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In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
Whether or not Arachne was actually better at weaving than Athena is still a mystery, or perhaps it is a moot point and no mystery at all. Weaving is by no means a solitary endeavour, as Blithe found early one summer morning. The river mist was rising and the air itself was dancing in droplets. It was hard to determine if the droplets were falling or rising, or simply milling around on the air currents. Hard green oranges (clearly oranges had been named in winter, or they would likely have been called greens) were festooned with silver threads, linking orange to orange, orange to tree and tree to wire fence, and back again. It was debatable whether or not the individual spiders were aware of the grand overall design of the early morning web links of the orange groves, just as it was equally debatable whether or not the inhabitants of the various Gibber realities were aware of the network of waterpipes that connected the other inhabitants to themselves and each other, and to the other Gibber worlds. Individuals were individuals, whether they be spiders, or Gibblets, and individuals generally speaking were focused on their own part of the tapestry (and often those of their immediate neighbours). Spider 57 on the east fence might be positioned to catch the first rays of sunshine in the mornings, but Spider 486,971 over near the dung heap was in a better position to catch the afternoon flies. And so on, as somebody famous once said.
As Blithe prowled around the orchard capturing potential clues on her Clumera she inevitably became part of the laybrinthine web of sticky threads herself, as they attached themselves to her hair and clothing. All of the gaps between the solids in the field were joined together with spun filaments, just as the Gibblets were joined together with fun spillaments (although leaking waterpipes were sadly misinterpreted as not-fun all too often, despite that they could be used as an opportunity to view the connections of the Waterpunk more comprehensively.)
The individual spiders lacy parlours were framed in wire squares, several hundred, if not more, along the perimeter fences. Not every wire fence square was filled; there were many vacant lots between established residences ~ whether by practical design or mere happenstance, Blithe couldn’t say. Many of the individual webs were whole and perfect, like the windows of Lower Gibber whose inhabitants kept their lace curtains clean and neatly hung. Many of the webs on the wire fence were not perfect in the symetrical sense ~ some had gaping holes, and there were those that appeared to be unfinished, despite showing great potential. Others appeared to be abandoned, hanging in shreds, not unlike many of the residences in Upper Gibber.
The wire framed residences of the field (and likewise the peeling paint framed residences of Upper Gibber) that appeared to be defunct were not quite as they seemed, however. They were simply being viewed from a different timeframe. It was quite possible to view each wire or peeled paint framed en-trance side by side, notwithstanding that they were, so to speak, located in varying timeframes. All that was required was a more flexible viewpoint, and an ability to view more than one timeframe simultaneously. It was all a question of allowing an entrance to en-trance ~ which was, after all, its function.
{link: misty morning; entrance}
In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
The leaves were dry. They’d started to change to a brownish hue at the tip, then rapidly withered. They’d hoped it wouldn’t affect the whole crop, and when the first tea bush went down, they quickly uprooted it, for fear it would spread to the whole hill.
But despite their best efforts, the tea bushes went down, one by one, as though engulfed by a deadly plague. He and she were worried for their next year income, as their tea field was their main source of revenue. The highlands had always been favourable to them, and it seemed such an unlikely and truly unfair event given that the beginning of the year had brought an unexpected bounty of huge tea leaves.
What had happened? He was quite the pragmatic about it: disease, pests, too much sun, over-watering, over-pruning… nothing extending outside the visible, the measurable. She was the mystical: core beliefs, did she worry too much about that sudden wealth and made it disappear, the evil eye, greed and covetousness, celestial punishment.
It never occurred to her she could reverse it as easily once she understood what it was all about.
Well, she almost started to get an inkling of that thinking about warts. How efficiently she got those growths when she was so troubled about them, and how they all disappeared when she forgot about them. How not to think about something that’s already in your head? In that case, distraction never worked; it was a rubber band that would be stretched then snapped back at the initial core issue.
Snap back at yourself.
>STOP< – She stopped. Time to read that telegram delivered to oneself.
Everything still, for a moment. Dashed.
She started to look around.
The air was still, hot and full of expectation.
Almost twinkling in potentials.
Like a providential blank page, in the middle of a heap of administrative papers full of uninteresting chatty figures.
The pages are put aside, only the blank page is here.
She can start to populate it with colours, sounds and life, anytime. Lavender maybe. Soon.
But not yet now.
She wants to breathe in the calmness, the comfort of the silence. Even the crickets seem to be far away.
She was alone, and impoverished…
She is alone, and empowered, … in power.[link:leaves]
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
That silly Mayor’s idea suddenly found an unexpected and potentially interesting grace at the eye of Fwick the saucerer.
After all, without having to go as far as frying the poor thing in breadcrumbs, some backing powder and yeast would actually do a lot of good to boost the immune system of the little spider…
His thought felt almost disturbed by a squeaking sound followed by a muffled squeaghing, coming from the matchbox in his hands.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“What?” The Majorburgmester of Peasland almost laughed of surprise at the incongruity of Fwick con Troll’s idea. “You’re telling that this…”
“Little spider, yes”
“Contains a potent venom that could wipe the blubbits off the face of Peasland?”
