Daily Random Quote

  • Dory felt like a wet blanket. She’d overdosed on colours in the shawl and cape shop, and had to lie down in the back room. As she waited for the room to stop spinning, sprawled on a rather smelly old sofa that seemed more like a glukenitch bed than a sofa, she listened to various snatches of ... · ID #174 (continued)
    (next in 11h 37min…)

Latest Activity

Search Results for 'open'

Forums Search Search Results for 'open'

Viewing 20 results - 541 through 560 (of 725 total)
  • Author
    Search Results
  • #2209
    F LoveF Love
    Participant

      Ann Tattler groaned. Perhaps listening wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The latest novel was degenerating rapidly into trivial nonsense, in large part thanks to the collaborative writing efforts of her publisher, and the cleaner, Daisy. It was hard keeping quiet when confronted with such an outpouring of nonsensical rubbish.

      She wondered despondently whether even the erudite Eremurus Lemon would be able to help her this time. She opened his latest book, “How to Sing Like a Bird in Fifty Three Relatively Easy Lessons” at random.

      Take advantage of the Beast’s sleep to have some.

      Of course! Duh! How could she have doubted Lemon. Didn’t he always come through? She should be taking advantage of this time of silence! While her inner noisy beast was sleeping she should be having some.

      But some what?

      #2186

      “Speaking of infinite details,” said Björn who was watching a circus program with a muscular looking man who balancing his contortionist partner who was attempting to balance plants on her face.

      “What?” said Iris who was already dozing on the couch.

      “Sorry dear, I was just talking to myself, have nice dreams”, he said, stroking gently her freckled face.

      He continued in his head, slightly dozing off himself.

      “One two, one two. Testing the acoustics… Sounds good.”

      “Funny how these thoughts come in and out… It occurred to me something funny.”

      :fleuron:

      “Can you add a plush toy in your dream?”
      “Oh sure darling. What kind of?”
      “A baby aardvark”

      :fleuron:

      Björn wasn’t very comfortable yet, he started to toss and turn until he realized he was seated on Iris’ plush aardvark. He fondly placed the little soft thing in Iris’ arms and returned to his thoughts.

      “There, it’s inserted…”
      “Now, your reality can be viewed to some extent as the most complex, yet the most simple of assemblage. You may liken it if you will to a room with mirrors (*). Ancient Indian mystics have spoken of Indra’s net where droplets of waters are each reflecting all of the other ones; these are the same images.
      It is not new information to you, the fact that you are seeing your reflection in your world, or that it is a sort of illusion reflecting you, but this is not the point we want to highlight here.

      Consider that the room in which you are is reflected an infinite amount of times in every direction. In a sense, they are all the same. They are you. Now, we come to the interesting part. You may very well decide to explore the room next to you with its shining details, by going through one of these mirrors. Some individuals quite enjoy such explorations, they call it past or future or even probabilities, other dimensions etc. And by moving into the next room, it becomes their present.

      You now realize that you have not really moved, since all rooms reflect only you. And you may want to continue in the direction you are exploring and go into more rooms. It’s alright. But some individuals realize that all rooms are equivalent, and that from where you stand, you can view the point you wish to explore in one part of the mirrors reflections. This is being present. You shift your attention, and expand your vision of the tiny part, rather than moving towards it with great efforts.

      Now, when you are dreaming, the very nature of dreams is the same. It gives you a whole fractal hologram to ponder. You may get carried away by wanting to remember all the tiny details, because in doing so, what you are doing is simply opening rooms upon rooms upon rooms. And more details will be created for you! Or you can simply realize that the details are all contained within your feeling of being present, and standing in the middle of one of these rooms, and not one of them is more important than the next.

      Connect to your feeling, and all the natural movements of your explorations will be automagically connected. And we bid you a nice fractal dream exploration.”

      #2183

      When Aspidistra woke early the following morning she lay still in the darkness. Holding up her arm she used the faint golden glow her skin gave off to read the time on her bedside clock. 4.44 am!

      She remembered the advice Dick had given her when she shared her dream. Dear Dick, she had fully expected him to laugh at her foolish fancies.

      When you wake up in the morning, take a deep breath. Sing the song of joy that you are here! Dick Tator

      Feeling a little foolish she took a deep breath, opened her mouth wide and ….. out came a high pitched shriek.

