Search Results for 'replied'

“You tempestuous fool” Becky cried and slapped Gayesh soundly across the face. “Don’t give me those unspoken looks!”

Gayesh sighed. “Ah, the infinite pleasure I had in mind is naught but an elusive dream.”

Elizabeth read the last two lines she’d been working on to her publisher, Godfrey Pig-Littleton.

Godfrey snorted. “Elizabeth, really! You jest, I hope.”

“Well, I was just trying to fit each of the four themes into one chapter, they all seemed to fit together so easily” Elizabeth replied. “Why not? Tempestuous, Elusive Dreams, Unspoken Looks, and Pleasure”

“You seemed to have fit them all into two sentences, never mind a chapter. And your characters sound like characters in a play.”

“Well they are characters in a play, Godfrey” replied Elizabeth.

“Ham actors, that’s what I meant. Anyway, Liz” Pig-Littleton said with a slightly mischievous grin, “What if Gayesh doesn’t want his face slapped by Becky?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if Becky doesn’t want to slap Gayesh?”

“Well, she will if I write it into the play, surely!” Elizabeth started to frown. She knew that once she invented her characters that they continued to exist in a reality of their own, being free to create their own realities in whatever probable dimension they found themselves in, but she had never really stopped to think about the ramifications of her continuing to write incidents into their lives.

“Maybe Becky has moved on from where you left her last time you wrote about her, in a completely different direction” Godfrey continued “And maybe she doesn’t want to play along with your theme word game. I mean really, is it fair to make her? Maybe she was having more fun doing whatever it was she was doing while you weren’t even thinking about what she should do. Quite rude really to interrupt her just so that you could do your word theme games. Bit of a cheek, I’d say.”

“Oh Godfrey, that’s easily explained” Elizabeth had remembered Probabilities, which was always a handy excuse in continuity disputes. “Another probable character will do what I write for them to do, there are probably hundreds of probable characters now, all going in different directions.”

“Is that wise? Really Elizabeth, that sounds outrageously irresponsible. Hundreds of probable characters running amok, and you have absolutely no idea what they’re all getting up to.”

“Well they’re not my responsibility Godfrey, for heavens sake!”

“Well if they’re not your responsibility, then who’s responsible for them?”

“Nobody is responsible for them!”

“Well that sounds like a recipe for chaos if you ask me” Godfrey said with a sniff. “You’ve unleashed hundreds of probable Becky’s into reality, not to mention Leo’s and Bea’s….”

“And Pig-Littleton’s” Elizabeth interjected under her breath.

“… and Sanso’s and Dory’s” Godfrey, who hadn’t heard Elizabeth, continued to reel off the characters names. “I mean how big do you think reality is? The rate you’re filling it up with probable characters there’ll be no space left!”

Elizabeth started to laugh. “Oh Godfrey, you’re a case. Ahahah! They don’t take up any space at all! Anyway, Godfrey” Elizabeth turned back to her notepad. “Listen to the latest chapter and tell me what you think:

“You tempestuous fool” Becky cried and slapped Gayesh soundly across the face. “Don’t give me those unspoken looks!”

Gayesh sighed. “Ah, the infinite pleasure I had in mind is naught but an elusive dream.”

Godfrey Pig-Littleton was impressed. “Elizabeth, how perfectly you incorporated the four themes into one brilliantly short chapter”

Elizabeth closed her notebook with a satisfied smile and yawned. Let them all do whatever the bloody hell they all want to, I’m off to bed. Plenty of probable characters available in the morning, waiting in the wings.

“Hey, Leo, look at this here in the newspaper ~ my book’s being made into a movie!”

“What book’s that then, Bea? Not that dreadful ‘T’eggy Gets a Good Rogering’, surely.” Leonora replied dismissively.

“Oh they’re not calling it that for the movie…..”

“Bloody good job if you ask me” Leo interrupted, and then exclaimed “OH!”

“What?”

“Book sync!”

“Book sync? What book sync?”

“I forgot to tell you, Baked Bean Barb called…”

“Who?!”

“You remember, we met her in that bar down on the coast awhile back, remember? We got talking over a few tapas ~ found we had some mutual friends back home and all…”

“Funny how that happens, eh ~ small world, innit? So what did she call for then?”