“Absolutely, dear Majorburgmester”
“Are you out of your Fwicking mind, Fwick? What breading this nasty spider could possibly bring us any better than a plague of crop-eating blubbits in rut?”
“I was actually talking of breeding them, sir” Fwick objected
The Mayor continued unperturbed “Besides, we already have our fierce constable Stoll drill the mythic Eight Dimension for answers.”
“That would be placing a lot of trust in that foolish venture, I’m afraid to say, Majorburgmester. To date, very few people have managed to return safely.”
“Oh, who cares if they ever bloody come back Fwick! Come on! All we need to do is extort the answers from his spouse who’s kept all their heads in a safe place, I have no doubt of that.”
“Well… I wouldn’t place my head on this bet if I were you…”“Ah, bugger off then with your stinking spider, and do your bloody experiments… As long as it doesn’t involve my name, and especially in case any misguided and sad assassination should occur, ahahaha. I’m joking of course.” The Mayor’s face (which was framed and hanged on the wall of the Majorburgmester Hall’s main office) suddenly shut any hint of humanity that could have been left on it.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
The newly deceased Shar and Gor…
“Shouldn’t he say something less grim you think?”
“I definitely agree my dear Shar”
“Something like in-ceased, or up-ceased… We’re ascended after all!”
“I’m not so sure it sounds better, but…”Well, them being up-ceased, involved a new challenge for the writer(s) of this story, as the two blusterously boisterous ladies were in a desperate move to attempt sending communication to the objective world —officially to discover the extent of their influence. Their new-found access to the collective subconscious made them all the more a trouble for the writer(s).
Anyway, as we speak, Shar and Glor, were… or are actually trying to influence some characters and hence co-authors of this work of fiction to test their own ability to manipulate some of these individuals.
So far the extent of their experiments had fared tepid results.
“OK. Let’s try with these two. I’m beaming something down to them!”
To which, moments and some non-physical sweating on Glor’s brow later, one of the two subjects of this experiment (the blond one) blurted out without knowing from where it came: “Spiggot on the spike freak, Lingenburg Dash”
“What the hell was that Glor?”
“Good Lord, I don’t have any idea!”
“What was it supposed to be then!?”
“I just beamed them ‘Speaking now without mike – leap if you ain’t dead’!”
“Good grief… Those two might as well be hopeless…”Of course, unbeknown to them, in other potential realities, what she really beamed to them was entirely different; something like ‘Speaking now – dead to the living – leap and bound if you catch’… Subsequently, Ann’s catch was in fact an indication of great disposition to tune into more than one probabilities at a time, the benefits of which were lost to the poor dabbling souls.
But this point notwithstanding, as they were speaking, another potential just appeared at the horizon. A woman named Yoland, with an improbable ability to express strings of thoughts inspired from above (anywhere that ‘above’ might be) without much distortion.
“Have to tread carefully with that one, Glor”
“Yes, I reckon dear…”
“We could even manage to fully channel her body, she seems a perfect candidate!” Sharon would have rubbed her hands with glee if she’d had hands still.
“Innit a bore though that she would ask for such grand truths…”
“Not to worry, we’ll invent them as we walk. I’ve even got an idea for session one with her: the great cluster of Mamarose of energy essential oils.”In reply to: Strings of Nines
Ann was beginning to wonder about the two Yoland threads that she appeared to have created, somewhat unwittingly, and possibly ill advisedly. There had been some discussions on bi polar extremes recently at one of her quilting bees, and there were all the black and white outfits and soft furnishings at the lunch party, as well as the interior designers flowers all coming up white this year instead of colours.
Ann knew enough about the magnitudes of potential strings (otherwise known as MP’s) to appreciate that she had a choice whether to attach any symbolic meaning to any of this, or not, in myraids of merry multitudinous ways, methodical, medicinal, mesmerising, or otherwise.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“Just do it. Either just do it, or just make something up” she told herself. Again. “Either do it, or make it up, but stop thinking about it and talking about it.” Yoland sighed and turned on the radio. It was an old pink one, the kind with the dials that turn, and a pull out antenna. The antenna was a bit rusty at the bottom and didn’t rotate very well, which made it a bit tricky to get a clear reception without alot of preliminary juggling around and fidgeting. The dogs under her desk scratched themselves noisily as Yoland fiddled with the radio.
“In the backwater….”
“…yes you’ve got the Splain Channel loud and clear now all you have to do is focus on what the next word is and then write it down without thinking about the spelling, as you can see you are looking at the keybaord and tryping”, Yoland smiled at the typo, “the words that you are hearing without trying to anallzye them too much now. ok are you ready? We’re going to do some balloon exercise first to get the ball rolling, you see, there are many ways to blow up a balloon, and I’ll be the first to tell you you’re doing it wrong, I am kidding, of course.”
