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  • #3057
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      Deep crimson wild sweet peas reaching up on slender tendrils, rising above the dense profusion of clamouring growth……ants farming aphids in a bounteous cooperation (unlike the battle with ants farming aphids in my own garden)

      #3051
      F LoveF Love
      Participant

        Recovering herself majestically, Tina put on her headphones and played her isotronic creativity tone in order to contribute (and the term “contribute” is used loosely) to the discussion (also used loosely) at hand.

        Tina sat and waited for inspiration. It soon became clear that inspiration had taken a vacation. “Without even sending any casebook notes for perusal. Selfish Inspiration!” thought Tina petulantly.

        Inspiration, telepathically picking up on the Tina’s thoughts, smiled knowingly to herself. Winter, to all intents and purposes, had already arrived, and yet the day was still and rather warm. Picking a particularly vibrant yellow daisy she noticed growing wild among the stones on the side of the path she skipped her way back to the hotel for breakfast.

        #3047
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          Dory was on her way to an local greening event, a sort of garden show and time manipulation in one, where contestants took turns demonstrating their skills in rapid~greening. A hideous concrete relic on the coast had been earmarked, and contestants from all over the world were to take turns covering the monstrosity in flowering greenery in the shortest amount of time possible. The events were usually held on a weekend, because everyone was busy vacationing during the week, so use of time manipulation was permitted, as long as it wasn’t too over the top, in other words, weeks and months were permissable, but not years. Except in special cases, such as in the cases where the contestants refused to follow the rules, which it must be admitted, was unsurprisingly often. Prizes were awarded to everyone who participated, really, there were 3D print your own prize stations scattered around the perimeter of the monstrosity site.
          The half finished abandoned hospital that Dory had participated in the previous month had turned out spectacular, especially the mystical combination of tele ~imported prehistoric tree ferns, cherry trees and solar powered fireflies. The addition of ice cream and cupcake printers in the corridors had been the icing on the cake. Indeed the icing in what used to be the mortuary was rather pretty, especially when one hadn’t seen snow for decades, a cool crisp tundra scene with icicles and blue shadows on the snow covered slabs, with clumps of red spotted mushrooms for a splash of colour, not that the extra colour was needed as the very air was a swirling mass of colours.

          #3024
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            She changed from the bold adventurer that she was, the bright fearless digger of tunnels and climber of caravans, the one who wouldn’t be tied down or made to conform, she changed from a joy to a nightmare, from a symbol of brave new autonomy to a nightmare of murderous domination. Black and white, sooty grime and virgin snow, how did it happen? The treacherous grey grid, elusively hiding but everywhere present. Gone now, elsewhere; elsewhere but ever present, dripping inky black and skulking around the perimeter, peering through the gaps in the cane.

            #3023
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              Was it a nightmare? It felt nightmarish, but why? How? What was the nightmare? Was she going mad, finally slipping, down down into the swarming fogs of fear? Making it up? A tormented sick April fool, a late fool, creeping around in the dark? She rubbed her ankles, cold as ice, achilles heels scorched from the lightning. Was she making it up? Lighting, like Victorian gas lamps, the flashing pinpoints on the grey neutral gridweave of perception, falling, falling, into the damp dripping mist. A howling beagle held tightly in the confines of a rigid box, surely she makes it up, but why? It doesn’t make sense, it’s too loose, she howls for the tight rigid box of perception, while the beagle howls to be released. Black drips, drips onto the stack of books, smelling of smoke, inky tar drip drip drip from the chimney pipe, it doesn’t make sense, there was no fire at all that night, where do the black inky drips come from? Is she making it all up, and if so, why? Behind the row of trees a voice calling, calling, the haggard face of a crone appears, offering the black and white puppy from behind the fence. Oh no, a black and white puppy, not black and white, no, she replied, no, no, averting her eyes from its innocent face. Layers of nightmares swirl in the river mist, and nothing makes sense. And it all makes sense, and she screams for the confines of the rigid box as the beagle howls for release.

              #3020
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                “Wordblade! I know you’re under there, come out!” Mari Fe hissed, her voice muffled under her disguise. When his face appeared through the folds of velvet, she laughed. “What have you done to the band music? Have you heard them? Somebody’s slaughtered their notes, was it you?”

                The Wordblade eased himself out from under the heavy carved platform, glancing up and raising an eyebrow at the statue of Jesus towering above him.

                “Very fetching” he said, as he pulled Mari Fe’s red pointy hat off and put it on his own head. “I saw lots of these hats in an 2nd hand shop in, when was it, oh around 2027 I think. Nobody could remember what they were for.”

