Search Results for 'nobody'

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  • #3556
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      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.

      #3552
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        Corrie:

        “Why have you locked your door, Aunt Idle?” I asked, after waiting rather a long time for her to open it. She looked a bit flushed, so I looked around to see if she had another feller in there but she didn’t, not unless he was hiding in the closet. She didn’t usually hide her lovers from us though, and anyway, I had more important things on my mind.

        Mater’s still missing and it’s been dark for an hour already, what should we do?”

        Aunt Idle just stared at me with her mouth open and didn’t say anything.

        “We can’t just go to bed, what if something’s happened to her? Nobody even knows where she went!”

        Mater’s missing, is that what you’re telling me?” she asked, just as if it was the first she’d heard about it. “Have you checked her room? Did she leave a note or a clue or anything? For heaven’s sake, Corrie, why on earth didn’t you tell me sooner! Go and fetch Prune, well wake her up then!” she added as I protested that she’d gone to bed ages ago. “Prune always seems to know things. And where’s Bert? Has he seen her?”

        “I’m trying to tell you, Auntie, that nobody knows!”

        #3550
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          Corrie:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

          Sighing, I refocused on the article.

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

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

          #3539

          Aunt Idle:

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

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

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

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

          “Bloody hell, not you as well!”

          #3526
          TracyTracy
          Participant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            “Good one, Clove!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            #3514
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              “You know what, Godfrey? I could just happily populate imaginary towns and then leave them all to get on with it, you know what I mean? I could call myself The Populator. My George, I think I’ve found my forte.”
              “Well, you are known for an unbridled passion for introducing new characters that nobody understands, Liz.
              “Exactly!” she replied happily.

              #3503
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                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.

                #114
                prUneprUne
                Participant

                  I never could stand the sight of it. For as long as I remember, which is no more than 6 years, admittedly, the odd-looking fish had been preserved and placed above the fake stucco fireplace. It’s been here for much longer, though. You can tell by the thickness of the dust covering it. My friend Bert, that old chap, told me so.
                  He has told me many other stories about the town, about my family, and their glorious past. It could just have been no more than stories, but I believe him —for no reason, really. Maybe only because my sisters find him slightly creepy and old. Anyway, I like him.

                  In his stories, the fish had fallen many years ago from the sky. There had been rain this summer day, which was, in itself, even less believable than some oddly shaped flying fish falling from the sky. And that fish had fallen in front of what was the private mansion of the Curara family. Our ancestor found it, and decided to take it as a sign of the Almighty that they would be blessed with abundance forever after… But then, everything went downside with fantastic speed. The gold rush stopped in its tracks, the town slowly got deserted, and since then, our family started to believe that it was more a curse than a blessing. However, nobody ever bothered to get rid of the fish that once flew.

                  Maybe they were waiting for another one to appear to break the string of unfortunate events. I always think of all the amusing ways I could get rid of it without anybody noticing. April’s fools wouldn’t do… Too easy. But having it served at dinner would be a start. Sadly, with Aunt Idle’s poor cooking skills, there was no chance a fish could come unnoticed.

                  So it was on that particular day when I’d found and written down on my secret diary a 222nd way of getting rid of the fish, it was on that particular and fateful day, that everything changed again for the Curara family.

                  #3502
                  F LoveF Love
                  Participant

                    In this first comment I will try and collate the information from our discussions. It will be quite rough and may not be accurate as we were just brainstorming.

                    You might like to use it as a resource to start comments for each character.

                    Intents:
                    FP: how not to be detached, as opposed to detaching
                    EP : Importance, tradition, transmission, life and death
                    TP : playful spontaneity
                    JP : I need to explore a strong base, something you can count on in your life and that will nourrish and support you

                    Starting point : a family member has gone missing / disappearance / mysterious inheritance
                    Someone turns up with a letter about mysterious inheritance?
                    That someone is in cold terms with the family and has been for years.
                    Strong possibility of a ghost. male. tied up with the inheritance mystery. Ghost is either assisting or hindering the search for the mysterious inheritance.
                    Location : Australia small town. Possibly called Crowshollow. Mining town
                    Family run a Bed and Breakfast called the Flying Fish Inn. There is room for 5 guests at any one time but it is never full. The family are short of money. Tendency in the family to develop unconventional powers, possibly witchy stuff.