Yoland smiled, inching forward on the chair to accomodate the dog that had wormed his way round her back, wondering whether or not to move him.
“Your chair is fine the way it is, that’s a very common delaying tactic my freind, and one you are quite familiar with. Now, pay attention once again to simply the words that you hear as you are writing, watching the keys is rather mesmerising is it not….”
Yoland did a quick reality check and agreed that she was feeling a bit mesmerized, and realized that she possibly could feel considerably more mesmerized if she stopped doing reality checks.
“…and as you watch your fingers moving along in a rather detached way, you can detach your attachment to knowing what the next word might be and simply write what you hear; we are practicing the sliding away from the strict hold on trying to anticpate the net words and then you freeze the flow, it shouldn’t be tiring if you let go and relax a bit and simply allow your fingers to move of their own accord while you relax your shoulders…”
What a load of rubbish, thought Yoland, as she adjusted her chair, which had a habit of suddenly dropping down an inch, just enough to make it hard for her to reach the keyboard. Sighing, she wondered about ever getting a satisfactory answer to her Really Big Questions, the ones that nobody had answered so far. All she ever managed to tune into was rambling waffling inane….
“….you feel that your questions are so large that the capacity for distortion is huge, and you feel that other questions are easily answered via other routes and methods, and this is correct.”
Yoland wondered what THAT was supposed to mean.
“Ok we can forget questions then and I will tell you a story.”
Yoland relaxed. That sounded easier.
“Once upon a time there was a beer fisherman from the planet of Oxbloodshire.”
Oh here we go, she thought. What’s coming next…
“Whether or not you find clues in there is entirely your choice to create them, and all are equally valid. This is such a simple thing: that even the most seemingly miniscule sentences contain a myriad of potential diversions and convergences, routes, patterns, nets, from even the tiniest particle of an idea. All of them are boundlessly creative offshoots which become a particular stream, or string.”
Yoland found herself wondering where some of them started, and found she didn’t know where to start.
“With the question of syncronicities every point of them is the start point, the end point, the main point, the moot point, and the connecting links as well, as are all the others. When you get your ball of string in a tangle, it’s easier to throw it away and start a new one.”
Yoland was inclined to agree, but wondered if that sounded like sensible advice.
“Immediately the new one starts linking up all kinds of things in a new interconnected design pattern, and then when that gets in a right tangle, a fresh ball of string awaits; the tangled ones aren’t in a tangle at all when you’re not tangled up within it.”
Well, that certainly sounded resonable, Yoland had to admit.
“And why waste time with old tangles anyway when you can start afresh and just make something up, for no particular reason?”
Bloody good question, why not indeed? Yoland decided to start making things up there and then, and turned her computer off and went to pack her case.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Ann wasn’t altogether sure what Godfrey meant when he referred to her new interest in continuity. Ann had always been interested in connecting links, yes, of that there was no doubt, but with so very many connecting links, and so many possible strings of connecting links, with so many possible divergences into yet more strings of connecting links, Ann really couldn’t fathom how anyone could possibly keep track of all those threads of continuity. Even a seemingly discontinuous assortment of unconnected links, once connected into a nonsense thread, became another continuity string. Furthermore, Ann continued ~ in a continuous fashion ~ to ponder, if everything is connected, then what, in actuality, was all the fuss about continuity? What exactly then WAS this concept of continuity? It seemed to Ann to be more like a string of barbed wire, or one of those flimsy but effective electric wire fences, boxing in the free flow of continuity, so that the objectively perceived continuity stayed rigidly within the confines of the preconceived tale. The inner landscape knew no such boundaries, although admittedly the inner landscape was far too vast to map.
Ann smiled to herself as she imagined trying to push pins into various inner landscape locations, tying strings from one to another, in an effort to map and label the inner continuity connections. Of course she was imagining it in a visual manner, because it was hard to imagine all those connections and strings being invisible and not taking up any space, and before long Ann’s inner map of pins and strings quickly resembled a tangle of overcooked spaghetti, perilously speckled with sharp pointy pins.
The image of the glutinous tangle dotted with sharp shiny pointers led Ann off on another tangent, but it was a tangent that soon became utter nonsense. Or was it, she mused. Perhaps it was those symbolically sharp pointy bits that in fact pointed out the immense variety of potential other continuity threads to choose from. Indeed, it could easily be said that having one of her characters dumped in Siberia in the previous story, painful though it was, was not unlike being pricked by a pin amidst the tangle of sticky pasta, a brilliantly effective pointer towards unlimited new directions.
Whichever way she looked at it (and Ann was aware that she might have gone down a side string) she simply couldn’t comprehend how anyone on this side of the veil could possibly even begin to understand the ramifications of the concept of continuity at all. Or how there could ever conceivably be a lack of it.
What was really intriguing Ann at this particular juncture of the experimental exploration of the story was the concept of the World View Library. This wasn’t unconnected to the continuity issue, far from it, it was all tied in (Ann sniggered at the unintentional pun) and connected. There were any infinite amount of potential continuity threads leading from, say, one persons desire or intent, to a particular world view in the library.
