was even a Warthog flounder, which seemed to ring a bell with a recent entry to the Reality Play.
Best of all was the Windowpane flounder, Yoland felt she would even go so far as to say that this was her new focus animal. Well, she thought, if I am making this all up, I can make that up too!
Thankfully Yoland reached the end of the flounder list, rather pleased that it had ended on such an amusing and encouraging note.
Being closely aligned with flounders wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“Well, it’s a fiction, she could be anywhere. That and if you stopped changing the facts and names for a moment, you’d be able to knit them together into new understandings.”
Charmille was knitting while answering to impatient young Becky who for all of the birds’ chatter in the apartment couldn’t really concentrate on her schoolwork, and had only one thought in mind (more insistent than the fleeting thousands other ones that is): she wanted to go outside immerse herself in the helter skelter of New York City.
“And why should I care!” Becky was about to start another tirade of self-righteous indignation at the failure to recognize her brilliance when she stopped herself in her tracks. She was suddenly amazed at the intricacy of the pattern Charmille was creating with two simple sticks and the many colourful threads in her black and white box. That was an art in itself, and Becky wasn’t impervious to art, quite the contrary. She could spot art in the slightest and singlest stroke of graffiti on the walls of the City. She could even see them dancing endless farandoles in front of her eyes. She was perhaps the only one she knew who was able to see that, but what her aunt was doing was very much like it.
Sometimes, she’d had people laugh at her when she was younger. She was telling them about her vivid dreams, that she’d spent hours in one dream looking at a single napkin, how soft it was, how superbly almost real it was —even if that was just a dream napkin— while, according to others, she could have done more “lofty” things instead —like go and see ascended masters.“But I like movement! I don’t want to be stuck in slimy facts!”
“Well dear, you should know that… wherever you are, there you are. Even if wherever is elsewhere.”The cryptic statement made by the poised lady somehow struck a cord. She wanted to disguise facts into fictions, or fiction as facts, but any way she was going, she was still struggling with herself, the essence at her core. It didn’t matter if she wanted to have the needle jump to another loop (and get out of that particular loop) because it was all part of the same cloth she was creating. It suddenly gave her much to ponder…
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Jorick and Gybrielle were quite proud of their early attempt at building artificial intelligence by sampling data from a variety of sources on the web.
Their first model codenamed ‘Gustav’ was far from perfect, yet they had managed to sell the prototype to a wealthy firm and had gathered from it not only a fair amount of money to pursue their research, but also a substantial experience in making organized consciousness emerge from an inorganic and seemingly inert body.
Of course, at that time, they didn’t know that their research would fare a lot more than just a few battery robots used to spread watermelons on every home in a futile attempt.Their next project was codenamed “Jobrid”, an obvious hybrid blend of their names, but also of their personalities. They were feeding it an enormous amount of data, which was made so easy by current technology. The experiment seemed to exceed their expectations, and even if the “Jobrid” was experiencing some occasional “blink-out”, its consciousness was gradually starting to organize itself.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Speaking of sex? Lavender’s ears perked up. Oh X! He was speaking of X. Now SHE was mishearing … or mis-mindreading to be more accurate. Pity, sex sounded more interesting than all this X business. She did wish Harvey wouldn’t call her Lavy, for obvious reasons, she would have thought. No wonder in the 6 years they had been friends she hadn’t told him her name.
Speaking of names … do you think Essence is a good name for a pig? she asked, hoping to get Harvey off the rather boring subject of procrastination. She would speak of X later, maybe … if she had time.
Maybe I should let Aspidistra name the pig?
Harvey wasn’t paying attention. He was balancing the waiter on his nose.
You know I might have to go through the portal if the bridge to Asgard has crumbled, Lavender mused, to no-one in particular.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
The fact of the matter, if indeed there was a such a thing as a fact, was that Elizabeth needed to sort out her probable selves. They were constantly overlapping and it was causing a great deal of confusion. She decided to reinvent herself completely, starting with a new name.
She sat quietly chain smoking as she pondered possible names.
‘Just choose a short one this time, one that’s easy to write. It really doesn’t matter what name you choose, but in the interests of ease, just make it short.’
Ann sat quietly chainsmoking, wondering where to start.
‘Perhaps you should go back to bed’.
Ann sighed, feeling tired and disillusioned at the unexpected changes. It felt like too much effort to start afresh, as if the disruptions and changes everywhere were permeating her own private sanctuary, and stray random thoughts now had no easy path towards release, that they would be bogged down and hampered with new details, and new explanations.
‘You don’t have to write anything.’
But there was so much to say!