                    MacGuffin (is this the family surname??) Oh no wait, on further study I see it is a reference to the inheritance. It could be the family surname though. they need one.
                    A man is riding on a train when a second gentleman gets on and sits down across from him. The first man notices the second is holding an oddly shaped package.
                    “What is that?” the first man asks.
                    “A MacGuffin, a tool used to hunt lions in the Scottish highlands.”
                    “But there are no lions in the Scottish highlands,” says the first man.
                    “Well then,” says the other, “That’s no MacGuffin”.

                    Family members : boy twins from jib, a girl from Eric, a matriach granny, twin girls 17, aunt Idle, father ? mother ?ghost?

                    mother and father have both gone missing at some stage?. Mother is called Absinthia apparently.

                    Tracy: The female twins are called Clove and Corrie. twins born in 2000 for easy reference, so if its concurent timeframe they are 14. Clove is frustrated with ghost town life, and is uncooperative and moody, has violent bursts of anger, but can be very focused when something attracts her interest. Does not take kindly to criticism.

                    Corrie on the other hand is the one who will acqueisce to keep the peace, which doesnt always do herself a favour, she often agrees to things just to be pleasing and then regrets it.
                    They are interested in boys, although it may be an online crush or an infatuation with a character not present. I bet they do all kind of mischiefs to elude the chaperoning of the not-so-cleveraunt.
                    Clove resent the parents absence, Corrie tried to buffer that resentment but is filled with curiosity about them

                    Eric: (Prune??) the young girl is bored, because her parents were always arguing, and she’s so smart nobody ever gets her, and she felt abandoned by her careless mother the most, so she builds that facade of carelessness. Prune is bored by the inheritance but interested by the tramp.

                    Tracy: Aunt Idle. Paternal Aunt. Aunt never married but many relationships
                    born 1970. she is very tall and thin and is prematurely grey which she wears in dreadlocks

                    #3484

                    “What? You don’t have a plan?” Terry, Consuela and Maurana let escape a small cry of despair.

                    It was a bit difficult to guess where Sadie was, with the invisibility and everything dark around. At least, they had found out that when she held one of Terry’s fluorite crystals, she would glow very faintly under UV light.

                    “Well, no.” Sadie said, not making an effort to lower her voice. After all, why should she, she was invisible. Or just faintly glowing. “I just wanted to check on you guys, and maybe enjoy the view a little, I guess.”

                    “That’s so unfair!” The Queens were really outraged. Sadie should have been appalled by the treatments of the Anna Purrna, and if anything, should have already planned a thousand pranks she could have easily pulled off with her invisibility cloaking.

                    “I’m sorry to break it to you guys, but I know at least one of you just turned 20, and the others are not so far behind. You’re not going to be teens for all of your life. Time for you to grow a beard, well, a real one Consuela, if you know what I mean….” Sadie was getting emotional. “Nobody else than you can fix your own problems!”

                    In the darkness, under the eerie purple pinkish black light, tears could be seen glistening faintly.

                    #3441

                    Dark clouds had gathered in the sky, the temperature had dropped of several degrees, making the breeze feel colder. The group had been walking for hours in the bog toward the elusive temple. With the darkness of the clouds, its mirage had begun to fade away. Greenie had said they’d better stop when the image was gone because they could become lost.

                    They had managed to make a wet campfire, and were trying to get warmth from the fleeting flames.
                    “I had a strange dream last night”, said George to Arona who was sitting next to him.
                    She smiled politely, not sure she wanted to hear about the winged man dreams. She considered standing up and being rude.
                    “I was a teenager”, he continued, wrapping himself into his wings.
                    Arona rolled her eyes inwardly, looking around for help. Mandrake was sleeping under her cape.
                    “An island appeared one day on the coast, people thought it was an ancient magic island and feared to approach it. It was visible only for a couple of days. It was such a weird dream.”
                    “Maybe you should write it down”, said Arona.
                    “Oh! Probably not, if the P’hope gets hold of it, I have the feeling it’s not in my interest.” He grinned like a kid. “Anyway, I knew in the dream that the island was still there, it was still reachable. So one day I took my father’s boat. It was a small boat, not made to go too far from the coastline. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. I went into the mist, completely trusting I would find this island that everybody feared. It was rising tide, and I had to fight the current pushing me to the shore. I think it’s a dream who brought me there, a dream of a girl calling me in a garden. George
                    “Is that all?” asked Arona after a moment of silence from George.
                    “Yes, it’s most certainly a silly dream, I’ve lived in Karmalott my entire life.”
                    “You’ll have to work on your dream telling, pal”, said Mandrake, “the punchline is missing.”

