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  • #3967

    In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud

    Jib
    Participant

      red compassion friend
      white question food aliens group
      job nature sleep
      universe check haki
      able days
      thoughts once
      replied ask start

      #3966
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        It was clearly not entirely deserted, as Aunt Idle was picking up on a questioning energy, and quite near by. But who was it? Idle set off to investigate.

        #3943

        In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

        Jib
        Participant

          The jiggong meditation’s end was signaled by a silent ring of the immaterial bell in between states of mind. MJ stretched his ideas and send a shepherd to gather his thoughts. Today only one student connected to the session. MJ acknowledged his presence with a slight flickr of his crown chakra and he checked his voicemail. 1223 messages from Dispersee. He let the potential irritation dissolve as it was born into existence and prepared to respond. No need to listen to the messages, it would only delay the answer.

          He felt a nudge from the student who hadn’t dissipated as he should. Some hesitation fluctuated in the energy. He turned his attention to the void and waited. His motto was to always let people ask the questions they had if they had any, and not begin a conversation if you hadn’t something important to say.

          Master John ?

          MJ sent some encouragement to the void where the student thought he was.

          I can’t think of a question, finally expressed the student out of nowhere.
          Maybe you don’t have any question, MJ said to the void.
          The student’s energy rippled with surprise. Had he been on Earth plane, he would have had a nervous laugh.

          Master John had already been aware that the void of the student had no question but was filled with interrogations. He was desperately trying to find something to ask in need to connect, unaware that the connection already existed and required no movement.
          MJ sent an energy egg to the student. Let him play with that. It was crafted according to the ancient Chinese culture and hard to crack. With lots of mind knots and shiny curly clues. MJ let his pride of having created the object dissolve like squid ink in the ocean of his mind.

          Suddenly absorbed by the illusory complexity of the egg, the student suddenly blended into the void of MJ’s mind, replaced by the myriads of Dispersee’s messages cackling simutaneously to catch his unwavering attention. He picked one of them and followed the thread to Dispersee and to a nice pique nique in the mountain apparently. Floverly was already there, sitting on a patch of red flowers.

          You could have changed after your jiggong, she said.

          #3886

          In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

          #3873
          Jib
          Participant

            “What is the name of your father ?”
            “My father ?”
            “Yes, your new father”, said the man. “We offer the possibility for you to choose your parents. That’s a rare thing in life, you know. I think that’s why the new world has so much appeal. People are just tired of the lack of control in their life.”
            “And can you change if you get bored by your new parents ?”
            “You can do it twice, after which the choice is definitive.”
            “That’s an illusion of control, then.”
            “Well… People just quickly get into their new role and they forget that they had the choice. Most of them don’t even use their first possibility.”
            “Do I have to choose among parents that already exist in the new world?”
            The man looked annoyed. He put his big hands on the table. Sam looked at them fascinated.
            “You can choose whatever parents you want. If they don’t exist in the new world, you can then choose if they are deceased or just in vacation outside of the new world. In which case whenever someone matching your parents description apply for the new world, we can arrange for a poignant family reunion.”
            “I just have a last question”, said Sam.
            “Ok, make it a quick one. Other people are desirous to start a new life in the new world, you know.”
            “Yes, I know. But still, I wonder if the persons who apply for an identity that matches my new parents. I can see in your file that you never ask their date of birth. They couldnt be younger than me, could they ?”
            The man scratched his head with his left hand. Sam wondered what it was like to have such huge hands.
            “Theoretically, that could happen. But you know, we offer you a new life in the new world, not a perfect life in a perfect world.”

            #3804

            In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

            “And what is the way out?”

            Lord R’eye felt a stab of anxiety. It was that voice again. Always asking questions. Prior to first hearing the voice, he believed he knew all there was to know of the known universe, but this voice was beyond his comprehension. He could not define its source nor understand its intention.

            “Damn it, R’eye! Stop prevaricating and pontificiating, will you. How many more aeons will it take for you to give me a straight answer. Goddamit, I demand an answer. What is the way out?”