“Well, it’s the funniest thing, she said when she was rummaging around on the rubbish tip….”

“Oh now I remember, you mean Baked Bean Barb! The one that’s lived in her Ford Fiesta for 15 years, and finds food in dustbins? That one? On the run, wasn’t she?”

“That’s the one! On the run for 30 years because of that Baked Bean Incident that was in all the papers”

“You meet all sorts down here, eh. So what did she call for?”

“Well” continued Leonora “It’s the strangest thing! She said she found a book on the rubbish tip, which was in English, so she says she took the book ~ she reads alot you know, Barb does, even though she’s only got one eye. Dunno how she manages it really, her glasses are always so dirty…”

“Will you get to the point?”

“Hang on, hang on, I’m getting there….she found this book, right, so she goes back to wherever she’s camped up, you know, with the other travellers, all them old hippies on their way to Morocco for the winter I expect….”

“We should go with them next winter Leo, might be fun”

“I reckon it would Bea ~ well with Jose coming back soon from that island, we’ll have to go somewhere ~ anyway, as I was saying, Barb starts reading this book, she says it’s the most peculiar book she’s ever read, never read anything like it, she says, but she can’t put it down she says ~ well, you’ll never guess what!”

“I can’t guess, Leo, I’m waiting for you to tell me.”

“Barb says we’re in the book!”

“What do you mean, we’re in the book?”

“We’re in the book! ‘Leonora and Beattie’ are in the book! Renting a finca from a ‘Jose’ and living in the mountains in Andalucia!”

“You’re having me on!” exclaimed Bea. “I’ve gotta see this to believe it.”

“Norm! NORM!!” Sue Flay shouted. “We’re filming the garden scene now, where are you?”

But Norm was nowhere to be found. He’d stumbled upon an unexpected problem while filming T’Eggy & Phlynn with Sue Flay ~ a problem too embarrassing to mention, and one he could hardly keep a secret, given the nature of the P Movie. He’d managed to excuse himself during the last scene, feigning illness, but what if it happened again today?

“You’re focusing on what you don’t want again, Norm.” The voice made him jump. He’d thought he was alone in the treehouse, he thought no-one would find him hiding there in the leafy depths of the spinney, high up in the foliage. He looked around, wondering where the voice was coming from.

“You haven’t generated me physical, Norm, but you can if you wish” the voice said.

“How do I do that?” asked Norm.

“Allow, that’s all” the voice replied.

“Oh what rubbish!” Norm said in an agitated whisper. “What stupid advice!”

“Ha ha ha! As you wish, my friend” replied the voice, sounding rather amused.

“If you hadn’t just given me such stupid advice I might have felt more inclined to ask you for some advice about this awful problem” Norm whispered crossly.

“Are you asking me for advice or not?”

“Well if you’ve got anything USEFUL to say, then say it!”

“If you go down to the garden today,
You’re sure to have a surprise.
There’s a herb growing there and you don’t have to pay,
It’s growing in front of your eyes.
The magic you see is everywhere
It never runs out of stock
Go down to the garden, if you dare….”

“I asked you for advice, not a daft bloody poem!” Norm hissed.

“You wish to be hard as a rock?”

“YES!” spat Norm in frustration, blushing furiously. What’s the friggen garden got to do with it?”

“There’s a herb in the garden called Horny Goat “

“Oh PulEASE…..” Norm rolled his eyes.

“Horny Goat Weed will do the trick.
And straighten up your droopy…”

“ENOUGH! Good Grief, I get the message. What am I supposed to DO with it, roll in it? Eat it? Smoke it?”

“It matters not, my friend. That’s the magic of it all. You can choose any method”

“Are you sure about this?” asked Norm, who was willing to try anything at this point. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“Ha ha ha! Trust youSELF, Norm!”

“Who are you anyway?” Norm asked suspiciously.

But the voice chuckled and faded, leaving Norm in a quandary in the treehouse.

“Oh bugger it, I may as well give it a go. I can’t stay here forever, and anyway, I’ve run out of cigarettes.”

Norm climbed down the tree and marched over to the the film crew.

“Oh THERE you are Norm!” Sue came rushing up to him. “What perfect timing, we’re breaking for lunch.” She gave Norm a spontaneous hug. She really was rather nice, Norm thought, smiling at her.

