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  • #1798

    In reply to: Synchronicity

    ÉricÉric
    Keymaster

      Some interesting syncs:

      Discussing the comment on Franiel and Vincentius with Francie, some things of interest:

      F: hahaha i laughed at the egg bit :egg_wink:
      E: bit silly I reckon :)) but somehow it synch’ed with two movies we’ve been watching yesterday
      F: yes, good to have a bit of silly in our otherwise serious story :|
      E: In one, there is that :ghost: ghost girl who stalks her husband new love affair, and ends up speaking through a parrot
      And the other, there is this shaman old woman who remote-views her people went on a quest, and ends up dying in stead of a girl, so that the young one lives…

      F: oh that is like your plants in the courtyard dream too —just had a recollection of you saying one gave up its pot for the other one
      E: Oh yes, true… Perhaps it’s just like a layering, like you do for strawberries, you use parts of the roots to do new plants…
      “Layering is more complicated than taking cuttings, but has the advantage that the propagated portion can continue to receive water and nutrients from the parent plant while it is forming roots.”

      E: “In air layering (or marcotting), the target region is wounded and then surrounded in a moisture-retaining wrapper such as sphagnum moss ;))

      Peat moss is also a critical element for growing mushrooms” that’ll make Tracy happy :))
      In New Zealand, care is taken during the harvesting of sphagnum moss=))

      F: “it can also be used as a substrate for tarantulas as it is easy to burrow into:spider:

      E: “Such Sphagnum bogs can also preserve human hair and clothing, one of the most noteworthy examples being Egtved Girl , Denmark”. Egg and B.C. sync :))

      F: cool name, Egtved. Oh thats interesting about the Egtved girl: due to be public this month
      E: oh, well spotted!
      F: shall we all pop over and check it out
      E: Ahahaha sure :world:

      #2020

      In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud

      TracyTracy
      Participant

        Suddenly THE room WAS FULL OF beetles, WHICH meant THREE times A week lying inside THE story, moving AROUND LIKE A fish. Random living DRIVING AN OLD car ALL OVER THE earth HAVING lots OF dreams OF blue, rather SIMILAR TO comments soon officeIALLY PUBLISHED….. telling hugE NONsense factS WHILST RUBBING white talking hands ALL OVER THE RABBITS, running AND sighed AS MY foot connected WITH A ROCK already taking years TO FORM INTO matter …..

        #793
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          From Timbuktooh to old Perooh
          She flooh. Said she: “Tooh much tooh dooh!”
          T’was trooh, she knooh
          T’would make her spyooh
          The Ballyhooh and Bumbledooh

          Elizabeth chuckled to herself. Wonder if that old fart Barash’ll publish that.

          #790

          It had been a moonth now that Elizabeth had got her first encounter with Pigoosus, her inner inspirer, on a dirty bench of the public park littered with pigeons droppings.

          A whole moonth, and yet, it had been so full that she had barely noticed it passing. Even Finnley, the ever grunchy grumpy one, had felt ubiquitously absent (Elizabeth was quite fond of Lemone’s profoond quotes, and his consummate uooze of exquisitively bizarre words; so, “ubiquitously absent”, oxymoronic as it was, for all matter and purposes felt deliciously adequate to her present mood).
          So, yes, even Finnley… who had felt recently so deeply absorbed by flocks of dust bunnies that went around the corners.

          As for her, the grandioosa noovelist, she had used the inspiration of that day to take a break from that strange story she was writing, and which had accumulated so many loose ends that she’d grown yucky at the mere sight of a dish of spooghetti.
          Instead, she had written a small unpretentious (as far as she could, that is) novelette, or children book as her publisher said. Of course, everything a little bit out of the ordinary was only good for children, and in fact, she couldn’t care less. She had tremendoose fun writing the Extra-vagrant Illustrated Tales of The Oogletoon Twins. Not only writing in fact, but also illustrating that intermission work (which was a first, as she had mostly the habit of doing coollages of various pictures teafed around, hence her fondness for Robert the robber magpie).

