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In reply to: Rafaela’s Random Ramblings
“Finally the answer we need! Let’s release the damn bird and get back home now! Besides its cage needs cleaning and it’s starting to smell, and I can’t stand this place any longer…”
Funnily enough, she had wanted to post the daily random quote too because it seemed so significant, and in point of fact, it was awaiting in the comment box when she woke up. The previous night she had been about to post it, and then wondered if she’d posted enough already.
She recalled some dream snippets too, which was most uusual, and woke up almost smiling. There had been a big house and people, but the only clear recall was dropping an ecstasy pill on the floor, and it bounced this way and that and disappeared into another room, and everyone was looking for it everywhere. All of the dogs were bright cartoon colours and were all sitting patiently upright in a tree, a cartoon type tree.
She thought it quite amusingly significant that everyone was looking for the ecstacy, and just remembered that they did find a pill on the floor, a white one, but that wasn’t the pill they were looking for.
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
In Ed Steam’s old office, Lord Lemon was like in a mausoleum full of ghosts.
Mostly computer illiterate, he favoured greatly goose feather and dark Chinese ink soft purr on the paper over the annoying clickety racket of the keyboards. So he wasn’t exactly feeling at home in Ed’s old shoes.The team’s greeting party had been cordial, but he didn’t feel an overwhelming welcome either, not that he expected it. It was Ed’s team after all, he was the Rooster of the chicks of roast, whatever they liked to call themselves. He was not found of monikers and preferred to be addressed simply as Sir.
The call he received on the morning was perplexing him. They’d found an auditor dead with a Surge Corp. business card in his jacket in the streets of a Spanish city, he couldn’t really remember which, the accent on the phone was as dreadful as that of a Chinese civet, but… What was that about already? He’d thought his memory was improving, getting back on the field, but there were relapses again, he had to concentrate. Afternoon Scrabble games were not that bad after all.
He’d perfected a neat technique to remember things, placing vivid images in memory palaces constructed in his mind were he could retrieve them later, but the thing was that his memory palaces sorely lacked a cleaning lady, and images sometimes blurred together or went missing, fading away. He sighed.
His gaze on the phone brought him back to his stream of thought. This would have been stored on the Suspicious Clues Palace, in Ed’s corner. His mind raced back in the atrium of his palace where he could see the various corners, and he went back into the Alley of Dark Secrets, then turned to the Corner of Lonely Puzzle Pieces. There were actually a lot of them, but the topmost one was vivid enough. It was a red blood hearing-aid spewing out a mean Larsen and bathing in paella. For “auditor murdered in Spain” obviously. He turned down mentally the volume of the hearing-piece. This was not a very elegant image, but he was in a hurry, and crude preposterous images always were remembered better he’d found out. The lewdest even more so. Which was why his Palace of Past Precious Moments was starting to look like a brothel he was loath to admit.
He was starting to wonder if Ed’s demise was not some sort of inside job. Circumstances were not really orthodox, but nothing was in their line of duty, so he had to look for something else. He’d already started to make an inventory of the storage room, just before the break-in, but computer handicapped as he was, between paper and memory palaces, he couldn’t figure it anymore and had to start it over with some help from Cornella.
At least, he’d sent Hyphen and Dash to discreetly investigate on the break-in and now, he will probably send them to investigate on… he faced a blank. All he could remember now was he was having the meanest craving for mussels and prawns.In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
His razor blade in left hand (he was ambidextrous with a slight favour for the left side), Ed suddenly remembered his future struggle with the daft cumbersome vermillion man, so he quickly turned off the portal. Then, against all common sense and years of procedures, decided to put it into his pocket.
Everything following came back at once, interspersed with bits of smashed objects and blurs. But something he distinctly remembered was that Mari Fe was in the apartment, although he didn’t remember bringing her home from last night. It was against company policy to sleep with subordinates, so it had to mean something fishy.
Recalibrating the portal using the failsafe code, he directed it to the secret headquarters where he had started to stockpile dangerous artefacts collected from previous surge control operations, deciding it was the best course of action before assessing who was to be trusted or not in his Chicks team…In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Yikesy, who had been quietly observing the assembled gathering, gave a whale-like shout. Fortunately, he had remembered to wear his voice-muter gadget, and for most of those gathered in the room his shout was nearly imperceptible.
