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In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
Betty Bloo wasn’t at all happy about her pigmentation, it was much too dark a blue ~ almost navy blue, or perhaps not quite that dark ~ more of a French navy blue, which was going to cause her no end of trouble. A delicate sky blue was what she wanted, even a slightly darker robins egg blue would have been acceptable, but French navy? Oh, brother! That sucked! Everyone knew it was much easier for a refugee alien with a pale blue colour. Dark blue was absolutely fatal ~ often literally.
Betty wondered how many others in the latest batch were as darkly tinted as she was, and looked around the holding camp apprehensively. Huddled in nervous groups at the far end of the room were the darkest midnight and Prussian blue skins (she particularly noticed the tall elegant indigo fellow and made a mental note to make his acquaintance later); in the middle of the room various men in shades of cobalt and turquoise milled around, chatting with the teal and cornflower blue girls, but what caught Betty’s eye was the colours of the newbies spilling out from the pigmentation chamber.
Some of them were such a pale blue they were almost grey: delicate powder blue and baby blue, the palest aqua and faded periwinkle. It almost seemed as if the later ones were a result of the pigment running out. She realized that she must have been one of the first to be created. Surely that gave her some seniority? A superior position in the blue hierarchy? Did blue alien refugees have a system of hierarchy at all, she wondered?
Well, she said to herself grimly, squaring her darkest blue shoulders. We are about to find out. Blue lives matter!
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
After a night of restless sleep, Eb’s practical ideas for the plan B were not much.
He’d weighted multiple options, even toyed with mad ones like playing a sort of second coming, 3 days of night and so… but none had yet the potential to elegantly solve the issue at hand. Not that it was a matter of being elegant, but Eb liked elegant and simple solutions.
He flipped the calendar to today’s picture. Run away, and don’t look back it said. “Great… If only…” he started to mumbled to himself.
He poured himself a drink, and dragged his feet towards the console, eyes still swollen by the lack of sleep. His brother, Jeb, would have told him to do some wegong energxices to keep the juices flowing, but hell, there wasn’t much room in his cubicle, and for better or worse, he preferred to stick to booze.
He liked to observe his ant farm, there were so many quaint and endlessly fascinating people in there. He liked the girl with the piglet for instance. She was often opinionated and sometimes oddly quiet. He had bent the rules for her, and didn’t report the piggy she’d brought to Mars with her. What harm could it bring.
Now she was talking to it. He waved at the console to zoom in and put the speakers on.Remember, those odd stories Mater used to tell us. The Peaslanders and the blubbits was one of her favourites, she would go on and on about it, and laugh at our faces when we didn’t understand where it was going…
She was lost in thoughts for a moment.
It started like this “There was trouble in New Peasland. A plague of hungry blubbits had wiped out the pea crops.” Mater used to say it was from an old book of tales, and that the author had surpassed herself. She chuckled I guess for a long time, she was the only one to believe that. Now look at us…”Eb cut the sound before the inevitable complain about missing Earth blahblah. But Peasland? That was new… He wasn’t one to dismiss an out-of-the-blue clue, and did a quick research on the network to learn more about the tale. It took a while for the Central Intelligence to run the search. It had to go deeper than usual.
After half an hour of waiting, he’d almost run out of scotch. Thankfully, the CI had found it. Pressed by time, and impatient by nature, Eb asked the CI to do a quick summary of the plot.
The central intelligence almost bugged at the request, and could only apologize for not being able to degibberize it.It took him a few hours to read the book on the holographic screen, and at the end, couldn’t say if it was just a waste of time. Preposterous story, with no head nor tail, literally… But then his genius elegant solution appeared as an evidence.
He’d known people were more likely to comply and control if they are told a plausible lie, within the frame of their accepted reality. He just had to bridge the discontinuity of their reality, with the reality of everyone else on the planet. The tale had reminded him of this popular movie about blue aliens. Blueus ex machina, that was it!
He spoke at the console “Record this and run simulation parameters:”
The blue men are from another planet —or rather the Mars settlers are led to believe they are from another planet.
They bundle them all into a fake spaceship
and take them on a fake spaceship ride
and deliver them back to Earth. where they have been all along of course
da dah!The answer came back after another painful hour of scotch-less waiting.
“Probability of success: 68%”
Well, that was the best Eb had in days. He was about to go with it when the CI chimed in“We took the liberty of running a modified simulation based on your setting, which we believe can yield a ratio of 97% of success.”
Eb was surprised at the initiative by the machine, and was curious to hear about it.