“Would you like some soup? We put lots of fresh herbs in it from the garden.”

“Oh My God” exclaimed Bea. “I had a dream about the DOOR!”

“Oh, well done! The question is, did you remember it?” asked Leonora.

“As a matter of fact, Leo, I did!” replied Bea with a happy smile. “As a matter of fact, although I’m not too sure how factual matter really is, but anyway, I did remember the dream, and I wrote it all down.”

“Gosh, up early this morning, weren’t you?” asked Leo, who was sipping coffee at the kitchen table and watching the sun come up over the mountains through the open door.

“Oh I didn’t write it down this morning, silly! I wrote it all down last week.”

Leo placed her cup on the table and rubbed her eyes, frowning. “Wait a minute, let me get this straight…..”

Bea laughed ~ she was in rather a jolly mood, despite the early hour. “I had the dream last week, Leo, but I only just realized this morning that the dream was about THE DOOR”

“So what did you learn about the door, then?”

Bea frowned. “Well I’m not really sure. But it seemed so significant because it was that scary door, you know, the dreams I’ve been having for years about that door in that bedroom that’s too scary to get near, never mind go through….would you like to read it? Maybe you can interpret it for me.”

“If I must” sighed Leonora “You better pour me another cup of coffee then and pass me those cigarettes.”

Leonora read from Bea’s Dream Journal:

I was sorting winter clothes out on an upstairs landing of a cottagey gabled house,
and decided to use the upstairs bedroom instead of the downstairs one.
The bedroom was a recurring dream one, gabled attic with dormer windows kind of room.
Then I saw the door and remembered this was the door I was always too terrified
in dreams to open; it was so scary that I always wanted to use this bedroom
but never could because of that terrifying door and whatever lay beyond it.

“Didn’t you do a waking dream and go through that door?” Leonora asked. “Oh, yes here is is…”

Remembering that I had done a waking dream and gone beyond the door once,
I marched up to the door, flung it open and strode through.
Suddenly an almost overpowering fear and dread stopped me in my tracks
but I carried on anyway.

“Oh, bloody well done, Bea! Good for you, girl!” Leonora could be a bit waspish at times, but she was a kind old soul underneath.

 It was a bit like a old slightly shabby but once grand hotel foyer, high ceilings
(not the same as when I went through in the waking dream, which was then rows
of closed doors on either side).  The foyer opened out on the left into a large old
fashioned restaurant dining room, with one person over on the far side sitting at
a table.  I carried on straight ahead through opaque etched glass double doors
onto an upstairs outdoor terrace.  There was a city scene below.  On the left
was a shallow ornately shaped ornamental pool.

“Reminds me a bit of our trip to Barcelona, this does, eh” Leo commented.

“Yeah, I’m sure that had something to do with the gargoyle imagery” replied Bea.

A woman squeezed past me holding a small thick book and I knew she was
going to jump off the terrace which was several storeys up.  She collapsed into
the pool, writhing backwards, baring a flat white breast and dropping the book.

“Flat breast, hahah Bea, that weren’t you then, obviously, was it!”

Bea chuckled. “Not bloody likely! I reckon that bit slipped in the dream because I can’t find a comfortable bra lately”

“You and me both” replied Leo. She continued reading from the journal.

I picked up the book, and somehow ended up with two books, which seemed like guide books. I couldn’t hold onto the two books with the creature in my hand, which was weird, like a very heavy small furry grey reptile, or gargoyle.

“Maybe it was a baby dragon?”

“Don’t say that!” retorted Bea, who had a horror of dragons. “The thought did cross my mind too, though” she admitted.

I was holding it with one hand round its middle and the fat grey belly of it
was bulging out under my fingers.  It was unbelievably heavy for such a small creature
and I didn't want to hold it, so I passed it to a boy. (Twice I was holding the creature,
and twice I passed it to the boy, but I can't recall the other time)

Back inside the building, I followed the boy down a big wide staircase that
curved round to the right at a landing below.  I started to fall down the stairs and
knew it was because of the book that I was holding that the woman had been holding
when she collapsed into the pool, so I threw the book down the stairs to save myself,
and felt the tumbling down from the books perspective, although I stayed in
the same place, clutching the banister.

“Well I am amazed that you remembered so much, Bea! Going through the doors and finding the books reminds me of Jane’s Library you know”. Leo was starting to go into an altered state.

