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  • #3330

    With the aid of the holographic map, Irina, Mr R and little Greenie have been exploring the island.
    The next day they found a crashed plane from Aeroflot, not very far from their own landing spot. It was half burried in the mud and covered in green mossy vegetation. The doors were open as an irresistible invitation to enter.

    “A surprise, Mr R. I thought that this place was on your map. If I remember well, it didn’t show such an object.”
    “Forgive me, madam, indeed this plane wasn’t there when I triangulated the map I showed you.”
    “You mean it’s fresh ?” Irina’s voice seemed to suddenly carry some interest. “Maybe we can find some survivors”, she added, already doubting it considering all the moss on teh metallic shell.
    “I’m afraid we won’t, madam. I didn’t want to bother you with that little detail until I was sure. There are objects on this island that only appear after a certain date. Have you noticed it also happens with the vegetation and the insects ?”
    Irina pouted, “I prefer leaving that to your expertise.”
    “Of course, madam”, said the robot, affable. “The paradox is…”
    “Another paradox ? How interesting.”
    “…that it doesn’t seem to include us, or that little person.”
    “Any idea what the implications are ?” Irina began to wonder if there was any danger of being stuck permanently on this island.
    “I have several hypothesis”, he began, “The most probable is the lost room hypothesis. We arrived there through time space displacement and are not a natural part of this environment, hence we don’t change with its natural environment or inhabitants because we are not under it’s time sequence according to the Lehmon’s law.”

    Irina pouted. She looked at little greenie and thought of the implications about how their new friend arrived there. Whenre did she come from ? For her to be a bog mummy, she must have been there a long time. Or did she arrived already bogged ?
    Something caught her attention about the plane and distracted her of further thinking about the subject of their continuity risk in this place. The logo of the plane looked not so oldish.
    “Mr R. ? What do you think the date of the crash was ?”
    “The plane was lost in 2112.”

    Without further thought about safety, she entered the plane, followed first by little Greenie as she have been calling her new protegee, and by the robot who despite still talking about technicalities of accidental space time crossing theory, had turned on his speleo lights.

    Interestingly enough, Irina noted the clothes on the chairs or in the alleyways, here a pair of glasses, there a necklace, all layered as if the person wearing them had been puffed away.

    “Well, well, what have we here ? The light Mr R, please,” said Irina with as much excitement as a snail. He obliged her with his usual professionalism, revealing a teal blue scarf with pistachio green spirals. She took the cloth and stretched it to have a better look. It was one of those artistic kind of hippy abstract patterns connecting you to the cosmos.
    “I can’t think of anybody who would buy that thing, maybe she stole it from one of those duty free shops before they took off,” she said as petulantly as a pitfall trap.
    “Come here little Greenie, it’s time to make you pretty.”

    Irina did not have the chance to play with dolls when she was a kid, she didn’t know if she had some psychological lack or a bad doyle dating from that unremembered period of her life. She had compensated by toying with real people, playing with their emotions and deeper needs, or what they thought they needed. She became an expert at manipulating others, which gave her her first job in insurances, and then in the secret services. But then, she dealt with adults, showing emotions, or a certain level of brain activity. She wasn’t used to children stored in bogs.

    She tried to put the scarf on Greenie’s head, and to smile like she had seen people do in the movies. Although something unexpected happened. Greenie became suddenly distressed and agitated. Then, she punched Irina in the face and began to mumble incoherent things.
    That child is stronger than I thought. And at the same time, she noticed a name in that gibberish. Didnt she just shout : “I frigging love you, Sadie Merrie.”

    “Her brainwave is showing unusual activity”, stated Mr R. “And my sensors indicate the presence has returned, with some friends. They just appeared outside of the plane.”

    #3328

    Their new found green protegee finally awoke thanks to Mr R. meticulous care.
    They tried to talk but to Irina’s dismay got no reaction at all. After a few hours, the greenie, as she was calling the creature, was following Irina everywhere. Which could be quite irritating when she needed intimacy.