          Notwithstanding, this was an interesting adventure for Elizabeth. Life was full of surprises, and she wouldn’t have thought that in becoming more “down to Oorth”, as her parents would have exhorted her to do, so to spook, she would have indeed be really, really closer to Oorth, but nonetheless, still in fairy land. Ahaha, that was putting her in the greatest of moods.
          She smiled a broad smile to a fidgeting Finnley who was under the glowing neon light of the dark copy machine room, apparently in great conversation with some invisible being, as she went past the room, on her way to her office.

          :fleuron2:

          Checking on her compooter (her gorgeous iPear) she noticed an email from Barash… Another publisher that she was considering working with, when her current one had felt hesitant at publishing her illustrated book.
          Decidedly, everything was going well for her these days.

          #1949
          F LoveF Love
          Participant

            Finn had a dream about the story:

            Yurick had divided the individual comments/posts from the story and sorted out all the ones which had something to do with dragons. Finn was gathering them up to read them, the comments looked like soft white cushions. They were sort of squarish in appearance. As she read them in the order Yurick had sorted them, she realised they made more sense than she had previously thought. Apparently, Yurick told her, he had taken them to a publisher who said he might be interested in publishing them but they would need some re-working. Then Finn was at some building she did not recognise. She told a lady that she needed to care for the comments. Finn was putting them into a row of terracotta pots and as she did they were changing into plants, some of them were quite large already, others barely showed above the soil, some looked a bit weedy and limp. She thought they would probably need some watering.

            #747

            What a francitic woman thought Elizabeth, a bit less distressed now she had secured her last insights into her clooh-box.
            Hopefully, she could happily forget about those, and go for a walk to have some welcomed cooffee.

            Wishing she would not bounce into some unwelcome apparition, she trod her way to the outside world.
            How long it had been? With all that pressure from her publisher, she had almost forgotten how exquisite it all was outside.
            So simple, and yet so brilliant.

            It didn’t have the complexity of the Worlds of which she intuited things, nor the same amount of excitement it aroused in her, but nonetheless it was appeasing, and that was perhaps all she needed for the moment.
            Perhaps a walk to Garden Centrool would do her great.

            :fleuron:

            Sitting on a bench near the dribbling foontain where cuckoos were drinking at the sound of woodpeckers’ holes drilling, she became entranced by the sound of water, and almost felt like dancing at the cuckoos and woodpecker’s cooing and drumming beats…
            All this Lemone quotes were now far away… She’d had enough of them, and wanted simpler truths. Lively ones.

            She could feel inspiration flow back into herself, as she envisioned her favorite depiction of inspiration, the mangeloose Pigoosus. Elizabeth was reeling in its wonderful aura, seeing the squinting eyes of the creature, the magnificence of its sprawled wings, its awe-inspiring moose antlers, and the slick body of a foxy mongoose with a protuberant snoot.

            It all was symbolic of herself of course, the best depiction of all her awesome features. The snoot for curiosity (and nose in general), the wings for imagination, the antlers for connection, and the mongoose for the fearlessness and sex-appeal.

            Pigoosus, or Pigooh, as she called him, was telling him tales, tales that were spun between the gapping holes of her clooh-box items, and that were weaving them together in beautiful macramooh patterns.

            The Shift in Earth-dimension awareness is coming and it is revealing long-lost hidden things, that is the reason of these other-dimensional bleed-through on the islands. Where those having hoped to bury some artifacts away of consciousness, in that dimension where all was so separated that even Pigooh would have had trouble getting throoh. The skulls gates one by one open now.

            Pen! She needed a pen!

            #2143

            In reply to: Story Timeline and Map

            ÉricÉric
            Keymaster

              Another step for the maps and timeline, is that the dataset is now available in the form of a shared spreadsheet from which the timeline and maps directly query, so that it’s not only more easily editable, but also more easily updated…

              If you are interested in being able to modify it, just notify me. (The usual faithful contributors should be able to do so by clicking “Edit” at the bottom of the sheet and registering with their gmail adress)
              Just to reassure the anxious, the revisions are saved, so it’s not really possible to mess it all completely ;)

              A feed of the data is also available , for what it’s worth…

              #1687

              In reply to: Synchronicity

              Jib
              Participant

                HAhaha, thanks to Eric, we found the real Mr Flynn

                And in the article it says that

                An international team of 21 geneticists working with the National Human Genome Research Institute, published its findings last Friday in the journal Science after having studied DNA samples of over 3,000 dogs and 143 breeds.