Sanso, who had his voice-muter-deactivator turned up full volume, leapt up in alarm. In the process, poor Janet went flying, landing on Sir Ed, who had been starting to stagger unsteadily to his feet. The impact of Janet’s ample frame hitting him full-force caused Sir Ed to lose his footing and, in his descent, he knocked his head on a charming wooden replica of a Tahitian dancing girl. (This was actually the same one which had earlier been mistaken for a hippopotamus.)
“What is the matter, Yikesy?” asked Sanso, managing to keep a clear focus in the midst of the ensuing chaos.
Yikesy smiled smugly. “I knew there was something strange about this map, and I have cleverly worked it out: there are 257 place names and all of them, except 12, have 5 letters and start with the letter E.”
“Of course, I should have spotted that!” exclaimed Sanso. “Well done, Yikesy.”
In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves
Notwithstanding the child who was asking questions to his nanny just behind them, the flight to Taipei has been rather quiet. It was a three hours flight, quite short compared to the twelve hours ones Yann had been doing lately between Paris and Shanghai. Fortunately, the seats of the Dragoneer company were big enough, which was another strange element of these Chinese planes. Instead, the French Airways’ ones had narrow seats with so little room for one’s legs. He slept for most of the trip. Awoken merely when the flight attendant brought the food. Some rice dish again.
As soon as they landed, they were welcomed by a troup of taichi dancers, resembling Tahitian dancers with their loincloth. It was hot. The weather of course, not the taichi dancers who seemed unaffected by the temperature. Their slow movements were relaxing and a bit hypnotic. It was a contrast with the rapid dance of Tahiti Yann remembered from their last trip.
A woman in a red coat and sunglasses was walking behind them, looking around suspiciously.
In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves
His immediate impulse propelled him to lunge forth and discover the contents of the book that was strewn purposefully on the floor of aisle 57, but he remembered the dire foreboding of the cardinal Timoteus: “Do not read any of these books, not so much as even possess the desire to peer into the covers, on pain of your own death.”
He shook his head and shuffled back towards his monitor screen, but his arthritic hand was convulsing so violently, at the events he witnessed, that the black coffee was jumping and spilling out of the polystyrene cup as he creaked to the monitor. He eventually reached the solace of the table, and in a moment of exhaustion heaved himself upon the small wooden chair, taking a deep breath. 4:45- 4:45?? How was this possible? Had all of the events transpired in less than a minute? The beams of light, the book falling, his slow shuffling towards his desk- one minute?
He rubbed his eyes, and stood up to refill his cup of coffee. As he walked, he couldn’t help but ponder the contents of the open book, and why the cardinal forbade him- and anyone else- from touching the book without permission. As he was filling his cup with the blackest of coffee, another beam of light- of energetic light- flashed right before him, leaving him temporarily blinded. He dropped the cup, staggered across the room and knelt on the ground. When he regained sight, he was smack in front of the open book, and the words were as clear as daylight: CANARIA.In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
Racy Mc Tartshall had been absent for so long that it was hardly any wonder that nobody remembered her, despite the importance of her mission which had long since been forgotten. Mc Tart, as she was affectionately known (or would have been if anyone had remembered her) was a tartist of the highest calibre, consistently producing hugh class tart (which was of course three grades higher than high, and 2 grades higher than hagh, and so forth). Mc Tart had been investigating Nosebook, sniffing out potential distortions, claritortions, connectortions and myriad other contortions, for the distortium, claritortium, connectortium and contortium, respectively ~ focusing mainly on the connectortium, naturally enough.
While researching something or other that was no doubt relevant at the time but had long been forgotten, Mc Tart met Alfred in the Library. ““Aha! Alfred in the Library with a Book, was it!” she exclamined. “I knew I’d find a clue here”. “It wasn’t me!” he retorted, aghast. “It was Albert in the Chapless Pants club with a Rolling Pin!” Mc Tart, feigning an all knowing expression, replied “Ahhhh” and made a mental note to investigate.
Mental notes, known as m’otes for short, floated like wisps in the air currents and occasionally sparkled in the sunbeams, although more often than not, they clumped together under the bed in bunny shapes, slowly dying of boredom. Thankfully the sheer pointlessness of mental notes ~ m’otes ~ made not a whit of difference in the grand scheme of the connectortium investigation because of the abundant nature of Fluce’s ~ (fucking lucky chance encounters), notwithstanding the heated debates continuing in the Distortium about the precise nature of Fluce’s and their relationship to M’Otes ~ or not, depending on the point one wished to make at any particular time.