AHA shouted Ann, who at that moment had an ‘aha’ moment. Pfft, it’s gone, she sighed moments later.
Ann tried to catch the wisp of an idea that had flitted through her awareness. She had a visual impression of the library, endlessly vast and marvellously grand, with countless blindfolded characters dashing through, grabbing random pages or sentences, bumping into each other, snatching at phrases willy nilly, dropping notes along the way, and racing back out again into the ether. A stray thought here, a picture there, a name or a date, all on separate bits of crumbled paper clutched in the sweaty palms of the blindfolded characters as they rushed headlong back to their own realities to proudly share the new clues. Like magpies they were, snatching at anything that glittered brightly enough.
“I thought you said they were blindfolded?” interrupted Franlise.
Ann ignored the interruption, and continued ~ in a continuous fashion ~ to ponder the imagery of the library.
What the undisciplined purloiners of random snatches didn’t notice on their pell-mell excursions into the library were the characters in the library who weren’t wearing blindfolds. They smiled down from the galleries, calmly watching from above the mayhem that the news of the unlimited library access had occasioned, chortling at the scenes of chaos below. They smiled indulgently, for they too had first visited the library blindfolded, snatching at this and that, and racing home again to inspect the booty; they too had fretted and pondered over the enigmas of the incomplete snippets. Eventually (or not, it was after all a choice), they had bravely removed the blindfolds, slowed the mad race into a sedate stroll through the library, opened their eyes and looked around, sure of the way back home now, and not in a desperate hurry to blast in, snatch anything, and run back home.
After awhile, they began to realize that all the enchanting glittering jewels scattered around to catch their eye would still be there later, there was no urgency to grab them all at once ~ although, as Ann reminded herself, that too was a choice ~ some may well choose to be eternally snatching at glittering jewels.
Ann frowned slightly and wondered if she’d lost the thread altogether, and then decided that it didn’t matter if she had.
It was a choice, therefore, to remove ones blindfold, and stroll through the library ~ a choice to perhaps choose a book, sit down at a polished oak table and open it, a choice to stay and read the book, rather than ripping out a page and dashing back home. That would be one choice of continuity, a coming together of strings.
Ann wondered whether that would then be called a cable, or a rope ~ well perhaps not a rope, she decided, that had other associations entirely ~ but a cable, yes, that had associations of reliable and regular communications. There were always strings of continuity, then, strings of connecting links, between anything and everything, but when one stopped dashing about clutching at the sparkley bits, one might form a cable.
Or not, of course. Thin strings of continuity and connections were not ‘less than’ thick cables of reliable and regular communications. It has to be said though, Ann reluctantly admitted, that thick cables often made more sense.
She decided to hit send before embarking on a pondering of the meaning of Sense.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
The Le Hoot triplets had just arrived from the Nest Dimension and were quietly aclimatizing to the new environment. They were well camoflaged against the pine tree branch, Sprack had done a good job as usual with the expedition planning, his noteworthy attention to detail and vast knowledge of Pulmonia was second to none.
Sprack unfortunately hadn’t forseen the lungquake occuring so soon after the Hoot’s arrival, however. When the pine branch first started to tremble, F’Loot, who was perched on the outermost position, almost lost her footing. Luckily K’Yoot managed to hold onto F’Loot, while M’Yoot maintaineed a firm hold on the pine trunk, saving them all from an embarrassing and potentially disastrous fall.
The Le Hoot’s had been sent to Pulmonia to locate all the Lost Eggletons and return them to Ovadonia for debriefing and eventual retirement, with instructions to locate all missing Eggletons, whether they be dead, alive, melted or cooked, or miscellaneous parts thereof.
As the ground started to shake for a second time, M’Yoot spotted the terrified yellow Eggleton clinging desperately onto a gravestone, beads of chocolatey sweat spattering the cold grey stone.
M’Yoot tugged K’Yoot’s wing in alarm, pointing wordlessly at Amarilla. K’Yoot in turn nudged F’Loot, who almost lost her footing again. There was an almighty roar as the ground heaved and split.
As the Lost Eggleton screamed and disappeared into the heaving bubbling goo, the Le Hoot triplets sprang into action.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Decimus! Yoo Hoo! OH MY GOD! how wonderful to see you here. What are YOU doing in Manilva? Is Antonio here too?
LAVENDER! How great to see you!….. Oh Antonio, Decimus shook his head, his joy at seeing Lavender quickly replaced with sadness at the thought of his Beloved. I have not seen her for many months. Only in my dreams does she visit me, and there she is doing the strangest of things. Things no man can decipher. It is strange times indeed Lavender. Decimus sighed heavily, then rubbed his eyes and scratched his head. God, he really needed to get some help. He wondered if the great Dr Limur might be able to help him get rid of these nervous twitches. Ever since Antonio had been gone he had been rubbing, sighing, scratching! It was driving him mad. And the odour of fermented fish which constantly plagued him! Dear God, what had he done to deserve this.
