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“There is a fine balance between touch ups and shoehorning”
Jonbert was half-listening to the rant of his tailor and shoemaker, as he was trying on a new outfit and tartan kilt.
Jonbert’s temper had improved slightly, and he was up to moderate amount of grumpiness as he’d learnt of the arrival of the elder whale, and of the throwing of his guests in the midst of the cetaceans. That explained how he could tolerate much of it.

“You can’t just shoehorn any pattern under the pretext that you fancy it. It has to be in harmony with the moment, in pure synchronistic bliss.” His tailor, Erldrich Lumoncelli, was often prone to bouts of philosophical ramblings that Jonbert had to suffer to get the perfect tailored suits he wanted.

“Oh, bugger that nonsense,” he suddenly shouted, unable to suffer more of the airy monologue. “You’ll give me that gold and orange tartan and those yellow dots on my green shoes if I tell you so. Orange will bring out my shiny hair and light complexion I reckon.”

Color-blind Jonbert wasn’t obviously as savvy for colour matching as he was for time-travelling business, but Erldrich knew better than to infuriate him with aesthetic negotiations.
“Very well Sir.”
He finished taking the measurements quickly, folded back the swatches of textile, and bowed out as if his house was on fire.

Jonbert pulled back his heavy mane of hair into a neat French catogan, truly a unapologetic snobbishness on his part, as it didn’t look very different from a usual ponytail, but somehow sounded more distinguished. Nobody likes to be compared to a pony, do they?
He walked past the great central hall of the submarine, into the Sightseethroughing Dome Room, and considered for a moment to visit the butterfly nursery, in case the new butterflies were hatched yet. But if butterflies had taught him something is that you couldn’t hurry and cut open a cocoon before the butterfly was ready. There was no such thing as a mythical half-caterpillar half-butterfly creature, every change was a complete change, and it had its own timing.

But now things were back on course, and the 22nd of February 2222 was still days ahead. Time again was on his side.

Gliding through layers of consciousness, Belen carried her precious cargo of the Santa Maria and its birds towards her destination.
There were various variations of the same 2222, and she carefully adjusted the course along the 202 years gap, so as to swim to her favourite version of it. It required much love work on her part, addressing, piecing and peacing off many parts of human consciousness, while at the same time tenderly caring for the memories stored with her immense ghost body.
The 2020 version they had just left, she knew, was already on the proper track towards global enlightenment. There were still horrors, concerns and anxiety about the course of the future, but with a greater perspective, it looked like the positive actions were gaining momentum and leaning towards a brighter fuller and richer future.

She could feel the Contact Crystal pulsate steadily and it opened her blowhole chakra. Blowing her mind, as it were.

The Big Island was like a beacon, with the flows of lava rippling heatwave signatures in the ocean, and it didn’t take long to enter the stream that would lead them to the pod and the meeting point.

As she sensed they’d arrived in 2222, and that they were floating on the surface of a calm ocean, she gently opened the energy bubble sealing the ghost and alive cargo of birds and vegetation, so they could breathe in the pure air and enjoy discovering around.

“Belen, look at you, not a ounce more of blubber since we last met! You ought to tell me how you keep so fit”
“Batshatsassani!” Belen was pleased the see the great female orca who’d come to greet her.
“Still with your entourage, it seems” her friend said without a hint of malice, blowing a few rings of bubbles around in a relaxed manner. “Let me accompany you to the ceremony.”
“With great pleasure, dear. Rest assured, I won’t carry my entourage along for the time of the ceremony.”
“It would have been cumbersome, no?” Oftentimes humour (and irony in particular) were a lost subtlety on the orca’s mind. Belen just smiled to answer, revealing a great range of ghostwhite perfect baleens.

As they swam their way along the beautiful clear ocean, they were greeted by a pod of joyously rambunctious great dolphins, a good half size bigger than their common dolphins cousins she’d seen swimming near the coasts of Portugal. The leader of the pod was doing acrobatics to retrieve and play with a funny scarf made of colorful feathers. It was no surprise the dolphins were playing games, really. That or chasing food took the best of their time. But the scarf was the strangest thing Belen had seen in a long time and it triggered some kind of forgotten memory. Odd thing for her to not remember a memory, unless it was from another probable dimension… She followed the urge to ask.

