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Ed Steam was all but overwhelmed by the complexity of the situation.

He was up to his moustache in paperwork as he attempted to resolve the thread entanglement dilemma. At the same time he was striving to keep tabs on the various cacklers and manage the PR for the crowd gas experiments.

“What a jolly brouhaha,” he moaned.

“I am sorry to add to your woes,” said Evangeline cheerfully, “but there have been recent reports of a Cautacious Cackler cackling in various threads, although this may just be a typo for the Audacious Cackler or another strong possibility put forward by the experts is that the Cautacious Cackler has been confused for the Contumacious Cackler.“

She paused to see the effect this information was having on Ed, noting with pleasure the drops of sweat forming on his brow. She leaned over the desk and gently mopped them away with her handkerchief.

“And there have been unverified reports of a possible granite termitation on this thread,” she said softly.

It was too much for Ed.

“I want you to trace it back to when the first signs of entanglement began,” he screamed at Evangeline.

“There’s a visitor in the drawing room by the name of Bubbles, your highness,” Finnley said with a mock curtsy.

“What on earth are you doing down there, Finnley, pretending to be a red dwarf again? Do act you age and get up at once! Now then, never mind old Bubbles, just make sure she has plenty of carrot champagne and peanuts while she waits. There is something we need to discuss.” Liz was uncharacteristically businesslike. “Something has gone horribly wrong and it will only get worse if we don’t nip it in the bud.”

“Oh?”

“This,” said Liz with a grand sweep of her arm, “This is my haven. This thread is sacrosanct. This is where the stories come from. This is not,” she glared sternly at the diminutive personage before her, “Not where the stories come TO. I’ve just about had enough of stories and other threads knocking on my door and sitting on my threadbare sofas quaffing carrot champagne at the expense of the tranquility I require in which to direct my characters.”

“I see. Shall I tell her to bugger off then?”

“I haven’t finished my diatribe!”

“Oh, right ho then. Carry on.”

“How am I supposed to keep the characters entertained and productive, not to mention in their own stories and not blundering about haphazardly, with all these interruptions?”

“If I may be so bold as to interrupt Madam,” interrupted Finnley with another curtsy, “Why don’t you just delete them all?”

“Don’t be silly, I never delete.”

Dispersee sat on a fallen tree trunk, lost in thought. A long walk in the woods had seemed just the ticket to release her from her turbulent thoughts, but alas, she had been unable to stop thinking about the ramifications of the new message from the popular ghost.

At first she had been delighted to see it. She had agreed with it. But then she wondered why. Because she already knew all this, and in fact, it was information that could so readily be gleaned by anyone at all simply by engaging ordinary common sense, and run of the mill human compassion. Nothing esoteric was needed. No enlightened messages from the great beyond. In fact, she had said the same as the ghost, and on many occasions. The truth of the matter was that one had to be dead these days to be heard. Nobody was interested in the wise words of the living anymore. It could almost be said that nobody was all that interested in living at all: everyone wanted to be in the future, or the past, or in some other dimension, or planet, or not even physically alive at all anywhere. The individuals in the ascension process were particularly infected with this strange disorder: many of the ordinary uninitiated public were already quite well aware of the contents of the message and were already actively engaged in the process. It was as if the interest in so called shifty matters was an obstacle, an ugly carbuncle over the heart.

Dispersee seriously wondered if the whole shift thing had been a good idea. She was beginning to doubt that it was. The alacrity with which people relied on messages from ghosts at the expense of exercising their own powers of deduction and intuition had caused the whole plan to do disastrously wrong. People didn’t even know how to behave like people anymore. Not only were they afraid of other people, afraid of their governments, afraid of their food, of the sun and the water and the very earth itself, they were afraid of their own human responses, or had forgotten them altogether.

Did it really need a ghost to advise people on media propaganda, and remind them to be compassionate to others who were on an incredible journey, an extraordinary movement during these times of change? And more to the point, did Dispersee need to be involved at all in this futile ascension malarkey?