“Are you going into an altered state, Leo?” asked Bea. “Are you channeling Juani Ramirez again?”

“The creature, the gargoyle, was representing ‘a different species of awareness, of consciousness’” continued Leonora, as Bea hastily started taking notes. Leo wouldn’t remember what she’d said while she was channeling Juani, so it was essential that Bea record what was said.

“The weight was a marker to help you recall the creature, as well as being symbolic of denseness”

Bea couldn’t help making a snirking noise. Dense eh, she said under her breath.

“The door” continued Leonora “Is a signpost, a marker.”

Just then the phone rang, snapping Leonora out of the trance. Bea picked up the telephone, but there was nobody there.

“Pffft” said Bea.

“More coffee?”

“Listen to this, Bea” Leonora said.

Bea looked up from her book “What’s that then Leo? I’m just getting to the juicy part where T’eggy gets….”

“Listen to this” Leo interrupted, and read from the book she was reading, “As a writer I feel free to do anything I please, investigating anything, saying anything…..as a writer I feel free to be psychic as a bird, do what I please and use my abilities psychically quite freely. When I think of me as a psychic I get hung up because I seem to be in the company of so many nuts. Writers may be as nuts as anyone else but it’s a nuttiness that doesn’t bug me ~ there’s no dogma attached…..”

“What on earth are you reading, Leo?”

“The memoirs of Jane Roberts” replied Leonora. “What a coincidence this is! I was just starting to think about writing some fiction, you know? Because when you write fiction nobody really questions what you write, it’s easier, somehow.”

“Well if it’s fiction you’re after, I can recommend T’Eggy Gets A Good Rogering, it’s brilliant.” replied Bea helpfully.

“Bloody hell, Bea!” said Leonora in exasperation. “I want to write tasteful enlightening fiction, wonderful stories with a moral and a point and a lesson ~ I don’t want to read the trash you read!”

“Suit yourself, you judgmental cow” replied Bea huffily. “And anyway, you haven’t even read it, so how would you know?”

“I had an absolutely brilliant revelation last night” Bea was saying “about The Door. Buggered if I can remember what it was, though.”

“Well fat lot of use that is then, Bea” replied Leonora. “Any snapshots? Can you remember anything at all?”

“Well, there was a big pale green patch that floated down, then there was the floating part, oh and all the coloured light flashes…the French girl, the old fashioned scene…..and that weird change of focus, sort of off centre and a bit out of body, with the guy behind my right shoulder shouting HEY every time my focus started drifting back to normal. Oh, and the spiraling part, that was cool too!” Bea was starting to drift off into another world just thinking about it.

“Yes, well, now we know all about The Door” said Leonora sarcastically. “Very helpful, Bea, well done.”

“That’s it!” shouted Bea, leaning forward in excitement. “It’s about blocking energy!”

Leonora rolled her eyes.

“Holding tightly to energy, that’s what the closed door is. I can have an open door, and still be free to create who walks through it. We don’t lock the door here, do we, but we don’t get any intruders.”

“Maybe that’s because we’ve got nine dogs” said Leo. “And anyway, define intruder, in a ‘you create your own reality’ context. What’s the difference between an intruder, and a wonderful surprise?”

Bea was stumped for a moment. “That’s a good question, Leo, we’ll come back to that in a bit, but let me finish telling you this before I forget again.
I used to mentally open a big double door every time I did a meditation or went to sleep” Bea continued “and I havent opened that door in months. Well, sometimes it’s open, obviously, but I dont seem to throw the doors open wide anymore, you know, to other energies objectively, if you see what I mean.”

Bea was starting to ramble. “I used to invite any Tom, Dick and Harry to my meditations as long as they weren’t aliens.”

“What about the dogs in raincoats dimension?” asked Leo “What were they if they weren’t aliens?”

“Oh, they were alright, I liked them. Oh you know what I’m like about that other dimensional stuff, don’t get me started on that now. I think occasionally things happen and I get rattled, and shut the door for a bit.”

“Right, so let see if I’ve got this straight” said Leonora “There’s more than one layer to this Door thing because what you’ve just told me is what’s going on in your reality. The question is, what’s going on in mine?”

“Buggered if I know, Leo” Bea replied. “Fancy a cuppa?”