“Were did they get that?”
“Oh, it’s nothing important… Four strange aquatic thingies went down earlier this morning, making a whole lot of noise around. They looked like one of those aliens, but so clumsy we thought they were probably sickly and left there to die by their tribe. The ‘phins took the fancy red gills from one of them.”
“Are you serious? Are they OK?” Belen huge heart felt panicky at the thought of the small creatures left to die without help.
“Of course they are, I knoooow we have to keep our reputation, you know. Where they are now, I’m not too sure. But the octopi from the camouflage squad are on it, following them. According to the last I know, the aliens have been lost for awhile in the underwater caves. When they’re exhausted, we’ll send them somewhere else… Can’t attract too much attention to ourselves, with the ceremony and all…”

This one is not a Lemone quote but could have been.
It’s from a series called Perception (S03E05)

Daniel: Think of your life as a story. Actually, you already do.
fMRI studies show us that following a story, a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin.
These chemicals give us the uniquely human ability to connect with someone, even a total stranger, and empathize. In other words, stories are what we use to find meaning in our lives.
Now, imagine for a moment that we lived without the understanding that our story must eventually end.
What if our lives were as infinite as the universe, if the ticking clock never stopped?
What would our story be then? Would we… still love? Or care?
Would those tiny, fleeting moments that mean everything… Mean anything at all?

“Yes, I could be able to plot a new course, without doubt, even with that tile missing” Belen said to one of the dolphins of the neighbourhood who had come for an update on the stranded ghost galleon.

I was weeks of Simultaneous Time, and being stranded was particularly difficult for a Conscious Breather such as Belen, even if the ghost whale now didn’t really need to breathe, the force of habit was strong.

Peter, his usual jovial self had said nothing, and had merely enjoyed some forays inland, looking for the tile and the conch, occasionally bringing news from the strange neighbours of the nearby village.

In the end, Belen couldn’t really remember who was who in the strange tales he made of it, there were so many humans involved and truly, their earthly concerns weren’t relevant to hers, and there was only little they could do to help with the situation.

The Harmonium Convergence was about to start, the crystalline aquatic organs would start to play the tunes for the new dreams of the new era to be sung.
And yet, the so-called magical conch was still missing. Belen dreaded coming back ashamed to the Youngers without the ancient divination tool. Frankly, it was more of a permission slip, as her orca friend Batshatsassani called it. She would say to her that “every modality, every ritual, every tool, every technique is a permission slip that allows yourself to give you permission to be more of who you are.”
She knew she didn’t need it really, but she liked the rituals of old, and to be honest was a bit fearful of not only revealing they were not that important, but more, introducing new ones… Would the whale and whole cetacean family be ready for such an end to the religious era?

While she was struggling with the thoughts, she managed to guard them from the psychic prying of her dolphin friend, by misleading him on meanders of the endless memory halls that she was guardian of.

Peter suddenly appeared with a popping sound. “I think I found the conch!” he exclaimed with glee in his eyes. “Yes, it’s Igor, you know Igor…”
“What about Igor, darling, you know I lost complete track of all these landers strange names”
“He’s the guy who stole the…” Peter stopped realizing this wasn’t really a question about Igor. “The conch, he brought it back with him!”

Then to his and her own surprise, Belen replied
“Forget about the conch, darling, I’m sorry I’ve led you to believe it was important, but it’s not, not really. It’s just a ordinary object to lead the philistines astray. It’s not more powerful than the whiffling of a shillelagh. The true treasure is always within ourselves.
Gather the birds, and let us prepare to leave in the next hour, the Harmonium Convergence is about to start in 2222, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Baffled by the revelation, Peter knew enough to not contradict his whale partner, and went merrily with the new flow which seemed so full of excitement and potential new science revelations.

Belen had a thought “Actually Peter my dear, any other conch we can find will do just as well. Just pick one on the beach before we leave. Dipping it in the Time stream will crystallize it just as well.”

Peter replied excitedly “Whale that. Let’s spanghew that boat to 2222!”