“We adjusted two points:
1. We can simulate some event on Mars like earthquakes to increase the likelihood of a willing departure from the planet.
2. The blue aliens may be a future inconvenience if they are fake actors, when the Mars colony comes out of simulation and back to Earth. We would rather suggest using religious beliefs and invisible hand of God or non-corporal aliens.”Eb was annoyed by the machine’s dismissal of his blue aliens. Kill his darlings?
“CI, any other suggestion for point 2?” he asked.
“Indeed. We can create artificial intelligence blue bodies based on my algorithm, which would make convincing aliens that can later interact with your governments and continue the disinformation.”
Eb was too drunk to realize he was about to make a devil’s pact when he agreed to launch the secret order for cybernetic blue bodies.
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
The Matrimandir was empty at this time of night, deserted by the occasional late devotees, and only silently browsed by the maintenance robot.
Its exterior was shaped as a sphere covered in gold — well, not entirely yet. It was first built to be the heart of the future city, and to this date, partly a work in progress, half-coated with the gold foils of discarded satellites and other space craps.
The interior was rather large now, and air conditioned, though it was probably smaller and hotter in the past — John never had the curiosity to look at the archives, he’d known it like this since he was a child. It was meant to be a sacred place, or a place of simple beauty, which was odd, when you thought about it.
All around them was infinite space, boundless opportunities to connect to the great mysteries beyond, and quite frankly, this was often scary as hell. Maybe that’s what this place meant, a safe retreat, like a bubble with only a thin wall of soap dividing space between here and out there, but open for the world to see.He’d brought another batch of water-stones, and opened the hatch below the meditation altar. When he jumped the last rug of the ladder, his boots landed in a splatch of water. Something had changed. The rate at which the stones were exuding water had increased. He would have to move them again after the next commercial shuttle departure. He couldn’t risk the Consortium getting notice of this… Not yet, not before they figured out what it meant.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
It was going to be a long hot summer. Summer this year started early, and we were barely half way through July. I hadn’t had a moment to think, which isn’t true at all ~ my brain had been non stop chuntering since the end of April, but all the thinking was about errands and other peoples problems and trips to the bloody airport or the detention centre to pick up more waifs and strays. What I mean is, I hadn’t had any time to STOP thinking and just listen, or just BE. Or to put it more accurately, I hadn’t made much time for me. It had been an endless juggle, wanting to be helpful with all the refugees ~ of course I didn’t mind helping! ~ it wasn’t that I minded helping, it was the energy and the constant stream of complications, things going wrong, the complaining and defensive energy. It was a job to buffer it all and stay on an even keel, to ensure everyone had what they needed, but without acquiescing to the never ending needy attention seeking. It was hard to say no, even if saying no helped people become more confident and capable ~ it was always a mental battle not to feel unhelpful. Saying no to ones own comfort is always so much easier.
What I found I missed the most was doing things my own way, in my own time. How I wish I had appreciated being able to do that before all the refugees arrived! I’d wanted more people to do things with, living in this remote outpost ~ thought how nice it would be to have more friends here to do things with. Fun things though, not all the trips to the supermarket, the bank, the pharmacy, all the tedious errands. And in summer too! I like to minimize the errands in summer so I’m not worn out with the heat to do the fun things like go for early morning walks. But this lot didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning, and they weren’t really up to much walking either. I’ve been hobbled, having to walk slower, and not walk far. It had interfered somehow with my photography too, I haven’t been much in the zone these days, that place of observant appreciation. Ah well, it was interesting. Things are always interesting.
Not many countries had been willing to accept the hundreds of thousands of refugees from USA, and small wonder, but our idiotic government had been bribed to take more than a fair quota. All of the deserted empty buildings in town had been assigned to the newcomers, and all of our empty rooms at the hotel too.
Mater hardly ever came out of her room, and when she did venture out, it was only to poke them with her walking stick and wind them up with rude remarks. Prune seemed to be enjoying it though, playing practical jokes on them and deliberately misinforming them of local customs. Corrie and Clove were working on an anthropology paper about it all ~ that was a good thing and quite helpful at times. When the complaining and needs got overwhelming, I’d send them off to interview the people about it, which took the brunt off me, at least temporarily. Bert was a good old stick, just doing what needed to be done without letting it all get to him, but he didn’t want to talk about it or hear me complaining about it all.
“Aint much point in complaining about all the complaining” was all he’d say, and he had a point.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Well, here we all are again!” Liz beamed, after a momentary pause in which she considered snorting. Not finding that snorting was consistent with her mood, notwithstanding the sparkle in the air of anticipated unexpected impishness, she beamed, and beamed again as she looked around the room.