Lavender regarded her friend with compassion. Poor fellow, he really was behaving oddly. However, recalling her recent rather embarrassing encounter with Harvey, she decided against trying to rid Decimus of any potential lurking demons. Perhaps it was better to try and emulate the famous Tattler twins, Ann and Sally, and simply listen, rather than trying to jump in and help all the time.
Anyway my dear Lavender. What brings YOU to this god forsaken place?
I have an appointment to see Annabel… um, hang on I can’t remember her name .., Lavender rummaged in her purse. Oh that’s right, Annabel Ingram. She is a certified dream navigator. I found her on gloogloo when I was searching for some help with my seven new born … anyway, long story … Aspidistra has them now so that is okay … and then… the strangest thing! I found 57 of her business cards in my mail box. Isn’t that rather odd Decimus?
Decidedly odd indeed, replied Decimus, with a sigh.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
“Don’t bother me with that now, Godfrey! Can’t you see I’m swamped with ideas? I’ve got so many things to write I simply don’t know where to start. Which is why I’m starting right here and now, with the issue of the writer being overloaded with potential story lines.”
Elizabeth ran her hands through her hair distractedly, and impatiently pushed the miniature giraffe off her lap.
“Relax, Liz”. Singularly unruffled, Godfrey picked up the giraffe and stroked his neck. “Tranquilo, Lizzie, tranquilo!”
“What? Oh, well done Godfrey, that’s taken care of one thing off my list then! One of my theme words had to be a foreign word.” Elizabeth started to relax. “And what finer word is there than tranquilo, eh, what a marvellous word.”
“Indeed” replied Godfey “But is that the correct usage of the creative writing theme words? I mean, really, you could just write ‘Liz had a list of theme words and they were a foreign word, dual~duel, marmalade sunrise, appreciate and adore, summer rain, beyond the horizon’ and leave it at that, couldn’t you?”
“Godfrey, you are clever!” Elizabeth congratulated herself. “But what about all the other ideas?”
“Well, why not start by making a list? Jot down a few clues. Or just start writing, and see what happens. I’ll put the kettle on while you make a start, fancy a cuppa?”
“Oooh yes please! Finnley bought some new teabags this week, quite spicy they are as well.”
Godfrey sniggered as he disappeared into the kitchen, calling over his shoulder “Have you got any of those gingerbread men left?”
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
That was it. She had enough for the time being. Ever since the management had agreed to hire him for the new show, the Freakus was not as Fabulously Great as it once was.
Not that he was a bad guy, but he was all so closeted, he was imprinting it to the circus, and she wanted to breathe some different kind of air. Of course, never been a freak himself, Morgan the Mentalist wouldn’t ever come close as to understand what having been closeted your all life would mean. Being the Lobster girl of the show, she knew quite a bit about that.
It had took her awhile to know that there wasn’t anything wrong with her expression, so no one would told her how to express. Not the Mentalist of all others.Damo, the guy who was setting up the tents had seen her leave the Freakus without a word, her little piece of luggage on her “normal” hand, while her claw-like one was tucked in a glove under her bosom. Sweet-hearted as he was, he had tried to convince her to stay, that surely there was some misunderstanding.
“Lyla, don’t be stoopid, ain’t got nothin’ fur you out there” he’d said to her.She didn’t know how to tell him that all was good. She didn’t want to tell too much either, for Fama, his teen daughter wasn’t really loving the life at the circus either, and would easily have taken the bait to get out of there too. So she had moved saying that she would come back, “when it’s safe for kids” she’d added mysteriously.
Strange at it seemed, it was like taking a breathe of air, and yet, she couldn’t help but think over and over at how she could have changed anything in what had happened. Perhaps it was just a pretext for her to do her next step.
When Morgan first came to the show, he wasn’t in a good shape, and had begged Pat Elson to hire him. As he was kind of smart guy, he didn’t stay long in Damo’s team of workers. Pat saw his potential as a sort of empathic guy, and devised the Mentalist act with him.He was good at cold-reading, mostly guessing at people problems; in the beginning, some of the freakus’ people would play a part with him, to amaze the audience, but it became less and less necessary, and he would do a nice job buy himself, with lots of “it wouldn’t happen to be that your mother gave the watch to you? No… not your mother… but someone close… I can feel blah blah” and then picking on the subtle hints the guy was giving off unwittingly.
Lately, he had started to kind of feel stuff for real. And he started to freak out. After all this time, not many people remembered Morgan as he first came to the circus, and for most he was the Outstandingly Great Mentalist. Yeah, he had been pimping up a bit his name too… Those things happen in the milieu.
But Lyla remembered. She was a girl at this time, but your work at the circus starts very early when you’re a freak.