Just as a thought of love for the gift of such inner revelation, before she left the nice spot of the Spanish coast, Belen cleared her throat and retched the most lovely green scented blob of ambergris on the beach, next to the spiral made of broken white shells that some drifters had drawn on the beach a few days ago.

It was said long ago that the role of the parrot is that of opening communication centers. When this totem appears, one should look to see if one needs assistance in understanding views that are different from one’s own.
Huhu didn’t care about any of these human assigned meanings to its existence.

When the grip of Irina’s mind over Huhu the parrot was suddenly released, it found itself out of sight of the floating balloon and struggled to glide over the oceans’ air currents without losing too much altitude as well as precious degrees.

The air was cold and the ocean had no end in sight, and if a parrot knew despair, Huhu would have succumbed to it already. But it was a brave parrot, as though inhabited by some divine spark, and it continued bravely, only guided by his senses.

When it was about to faint from exhaustion, and dive dangerously close to the sea, was the precise moment when it noticed fumes swirling around in strange vortices erupting from the sea.
A strange boat appeared at the surface with a shining light.

Little did Huhu know, but it was the ghost galleon Santa Rosa which had a special thing for birds in distress, and would appear at times of need, a haven of luxuriant foliage and birds cackle, a benediction of safety in the turmoil of the seas.

Nobody knew clearly when the galleon sunk, one of the last of his kinds in the Old Continent, probably around the early 1111s, but one thing was sure, it was a ghost ship long before Huhu was born and brought to Versailles in 1757.

A ghostly form picked his soft body from the ground, delicately removing the key entangled on its foot, then placed the bird with great care on a bed of moss.

We can go now Belen said the man to the whale captain of the ghost ship.
Whale that! came the answer.

“What? You think I’m shallow? That I spend too much time on my appearance?”
Terry Bubble paused a bit then said “Well, maybe a bit, of course yes! I guess that’s what being a drag queen means. You take care of yourself. You enjoy playing with your appearance. You can’t be amateurish about it, it’s about creating an illusion, it’s about making people believe for a moment,…” then he added pensively “and maybe yourself a little”.

“If you ask me, big beautiful chocolate Maurana Banana, what others think about you is none of your damn nosy business.”

The three of them crammed at the back of a tiny flying tuk-tuk with their glowing perspiration under the sunscreen and layers of makeup, attempting to keep the appearances up for as long as they could was extremely entertaining.

“Get ready! We arrive at the drop-off in a minute!” Sadie shouted. At the front of the hovercraft, she was carefully guiding the driver through the jungle thanks to the energy map on the ezapper.

While she was adjusting her bikini over her fake boobs, Maurana Banana felt a sudden pang of panic. Nothing that could be lipsynched away with bursting into some Name Game song

Everything was here, yet she didn’t feel fleshed out enough. She wasn’t talking about gaining some padding, she had plenty enough of that, but more about depth and character. At times, she even felt highly suggestible.

The sound of the waves crashing down the rugged black volcanic stones under the white sand was soothing. The others’ shrills of delight could be heard miles away, they were hoping for a dolphins’ pod sighting and had even abandoned the Goochi platform shoes to be more comfortable.

Sadie was very quiet, and at times felt almost like she was about to say hello and run out of conversation. However, she told something that had struck the Reggie inside the Maurana’s persona. That she should act on her highest excitement, and that there was no more to life than that.
Easy enough when in drags, but when out of the wigs, make-up and fake eyelashes and acrylic nails, it was like being an out-of-water dolphin. Nothing but a big fat stranded sardine without appeal, just good for an extra pouring of olive oil.

Before being a drag queen, Reginald worked a few jobs since a young age, mostly deliveries. The last one he got was more stable, a job as a security guy. He’d almost blundered at the interview, he laughed at it now, when he’d forgotten to remove the Gothic styled nails from the night. Instead of hiding them and look stupid, he had the good sense to invent those crazy stories like the ones he would tell his teacher when he forgot some homework deadline.
Security was better than delivery, there was no denying. Being in a position were people were not quite paying attention to you, but still eyeing you from the corner, as if you could do something vicious or bully them out of the building. She liked that.
There was always excitement as there were plenty of crazy people each day to be escorted out, so following excitement wasn’t difficult. Following yours was more of a catch.

