Search Results for 'pool'

Liz felt someone tug at her almost transparent pink silk gown. She tried to ignore it as she worked hard to recall the young woman’s name, she had it on the tip of her tongue.

The tug got stronger and Liz feared that whomever was doing it they were going to tore her silk veil. She turned around, her irritation colouring her high cheekbones with a nice tint of pink and gasped.
“What I do with the spiders,” asked a small woman with dark skin and wearing a rainbow sari. “They’re so big big, and SOOOO hungry. They’re going to eat the guests only.”

Liz shook her head, seeing the curls of her newly acquired blond wig bounce about her face. She looked at the cocktail. What did Roberto said was in those? she wondered.

“What spiders?” she asked. The maid pointed behind Liz with her chin. When Liz looked she almost dropped her glass. A swarm of colourful giant jumping spiders were running and jumping near the swimming pool, frightening the human guests, while Roberto was riding one of them in his sparkling cowboy costume, laughing like a teenager.
“So?” asked the maid insistently. “What I do?”
Liz was confused.
“Why are they here?” she asked, “I don’t understand. Where’s Godfrey?”

“They are the daughters and sons of Narani from the giant spiders island,” said a man with a beard in a WWII uniform. A ghost dog barked silently at his feet.

“Of course,” Liz said. But it was too much for her and she gulped, all at once, the remaining fifteen jewels of condensed information floating in her cocktail. She shoved the glass in the maid’s hands and said: “Bring me another,” before she collapsed under the afflux of so much knowledge.

Eleri gave the bowler hat on her head a little pat of appreciation as the light pools appeared illuminating the path. She could see Glynis up ahead, stumbling less now, and striding more purposefully. But where was she going in such a hurry? What would she do when she got there, where ever it was, and what would she, Eleri, do about it? What, in fact, was she doing following Glynis; didn’t she have a path of her own?

She stopped suddenly, struck by an idea. Making the cottage invisible was Glynis’s path, Glynis’s method. But Eleri had her own methods, her own skills and her own magic. She could turn Leroway into a statue, and even all his followers, if need be, although she suspected they would disperse readily enough once the leaders booming personality and voice was permanently stilled. She couldn’t have done it if her friend Jolly was still with him, of course. But things were different now. Drastic measures were called for.

Eleri tapped the bowler hat meaningfully, and immediately a trail of flickering pools of light appeared down a side path off to the left. I have the ingredients I need at home, Home! Eleri snorted with laughter at herself. I’d forgotten all about home, ever since that terrible flu! I’ve just been following everyone else, trying to remember everyone’s names and keep up with everyone elses events and I’d forgotten I have a home of my own, and my own skills, too. I have my own magic ingredients, and my own magic methods. And now, I have an idea to execute. She winced slightly at the word ~ was turning a man to stone the same as an execution in the usual sense? Best not to think about that, it was for the greater good, after all. And it wasn’t as if Leroway was going to be removed, buried and hidden underground: he would hate that. He was going to be immortalized into a timeless memorial, for all to see for ever more. Eleri felt sure that in the wider picture he would heartily approve.

First, she must go home to her cottage and studio for the required ingredients. Then she had to seduce Leroway. She needed a little time with him to apply the method, it couldn’t be done is a flashy abracadabra kind of way. Now that Jolly was out of the way, Eleri found that she was quite looking forward to it.

comes whatever pool land
work magic tree
give waiting memory possible needed
easily tell
especially asked
particularly power woke

Roberto had gone to the swimming pool. He was mostly puzzled by how reality had shifted into those broken pieces that didn’t seem to fit together since he had come back from that strange tunnel with all the roots spawning strange characters from glowing pink bubbly growth.
It must have something to do with the pink liquid leaking frrrrom those strrrange pouches, he thought.

He looked pensively at the swimming pool. Half of it was covered by thick ice while the other half was boiling with micro bubbles rising from the bottom and the walls, and steam slowly rising in the cool spring air.