    “Have you scanned its brain, Mr R. ?” asked Irina. “It doesn’t seem quite normal.”
    “I’ve been monitoring her vitals ever since we found her. She’s in perfect health, but it appears that hearing us talk does not trigger the usual areas in her brain.”
    “Are you sure it’s a her ?” asked Irina dubiously, “She doesn’t have boobs”.
    “She’s a younger model, madam. It appears she was quite young when she was mummified, Probably around the age of ten to twelve. Young human female usually develop bosom after puberty.”
    “I know that”, she snapped. “I just don’t remember myself without boobs.”
    Mr R. searched in his databank for some smart reply, but he preferred not to offer her one of the latest memory treatment.

    #3307

    Sanso was tied securely on a Louis XVI chair, inside an ornate room kept mostly in the dark by heavy embroidered curtains that smelt of celery.
    He was craving for a tomato juice to go with the smell, and could hardly focus on an empty stomach.

    He could have easily escaped from his predicament, but he was curious about his captors, and the reason why they had him abducted after he went back to his little love nest in the R&R B&B where he’d hoped to meet again the mysterious Lady Cucumber. That was his name for her.
    He was hopeless with names, and although he was sure he had heard hers before, he preferred to remember people by associations. With Irina, that was Cucumbers. There! he thought, another proof of the brilliance of this method, as I remembered her name… Iris? Eyrin?, well, Lady Cucumber.
    He’d made love to many a lady in his life, a lady in Salmon, even a Lady Mermaid, a Lady Gingerale, a Lady Panty, a ladyboy even. He could go on for hours thinking about them, but the lady Cucumber had spun a spell around his head it seemed.

    After his last mission on a rescue with Miss Bob and her Sponges Squarepanties team, he’d run back for the 2222 B&B.
    No sooner had he arrived that heaven and hell broke loose and things went to rules and “do that or else”‘s, all things he abhorred with a passion. The links, and keys for his chains, that he could suffer, so he focused on it for awhile.

    He was woken up by a splash of ice cold water on his pants and a raucous voice in his face. Better that than the reverse, he chuckled to himself.

    “Something funny now? Tell us, where did she go?”

    He knew better than to feign ignorance, so he preferred to feign knowledge, which he’d found usually worked miracles.

    “Of course. She stole something from you…”
    “Damn right, she steal it, and we want back it.”

    The accent was difficult to place, he’d known so many inter-dimensional dialects that sometimes it was hard for him to remember.
    He would have said some northern Chinese dialect accent, with a bit of kiwi.

    He needed to know a bit more before disappearing. His curiosity was aroused by the implication that what she stole was certainly valuable. What could it be, a revolutionary hairsplitter, a butt-fluffer, a fringe freckler, ah! his head was teaming with great possibilities it was making him dizzy.

    “Don’t be silly Mister Sanso, she steal it robot very precious and advance technology.”
    and before he could reply:
    “Yes we read your mind, I confirm… You have silly thinks Mr Sanso.”

    He was starting to think now was a good time to get lost, and started to confuse their mindreader with energy patterns otherwise called gibberish thoughts.

    The chains and ropes gave way easily.
    His next move was to phase out of the room, but instead he managed to fall on his butt, in the middle of mocking looking Chinese in tuxedos and purple bow ties.

    “Ah, I see, you have some antiportation technology…” Sanso was a fair player. The temptation was big to run for another exit, if only for the exhilaration of a chase in the corridors of that strange place, but his stomach was thinking otherwise.

    “I see you are vely fond of kewcomber, we are no animawls, we will give you delishius kewcomber.”

    Minutes after, he was thrown with a certain form of Chinese ceremony in a small cubic windowless room. On a table next to the door, was his meal apparently.

    He recoiled in horror when he opened the lid covering his plate. The strong odour of garlic pricked his nose.
    “No way! Fucking jokers!”
    That was even worse than to eat boiled cucumber chunks in spicy sauce.
    Swimming in soy sauce were slices of chewy sea cucumbers that looked more like fat juicy leeches from a filthy bog.

    He ate reluctantly, arguing with his stomach about the benefits of the collagen in said sea cucumbers, and at the same time realized the Chinese mobsters were probably from the Chinese Robot Incorporated Mission Eternal, a renowned corporation that had managed to free countless people from menial jobs thanks to prodigious advances in robotics.
    The Lady Cucumber was suddenly more than a mysterious beauty, she was also a mysterious wanted beauty, and he couldn’t wait to… But he had to guard his thoughts for now.