‘Try listening instead’.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
The two roses of Jericho had almost completely dried up, furled again into a tight ball exhaling a slightly pungent odor.
Yurick was impressed by the genius of this plant, which could die and “resurrect” countless times, while spending most of its time in this dried up state, only waiting for some water to revive it.
Perhaps essence was a Rose of Jericho too; he meant his wider self, he could feel it springing from the moisture of new prospects and challenges, then slowly crawling back to a state of balance. These last past days were a sort of clearing of the rest of the waters of the year. Things were looking a bit shriveled on the outside, but you could feel life and impetus was there, if only dormant…
Funnily, these two didn’t have any names, unlike Sha and Glo the aerial plants, which were still kind of resting on an empty beige egg carton upon the white toilets in the bathroom, where light, moisture (and aerial nutrients) surely never failed to float around.
It was funny, he thought all of a sudden; looks like the little hairy plants are travelers upon a big iceberg… What a funny story this would make.So, the roses didn’t have names… If they were essences of roses, what would be their focuses?
Well, what was imagination telling him? He could easily imagine them as sort of strange mummies who would dry up into balls of dried flesh and sinews and being revived sometimes during the flood seasons. Actually with the news of Venice (and next Rome) being flooded if there were some old mummies suddenly revived from old times and prolonged lyophilization, that could be a place to start. Well, they probably would have a hard time coping with all the changes and the pace of this time.
Alabama or Louisiana would be fun places to have some too… Funny mummies…In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
“Godfrey, don’t say I didn’t warn you! Have you seen today’s random quote?” Elizabeth said with increasing alarm. “Finnley! Put another log on that fire! And please put that bloody magpie outside!”
Finnley mumbled something about job description as she shuffled over to the log basket, and then Elizabeth could have sworn she heard her mutter something about basket cases, but she wasn’t quite sure.
“It’s a funny thing, you know Finnley” Elizabeth said “But yesterday Dan asked Dory if she remembered the ‘Fuck Wits’, those lads that came to visit them years ago, and not only that, yesterday I was thinking about the storm crew and I couldn’t for the life of me remember their names.”
“The Not-So-Random Daily Quote they should call it, eh, Liz” replied the good natured Finnley. “Oh by the way, I’d like shorter hours and more pay.”
“Of course dear, take whatever you like,” replied Elizabeth generously, “But be sure and take that magpie with you.”
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Becky sipped her coffee nervously, chain-smoking as she waited for Al and Sam to return from the crystal shopping excursion. She wasn’t sure if Al would approve of yet more characters in the Reality Play with so many loose threads already, all getting tangled up and dusty like so many balls of wool under the bed. Like dust bunnies, Becky thought with a chuckle. It was funny how the play had so many different moods, almost as if it had a life of its own. Well, I suppose the play itself is a sort of focus of attention in its own right, a conglomeration of the energies of a variety of essences, creating its own reality from its own perspective. But wait a minute, thought Becky, lighting up another cigarette, how is that different from me, for that matter? I am a conglomeration of the energies of fragmented essences creating my own reality from my own perspective too. Does that make me nothing more than a Reality Play —or, does that make the play a Focus of Essences?
The line of thought was giving Becky a bit of a headache so she flicked through Al’s latest entries. Clever old Al had been tapping into his Spreal focus when he came up with those silly names, funny how it often worked out like that. A nonsense word here, a bit of gibberish there, none of it meaningless, and none of it meaning anything absolute, either. The secret of life, Becky decided, was in Not being Afraid Of Nonsense. People were so afraid of Nonsense, as if to be caught speaking Nonsense was a heinous crime, or at best a severe handicap, possibly resulting in some form of custody or social alienation. All you had to do was find other people who resonated with your own version of Nonsense, which happened automatically anyway vibrationally. There are thousands variations of Nonsense, and none of them make any more sense than any other, thanks to the Equality In Nonsense underground movement a few decades ago. Equality In Nonsense was started by a group of online friends a few years after the Ministry Of Common Sense had disbanded through lack of interest. It caught on quickly, making a mockery of common sense, which went underground, a few die-hards hanging on with grim faced tedium to the old tenets. Over the years, as the Acceptance Of Nonsense Rights was established, the Equality In Nonsense brigade disbanded to get down to the business of creating new variations of Nonsense, just for fun —which was of course, The Point. Nevertheless, or should I say, notwithstanding, Becky smiled, there still remained a degree of common sense in the general populace, which possibly wasn’t altogether a bad thing.
It all got a in a bit of a muddle for awhile, until some enterprising folks published the handy guide books ‘Cooperation Within Nonsense ~ How To Communicate In Your Chosen Nonsense’, and ‘Accepting Total Nonsense ~ How To Deal With The Nonsense Of Others’.
