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August 12, 2009 at 8:10 am #2295
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“To be perfectly honest dear, I wouldn’t be very outwardly lovely if I were to be honest.”
“Another of your convoluted ways to say it’s rubbish” Lavender said with a smile “But that’s fine, you know. It’s also meant as a test of honesty… And as I’m not sure you heard it properly anyway, a little honesty wouldn’t have hurt you know.”But it seemed Harvey’s attention had already gone somewhere else. “Are you even listening to me?” Lavender said with a lovely voice practicing the delicate guttural accents of Sloopernoff, snapping back Harvey’s attention to the conversation.
“Oh, you were speaking… I’m sorry, I’m starting to worry that Ann’s narcolepsy is contagious.”
“Always the worrywort…”As they were talking surrounded by the soft dusty specks of the library (which every time annoyed Lavender quite extensively, as she wasn’t so fond of the taste of dust bunnies and didn’t see with the same eye as Ann the archaeological value of burying useful things in dust), Gremwick the mad Dean of the Worseversity passed by with a yellow sticker stuck to the back of his trench coat.
“Looks like mad old Gremwick isn’t doing so good recently hey… Seems like he was droning about taking the students’ courses to check on their quality last time we heard of him…” Lavender looked empathetic.
Harvey was smiling “If you ask me, he might just be wanting to know if the rumor of Prof Gubby’s nine nipples were true or only sheer fantasy”
“I wonder which perverted mind’s fantasy it could be” sighed Lavender unimpressed.August 11, 2009 at 2:08 am #2289In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“Yes, sorry Sir, can you repeat the assignment please Sir?” asked Lavender, politely. Having just recently enrolled in the writing class, at Harvey’s suggestion after the appalling Limerick fiasco, she was finding Professor Gub’s strong Slooperniff accent rather hard to decipher.
August 7, 2009 at 6:50 pm #2276In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Two students of the Free the Fiction Writer Within evening course were whispering in a corridor of the Academy before it began.
— Did you hear about prof. Moose?
— Yes, you mean what happened with Pedro last night?They turned their head at the same time to look at Pedro, another student who arrived recently in town. He was sitting on the floor, reading a book and apparently unaware that he was the subject of several discussions.
— Well, yes. Max the janitor was passing by one of the service room when he heard some odd noise. I don’t know if it’s out of curiosity or because it was a service room, but he opened the door and found them half naked between brooms and mops.
— What I heard was that she told him bluntly that she was busy helping one of her students with the assignment she gave her students last time…
— No! she told that?
— Yes, apparently Pedro never had sex before and he went after the class to see her and asked her if she could help him. And after what Max said she was more than happy to help him out.June 20, 2009 at 11:38 am #2627In reply to: Strings of Nines
The word flounder popped into Yolands head, and for want of the inspiration to do anything meaningful, or even useful, she googled flounder. She was astonished to find so many varieties of flounder, and recognized that she was counterparting with quite a number of them.
There was the Crosseyed flounder that she felt an affinity for, at the end of an evening of trying to sort out her photos; Alcock’s narrow-body righteye flounder, which was what she felt like in a bed full of male dogs every night, and she could relate to the Antarctic armless flounder when she couldn’t keep track of the Antarctic thread. Barfin flounder reminded her of the green icon and her friend Finn; Bigmouth flounder ~ Yoland sighed, she definitely felt a connection to that often enough. Blotched flounder, well that sounded a bit like botched ~ there were many occasions when Yoland felt that everything she did was botched, half done and messy. Chain-mail wide-eyed flounder when she dabbled a bit in past lives, and the Disc flounder when she got her music in a muddle. The Dark flounders were the worst, when everything seemed to take on the tone of a horror movie, but they were often followed by a Deep flounder, which sometimes contained a few insights, more often than not promptly forgotten.
Yoland sighed. Imagine counterparting with just about every flounder known to man! She decided she wasn’t the only one counterparting the European flounder, which was a releif, nor was she the only one counterparting the Fantail flounder, although at least it could be said that she wasn’t a complete fan of anyone in particular, dead or alive, she was a fantail of quite a number. There were long spells of resonating with the Finless flounder; Finn was always disappearing, or so it seemed to Yoland. Very rarely she felt an alignment with God’s flounder, thankfuly she wasn’t often prone to dwelling on God things.
