Search Results for 'papers'

“You!”, said Jeremy Duncan Jasper before jumping on the woman. “You stole my cat! What have you done to Max ?”
“I don’t have your cat”, said Funley loudly. She was trying to protect her face as an instinctive reaction and pushed on the ground with her feet. The chair had little wheels which allowed her to escape the man’s grasp, but it bumped on Ed’s desk. She was cornered. She jumped out of the chair and ran behind Ed’s desk followed closely by an angry Jeremy.

“I assume you already know each others”, said Ed, tugging at his mustache casually.

“Of course I know her”, said Jeremy in a short breath. He showed his fist angrily. “She was supposedly from the hygiene inspection bureau when I worked at the veterinarian clinic. She stole my cat!”

“I don’t have your cat”, repeated Funley.

“What have you done with him old crone ? You gave me all those papers to read and sign and when I came back you were gone… with Max.”

“Tsk tsk”, said Ed. “We have more important matters to attend to.” He lifted his hand to prevent any objection. “You may or may not have noticed, but I have and that’s the more important. Reality has been rebooting repeatedly, and each time people… or animals”, he said looking at Jeremy, “are disappearing.”

“You see”, said Funley, “I don’t have your cat.” Jasper snorted and showed his teeth.

“We need to do something”, concluded Ed.

“Excuse me”, said Duncan, “but what does that have to do with us ? I’m just a bank employee.”

“A bank employee, who was a veterinarian, a plumber, a taxi driver, a tech guy at the phone company… and more importantly a map dancer. I need a team of gifted people to maximize our chances of survival.”

Funley raised an eyebrow. “Mr Steam, à propos”, she said brandishing the paper she had found in the trash can.

“Oh, there you are Hilda, can I have a word?”

Hilda started guiltily at Connie’s voice, and pushed her teacup behind a stack of papers on her desk. Slurping down the last of the tea before making her way to the airport for the Boston flight, she hadn’t been able to resist looking into the dregs for a minute or two. What she’d seen had made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. But what was she to do about it? And now here was Connie, fidgeting in the doorway. Well, see what she wants first, Hilda told herself, and then decide.

“Do you know anything about these?” asked Connie, thrusting the flight tickets in front of Hilda. “And what’s the background on the old crone, Sophie? I thought she was just a temp?”

Hilda’s head was spinning. Should she say nothing, let Connie take the flight, and hope for the best? Or try and prevent her making the trip, just in case? How accurate was her tea leaf reading really? What if she had misinterpreted the signs? It could be too embarrassing. Better just hope for the best and say nothing.

“Sorry Connie, must dash.” Hilda quickly gathered her things together and shoved them in the flight bag at her feet. Pushing past Connie she said, “Er, have a good trip!” and with a sickly smile she fled.

When Hilda arrived at the airport an hour later, she made a snap decision to change her flight. Luckily there were a few seats left to Keflavik in Iceland. She really hadn’t fancied Boston and the crotch grabbers anyway. She wouldn’t tell the others she was already in Iceland, but at least she would be there to monitor events as they unfolded.

A man with big hairy hands welcomed him in the new world’s consuelambassy office. “Welcome”, said the man with a deep voice. Sam couldn’t get his eyes off the man’s hands. He looked at the guy. Without those hands he would just be like a regular guy.
“I’m a bit early”, said the man, “so we might as well begin now. Is that ok for you ?”
“What ? Oh! yes, of course…” those hands are so huge, he thought.
“Perfect. Just sit on this chair and I’ll guide you through the procedure.”
“Ok.” Sam sat on the chair he had been shown and gave the man the papers he had brought for the procedure.
“Great, I can see you’ve brought everything pertaining to your old self.” He barely looked at the documents and threw them in the shredder. A red light flickered before turning to a bluish green.
“You won’t need those.”
“Obviously”, said Sam. As he had already been puzzled that morning, he decided it was superstifluous to continue in this direction. He had come here to get a new identity after all. His old self had been torn apart. There was certainly no one to feel disrespected.