“Roots” exclaimed Elizabeth “I forgot the theme word!”
“No doubt you’ll come up with an ingenioos way to slide it in, Liz” replied Godfrey with a smirk. “Pass the poonuts.”A disgruntled Elizabeth rewrote:
“Rats!” I forgot the theme word!”
Unfortunately, Pig Littleton insisted on using the OOh dimension vernacular, and Elizabeth tutted and hit send.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Yann woke up puzzled by his dreams. He’d been walking in the street of a big odd city… an oddicity? He giggled in himself. Yurick was still sleeping and he didn’t want to wake him up.
In that oddiCity, there were many people but as he could feel in his dream they were not necessarily interacting with each others directly, and strangely it seemed that the different individuals were not necessarily at the same time though he could clearly see them in the same place.
He was wondering as some people were waving at him… did he know them? As far as he could tell, they weren’t triggering any memory of individuals he had met in his waking life. Some of them seemed somewhat familiar but he couldn’t put a name on their faces. When he was feeling like it he would wave back at them but most of the time he would simply ignore them. No consequences.
At some point In his dream, he’d ended up in a big park, very calm and soothing. He could see some people smiling and laughing, and the sound of their laughs was not intrusive, it was merely part of the environment like the birds chirping.
He remembered having seen 3 fountains… when he found the second one, he thought he took a wrong turn and was back at the first one, but a closer look let him notice a few definite differences, and it was more obvious with the third one. Though the designs were similar, the water in each of these fountains was behaving quite differently. In the first one, the water was acting just like he was expecting from water: springing from a pipe, from the bottom up and coming down according to the laws of physics. In the second one, it was as if water was magically condensing from somewhere above the surface of the pond and falling down like the rain. Quite beautiful and very hypnotic… no cloud above. The third one could seem a bit chaotic at first glance, but the movements were quite harmonious too and Yann could fathom some kind of rhythm or interactions going on. He couldn’t clearly see where the water was coming from, and he didn’t have the occasion to examine it as his attention was caught by a voices coming from a gathering of people nearby.
He found them in a clearing; some people were sitting in front of what appeared to be puzzle pieces. The shapes were quite different from the ones he’d been accustomed to, but it didn’t seem weird at the moment. A man was standing and walking among the others, giving them information and directions on how to manipulate the different pieces.
As Yann was approaching closer, he noticed that Yurick… no it was Quintin… it seemed he hadn’t called himself Yurick yet… well he was there too and he seemed quite puzzled and engrossed by what he had in front of him. He only had 2 pieces, but it seemed quite difficult to make them fit together.
As Yann was about to call his friend, the man began to talk to him.“Hello. Do you want to try by yourself?..”
Yann felt something was not as it should have been… it was as if the man was talking to him, and at the same time continuing with his explanations to the other people. And as he was staring at Yann, waiting for an answer, his attention was also focused on his students going on and on with some endless instructions on how it all functioned and what was the proper use of the pieces…
“You’re new in this area, I never saw you here before, though you seem familiar…”
That’s when he woke up, puzzled. A bit sad that he’d left the enchantment of the park, but relieved that he wouldn’t have to listen to all the babbling of the man. What was his name again? It had been lost in the huge amount of words, not clearly separated from the names of the tiles or the names of the other students.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
“You tempestuous fool” Becky cried and slapped Gayesh soundly across the face. “Don’t give me those unspoken looks!”
Gayesh sighed. “Ah, the infinite pleasure I had in mind is naught but an elusive dream.”
Elizabeth read the last two lines she’d been working on to her publisher, Godfrey Pig-Littleton.
Godfrey snorted. “Elizabeth, really! You jest, I hope.”
“Well, I was just trying to fit each of the four themes into one chapter, they all seemed to fit together so easily” Elizabeth replied. “Why not? Tempestuous, Elusive Dreams, Unspoken Looks, and Pleasure”
“You seemed to have fit them all into two sentences, never mind a chapter. And your characters sound like characters in a play.”
“Well they are characters in a play, Godfrey” replied Elizabeth.
“Ham actors, that’s what I meant. Anyway, Liz” Pig-Littleton said with a slightly mischievous grin, “What if Gayesh doesn’t want his face slapped by Becky?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if Becky doesn’t want to slap Gayesh?”
“Well, she will if I write it into the play, surely!” Elizabeth started to frown. She knew that once she invented her characters that they continued to exist in a reality of their own, being free to create their own realities in whatever probable dimension they found themselves in, but she had never really stopped to think about the ramifications of her continuing to write incidents into their lives.