And so it was by Fluce that Mc Tart met Blithe, Heck and Walty in “le Tunnel” one dreary grey Noremember afternoon. There was nothing to suggest, on first inspection, any thing of interest for the Connectortium mission, but Mc Tart was not discouraged. “Many a moth maketh maths marbles” she reminded herself as she perused the nenu (which, the reader will deduce, is a hugher class of menu).
[link: high class]
In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
Alfred, the clockwork Murganian, suddenly remembered he had an overdue library book.
He picked up the dusty book from the oven, took off his coat, rolled to the door and pulled a key from his shoe to let himself out. It was such a very long time since he had been out and he was most surprised to find that the seeds he had planted in the sky some time ago had grown to such an extent that his pathway was no longer accessible.
What to do? wondered Alfred. He wondered for a few minutes then realised that wondering was getting him nowhere and action was called for.
“Help” he shouted.
{link – key}
In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
While Yuhara and Sylvestrus were exploring Second Life worlds (Frolic Caper~Belle was still on an extended leave of absence), Blithe Gambol, although she didn’t entirely realize it at the time, was exploring First Life worlds on the Coast of Light.
Blithe and her partner Winn set off for the drum festival in the late afternoon heat, with the intention of reaching the Light Coast before sundown. The strong low sun flickered on and off as it hid behind trees and hills, and the hot dry wind whipped Blithes hair into her eyes, leaving the heavy heat of the Coast of the Sun behind and tranforming it into a light bone dry atmosphere that seemed to suck the air out of Blithe’s lungs. She filled the vacuum with smoke, listening to the words of the music playing ~ must be a reason why I’m king of my castle….king of my castle…it reminded her of Dealea’s story about King Author.
When they reached Vejer de la Frontera they made a wrong turning, although they were well aware that no turning is a wrong one. The new direction took them in a circle behind the Vejer promontory, through the umbrella pines along the coast. The sky was golden yellow behind the black sillouttes on one side, with a periwinkle sea on the other, rocky pale grey outcrops blushed with pink paddling in the gently lapping waves.
As they entered the village of Canos de Meca, they slowed to crawl behind the inching cars, as tanned people in brightly coloured clothes wove in and out of the traffic, and in and out of the exotic looking bars and restaurants. Blithe remembered the Second Life worlds she had been exploring earlier that day, and wondered if Second Life came with the smells of sardines barbequeing on the beach, or a warm breeze wafting past laden with snatches of laughter and conversation. Visually, certainly, Second Life would be hard presssed to beat the visual appeal of Canos de Meca at sunset on an August evening. There were plenty of opportunities to observe the people and the hostelries, as the traffic got progressively worse until it eventually came to a standstill. The narrow lanes were lined with parked cars, and throngs of people carrying coolers made their way to the sand dunes near the lighthouse.
Eventually, after several slow drives past looking for a miraculous parking space that didn’t appear, Blithe and Winn found a restaurant in between the coastal villages that was strangely empty of people. Even Winn, who was much less inclined towards fanciful imaginings than Blithe, remarked on how surreal the place was. It could have been anywhere in Spain, so strangely ordinary was its appearance in comparison to the Moorish beach hippy style of the villages. They ordered food, and relaxed in easy silence in the oasis of calm ordinariness. Blithe wondered if the place actually existed or if she had created it out of thin air, just for a respite and a parking place, and a clean unoccupied loo. Another First Life world, perhaps, constructed in the moment to meet the current requirements of ease.
At 11:11, after another two drives through the crawling cars and crowds, Winn turned the car around and headed for home. At 12:12 they reached the Coast of the Sun, shrouded in sea mist, and at 1:00am precisely, they arrived home. Later, as Blithe lay on the bed listening to the drums playing on the music machine, she closed her eyes and saw the sunset over the Atlantic, and felt the ocean breeze of the fan. She projected her attention to the dunes of Trafalgar ~ which, incidentally, didn’t take two hours, it was instant. In another instant, she was back in her bedroom, sipping agua con gas on the rocks and chatting to Winn. Seconds later, she was in a vibrant nightclub overlooking the beach, dancing in spirit between the jostling holidaymakers being served at the bar. She imagined that one or two of them noticed her energy.