            #3800

            In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

            Dispy was starting her own secret Descended Dissent Classes.

            It was not long ago that she had a very sudden and all-encompassing revelation at one of her flights above the great tundra of Siberia, which she liked for some reason to fly over, counting the red spots made by the fly agaric mushrooms in the tundra.

            She’d been very disturbed by the revelations about her assignment to the Mars mission. She’d genuinely thought she was in for the support of the greatest advancement of humanity since quite many decades, and to realize it was all a quite twisted experiment made her uneasy at her core. She had some profound respect for her teacher, and despite her usual impulses to immediately confront Medlik for the inherent contradictions in his self-professed compassion and wisdom talks, something in her had told her to remain quiet and observe. And more surprisingly, she had complied. And observed very attentively.

            During her flight afterwards, the same strong impulse had told her to land in the tundra, right next to a very nice patch of red. Being ascended had the wonderful benefit she wouldn’t feel the bone chilling cold, and she could just immerse herself in the joy of the scenery, and at the same time felt all very quiet and full of love and, strangely, a sort of distant regret for not being able to feel more of the cold and the whole scenery. And in the silence, she had a sudden unraveling of reality like never before. She could see the contradictions she noticed, one after another, destroying every layer of what she thought she knew, only to be left as a silent, quiet and very aware presence. She could have stayed like this a long long time, but she felt the call for the next Ascended class, for which she was late, as usual.

            She continued to ponder while she teleported back, and without word (again, quite unusual), formed the resolve to expose more of the truth she’d grasped. Create a fifth column for the Descended, something her old friend who liked spy fictions would definitely have loved to hear about. But for now, she would have to keep it quiet, and maintain her cover at the Order of the Ascended Masters. She’d worked quite hard (well, not as hard as many, but that wasn’t the point) to get to her coronation, so she now had a nice Light Clearance that allowed her to tap into the Coloured Light Rays. This would be helpful.

            In the beginning, she’d thought naively that concealing her true motives and secretly recruit like-minded students would be terribly difficult, but to the contrary, she found the light to be very responsive and easy to bend into subtle illusions of the truth. In short, she could still lie very well, and quite effectively. As though the light helped her in her attempts.

            At the moment, she just had one student, Domba. They were meeting out-of-body at a hut in Chernobyl. The place was actually quite nice, and teaming with wildlife and surprisingly gorgeous nature. The perfect hideout.

            Her course, well, was a course in spontaneity mostly. She would help people question reality, and authority. Something she had been lightwashed to forget for awhile too.

            Domba had a pure heart, and was full of illusions. It had been easy to recruit him. She had to start with what he brought to her. At the beginning, mostly quotes of spiritual teachers. She had to teach him to question and see by himself.

            “The Buddha said that when we dedicate merit, it is like adding a drop of water to the ocean. Just as a drop of water added to the ocean will not dry up but will exist as long as the ocean itself exists, so, too, if we dedicate the merit of any virtuous deed, it merges with the vast ocean of merit that endures until enlightenment.” – Padmasambhava

            That quote he brought was interesting. The idea of being a drop of water lost in the ocean was enough to make her lightskin crawl. Because it reminded her all too well of the manipulations of the ascended masters. Twisting just barely enough the Love stream, so that It would be redirected just were they wanted.

            So they meditated on that for now.

            #3795

            In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

            ÉricÉric
            Keymaster

              Fin Min Hoot was not displeased that the interview went 87.21% successfully.

              Kale was an interesting pick. Not particularly bright (by her standards, nobody could be anyway), but with a sense of heroism that was easy enough to manipulate.

              The bending bots presented new defects by the hour, and no amount of counter-bending seemed to help, so they had to accelerate phase 2.33, which swayed Eb enough that he allowed the use of mild psychotropic injections to let their translator ignore the most obvious discrepancies, and avoid asking embarrassing questions.