Sam woke up the next morning feeling puzzled. There was no apparent reason for it, so he thought it might be related to the new moon or to some singular configuration of space time crossing with the known universe. He scratched his 3 days and a half beard a few times. He liked the sound of it and did it frequently. Only then would he get out of bed and prepare some breakfast.
When he came to the kitchen, the tv was on. A certain Godfrey was speaking about an upcoming wave of migrants due to lack of rafts in the sea of confusion. Sam thought he wasn’t the only one feeling puzzled.
“Do you have all your papers ready ?” asked Al, already dressed up as if he was going to a wedding.
“I like when you wear your tuxedo”, said Sam. Al looked absolutely delicious. “And yes, I have all my papers ready. But I wonder… Why do you need papers when you’re asking for a new identity?”

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.

They arrived to the tunnel, it was almost dawn. Sanso spotted a ghostly flicker near the entrance. The cave network was guarded by a kind of protective spirits who checked your mission order so they could establish the right connection between the way in and the way out.
Sanso felt a twinge of irritation as he recognized the ghostly figure.

“Rifraf”, said Sanso as affable as he could manage.

“Stop”, said Rifraf with a tone cold enough to freeze your spine. “You know the procedure”, he added with his hand stretched in front of him.

Sanso looked into his rough leather bag to find the mission order. He could swear that the objects and papers had moved on their own while he wasn’t looking. It was a mess. He looked carefully at the paper he found and handed it to the guard. Rifraf seemed to have slowed his movement on purpose. He looked at the document. He looked at it again, looked at Sanso briefly, and at the document again.

“This document is incomplete, you can’t pass”, said the spirit.

Sanso looked at the mission order and realized that he had handed the copy. The original had two curly fleurons on the top and on the bottom. That’s why he didn’t like this one, he was a bit too rigid about the protocole.
Where was this … document ? Sanso looked in his bag frantically as Rifraf was beginning to disappear. Here it was. “Hold on”, he said to the ghost. he checked quicky if there was no other typo or missing element. Everything was there. He just hoped Rifraf would say nothing about the grease stains.

The guard snorted and nodded, as if reluctantly. He waved his hand and blue torches began to light up, showing the way.

“Follow the blue lights”, said Rifraf and he disappeared.

Sanso felt the warmth flowing back in his bones. When Sadie looked out the window, he was feeling much better. “What is taking so long ?”, she asked with a frown.
“Administration”, he said with a grin.

She answered with an eye-roll and her head disappeared in the coach. The sun was rising.

“Uh Oh Godfrey, now we’re in trouble, there’s a typhoon in the random daily quote! We really must improve the weather before all hell breaks loose!”

But Godfrey’s mind was on other matters and he wasn’t paying attention to Elizabeth.

“GODFREY!!” she shouted “This is serious! Pay attention, do!”

“I really must say, Liz,” Godfrey shuffled the papers he was reading into a neat pile, “That when it’s too elaborate, it’s too weirdo, and when it’s pure delirium, it’s increasingly rubbish.”

“Guess it was about bloody time I got back here” Franlise said, her feather duster firmly clutched in her left hand.
The matronly black woman started dusting vigourously, sending myriads of half-written papers flying in the air.
“My draaafts!” Elizabeth shriek was lost in the gusts of winds.

“Bugger, bugger, bugger” the impromptu cleaning lady started to enunciate in a most perfect Queen’s English. “Nothing like some good buggery bugger to start the day and clear the lungs. And many a little makes a damn buggery mickle, isn’t that right darling?”. She said, striking a pilates pose in between the cleaning.

Elizabeth stood aghast, not knowing what to say but a meek “Didn’t I fire you?” to which Franlise knew better than to answer with nought but a smile.
Drawing a sharp letter opener from behind her back, she nimbly leaned toward Elizabeth, with all her white teeth glowing in the dark apartment where even the aspidistras had long gone dried up and wrinkled, their pots now no more than mere ashtrays.

“Well, now, what shall we do about all that spider cobwebs you’ve got yourself wrapped in…”

Evangeline Spiggot sat outside the DDT bosses office, nervously twiddling her pony tail. She had no idea why she’d been summoned, but the tone of the memo was ominous. Eventually her boss, The Right Honourable B. F. Deale, was ready to see her.