She’d joined the drag contest to win her own highest excitement. She already got points for being the first pick-up of the jury before Consuela and Terry, and also for being the one to snatch the key.

She put the last touch of green on her eyelids with a hand flourish. She was perfect. For now, that was something to get excited about.

Linda Paul was reviewing the leather-bound copy of the anthology of Walt van Wharff works she’d received weeks ago from an anonymous source. Van Wharff was apparently from XVIIth century in Newherland a leading authority in walvissen wetenschap or whalology as it were.
Linda wasn’t really even remotely interested in whales, but the book had picked her curiosity, or more exactly, the pink post-it on it, signed with a glitter lipstick lips mark, on which was written in some mysterious handwriting PBWY AND BO if you see that dearie, you know what it means

She had no clue what it was about, but the antique book had some interesting qualities, and she soon had found herself inexplicably engrossed in its reading.
The theory behind it was baffling, dealing with whale sightings, aperiodic tiling and crystal diffraction, but she managed to intuit that it had to do with detection of whale migratory patterns.

Given the literary quality of the book (or lack thereof) and his very confuse language constructs, its author was by no doubt dead in a state of miserable unfamousness. Notwithstanding, Linda Paul understood there was an unfinished equation that would reveal when they would appear next, which was likely to reveal a huge crystal of exotic properties.
So long as it glittered, she was already hooked onto that quest.

A few investigations and equations-solving on her ezapper later, she had found the next coordinates that she’d texted to her only current operatives, Sadie and her misfits.
She hoped they wouldn’t sabotage this one, and thus offer them all a second chance to book a full season for their adventures.

The tunnel-sliding in the jelly cart was actually much smoother than the zebra ride prior. “Bless those frogs, aren’t their croaking some delightful melody of the spheres to our ears?” Sanso in his wetsuit was oblivious to the slime around, grinning as widely as a puppy with an old boot to tear to pieces.

Bless that jelly cart… Sadie was thinking instead, beeswax in her ears, thankful for the heart of silence and peace inside. Save for the chitchat of the others, she could temporarily forget about the ezapper (slide safety measures prohibiting the use of ecletical devices during such travels), and retreat in the sweet serenity of her inner peace.

That was,… until the image of Linda Paul abruptly came into her inner eye, almost having her buggering it off with wild manic gestures and in a string of loud swearwords — an emotion which she immediately managed to turn into nothingness, but sadly not the image.
It was a memory of what she’d told her before they left.

It’s high fucking time, honey pie… she’d told her. High fucking time you find yourself a fucking amazing Drag Queen name, sweetie bee. Look, she’d said, drawing closer with an air of grand voodoo priestress, this ain’t no fucking small talk, this is important.
I can come up with ten thousands of names in a minute for you, but you got to choose for yourself.
Sadie had almost rolled her eyes, but just mentioned as lovingly as she could. “Am I not a bit too… female for that?” To which Linda had burst into laughter hysterically, then continued with even more compunction. “Ain’t nothing to do with gender, sweetie, I thought you knew that much.”
“Besides, offering yourself your Drag Queen name is an act of love and empowerment. You should try it when you’re ready. And then, you’ll accomplish miracles.”

Not that Linda Paul was known for euphemisms or understatements, but Sadie found she might give it some thought.
If only to get rid of that annoying affected voice in her face.

After almost 33 years on the road doing their their show, Geoffroy and the Théâtre du Soleil had had their share of success.

Of course, with an average age of the troupe being close to 66 years old on the eve of July 1789, they were not all young and restless, nor as high on hallucinogenic mushrooms like every other day.
Admittedly, their fate took a turn for the better after that show cancellation at Versailles the day of the attempt on the King’s life. They were stolen a balloon and a tub of lard, but what they gained in exchange was beyond wondrous. Sparks of inspiration had brought the team closer, and even the occasional quarrel between Lison and Francette was a blessing. Now, there was already a new King in Versailles, not better by far, and the wig fashion had improved only so lightly, but it gave good fodder for sarcasm and witty plays.