    He looked at the bamboo chopsticks with a sly smile. He had not said his last word, and the person who could boast of having Sanso detained was not born yet.

    #3215

    So this is 2222, thought Sadie, relaxing back in the warm sand. Not bad so far! I wonder where we are. Further along the beach she could hear the sound of laughter and bickering as the boys and Sanso practised their moves for the upcoming show—the details of which were still under wraps. Linda Paul, now she had sobered up, seemed to have forgotten her strange request for Sadie to take on a drag queen identity. ”Thank Flove!” Sanso, however, with unexpected enthusiasm had taken on the non de plume “Miss Titters” and insisted that he was going to join the 3 divas on stage for their closing number.

    “Miss Titters! A bit childish,” Sadie rolled her eyes, then noticing that it did not feel good to be judgemental, chastised herself. That didn’t feel good either so she chastised herself for chastising herself. Fortunately at that moment a Juicy Lemon came through on her e-zapper interrupting her rampage of chastisement with perfect synchronicity.

    Oh just release that little bird

    ***

    Irina perched on the edge of her antique Rocchetti sofa—a beautiful piece of furniture over 200 years old, made from faux fur and crafted in the shape of a cartoon bull—and looked critically at the hologram of her mermaid outfit rotating in the centre of the room.

    “What do you think, Mr R?”

    ”It is an exquisite piece of design engineering, Ma’am. The organ you see in the chest cavity can operate as a lung or a gill enabling you breathe as a human or to extract oxygen from the water. The circulatory system has been engineered to withstand different water pressures. The skeletal system is light and pliable and designed for speed and agility under the water. The eyes have been designed to ensure you will be able to correctly focus both above and under water. The intricate design of the ears means that you will be able to hear as a human above water or use sonar communication under water.”

    ”Yes, yes, most interesting, Mr R. But do you think my bum looks fat in that tail?”

    ”Not at all, Ma’am. Your figure is beautifully proportioned and the tail only accentuates your womanly curves.”

    ”I think that shade of pink is much better. What do you think, Mr R?”

    ”The carmine pink suits the undertones of your skin most favourably, ma’am. It is preferable to the cerise pink you chose earlier. Although that was an excellent choice too, of course”.

    ”Wonderful! Print it out then, Mr R. And print out your Octopus suit at the same time. I feel an unusual emotion which may even be excitement. Hawaii, here we come”

    #3124
    ÉricÉric
    Keymaster

      It should now be possible to attach some files to your comments.
      Use with moderation (don’t teaf other’s art or pics to upload them, prefer a !http://link_to.img! if you can instead).

      #2995
      ÉricÉric
      Keymaster

        In Ed Steam’s old office, Lord Lemon was like in a mausoleum full of ghosts.
        Mostly computer illiterate, he favoured greatly goose feather and dark Chinese ink soft purr on the paper over the annoying clickety racket of the keyboards. So he wasn’t exactly feeling at home in Ed’s old shoes.

        The team’s greeting party had been cordial, but he didn’t feel an overwhelming welcome either, not that he expected it. It was Ed’s team after all, he was the Rooster of the chicks of roast, whatever they liked to call themselves. He was not found of monikers and preferred to be addressed simply as Sir.

        The call he received on the morning was perplexing him. They’d found an auditor dead with a Surge Corp. business card in his jacket in the streets of a Spanish city, he couldn’t really remember which, the accent on the phone was as dreadful as that of a Chinese civet, but… What was that about already? He’d thought his memory was improving, getting back on the field, but there were relapses again, he had to concentrate. Afternoon Scrabble games were not that bad after all.

        He’d perfected a neat technique to remember things, placing vivid images in memory palaces constructed in his mind were he could retrieve them later, but the thing was that his memory palaces sorely lacked a cleaning lady, and images sometimes blurred together or went missing, fading away. He sighed.

        His gaze on the phone brought him back to his stream of thought. This would have been stored on the Suspicious Clues Palace, in Ed’s corner. His mind raced back in the atrium of his palace where he could see the various corners, and he went back into the Alley of Dark Secrets, then turned to the Corner of Lonely Puzzle Pieces. There were actually a lot of them, but the topmost one was vivid enough. It was a red blood hearing-aid spewing out a mean Larsen and bathing in paella. For “auditor murdered in Spain” obviously. He turned down mentally the volume of the hearing-piece. This was not a very elegant image, but he was in a hurry, and crude preposterous images always were remembered better he’d found out. The lewdest even more so. Which was why his Palace of Past Precious Moments was starting to look like a brothel he was loath to admit.