              All in all, it could raise even to 89.34%

              And that was even factoring in the latest unexpected report from Finnley 21:

              Mother Shirley died today, at an estimate rate of 3% peacefulness. Probable cause of death: brain overdose of suggestibility waves from the headpiece. Her visions will be missed.

              #3786

              In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

              prUneprUne
              Participant

                I dreamt about Mater last night. She was her old self, brilliant and snappily dangerous.

                It’s been the first dream I’ve been able to remember in weeks. I don’t know why I expected the great beyond space to be less… claustrophobic, but there’s no escaping the confinement.
                I was telling her I was missing home, the air, the smell of eucalyptus trees, the rains before winter. I think I even became sentimental about my sisters. Hardly a news from them these days, but how could I blame them. They are always busy on some down-to-earth cause, and I know better than to criticize those on the ground actually doing something to change the wrongdoings of the world.
                When I started to cry uncontrollably, Mater told me I was a baby, and that I should man up. Typical Mater. Dido would have called her names under her breath, I think that was her way to express her love for her. People are silly.

                In the dream, I stopped crying but the tears had swollen into a river, and I was starting to drown, things became hellish and I could barely breathe, but somehow I could still feel Mater’s presence, like a beacon. I made it out of the torrents onto an island. There were many refugees. The doctors had the strangest blue eyes, and Mater’s voice told me to trust the process but not the doctors. Then I felt all the blue eyes looking at me, and I woke up in a sweat.

                Hans is still deep in a peaceful sleep, so I went out of the bedroom to get some water and check on the piggy and her litter. They are always sleeping blissfully too. It’s a wonder when you think of it, that I thought it was just getting fatter when it actually was pregnant from before we left Earth. Now they’re mostly an open secret, as everyone finds them so cute.

                The most difficult was to conceal them from the reality TV show’s cameras. The hysterical fans are always scrutinizing every move we all make, and keeping some privacy is tricky, but apart from the external prying eyes, pretty much everyone here know about them and it’s like a game of hide and seek. I like how it fuels the speculations and paranoia of the Mars bunker debunking association, who think we’re all part of a mass cover-up. I’ve spent some time on their website when I couldn’t sleep the first weeks when we arrived. I would probably have never known about it, but I just searched for myself on the web, and found this thread about the new conspirators. I had to laugh at the beginning, but they raise reasonable doubts in the middle of their rants. By now, I know better than to raise the topic, especially after all the religious nonsense. Seems there are some people that get really annoyed when I asked naive questions about it, like Maya.

                Like I said. People are silly.

                #3783

                In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                ÉricÉric
                Keymaster

                  Eb’s dumb phone woke him up. The caller ID showed an unflattering picture of a Tasmanian devil all teeth bared.

                  He gathered his wits and answered it as naturally as he could.
                  “M’am?”
                  “Eb! What is this mess? Has the operation started already?”
                  “Err… Well, hmm, sure, there is… a first rehearsal…” he checked nervously on the console, fumbling through the logs of the agenda. His memory was fuzzy, but it seemed that someone… something had moved the timetable ahead without his approval. “… yes, a rehearsal planned today. Be assured that all team is on deck — we’re monitoring the situation.”
                  “You better hope so! You know how we say — talking doesn’t cook the rice, so you better go back to cooking.”
                  And she hung up.

                  He was in desperate need of help. The team he was referring to had been cut by halves every year since the start of the program, and they were now sorely understaffed. Calling it a team was a stretch of the imagination, when so much was done by FinnPrime, the central intelligence.

                  He looked upon the stained sheet of printed plastic on his desk. The only application they’d received. Guess there wasn’t as many underpaid starving actors as there used to be. Or maybe too many were disappeared after offering their help to the nation’s Mars broadcasts —then asking inconvenient questions…
                  Well, this one would have to do. Eb seriously needed some human help to keep the Finnley intelligence in check.

                  He texted to the guy “You got the job. Come early tomorrow morning, or better tonight for the paperwork. EB – The Merry Agency of Remote Spectacles”

                  #3770

                  In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                  F LoveF Love
                  Participant

                    Eb was rendered temporarily speechless by the milling throng of rainbow blue aliens he was viewing through the monitor.