                #682

                Looking at the clearing, where there was seemingly only a little girl on the trunk of a cut down coconut tree, Akita found himself puzzled. A girl, alone, in that dangerous jungle… Might it be a trick from his old enemies? The giant spiders were vicious, and could play some tricks of mind on humans, he’d witnessed before he’d run into Kay, who was granting him some sort of protection. But as far as he knew, they couldn’t do anything that elaborate. They were rather primitive in their projections, and were more inclined to slimy nightmarish visions than cute little dark-skinned girls, however untidy were her clothes…
                Besides, Kay seemed to trust her. And she could see him too. Usually, humans other than partners of spirit dogs couldn’t see them, but at times before they reached puberty, children were able to get glimpses of them, Kay had explained him.

                Apparently either the girl was a simpleton, or she had an impossible chance not having yet encountered the spiders, being as she were, pretty oblivious to what was around her, and speaking to herself or imaginary friends, while fiddling with a small device the like of which Akita never had seen in his life. The thing was making beeping noises much like a radio emitter, and his heart leapt at the idea that she might break some god-sent transponder found in the wreckage from which she surely had been a miraculous survivor…
                Kay, who had been observing and talking to the little girl, came back near Akita in a blink.

                — Don’t worry for that device, it’s just a game…
                — A game? It seems quite sophisticated for a game…
                — It’s my Gamegirl Advanced, said the girl, without detaching her gaze from the tiny screen… But the batteries will soon be dead, she added with a lovely pouting face.
                — Better the batteries than you, retorted Akita. So who are you? You can call me Akita… And I guess you’ve already met Kay.
                — I’m Anita, but everybody calls me Anu.

                She put the tiny thing at her side, and smiled broadly at Akita.

                — Wow, you have such strange clothes, it’s like you’re out of one of those black and white war movies that my father used to watch…
                — No wonder, little girl, we are at war.
                — I’m not a little girl, and I don’t think you’re right. We’re not at war!
                — That was probably well intended of your parents to hide you the truth, but thing is we are. I’ve been stranded on this island for months now with these loathsome creatures, and all I can suppose is that these spiders are secret weapons from the Nazis.
                — Oh, Nazis? Like in Indiana Jones! Anu started to giggle…
                — What do you mean? So you know of Nazis?
                — Sure, my great granddad fought them on the beaches of Normandy, that was many years ago.
                — I don’t understand… Do you have any idea of what’s going on? Akita asked Kay
                — Grwl… All of your human quandaries don’t usually make a great deal of sense to me, if you ask me, but I guess her friends would probably know more…
                — Her friends? You mean, her imaginary friends?
                — Oh they are not imaginary, Anu and Kay chorused.

                — Let me try something, Kay said.

                And the ghostly dog form contours started to wobble like a poked cube of jelly, becoming a single ball of phosphorescent ectoplastic energy that started to rotate around Akita. Akita’s vision, disturbed by the movements started to blink at a more rapid rate until his peripheral vision started to show some distinct coloured St Elmo’s fires. They were four he could count, at least for the closest ones. At time they overlapped, and when he was focusing on his peripheral vision, he could get more and more stability in these visions.

                Kay had stopped, and was again crouched near Akita.
                — That’s all? Akita asked in dismay…
                — Now you know the trick, answered Kay, almost shrugging…

                — It’s really easy, said Anita, beaming at a disoriented Akita. Also… Yuki told me that apparently time is considerably slowed down on this island. And while a month passes here, ten years pass in the world we come from…

                #1930
                F LoveF Love
                Participant

                  After overwhelming demand from disappointed, and sometimes a bit rude, readers, Finn decided bring her post back for public viewing.