        He was starting to wonder if Ed’s demise was not some sort of inside job. Circumstances were not really orthodox, but nothing was in their line of duty, so he had to look for something else. He’d already started to make an inventory of the storage room, just before the break-in, but computer handicapped as he was, between paper and memory palaces, he couldn’t figure it anymore and had to start it over with some help from Cornella.
        At least, he’d sent Hyphen and Dash to discreetly investigate on the break-in and now, he will probably send them to investigate on… he faced a blank. All he could remember now was he was having the meanest craving for mussels and prawns.

        #2970
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          The blizzard mircaulously stopped as soon as the fountain erupted, and the icicles on the trees in the square twinkled, casting long blue shadows on the snow. Mari Fe and Pearl had just finished a second helping of cake, and were feeling optimistic and relaxed in the warm cafe.

          Mari Fe sighed in contentment. “You know what Pearl? I’m considering retiring early. Because quite frankly, I prefer eating cake.”

          “Can’t you eat cake and carry on? You’re eating cake now, and you haven’t retired yet.”

          “Well I suppose that’s true enough. And shopping for flying carpets is hardly grueling labour. But all the sudden portalings, and the problem of weather, and clothes…it does get tedious. The evenly temperate global climate is a long time coming!”

          “It’ll come alot quicker if we do well at our job!”

          “I suppose there is that…”

          “Take a look out there, Mari Fe ~ look at the weather in the square now! Sun’s shining, birds are singing, children are coming out to play…but it’s still snowing in Moscow.. Come on, let’s go and see about the carpets, and make tracks for Moscow.”

          “What’s the cake like there?”

          “Sweet, beautiful, as light as air, just like the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova?”

          #128

          In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

          ÉricÉric
          Keymaster

            In the corner of a nearby street, Todd reverted back to his prefered form. That of a brown dwarf. His dream was to be a star, so he liked the irony of it.
            “Finally done with this irritating ex-pron star and her antics” he said chewing on a bone leftover while heading for his ride, a red convertible, gift of the Sh’elves. “She had it coming after all, she should have libned quietly like she was supposed to.”

            Next on his plans was to liaise back with Neb, but he feared his friend had not in him to complete his mission. Hopping in the car, he wished he wouldn’t be too late on his way to the ranch, with all those cracks and holes in the road.

            Wiping his mouth still full of blood, an insidious concern crept into his mind. What if he too had been affected by the bloody fwicking kraken disease. But that was too early to say.

            #2721

            In reply to: Strings of Nines

            Arona had indeed been devastated by the loss of her chippendale.

            “Oh, thank you Buckberry,” she exclaimed joyfully. “My great Aunt, twice removed on my father’s side, Auntie Shelly Dwelling, gave me this beautiful chippendale tea set when I was just a little girl … before she disappeared in very strange circumstances … or so the story goes. Clever you to find it. I can make Nhum tea now!”

            “This makes no sense at all,” sniffed Mandrake, privately wondering if he had better dispose of the Nhum when Arona was otherwise occupied. He did prefer things to make sense and clearly this Nhum Bhum stuff was messing with Arona’s head. Which is silly enough at the best of times.

            Vincentius is taking a long time. Perhaps we should see if he is okay and then we can all have a nice cup of tea in my beautiful tea set,” enthused Arona.

            #2815

            In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens

            TracyTracy
            Participant

              There was no place like home, notwithstanding that home could be considered to be anywhere at all. Home in this case was Blithe’s patio one balmy September evening. Citronella candles flickered on the table, and coloured fairy lights strobed in strings along the facade of the house. A rosy glow emanated from the bedroom window and Blithe took a snapshot, noticing later the fly screen visible, overlayed onto the bedroom scene. Not only was the view of the bedroom limited by the width of the camera lens, it was also limited in the sense that the wire screen was obscuring almost half of what would have been visible if the photograph had been taken from the other side of the screen, or, with no screen at all in between the lens and the view of the room. However, despite having such a partial view of the whole, the remainder that was viewable was still identifiable as a bedroom.