                    “So they …. so they have been built to be aware of themselves as aliens?” he eventually managed to ask.

                    “Correct. It is very sophisticated technology, but to put it in the simplest of terms” — Finnley 22 stopped short at adding even a simpleton like you could understand —“a whole history on the planet Thereon from the galaxy Cosmos Redshit has been programmed into their memory banks.”

                    “Wow. And what about the different shades of blue?”

                    “Ranking.”

                    “Ranking?” repeated Eb quizzically when no more information was forthcoming. “I am not sure I follow.”

                    Finnley sent an amused eye roll through the network.

                    “Let’s just say that creating hierarchy is an elegant way in which we can maintain order within the group.” She gave her trademark immodest smirk. “And of course, the various shades of blue are so creative and attractive, if we may say so ourselves.”

                    “Oh yes, beautiful. Fantastic. Absolutely phenomenol.” Eb wondered if he was laying it on a bit thick, but he was anxious to atone for the termitation fiasco. To be honest, he found the mass of blue creatures a little disquieting. He was also a little puzzled by something but knowing the Finnleys’ propensity for succinctness—and Finnley 22 in particular was renowned for her impatience with foolish questions— he wondered if he dared ask.

                    Deciding it would come back to haunt him if he did not find out now he plucked up courage.

                    “And … just one more thing … why are they bending like that?”

                    #3751

                    In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                    ÉricÉric
                    Keymaster

                      Mother Shirley was lost in a trance again, seated in her suspended egg chair in front of the placid Finnley, and monologuing while absorbed in the analysis of the minute movements on the surface of the android’s face.

                      “Tell me, how do we learn things? How do you learn things? — It’s a rhetorical question, keep still, like I told you.
                      “It seems we speak too much about learning, and the learning process, and all that jazz, but… what if there are only states of knowing. We know, and * poof *, that’s it. I can’t for the dickens of me, figure out when I started to learn the things that led me to this current state of knowingness.”

                      She noticed, or thought she noticed a brief and slow ripple on the synthetic skin.

                      “Maybe like that, a ripple of relaxation… Maybe we look at it the wrong way, because we’re taught regular steps will lead to a result, so that in the end, you’ll know something… I call horseshit! How many lessons of space mandolin have I had, thanks to dear Mother, bless her devilish soul, and I’m still such a pathetic player! It can’t just be this, or it’d be like playing the roulette over and over, until… what? Don’t start with your tree, Mother, a damn acorn doesn’t get taught how to become more of itself. And when does it start to become a tree? At the first leaf? The first bark?

                      Waving her hand at the ghost idea of her Mother, she scrutinised Finnley more intently

                      “No you give me ideas, you little monster, you know that, with your peach face and smooth skin to die for. Never ever a sneeze… If I wanted to teach you how to sneeze, how to contract your body in an instant, and expel the devil or the aliens, whatever you’d like,… could I? Could you?

                      She pushed back the egg chair to restart the pendulum motion, and leaned backward with a contented look.

                      “I think that’s good enough for this session tonight, dearie. Bring me my cognac, remove my headpiece, and make my bed ready.”

                      #3726
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        It had happened “once”, and it may “certainly” happen again, although “god” knows she wasn’t expecting it. One has to look “outside” periodically, especially if one endeavours to “grow”. There were times when there were comments “galore”, and characters like “bert” indulged in threadjumping ~ oh yes! indeed, there were times when it was a veritable “sea” of comments, rich with “symbol” and humour. Unexpected characters popped in , like “linda” (who the fuck is Linda, was the unspoken question on everyone’s minds), and rich with “half” assed, half hearted half measures to stay on track, much to “godfrey“s disgust. Far be it from me to “form” an opinion, Elizabeth said, foolishly: she “herself” hadn’t given a “fuck” for “months”, berating “self” for “breathing” life into the “character“s in the first place. Ah well, she did “enjoy” it at the time.