Clearly, teleporting from one place to another had its benefits. The question of parking, for example, wouldn’t arise. But Blithe wouldn’t have wanted to miss the late afternoon drive to the Coast of Light, and the golden slanting lightbeams flickering between the cork oaks making their cork shorn trunks glow red, or the ocean appearing over the crest of a hill. And if she had arrived in an instant at the location she was intending to visit, then she would never have encountered the sunset from the particular angle of the approach via the wrong turn. Variety ~ and impulse, and the opportunities of the unexpected turns ~ was the weft of weaving First Life worlds ~ or was it the warp?
link: weaving worlds
In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
It was hot, although not as hot as usual for the month of August on the southern slopes of the Serrania de Ronda. It had rained, the black clouds and thunder a welcome respite from the searing dry heat of an Andalucian summer, plumping up the blackberries and washing the dust from the leaves of the fig trees. Blithe Gambol hadn’t seen her old friend Granny Mosca for months, although she wasn’t quite sure what had kept her from visiting for so long. Blithe loved Granny Mosca’s cottage tucked away in the saddle behind the fat hill and there had been times when she’d visited often, just to drink in the magical air and feast her eyes on the beauty of the surroundings. Dry golden weeds scratched her legs as she made her way along the dirt path, and she was mindful of the fat black snake she’d once seen basking on the stone walls as she reached into the brambles to pluck blackberries and take photographs.
Rounding a corner in the path she gasped at the incongrous and alarming sight of a bright yellow bulldozer just meters from Granny Mosca’s cottage. The bulldozer was flattening a large area of prickly pear cactuses. Unfortunately for the cactuses, it was fruiting time, and Blithe wondered if Granny Mosca had first picked the fruits and suspected that she had, those that she could reach. Nothing that could be eaten was left unpicked ~ Blithe remembered the many sacks of almonds that Granny had given her over the years, very few of which she had bothered to shell and eat.
The bulldozer was making an entranceway to the tiny derelict cottage that was situated next to Granny Mosca’s house. Granny had asked Blithe if she wanted to buy it, and she had wanted to buy it eventually, but the purchase of a derelict building hadn’t been a priority at the time. Now it looked as if she was too late, that someone else had bought it, perhaps to use as a holiday home. Horrified, Blithe called out for Granny, who was often in the goat shed or away across the hidden saddle valley cutting weeds to feed the poultry, but there was no sign of her. Two alien looking turkeys gobbled in response, and the black and white chained dog barked menacingly.
As Blithe retraced her steps along the dirt path it occured to her that whoever was planning to use the derelict cottage might be a very interesting person, someone she might be very pleased to make the acquaintance of in due course. After all, she had noticed that the holiday guests staying at the casitas on the other side of the fat hill were all sympathetic to the magical nature of the location, many of them arriving from a previous visit to a particularly interesting location in the Alpujarras ~ a convergence of ley lines. When questioned as to why they chose the fat hill casitas, they simply said they liked the countryside. Either they weren’t telling, or they were simply unaware objectively of the connection of the locations. Blithe could sense the connections though, both the locations, and that the people choosing to vacation at the fat hill were connected to it.
For one hundred and forty seven thousand years, Blithe had had an energy presence at the fat hill, although it was half a century of her current focus before she remembered it. She had felt protective of it, when she finally remembered it, as if she had a kind of responsibility to it. This place can look after itself quite well on its own, she reminded herself. The fat hill had watched while Franco’s Capitan looted the Roman relics, and watched as Blithe stumbled upon the remains of Roman and Iberian cities, and the fat hill had laughed when Blithe first tried to find the entrance to the interior and got stuck in thorn bushes. Later, the fat hill had smiled benignly when Granny Mosca led her to the entrance ~ without a thorn bush in sight. The cave entrance had been blocked with boulders then. Blithe had given some thought to an excavation, wondering how to achieve it without attracting the attention of the locals, but now she wondered if one day, when the time was right, she would find the entrance clear, as if by magic. Magic, after all, was by no means impossible.
{link: feast for the birds}
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Doily said matter-of-factly to her little troop of headless travellers “Fancy a cup of tea?”
As none of them really cared to answer to the obvious fact that they didn’t have any teapot or sugar not to mention milk, lemon, and of course tea (other than a few random leaves that could have been used as an ersatz) she pursued her inspired tirade “Did you know that the Reunited Landers invented tea-bags by the way?”
Silence again.