“What ho!” said Evangeline, in an effort to sound breezy and efficient.

B.F. Deale glared. “Can you explain yourself?” he asked grimly.

“Why, yes, sir! Sumari belonging, Ilda aligned, politic….”

“I’m talking about DDT!” he shouted. “You’ve been diverting all our disaster damage calls to that ridiculous channeling show!”

“Ah” she replied, “Yes, well, it seemed much more fun.”

“Ah” replied B.F. Deale, momentarily non plussed. When he’d finsished unnecesarily shuffling some papers around on his desk, he continued. “Well, what about the disaster damage team? Hhhm? How are they supposed to, er, deal with disasters if they don’t even know about them?”

Evangeline paused, giving the impression that she was deep in thought. In actual fact, she was deep in no thought, due to the influence of the Dead Dick Tracy channeled messages.

“Well, sir, perhaps this indicates a changing trend towards having more fun and less disasters? Perhaps we could diversify, start our own Fun Department?”

“By George, I think you’re on to something, Spiggot! I will hire someone to investigate this trend.”

“Might I suggest Blithe Gambol, P.I.? Very hightly recommended, so I hear.”

“These old ezines and blogs are fascinating” remarked Periwinkle, passing the one she had just been reading to Daffodil. “Thank goodness some folks had the foresight to print some of them!”

“I know, imagine if they hadn’t. We’d have no artefacts for the collection. Well, we have all those flat discs, but no way to decipher them. Oh, did I tell you? Bignonia found something even older than the discs!”

“NO!” exclaimed Periwinkle “Do tell!”

“Yes, even older! Funny looking contraption, with two reels and a ribbon. An information storage device, so they say, although they haven’t discovered how to decipher it.”

“I wonder why we’re still not simply accessing that information without, well, without messing around with the physical contraption, you know?”

“Wouldn’t be any point in being here in the first place, if we weren’t going to mess around with physical things, silly” replied Daffodil.

There was no answer to that, so Periwikle didn’t answer. She continued to thumb through the printed pages.

Periwinkle and Daffodil sat together on the patio in the warm spring sunshine, sipping lemonade
and leafing through the papers. Bright white clouds in cartoon shapes romped across the blue sky,
and the birds chattered in the trees,
occasionally landing on the printed pages and cocking their heads sideways to read for a moment, before flying off to tell their friends, which was usually followed by a raucous group cackling.

“Dear Goofenoff” read Daffodil, “This one looks interesting Peri, someone here is asking for advice on a problem.”

“What’s a “problem”, Daffy?” asked Periwinkle. “For that matter, what does the word “advice” mean? Oh, never mind” she said as she noticed Daffodil rolling her eyes, “I’ll look it up in my pre shift dictionary of defunct words.”

“She’s asking the Snoot too, about the same problem. Oh, I think I’ve heard of them! It’s coming back to me, the old Snoot’n‘Goof team, they were quite famous in the beginning of the century, I remember hearing about them before in a Shift History discussion.”

“Well, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of them, but then, I’ve never been into history like you, dear. So what is this “problem” all about, then?”

“I’ll read it out to you, it’s way too convoluted to put in a nutshell. Lordy, they sure did complicate matters back then, it’s almost unbeleivable, really, but anyway, here goes:

Dear Goofenoff,

I don’t know what to do! I am confused about which probable version of a blog freind, let’s call him MrZ, I have chosen to align with. The first probable version was ok, nothing to worry about, and then I drew into my awareness the probable versions of MrZ that some of my freinds had chosen to align with….”

“Blimey”, interrupted Periwinkle, who was starting to fidget. “Is it much longer?”

“It’s alot longer, so be patient. Where was I? Oh yes:

“….and while that was very interesting indeed, and led to lots of usefully emotionally heated discussions, I started to align with their probable version, at times, although not consistently, which led to some confusion. So then I had a chat with someone who was more in alignment with my original probable version, although there were aspects of that probable version that were a little in alignment with the other folks probable version, notwithstanding. I suppose I was still in alignment with the other folks probable version when it came to my attention that there was another individual that might be aligning with a probable version, and my question is, in a nutshell, is it any of my business which probable version the new individual on the scene is aligning with?”