It wasn’t so much that their play-writing abilities had improved dramatically, to the contrary, but their common hallucination in the Royal Chapelle that day had unleashed their creative power. Their new plays had become famous overnight all over the Europe, liked by peasants who were enjoying its simplicity and nonsensical timing and plots, or even snotty critics all alike, who were somehow discerning artful and intricate royal satire that maybe they’d just invented to sound clever.

Tonight they would play a revival of their universally acclaimed chef d’œuvre, “The whales and the frogs”. With buffoonish wigs and corsets, and their share of heavy compulsory make-up. For some, the frogs were a symbol of the poor people carrying the heavy queens and kings of old, with crazy old Time as a driver, flanked with Janus the two-headed Janitor. Well, that sounded quite erudite and a tad pompous, and frankly for them, they didn’t care what symbol it was, so long as it brought the final money they needed for their retirement plan in sunny Mediterranean where they would take a boat and sail to the new world.

There was a lot of commotion that night.

It all started a little bit before 6 PM, while the winter sun was very pale and slowly rolling behind the horizon. Jean-Pierre Duroy of the Royal Intendancy had the maids rounded up in matching uniforms to finish the cleaning of the Opera House, and ready to start to light the thousands of beeswax candles with almost military precision. This didn’t go without hiccup of course, but they did mostly well, and the Opera House was ready for the comedians before 5:55, leaving them with 5 spare minutes to catch their breath before the eighteen rings of the bell.

Even a little bit before that, Nicole du Hausset who had spent the whole dreaded day in anguish about the Queen’s lost ferrets, while attending to Madame’s every whims, realized after scouring through the Palace and hearing through the grapevine of the maids’ ring of deals in stolen goods that she should slide a word to the Royal Intendant through some unofficial channels (she knew well Helper, who was a great influence on Cook, who then could talk discreetly to Annie Duroy, of the Royal Pastries and Cookies) so an investigation could be carried out without any particular mention of the ferrets. As she would realize later the morrow, not only would the ferrets be retrieved at the Opera House and the Royal Chapel, one for each location, except slightly lighter and cut open, an act that would be seen as a hidden message and possible attempt on the Good Queen’s life, and dealt with appropriately by a specially appointed Inquisitor —but also, and notwithstanding any longwindedness, that it would make little difference as the perpetrators would be nowhere to be found the next day, having vanished, it seemed, in the ensuing confusion (of which we will come to in a minute), stealing in the process the Royal Balloon and a few chouquettes from the Royal Cuisines.
Her duties fulfilled, and being now on the other side of the fateful date of Jan. 5th, 1757, at 17:57 without any significant change to her reality or life, she deducted her mission as the safekeeper of the time-smuggled ferrets was by then accomplished, and she could focus on her more pressing duties.

It was only 5:57 PM shy of a few more seconds, that Madame Pompadour, powdered like there was no tomorrow, would be helped by her two maids into her gorgeous John Pol Goatier designer dress, and her lambswool petticoats. She was dressed to kill, and that made her all the more suspicious in the minutes to come, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Madame de Pompadour’s schedule for the soirée was very precise. At 6 PM, she would greet her guests, and the King back from his afternoon at the Parliament at the entrance of the Palace, so they could all head to the Royal Opera, passing through the Chapel into the brightly candelight-lit half-built building where the show would take place.
There was to be a toast first, from fine champagne delivered the morning in zebra carriage (one of the Queens’ daughters idea, which had pleased enough the King that he’d booked them for an evening ride into the Gardens). She was all set, and with great dignity and carefulness, arrived at the spot a mere seconds after her Grace to great the King.

At the same time, Jean-Pierre Duroy, who had not seen them as he’d passed through the Chapel the first time (ungagged but still under sleeping curse and tucked in the corner of the stained glass windows depicting the martyrdom of Christ), and as he was getting anxious at the lack of punctuality of the comedians whom he’d thought sleeping in their trailer parked nearby, was notified that the trailer had been found empty by the bellboy he had sent to remind the comedians to be ready in 10.
A man of great resources, always ready with plans B to Z (he wouldn’t boast, but the zebras being one of such past plan Z, second only to an unlikely belching toad plan, the details of which we won’t get into just now), the Royal Intendant was ready to put in motion said plans, but the comedians suddenly emerged from the Chapel slightly groggy but apparently ready to take over their duties —especially the two ladies, who were bickering with the two men about being the Controllers of the Ascension. Little did all of them know at this moment that the hot air balloon was being highjacked by a team of rogue maids in cahoots with the Russian Ballet props technicians who had arrived some days before the bulk of the Russian troupe trainees.
The Russian ballet dancers were indeed still stuck in the heavy snows somewhere along their trip to Versailles, so the four comedians with their balloon and tricks were technically, already a Plan B.