                    Nobody noticed how the flames of the fire were dancing into the green girl’s eyes.

                    #3415
                    Jib
                    Participant

                      Consuela has been sneaking out, hoping nobody would notice. And by nobody, she meant that fat short drag of a tyrant. Since the arrival of the dwarf queen, their life has been like hell. She’ve made them scrub the floor several times a day, butt tight and high; she’ve made them move the furniture around, and put it back into place. And with all that they also had to keep on with their usual duties, the fat dancers, the bar and St Germain’s show.

                      “Kittie, kittie, kittie” The voice of the dwarf seemed ominous.
                      Oh! Shit, thought Cedric, I didn’t even have time to call mum. He tried to hide behind the bins but it was too late.
                      “Ah! Little kittie, I found you.” The voice was sweet as a Grannie’s voice, but the face could compete in the category of the evil clowns.

                      #3399

                      About a week ago, in the reserved section of the Storehouse of Exoteric Artefacts of Karmalott, Obax Winken was pondering in silence for the last hours over the nature of one of them.

                      Any artefacts found down there, in the Fog Abyss, was tightly controlled by the P’hope. Nobody wanted an alien object to unbalance the delicate structure of mass beliefs by prematurely introducing abrupt changes coming from visitors, stranded travellers of other times and realities.
                      Obax, as an erudite versed in interpreting the meaning of these objects, was entrusted with the classification and gauging of the danger that those objects could cause to the belief construct.
                      If an object was deemed troublesome, it would be tentatively destroyed, or if that failed, stored in the forbidden section. But in most cases, objects left by travellers would disintegrate if just a thought projection, and those objects that came with them usually didn’t pose much threat.

                      The one he was looking at looked like a strange mask, designed to be blown. He believed it was a cursed horn and couldn’t decide if it was in the interest of science to shelf it with its cursed energy, or remove the curse and release it to the masses for them to enjoy a swimming revolution…

                      “Lucius!” he called to his assistant. He was a bit deaf in one ear. LOGSBOTTOM! he called again.
                      “How would you call that strange trunk-like apparatus?”

                      #3398
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        ““It’s going to rain” is an anagram!” Lucius announced, although nobody was listening. The others were all in various stages of taking their clothes off, although Lucius wasn’t sure why.
                        “It’s an anagram for Start Bog Snorkeling” he revealed proudly, looking around for approval. Nobody noticed.

                        #3383

                        Lisa was lost in thought during the hours that they spent in the waiting room of the Processing Department. Among the many things she pondered was the nature of their beliefs that had landed them in this situation, the energy they were projecting, and the ramifications of the reflection. She was intrigued with the letter that Sanso had read out to them upon their arrival ~ underground cities had long been a particular fascination. What had been the circumstances leading to so many ancient underground cities being constructed? Nobody knew for sure, but it seemed to Lisa that they had been a means of escaping the surface. But why? Was it because of climate catastrophe, or some other disaster rendering the surface dangerous or inhospitable? Or had it been situations of siege, or hostile populations on the surface? Or had it been merely a curiosity to explore living in a different environment? An idea suddenly occurred to Lisa that she had been judging life on the surface of the planet as the ideal right way to live, the most preferable option, and life below ground as a second rate choice for survival purposes, but perhaps there were unimagined benefits to living below the ground.

                        Lisa’s meandering thoughts led her back to the summer of 2014, when the seige situation in Gaza had exploded as the population of the shifting world addressed restriction and shielding energy, creating an amplified imagery at one of the main coordination points. Interconnection was coming on strong, like never before, and individuals the world over, struggling with their own self imposed boundaries, sought for release en masse and joined together to support and encourage each other.