“Maybe Becky has moved on from where you left her last time you wrote about her, in a completely different direction” Godfrey continued “And maybe she doesn’t want to play along with your theme word game. I mean really, is it fair to make her? Maybe she was having more fun doing whatever it was she was doing while you weren’t even thinking about what she should do. Quite rude really to interrupt her just so that you could do your word theme games. Bit of a cheek, I’d say.”
“Oh Godfrey, that’s easily explained” Elizabeth had remembered Probabilities, which was always a handy excuse in continuity disputes. “Another probable character will do what I write for them to do, there are probably hundreds of probable characters now, all going in different directions.”
“Is that wise? Really Elizabeth, that sounds outrageously irresponsible. Hundreds of probable characters running amok, and you have absolutely no idea what they’re all getting up to.”
“Well they’re not my responsibility Godfrey, for heavens sake!”
“Well if they’re not your responsibility, then who’s responsible for them?”
“Nobody is responsible for them!”
“Well that sounds like a recipe for chaos if you ask me” Godfrey said with a sniff. “You’ve unleashed hundreds of probable Becky’s into reality, not to mention Leo’s and Bea’s….”
“And Pig-Littleton’s” Elizabeth interjected under her breath.
“… and Sanso’s and Dory’s” Godfrey, who hadn’t heard Elizabeth, continued to reel off the characters names. “I mean how big do you think reality is? The rate you’re filling it up with probable characters there’ll be no space left!”
Elizabeth started to laugh. “Oh Godfrey, you’re a case. Ahahah! They don’t take up any space at all! Anyway, Godfrey” Elizabeth turned back to her notepad. “Listen to the latest chapter and tell me what you think:
“You tempestuous fool” Becky cried and slapped Gayesh soundly across the face. “Don’t give me those unspoken looks!”
Gayesh sighed. “Ah, the infinite pleasure I had in mind is naught but an elusive dream.”
Godfrey Pig-Littleton was impressed. “Elizabeth, how perfectly you incorporated the four themes into one brilliantly short chapter”
Elizabeth closed her notebook with a satisfied smile and yawned. Let them all do whatever the bloody hell they all want to, I’m off to bed. Plenty of probable characters available in the morning, waiting in the wings.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Dory was often reminding herself (and anyone within hearing or blogging distance in the process) of one of her favourite catch-phrases: what you are looking for is probably right under your nose.
It seemed of particular relevance these days, Yurick was noticing, for a variety of reasons.First, his glasses needed some dusting… He’d have to finish that monologue later then.
What was he about then? Yes. The tillandsias near the window. Last week-end, they’d been to a crystal store with Yann, and mildly interested by crystals, Yurick had been wondering loudly at the heaps of strange plants in the middle of the paraphernalia of rocks, shells and starfishes. The store owner had proceeded to explain those were aerial plants, known for gathering the elements of their sustenance out of the air.
The curiosity would probably have ended with those quick answers, had the guy not not given them on an impulse two little specimens just when they were about to go with Yann’s newly acquired amethysts.
Cute. New plants to interact with. Yurick had to say he preferred plants to rocks. Yann for his part had found them funny names. “Sha” for the witchy hairy one, and “Glo” for the pineapple-looking one. Why not…
The tilland… Well, “Sha” and “Glo” (you had to give credit to Yann for granting the reader a good respite from long unpleasant names) had been there in the bathroom for a few days, and only now had Yurick found some interest in investigating more about them.
The capacity they had to live apparently without any strings attached was very appealing to him, and it was like a symbol of focusing on one’s own vitality, and finding the means to live out of that elusive “new energy”; of not feeding off something outside of self.Now, he was finding even more interesting facts; a picture that Yann had taken of a blooming plant recently was of the same genus of plants, and it reminded Yurick of plants which had fascinated him in a botanical garden, that were also from this species.
Interestingly, he found out that the plants were named after a Finnish botanist (Elias Tillandz )… He couldn’t help but notice the similarities with another focus of his: Elias Lönnrot.The string of clues suddenly filling up the previously empty corridors of his mind were sparkling a renewed interest for focus hunting.
In reply to: Pictures Pool
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
“Pffftt” said Bea. “Lost the bloody connection again.” She turned on the TV instead. She had been researching on the internet the three names that she had woken up mumbling ~ Gabor, Sindy and Swinde ~ and had just found something promising about interdimensional federations when the line went dead. Actually, the three names and the woman behind the desk in her dream had reminded her a bit of Oversoul 7.
“Honestly, this bloody country! It’s like the dark ages” she muttered under her breath.