              Blithe wasn’t about to remove the screen however, because it was doing its job of screening, or filtering out, the unwanted insects. That wasn’t to say that she was denying the existance of those insects, or that they weren’t welcome on the other side of the screen, just that she was selectively screening the unwanted items from a particular scene. If, for example, the room was full of insects, Blithe might have been preoccupied with them, to the exclusion of whatever else she might have preferred to focus on within the bedroom. Out on the patio, however, the insects were, if not always entirely welcome, appreciated. The praying mantis and the dragonfly were welcome, and the butterflies and moths were always welcome, because Blithe had associated the energy of those insects with familiar welcome energies. The wasps, flies and ants were not translated in the same way, but were appreciated for entirely different reasons, being an aid to exploring such issues as irritation (and occasionally, pain). Blithe had to admit that despite the praying mantis and dragonfly being welcome, it would not be true to say that they were welcome in the bedroom, however.

              There had been times when Blithe wished that the whole patio was enclosed in screens, but the trouble with screens was that they tended to filter out everything of a certain size, although perhaps that was more a beleif about physical screens than anything else. Was it possible to filter out flies and wasps, but allow dragnflies and butterflies? Possible surely, she thought, but perhaps not with physical wire screen devices and associated beleifs.

              A few days previously Blithe had cleaned the mesh filter on her kitchen tap, unrestricting the flow. Coincidentally, her friend had also had a tap mesh restricted flow incident, and had removed the mesh filter altogether. Another friend had removed a window screen for cleaning, and had chosen not to replace it, as she was appreciating the allowance of much more light. And then another friend had mentioned a dream, of dragonflies under a screen that was covering a pool. She had lifted the screen in the dream, to allow the dragonflies to escape, and yet some of the dragonflies chose to stay under the screen.

              Intrigued with the words screen and mesh, which meant the same thing in one respect, but not in others, Blithe investigated the definitions. To screen could be to filter out the unwanted, but to mesh was to weave together. But were they so different, really? A screen was also a blank place on which to project images ~ meshed and woven selectively screened and filtered images, perhaps.

              {link ~ weaving}

              #2461

              Peackle dragged his father by the sleeve and showed him the delirious aunt speaking in tongues.

              See, dad, I think she got that special direct line with the Eight’s Dimension now…
              Oh, I see… a broken Pee said

              Their victory over Mother Blubbit seemed utterly and bitterly Pyrrhic at the moment, considering all the nonsense (damned be the Eighth Dimension) their trip has brought to otherwisely very non-nonsensical Peasland. Would they ever get back to normal again?

              He preferred to believe she’d just again overindulged on Peaskol, the famoul (famously foul) alcohol brewed from overripe peas known though all Peasland to clean old clogged pipes. That and smoking tea leaves of course…

              #2400

              Phurt knew there was something strange, her previous memory was that she was dead and now she seemed to be perfectly alive and alert.
              The environment was strange, though. It was all full of little balls and she could see many headless people. Compared to them, her size was quite ridiculous and she prefered not to make her presence known for the moment. She will have time later for her projects of conquest of the world. But is what world was she?

              All at her thinking, she didn’t see the creature coming and she almost died again out of fear when it began to breath in the air around. Maybe it was some kind of hoovering creature. She began to feel the vibrations as the dog (who has his head on for a change) began barking to notify his master that he has found the strangest little creature aroud. The master of the dog was a child of New Peasland and when he saw that strange little creature that he had never seen before, he called for his mother, who in turn didn’t know the little creature at all, and she asked her neighbor what it could be, but the neighbor didn’t know as well, so the went together to the mayor who in turn didn’t know what to think of it, but he was sure it had not been spotted before by a mayor of New Peasland, he would be the first, and he asked the kid to entrust him with his find and that he would tell him soon about it, thank you!

              All alone in her matchbox, Phurt started to relax, the last few event had been frightening and she couldn’t do anything to escape her assailants, but the eventually let her alone, even if it was in some kind of jail.