                        It had been an exhilarating time, but also a frustrating one. Interpretations of the words and messages of perceived authorities became mass beliefs, and for a time the restrictions increased. Those adhering to traditional authorities repeated the party lines, and the so called “new agers”, rooting for change but at the same time terrified of it, and in no small measure, terrified of other people and different cultures, created new mass beliefs based on their old fears. The strongest new age belief was a translation of channeled advice, construed from the vague “focus on the positive” to mean “ignore anything you can’t bear to acknowledge”. Rather than accept differences, initially masses of well meaning individuals criticized anyone endeavouring to acknowledge and accept the global situation, and pushed their advice to ignore the horrors, for fear that they would unwillingly bring anything unpleasant to their own attention. It was ironic to Lisa that the ones advocating not to judge, were the ones that judged her the most for her actions, and the activists judged her far less, while not advocating less judgement at all.

                        #3382

                        The three travelers were not the kind of people to limit themselves to safety and comfort ~ indeed if they had been, Lisa would have stayed in the village, never having met Fanella who would have stayed in Versailles, who never would have met Ivan who would have stayed in Russia. They all had an underlying courage and sense of adventure to be on the island at all. They were not, however, inherently stupid. As they approached the great walls of Gazalbion, they became uneasy. It looked more like a vast open air prison than a welcoming city.
                        “I’m not sure about this” Lisa whispered to the others, “Once we’re inside there, how will we get out? It might be a trap.”
                        “But you’re always saying we create our own reality Lisa, how can anyone else trap us?”
                        asked Fanella.
                        “We create being trapped as a reflection of restricting ourselves, that’s how it works. It’s not always black and white. And it’s not always easy to resolve that in a demanding and unsettling situation. It would behoove us to proceed with caution.”
                        “That doesn’t sound right Lisa, that doesn’t sound like trust, and you’re always telling us that trust is the key.”
                        “And space” added Ivan, “Space is a key, too.”
                        “Yeah but what does that mean exactly anyway?”
                        “Fucked if I know” replied Ivan.

                        Lazuli Galore noticed the hesitation of the travelers, and decided to change tactics. They were only a few hundred meters from the entrance to Gazalbion, and it was starting to look as if the new arrivals would not enter willingly. He dispensed with the elephant form, exploding it into a pack of grey wolves which circled behind the travelers, and chased them into the city.

                        “Olution! Olution!” the crowd chanted, for there was always a crowd gathered at the gate to witness new arrivals. “Olution! Olution!”
                        Nobody actually knew what the word Olution meant, but they had seen it on tv so many times that they simply repeated it, and the more people that repeated it, the more the frenzy grew.
                        “Olution! Olution!” the crowd screamed and Lisa, Fanella and Ivan were surrounded by the people, thousands of them, all covered in colourless grey cement dust, even their hair and faces were a ghastly dusty grey.
                        “Now we’re in trouble,” Lisa remarked grimly.

                        #3362
                        Jib
                        Participant

                          The bellboy, whose name was Kevinlol, as Linda Pol had found out thanks to her e-zapper, had led the Queen of drags to the fifth floor.

                          The short trip down with the main elevator had been most interesting. It was designed to look like a richly decorated wooden door opening to the temple of games. The usual mirror on the walls of the cabin had been replaced by a huge screen which showed hosts or hostesses in sumptuous attires welcoming you like Ulysses sirens. Nobody coming out of the elevator, you were fully submerged by promising images of luxury and endless pleasures, endless wins. Looking at the blush on the customers faces and their fidgeting, it seemed to work well.
                          The use of Feng Shui seems to have evolved through time, she thought amused, from simple well being philosophy to overt mental and emotional manipulation.

                          A particular scent, she had already smelled in Las Vegas, made her realized that there were also chemicals released to create in anticipation that fleeting euphoria people would desperately try to recreate through the excitement of the games. Knowing it, could help you stay centered, but her heartbeat became faster and she felt the compulsion to get more, she realized it was hard to resist the temptation.

                          When the doors actually opened to the second floor below earth, more than half the contingent of people got out towards the casino. The sirens were here to drag you down with their smiles. Linda Pol looked at the customers, they were more than willingly sucked into the gaming world of cards and chips, ready to open their pockets and their souls to the conniving croupier.
                          Beware of the number you choose, she thought, the bank may not like them.