“I just suddenly remembered, and it’s the funniest thing believe me… Those bloody Yorkies were sent some tea samples in silk pouches and they thought it the next best thing since the invention of boiled water and asked for more!…”
“Perhaps we should catch the blubbits in silk pouches…” she added after a moment.
“Frankly, anyone wanting to get home?” she then said with a bit of alarm in her voice “This Eighth Dimension doesn’t really got the promises of fun they sold us.”“I was starting to think the same,” Pee answered raucously, startling everyone off their self induced Kuzhedoor trance state.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Phurt was vaguely aware to have been alive in different times, and in different surrounding. The memories kept coming at the oddest and less practical of all times, like this one when she’d jumped through the talking glass. They were nevertheless precise and vivid enough to be more than just strikes of fancy. Besides, she was but all a fancy spider.
The last one she remembered (and the ten previous ones before it) was being admonished and crushed (literally) by the words (and the one uttering them) “you and your kind are not welcome here!” Actually, if you wanted to be precise, the previous to last time, she’d been drowned in the pipes —but still, she could hear the fateful “you and your kin… gurgle gurgle.”
She didn’t know for certain when and where she’d vowed to gain dominion over these Crushing Others, and all her failed attempts and these strange karmic glimpses that had her reincarnated over and over certainly did help, if so slightly, to get closer to this goal.
Now she needed a nice dark and clean place (yeah hence the stupid tub of last which proved to be clean enough, but barely dark for long enough) to spin a nice thin web and gather enough food for her dear little ones.
In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
“Green years help often book!”
Elizabeth hand surprise.
Head Sanso: “Let dragons…..”
Finnley: “Dory fishes quickly!”
nothing answer…..
notice appeared remembered spiders,
speaking raucous Dolores:
“Stranger bird gift,
looks deep matter!”
“Write”, supposed young Phenol, whether himself less knows inside.
“Monica bloody apparently, probable cow”.
In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
nonsense help remembered creating
fellowship yurick worry prof class obvious
create details wanted mention stay
assignment moment family god giving
somewhatIn reply to: Strings of Nines
Sanso had been hanging around for far too long, trying to make sense of all the funny ideas that people have, and trying to get to grips with all their adventures and escapades, their convoluted ponderings, and all the friends and associates that were continually weaving themselves through the many threads. He’d all but forgotten that he was a wanderer by nature, used to travelling alone. Somehow he’d become stuck in their ways, despite not ever really fitting in completely, and he wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened. Perhaps it had been the broccoli. With a defiant devil may care spirit, he’d eaten the broccoli
from the jar marked “You Fool”, when all the others had chosen the broccoli in the jar labeled “Thank You”. Well, he’d chosen it, there was no blaming anyone else for it, after all. But the effects had all but worn off, and he was starting to get the old familiar itch to travel again, to explore.“You can go in any direction you want” he heard himself say as he mentally transported himself back to a scene in his Story. “You’ll always be at the centre of everything.”
How very strange that he’d forgotten that. That brocolli was powerful stuff.
“You interpret the signs however you want to…” the voice of Sanso In Another Scene continued, “and then you act on it. And I’ll tell you this as well, it’s about time you stopped rehashing Old Scenes and started exploring some new ones. Just go, go now! Put one foot in front of the other, and just go ~ go back into the cave.”
Sanso was on the verge of protesting that he didn’t have a plan, and then remembered how much he liked surprises.
For the briefest moment, Sanso wondered if he should leave a note for anyone, or get the laundry in before he set off, or pack a suitcase or something, but decided to start off as he meant to carry on ~ alone, impulsive and free to wander the world of his own making.
There was a large black cow blocking the entrance to the cave. The cow was dead and bloated, although it hadn’t started to smell yet. Sanso wondered whether it was a sign, and decided that it was. It would be rather pointless to create a large dead cow blocking the cave entrance if it had no significance to the story, he deduced, although he hadn’t yet worked out an appropriate meaning for the sign.
Weighing up his options, Sanso realized there were several choices he could make. He could delete the previous paragraph, and simply walk into the cave. He could wait until the cow decomposed, and then simply climb over the bones. He could wander around until he found another cave entrance, or simply teleport himself into the cave behind the cow.
However, the only option that he could think of that would include the Meaning of the Dead Cow Blocking The Cave Entrance would be to stay with the cow until the meaning had been found. If he ignored the cow, he might be Missing An Important Meaning. Notwithstanding, the meaning may turn up later, whether he forgot about it or not.