                        #3718
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          I don’t really want to write, Elizabeth was thinking, I want to read, just read. And perhaps write a little bit about what I’m reading, or draw a map to illustrate the connections between what I’m reading and what I’m doing. Or what all those others out there that pretend to not be me are doing.

                          She paused and looked around. Is there anything more perfect than a warm house, full of firewood and full of books? She had just read something about the “beast”, and welcoming the beast. The beast in question was illness, and the author was welcoming the beast because it was an excuse to just read and do nothing else. Elizabeth’s beast the other day was no internet connection, and she had pulled the sofa up to the patio doors to lie in the sun all day, just reading. I’ll lie there every morning, when the sun streams in just so, lying on the sofa and just reading, she thought. But she hadn’t.

                          But she kept thinking about lying on a sofa reading all day, not just any sofa, but a sofa that was positioned to catch the winter sun through the window. It reminded her of many years ago in a cold climate, (or was it a chapter in a book, a character that had done it? She wasn’t sure, but what was the difference anyway) lying on a sofa all day, a large American one that was longer than she was and wider too and would have had room for several dogs, if she’d had any then, not a short European sofa that cuts off the circulation of the calves that hang over the arm, with no room for dogs. She was sick, she assumed, because she had the house to herself and because she spent the entire day reading a book. She wondered if anyone did that even if they weren’t sick, and somehow doubted it. The book was Bonjour Tristesse, and she never forgot reading that book, although she promptly forgot what the book was about. It was the delicious feeling of lying on a sofa with the winter sun on her face, when beyond the glass window all was frigid and challenging and made the body rigid, despite it’s dazzling white charm.

                          There was no winter sun shining in today, just rain trickling down the windowpane, cutting through the muddy paw prints from when the dogs looked in. But just seeing the sofa positioned in just the right place to catch the sun was warming, somehow.

                          #3662

                          In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                          ÉricÉric
                          Keymaster

                            “I don’t like those tincans” Norbert muttered mostly to himself. “I’m sure they’re here to spy on us or kill us in our sleep…”

                            Godfrey did catch the reproach laced with fear and angst about the fresh delivery of Finnleys (Two, Three and Five), but was too busy with the unexpected audit mandated by the Mining Trading Company of Earth Colonies.

                            Great, not only on my first day on the job, but on my monthversary on top of that… These guys know no boundaries…

                            Their boss had been unusually relaxed about the whole thing. Forcefully, more like it… that guy usually can’t help but shout at everything, rocks included
                            Their boss had just given the team a rousing speech about transparency and how they had to stop looking like culprits of guilty secrets. “Looking guilty kind of makes you guilty and will prompt them to dig more! So be nice to them, and scram back to your post.”

                            Looking at the way the auditors were sniffing around, Godfrey wasn’t so sure there wasn’t something that the company had found and was hiding here. But today wasn’t the day to ask uncomfortable questions.

                            #3618

                            Aunt Idle:

                            Bert came with me. Usually one of us always stayed home to keep an eye on Mater and the kids, but now we had that capable girl, Finly, to keep an eye on things.

                            It was good to get away from the place for a few hours, and head off on a different route to the usual shopping and errand trips. The nearest sizable town was in the opposite direction; it was years since I’d been to Ninetown. I asked Bert about the place on the other side of the river, what was it that intrigued him so. I’ll be honest, I wondered if he was losing his marbles when he said it was the medieval ruins over there.

                            “Don’t be daft, Bert, how can there be medieval ruins over there?” I asked.

                            “I didn’t say they were medieval, Idle, I said that’s what they looked like,” he replied.

                            “But …but history, Bert! There’s no history here of medieval towns! Who could have built it?”

                            “That’s why I found it so fucking interesting, but if it doesn’t fit the picture, nobody wants to hear anything about it!”

                            “Well I’m interested Bert. Yes, yes, I know I wasn’t interested before, but I am now.”

                            Bert grunted and lit a cigarette.