                          A quick look at Kevinlol showed he was totally oblivious to the sirens. His poker face was as smooth and young as ever, his pupils looked normal, and his skin tone hadn’t changed despite the chemicals.
                          Robot? She couldn’t help the thought.
                          The third floor was restaurants and bars, huge spiraling automatic stairs seemed to connect it directly with the casino, certainly to help people find their way up when they were finished refueling. The dozing effect of digestion was certainly good for business.

                          Then they arrived at the fifth floor. She wondered briefly what had happened to the first and fourth floors. But the doors opened to another kind of sirens, her attention shifted completely, more surely than any substance could have done. It was the kind of butts she couldn’t resist, promising firmness and endurance, set into a Imperio Dareme pair of jeans. Linda Pol had always thought that braces had the same effect on a man’s butt as a wonderbra on a woman’s breast. She blushed like a young girl discovering boys were interested in her mythical virginity.

                          The butt turned around and, mother f*ck*r, the face was gorgeous. Two days beard on a square jaw, the adventurer.

                          #3340

                          I’ve been such a fool! Running away like that! Fanella admonished herself, biting her nails and pacing up and down in her room. I wasn’t paying attention! I should have stayed with that funny man, now I feel sure he would have taken me to that island in 2121 if I had just been patient instead of running off like that!
                          Fanella heard a man laughing, and spun around, but there was nobody there. Dear god, I’m hearing things now, she thought.
                          “I’m coming to get you, you daft bint, just hang on and don’t go anywhere!” Sanso told her via telepathic means. “We have a few other calls to make as well, but I will come and fetch you first, even if I have to use every shoehorning trick in the book. Now stop sniveling and I suggest you dress appropriately.”
                          Fanella started sobbing, unsure whether it was relief or apprehension.
                          “There, there,” Sanso said kindly. “You have a good cry, it will do you good.”

                          #3332

                          The bell rang twice. Nobody was giving any sign of opening, until a lanky lad came at the door to open it, in long slow dragging strides on the carpeted floor.

                          “We’re here for the audition” an excited face pressed on the glass door, staining it with purple lipsticky marks.

                          The lad discreetly rolled his eyes, looked right and left, as if checking for some unseen danger, then released the magnetic lock. It was stuck, so he gave a yank and the door flung open, almost propelling the woman, and a child inside.

                          “This way” the lad showed them, guiding them in unnerving slow motion towards a room on the higher floor of the loft. A dozen of people were already waiting here. The lad showed them the ticket dispenser, and the child with the woman understood before her they had to pick one. 39.

                          The woman brushed the hair of the child compulsively and fought against invisible specks of dust on his coat, before they would sit.

                          “Twenty two.”
                          “Twenty. Two.”

                          At the seat next to them, a child raised from his place, his mother pushing him towards the voice. This was as far as she could go with him.

                          After the child had disappeared in the next room, the purple lipstick woman leaned towards the lonely mother and started to talk to her in brisk hushed voice.
                          “You must be so proud… I’m proud too.”
                          Noticing reproaching looks from the others, she lowered her voice more.
                          “I was so excited when I heard about it… So many years and now. Imagine that, my son could become his disciple, imagine, his one and only disciple in years…”

                          The other woman, who’d been patiently hearing the other one’s cackling suddenly turned red and replied in a voice that bore the certainty of a death sentence:
                          “Oh, but make no mistake M’am, I have nothing against your son, but no one will beat my Paul to it.”

                          #3325

                          “You call that a contract…” Reginald and his two friends, to varying degrees, managed to keep queenly looks in their royal blue dungarees. “I call that being royally fucked…”

                          “Oh shut up and mop!” Cedric had become the most sullen and despondent about the whole thing, and would only reply by short sentences.

                          Amar was the most philosophical about the whole situation “Let’s see it that way, cleaning up the Time Sewers isn’t so bad; they’re no longer in use, we ain’t got nobody on our backs,… the pay isn’t fabulous, but we are!”

                          “Nobody heard about Linda? or Sadie?” Amar’s question was interrupted by a call on Cedric’s phone. His mother again.

                          When he hung up, Amar resumed his litany of questions and monologue, as an excuse for not mopping around. “Still haven’t told your mum, hmmm?”

                          Cedric ignored the last question “No, I haven’t heard about Linda Fucking Pol, or Sadie. Bitches.”

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