No one spoke. There was a sense of suspended animation for a few moments, or was it longer? A bit like holding ones breath while easing into a hot bath. Or perhaps not a hot bath, thought Liz, delicately mopping the sweat dripping down her cleavage with a paper towel.
“Finnley, have you seen my reading glasses anywhere?” Liz asked on impulse.
Finnley’s sunny beam shifted as she rolled her eyes and replied, “I saw them in a dustbin on Brighton Pier.”
“My god, it’s started already!” Godfrey exclaimed, although he wasn’t at all surpised. “ Have you seen the new dragon tree in the park?”
In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions
Geraldine von Truff, also known as Gelly by her friends was sweating profusely and had opened all the windows to get air.
“Fracken hot flashes” she said, taking a wet towel to freshen up. It was barely start of spring, and the temperatures were doing yoyo in the most peculiar fashion.She logged onto Spayce to check if her next client was there. Maybe she’ll put him on audio, because at the rate she was undressing, he would wonder whether he’d signed on the right account. After all, she was a licenced psychoregressor and helped her clients connect to their subconscious in hypnotic trances. This was all very serious.
Actually, to be honest, she was quite baffled by the crock of bollocks the subconscious was telling at times, but hell, it was cathartic for her clients, and their well-being was her utmost priority.
“James? Are you here?”
James was her client from Glasgow, an affable middle-aged man, who seemed to have taken to her robotic German accent and her hypnoregressive sessions.“Yes, Doctor” the sound came in all distorted. “Is it normal I don’t have visual?”
“Ja, alles ist gut my friend, the internet is playing tricks today. Let’s have it just audio, OK?”
“Alright then.”
“I think our session today will be splendid. I already feel all the energies building up.”Topic: Mandala of Ascensions
The stardome was pretty this time of now.
Many galactic federations have their bases on those far away spheres.
Theirs was a bright city hovering in the mental realms over Ascension Island, right in the middle of the South Atlantic.Ascended Master Medlik (alt. short for Melchizedek) expected his students to come soon for the first class.
His teachings were known, but needed practical experiences to further the study group’s abilities. They needed to learn to balance Compassion with Wisdom, in this new higher vibration.Getting the bigger picture was sometimes unnerving for the new recruits, they wanted to jump right in, back to the turmoil of the lower vibrations, to “help” their earthling souls in need of guidance. But it would be breaking the sacred Law of Free Will. Wisdom had to balance Compassion, and Knowledge only wasn’t Wisdom.
He could already feel some of the new ones would be tough. Lady Master Blather, had done great on the Hematite and Amber ray, channelling ancient wisdom of the Old through the famed earthling known as Madam Blataski. But her ever growing desire to right wrongs always went in the way of her higher callings. That, and her indulgence in higher blissdom.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
When you get to the “bottom” of the barrel, and “life” seems tedious and ho hum, and like a hamster you go “round” and round, it’s time to make a comment out of the word cloud. Elizabeth felt that she had “opened” the floodgates and the “water” of unfettered garbling was “heard” for miles, or even light years. The new “project” to “ride” the package holiday trip to galaxies unknown, open to “queens”, commoners, and all and sundry, although not necessarily “parents”, was a mixed “bag” of “lost” marbles and elusive memories. You must position “yourself” in the “middle” of the story, notwithstanding the pre ordained itinery, which “usually”, although not always, creates an “abalone” type random insertion which one endeavours to have the “strength” and fortitude to decipher, despite the “fucking” configurations of the puzzle. One should always aim to place oneself “above” the puzzle, so to speak, in order to familiarize “himself” (or herself, or indeed, itself) with the wider picture. Failing that, one might choose to “sit” the next one out.
In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
under information says although hands hair
dido wait sitting impression busy raft stones
let wild giant rolling picture told young goneIn reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Perhaps everyone thought that the baby belonged to one of the tourists that were gathered around the shrine, either holding their phones up to snap pictures, or gazing down at the screens in rapt concentration. The baby scanned the crowd, aware enough on some level to know there was a purpose, that being handed about here and there was a necessary part of the story and that the one who was meant to come, would come.