Ah, the Gray flounder, yes she’d had a bit of a flounder when Gray sent all those photos of the Beltane Dance, she’d had a flounder for sure in amongst all those. Looking back though, she’d had fun with the mummy and Ella Tindale in the Gulf flounder…
Yoland had to laugh when she came across the Intermediate flounder. Yoland wondered if the majority of her foundering was counterparting with the Intermediate flounder and decided she was probably too intermediate to work it out objectively anyway. She often had a tussle with the Large tooth flounder, lordy, she was always floundering with dental issues. And the Largescale flounder, that really was the biggest ongoing flounder of them all, the sheer vastness of everything.
Every now and again, less than previously though, Yoland had a Melbourne flounder on Saturday nights, and rather enjoyed it, but not as much as she enjoyed a good old New Zealand flounder.
Another flounder Yoland always enjoyed was an Olive wide-eyed flounder, roaming around the ancient olive trees of Andalucia, wide eyed and awestruck with the beauty and history of the place. She also enjoyed a Peruvian flounder on occasion, too ~ she’d even had a dream recently about floundering around by the mysterious doorway of Amaru Muru. The next night she’d had a River flounder, dreaming of the river in the Grand Canyon.
Sand flounders were the best of all though, Yoland recalled many happy flounderings in the world of sand and all its Subulmantium configurations. The trouble with the sand flounder was that it often morphed into the largescale flounder, and got quite out of hand.
Yoland sighed, it had been ages since she’d felt connected to the Seven pelvic ray flounder, what with Dan working nights. She was beginning to feel like a Shelf flounder. However, at least thanks to her new diet of replacing meals with flans, chocolate mousses and ice cream, she was closely aligning now with the Slender flounder.
The ongoing slug issue with the cat food was obviously because she was still strongly aligned with the Slime flounder. Notwithstanding, Yoland was rather pleased to note that despite her morose and petulant mood this morning, it had to be said that she often counterparted with the Smooth flounder; although that was easy to forget in moments of quiet desperation when the floundering got out of proportion.
Smiling, Yoland remembered the dream of feet touching when she noticed there was a Sole flounder too. And how often the Spotted flounder popped up, she was always spotting clues. Well spotted! she would tell herself. Oh, and the Stone flounder, wasn’t that the truth! Yoland was aligning strongly with that lately, smoking more than ever, somehow striving for either inspiration, or perhaps oblivion.
Oh well, I guess this is just a Summer flounder, it will pass, Yoland decided (who was secretly glad that she was nearing the end of the list of flounder names). And sure enough, the next on the list was the Three spotted flounder, surely a good sign! A probability change perhaps! As if to validate Yolands impression, she noticed the Tile-colored righteye flounder. There was even a Warthog flounder, which seemed to ring a bell with a recent entry to the Reality Play.
Best of all was the Windowpane flounder, Yoland felt she would even go so far as to say that this was her new focus animal. Well, she thought, if I am making this all up, I can make that up too!
Thankfully Yoland reached the end of the flounder list, rather pleased that it had ended on such an amusing and encouraging note.
Being closely aligned with flounders wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
June 14, 2009 at 2:49 am #2257In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Harvey couldn’t restrain a yawn. A continuous yawn actually.
He was quite tired after a whole day of weight-lifting with cupboards. A thing he couldn’t help despite his recent injury, and that he had barely managed to keep from Lavender’s spying.June 3, 2009 at 1:49 am #2047In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
Dark….
common?
Keep images;
hear others…Eyes
Recent movements.
Heard,
Follow…
Kept questions.Individuals
Library ~
Thanks, come fact!
Littleton smile:
deal?
feeling… rather….Cat!
Ones eye…Accept self.
May 21, 2009 at 1:22 am #2598In reply to: Strings of Nines
Ann was beginning to wonder about the two Yoland threads that she appeared to have created, somewhat unwittingly, and possibly ill advisedly. There had been some discussions on bi polar extremes recently at one of her quilting bees, and there were all the black and white outfits and soft furnishings at the lunch party, as well as the interior designers flowers all coming up white this year instead of colours.
Ann knew enough about the magnitudes of potential strings (otherwise known as MP’s) to appreciate that she had a choice whether to attach any symbolic meaning to any of this, or not, in myraids of merry multitudinous ways, methodical, medicinal, mesmerising, or otherwise.