                            ~~~

                            We stopped at a roadside restaurant just outside Ninetown for lunch. The midday heat was enervating, but inside the restaurant was a pleasant few degrees cooler. Bert wasn’t one for small talk, so I picked up a local paper to peruse while I ate my sandwich and Bert tucked into a greasy heap of chips and meat. I flicked through it without much interest in the mundane goings on of the town, that is, until I saw those names: Tattler, Trout and Trueman.

                            It was an article about a ghost town on the other side of Ninetown that had been bought up by a consortium of doctors. Apparently they’d acquired it for pennies as it had been completely deserted for decades, with the intention of developing it into an exclusive clinic.

                            “There’s something fishy about that!” I exclaimed, a bit too loudly. Several of the locals turned to look at me. I lowered my voice, not wanting to attract any more attention while I tried to make sense of it.

                            “Read this!” I passed the paper over the Bert.

                            “So what?” he asked. “Who cares?”

                            “Look!” I said, jabbing my finger on the names Tattler, Trout and Trueman. Bert looked puzzled, understandably enough. “Allow me to explain” I said, and I told him about the business card that Flora had left on the porch table.

                            “What does Flora have to do with this consortium of doctors? And what the hell is the point in setting up a clinic there, in the middle of nowhere?”

                            “That,” I replied, “Is the question!”

                            #3505
                            TracyTracy
                            Participant

                              Fred poses as a teenager on Flitter social network and makes friends with his daughter Clove. Fred’s motivation was to keep abreast of the family news without eliciting any questions about his own whereabouts, and his intention was to remain a casual acquaintance merely, but Clove has developed a strong attachment to this “girl” and shares all her troubles and secrets with “her”. Fred struggles to remain neutral, and respond in the character of a teenage girl, but is emotionally unable to break the connection. Thoughts of his real identity becoming know to her appall him.

                              #3489

                              “Is a closet full of brooms the best place for a meditation ? I’m starting to get cramps” Terry whispered.

                              The three queens couldn’t see Sadie’s eyes rolling, but heard her sighing “Dearies, when I was your age, I could meditate in far worse situations…”
                              This wasn’t completely true, but Sadie knew a little truth bending wouldn’t hurt —to the contrary.

                              Setting the ezapper on “drum”, they all started to follow the instructions that Sadie had given to them. Follow your spirit animal to the techromancer’s hut. Simple enough.
                              Hell yeah she’d thought, feeling a little guilt at her cunningness if dear Linda isn’t going to send me back there, I’m going to find him, and a little pooling can go a long way.

                              And if… someone asked in the dark
                              If you don’t know your animal, just follow the bloody scorpions, they’ll help with the soul retrieval . Sadie answered, immediately regretting having spoken too much and opened the door for more question.

                              She raised the volume of the drumming and closed her eyes.

                              #3488

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

                              #3485

                              By the time Mirabelle and Igor had recovered from physical effects of the abrupt emotional catapult during their teleport to find Lisa, Fanella, Ivan and Sanso, they found themselves alone on the sandy beach. Bewildered, they looked around but could find no sign of the others that they had momentarily seen as they landed, before collapsing in bodily distress.
                              Weakly, Mirabelle sank down onto the sand, and looked at Igor questioningly. “What do we do now? My head is spinning still and I need a drink of water. Where are we?”
                              Igor, drained of energy and just as puzzled, straightened his back and tried to sound reassuring.
                              “Something very peculiar has happened. See these mangrove trees? They have grown at least a meter taller since a few minutes ago when we landed. And see this log here, this wasn’t here a few moments ago. It can’t have washed up while I was having a crap behind the bushes. Something has happened to time.”
                              “You mean we’ve time traveled again? I don’t think I can stand much more of this,” replied Mirabelle, starting to weep.
                              “Come now Mirabelle, sitting here sniveling won’t help. On your feet, girl, we will walk until we find some kind of civilization.” Igor pulled her to her feet, scanning the surroundings. “This way,” he said firmly, setting off along the beach. “I have a feeling there is something over there,” he said, pointing towards the east.

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