Night fell, and nobody came. The gates to the shrine were closed and locked by the night watchman, who was too engrossed in his phone screen to notice the baby. The baby didn’t cry, despite huger, thirst and a very smelly nappy. When all was silent, and the last of the shrine staff had descended the hill, a doe approached the helpless bundle, blowing warm breath on the chilled little face. The gentle deer lay down beside the orphan, nudging it with her soft muzzle until it was enveloped next to her warm body.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t pleased to see her. Not that I don’t like her, I do, but she wreaks havoc whenever she gets one of those impulses to threadcrash. I prefer it when she stays put, and we communicate via the written word, I really do. And today of all days, with a car full of people ~ and a baby!
I asked Finly to take care of the baby, and the twins to look after the old couple, and took Liz by the elbow and steered her firmly into the dining room, and shut the door behind me.
“Don’t tell me, let me guess!” she said. “It was Miss Scarlett with a candelabra in the dining room?”
Had she barged in on the wrong story? I had to do some quick thinking, because if she was in the wrong place, it would be an easy matter to simply redirect her. There may be no need for more direct forceful measures.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Elizabeth suddenly felt overwhelmed with loving kindness, and hugged everyone. “I am so sorry I’m a sourpuss at times, I love you all.”
While everyone was speechless, she continued: “This is indeed a trying and difficult season at times, despite our best efforts to eradicate it from our calendars. The social constructs of cheer and goodwill must never be confused with acquiescing to the pressures of the needy, if the needy resort to emotional blackmail and bullying. Indeed, it is a kindness to all concerned, not least ones own self, to refuse to kowtow simply because of the date on the calendar!”
“Hear! ……Hear!” said Norbert slowly.
“Blimey,” muttered Finnley, while Arona Haki whistled and said “Bloody heel!”
“Waaaahh wahhhha!” cried the cold baby shivering on the patio.
“Oh my god, the fucking baby!” Elizabeth shouted, leaping up and running outside, and accidentally tipping over the sherry bottle and the plate of mince pies.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Christmas has always been a strange tradition in our family.
Maybe because first and foremost, Christmas is all about family. Besides the twins and their bond, sometimes I wonder what makes us a family at all.
It doesn’t help that we can never get snow around this place, and dressing in red and white fluff is not going to make things suddenly magical.It was comical to see the exterminator come with a red bonnet, panting and all red himself, as if he were some genial Santa bringing gifts of death to our yonder’s rodents residents.
He didn’t catch a rat, but got himself a fright. Thanks to Mater, when she erupted in the attic in her white hanuka honey cream face-lifter mask. I think that sneaky Finly got to her in the end.
The mystery of the strange noises in the inn is not going soon, apparently.Bert and Aunt Idle got back from their trip in the evening. Apparently Bert had insisted to bring some sort of shrub to make a Christmas tree in the great hall (it’s not so great, but we call it that). Finly didn’t seem pleased too much with it. Raking leaves in summer, bringing pests inside… she didn’t have many kind things to say about it. So Mater sends her to cook a “festive dinner”, that’s what she said. I heard Finly mutter in her breath something about kiwi specials. I like kiwis. Hope she’ll make a pavlova… just, not with Mater’s face cream!
It seems that giving small gestures of appreciation got the mood going. Aunt Idle is always very good at decorating with the oddest or simplest of things, like rolls of TP. Sometimes she would draw nice hieroglyphs in the layer of dust on the cabinets, it gives the furniture a special look. Mater always says it’s because she’s too lazy to do some cleaning consistently, but I think it’s because cleaning is not creative enough for her. Can’t believe I just said nice things about Aunt Idle. Christmas spirit must be contagious.
Then, Devan came home with some pastries. It’s not often I see Devan these days, and usually he’s always brooding. I would too, if I had to come back home when I could just start my life away from there. Finly was all eyes on him all of a sudden. Seems nobody noticed, not even the twins, too busy being snarky while playing on their phones,… it looks like there is some strange game between these two, my brother and our Finly. I think Finly makes a lot of efforts to look younger with him, I can see when she fiddles with her hair. They would make good friends, and I’m sure Devan doesn’t mind the accent.
As always, it’s not about how pretty the tree is, or how good the food is, or how big the gifts are… It’s more about being together, for better or for worse. And Dad, and Mum are always out of this almost nice picture, but somehow, it matters less today.
There’s a good thing about that Christmas spirit. It gives you the weirdest ideas. To be nice, I asked Mater if we should invite the guests to our festive dinner, and probably lifted by the mood, she said yes, of course. When I went to the closed door to invite the guy, I thought a random act of kindnes is a perfect occasion to learn more about our mysterious resident stranger… Maybe that’s what the adults mean in church when they say you should always be kind to each other.