May 21, 2009 at 12:56 am #2596In reply to: Strings of Nines
“ As we have stated previously, these terms are quite limiting for explanation purposes. The terminology is not incorrect, by any means. It is only expressing a much, much smaller impression to you than, in actuality, these terms represent. If your interpretation of these terms is too literal, you may find yourself accepting concepts which have only been explained to you partially; for our explanation of concepts is only a minute portion of the entirety of any idea, or concept, or “doctrine.” Only playing, my friend! These concepts must be taken in at this present time, within your present understanding, to the intellect; and the intellect must be allowed to trigger the intuition, allowing a full circle of thought, so to speak; this full circle being a continuous flow of information to assimilation, to actualization, to creation ” — Patel
Not AGAIN!! shouted Becky. For the past week every time she tried to open her blog page, it always opened on this old post of Patels. Usually, by a circuitous route, she did eventually manage to arrive on her most recent post…..but not today! That monkey Patel wouldn’t let Becky look at any other post but this.
Funny coincidence really that she’d watched the cartoon last night called Madagascar, starrring Patel himself as King of the Lemurs. Becky had to laugh. A rave party of dancing lemurs on ecstasy!
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Yoland. “Fancy landing on that Patel quote again today!”
Yoland knew Patel was around when the frying sausages had popped and spit fat at her. She had lost count of the amount of times that Patel had popped in with this quote. More strings and circles….and lemurs, too! At the lunch party the previous day, Yoland had been discussing evolution, and the missing link, and the next day a lemur-like skeleton was being heralded in the newspapers as the missing link.
Patel, as the missing link ~ Yoland had to laugh.
April 30, 2009 at 10:13 am #2564In reply to: Strings of Nines
Yoland woke up feeling lighter somehow. The sun was shining, the young puppy, Phunn, scampered about without a care in the world as she perused the morning mail. The random daily Circle of Eight’s quote once again delighted her, synchronizing with her recent meditation.
“Fiona woke suddenly from a dream. In her dream she had been communicating with her online friends, through drawings and messages. She had been trying so hard to convey something, and the more she tried to say it, the more distant they felt to her.
She had woken feeling saddened. Her energy was greatly disturbed, and, unable to get back to sleep straight away, she meditated. She felt herself connect with the energy of a Snowy Owl, who invited her wordlessly to ask her questions. The Owl’s eyes seemed to have such a depth of wisdom and kindness, and no sooner had her thoughts begun to ask their questions, than she would feel the Owl’s answer merge with her own knowing.
She felt herself being able to say without words what she had tried so hard in her dream to convey, and understanding there was no need for any effort, she felt greatly comforted, and peaceful sleep swept over her again.”
Yoland had sent an email to her freind KX about her meditation, as her freind had unexpectedly popped up in it, in a wonderful pastel watercolour world:
The elevator stopped with a shudder and the doors slammed open. The landscape looked a bit too airy fairy for me (not real enough, haha!) and I nearly got back in the elevator. It was all aqua blue and pastel and floaty, like a watercolour world. Then I saw you, waving your arms around, painting the air with trails of pastel colours with your fingertips. You were smiling and wearing a pale blue shirt. You wrapped me round with spirals of colours from your fingertips and then I flew upwards into the dark blue. You tossed me a paper toilet roll to use as a silver cord, which I tossed back to you after a bit cos it felt a bit silly, and then you sent a burst of colours as an acknowledgement
KX had responded:
“Yoland!!That is very very cool! I’ve been “out there”! I’ll bet you I was changing the toilet paper roll at the moment you were in the Watercolor World ! Meanwhile so many things are coming together for me in how to create and how to hold my attention where I want it… Imagination is a key ~ Love you! I will beam over in a minute. KX”
Smiling, Yoland checked the latest blog updates. Sahila had posted some Possum photos, and the first thing that Yoland saw was the white owl in the fork of the tree behind the possum.
April 26, 2009 at 12:49 pm #2546In reply to: Strings of Nines
These past few months away from home had been the occasion for a great deal of introspection.