“Well, I can tell you the answer to that!” exclaimed Periwinkle.

Daffodil rolled her eyes. “Yes, dear, WE know the answer, but the point is, SHE didn’t know the answer at the time, which is why she asked Goofenoff.”

“If you ask me, she knew the answer all along” Periwinkle intuited. “What did Goofenoff say anyway?”

“He said:

Are you requiring a short or a long answer?”

Daffodil turned the page to continue reading. She frowned, and flicked through a few pages.

“What a shame, some of these pages appear to be missing! Now we’ll never know what Goofenoff said.”

Periwinkle laughed. “Well, never mind that anyway, have you seen the random story quote today? Rather synchronistic I’d say, listen to this bit:

Illi felt much better, and was sitting at the breakfast table, basking in the warm shafts of sunlight filtering in through the window, and listening to the birds singing in the lemon tree outside.”

“ As we have stated previously, these terms are quite limiting for explanation purposes. The terminology is not incorrect, by any means. It is only expressing a much, much smaller impression to you than, in actuality, these terms represent. If your interpretation of these terms is too literal, you may find yourself accepting concepts which have only been explained to you partially; for our explanation of concepts is only a minute portion of the entirety of any idea, or concept, or “doctrine.” Only playing, my friend! These concepts must be taken in at this present time, within your present understanding, to the intellect; and the intellect must be allowed to trigger the intuition, allowing a full circle of thought, so to speak; this full circle being a continuous flow of information to assimilation, to actualization, to creation ” — Patel

Not AGAIN!! shouted Becky. For the past week every time she tried to open her blog page, it always opened on this old post of Patels. Usually, by a circuitous route, she did eventually manage to arrive on her most recent post…..but not today! That monkey Patel wouldn’t let Becky look at any other post but this.

Funny coincidence really that she’d watched the cartoon last night called Madagascar, starrring Patel himself as King of the Lemurs. Becky had to laugh. A rave party of dancing lemurs on ecstasy!

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Yoland. “Fancy landing on that Patel quote again today!”

Yoland knew Patel was around when the frying sausages had popped and spit fat at her. She had lost count of the amount of times that Patel had popped in with this quote. More strings and circles….and lemurs, too! At the lunch party the previous day, Yoland had been discussing evolution, and the missing link, and the next day a lemur-like skeleton was being heralded in the newspapers as the missing link.

Patel, as the missing link ~ Yoland had to laugh.

:yahoo_nerd:“I dont know how you can read that paper, Franlise, really I don’t.” Ann said sniffily.

“Oh I like to keep up with what’s going on, it’s interesting, it’s the end of an era you know, fascinating really,” her cleaner replied.

“Yeah, you’re right, it is interesting,” Ann had to admit that Franlise was right. It WAS interesting, and newpapers like The Old Reality Harbinger wouldn’t be around for much longer. She made a mental note to buy some to put away in case they became valuable artifacts in the future.

“Well interesting it may be, but only in small doses. I prefer The Simultaneous Times, myself.”

“The Daily Mirror’s my favourite” replied Franlise.

It wasn’t just the twins that were outraged, there were alot of outraged people that day. Becky, Sanso, Illi, Bea and Leo, Elizabeth and Zhaana ~ all of them were utterly outraged at the monstrous display of dictatorship. They were devastated because they had been labouring under what was clearly a misconception that it was a group project.

“Godfrey, I am inscensed!” declared Elizabeth. “And don’t you dare correct that spelling! I will write my own story somewhere else. If you think you’ve snatched my characters from right under my nose you’ve got another think coming, old chap.”

Elizabeth snatched up the papers on her desk and crammed them into a carpet bag.

“I’m going out for a walk. Alone.”

And off she went, clutching her bag under arm and muttering under her breath, angrily wiping the tears that dribbled down her cheeks.

“Uh Oh Godfrey, now we’re in trouble, there’s a typhoon in the random daily quote! We really must improve the weather before all hell breaks loose!”