She had seen how he gained a little confidence in himself, as long as it stayed within closed tents and half-lit veils. He was truly a master of illusion games, and he didn’t want people to see him differently than the way he was presenting himself. He’d first tried his little games of séances with some close trusty friends, and Lyla had been quite encouraging; he deserved to blossom his potential; no one deserved to be maintained at a place where you can’t reach your highest.A few days before, Lyla had had the pleasure of seeing Jenny, who’d been snake charmer many years ago, and had quit to become a singer in a bar: “tired me to travel so much, ya see” she’d said to Lyla “Now my life ain’t so complicated”.
Then Jenny had then asked about the guys she’d known in the freakus, first of all was Morgan the Mentalist. “How’s that old fart of Morgy?” she’d asked with a giggle “still scamming around?”Lyla had said innocently that he’d been practicing doing it more genuinely, even to some success with local peasants in a few séances. Jenny had greeted the news with a cheer. “Wonderful, hey!”
The next day, Lyla had had the Mentalist erupt in the caravan she shared with Zarafina and Venus, since Twi had gone to sing too. He was looking furious and once they were out of earshot (how could there be any need of making secrets with the others, Lyla had wondered, they shared everything, even the tiny bar of soap) told her with his sweetest voice how he appreciated Jenny. Of course she wasn’t a Mentalist, but she knew when someone was beating around the bush; and she needn’t be Moses to know the bush was smelling of burning.
“I greatly appreciate Jenny, but I’d love to choose when I disclose my information to her” that’s what he said. At first, she’d thought, well, why the theatrics? Cool for you guy, peace off now. Then she slowly understood that he wanted to tell her to shut her mouth. How could she know what part to shut and which to tell? She hadn’t done anything wrong did she? Why was he having the same tone than the frigging priests with their sermons telling that you’re sinful, and when you’ve got a crooked arm, it’s because you’re born evil and such guilt shit.”
Well, she didn’t want to stay in a position where she had to figure out which of his sharing was a real sharing or was not. So she better bugger off, take some fresh air.
She thought how she loved to hear the radio, and her lifelong dream was to work there, in a place where people would hear her before judging from her appearance… Maybe she would thank Morgy in the future for giving her the last excuse to do what she wanted.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
“Is there a probable Becky still at the Serendib Facility ~ in-the-rural-mountainous-central-region-of Sri-Lanka-in-the-2030’s ~ Godfrey?” Elizabeth hurriedly included some background information in her question to appease her publisher, the erudite and enigmatic Godfrey Pig-Littleton.
Elizabeth was amused to note that erudite was almost an opposite to rude, but as Elizabeth could vouch for, neither was mutually exclusive, as Godfrey was clearly equally at ease exhibiting both ends of the rude spectrum. But I digress, she said to herself, turning her attention to Godfrey.
“Elizabeth,” he said with a frown, “At your request I have had installed all manner of information retrieval systems, both objective and subjective, and yet you will insist on asking me questions instead of accessing the information yourself.” Godfrey shivered, attempting to wrap his velvet smoking jacket closer round his spare frame. The rich claret colour suited him perfectly, but it was clearly inadequate against the bitter cold. “Put another log on the fire, Liz, it’s colder than a witches tit in here today!”
“Don’t be rude, Godfrey” replied Elizabeth with a sniff. “I’m too cold to move, you do it. I’ve been absolutely frozen ever since Al sent us all to the South Pole. As a matter of fact, there’s been a cold snap all over the globe, which is why” she continued “I am trying to get us all out of there and back to Sri Lanka! We don’t want to start another Ice Age, Godfrey, this has to stop.”
“Ah, those were the days” smiled Pig Littleton. “I remember it well. It all started when Aunt Jeanne du Bappe was writing her book and wanted more ice for her G&T. Somehow it all escalated out of control, and before you could say Boo to a Goose, the whole place was covered in glaciers. A few million years later, when she’d slept off the effects of the gin, it was just beginning to thaw…”
“Dear old Jeanne, where is she now? I haven’t heard from her for…er, aeons.”
“Oh, she’s in fine fettle, got a job in The City you know. They say she’s quite something in The City these days, got quite a name for herself in Design & Communications.”
“Has she now! She’s done well for herself then, last I heard she was tiling kitchens in New Venice.”
Pig Littleton snorted. “Aunt Jeanne du Bappe, tiling in New Venice? Don’t be ridiculous, Liz, you’re getting your timelines in a twist. I expect that was one of her protegée’s, Aunt Jeanne’s been in The City for —well…”
Godfrey was uncharacteristically stumped.
Elizabeth wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to tease her old friend. “For how long?”
“For a very long Now”
“Well, I must say, that’s a fine thing isn’t it, to start an ice age and then bugger off to The City while everyone else freezes their tits off” said Elizabeth, blowing on her hands to warm them.
“You do realize, Liz dear, that every time you mention the word Cold, or Frozen, or Ice Age, you are increasing the potential of the Ice Age in the Probability Pool?”
“Godfrey, the Probability Pool has frozen over. We’ll be skating right over the top of it instead of dipping into it, if we don’t start a thaw soon!”