      I sound more like a squawking magpie than a song bird, she thought disconsolately.

      Gloomily she switched on the television where a muscular looking man was attempting to balance an oven on his face.

      #2179

      The scene was recreated, the characters had not disappeared… They were only shifting.

      The cloud puffed words out:

      “mouse escape sort library getting silly
      finally play gloria added sometimes coon
      speak skull try mongoose open later read
      otherwise mad”

      Note to self: premature shifting can be traumatic.

      #97
      ÉricÉric
      Keymaster

        As we see some syncs about “ten” and “X”, it occurred to me that “X” is for “close” too.
        So closing the “Circle of Eights” thread sounded more and more like the thing to do.
        To me, to close is not the same as to end; like a program, you can re-run it later, or like a book reopen it. Stories can be inserted again; and for one, the Jorid explorations of Georges and Salome will continue too.

        It’s not a close down, it’s a close up; a new breath for inspiration, and a new breadth for ideas.

        X is closer than you think, but also a promise of a fresh start :)
        Feel free to dive in first :)

        Cheers,
        Your friendly Sumafreak

        #1285
        ÉricÉric
        Keymaster

          Naasir then exhaled slowly, until all in the cave was still.
          The End

          — “What?”
          — “That can’t be true?”

          The twins were outraged. The book couldn’t stop now, there was so much left they wanted to explore. Watermelons, mummies, secret islands… even aliens would be a fate better than a dreaded “END”!

          Lord Wrick smiled at them.
          “Dear ones, you knew all along that there was no third book, and that it would end at some point, didn’t you?”

          A stubborn silence greeted his deep raspy voice.

          He continued unfaltering “Let us see it another way. These stories are like a breath.
          You take breath without thinking of it. It feels good to have the air flow into your lungs and make you feel so full of life.
          But you know without even thinking when it’s time to release. You can try to hold the air indefinitely in your lungs, but soon it’ll become painful. The air is all around you, you can release the tiny fraction you think you hold without a worry. All you will have to do is breathe again.
          These books will change over time, they are not finished. They are only closed. You can open them again anytime, and reinvent them. I trust your imagination on that.”

          #1276
          Jib
          Participant

            Becky had to sneak out of the facility without Gayesh’s notice. He had been very protective of his favorite clone subject lately and she had been feeling a bit restrained in her movements.
            Sam’s invitation was a breath of fresh air, but she wouldn’t have admitted it openly.
            She knew perfectly that Sam wasn’t fooled by her hesitation but she had to play her role to the nails.

            She had asked him to come and get her in that spider cruiser she’d heard of once. It always had that funny feeling to her and secretly she had wished that one day…

            The technology used to manufacture that machine had evolved since the first prototype and now it was much faster and didn’t rely on oil. She’d heard that the trip from Le Havre to New-York was only 3 hours now. She wondered how much that would make from Colombo to the City.

            Well Sam told her to be on the Galle Face Colombo Beach at noon. She had a couple of hours to make some shopping. Some of the best free-shops of the city were in the vicinity. And she would need some special present as far as she had understood.

            #1275

            “Oh great!” Dory felt relieved when she saw Dan on the muddy yellow tractor coming up the hill.

            She’s been boulder-moving with the neighbours for hours now on Salitre, to remove the blocked entrance of what was believed to be an ancient opening to a cave, or better, a tunnel full of mysteries. And despite her unwavering enthusiasm, she started to show signs of tiredness.

            “Whose truck is that?” asked Dory to Dan who was grinning on top of the monster
            “The old folks at Juan’s pueblo; I figured out they got that tractor that hasn’t been used since Jose and Paquita inherited their millions and buggered off a while ago…”
            “Bless them!” sighed Dory in relief, reaching for another cup of the warming mulled wine that Leonora had been preparing for the Yule Boulder Party.

            #1273
            Jib
            Participant

              Hey Al!
              Al was surprised at the sudden surge of energy triggered by his friend Sam trying to establish contact. Apparently he was excited and he was sending his energy stronger than usual.

              Al opened himself to the communication and welcomed his friend. Imagining himself in this neutral room in another layer of their shared reality like some kind of meeting place.