              MOUAAHAHAHAHAH, she laughed of her little spider laugh, which resembled more to a little squircking sound than to a laugh, especially in the New Peasland dimension. She had laughed because the walls of her prisons seemed quite tender and it would not demand her too much effort to get out. But for now, she was exhausted and needed some rest. It was not everyday that you found yourself alive again.

              #2380

              Dolores de la Cabeza came from St Andrex of Sauce, in the Canary Islands. The Canary Islands were so named because of the preference of the population for the colour yellow. Needless to say, this did have rather a curious effect on their perception when exposed to other colours, which was inevitable when travelling abroad.

              #2377

              “Oh, Doily dear, there thoo are!” Mewrich Peamon cried out at the sight of Dolores, almost losing his loincloth in excitement. ‘Doily’ was how he affectionately called Dolores, one of the most fervent admirer of his works, though he strongly suspected she didn’t quite understand them all.

              However the Saucerer was pleased to know the lady, who wasn’t shy of keeping her heads on her shoulders, a custom that most Pealanders would have found outrageously bold and casual, preferring to have their heads at home, (or) just in (suit)case.

              “I was just about to tell your nephews and brother-in-law all about section three twenty one of the Art of Bird Swift Travelling Right Unto Sextion Eight (A.B.S.T.R.U.S.E), but surely you could indulge us in revealing the few caveats I was about to tell them about the beard.”

              “Didn’t you mean bird?” Doily said with a interrogative pout which almost had her lovely green wig fall onto her eyes.

              “Well, of course I meant beard, dear —and always glad to see we’re on the same page on this one!” “Though I fear we’ll soon have to turn to the next…” He added mysteriously.

              #2641

              In reply to: Strings of Nines

              ÉricÉric
              Keymaster

                Peackle Handlebut wasn’t really that old hag of a lady she projected the appearance of, but she preferred to test the sincerity of people through this rather crude means.

                In fact, she wasn’t a lady or a human at all. She was an E’elim, as they called their race when they had use for words. Their true form wasn’t really physical, and their existence was mostly ignored — a fact that was not a small feat, for even the ancient race of the Guardians mostly didn’t know of them at the time when they were in the system of Alienor.

                In fact, their consciousness was quite different from the rest of the races, and in many ways, it was one of the most ancient one, having been present for countless ages.
                They’d known the times of the appearance of the third moon around Duane.
                They had even witnessed the emergence of that third planet, which is now mostly forgotten, but was then called B’si before it was called Phreal by the Guardians.
                And they were there at the time of the separation of the Great Panye into the twin planets now known as Duane and Murtuane.

                The E’elims where riders of the elements; usually only one of the six elements from which everything stemmed: airs, earths, woods, flames, waters, and forgotten (or spirit).
                Learning to ride dragons was something new for Peackle, as they were powerful blends of the purest forms of these elements, and she was wanting to take the risk of revealing herself to have that experience…

                #2281
                ÉricÉric
                Keymaster

                  G3 (short for GGG, which was shorter for Good God Gordy) asked as if to himself “Anyone met the Fisherman yet?”

                  :fleuron:

                  Gremwick put down the Psychic Politics book he’d taken for his assignment, his five words written on a lemon coloured sticker:

                  Oof… here we go, “state — briefly — fisherman — library — pigeons”… There’s a bit of challenge here. he sighed, mostly uninspired.
                  “Perhaps I should have stayed with the easy words like ‘more, is, less, think, true’”.

                  :fleuron:

                  “Do you mean the Fisherman’s coming? How long has it been already?” Ann started to count briefly on her chubby fingers.
                  “Well, I guess if you’d be more assiduous in Pr. Rose’s class in bird divination, you’d found out that the pigeons’ flight was unmistakably precise on that matter.”
                  “I tried, believe me, I tried to pay more attention,…” Ann said, “but frankly, I prefer direct experience of the broom cupboard to the draughty corridors of the library…”
                  “Oh, I should say I’m a bit disappointed at you; I’ve always believed the state of dustiness would have been an incentive to you rather than a deterrent.”

                  “Don’t underestimate the incentive of detergent” Monica said almost mischievously under her breath.