Dory finished the puzzle, yawned and glanced at her watch. There was no sign of the flight to Long Pong leaving any time soon, so she made her flightbag into a pillow and settled herself along the plastic seating for a nap.

She dreamed first of her grandparents in their old house in Slurbridge. The house was the same, but her grandparents, Florence and Samuel, were much younger than she had ever known them during her lifetime. They were preparing for guests, and Florence was rearranging the bedding in the upstairs bedrooms. Apparently one more guest was expected than previously arranged, and she had squeezed in a single camp bed next to a double bed. Dory had an idea the camp bed was for Dan’s niece, Aurelia. Funny that, as Florence and Samuel had never known Aurelia ~ or Dan for that matter.

The dream landscape changed then to an island. The “Others” were coming and she and her friends had to hide. “Let’s hide in the pyramid” one of them had said, but Dory replied “No, we must hide somewhere less obvious, until we know what the “Others” are like.” They weren’t afraid, but they were taking precautions. Someone had been looking after the dogs and cats, but when Dory went to check on them, they had been ‘kept safe’ in a freezer. As Dory opened the door, a half frozen black cat emerged and ran off. “I reckon she’s better off taking her chances out there than in the freezer!” said Dory. At the bottom of the freezer were some frozen parts of Tom, Captain Bone. There was no sign of the others, but strangely, Dory wasn’t worried.

Next to the freezer was a cupboard, and Dory grabbed a handful of magnetic fridge letters, thinking that they would come in handy as clues while they were hiding from the “Others”.

“Yukailli Airlines direct flight leaving for Tikfijikoo Island at Gate 57 and three quarters” the bag lady prodded Dory, amidst a shower of electric blue sparks. “Wake up!”

“Pffftt” said Bea. “Lost the bloody connection again.” She turned on the TV instead. She had been researching on the internet the three names that she had woken up mumbling ~ Gabor, Sindy and Swinde ~ and had just found something promising about interdimensional federations when the line went dead. Actually, the three names and the woman behind the desk in her dream had reminded her a bit of Oversoul 7.

“Honestly, this bloody country! It’s like the dark ages” she muttered under her breath.

Bea flicked through the news channels: sports on one, that boring election on another, more hurricanes on another channel……Bea paused her surfing when she saw the watermelon on a documentary channel. There was a pile of watermelons, and the narrator was explaining how the chimpanzees were sharing the watermelons with each other.

Well what a coincidence! Bea thought, that’s a watermelon AND an ape sync. It must be a clue. HHmmm, sharing the watermelons…..

And just think, if the line hadn’t gone dead at that very moment, that precise moment, I wouldn’t have turned on the TV, and I wouldn’t have seen the apes and the watermelons.

Bea was momentarily speechless as she contemplated the perfect timing of everything. She was mesmerized and awestruck at the sheer vast intricacy of it all. Whoever is planning and organizing this incredible reality play I find myself in is nothing short of a genius, she thought, and went to wake up Leonora so that she could share the marvellous moment of revelation with her.

“Oh for god’s sake Bea, you woke me bloody up to tell me that? Bugger off you rude tart” Leo replied crossly when Bea woke her and told her all about the astonishing coincidence. “Things like that are happening all the bloody time, or haven’t you noticed? That’s just Everyday Magic, for Flove’s sake, now piss off and let me get some sleep”

But Bea had a feeling that this was much more than just Everyday Magic. This felt like something else, something incomprehensibly huge and wonderful. Not that Everyday Magic isn’t incomprehensibly huge and wonderful too, she reminded herself.

Maybe is WAS “just” Everyday Magic after all….

The Chief Minister of the Oddlings sat behind her desk, smiling at her new protege.

“Well then, T57, you’re ready to start. Who have you been assigned to?” she asked.

“Gabor, Sindy and Swinde” replied T57 promptly. She wasn’t quite sure who these characters were, but the names popped into her head strongly at that moment, and if she’d learned anything at the Ministry, it was to trust whatever popped into her head.

“Gabor, Sindy and Swinde!” exclaimed the Chief Minister. “Why, they’re mine!”. She rummaged through the files on her desk. T57 assigned to three from her own batch! This was going to be interesting!

“Nice cuppa, Norm, what kind is it? Doesn’t taste like Typhoo” asked Sue.