              Have a seat :)
              Thanks Al, I won’t stay long but I wanted to invite you, Tina and Becky to a party that I organize in The City. I already tried to contact them, but Tina doesn’t respond much lately and I thought that you could ask her to come along. Becky was busy but answered that she would come and that only had to give you the details as she would have forgotten them anyway.

              Wow, wow, why don’t you just relax! I never saw you like that before…
              Well, I have something to celebrate, I’ll tell you more when you’re here.

              Sam vanished leaving a puzzled Al in the not so physical room.

              #1271
              Jib
              Participant

                Many people were gathered at the Soft Pool in the Garden of The Orientations.
                Some of them were sitting here still and smiling, their eyes closed and open to the different energies surrounding them. Some of them were standing others walking around and a few ones were running following seemingly random patterns. Their movements were the perfect match of the energy connections between each participant, physical and non physical.

                It was like a shining crystal, some rays of light/attention creating an instant connection and an instant energy exchange which need not be continuously maintained, many different connections were being created and were lasting as long as necessary, sometimes a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes, and others mere moments.

                His interactions fulfilled, Sam gathered his attention toward his new goal and he left the crowd at its game, the energy of the experience still present inside his energy field.

                #1247

                Finally, sailing on the Orgasmic Sea had not been as difficult as Akita would have thought .

                Occasionally, while they were sleeping on the deck under the starry sky, he could hear a few “Ahs” and “Ohs” (something even some “Oooh” as far as he recalled) coming from the three ladies, but perhaps that was only the effects of their feeling again their skin against the sheets, since all their hair had almost now gone.

                He was wondering if that was a special disposition of the Brits and people coming from the cold areas, that kind of bestial growing of hair, and shedding in spring… Could well be, as his Asian ancestors never had been accustomed to growing much hair themselves, he couldn’t tell for sure.

                Perhaps they were dreaming too… As soon as they had found out about this strange piece of tile, their imagination seemed to have taken to new heights. They were speaking of Spreal, an ancient civilization buried for 570,000 years under the ices, near the Onyx river and had almost manifested the strong desire to come back to investigate.

                Hopefully Kay had given him the perfect excuse to not comply with the sometimes erratic demands of the three Graces: the iceberg was slowly melting in the giant structure of plastic containing the freshwater from the berg, and the heat exchange was also giving the propellant for the trip. They probably wouldn’t be able to get away so easily if they backed-off now.
                Hopefully their shedding had finished to convince them. Any vague desire left to go to the frozen place was long gone with the comfortable hairy insulation.

                Akita had thought for a moment of going back to his homeland, in Arkansas. But now that probably most of his family was dead, or thinking him dead, there wouldn’t be much point in doing that. Instead, he’d decided to trust living in the present. Not worrying about that elusive past from another life, and only focus on what route was open to him now.
                Sharon, Gloria and Mavis were apparently not in a hurry to come back home either, and now that Kay was more and more easily accessible for him, he didn’t feel alone at all. So all was well.

                #1238
                ÉricÉric
                Keymaster

                  Alizabath Tittler took another draw on her fag of nicoback.
                  Passing her hand through her wild and matted hair, she noticed there were mare and mare bald patches hare and thare instead of her former lusciaas mane… and her ayes a tad blaadshat, but she trusted she was beautifaal.

                  Taking another slaarp off her glass of dark red clarat wine —her faarth? she had lost count…— she sighed remembering the gaad old days. Not that she missed her dazen of previaas hubbas, nah.

                  She was comfartable tonight. Orok the building manager, one had to concede it to him, had decided to heat the building earlier this year, due to the falling temperatures, and it was all very warm and cosy inside. Traath was, she barely wanted to get out of the building at all, having Fannley order Chaanese faad for her, under the pretaxt to fanish her next novel. But end was never nearly in sight.

                  Her pablisher, Brackel, was still asking her about her next manuscraapt, and Fannley, the claaning-lady of the office (she only figured out recently that she actually was a ‘she’) was thrawing suspiciaas laaks on her every time they met.

                  All in all, life laaked almost the same. Not the same without a Lemane quote though.
                  She opened his last baak at random, laaking for a paarl of wisdam.

                  I think that’s one of the reason why I don’t really appreciate Xmas, because of that sickening tradobligation of buying crappy stuff, but as long as you’re on facegoat, I can send good karma to you.

                  “Waw!” What an ideaa, this yeaar, she will send gaad karma to her ex-husbaands.