                  #662
                  Jib
                  Participant

                    Yann was looking a TV show in which a clown was trying to juggle with many different plates. Plates with different colors, some with odd looking shapes, not quite balanced at first sight…
                    Yann was fascinated with the behavior of the man, looking for the approbation and the awe of the public, he was exaggerating many of his actions, it was quite colorful as were his clothes. It was a patchwork of different tones and different quality of material. Some were shiny and dark, some were matt and others almost transluscent :-O

                    If the public hadn’t responded to his last foolery he would engage himself in an even more foolish action. Though there was a great fulfillment, it was visible on his face. He was quite enjoying being seen and observed even if it was with disdain.

                    Yann switched off the TV set and choose to go outside on this winter evening, not too cold but a bit chilly. His soft gloves were giving him a sense of warmth on his hands. It triggered the memory of his last week end with Yurick, his friend lighting the fire. Those were other fascinations of his :) the fire, and his friend. The fleeting movement of the flames, their orangeness and their yellowness, the warmth of the fire and the gradient of temperature around the fireplace. The cat in her basket not so far but still where she could find a fresh breeze.

                    Thinking of his friend, a pleasant warm feeling in all his body began flowing freely :)

                    #653

                    Mavis had not yet received any news from her friends Sharon and Gloria. She’d hoped she could have some postcard from them before she goes and join them…

                    Nearly two months… Two months since they had all received the exciting email from that Dr. Bronklehampton and had decided to take a leap of faith.
                    As a matter of fact, they had taken that leap of faith just before, and it was just a… “synchronistic confirmation that they were heading in the right direction”, that’s what old Harry had said… Or was it Joe? No, that was surely Harry.
                    Fred wasn’t very pleased.

                    Bored by all the variations of dominoes and dices games at their third-age club, the three inseparable ladies had decided, in a bout of delightful unreasonableness, to embrace all that modern technology had to offer. Sharon and Gloria, being the devil-may-care as they were, got their computer first. Mavis had to convince Fred that he could make his horse-racing bets with that computer without having to go to the city, now that the last pub in the village wasn’t taking bets any longer… and even play poker! she’d said, bluffing so vehemently that she’d almost blushed in shame for fear of being wrong. But that last argument had convinced old Fred. And now, she was connected too. A second-hand computer, with a dusty old keyboard, but she’d let it soak a night in a soapy basin, and it was now shiny as a brand-new one. Except that it now kept behaving strangely…

                    In their club, they could boast that now they were connected all over the word, and all the old parakeets of the club had almost choked over their tea when they had heard all of what they had discovered.
                    Sharon had won most of the glaring bedazzlement. Wearing newly bought sunglasses, she’d said whispering like a conspirator that she had searched her name on a website and she had seen more than 7 million pages talking of her! Imagine! More than seven million people talking of her! And she had not known she was so famous… Hence the sunglasses, she’d added with a wink… there were probably a slew of paparazzi hidden somewhere to discover all that was to know about her… But you can’t fool dear ol’ Sharon Stone.
                    Gloria Fowles had been gathering almost 4,000 pages… But well, she had not the charismatic aura of Shah.
                    And Mavis Staples had got a hefty 470,000 pages!… Of course, she had not told Fred, who was already so paranoid about all of this stuff. When they had received the machine, he was convinced there were miniature cameras and transponders from the MI6 inside the PC and had spent hours disassembling and reassembling it.

                    Very soon after they had registered for their free email address (the reseller had explained patiently that she couldn’t electrocute herself while licking the envelop), the next day to be precise, at 5:33 —that was the hour when Mavis had finished her routine dusting and breakfast preparing for Fred, and just before taking Gulp, the dog for a news reading (that was what Sha was saying “butt sniffing for dogs, is like news reading for us”), she had granted herself a little peek into the emailbox— she had seen something in the recipe folder.
                    She wasn’t sure why they had called that folder “meat” or “ham”… no that wasn’t “ham”… “SPAM” more like it… Anyway, in the recipes folder, she’d received her first email. She’d called eagerly Sha and Glo, and they had received it too, and had even answered it already, as they had spent the all night “surfing” as they said — which was a bit difficult for Sharon with her sunglasses in the dark.