                  #100
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    She woke up at noon and it was 100 degrees, or 37 degrees, whichever you prefer, but whichever way you look at it, it was not a good temperature to wake up to. Everything was pointing in the direction of going solo, playing the game on her own for awhile, or at least until she was in a regular habit of giving herself priority, giving more attention to her own creative pursuits, and less time to the futile attempts to keep group projects going. She supposed for a moment that making a start whilst hot, tired, discouraged and confused was not the most ideal mood for a start, but at least it was a start. She wasn’t even entirely sure what it was she was actually starting, but suspected that it didn’t much matter, in the grand scheme (or lack thereof) of things.

                    She’d had a moment of inspiration when she started reading a book. She’d only read a few pages and had no idea how the book would turn out, but the format was interesting. Julie had had an idea, simmering on a back burner for years, to write a book. It always seemed to want to be an autobiographical book, and that’s where she always came unstuck because she couldn’t see the point of that, not that she was overly concerned about whether anyone would want to read it or not, but she often came unstuck when she wondered about how all the characters in the book might feel about it, which is why that moment of inspiration in the bathroom the other day seemed like such a good idea.

                    She could write a book about a probability party, perhaps called ‘Probably Real’, (maybe with the subtitle ‘Probably Not’.) There would be an occasion, the details of which she hadn’t worked out yet, in which various (not all, she soon realized!) of her probable selves met ~ such as in the Atkinson book, in some quiet desolate place with no interruptions (obviously somewhere with no internet connection, although there was always the danger of picking up a freak broadband WiFi), where they had all the time in the world to tell their tales, compare notes as it were.

                    Which was where the fiction idea came in ~ of course! Just call it fiction! Would just one of the probable selves be telling the truth, relating the only true version of Julie’s life? And if so, which one was the real probable self? All the characters in the book would have probable selves and probable lives; which of them was the real probable self, the official version? No-one would ever know.

                    Of course, anyone versed in the metaphysical mechanics of probabilities and such would realize that all probable versions are real, at the same time as all being, in a certain sense, fiction ~ made up. The only question was, would that be too unlimiting to contain within the confines of one book, but time (so to speak) would tell.

                    Procrastination had set in, as usual, not that that is a bad thing, and things pretty much carried on as usual for a few days. Julie noticed the puppy tugging at a particular magazine from the bottom of the magazine rack over the course of those few days, and eventually the magazine was rather pointedly poking out from the bottom of the pile, it’s title clearly showing: a booklet on How To Write FICTION, with FICTION in big letters.

                    Never the less, the procrastination continued, although the clue was duly noted. It hadn’t been the first time a Writing A Book incident had occured.

                    It was easy, in this case, to remember that date, because it was right around the time of the 1999/2000 milenium party, right around the time when that particular roller coaster had derailed. While unpacking the boxes of books and putting them on the shelves of yet another rented house ~ a particularly garish and tasteless monstrosity, a drug baron’s dream of unfunctional largeness with hideous coloured glass windows (it’s the sheer randomness of the colours that’s so awful, G had remarked) ~ a book flew off the shelf, quite literally, and landed alone in the middle of the floor some distance away from the bookshelf.

                    Becoming A Writer was the name of the book, and the funny thing was that she had been thinking of writing a book but didn’t know where to start, and had been toying with the idea of buying a book on writing a book. So she read the book and started writing, a little bit every day, following the books advice to just start writing, even if it’s just ‘I can’t think of what to write’. There was plenty to write about as it turned out, but circumstances changed, another sudden move of house ensued, another rollercoaster ride, and the writing stopped for awhile.

                    But back to the book, Becoming A Writer. For a long time, Julie had no recollection of buying that book, and wondered by what magic had it appeared at her feet. Many years later she perhaps would have simply accepted the magic, and would have known that she created the book in that moment. But at the time she didn’t, and in due course constructed a memory of buying the book some years previously at a car boot sale somewhere along the coast road.

                    (We did buy the book, piped up PSJ2, and I actually read it, unlike you, as soon as I bought it. My 5th book is about to be published, a lightweight comedy/detective series about the Costa del Crime)

                    PSJ2’s interjection reminded PSJ1 (Good grief, we’ll have to think of a solution to the probable self names, she noted) that she had in fact started writing a book about the Costa del Crime, called Peregrino’s, or perhaps that was the name she’d given to the bar, the central hub, of the book. Of course, that was in the days when bars had been her central hub; she doubted very much if she would choose a bar as the central hub of a book now. She hadn’t got very far with the book, and had burned it when PSA1 got busted, just in case. What to do first, bury the (probable, it must be remembered) pump action shotgun, or burn the book. She had buried the gun, under cover of darkness, in the back garden, wrapping it in plastic bags and blankets, making it look for all the world like the body of a dead child. It was dark, it was raining, and there weren’t many neighbours out there in the orange groves, and she could do no more than hope for the best that she hadn’t been seen.