Sanso decided to sit and meditate on the Meaning of the Cow before proceeding. He could change his mind at any moment if he got bored.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
After her little escapade with Yimho, and then with Brennan, and then with Gormitohl, and with each escapade, a new home, new relationships and relatives, Malvina was starting to feel homesick. ‘Home’ wasn’t really any place of course, but we all know when we feel at home or not. And right now, the feeling was clear and loud that she wasn’t.
Not only that, but her selfless outpouring of love (which dear Arona always found slightly exaggerated for her tastes) had oftentimes put her in awkward situations.
People weren’t always aware that even though her love was given so strongly to all of creatures, it could be found everywhere, in every creature. Ancients called that stream viwre. The only difference with her and the others was that she wasn’t discriminating and her love was outpourring in every direction, regardless of the intentions of the receiver. And that could become a terrible power.Well, after all the traveling with her teal-coloured dragon Leörmn, and occasional visits from the young dragon breeder Irtak she felt more than ever the need to reconnect. It’s been too many years now, and the world of the (still) warring Kingdoms didn’t feel much of a better place. So there was still work to be done.
Of all people, she knew where to turn to.
It was too early to start her trip around the world to physically reunite with her sisters. A lifelong project which had strangely stalled ever since they started to mention it.
But she remembered Kalliona, a beautiful woman living south of the Marshes of Doom. She wasn’t really a woman either, but rather an E’elim of the woods, but she appeared as a beautiful woman to almost anyone.
She would help her realign with her path.“Leörmn!” She called “We’re packing!”
“To where, may I ask?”
“Olliburthon”
“Oh great… A stinking harbour now.”In reply to: Random RewrEights – The Del’Eights thread
The myopic Finnley DIDN’T wear fishnet stockings.
Unable to resist the library, and in a tutu, he was just hoping that he did the right thing in sending the staff before dinner to the stables.
Finnley, in the library, before dinner, waited.
“Damn it!” Finnley muttered. “I can’t do it alone”.
A master in karate, a surge of adrenaline overflowed his mind and all he remembered was he was bald.
NOTE : Well. By the time I took out all the pornographic stuff there wasn’t much left to work with.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
The summer Holidays were nearly over, or the Hollow Days, as they were known to some. The last days of summer had been a bit hollow for Ann at any rate, rattling around inside her own head, not really knowing whether it was full or empty. Ann had spent most of the summer sleeping, and with virtually no dream recall, it seemed as if half of the summer was missing. Probably just as well, what with it being such an odd summer. She wondered if she would simply sleep through the shift, like Ned Young slept through the mutiny. Didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
“Normally” the Worserversity students started rolling back towards Poubelleville round about now, but the word “normally” was becoming obsolete. What was normal, what could be expected? Ann didn’t know. She packed her coloured pencils, her detachable hand and her wooden men, and fished out her homework assigments for the holidays that she had only just remembered.
Alliteration. Bugger bollocks and blast, blimey but what a bother, too bloody hot and bored.
That’s a bit bloody depressing, she muttered to herself, try another letter.
Sweltering summer of sweat and sand, sleeping and sleeping, sublime surruptitious snooze, sail away in the sunset swell, sunrise surrender, ships ahoy!
Fan the flames, far sighted fellows! There’s a flash in the funnel for fast falling fishermen. Far flung, fun fueled, oh fast fleeting fantasies, follow the folks with the flags! Flounder not, fresh fishies, for fun feels fantastic!
Ah, wallow in wisps of wordless wonderings, weather the winds of wandering whispers, while weighty wells of wishes work winsome wonders, woven with worn wool and worrisome white weathered windows. Whether we will, whether we won’t, who will win, what will work, will we watch it water the weeds….
Topic: Probably Real
She woke up at noon and it was 100 degrees, or 37 degrees, whichever you prefer, but whichever way you look at it, it was not a good temperature to wake up to. Everything was pointing in the direction of going solo, playing the game on her own for awhile, or at least until she was in a regular habit of giving herself priority, giving more attention to her own creative pursuits, and less time to the futile attempts to keep group projects going. She supposed for a moment that making a start whilst hot, tired, discouraged and confused was not the most ideal mood for a start, but at least it was a start. She wasn’t even entirely sure what it was she was actually starting, but suspected that it didn’t much matter, in the grand scheme (or lack thereof) of things.