“Oh, it’s a herbal one I think, let me see” said Norm, rummaging in the bin for the wrapper. “Never seem to get a cup of ordinary tea these days, it’s all herbal stuff. Here it is: Siberian Watermelon and Mushroom”.

“Tastes quite nice” replied Sue, holding her cup out for a refill.

“Fancy a cuppa, Sue?” Norm asked.

Sue Flay accepted gratefully. “Yeah, Norm, a cuppa sounds nice”. What a day it had been.

“Mad bunch of nutters, this lot, eh?” Norm smiled ruefully.

“I should say so!” replied Sue. “Are all movie people as wacky as this?”

It was Sue Flay’s first venture into movies, although she was already famous as the singer with the Ova Tones, the popular all girl band.

“No, they’re not” replied Norm. “Frankly, no, they are not this mad usually. This is a decidedly odd bunch, if you ask me”.

“Oooh” said Sue, momentarily speechless. “Hhmmmm”.

Dory, what’s the elsespace arrangement? asked young Becky, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. And who is Gayesh? I had the strangest dream. I think I was in the dream, but I was older than I am now, and everywhere I looked, there was another me. Then I had another dream, a fat lady in a grey raincoat was sitting on a bench and she’d dropped her blue glass mosaic on the pavement and it was all shattered in pieces. She was on her way to the antique market with it to sell it and she dropped it…..

Interesting, Becky, replied Dory absentmindedly. Don’t forget to write them in your dream journal.

“Where are you going now, Dory?” asked young Becky, who was watching over Dory’s shoulder as she booked flights on the computer. “You only just got back from Madagascar. I want to come with you this time.”

“Ok” replied Dory absentmindedly, who wasn’t really listening.

1da stood on the shore. amazement splattering awe across his universe. he knew as a seeker he had to return. his journey beginning once again, he watched closely as he stepped from stone to stone along the pathless shoreline of the clear water stream. the scent of cedar and low water rocks covered in moss penetrating deeply with each breath, he smiled… his return and arrival on this planet far into the valley he always and forever would returned to because it was the center of his seeking, he found the depth of his awareness opening…

“wait. which planet is this again? of the 19 it has to be one of my favorites.”

“timing is everything.” the whisper of the universe

“damp drats. missed again.” he replied to the babbling waters.

“greetings all ye who enter upon my existence.”

– 1da – as in the number 0ne (1) & da as in the smallest particle of nothingness. 8-07-08 …because of course 1da watches from a distance. planet geopositioning time being 4:27:42 PM in about the middle of the Pacific Pond.

Roshan sipped his tea thoughtfully. I hope you know what you’re doing, Gayesh.

Gayesh smiled confidently at his uncle. Stop worrying, Roshan! It’s all going perfectly to plan. Nishanti will be here in a few days; she will act as bait for the others. Becky is already here, and doing well. I don’t anticipate problems with Becky.

Roshan snorted.

Gayesh continued: Bea and Leonora have been contacted, although they are not objectively aware yet. We may have to send someone back; we need their cooperation.

Roshan raised his eyebrows. And what if they don’t cooperate?

Gayesh replied with a sinister chuckle, Leave it to me, uncle. Things are coming together perfectly.

Becky visited the nursery at The Facility every day, and smiled vaguely at the triplets, relieved that they were thriving and being well cared for. She had spent several happy hours ordering a new wardrobe online, charging it all to The Facility, whose staff were being wonderfully kind and accomodating. She spent the days reading historical novels, lounging on the recliners on the numerous patios and balconies, or strolling through the colourful leafy gardens, or floating in the cool lotus filled pools, without a care in the world.

The past few months had been draining, exhausting. The unexpected break from everything that was familiar was doing her a power of good.

One hot still afternoon, Gayesh, the director of the facility, called her into his large airy office. The antique ceiling fan ruffled the papers on his desk. The papers were part of the antique decor, giving the room a nostalgic 20th century air.

Becky, we have been observing you while you’ve been staying with us, Gayesh said kindly. And we would like to make you an offer.

Observing me? asked Becky, feeling a trifle violated.

Oh, you know, at the essence level, dear, replied Gayesh, with a gentle smile. Your essence did agree, we couldn’t be intrusive, of course, as you know.

Oh well, if my essence agreed that’s ok I guess, answered Becky, mollified. What’s your offer?