A strange peacefulness enveloped Idle as she stood immobilized beside the sapling. A feeling of imperturbability washed over her, the grace of stillness. She glanced down at her legs and rather liked the smooth cold marble effect; so much more attractive that purple veins and loose skin. While her neck still had a degree of flexibility, she looked around, appreciating the hard still silent trees, their infinite serenity and refreshing lack of hustle bustle.

But her quiet reverie was not to last long. The sudden appearance of a partly clad woman sent flocks of birds squalking away from the treetops in alarm.

The woman immediately set to removing her shirt and rearranging it across her torso in an attempt to gain some kind of conventional modesty, dislodging the sticky paper scraps.

Devan, who had chanced upon this usual scene in his search for his aunt, failed to notice the paper at first, so entranced was he with watching the attractive woman attempt to cover her voluptuous body with a gardening shirt. Mater, breathing heavily from the exertion of the search, came up behind him and slapped him soundly on the back of the head and gave him a push.

“The paper!” she hissed. “Get the paper!”

“HELP ME!” Liz shouted over her shoulder, while simultaneously grabbing the back of the gardeners trousers with one hand, and attempting to floogle the phrase stickum lute putty on her pocket device with the other hand. What in tarnation did it mean? Probably some ancient tribal voodoo Finnley had picked up during her sojourn in the nether regions of the planet.

Roberto struggled to escape the vice like grip on his belt, but Liz’s grip was firm. Godfrey charged across the lawn like like a wild boar to assist with the detention of the errant gardener and gripped Roberto’s shoulder firmly. The sticky shreds of paper in Godfrey’s hand stuck to the gardeners denim shirt like glue. Roberto wrenched himself free, sending Godfrey flying into the herbaceous border, and leaving Liz holding an empty pair of jeans in her hand. Focusing on the information now showing on her pocket information device ~ an aboriginal dreamwalker teleport code ~ it was a moment before Liz realized that she was no longer detaining the gardener but merely holding his trousers. Of Roberto, there was no sign.

Godfrey, sitting in amongst the delphiniums, was looking as pale as Finnley after the cucumber mask. Although Liz had missed the sight of the gardener sans trews, Godfrey had not.

“An imposter!” he cried. “That was no Roberto, that was Roberta Slack! A WOMAN!”

Suddenly there was a piercing scream.

Finnley’s face had turned white—although later she would claim it was not fear but rather the cucumber mask giving her face a death-like appearance—and she was pointing a shaking finger in the direction of Roberto’s derrière. Or more accurately, towards where Roberto’s derrière had been prior to the scream; like the others, he had jumped up in alarm at the ear splitting noise.

“What the devil is the matter?” gasped LIz. She grasped Finnley’s shoulders firmly and shook her. “Pull yourself together; it’s just a bum crack. I know it is a long time since you will have seen a man’s bum, but really as I keep saying to you, if you will just smarten yourself up and make a bit more effort. I mean, look at you; you’ve got vegetables falling off your face ….” Liz shook her head in confoundment.

“It’s not the bum crack,” snarled Finnley, recovering her usual unflappable composure. “It is the tattoo on his bum. The tattoo of the girl with the glass feet. Do you not know what that means?”

Roberto’s eyes narrowed as he began to back away towards the gate.

In all the excitement, nobody noticed Godfrey picking up the sticky and ripped shreds of paper which Liz had let drop to the ground.

Or did they?

That’s funny, Roberto thought, a bunch of nonsense.
“What’s that ?” asked Liz, her curiosity picked by the alluredness of a strand of words.
“It just fall off your hat”, said the gardener. He looked at the woman, thinking about what Godfrey had told him. The sunlight certainly made her look radiant. He noticed that the red of her lips was the same as the red rose bush he was just taking care of.
Liz took the paper.
“Be careful, It’s sticky”, said Roberto.
“Say something I don’t know, dear.” She tried to get rid of the paper, tearing it in several pieces in the process.
“I wonder…” she began, “Finnley”, she called waiting for her help. She would certainly know. She had a habit of sticking her nose everywhere.

“Devan!” called Mater. She couldn’t find the spell, and if they didn’t hurry, Idle would be lost, transformed into termitegranite forever.