                “Never mind that, can you do something about the slaughter of the musical notes? There hasn’t been any requirement for surge diversion tactics so far during Semana Santa this year, the energy has been very relaxed and disorganized, less regimental and alot less intense. You were supposed to check in with me first”, Mari Fe said, “But then, who wants to do what they’re supposed to these days?”

                #3019
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  The Pointy Hat surge had been resurrected in Spain, a premature re-enactment of an elaborate ritual of the religious past. Premature because the ritual wasn’t quite in the past yet, but was hovering on the shoreline of past ritual and future re-enactment. The overall energy of the surge was difficult to categorize, and a challenge to divert ~ if indeed, a diversion was necessary.

                  Mari Fe was wary of creating another fiasco like the Three Kings Parade, and had not announced any detiled plans, or any details, either. She trusted that should a surge diversion team be required, a surge diversion team would appear; and sure enough, the Wordblade had answered her call. Mari Fe was aware of the false flag propaganda about the Wordblade, and the deliberate rumour that the Surge Team was looking for him, but she secretly admired his alphabet slaughtering ways and radical approach.

                  As the letters of the alphabet came straggling in from the battlefields of the south, Mari Fe welcomed them, and gave them all soup, urging them to rest. She warned them that they may be called on during the weekend, if the premature retro rituals got out of hand.

                  #3018

                  Special Detective Bryan Connor of the Third Task Investigative Unit of the Surge Team Force pored desperately over his case notes. He’s been tracking the elusive Wordblade ever since the Wordblade almost wiped an entire Verse civilization off the face of Demonta, where the surge began. He scratched his temple feverishly & clamped his eyes shut. The Wordblade’s latest massacre occurred on Twitter, where he publicly slaughtered the alphabet.

                  “How is it possible that he cannot be caught?” He pondered aloud. “He commits deed after deed of expression & he cannot be accounted for.”

                  Just then, Mari Fei strode through his marble-walled office. Her commanding stride elicited an aura of assurance and regal confidence, & Connor turned around & met it with relief sighing through his breath. “Ah, Professor Fei of the Institute of Spirit/Consciousness. I’m so glad to see you. Perhaps you could-”
                  “Assist you in locating Wordblade?” She chimed in. She laughed heartily at the sight of Connor’s astonished & mildly bewildered expression.
                  “Don’t bother yourself with asking me how I know. I just do.”
                  “Ah, then I have no need to impress the severity of these circumstances. The Wordblade’s elusive deeds are overwhelming: he seems to be intently breaking every rule for the sheer fun of it & he doesn’t care.”
                  Professor Fei slowly walked pass him & climbed up the spiral stairs that led to a balcony overlooking the vastness of the Murtuda Galaxy. The Murtuda was the biggest galaxy in the southern Universe, & by far certainly the biggest, boasting a total of 125 portal-highways that bore the blood of intergalactic travelling.
                  “Bryan,” she sighed. “Don’t concern yourself with catching Wordblade or understanding his motives. That young man is a danger unto himself, so we just let him be.”
                  “But if we let him be then we may never calculate the amount of havoc he could wreak!”
                  “I know that, but the issue still-”
                  “No!” He broke her off. “The Counsel always justifies his deeds as an issue of self-freedom. He’s out there slaughtering alphabets & kicking poets’ butts for being normal & the Counsel embraces that?”
                  He became silent for a moment, contemplating the Professor’s response. He knew he took a bold step but the Surge Team was on the verge of capturing Wordblade & they needed as much help as they could.

                  When the Professor turned around, she looked calmly at him.

                  #3017
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    meanwhile in South Africa, an alphabet slaughtering surge made landfall, scattering the inhabitants, celebrities and everyday heroes alike. Some suspected the elusive Wordblade

                    “Alliteration ascends the assonance of abseiling abstract aspects of anterior antiquities from ancient altars,
                    Bouldering down blocks of brooks that break the boring & bland borders of bondage,
                    And blinking through bleak and black boxes of brisk bravery.
                    Creeping into crops of crooked crocks with crotches of cockroaches cramming into cans of calamity, the crisp cat crackles the calling.
                    Dreaming of damning devils and demons dancing in droplets of dreary darkness drags the drunken diligence from the draught’s damnation,
                    Even the everlasting ethereal elves ebbed and eased into the effervescent eloquent estate of eternal elitism.