Gayesh explained at length the purpose of the Facility, while Becky yawned and studied her new shoes, her mind wandering…

…….and so, in a nutshell, Gayesh was saying, If you give us permission, we can send a cloned Becky back to Galle, and the husband Sean, while you, my dear, do whatever you desire. You can be mother to the essences already lined up to manifest via your, er, the clones, body (and may I point out that none of our undercover clones so far have been uncovered, shall we say), which will facilitate….Gayesh chuckled….your new found freedom! You will be a free Becky that nobody knows exists! Free to wander hither and yon, without any responsibilities…..what do you say?

I accept your offer, sir! Becky said, jumping up to shake Gayesh’s hand.

Franiel lifted the metal latch and pushed open the creaking door of the old shed. In the darkness he could make out of the shape of boxes and other various objects, then, as his eyes became more accustomed to the darkness, he saw the motorbike propped up against the far wall.

What are you up to young man?

Franiel jumped and spun around. It was Lydia, just returned from her journey to the market.

Oh hello again! You startled me … Phoebe suggested I check out the motorbike, see if I can get it going.

Lydia looked grave. Did she now? Well it’s been many a long year since that piece of junk worked. Anyway so you’ve met Madame Chesterhope then, and what did you make of her? She was giving Franiel that deeply penetrating stare again. Franiel wondered kindly if perhaps she was shortsighted.

Oh very nice … and I met Vincentius the parrot too.

Lydia chuckled. Did you now?

Yes, actually Phoebe told me a rather unusual story.

At that Lydia broke into gales of laughter. Let me guess, about mixing the aura and the egg?

Yes, that’s right, replied Franiel, his face breaking into a smile too as he realised the absurdity of it.

Lydia wiped the tears of laughter from her face. ’Ere Lad, I told you things are not what they always seem. She thought for a moment. I’m parched from my long walk, I am going inside to make a brew. Why don’t you join me? If you are going to be stopping then there are a few things you need to know.

Becky arrived at the cafe twenty minutes late, looking breathless and disheveled. Scanning the room with a wild eye, she spotted Tina engrossed in a magazine in a booth in the far corner. Flopping down on the leatherette seat, Becky ran her hands through her hair and said Holy Moly, Tina, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.

BREATHE, replied Tina, in a deeply resonant voice, a trifly mischeivously, Becky thought. Breathe into YOU…..

Oh bugger off Tina, Becky said affectionately. Thanks for coming at such short notice.

Well, out with it then, Becks, what’s the panic this time? What fine pickle have you got yourself into now?

Becky glanced surreptiously over her shoulder, and then leaning over the table whispered to Tina, Promise you won’t tell anyone? Not even Sam and Al?

Tina frowned. Not even Sam and Al?

Seeing Becky’s crumpled face, Tina quickly agreed, saying, Oh alright then, but what’s the big secret? Not that there ARE any secrets….

Yes there bloody well ARE secrets Tina, and this is one of them! Promise not to tell ANYONE!

Alright, alright! Calm down and spit it out, for Gawds sake! Tina said.

Remember when I was in the park? In that tarty nun outfit? Becky continued, in a loud whisper.

How could I forget?

Well, something happened! In the bushes, with this guy, a guy from the future, a time traveller.

Tina raised one eyebrow in disbelief.

It’s no good looking at me like that Tina, I’m telling you it happened. And what’s more, I’m pregnant, and he’s the father.

Tina’s mouth fell open in surprise, and then she said, You TART! You haven’t been married a week! You haven’t even been on your blimmen honeymoon yet!

Well, actually, replied Becky huffily, Don’t you think it’s kind of cool?

What happened then, Becky, do tell! Tina was intrigued.

And Becky proceeded to tell Tina all about it, first entreating her again not to tell anyone.

Blimey, Sha, them waves are huge! The sun’s gone in, an’ all.

It’s alot blimmen warmer than back ‘ome though, Gloria, replied Sharon. Wind’s picking up a bit, innit?

I’ll say! Did you ‘ear someone shout? asked Gloria. Oh bugger, it’s started to rain!

Oh give over, Glor, it’ll pass over in a minute. Keep yer knickers on, will ya? It’s a tropical island, the weather’s supposed to be nice and ‘ot, innit?