For one, indulging fully into that somewhat frowned upon habit of his, regarding peanuts, had allowed him to gain a great deal of understanding and acceptance as well. Now his daily ration had dramatically decreased and he didn’t fancy as much as he used to the little round things.Another thing that Godfrey had noticed was the reorganisation that had taken place in all aspects of his life, and to be perfectly honest, his life was still a bit messy in places, but he was slowly getting there. How could a publisher publish anything of common interest without a bit of presentation, henceforth order?
Ann wasn’t too keen on the “O” word —especially when doubled— and surprisingly it always managed to give good results so far. So perhaps now he was settling down, and she was getting her own flamboyant creative juices all ablaze, they would manage to get somewhere. Or anywhere, for that matter.
A Tramway to Elsewhere was Ann’s debut novel, and had made her known to Godfrey. It was a brilliant short story about three tourists lost in a huge hotel in Europe, and trying to get an easy escape to Anywhere. And by some uncanny and hilarious succession of events, they were led nowhere but to Elsewhere.Now, something else was giving him a strange feeling. He didn’t know if that was because of the lack of peanut oil in his bloodstream (or the accompanying whiskeys for what was worth), but he was starting to get slightly paranoid.
He didn’t know where he’d got the idea, but he started to suspect the cleaning lady to not just be a cleaning lady. She was doing her best to keep a low profile, but somehow she wasn’t that good an actress. A thing that started his suspicion was that name… Franlise, eerily reminiscent of the obnoxious yet efficient Finnley in Noo York. Elizabeth had told him they’d suspected her for a long time to have inserted some paragraphs in Elizabeth’s novels, especially the most torrid parts that would have made a pimp blush like a nun. What had saved the cleaning lady was that in addition to being rather forgiving, Elizabeth suffered from frequent strokes of forgetfulness and bipolarity which made the investigation difficult if not moot altogether.But there, Godfrey was rather surprised at Ann’s sudden interest in continuity. He’d known of a covert organization known in the milieu as the Fellowship of Unification and Continuity in Knowledge.
Over the years, the hearsay had amounted to just a few deranged people, but recently there had been an increase in mentions of such nature in reports of the Guild of Authors. Strangely, there was less and less books that were published which had not an impeccable sense of continuity.
In a way, it had been perceived at first in literary circles as a blessing for the authors who had not to contend with fans and geeks of all kind who were hunting down each and every detail to prove or disprove unsaid theories. But Godfrey was starting to see some not so perfect points in that. It would be like wanting to string together all the eyelets of your shoes even if they do not belong to the same shoe (or the same pair of shoes). Soon, you’d be embarrassed to find a way to walk without looking like a penguin.Anyway, though all allegations made as to the existence of such secret organization had been mostly derailed as utter nonsense, he couldn’t help but find some inexplicable appeal to them as sound explanations for all the glitches he kept noticing.
He would carefooly spy on Franlise.April 25, 2009 at 10:24 am #2237In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“You know what?” Harvey was once again breaking the silence in an awkward manner after being lost in thoughts for what had seemed like eons to Lavender (or was it Lilac?), who was kind enough and certainly wise enough not to interrupt the whatever-was-happening process inside his skull.
“Mmm?”
“All those piglets, I read an article recently they could be used efficiently as shepherd dogs.”
“Now what? You want us to have sheep now?” Lavender was appalled but displaying still an impeccable composure, thinking it might be another outbreak of being taken over by aliens.
“Nah. Just telling you there would certainly be loonies out there wanting to take pigs as dogs. Perhaps we should leave a few on the doorstep of that mad lady, you know… She looks a bit devastated, and sure a little 200 pounds pig would help her stay grounded”
“Sure they grew big fast those little buggers.”April 17, 2009 at 9:21 pm #2527In reply to: Strings of Nines
‘The tiniest piece of celery can leave me gasping for breath’: Rising number of children allergic to fruit and veg
“Well what a coincidence.” Ann was beginning to sound like a broken record, but the article in the paper was rather a good synchronicity with her recent entry.
the brothers can’t eat most fruit as it gives them an allergic reaction
Ann had to laugh, she’d often wondered why people chose to be allergic to all the nice things like chocolate and peanuts and cola and ice cream, how silly was that. Finally people were waking up to the fact that ice cream was spinach to some folks, just as cod liver oil was cola to others. Those brothers, surmised Ann, were creating just what they wanted.