                    All three of them had received a free coupon for a massage and therapeutic rejuvenating treatments (and possibly some bonus organ enlargements free of charge) in Tikfijikoo Island!

                    Well, now Mavis was ready to go too, now that Fred had been mollified and she’d gathered the money for the trip.
                    In a sense, that was good she’d not received anything yet from Sha and Glo, it would allow her to imagine the wildest things!

                    #625

                    The buzzing of the telepooh woke up Elizabeth with a flinch, her heart pounding in fast tremolos.

                    She grumbled restlessly, her throat dry and itchy and her limbs still limp from slumber; she was in a dream, and already, she was feeling the unusual distinct clarity of the dream scenario gently fade as her attention was focusing upon the unwelcome sound which had a distorting quality of her yet poorly focused perception of her surroundings.

                    The buzzing ceased abruptly. She opened an eye to see the ID of the caller, but it was not displayed. Bugger the caller
                    Still feeling groggy, she was hanging to the last images of her dreams. It was telling her a story, a legend… Something full of grandeur, like a galactic opera filled with awe, drama and excitement… A renewed fount of inspiration…

                    The voice of the lady who had been telling her that story was still inside her head, all she had to do was to slightly let herself drift into the numb and warm state of mind in which she was some minutes ago…

                    You are tapping into a mass event. You are translating but a minute portion of it, though it seems colossal already. It is in fact so wide that it reflects in many other worlds which all live in your imagination. Bound together, they represent more books that you could write in a lifetime, more books that you and any army of ghost-writers could write in a thousand lifetimes…

                    The voice was delightfully soothing, and Elizabeth was seeing herself drifting again in the blissful sleep bereft of irate publishers’ diktats. Beaming at her, Elizabeth could envision a light feminine figure with flowing dark hair illuminated by green-blue shimmers. How could she ever remember all that was said… She was plagued with such bad memory…

                    Elizabeth had her dictaphoo under her pillow, ready for such sudden strokes of genius, but her mouth dried up from nicobeck wasn’t ready to spew out words that early in the morning.

                    What the lady with the teal eyes had shown her was an old book of prophecies, which she had named the Last Gospel, unknown yet but which would be remembered as the mass event would be enacted again.
                    The book spoke of a triad of planets, named M’si, B’si and Earth. Just before Elizabeth woke up, she had seen that Earth was in the process of been isolated from the other parts of the cosmos, for untold reason. Suddenly, she had seen one of the planets, the one named B’si, change her quality and become a “gravitational lense” altering the perception of space from the “Earth” standpoint. The planet B’si became transparent and expanded, as though it was an exploding super-nova, but nothing radiated from the planet. Only the quality of the space was modified.

                    Elizabeth had the idea of a novel based upon this mass event which could be her next perfect best-seller. She reached out for her typewrooter.

                    :fleuron:

                    When the World was young, the Powers were roaming in a void full of possibilities.
                    Initially, Three Syzygies there were. By two came the Six Powers. Three Syzygies, or couples of Light Beings, each Syzygy blessed with unlimited creative powers.

                    Elizabeth pondered for a moment… She wanted to say many things at the same time, and couldn’t write them fast enough. She started to write notes haphazardly as they came to her mind.

                    — Two planets for themselves to play; a planet for themselves to dwell. The planets gravitate around a sun on the same orbit. Each of the Powers possess a symbolic scepter power artifact, and each couple generates a crystal or a kind of light seed which allows them to create new sentient beings… When parted, that crystal kind of light is deactivated.
                    — One planet is home of dragons, created by one of the syzygies, another is home of giant eagles; they all are lesser Powers… The third one have giant-like Light beings…

                    — What made the planet B’si change its quality? What became of the Powers? (I can sense them desiring to become part of their creations, willing to forget about themselves and their powers… Punishment? Mere playfulness? Perhaps there was a coup organized by the Lesser Powers?)

                    Phew… Elizabeth yawned. All she could think of now was that she wanted to go back to sleep…

                    #623
                    F LoveF Love
                    Participant

                      Elizabeth Tattler stared morosely at her screen. Her long hair, formerly her crowning glory was wild and matted, small bald patches had formed where she had begun to habitually pull at it. Her beautiful violet eyes for which she was famous were bloodshot from weariness.