                  “Anathar wan!” She couldn’t get her hands aff such profaand baak.

                  Roger-Y, her pet talking white gaase started to screech frantically “Anathar WAN! Anathar WAN!” making her little fainting mongrats collapse to the flaar.

                  “pftlabaltloup”: that’s the Samari word for what I wanted to say: it may sound a little dismissive, but it’s pronounced fruit-lab-at-loop. Indeed; ‘fruit’ because the emails like snoot fruits, ‘lab’ for the extraction of the quintessence, and ‘loop’ to keep in loop… And we are complete.

                  “Waw” She was always struggling to kaap in the laap with all her characters; naw, that was something to consider, as she was Samari belonging herself, not at all Vaaldish like her mather. Gad forbads.

                  #1233

                  When he had been hit by the blow of the watermelbombs and the furious lady he had come to rescue, Akita found himself in a strange peaceful place. He was getting bits of what was happening, but the will to resist and fight seemed vanished in a distant scene he was only distantly aware of.
                  He was seeing Kay, his spirit dog beside him, beckoning him to another place of white luminous and warm peacefulness.

                  “Am I dying” he asked, feeling the answer to the question wasn’t very important.
                  “Don’t be silly” the dog said mentally “Just let go for a moment, it’ll make things easier for you to get out of this place to another one you’d prefer”
                  “I’m not sure going anywhere is so important, being here reminds me of something long forgotten”
                  “Yes, you know this place, you’re drawing to you some memories of others of your focuses, explorers from your time and also ancient dwellers, in a very very distant past. These living memories will help you.”
                  “You were there too, configured differently but I remember you from there”
                  “Yes” the dog nodded “you had a pack of dogs in one of these explorer focuses. I was the alpha one, see…”

                  Some scenes moved in the white foam sprinkled with diamond dust like he was seeing through openings in a crystal cave. All was so clear it was elating.

                  “But we’re never going to get out of this place, not without a boat, a plane, not without a compass… and not without a brain!” he was being drawn back to where his body was, wrapped in the warm snet, jumping on the back of the snow scooter. “These women will lead us to a sure death, and pretty fast!”
                  “Just relax, even if they don’t give that impression, they know what they are doing. They focus on what they want, and they trust. They can’t see the dead-ends you are seeing. Sometimes you get caught up in those other memories of yours. You’ve read adventures of Antarctica explorers, most of them were drama, but it doesn’t have to be the same broken record now, you’re going to love that time if you choose to…”
                  “They’re so focused on themselves it’s hard to believe you. They wouldn’t see a leopard seal as a threat even if it was at their throats!”
                  “But they wouldn’t even draw the predator to them in the first place.” Kay was saying warmly “Have a little faith in them, there is a surprise coming along that’ll show you beyond a shred of doubt that their allowing for miracles is fairly titanic.”
                  “Titanic, yes… Now tell me I shouldn’t worry with all those icebergs!”
                  “Indeed” Kay said with a hint of mischief in its ethereal voice “Now, let’s wake up and have some fun!”

                  #1828

                  In reply to: Synchronicity

                  ÉricÉric
                  Keymaster

                    In the fat ladies thread, here are a few funnies, consequent to a little video from Little Britain, with iconic Bubbles DeVere

                    About Jilly Cooper ;

                    • “She also wrote a series of children’s books featuring the heroine ‘Little Mabel’.” Little Mabel Saves The Day etc.
                    • Riders and the following books are characterised by intricate plots, featuring multiple story lines and a large number of characters. (To help the reader keep track, each book begins with a list and brief description of the characters.)
                    • “The stories heavily feature adultery, (sexual) infidelity and general betrayal, melodramatic misunderstandings and emotions, money worries and domestic upheavals.” (T’Eggy Pooh?)
                    • Jolly in her books titles, a word I used without much thought to it in the last comments
                    • Angels Rush In
                    • Adopted children Emily and Felix (I had a Felix sync when I opened the book at random and got caught in FP’s comment about Felix Otterworthy )
                    #1215

                    “Well, Sanso” said Zhaana a trifle breathlessly, her flushed with wonder. “ The Elsepace Arrangement was certainly an eye opener, if eye opener is the right word. So what next?”

                    Sanso laughed uproariously. “What next? What next, AHAAAHAA HA HA! What next indeed!”