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
“So what’s around there to do?” Prune asked Maya at the welcome party.
She gauged the woman, who had an air of de facto authority, and seemed open and friendly with everyone. A bit too much to Prune’s tastes to be honest.“Whatever you feel like. It’s the magic of it. It’s all open, all up to us to build the world we want.”
“Sounds like a hell of a lot of work to do.” Prune snickered against her will.
“That’s the thing. It’s only work if your heart isn’t in it. For most of us, it’s our life’s purpose, and we quite enjoy it. Not to say there aren’t some days we’re tired of it…” Maya smiled, “but we make the best of it anyway.”Prune didn’t think of anything clever to retort, and didn’t want to look into all those years of resentment after her family for limiting her. Maybe her family was for nothing in it. The thought of it was terrifying.
Maya broke the uneasy silence with lightly compassion “And what brought you here? I mean, apart from the obvious… The real reason you took this harrowing trip to nowhere?”
Prune shrugged, and almost immediately started to giggle uncontrollably while catching her stomach. Stop it, stop it she whispered to her stomach.Maya smiled. “You should let it out. It’s been a while I haven’t seen one. They’re so cuddly and cute.”
Prune stopped speechless with surprise.
Maya laughed “The hair on your clothes is a bit of a giveaway. Come on, don’t worry, the quarantine is pretty relaxed here.”Prune let the little guinea pig out of her jacket, and it squealed in delight. She let a smile open her face “It’s the last surviving one of my grandmother’s. I just couldn’t leave it…”
Maya rose from her formica chair, and took her arm. “Come, I’ll show you the crops. We have some fantastic kale, I’m sure it’ll love it.”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Finnley’s tirade stirred something in Godfrey.
He may not have completely given voice of the thought in his head, but it made him realize that the thought of quitting for something different had been here all along.
He liked Elizabeth well enough. To be honest, such caring for an ungrateful and volatile lady was borderline devotion, but still, it wasn’t about that.I wanted to change the world, and Elizabeth vision of greatness and madness alike was, for a time, something he could fall in line behind and support with passion.
Through visionary books, to open the minds of the pleb to the realms of possibilities, ah! no matter how deliciously delirious and quaint such possibilities seemed. That was a grand epic in budding.
And then, after so many years of relentless editing, copy-writing, and of course maid after maid interviews, all there was left? Unbridled madness and tyranny from the well of grandiose ideas that Elizabeth had been, and to some extent still, was.
In fact, Godfrey had stifled his own creativity by falling in line behind the writing giantess. There were timid attempts at writing his own story, and only piles of old notebook to account for it.
Purpose, Truth, Action those were the magic words…
“Oh, bugger it Liz’. I quit.”
How’s that for action? Another thread would do me good. Like to see what life’s brewing on Mars.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Bert came with me. Usually one of us always stayed home to keep an eye on Mater and the kids, but now we had that capable girl, Finly, to keep an eye on things.
It was good to get away from the place for a few hours, and head off on a different route to the usual shopping and errand trips. The nearest sizable town was in the opposite direction; it was years since I’d been to Ninetown. I asked Bert about the place on the other side of the river, what was it that intrigued him so. I’ll be honest, I wondered if he was losing his marbles when he said it was the medieval ruins over there.
“Don’t be daft, Bert, how can there be medieval ruins over there?” I asked.
“I didn’t say they were medieval, Idle, I said that’s what they looked like,” he replied.
“But …but history, Bert! There’s no history here of medieval towns! Who could have built it?”
“That’s why I found it so fucking interesting, but if it doesn’t fit the picture, nobody wants to hear anything about it!”
“Well I’m interested Bert. Yes, yes, I know I wasn’t interested before, but I am now.”
Bert grunted and lit a cigarette.
We stopped at a roadside restaurant just outside Ninetown for lunch. The midday heat was enervating, but inside the restaurant was a pleasant few degrees cooler. Bert wasn’t one for small talk, so I picked up a local paper to peruse while I ate my sandwich and Bert tucked into a greasy heap of chips and meat. I flicked through it without much interest in the mundane goings on of the town, that is, until I saw those names: Tattler, Trout and Trueman.
It was an article about a ghost town on the other side of Ninetown that had been bought up by a consortium of doctors. Apparently they’d acquired it for pennies as it had been completely deserted for decades, with the intention of developing it into an exclusive clinic.
“There’s something fishy about that!” I exclaimed, a bit too loudly. Several of the locals turned to look at me. I lowered my voice, not wanting to attract any more attention while I tried to make sense of it.