                      Ms Tattler was known planet wide for her series of children’s books “The Fickle Four”. The exploits of Almad, Tinigrump, Samnuf and Bekipo were beloved by children of all ages and planetary connections, although perhaps most endearing to those of the Fumari dimension who had a natural disposition for exploits of such fickleness. The catchprase “Bit rude Tinigrump”, and “Madder than Almad” had become part of the national vocabulary in recent years.

                      Formerly Ms Tattler had written, with limited success, novels of a more adult nature, drawing on her numerous marriages for creative inspiration. However her publisher had asked her to create a series about four friends who were on a mission to create other worlds, the focus being on “providing positive and fun role models” for children growing up in these difficult times of planetary upheaval. The works were in the science freakshow genre of writing and the popularity of the original novel had been unprecedented, taking Elizabeth and her publisher by surprise and leading for the demand for many more.

                      Ah, she sighed, and then spluttered as she inhaled the dusty, smoky air, but what a noose this has created. Her yellow nicobeck stained fingers touched her neck and then ran agitatedly through her hair. For at some point, when did it start? the story had begun to take a life of its own. She no longer felt in control as plots became more and more bizarre. She felt unable to follow anything through, creating endless threads which seemed to lead nowhere. She looked around her small office, everywhere was the evidence of stories started and discarded, screwed up pieces of paper covered in frenetic doodles littering the floor.

                      The telepooh began to buzz. She knew it was Bronkel her publisher before his face came up on the screen.

                      I know you are there Elizabeth. Will you pick up please!

                      In a fit of rage Elizabeth picked up the telepooh and threw it across the room, where it narrowly missed Lana, one of her 20 fainting Mongoats she kept as pets. Lana fainted for a few seconds in fear and Robert X, her pet Magpie, hopped around delightedly, Bugger the telepooh, Bugger the telepooh! he screeched. Poke its eyes out! Poke its eyes out.

                      #574
                      Jib
                      Participant

                        Despite his gloomy mood, Yann was quite aware that the idea of Yurick was paralleling his own desire to make his dreams public… It’d been several days now that he was thinking more and more to write them on his different web supports… but he hadn’t really created the time or the inspiration to do so.

                        Yann was feeling a bit forced since a few days… he couldn’t say or pinpoint the “origin”, though you could say HE was the origin, he wasn’t ready to accept this answer yet :)) he wanted to enjoy his victim feeling for a few days… Still it wasn’t very satisfying.

                        Yann sighed.

                        Well, all his life he really had understood others couldn’t give him the answers or tell him what to do, and still he had wanted to mimic them in their quests for a solution, their quest for happiness… he really realized that it wasn’t a natural movement to him. It had seemed at times that he could be aware of his desires, his direction… though today every action seemed like an effort, something you have to struggle for… well once again he got his own answer… he was struggling. It was already more flexible and smoother… his energy was feeling lighter, and he could se the other obstacles against which he was struggling.

                        He sighed again, but it was more a release and a relaxation now.

                        Well he had some dreams to note down.

                        #572

                        The meowing of the angora Zhulie had woken up Yurick.
                        The past few nights, he had not heard her at all, but tonight, she seemed to request specifically his presence.
                        Last evening during the dinner, it had cracked him up because the cat was acting funny when it had smelled the cooked bamboo shoots of the sautéed vegetables he had for dinner. Perhaps a recognition of the Pekingese that he had once seen her to be, in shared focus in Imperial China.

                        Well, obviously Zhulie was no ordinary feline. Her character reminded Yurick of a blend of himself, Yann, Finn and his own mother. So that each time he was playing with her, he instantly had them in mind, in various orders of appearance, or strengths.

                        In any case, when he came back to his bed, Yurick was annoyed at first, to have been drawn out of his comfortable dreams, but he managed somewhat to get back to a state of relaxation, in between dreams and reality —which was obviously a mere way of saying things, as dreams are reality.

                        Speaking of dreams, his mind was wandering around the news that his mother had told him, about a distant cousin having published a book revolving around dreams and fantasies.