Bea flicked through the news channels: sports on one, that boring election on another, more hurricanes on another channel……Bea paused her surfing when she saw the watermelon on a documentary channel. There was a pile of watermelons, and the narrator was explaining how the chimpanzees were sharing the watermelons with each other.
Well what a coincidence! Bea thought, that’s a watermelon AND an ape sync. It must be a clue. HHmmm, sharing the watermelons…..
And just think, if the line hadn’t gone dead at that very moment, that precise moment, I wouldn’t have turned on the TV, and I wouldn’t have seen the apes and the watermelons.
Bea was momentarily speechless as she contemplated the perfect timing of everything. She was mesmerized and awestruck at the sheer vast intricacy of it all. Whoever is planning and organizing this incredible reality play I find myself in is nothing short of a genius, she thought, and went to wake up Leonora so that she could share the marvellous moment of revelation with her.
“Oh for god’s sake Bea, you woke me bloody up to tell me that? Bugger off you rude tart” Leo replied crossly when Bea woke her and told her all about the astonishing coincidence. “Things like that are happening all the bloody time, or haven’t you noticed? That’s just Everyday Magic, for Flove’s sake, now piss off and let me get some sleep”
But Bea had a feeling that this was much more than just Everyday Magic. This felt like something else, something incomprehensibly huge and wonderful. Not that Everyday Magic isn’t incomprehensibly huge and wonderful too, she reminded herself.
Maybe is WAS “just” Everyday Magic after all….
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
The Chief Minister of the Oddlings sat behind her desk, smiling at her new protege.
“Well then, T57, you’re ready to start. Who have you been assigned to?” she asked.
“Gabor, Sindy and Swinde” replied T57 promptly. She wasn’t quite sure who these characters were, but the names popped into her head strongly at that moment, and if she’d learned anything at the Ministry, it was to trust whatever popped into her head.
“Gabor, Sindy and Swinde!” exclaimed the Chief Minister. “Why, they’re mine!”. She rummaged through the files on her desk. T57 assigned to three from her own batch! This was going to be interesting!
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
The rugrats have names you know Tina, she said, more to herself than to the benefit of anyone else.
And hell if I remember what they are now…Oh thank Flove for that! Bless him, he may be a sandwich short of a picnic lately but at least he keeps track of the names, exclaimed Becky gratefully, as she checked the latest additions to the Reality Play. Al had conveniently added a link to the triplets names.
Illana, Lean, and Oliver…Illana, Lean and Oliver….Becky repeated their names like a mantra, trying to etch them into her memory.
Question is though, which is which? They all look the bloody same!
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Sure aliens… Why not aliens? Becky said with a funny maniac laughter that sent chills through Tina’s back.
After all, we’ve been talking to dead people for so long, we’ve forgotten all about alien lives… I want to believe!Well, Tina shrugged in complete abandon, I suppose that would not be your last eccentricity after all… But now that Al starts to believe such utter nonsense is beyond my understanding. I think I need to get more sleep too.
See you tomorrow, and have fun with your rugrats darling pooh… she said with a sugary smile while closing the videoconf window.Phew… Becky sighed, with an anxious side glance at the silent cradles that may not stay silent much longer.
The rugrats have names you know Tina, she said, more to herself than to the benefit of anyone else.
And hell if I remember what they are now…In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Orgetak was fond of taking a crocodile as an animal essence.
He was coming from a fragmentation of some big names of Essence Land, and he shared many connections with lots of other “essences siblings”. In that moment, he was having fun observing Rafaela… though he was having a weird sense of wanting to merge more thoroughly with her… perhaps that crocodile disguise was cloaking his judgment… He wasn’t too sure.He had focused recently, to catch up with one of Rafaela’s own focuses, a rather famous one, whose genetic pool was a magical blend which would be spread in many new enticing physical probabilities. In a haste, despite of no time by which to measure it, he had created himself a past of an Sri Lankan geneticist named Dr. Gayesh Sitharaya, whose interest (or intent) dwelt in exploring the multiplicity of one individual’s aspects…
— What’s the catch then?
— What do you mean Al?
— Oh, come on Tinipooh, you know there’s always a catch… Surely Becky mentioned that on the phone…
— Ahaha, are we speaking of the same Becky?
— Well, why would that guy help her anyway. And I’m not really sure having another her on the loose is of any help for that matter
Sounds more like a world domination plan to me… 
— Well, you know Becky, always blissfully jumping in the stream, even if it’s full of piranhas. It’s good she even thought of giving us a call…
— Yeah, too bad our thought reading techniques seem to get less and less reliable these days…