“Read this!” I passed the paper over the Bert.
“So what?” he asked. “Who cares?”
“Look!” I said, jabbing my finger on the names Tattler, Trout and Trueman. Bert looked puzzled, understandably enough. “Allow me to explain” I said, and I told him about the business card that Flora had left on the porch table.
“What does Flora have to do with this consortium of doctors? And what the hell is the point in setting up a clinic there, in the middle of nowhere?”
“That,” I replied, “Is the question!”
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Deep in thought, Devan didn’t notice Finly watching him from the end of the porch. As he clumped down the steps and made his way towards the clapped out banger that served as transport to work, she weighed him up, pausing for a moment with the window cleaning cloth poised in mid air.
He was young, but then, she liked them young. Virile, energetic, easily controlled. The rebellious ones were not so rebellious towards an older woman of experience in their bed. Not that she was all that much older than he was, but the difference in age was enough to create an air of experience. Finly liked to keep on top of things ~ both her cleaning duties, and her young men.
Nice ass, she said to herself, with a warm tingle of anticipation, rubbing the windows with renewed vigour. She licked her lips, smirking at her reflection in the glass, and then blew herself a kiss. A slight movement caught her eye. Prune bobbed her tongue out, and then disappeared from view.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
It was Mater who decided they needed to get some cleaning help. She commandeered Clove to do some research on the internet and eventually found a woman from New Zealand, Finly, who was offering her cleaning services in exchange for room and board.
“Bloody kiwis,” said Bert when he heard. “The place is riddled with them. Bloody come and take our jobs. Haven’t we got more than enough of them here already? I am having a hard enough time avoiding that Flora, going on about her spiritual bloody awakening.”
“If you can find anyone local who would be willing to do the cleaning in exchange for a place to stay, I will be glad to consider them,” retorted Mater sternly. “But in the meantime this place is fast becoming a pig-sty and Dido is too busy smoking and drinking to see it.”
Naturally Mater got her way and a few days later Bert, still grumbling, agreed to go and pick Finly up from the airport. Mater assembled the family in the main living room.
“Now remember, the main thing is to be courteous. God only knows why she agreed to come to this backwater of a place, but we don’t want to put her off.”
”Don’t we indeed?” smirked Aunt Idle.
“Yeah exactly, it is friggin’ weird I reckon. Why would she come here?” asked Clove, privately deciding she had better run a more thorough background check on Finly.
“I thought Finly was a boy’s name,” said Coriander. “That would be cool. A boy cleaner. I hope he’s hot. He can clean topless”
Aunt Idle, who had already been into the gin even though it wasn’t yet 10am, put her hand over her mouth and started to giggle.
“It can be a girl or a boy’s name and someone called Coriander is in no position to throw stones. And mind your language, Clove.” responded Mater tartly.
Clove rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “Well as long as she doesn’t try and boss me around, it might be quite fun to have a slave to clean up after me.”
Prune had been keeping an eye on the window. “Shush, she’s here!” she shouted excitedly.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Bert raised an eyebrow at Elizabeth’s obvious sarcasm, which unfortunately caught her eye and put him in the spotlight of her penetrating gaze.
“How about you Bert? Were you listening?” she asked, raising an eyebrow of her own to match Berts.
Finnly, always on the lookout for an opportunity to out do Liz, raised both of her eyebrows simultaneously; then looked quickly down, pretending to examine her nails.
Bert decided that in this case honestly was the best policy and replied “No. I was wondering if Prune had cleaned up the blood spattered corridor.”
While Liz was momentarily speechless, Finnley quickly interjected another line from the book she had hidden under the table.
“Then why did none of us hear the blood crazed howl?”
“Ah! Aha! I’ll tell you why nobody heard the blood crazed howl!” Elizabeth had become alarmingly animated, leaning forward and rapping sharply on the table with her cigarette lighter. “The walls of isolation that surround you, the windows you keep closed and shuttered for fear of a draft of passion, the fences of barbed trotted out dogma you use as protection ~ but I ask you, protection from what?”
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
I wasn’t snooping, I swear, and I wasn’t looking for anything either, it just popped up on my side bar on Spacenook and caught my eye. I mean, the title was so peculiar it kind of stood out ~ “Martian Pig Pruning” ~ so I clicked on the link, thinking it might be a diverting Pythonesque parody of all the aliens and other dimensional vibrations bollocks that seemed to be the latest #trendingtrash to swamp the newsfeeds, because sometimes you just have to laugh and find the funny side.