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Elizabeth had wanted to voice her concerns about the Vowel Shift and its potential impact on language and understanding to her publisher Godfrey Pig Littleton on numerous occasions, but until his, to her way of thinking, outrageous tampering with her script, it had not been in the forefront of her mind. She had simply ignored the Vowel Shift in the Ooh Dimension, and made up her own Vowel Shifts instead, in a variety of minor ways. Ironically and somewhat perversely (Elizabeth was well aware of the consonant shift, which she translated as a continental drift symbol) Pig Littleton was quick to notice and object.
“Do you deliberately write ‘collaberative’ instead of ‘collaborative’?” he asked.
“There are No Accidents, Godfrey” retorted Elizabeth, rather cleverly shutting the old coot up, at least for awhile. Thank Goodness he was otherwise engaged with the latest production of TWIST, and not breathing down her back about The Book.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Having left her body, she realized that this incursion in her old dimension had exposed her body to a lot of strain. It was easier for her now that her attention wasn’t so clinched to the physical reality, it was more fluid and more comfortable. She was in a hurry, but she had to made some arrangements before or her beautiful physical expression would deteriorate too quickly. Looking at it from her current point of view, she felt compassion and sadness. Her face was so pale and covered in sweat, her hair so dishevelled. She gathered some long forgotten aspects which would knew how to take care of that situation. She had some big challenge ahead and it was important that when she came back her body would be readily available.
As for now, first of all she had to find that cube. It could help her localized the artifact she needed in her fight for the skulls. She vaguely remembered it was in a room to which there was an entry somewhere on this planet that she had left just before her departure to the Duane… so many years ago in her focus, and a bit mixed up with the non-linear time of that other dimension… well, she let her intuition guide her as it was the only way to find it; she felt that something in the energy outside was facilitating also, she could feel the ripples but… she had no time to find out what it could be. She already had lost so much time taking care of her body.
After what seemed to be eons, she eventually found the door well hidden in a cave in Venezuela. The condition of the place surprised her, the cave was quite humid and muddy, the door wood was almost completely rotten, not mentioning the frame of eroded stones. She couldn’t remember why she chose these elements when she created this entry on earth, but apparently she didn’t put enough energy in it and her attention had been away for so long that it was crumbling apart. She didn’t have time for recrimination at the moment so she moved through the door and her presence lightened up the inner room.
It was a place in between dimensions, an inner study from where she could gather and connect her discoveries in the different places she had visited; a good place to plan her next moves. The room was well equiped to find missing objects too. All she had to do was find that missing cube…
It had to be close to the center, in a manner of speaking at equal distance from the different dimensions that were connected to it. She had to be careful in the process as some parts of the study were close enough of other dimensions that she would forget all about what she was looking for. There was a potentiality for disengagement here and that wouldn’t help her at all.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Georges and Salome’s journal
From Salome’s account of her introduction to the Turmak People (Part 2)
Once Cil and I arrived on the Murtuane the most obvious thing to be noticed was that the situation was of great complexity, with far-reaching potential implications.
There was this thing about the Murtuane which was not easily seen with the eyes —but somehow with appropriate shift of one’s attention could be felt to some degree. It was that this part of the dimension (this planet in simpler words) was acting like a form of capacitor which would help regulate the outbursts of energy in various directions of the dimension, namely the Duane —which was more diverse, and more versatile in its types of experimentation.
Usually, Cil had explained, most of the outbursts occurred on the Duane, and they were mitigated by the underlying presence of the balancing energies of the Murtuane.
Most of the inhabitants of the Murtuane were very peaceful beings, mostly due to either their shared telepathic and empathic bond (Children of Turmak), or else to their nurturing societal structure (Zentauras and Children of the Sea).But here, something unprecedented had occurred on the farthest parts of the lands, near the Kandulim shores. A Daughter of the Sea, a representative of the Zentauras had explained, had broken her bond to the Sea to live with someone she had rescued. This in itself which should have been a private matter of the Race of the Sea had become also a thorn in the hoof of the Zentauras, as the couple had not only started to live on the Kandulim, but they also had come to rally more people around themselves, claiming a rightful place to live on their sacred soil.
The disruption didn’t suggest any foul-play from outside forces, yet Cil and I quickly got that feeling that there is more at play that meets the eye…
( Part 3 )
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
“Okay,” Al started.
“At the essence of I Ching, is the notion that everything is mutable, and changes. Everything changes, except the law that says that everything changes.
“In many ways, the I Ching is like a book where the pages numbering change every time you start to read it. Not unlike our story composition.”“I get that,” answered Tina, interested by what would come out.
“So,” Al continued, always disagreeably pondering, Tina would say. “usually, when people are drawing to read from the I Ching, they have six numbers that give an hexagram. And these numbers are carrying into them their potential change, which usually gives another hexagram to read.”
“In our stories, the entries have a fixed identity, which is given by the system; this is our starting point. For your comments, this is ’4-191-328’.
“But as everything evolves, our entries are given an order in the book; this order is changeable, and that’s what I will use for the second hexagram; in your case it’s ’2-151-223’.”