                        And then, within the dream, in the dream, in the dream,… an idea formed into his mind with the clarity of an evidence.
                        He could see it happening… Not only one book, but… oh, he couldn’t wait to tell his friends!

                        #534
                        ÉricÉric
                        Keymaster

                          Well, to me, it was rather obvious it was a bleedthrough from one dimension to another… sighed Al, who had now half-long teal-coloured hair in perfect shape, as he was filing and shaping his nails turned back to a reasonable size.

                          Oh, that FLOYD treatment did well on you marveled Saint Tina.

                          FLOYD what?? looked back Becky, who was still fumbling into Sam’s hair, at the sound of the strange word that might have been a clue.

                          FLOYD: Focus Lots On Yourself, Dimwit that’s the name of the treatment… It’s made of extracts of Fuckus Rapidus, a new plant that has been blooping in Russian taiga recently. It had covered a whole region in a fortnight. People wondered what they could do about them, but apparently, some old crone found an interesting use for them… But we’re getting side-tracked, aren’t we?

                          Oh, this is fascinating Becky said, wondering if she would look better now with a mane of luscious raven hair on her beautiful dark-skinned head… What’s the name already? BOYF?

                          No! BOYF is the exact opposite, it’s Blame On Your Friend it’ll have all your hair and nails fall in a few days, even your pubic hair I fear… I still don’t know what’s the use of that though there might be some customers for it… :-? Al was puzzled.

                          #497

                          Hank, the saloon pianist, was hopelessly in love with Anna.

                          But she had so many wooers, I hadn’t dared say how much he loved the blond dancer. For fear of public ridicule mostly, as he didn’t think he was very good-looking, with his horse-face… Not that she really cared with all these men having gone into her bed. But he couldn’t take the risk. Better a life in her shadow than taking a chance and spoil everything.

                          He had always been here to care for her.
                          When that young one had came to dance too, he’d been the one to make it easy for them. Or he thought he did…
                          What was annoying Anna the most was that the newcomer would be using a blond wig and that might eclipse her. Of course, that wasn’t what Anna had said, but Hank knew her well enough to understand.
                          He was the one coming up with that idea of Twilight as a stage name for the other one, keeping the shining Dawn for Anna. Like sisters, yet worlds apart. Apparently they both had found the idea great, and even if for Hank, Dawn and Twilight were different movements of the same seesaw, for Anna, it was pretty obvious that Dawn came before Twilight.

                          When Anna had been fat with her blue-eyed baby boy, he had been providing her some shelter for some time. It was so obvious for everybody that nothing could happen between them… Anna was oblivious, trying to get herself a proper husband. She had almost convinced that Jo that he was the father. Hopefully Hank had thwarted the attempt. He had his own idea of who was the father, and that wasn’t something to be proud of.
                          And Hank had better keep his mouth shut, as the guy in question wasn’t one to allow being tickled on such sensitive subjects.
                          In the end, Anna got fed up with all his attentions, called him a sticky leech. How ungrateful…

                          Now she was with that old bloke… A fat half-bald guy with long unkempt greyish greasy hair who had lost his wife, eloped with their former neighbour. The story had provided a good laugh to everyone who was well aware of it. But somehow Anna took compassion for that Manuel — who was nicknamed the Bar Rook due to his pressing penchant for alcoholic beverages.

                          Hank was finding Twilight more interesting… Free of romantic bonds and dazzlingly beautiful as she was growing.
                          Once in the beginning of her representation he had found her crying behind the bar, after having been hauled around by Anna once again.

                          She had told him an interesting story about her wig. It was a gift from her mother’s foster sister. The two women had suckled the same Ol’ Granny Lucy and had kept very close over the years. But her mother’s foster sister had a tough life, and she made a business of selling her golden hair to make wigs. Twilight’s was one of those. A gift from this aunt, which was all the more dear and precious to her. She had said to Twilight that it would draw to her good fortune, and fame too…
                          It was easy for Hank to imagine that to become true.