April 4, 2009 at 3:11 pm #2501In reply to: Strings of Nines
Back in January, her friend Ronda had asked her if she wanted to come with her to a seminar in Madrid, one of these loonatics seminar. She wasn’t interested herself in that kind of gathering of freaky people and she wouldn’t have accepted if Ronda hadn’t offered to pay for her expenses.
That was the perfect occasion and the perfect time, with the crisis her little enterprise was sinking rapidly and money had never been so scarce. Those would be the perfect holidays, even if she would have to spend some time among some loonatics.
So in March here they went in Madrid. The hotel was simply gorgeous and as they told the biggest in Europe.
It was perfect again.
Not that the rooms were big, though they were quite expensive, but there were so many sculptures and paintings, so many trinkets
in the lobby and in the lounge… and there was a pool!!! She could see herself flirting
with one of those rich loonatics, always ready to spend money on glass pyramids that had properly been tachyonised
That’s where her life changed and that she realized she needed STRUCTURE in her life.
It happened during one of these meditations by a certain T’Eggy, a still active porn star, the favorite of Marvin Scrozzezi… and she was also doing seminars!!!
When she saw her, Patricia thought her face was familiar, and that’s when she saw the groupies in the first row, all of them wearing the leopard superstrings that had been made mass spread by her performance in the latest Marvin Scrozzezi. Patricia had one of them, but the superstring hadn’t resist her generous forms or she would have bring it to the party… well that’s another story.T’Eggy was stressing the need of structure that they all needed in their lives and she made her points listened and watched with a few scenes of her recent and not so recent movies. Everybody was charmed and she made them laugh with her story about when she played the millionaire waiting for Bill the milkman…
Ronda was not really interested by T’Eggy and a bit shameful of her adoration of T’Eggy, Patricia had to sneak out during the break and she bought a few books, amidst which “The Pelvic Respiration” or “Release your Stress in a Gang Bang”. She also bought a few vials of the special Dr. B. Cream which said “Rejuvenate your Vagina”… apparently made with some blue spiders silk and venom. She went quickly in her room and hid her purchases in her suitcase before returning for the Channeled Music of the Chinese Swamps Monastery and the Channeling of the Big ErectoMagnetic Stick called Fryzon.
Patricia didn’t listen to all of that, she was already imagining all the ways she could structure her new life with the pelvic meditation.
April 2, 2009 at 3:16 pm #2498In reply to: Strings of Nines
Yoland was inordinately pleased with her purchases, trifling though they were. She smiled at the little bottle of cherry red nail varnish, imagining how it would look on sun browned and callous free toes. Painted toe nails was one of life’s simple pleasure, she reckoned. Nothing fancy or expensive or uncomfortable, like her new brassiere, which had never the less given her spirits a bit of a lift, as well as her breasts, with its bright blue moulded foam shape. She wondered if she could suspend the brassiere and its contents from something other than her shoulders for once, but couldn’t see how it could be arranged and still allow a modicum of freedom of movement. Perhaps some of the new scientific discoveries that she was eagerly awaiting would include some kind of gravity and weight defying device, possibly helium filled foam support. Perhaps even in the future, anyone with a high squeaky voice would be described as a bra sucker. Or perhaps one day breasts worn on the waist would be fashionable. This thought made Yoland a bit uncomfortable, as she hadn’t really believed she was following fashion, but maybe she was after all.
Yoland wondered if she was verging on the ridiculous again, and decided that it didn’t matter if she was. There was something rather splendid, she was beginning to discover, about the mundane and the silly. Something serenely pleasurable about ~ well about everything she’d been taking for granted for so many years. The things she hadn’t really noticed much, while her mind was busy thinking and pondering, replaying old conversations, and imagining new ones, sometimes with others, but often with herself, inside the vast jumble of words that was her mind.
It was always a wonderful change of pace to go away on a trip, with its wealth of new conversations and words, events and symbols to ponder over later at her leisure, the many photographic snapshots providing reminders and clues and remembered laughs, but it was the renewed sense of appreciation for the mundane that was ultimately most refreshing about returning home.
The word home had baffled Yoland for many years. For most of her 51 years, if the truth be told. So many moves, so many houses, so many people ~ where, really, was home? She’d eventually compromised and called herself a citizen of the world, but she still found herself at times silently wailing “I want to go home”, but with the whole world as her home, it didn’t make a great deal of sense why she would still yearn for that elusive place called home.