Roberto had first thought there might be something wrong with the water cleaning mechanism of the swimming pool, but he had checked it and nothing was wrong, except the cleaning bot was stuck in the icy part of the swimming pool.

His second thought had been that it was a fancy pool cover installed by la señora Liz. But he didn’t find the retracting mechanism. La señora Liz and la muchacha Finnley, his colleague, seemed busy with the man with the moustache. Roberto had the impression the man wanted to find a wife, he didn’t want to intrude and say anything. He had tried to talk to el mayordomo Geoffrey, but he was busy again preparing another viaje de negocios for la señora.

So Roberto was there pondering in front of the swimming pool. That’s when he noticed the entrance of the green maze just on the other side of the pool, at the junction between summer and winter. He didn’t remember if it was there before.

Anna tapped on Godfrey’s door, pushed it open a crack, and informed him that she’d locked Elizabeth in the downstairs lavatory but was unsure if she’d be able to cajole her back to her bedroom.

“Drat!” exclaimed Godfrey, “What on earth was she doing downstairs? You know I can’t bear seeing her when she’s sick! And why weren’t you watching her as I instructed?”

“Well, I was, sir, but I heard a commotion outside by the pool. I was on my way to investigate, when I heard a loud knock on the front door. By the time I got there, Liz had answered it, so I slammed the door shut, and locked Liz in the lavatory, and came straight here for further instructions.”

“Who was at the door?”

Anna hadn’t noticed, but didn’t like to say. “Oh it was someone selling toasters only.”

“Pssst.”

Finnley turned to her right, swift as a ninja. She was relieved to see Roberto, full of twigs and hay in his dark bushy hair. He had panda eyes.

“What happened to you?” she asked in a hush before realising she only reacted to the way he prompted her. “Is that the new…”

“No,” he said, “I just woke up from that strange cave with the moving roots and birth place of new characters,” he said rolling his ‘R’s like only he could. “It took me that long to come back into this thread. I just wanted to tell you the back door is open. I need to take a shower and clean the pool. Half of it is in summer, but the other seems to be stuck in winter.”

Disappointed at the lack of interesting activity in Iceland, Hilda made a snap decision to catch the first flight to Liverpool. The news of the mysterious plague doctor roaming the streets of Chester had piqued her curiosity.

Was it an omen or just some fool in a fancy dress costume? Maybe it was a time traveler. If so, it would be worth investigating further.

limbo sense
late kitchen past turned latest sounded thread
brought away master report:
everyone pool ascension discussion
cloud opened

Frowning, Dispersee pondered the latest impulse and hesitated before including it in her report. The imagery had shifted from pools, to bubbles, to vapourous mist rising in shafts of sunlight, which sounded dangerously akin to ascending into the light, and that would never do. There was already far too much mumbo jumbo circulating about ascension and light, and altogether too many people sitting around on gluten free arses, ignoring everything, waiting for the shifted salt free shaft of the rapture to beam them up to the higher realms.

No, it was no good, she couldn’t possibly share the new imagery, it would be misconstrued and counterproductive. Dispersee waited for the next strange impulse, and further clues.

She didn’t have to wait long: the next morning, seized by another compulsion, she slipped out of the house into the dense swirling fog. Normally a big fan of bright contrast and intense colours, the diffused monochrome scenes were somehow restful to her senses. Water droplets danced in the air like common eye floaters, gathering on her skin and hair, wetting her as effectively as a dunk in a pool, but without the sudden shock of a plunge. It was insidious, almost sneaky, the way the mist pretended to be air but was mostly water. The fog connected everything in its path with its swarms of moisture droplets, drenching everything. Dispersee wondered if her wellington boot had sprung a leak as her left sock became coldly saturated, but it was the rivulets of clinging fog dribbling down her trouser leg.

The bucolic scenery in shades of grey reminded her of the common phrase “it’s not black and white” which had been much bandied about of late. No, it’s not, she mused, it’s shades of reflected dispersed fluid, masquerading as spaces and solid matters. Poised to take a snapshot of a particularly large dewdrop which was reflecting an interesting twisted sapling, Dispersee blundered into the stalk of the plant, causing a furious shivering along the stems and seed pods. She watched with a feeling akin to fascinated horror as the glorious individual droplets merged into a channel of least resistance, spilling down in streams to gather in the mud.