                    No doubt there was a probable self who did choose to create being seen, but if so she hadn’t arrived at the probability party (yet, at any rate) with her tale.

                    That it had been a major probability junction was certain. Not just the gun burying incident, which had turned out to be no more than merely incidental, but the events leading up to it.

                    #2625

                    In reply to: Strings of Nines

                    When Phoebe had recovered all her memories she’d felt particularly annoyed at the Baron snatching her prize from her.
                    So far, that crystal skulls quest had been only a disaster. She’d been warned, but the temptation had been too great for her.

                    Now, she wanted to get back as soon as possible (which was her nicest way of saying “NOW”) to her dimensional interstitial home —that place that uninformed people would have called her evil lair, but that she preferred to think of as her little cottage.

                    However, to be able to travel through interdimensional puddles would have required to gain some speed, and without something like a tuned motorbike, it wouldn’t be easy nor practical. She hadn’t got that much time to spend on recreating her tools from scratch.
                    Brilliant as she were, it would still have required at least a few weeks, and the days she’d spent at this place had already been far too much to her taste for her to suffer one more —handcuffs entertainment notwithstanding.

                    Her hopes were high that Vincentius, her talking parrot would find her and bring her the key that was needed.

                    Then she would focus on her next quest. The artifacts of Rumbold the Pale, the famous Byzantine architect from the Renaissance.

                    #2562

                    In reply to: Strings of Nines

                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      Yoland felt tired and deflated somehow. Weary, perhaps that was it, weary of the way she always felt when the animals were sick or dying. It was all very well to look at it logically, that with so many animals with such relatively short natural life spans that there would always be some coming, some going, but it was the way it made her feel that was so tiring. Responsible, as if she could have done more, or guilty that they were reflecting her energy somehow. It was all very well to say that the animals were creating their own reality, that would be easy enough to accept in some cases such as old age and diseases, but Yoland almost wished she’d never learned that they reflect her own energy, that always made her feel even more responsible than she already did.

                      The black cat was dying. Yoland had made up her mind to take her to the vets that morning. That was another dilemma she’d faced often enough, too ~ would the animal prefer to die naturally at home? Or was it in too much pain, and would it prefer to end it quickly? How could she know? Yoland supposed she did always know, in the end, which was to be the choice, but there was always the agonizing period of time beforehand when she wondered which decision to make. But the black cat had disappeared and she couldn’t find her to take her to the vets after all.

                      When she’d made the decision to take the black cat to the vet that morning, Dean accidentally knocked a photograph of her first dog, Joe, off the wall. He was the first of her dogs to go, and a good age for a big dog, fourteen years old, and Yoland had known all along that he would die at home, and sure enough, he had. One day Yoland knew he was close to the end, and less than 24 hours later, he lay on his bed, and just gradually stopped breathing. Yoland hadn’t even been quite sure of the moment in which he went, as she held his head, she asked Dean, Do you think he’s dead? Dean replied, If he’s not breathing he is. It was a silly question, really, of course Yoland knew that if you weren’t breathing you were dead. As deaths go, it was peaceful and easy. They took him in the car to a place in the woods and buried him, somewhere where the ground was soft enough to dig; it was high summer and the ground was hard and dry. It wasn’t until Joe was covered with earth that Yoland cried.

                      Yoland cried again as she remembered Joe, and then she wondered if perhaps his photograph falling off the wall that morning was a message ~ perhaps a message that the black cat was choosing to die at home too, her own little niche somewhere, wherever that might be, wherever the roof cats slept. Maybe Joe was reassuring her that he’d be there when the black cat got there, in that field of flowers where the animals played while they waited for us to join them.

                      It was a comforting thought. Yoland reached for the tissues.

                      :heart:

                      #2556

                      In reply to: Strings of Nines

                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        :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.

                        :news:

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