Of all the words that swam in her head some of them seemed to keep bobbing up to the surface, attracting her attention from time to time. That was the funny thing about words, Yoland mused, not for the first time, You hear them and hear them and you understand what they mean, but only in theory. The suddenly something happens and you shout AHA, and then you can’t find any words to explain it! Repeating the words you’ve already heard a hundred times somehow doesn’t even come close to describing what it actually feels like to understand what those words mean. That kind of feeling always left her wondering if everyone else had known all along, except her.
Yoland was often finding words in unexpected places, and these were often the very words that were the catalysts. (Even the word catalyst had been one of those words that repeatedly bobbed to the surface of her sea of words). Her trip had been in search of words, supposedly, channeled words (although Yoland suspected the trip had been more about connections than words) and yet there had only really been one word that had stood out as significant, and oddly enough, that word had been watermelon.
That had been a lesson in itself, if indeed lesson is the right word. Yoland had been attempting to exercise her psychic powers for six months or more, trying to get Toobidoo, the world famous channeled entity, to say the word watermelon ~ just for fun. She couldn’t even remember how it all started, or why the word watermelon was significant ~ perhaps a connection to a symbol etched on a watermelon rind in Marseilles, which later became a Tile of the City. (Yoland wasn’t altogether sure that she understood the tiles, but she did think it was a very fun game, and that aspect alone was sufficient to hold her interest.) By the end of the last day of the channeling event Toobidoo still hadn’t said the word watermelon which was somewhat of a disappointment, so when Yoland saw Gerry Jumper, Toobidoo’s channel, in the vast hotel foyer, she ran up to him saying “Say watermelon.” The simple direct method worked instantly, where months of attempts the hard way had failed. Yoland felt that she learned alot from this rather silly incident about the nature of everyday magic, and this particular lesson, or we might prefer to call it a communication, was repeated for good measure the following day in the park.
Wailon, the other world famous channeled entity who was the star attraction of the Words Event, had proudly displayed photographic evidence of orbs at the lecture. Like Yoland had tried with the watermelon, he was choosing an esoteric and unfamiliar method of creating orbs, suggesting that the audience meditate and conjure them up to show on photographs, rather than simply creating physical orbs. Yoland and her friends Meldrew and Franklyn had chanced upon a beautiful glass house full of real physical glass orbs in the park, underlining the watermelon message for Yoland: not to discount the spontaneous magic of the physical world in the search for the esoteric.
It had, for example, been rather magical and wonderful to hear Gerry Jumper explain how he had mentioned watermelon to his wife on the previous day in the dining room ~ mundane, yes, but magical too. It would have been marvellous to create Toobidoo channeling the word watermelon for sure, but how much more magical to create an actual slice of physical watermelon in the dining room and have Gerry remark on it, and to have an actual physical conversation with him about it. Who knows, he may even remember the nutcase who spent six months trying to get him to say watermelon whenever he sees one, at least for awhile. It might be quite often too, as his wife is partial to watermelon. Yoland wondered if this was some kind of connecting link, perhaps the connection to Gerry and Cindy started in Marseilles and watermelon was the physical clue, the pointer towards the connection.
Perhaps, Yoland wondered, the orbs were the connecting link to Wailon, although she didn’t feel such a strong connection to him as she did to Toobidoo and Gerry Jumper. She had been collecting coloured gel orbs for several months ~ just for fun. There was often a connecting link to be found in the silly and the fun, the pointless and the bizarre, and even in the mundane and everyday things.
In the days following her return home ~ or the house that Yoland lived in, shall we say ~ she felt rather sleepy, as if she was in slow motion, but the feeling was welcome, it felt easy and more importantly, acceptable. There was nothing that she felt she should be doing instead, for a change, no fretting about starting projects, or accomplishing chores, rather a slow pleasant drifting along. Yes, there were chores to be done, such as watering plants and feeding animals and other things, but they no longer felt like chores. She found she wasn’t mentally listing all the other chores to be done but was simply enjoying the one she was doing. Even whilst picking up innumerable dog turds outside, she heard the birds singing and saw the blossom on the fruit trees against the blue sky, saw shapes in the white clouds, heard the bees buzzing in the wisteria. The abundance of dog shit was a sign of a houseful of happy healthy well fed dogs, and the warm spring sun dried it and made it easier to pick up.