But Godfrey’s mind was on other matters and he wasn’t paying attention to Elizabeth.

“GODFREY!!” she shouted “This is serious! Pay attention, do!”

“I really must say, Liz,” Godfrey shuffled the papers he was reading into a neat pile, “That when it’s too elaborate, it’s too weirdo, and when it’s pure delirium, it’s increasingly rubbish.”

“Be that as it may, Godfrey, but I must insist that you pay attention to more pressing matters. We have an Ice Age, a Typhoon, and the 1111th entry looming over our heads and all you can do is shuffle papers around making nonsensical remarks.”

“Oh pass the poonuts and stop worrying, Liz. And put another log on the fire.”

“Hey, Leo, look at this here in the newspaper ~ my book’s being made into a movie!”

“What book’s that then, Bea? Not that dreadful ‘T’eggy Gets a Good Rogering’, surely.” Leonora replied dismissively.

“Oh they’re not calling it that for the movie…..”

“Bloody good job if you ask me” Leo interrupted, and then exclaimed “OH!”

“What?”

“Book sync!”

“Book sync? What book sync?”

“I forgot to tell you, Baked Bean Barb called…”

“Who?!”

“You remember, we met her in that bar down on the coast awhile back, remember? We got talking over a few tapas ~ found we had some mutual friends back home and all…”

“Funny how that happens, eh ~ small world, innit? So what did she call for then?”

“Well, it’s the funniest thing, she said when she was rummaging around on the rubbish tip….”

“Oh now I remember, you mean Baked Bean Barb! The one that’s lived in her Ford Fiesta for 15 years, and finds food in dustbins? That one? On the run, wasn’t she?”

“That’s the one! On the run for 30 years because of that Baked Bean Incident that was in all the papers”

“You meet all sorts down here, eh. So what did she call for?”

“Well” continued Leonora “It’s the strangest thing! She said she found a book on the rubbish tip, which was in English, so she says she took the book ~ she reads alot you know, Barb does, even though she’s only got one eye. Dunno how she manages it really, her glasses are always so dirty…”

“Will you get to the point?”

“Hang on, hang on, I’m getting there….she found this book, right, so she goes back to wherever she’s camped up, you know, with the other travellers, all them old hippies on their way to Morocco for the winter I expect….”

“We should go with them next winter Leo, might be fun”

“I reckon it would Bea ~ well with Jose coming back soon from that island, we’ll have to go somewhere ~ anyway, as I was saying, Barb starts reading this book, she says it’s the most peculiar book she’s ever read, never read anything like it, she says, but she can’t put it down she says ~ well, you’ll never guess what!”

“I can’t guess, Leo, I’m waiting for you to tell me.”

“Barb says we’re in the book!”

“What do you mean, we’re in the book?”

“We’re in the book! ‘Leonora and Beattie’ are in the book! Renting a finca from a ‘Jose’ and living in the mountains in Andalucia!”

“You’re having me on!” exclaimed Bea. “I’ve gotta see this to believe it.”

The interior of the Fly-boat was a bit like a Tardis, in that it was very much bigger on the inside than it appeared from the outside, and quite a different shape, too. While the exterior of the fly-boat resembled a cross between a duck and a bee, the interior was circular. There was a high point in the centre of the ceiling, and richly embroidered tapestries draping down to the floor in sumptuous folds, looking for all the world like a yurt.

Yukailli Airlines has a decidedly exotic and oriental air, Dory thought as she perused the in flight magazine, which was written in a charming but indecipherable script resembling the Voynich Papers.

“This is your captain speaking” a disembodied voice boomed. “Welcome aboard! My name is Ignoratio Elenchi, and I trust that you will have a most enjoyable flight with Yukailli AirBoats. There will be no obligation to fasten your seatbelts and you may smoke all through the flight. Our cabin crew will be preparing Vedic Stew over an open fire in the central area of the craft at 11:11. For your in-flight entertainment, up on the open air flight deck there will be a continuous light show by Aurora Borealis. If you want us to stop the flyboat at any point to take snapshots” continued Ignoratio, “Please don’t hesitate to ask.”