“If you say so…” Tina sighed, a bit lost.
“Oh, I’m inventing the rules as we speak,” Al said trying to reassure her somewhat.
“I don’t know if that makes me feel better” she said.“Okay. Now, I need to create the hexagrams; hexagrams are defined by six straight or broken lines; zero or one, binary system. Here, Chinese usually use the convention that odd is straight, and even is broken… Ahaha, doesn’t seem to make sense, but odd is male, unbalanced into action, and is associated with single, straight things. Broken is paired, complete in reflection, unbalanced in passivity.”
“And I wonder when we actually start to hear something that makes sense?” whispered Tina, a bit crossly.
“Okay, the thing I see, is that I have trouble making one hexagram with seven numbers, ahaha”, Al laughed a bit embarrassed.
“Oh, then no point in wiggling like that” said Tina very sweetly, “Scrap any bit that bothers you”.
“Okay, anyway we can go deeper into them afterwards if needed; I’ll scrap the first number rather than the last, because you see, 2 and 4 are both even, and thus there is no mutation here.”
Original Mutation 8 ╌ 3 — 2 ╌ 2 ╌ 3 — 2 ╌ 1 — 1 — 9 — 5 — 1 — 1 — 4 ╌ 2 ╌ “So here we are, if we scrap the bottom one, we get…”
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
New Venice, July, 1 st 2035
The night was hot in New Venice at this time of the year. The weather patterns had been steadily shifting for many years, and the climate was now sub-tropical in the inundated Big Apple, as more and more people resented the usual coldness of winters, and had subjectively agreed upon a heightening of the temperatures of a few degrees.
Though accustomed to tell his body to relax, and vibrate at a lower frequency to counteract the sticky and displeasing effects of the heat, Al was finding sleep hard to find. Usually, he would attribute those moments of twitching slumberness to mass accessing of subjective information and bringing them to the objective. With the eclipse that would occur in the next weeks, those were still time of great cosmic synchronistic congruence.
Needless to say, he and Tina had been somewhat stirred by Becky’s sudden casualness, and relative abandon not only of the Reality Play but also of her three lovely first born to her friends.
People of that mysterious facility that Becky had briefly spoken so highly of had been doing a fantastic job, considering the very early birth, but still, Al had soon noticed the babies were displaying some kind of emotionless state which was eerie to observe in children that young. He had first thought of a remnant from the birth trauma, but it appeared that they were all perfectly aware, and even more than that, accutely aware of their environment to the point of displaying qualities of awareness akin to telepathy or pre-sentience.Sam’s innate talent with the young ones had been very beneficial to them, and Al was hoping, would help them access their emotional communications as a guidance system to navigate within the immense and potentially overwhelming quantity of subjective information they were given such an easy access to.
Finally after having spent so much time before the cyputer, Al was collapsing from tiredness. He threw himself on the tatami for a healthy dose of rejuvenating sleep. Or so he thought…
Al woke up with a chill, sweat beading over his eyebrow.
He remembered.
They would come… Hybrids from their future… He remembered having met one a few years ago.
A strange bald guy with piercing eyes and strange snorting twitches on his face. One moment he was talking to him in the middle of the ramp waiting for a condocab, and the moment after, he had forgotten all of this encounter.
The guy had said intently to wait for the time when the Dream would remind them it was the Time of the Reunion.
So what was next? Aliens coming in their aluminum flying saucepans making mosquito sounds?
That sounded awfully like the outrageous rants that old Russian guy named Pasha was making years ago in the archives of Dory —which they had taken as a basis for their Reality Play…Gosh, that dream was so vivid, it couldn’t be a coincidence… Especially since the first Hybrids to make contact all looked like they were clones of Becky!
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Madame Chesterhope couldn’t believe her ears.
— WHAT?! YOU LOST IT?!
— Yes Madam, we lost contact, and we have reasons to believe that an unexpected well-planned counter attack on our team of magpies is to be blamed for…
— For that fiasco, Tfark! And where is the damn skull?! Will I have to go fetch it myself?
— There was report of a spy mottherfly that managed to escape by the wortex before it was closed. Nothing definite but we have reason to believe that the skull is still on the island. An agent of your old friend the Baron has been spotted heading back there.
— I will deal with it myself then.The glow of the transmission ball went out in a whiff.
Ah, she hated to have to come back to that dimension, especially in this time framework where everything was so clouded in terms of potentials. But she couldn’t really trust anyone on that.
In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Sam was having a weird dream in which he was having a romantic relationship with Becky after having influenced Sean in a slippery sleepy slope.
As the vision was developing itself, it appeared that they obviously had loads of children, like 7
Some of them were energies he was already familiar with, some he had glimpsed during Becky’s broadcast the other day.
Some others were newly added to this dimension and Becky and him were gladly offering them an entry point, so to speak… and there was the potential for a few more.
Sam smiled, because in wanting so bad not having these children, Becky were adding more fuel to this probability
no matter who the father was. She may have been struggling with it, but it was one of the main point of her focus.