It was, somewhat unexpectedly, while Yoland was picking up dog shit that she finally realized what some of those bobbing words meant about home, and presence, and connection to source. It seemed amusingly ironic after travelling so far (not just the recent trip, but all the years of searching) to finally find out where home was, where the mysterious and elusive source was. (Truth be told, some printed words she found the previous day had been another catalyst, by Vivian channeled by Wanda, but she couldn’t recall the exact words. Yoland had to admit that words, used as a catalyst, were really rather handy.)
Wherever you go, there you are ~ they were words too, and they were part of the story. Now that Yoland had come to the part where she wanted to express in words where home, and source, was, she found she couldn’t find the right words. In a funny kind of way the word vacant popped into her head, as if the place where the vast jumble of words was usually housed became vacant, allowing her to be present in her real physical world. It really was quite extraordinary how simple it was. Too simple for words.
April 2, 2009 at 12:18 am #2232In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Harvey, I am lost. Completely and utterly lost. I can’t even remember my own name. I have vague recollections of giving away some piglets and little elephants, but …. her voice trailed off miserably.
Harvey, saddened to see his friend so upset, put down the four poster bed, and gave her a hug. Damn it, he couldn’t remember her name either. Didn’t she just tell him what it was recently … Lilac?
hmmm no that doesn’t sound right.
Well, it was a pretty name. He would call her Lilac.
Lilac, embarrassed by her display of emotion, laughed and rubbed away the tears from her eyes. Anyway what does it matter? Most of my friends have gone from here now. Apparently they have gone on to the “Ninth World”, and here I am still bungling around in number eight. What is worse, there are parts of this world I no longer seem to be able to access, including memories which are precious to me. Lilac reflected on what she had just said for a moment. Well they would be precious if I could remember what they are. I popped through the portal to Nine when I found my friends had gone, but I couldn’t make head nor tail of it.
She shuddered in horror at the recollection of the strange land she had found herself in. She remembered a woman, an artist she had called herself, with a crazed look on her face, trying to unravel a ball of string which seemed to go on endlessly, and all the while rambling in such a way that made no sense at all to Lilac.
Never mind, Lilac, I am still here, said Harvey kindly. I can’t make any sense of this place either. I don’t think it matters really. Here, I know what, hop on this four poster bed and I will teach you a few proxy dreaming skills. That will cheer you up!
March 13, 2009 at 11:00 pm #2231In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
With a side glance at the random words written on the fridge, Harvey was starting to get another slipstream of weirdrom (weird and random) information.
Earth escape; whole asked environment similar — Friend forgotten work, thinking moving! Managed recently whatever known questions — dogs ones myself physical energy
Now, did this Earth escape had anything to do with that recent quest of Philodendron for a FTL travels equipped island…
February 19, 2009 at 6:53 pm #2222In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Are Nut Bans Promoting Hysteria?
Every parent of a school-age child has heard the warnings about nuts. Some schools ban nuts entirely, while others set aside special nut-free tables.
While nuts are clearly a risk to some children, often the response to this health concern represents “a gross overreaction to the magnitude of the threat,” argues Dr Pistachio, an internal medicine doctor and professor at Pecan Medical School, in a recent column in the medical journal Nut Case.
Measures to protect children from nuts are becoming increasingly absurd and hysterical, say experts.
A nut rolling on the floor of a US school bus recently led to evacuation and decontamination for fear it might have affected the 10-year-old passengers, who were not classified as nuts.
Professor Pistachio said the issue was not whether nuts existed or whether they could occasionally be a serious threat. Nor was the issue whether reasonable preventative steps should be made for the few children who were documented as non-nuts, he argued.
“The issue is what accounts for the extreme responses to nuts.”
“We try to relieve anxiety about nuts by signs saying, ‘this is a nut free zone,’ which suggests that nuts are a clear and present danger,” Dr. Pistachio said. “But in doing so, we increase the anxiety.”
Being a severe nut shapes your whole life – and those of the people around you, as Cashew Cacahuete learned.
For most women trying to avoid the amorous advances of their husband, the line “Not tonight, I’ve got a headache” will suffice. For her, a simple “Don’t come near me, I am nuts” does the trick.