                          #462

                          Juan was getting more and more annoyed at his daughter’s boyfriend. A good for nothing who was lazy as a pig.
                          Paqui was caring for him, and always finding him excuses. Meanwhile, all that Claudio was able to do was to sit in front of the TV and watch the sports channel.

                          More than once, Juan had been close to burst into a fury and throw the parasite out of the house, but Paquita was so enamored with him that he did nothing out of compassion for his daughter.
                          If only she could see her own beauty, she wouldn’t stick with such a bum.
                          Her acne had started at her puberty, and it was like she used it to hide herself… Many, and crazy Josefina too, God bless her poor wretched soul, thought it was such a good thing that she had found someone to love her despite her face full of pimples, but that was all rubbish.

                          The pig was out of town to run in a rallye, and that was providing some respite for them all. God knows where he got the money for these expensive entertainments, petty trafficking, most likely… At least, that had left Paqui some clearance to reacquaint herself with her family and with her cousin Joselito, without being shut up at every turn of the conversation by Claudio

                          #460

                          Dory’s stopover at Heathrow airport was longer than expected, due to the knock on effect of delays caused by the air traffic controllers strike in Paris. She bought coffee in a paper cup and went and sat in the cramped smoking room. A couple of middle aged overweight women were sitting opposite her, their chubby knees almost touching Dory’s in the unpleasant little nicotine yellow room.

                          Dory couldn’t help but listen to their conversation, and had to bite her lip on several occasions to prevent herself interjecting questions. Dory wanted to ask where this Tikfijikoo Island was. There was something about the sound of it that caught her attention, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on the strange feeling it gave her to hear the name.

                          The two women, who appeared to be named Shah and Glaw, were apparently on their way to an island to participate in some kind of experimental treatment, Dory gathered, organized by a Dr Bronklehampton. On hearing the name of the doctor, Dory had a series of images flit through her mind. One of them was of an impish looking redhead with an incredibly large head, doing the tango.

                          When the two plump ladies left the smoking room, Dory followed them. They bought magazines in the airport shop, and boiled sweets ‘in case their ears went’, and deliberated over sunscreen lotion, and then after some inaudible whispering, in which Dory heard only the words ‘treatment’ and ‘skin’, apparently decided against purchasing any of the skin care products.

                          Dory followed them into the public lavatories, and learned that ‘our Mavis’ would be joining them for the treatment, and listened to a great deal of rather unkind comments about ‘our Fred’ and his bullying ways. On the way out of the Ladies Room, the bleached blonde named Shah collided with a bag lady, at which point Dory saw a shower of bright blue sparks in her peripheral vision. The bag lady looked up and laughed at Shah and her friend and said ‘It matters not, my friend….HA! HA! HA!’, and winked at Dory as she shuffled past.

                          Dory followed the ladies to the baggage check-in desk. Yukailli Airlines. Dory had never heard of it; new airlines starting up all the time, she thought, and such silly names, like that Be My Baby one…what a daft name for an airline. Dory sauntered past, as she couldn’t really stand behind them without arousing suspicion. She was momentarily swallowed up in a swarm of Italians, there must have been two coachloads of them. By the time they’d passed her, Dory had made a decision. She would book a ticket to Tikfijikoo, hopefully on the same plane as Shah and Glaw.

                          She turned around briskly, fleetingly wondering what to say to Dan and Becky about her sudden change of plans, and made her way back to the Yukailli Airlines desk.

                          That’s funny, she said out loud, It was right here!

                          She scanned the names above the row of desks….British Airways, Monarch, Air France, Qantas…..but no Yukailli Airlines. Dory asked at the Airport Information desk.

                          I’m sorry madam, there’s no airline of that name here, the young man behind the desk informed her, looking at her quizzically.

                          Dory opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish, and wondered for a moment if she had imagined it. Just then someone bumped into her shoulder, causing her to spin round. It was the bag lady she’d seen earlier in the Ladies room.

                          Leaving at Gate 57 and three quarters, the bag lady whispered, and winked conspiratorily.

                          Dory’s mouth fell open. She was about to say Oh now really, what is this, Harry Potter Airport? but something stopped her. Instead she asked, But what about tickets and baggage check? But the bag lady had gone.

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