                    “What’s so funny?” asked the little girl, her face starting to crumple.

                    “Oh don’t do the old crumple face, Zhaana, I’m laughing at myself as much as anything” Sanso replied, giving her a quick hug. He couldn’t bear the sight of crumple faced children.

                    “Well, I still don’t understand why you’re laughing” she replied with a pout.

                    “It’s actually a very good question, and one I sometimes find I ask myself. Well, I used to ask myself “what next” all the time, as if it was somehow important to know where I was going next, to have a destination or a plan.”

                    “But if you don’t have a destination, how do you know where to go next?” Zhaana was confused.

                    Sanso smiled. “It doesn’t matter where you go next, little one, because you’re always at the centre of everything. You can go in any direction you want and you’ll always be at the centre of everything.”

                    “Well if that’s the case, why not just stay right where I am, then?”

                    “Do you want to do that? Stay right where you are?”

                    “No! I …er….no! of course not!”

                    “Why not?” Sanso asked with a gentle smile.

                    “Well, if I stay right here, and don’t go in any direction, everything will always be the same” she replied, frowning.

                    “And what would be wrong with that?”

                    Zhaana had to think about this. “Well, it wouldn’t be wrong I guess, but it would be boring. There wouldn’t be any surprises…..”

                    “Ah so you like surprises, then!” Sanso was grinning.

                    “Yes, I love surprises!”

                    “Well then why do you want to plan where you’re going next?”

                    Zhaana opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish. Sanso was confusing her, and she didn’t know what to say.

                    “OK then, Sanso, you are always wandering around, how do you decide where to go next?” asked Zhaana, rather cleverly responding to the difficult question with a question of her own.

                    “I get an impulse, or I see a sign, and I follow it.”

                    “What do you mean, a sign?” Zhaana understood about impulses: after all, she had followed her impulse to leave horrid old Uncle Grishenka and follow Sanso into the cave. She wasn’t sure about signs, though.

                    “I’m not sure I can describe a sign, really. They just appear, and so I notice them.”

                    “Well, after you notice them, then what?”

                    “Well” said Sanso “Then you interpret the sign however you want to, and then you act on it.”

                    “You can interpret the sign however you want?” asked Zhaana with a hint of disbelief in her voice.

                    “Yup” replied Sanso. “That’s about the size of it, Sweetpea.”

                    ~~~

                    “Oh Godfrey, I’ve been trying to get the theme word into this entry and I’m just not getting any closer.” Elizabeth sighed, and pushed her keyboard away. Quickly she pulled the keyboard back so that she could write what Godfrey replied.

                    “Have some more peanuts, Liz” he replied with a laugh.

                    Elizabeth pushed the keyboard away again and passed Godfrey the peanuts .

                    A few moments later Elizabeth pulled the keyboard back and wrote:

                    ~~~

                    “Sanso, a word just popped into my head, do you think it might be a sign?” Zhaana asked excitedly. “It just popped in from nowhere!”

                    “Sure it’ll be a clue, and what was the word?” he replied, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a chuckle. He had heard the word too, and knew exactly where it was coming from, but he wasn’t going to spoil the moment for his little friend.

                    “Moonbeams!” she announced proudly. “I heard the word moonbeams !”

                    #1209

                    From Georges’ account of his first encounter with Phoebe Chesterhope. Part II

                    She wasn’t paying attention to the other clients. She was like one of these statues at Madame Tussauds, still and beautiful, surrounded by mystery. Was she lost in her thoughts? Her rich clothes suggested that she was fortunate and the anxious look the jeweller was giving her every 2 minutes let me think that she was also quite influencing.

                    About ten minutes after we had entered the shop with Catherine, a man arrived. Small and bald, poorly dressed, he was carrying a parcel wrapped in a piece of rough fabric that he was holding very carefully. The owner almost jumped on him in his rush and told him something briefly before he introduced him to Madam Tussaud, her face suddenly filled up with life. Not that she was smiling or welcoming him in any manner, but her eyes were suddenly sparkling with determination. I realized that she was taking on herself not to look too obviously at the parcel.

                    “I expect you have a more private place so we can discuss our arrangement with mister…”
                    “Fessard, Madam. Roger Fessard.”
                    “Whatever…” she took her time to look openly at the other customers before she continued, staring reproachfully at the man. “I need some privacy to evaluate what he brought me.”