‘Nut phobias are a growing phenomenon of the last 10 to 15 years,” says Professor P. Nut, an expert in nuts who is conducting a study to see if exposure to nuts in early life can inhibit such phobias. “One reason is that we’re all far too scared and bored, so we start attacking friendly characters such as nuts.” Prof P. Nut says that in African and Asian countries where pregnant women aren’t discouraged from socializing with nuts, have very low levels of nut phobia. “These countries have higher levels of parasitic infections than ours, so it’s possible that their belief systems may be protected from phobias.”
He also disputes Department of Fear advice that advises pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers to avoid nuts. He says there may be a case for exposing children to nuts. “Those who meet nuts early in life may in fact be protected against nut phobia, in contrast with previous studies which have suggested the opposite.”
February 18, 2009 at 8:39 am #2219In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Decimus! Yoo Hoo! OH MY GOD! how wonderful to see you here. What are YOU doing in Manilva? Is Antonio here too?
LAVENDER! How great to see you!….. Oh Antonio, Decimus shook his head, his joy at seeing Lavender quickly replaced with sadness at the thought of his Beloved. I have not seen her for many months. Only in my dreams does she visit me, and there she is doing the strangest of things. Things no man can decipher. It is strange times indeed Lavender. Decimus sighed heavily, then rubbed his eyes and scratched his head. God, he really needed to get some help. He wondered if the great Dr Limur might be able to help him get rid of these nervous twitches. Ever since Antonio had been gone he had been rubbing, sighing, scratching! It was driving him mad. And the odour of fermented fish which constantly plagued him! Dear God, what had he done to deserve this.
Lavender regarded her friend with compassion. Poor fellow, he really was behaving oddly. However, recalling her recent rather embarrassing encounter with Harvey, she decided against trying to rid Decimus of any potential lurking demons. Perhaps it was better to try and emulate the famous Tattler twins, Ann and Sally, and simply listen, rather than trying to jump in and help all the time.
Anyway my dear Lavender. What brings YOU to this god forsaken place?
I have an appointment to see Annabel… um, hang on I can’t remember her name .., Lavender rummaged in her purse. Oh that’s right, Annabel Ingram. She is a certified dream navigator. I found her on gloogloo when I was searching for some help with my seven new born … anyway, long story … Aspidistra has them now so that is okay … and then… the strangest thing! I found 57 of her business cards in my mail box. Isn’t that rather odd Decimus?
Decidedly odd indeed, replied Decimus, with a sigh.
February 16, 2009 at 11:35 am #2175In reply to: Closing up
A little precision about the “word cloud” and the “random quote”.
The word cloud takes everything (all discussions, even those extraneous to the stories) into account, up to 300 something comments from the now moment. So the story thread shift didn’t affect it.
The random quote was initially taken from the Circle of Eights’ thread only. I slightly changed the program recently so that it’ll pick up randomly from either this thread or the new one.
February 10, 2009 at 2:13 pm #2210In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
It all kept getting stranger and stranger to Harvey —or aliener and aliener, he would have been tempted to say.
Maybe that was because of the ash blue giant aliens he’d made contact with recently. They were nice though; slender body and ample slow movements, but despite all feelings of eeriness, they appeared to be kind and loving beings. Of course, when he had told the others about it, all they had wanted to know was how many boobies they had, and whether their appendices were proportionate to their heights. Harvey couldn’t help but roll his third eye (he was tempted to wink it at first, but remembered how he failed to convey anything like this, people not knowing whether he was winking or simply blinking…).Funny thing was that now he was getting distorted and disrupted (or so he thought) communications even in broad daylight.
The last one, when he was reading Grips, his favorite newspaper’s headlines on the newsstand went like:
Home energy merely start, cave created answer
Zhaana, Mlle friend within, needed hidden face
view Leormn somehow warm smiled whole weekYesterday, after having being woken up by the squealing little piglets during the storm, he’d loitered around the neighbourhood in search for sleep, and found himself wanting to declaim nonsensical words about a girl gloogloo-dancing under the sun of Androoloosie (that’s the name he got, from some distant parallel reality).
Perhaps he should make some podcasts out of this, they may well be the sign of a vastly intelligent design the code of which some erudite researchers could crack up thanks to his contribution.Yeah… crack up… They would…
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