“…..salt free inquisition born of effete privilege…”

Dispersee shook her head and cackled to herself while reading Stinks Mc Fruckler’s (a double agent posing as a descended trickster) report.

“These dupes, so arrogant in their idiocy have become an incredibly powerful voice which effects us all, this being why I rail against them, they are the new repulsive face of self righteous sanctimonious evangelism, a salt free inquisition born of effete privilege, modern day ill informed witch-burners intent on removing choice, blocking scientific advances….”

Stinks may well get lynched for that one, she thought with a fond smile. Nobody expects to get away with criticizing the salt free inquisition. It was a position only a former salt smuggler would understand, as Dispersee well knew. “Salt of the Earth” was a well known turn of phrase (though not nearly as amusing as “salt free inquisition born of effete privilege” as turns of phrase go), but few took to heart the actual meaning. It was to be a good few years yet before the Return of the Salt to the turbulent planet, and salt, for the meantime, was still public enemy number one in the collective mind.

Dispersee closed the report and turned her attention to her own.

Despite her demonstration with the pool (complete with illustrations), throwing spoons haphazardly into the murky pool with no regard for the hidden fishes and broken chairs in the depths of the dirty water, despite the resulting swarm of earthquakes, only a handful of individuals understood the point she had been trying to demonstrate with regard to what was known in new age circles as “pooling” ~ not to be confused with team flow, which was something else entirely. (The fact that she had not understood what she was illustrating at the time, merely following a strange impulse, was neither here nor there ~ the point was quite obvious in retrospect, which was all that mattered).

Pooling had become almost as popular as the Salter lynchings, and the unfortunate common denominator was “best intentions” ~ best intentions, vaguely pasted hearts, and no real understanding or questioning of the contents of the pool they were all diving into. The Pool Lemmings dived in one after another without washing off their associations, weighed down with their constructs and baggage, splashing the foul slime outside the pool where it seeped into the common water table, tainting the entire neighbourhood. The best intentions sank to the depths, perhaps to be fished out by an especially skilled fisherman of best intentions, but likely not. It was the clingy slippery algae of the associations that really thrived, and they attached themselves and flowed back out of the pool. Really it was a mess. Even her practical demonstrations of non return valves and two way valves had gone over their heads (as had the contaminated water).

The second part of her demonstrations had been to illustrate the importance, and indeed the beauty, of bubbles ~ dewdrops suspended along webs ~ connected via gossamer thin but extremely strong networks, perfect reflective bubbles that kept their shape and individual purpose, rather than forming a dank puddle of slime in the overflowing muddy ditch. Admittedly Dispersee has not been aware of what she was demonstrating at the time, she was just following another strange impulse.

She decided to finish her report tomorrow, and await todays strange impulse for further information.

Flora, rising late as was her custom, and feeling the relaxing glow of being on holiday, strolled leisurely out of her bedroom door in search of coffee. As she stepped into the corridor, one of the twins, not watching where she was going, collided with her surprisingly forcefully, knocking her to the ground. She knocked her head on the door frame, felt a rush of noise and the sweet metallic scent of blood before losing consciousness.

“Flora! Miss Fenwick! Oh my god, Flora!” Corrie cried. After getting no reaction from the inert body and seeing the pool of blood spreading alarmingly, she sped off to find Aunt Idle.

As soon as Corrie was out of sight, Prune emerged from the broom cupboard opposite, saw the body on the floor, and ran in the opposite direction in search of Bert.