                    Her accent was almost perfect and her french flawless. But faking to be a stranger myself most of the time, I was sure she wasn’t from here… maybe Britain.

                    “Of course, Madam” said the owner in his conspicuous servile tone. He led Madam and Roger to a door behind the counter and they entered the room; the bald man put his packet on a table and began to unwrap it as Madam said sharply to the jeweller : “Leave us.” The damn man obeyed and closed the door before I could see anything more.

                    #1203

                    The 3 ladies didn’t have the time to get prepared as the door was blown open by an explosion, the sound of which made their newly very sensitive ears suffer hell!

                    “Oh! me god I’m wounded!” Mavis shouted suddenly. “You 2 have to avenge me, I think I’m not gonna make it…”

                    “Don’t be so silly, Mavis, you’re perfectly healthy! It’s just watermelon flesh! But shush! We’re not alone…” shouted Gloria as the explosion had made her deaf too.

                    A shadow suddenly entered the room full of vaporized watermelon juice… The red mist was almost opaque and Glo couldn’t identify clearly what it was. A big round head, obviously an alien… but with their new strength and the snet they would put it down in no time.

                    She jumped on the form and shouted to her companions to throw the snet. As she tried to bite the big rounded head another jumped on her with a gnarling bark. She was projected on the opposite wall, almost knocked out. As the red mist began dissipating, she could clearly see a knocked out Akita with a watermelmet on his head…

                    #1201

                    It wasn’t very difficult for Akita to have the door opened. Having Kay roam unnoticed in the rooms and corridors next to his cell made things very easy actually, giving him enough time to do his things.
                    He’d known the art of lock-picking since he was a child, and he would have been able to open that door’s latch blindfolded, hands tied behind his back, with only his big toe and dental floss… so old this one was.

                    So in a few minutes he was out; a few minutes later, he had found a proper military outfit in the lockers, Kay had been giving him the codes of, and as everyone was gone for the lunch break, the whole area was deserted.

                    The greenhouse room was open, and a blinding light was pouring into it.

                    “You didn’t tell me what made these watermelons special” Akita turned to the phantom dog.

                    “Why don’t you have a try by yourself… Take a little one over there, and throw it on the opposite wall”

                    Akita did as instructed, then backed off quickly blown off by the explosion .

                    “Watermelbombs? are you kidding?”

                    “Not really; it’s sad, but people have done lots of researches here to produce bio-degradable weapons easily grown. I think it wasn’t a coincidence you and the others have been brought here”

                    “The others? You mean… Oh sh*t, I forgot the ladies, don’t tell me they’re still here?”

                    “Yep, they are here. And they’re quite ready to fight for their survival too, believe it or not”

                    “Oh, I don’t have any trouble seeing them as fierce warriors!”

                    #1182

                    “Wait a minute, you’re telling me that you’re a Parcel Delivery company, and you don’t have a map? You deliver parcels and you don’t have a map, you don’t have the internet, and your delivery man doesn’t have a phone?”

                    Bea was beginning to sound exasperated, Leonora thought. Must be the parcel people. “Parcel people?” she asked. “ A mobile phone wouldn’t be any use here anyway, Bea” she added “There’s no network cover.”

                    “My address?” Bea said into the telephone in an increasingly desperate voice. “Three people have called asking for my address” Bea took a deep breath and tried to change her energy. “My address is The House Down The Road Behind The Black Horse Bar” Bea paused for breath and continued “Through The Green Gates which are Behind The Fountain And Next To The Palm Tree. Tomorrow? You were supposed to come today! You were supposed to come yesterday as a matter of fact so I stayed home all day…”

                    “You weren’t going out anywhere anyway, Bea” Leo said mildly.

                    “Well I won’t be here tomorrow, can you just leave the parcel at the post office? What? Of course they’ll know who it’s for, it’ll have my bloody name and address on it! What? No, I don’t know what street the post office is on, haven’t you got a map? No? Well Google it! You’re kidding. You’re a parcel delivery company! What’s your name, by the way?”

                    “Well would you believe it, she hung up on me!”