The boy happened to be in the house at that moment. And he asked quite proud of himself. “What’s the matter Mater ?”
If she had had time to roll her eyes, she would have.
“I’m looking for a small package, it was hidden into the termite honey that your aunt swallowed.”
“Termite honey ?” asked Devan, “I didn’t know termite made honey. Are you sure it was not something else ? Like bees ?”
“Don’t play games, there’s no time. Look for a package, or a paper,” said Mater. I hope that tart didn’t swallow it with the honey.

Then she collapse, her body rigid like stone. Actually her skin began to take on a shade of grey, and several colonies of moss found their way into the wrinkles and meanders of the granite like hair.
Mater arrived at that moment.
“Oh! my! Dido, what did you do ?”
The old lady looked at the table, saw the empty jar, the lines of ants already pillaging the sweet spots on the table and on Idle’s fingers. Some of them had already turned into stone. Mater tried to forage into the jar to find the small package. It contained the mantra to release the hungry ghost from the stone trap of the termite honey.
The jar was meant for rats, Mater would feed them with termite honey to change them into stone and sell them on the market. A little hobby. She would never have thought Idle would eat that stuff. It smelled quite awful.

The honeyed ball of words had dislodged numerous strands of dried spaghetti, which nestled amongst Aunt Idle’s dreadlocks rather attractively, with the paper ball looking like a little hair bun.

But wait! What is this?

Her greedy fingers had located something unexpected; something dense and uncompromising was lurking in her precious nectar. Carefully, she explored the edges of the object with her finger tips and then tugged. The object obligingly emerged, a gooey gelatinous blob.

Dido sponged off the honey allowing it to plunk on to the table top. It did not occur to her to clean it up. Indeed, she felt a wave of defiant pleasure.

The ants will love that, although I guess Mater won’t be so thrilled. Fussy old bat.

She licked her fingers then transferred her attention back to the job at hand. After a moment of indecision whilst her slightly disordered mind flicked through various possibilities, she managed to identify the object as a small plastic package secured with tape. Excited, and her ravenous hunger cravings temporarily stilled in the thrill of the moment, she began to pick at the edges of the tape.

Cocooned Inside the plastic was a piece of paper folded multiple times. Released from its plicature, the wrinkled and dog-eared paper revealed the following type written words:

food self herself next face write water truth religious behind mince salt words soon yourself hope nature keep wrong wonder noticed.

“Stop muttering, Godfrey. What are you not in the mood for?” She winked at him *lasciviously.

Godfrey glared. “Stupid ignorant fool of a bossy boss and look at this will you!” He pointed dramatically at his letter. “A typo! He spelt my name Dear! ”

LIz was unperturbed.

“Well, I will tell you what I am in the mood for!”


She pirouetted around the recalcitrant Finnley who was still standing in the middle of the room and defiantly not making a start on **getting the cabbages.

“Nick, nack, paddywack! I’m in the mood for LOOOOVE!” sang LIz loudly and tunelessy.

Finnley grimaced and made a hasty exit.

notation* trying to sexy things up for our readers.

notation** being a euphemism for not writing a comment, of course.

Aunt Idle was craving for sweets again. She tip toed in the kitchen, she didn’t want to hear another lecture from Mater. It only took time from her indulging in her attachments. Her new yogiguru Togurt had told the flockus group that they had to indulge more. And she was determined to do so.
The kitchen was empty. A draft of cold air brushed her neck, or was it her neck brushing against the tiny molecules of R. She cackled inwardly, which almost made her choke on her breath. That was surely a strange experience, choking on something without substance. A first for her, if you know what I mean.

The shelves were closed with simple locks. She snorted. Mater would need more than that to put a stop to Idle’s cravings. She had watched a video on Wootube recently about how to unlock a lock. She would need pins. She rummaged through her dreadlocks, she was sure she had forgotten one or two in there when she began to forge the dreads. Very practicle for smuggling things.

It took her longer than she had thought, only increasing her craving for sweets.
There was only one jar. Certainly honey. Idle took the jar and turned it to see the sticker. It was written Termite Honey, Becky’s Farm in Mater’s ornate writing. Idle opened the jar. Essence of sweetness reached her nose and made her drool. She plunged her fingers into the white thick substance.