“They said seventeen seconds, but I never would have believed it! Did you see that?”
“Seventeen seconds to barbecue a fish that size? Take a bit longer than that, Sha” replied Gloria.
Sharon rolled her eyes and turned to Mavis. “See that, our Mavis? See how that fish landed right on our barbecue?”
“Another trick out of that book you’ve been reading, was it?” Mavis replied. “Not bad really, but why were you asking for a fish? None of us like fish.”
“Ah, well….I wasn’t asking for a fish exactly, no. But the way it landed seventeen seconds from when I changed my energy, well…”
Gloria rolled her eyes and yawned. “When you work it out, I’m sure you’ll let us know. What did you ask for, anyway?”
Sharon blushed. “Remember that hot Russian guy I had a dream about the other night?”
Mavis and Gloria looked at the fish, looked at each other, and burst out laughing. They were still laughing when Igor landed in the strawberry pool just a few feet away from where they were sitting, soaking them to the skin. The barbecue took a direct hit from the pink deluge, and hissed.
Igor took a deep breath and dived under the water as Sharon staggered into the pool, while Mavis and Gloria hooted from the shore.

“How very strange” said Igor, when they eventually reached the waterfall.
“What?” asked Mirabelle, who was paying more attention to the parrot perched on her shoulder. She tickled him under the chin. “Who’s a pretty boy then? muah muah muah pretty parrot, where have you been?”
Igor rolled his eyes at the kissing noises. “Look!” he said, pointing at the waterfall.
“It’s a fucking waterfall, yes, I see it!” snapped Mirabelle. Finding Huhu had distracted her from the discomfort of hunger, thirst and an aching body, but Igor’s questions brought her back to the reality of their situation.
Then it dawned on her. The waterfall plummeted downwards, in a seemingly infinite series of cascades and pools. It was impossible to see the bottom with the spray and mist, especially in the fading daylight.
“But we are still at sea level, Igor! The waterfall should be going up, not down. I mean to say, we should be looking up at the waterfall flowing down. This isn’t making any sense. But look” she said, pointing to the first pool on the right. “There is a little hut there and some people. Fat people.” she added. “I bet they will have some food, let’s go and ask.”
Igor stepped cautiously to the edge and and peered over, looking for a way down. He looked down, then looked back at the little stream they had followed from the sea, and then back down again.
“This water is breaking all the rules!” he cried. “It’s flowing in both directions!”
“Don’t be silly Igor, are you delirious? Everyone knows that water flows downhill towards the sea.”
“See for yourself then, look!” he put a stick in the stream and they watched it flow gently back the way they had come, towards the bay. “Now watch,” he said, as he tossed another stick over the edge of the waterfall. It quickly disappeared from view as it rushed downwards, in the opposite direction.
“Where is the source? Where is the water coming from?”
“Those fat people might know. Have you found a way down yet?”
It appeared that the only way down to the pool of the fat people was via the waterfall itself. There were sheer cliffs of malachite and rose quartz on either side of the waterfall as far as the eye could see.
“I think we will have to go down the waterfall itself, Mirabelle.”
She gasped and took an involuntary step back.
“We will have to steer ourselves towards where we want to go, that’s all.”
“Oh no, not me, if you think I’m going to just throw myself over a waterfall…Oh! Huhu come back!”
The parrot flew down to the pool of the fat people, and settled on a banana tree, watching Mirabelle above looking down at him.
“Fucking parrot,” muttered Mirabelle. “I’ll clip your wings when I catch hold of you, I swear I will. For your own fucking good! Well?” she said, turning to Igor. “Are you coming or what?” and she launched herself over the edge and into the waterfall, with one thought in her mind ~ the bloody parrot.
With a great splash, she landed in the rose coloured pool, bobbing to the surface like a cork. Disgruntled silvery fish leaped out of the water, one of them landing on the barbecue. Mirabelle waded out of the pool, oblivious to the fish, and the looks of amazement on the faces of the fat people, and walked over to the banana tree.
Huhu ripped a banana off a ripe yellow bunch and dropped it, squalking in delight as Mirabelle caught it in her hands. When Huhu saw that she was focused on peeling it and eating it, he fluttered down and perched on her shoulder. She gave the parrot the last bit of banana, and then turned her attention to the fat people and the barbecued fish.