She’d had a moment of inspiration when she started reading a book. She’d only read a few pages and had no idea how the book would turn out, but the format was interesting. Julie had had an idea, simmering on a back burner for years, to write a book. It always seemed to want to be an autobiographical book, and that’s where she always came unstuck because she couldn’t see the point of that, not that she was overly concerned about whether anyone would want to read it or not, but she often came unstuck when she wondered about how all the characters in the book might feel about it, which is why that moment of inspiration in the bathroom the other day seemed like such a good idea.
She could write a book about a probability party, perhaps called ‘Probably Real’, (maybe with the subtitle ‘Probably Not’.) There would be an occasion, the details of which she hadn’t worked out yet, in which various (not all, she soon realized!) of her probable selves met ~ such as in the Atkinson book, in some quiet desolate place with no interruptions (obviously somewhere with no internet connection, although there was always the danger of picking up a freak broadband WiFi), where they had all the time in the world to tell their tales, compare notes as it were.
Which was where the fiction idea came in ~ of course! Just call it fiction! Would just one of the probable selves be telling the truth, relating the only true version of Julie’s life? And if so, which one was the real probable self? All the characters in the book would have probable selves and probable lives; which of them was the real probable self, the official version? No-one would ever know.
Of course, anyone versed in the metaphysical mechanics of probabilities and such would realize that all probable versions are real, at the same time as all being, in a certain sense, fiction ~ made up. The only question was, would that be too unlimiting to contain within the confines of one book, but time (so to speak) would tell.
Procrastination had set in, as usual, not that that is a bad thing, and things pretty much carried on as usual for a few days. Julie noticed the puppy tugging at a particular magazine from the bottom of the magazine rack over the course of those few days, and eventually the magazine was rather pointedly poking out from the bottom of the pile, it’s title clearly showing: a booklet on How To Write FICTION, with FICTION in big letters.
Never the less, the procrastination continued, although the clue was duly noted. It hadn’t been the first time a Writing A Book incident had occured.
It was easy, in this case, to remember that date, because it was right around the time of the 1999/2000 milenium party, right around the time when that particular roller coaster had derailed. While unpacking the boxes of books and putting them on the shelves of yet another rented house ~ a particularly garish and tasteless monstrosity, a drug baron’s dream of unfunctional largeness with hideous coloured glass windows (it’s the sheer randomness of the colours that’s so awful, G had remarked) ~ a book flew off the shelf, quite literally, and landed alone in the middle of the floor some distance away from the bookshelf.
Becoming A Writer was the name of the book, and the funny thing was that she had been thinking of writing a book but didn’t know where to start, and had been toying with the idea of buying a book on writing a book. So she read the book and started writing, a little bit every day, following the books advice to just start writing, even if it’s just ‘I can’t think of what to write’. There was plenty to write about as it turned out, but circumstances changed, another sudden move of house ensued, another rollercoaster ride, and the writing stopped for awhile.
But back to the book, Becoming A Writer. For a long time, Julie had no recollection of buying that book, and wondered by what magic had it appeared at her feet. Many years later she perhaps would have simply accepted the magic, and would have known that she created the book in that moment. But at the time she didn’t, and in due course constructed a memory of buying the book some years previously at a car boot sale somewhere along the coast road.
(We did buy the book, piped up PSJ2, and I actually read it, unlike you, as soon as I bought it. My 5th book is about to be published, a lightweight comedy/detective series about the Costa del Crime)
PSJ2’s interjection reminded PSJ1 (Good grief, we’ll have to think of a solution to the probable self names, she noted) that she had in fact started writing a book about the Costa del Crime, called Peregrino’s, or perhaps that was the name she’d given to the bar, the central hub, of the book. Of course, that was in the days when bars had been her central hub; she doubted very much if she would choose a bar as the central hub of a book now. She hadn’t got very far with the book, and had burned it when PSA1 got busted, just in case. What to do first, bury the (probable, it must be remembered) pump action shotgun, or burn the book. She had buried the gun, under cover of darkness, in the back garden, wrapping it in plastic bags and blankets, making it look for all the world like the body of a dead child. It was dark, it was raining, and there weren’t many neighbours out there in the orange groves, and she could do no more than hope for the best that she hadn’t been seen.
No doubt there was a probable self who did choose to create being seen, but if so she hadn’t arrived at the probability party (yet, at any rate) with her tale.
That it had been a major probability junction was certain. Not just the gun burying incident, which had turned out to be no more than merely incidental, but the events leading up to it.
In 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.