                    “How wonderfully Spanish” said Leonora. “Remember the last parcel people? Wouldn’t deliver to houses without a number. So if I go out and paint a number, let’s say 57, on my gate, you’ll deliver the parcel, I said to them, and they said, well yes I suppose so, so I did. I went out to the shed and grabbed the first paint…”

                    “That swimming pool blue”

                    “…yeah bit bright isn’t it, that blue paint and I painted the number on it, and the neighbours came out and asked what I was doing…”

                    “They delivered the parcel though, didn’t they Leo”

                    “They did. There’s a knack to dealing with parcel people.”

                    Bea was quiet for a few minutes and then asked “What’s that then?”

                    “What’s what?” asked Leonora.

                    “What’s the knack? How do you get parcel people to deliver?”

                    Leo laughed and said she didn’t really know. “Change your energy, make a game of it, see what happens.”

                    Just then the phone rang. Bea answered it.

                    “Well how about that” said Bea, hanging up the phone a few moments later. “That was the parcel delivery man. He’s on his way now.”

                    Five or six hours later, just after the parcel delivery man had finally arrived, Bea beamed as she opened the brown cardboard parcel.

                    “I’ve been dying to read this, it’s the sequel to T’Eggy Gets a Good Rogering. I ordered two copies, I thought Baked Bean Barb might want one too, you know, as a bit of a thank you for the book she’s bringing round for us.”

                    Leo said “You what!” and rolled her eyes. “Really Bea, couldn’t you have chosen something better than that?”

                    “Define ‘better’, Miss Prim Prunes” retorted Bea. She was too happy about the books arrival to mind Leo’s remarks. Then she shouted “OH MY GOD! They’ve sent the wrong books!” so loudly that Leo jumped.

                    “Good grief!” exclaimed Leonora, taking a closer look. “Circle of Eights! But that’s the book that Baked Bean Barb found on the rubbish tip, the book she’s bringing round for us!”

                    “I don’t believe it!” Bea whispered, awed by the bizarre coincidence. “That’s the book with us in it.”

                    “What a hoot!” said Leo.

                    #1172

                    After he sent his reply to Yann, Yurick took a deep breathe in appreciation of all that had been done the last past days.

                    However tedious, all in all, it had allowed him to stay away from other people’s trauma, and stay focused on his own issues. Now, the feeling of the energy at hand was starting to become lighter. Like a thin ray of light poking through a thick layer of rainy clouds, announcing that the silver lining was more than just a consolation. It was announcing the sun to come.

                    He took the book of stories that had been unburied (like his pleasure to write) from the bottom of the sofa’s cushions when they’d received hosts last week-end, and looked with amusement at the opening note about the “random quotes”.

                    A strong sense of an inkling started to dawn at him.
                    Thanks to the random quotes —or more appropriately said, to convenient synchronicities— “stuff” was never lost or buried in the insides of that ever-growing story, which was eating with gluttony at the edges of its expansion. Things were popping up here and there, reminding of old loose threads, or pertinent inclusions or links to be made.

                    But there was more. He, for a long time, had thought that imagination was expanding things to make physical reality look smaller in proportion than it was. Like when they’d looked at Dory’s pictures, and everything looked so big on them. Even the mere thought of nine dogs was huge. But when they’d met her, and Dan, and the dogs, it was all so much smaller. Even seeing Dory manage her dogs made having nine dogs seem manageable.
                    But the reverse was true: physical reality had its way of dwarfing imagination. Not so much making it smaller, but compacting it, making it fit in an unbelievably condensed and small space.

                    Take that book. Thousands of words, billions of probabilities, endless threads and hundreds of characters, all packaged in a small stack of inked paper. The trick was that when you look at it that way, when you got that small stack of paper in your hands, it all seems so manageable; one starts to get accustomed to it, then fails to see the newness in it each time it’s opened to tell a story.

                    Imagination is the true gauge of the vastness of the universe. It’s so easy to forget…

                  Viewing 20 results - 541 through 560 (of 725 total)

                  Daily Random Quote

                  • Dory felt like a wet blanket. She’d overdosed on colours in the shawl and cape shop, and had to lie down in the back room. As she waited for the room to stop spinning, sprawled on a rather smelly old sofa that seemed more like a glukenitch bed than a sofa, she listened to various snatches of ... · ID #174 (continued)
                    (next in 11h 37min…)

                  Recent Replies

                  WordCloud says