By then, it was well into 5:59 PM, and the next minute would seem to stretch forever, but for the sake of a patient audience, we will not make it over 10.

In the first half of this fatefulest minute, Casanova had arrived with Father Balbi, his travelling companion, followed by none other than St Germain, all dapper and heavily scented. A score of less important nobilities the names of which we won’t go through were also here.
There were seconds enough in that first half minute, to rub cheeks and say plaisanteries and even utter a few rude witty comments with sweet tongues laced in vinegar, whatever that meant, and also enjoy the sparkling wine served at perfect chilly temperature.
It was only as we entered the second half of this minute that the King arrived, padded in heavy and warm coats and looking exhausted.
Seconds were spent in the same proceedings as above mentioned, if only in a slightly accelerated fashion, and slightly and almost unnoticeably higher pitched voices.

That’s only when the mission bell’s sang Welcome to the Eighteenth’s Hour et ali (for naught), in loud and ringing dongs that the unthinkable happened, living all witnesses traumatized enough that nobody could think of anything to do before the third dong had elapsed.
The King collapsed, a knife in his ribs. The perpetrator was caught by the guards before the end of the last dong.

While the King was rushed to the RER (Royal Emergency Room), and attended to by Royal Leechers and Clyster Masters who felt it was wise to call the Royal Priest seeing that there was little blood to leech, back at the Chapel and Opera House, the maids and Jean-Pierre were in a rush to blow out the candles, as it was obvious their attention was required elsewhere, and that the show would be cancelled.
Everyone would sigh in relief, but not before a few more hours of the drama, when they realized the King’s heavy padding had saved his life, and that the gapping wound everyone was dreading was no more than a pen’s prick. This would encourage Annie to admonish her children when they wouldn’t eat more of her delightful pastries.

Meanwhile, using one of the last candles, the maids and their Russian lovers had lit the tub of lard of the hot air balloon, which rose slowly in the night sky, out of sight when most of the attention was directed towards the King’s fate hanging on a thread.

The four actors where vaguely wondering if they were still dreaming when they saw the carriage of thousands of tinsy frogs croaking through a portal, with brightly coloured dressed lady-men inside, and driven by an unkempt man with a wild gaze and an air of sheer insanity.

Of course, by then, they knew better than to discard it as a mere dream.

“Well, that was almost too easy…”
Despite his weight and the various layers of clothes, Reginald who had struggled to get back into Maurana Banana’s tight costume was the first to realize what had just happened, and had rushed to the statue to snatch the prized crocheted ferret, beating Consuela and Terry by a short hand.
Sadie looked with a slight hint of disapproval at his XVIIIth century apparent undergarments, but was glad that this was resolved so efficiently.

“The prize is inside the ferret, ladies.”
“Off with your grabby hands, you tart!” shouted Maurana batting her eyelashes ferociously at Terry Bubble who wanted a closer look at the intriguing tear in the fabric.
“Oh leave it there, you silly bitch, now you can gloat with your tarty breeches, you haven’t get half your costume ready” Consuela was starting to enjoy the argle-bargle.

“And what should we do now? Wasn’t there supposed to be another one?” Maurana turned to Sadie.
“We’re in luck. Obviously there always has been a plan B, dear. The second one was a decoy for the Russian team, I just got it confirmed from the tagging chip of the toy.”

Everyone was hanged to her words, which was a satisfying moment, not so much for the riveted attentions on her loving person but for the temporary silence. Sadie milked it for a few more seconds before adding.

“Let’s open it up carefully, there is a key inside we need. Then, you only need to do one thing before we go home. Get on that scene at the Opera, rock the audience, and we’ll get down the Time Sewer off to our time and your prize.”

She pause before adding, looking down at Maurana’s breeches. “There is obviously some prep’ work left to do.”