                    For the feeble and fumbling fatuous frontiers, the folly frolicked and fornicated with the familiar friend from foes’ fervent fevers;
                    Greater than gradient grand gestures of gestaltic granite grasses,
                    The gruesome grizzle grabbed the gore by the gripped grunting.
                    Higher than homelands of hands in horizons,
                    Heavens and Hells or Hades hazily hear the honing of the horses and horns-
                    In internal infernos of inflicting infringes of institutional insurrections Interrogations instigated imminent innate innovations.
                    Jacknives of jaundiced and jilted jokers jabbed at the jumping jingles of the jesting jackals that jet over jerseys of jeering,
                    For the Killer Krakens kelp the kites from kids who keep kaleidoscopes of kind and keen keepers.

                    Longer than languid lads that laze in lost latitudes the lieutenant lounged behind lines of lingering losses-
                    Maids mellowed around mazes of men and manners of mad moments and made for mates on mattresses on mothered matrimony.
                    Noisy & never-ending neckties on nests of nicked numbers never nominated the nurses that nosed the nuns for nuns’ nihilism
                    Beyond the Oligarchs of overt operations of obligating omnipotence ostracizing the omniscience & omitting its ownership to the omnipresent order.
                    Pilgrims to pentagons by people from poached & palpitated places of placards of propaganda pondered their positions in this power polarity
                    When quivering quills of quavering queens quelled the quarterly quests of the quaint quarrels.

                    Because roving rivers of raging ravines and raving reviews raced to the rest of the ripped rampant ravages and revelled at the rambling randomness
                    Structured subsiding and subsidized societies should string the strongholds of the supreme sultans of seeded senses.
                    Taking the trusty treaty the trussed toppled truants took the trickling ticking of time to the tables of trampled trees of timber,
                    For under the ubiquitous umbilical umbrellas of ultra-sounds from upper-level ulcers underground underworlds underestimated the union.

                    Vivid visions of voracious vampires of vexing vacuum vortexes vilified the vindicated vindictives from the violent vapid vanity
                    While wild & wily whiskers of whispered whisky whisked the wailing widows
                    From the wells of wanting when the wanton warriors walked on waters.
                    Yards of years of yearning the yesterday’s yonder yarns of yellow yolk yawned Into the youth’s yoked yams
                    For zigzags of zapped zebras to zip the zest in zealous zones.”

                    #3016
                    ÉricÉric
                    Keymaster

                      The celebrity surge as well as the past week of haphazardous strategy meeting in Shangpoon had left Cornella panting and pondering on the mysterious meaning of the motto of these meetings: “touch stone, pass the river”…
                      Now with Easter happening around the same time as the Chinese Tomb Sweeping day festival, an odd impish idea crossed her mind of switching the invitations she was to send for tomb-sweeping with those for Easter eggs hunting.

                      #3013
                      Jib
                      Participant

                        Cornella was tearing out her hair trying to understand why she couldn’t find any meeting room available for the first day. It was bad enough that she had to prepare the presentation about the budget, and to top it off she had just been appointed to the the week’s room planning. Vivian, their secretary was sick, she’d apparently caugh some naughty shitty stuff and was spending her time between her bed and the bathroom, and obviously she hadn’t done her job.

                        “I don’t understand, we’re the only teams in this building and that software tells me everything is booked.”
                        “I think they are rewiring all the meeting room tomorrow,” said Aqua Luna.
                        “How do you…” Cornella stopped. Did Aqua Luna just talked about rewiring? “I didn’t know you were taking english lessons,” she said.
                        “I don’t,” simply said the Chinese woman, and she returned to her work.

                        Cornella’s mind was already trying to find another place where they could meet for the first day. Something that wouldn’t make her team appear disorganized. The aquarium would be too distracting. A hotel was out of the question as their meeting was supposed to be secret.

                        She suddenly had an idea. She rushed into Ed’s office and began to knock the walls, carefully listening to the sound.

                        #3010
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          Cornella wondered if the Shangpoon pig incident was a red herring, and if the real story was another successful surge team diversion of pig flooh into a surge of snilk, just in time for the opening of the new cooperative time travel party yurt factory inauguration in Adelaide.

                          #3009
                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            It was the month of mass lunacy, and all through the house, all the creatures were snoring, except the mouse. All mad as Almad on the Rides o9f March, Mari Fe cackled out loud, then pulled a face, remembering the feel of the spongy mouse between her fingers in the kitchen sink. Expecting the blockage in the drain to be dog hairs, the surprisingly solid but spongy feel had been a shock, and the sensation had lingered nauseatingly.

                            How long had he been in the mop bucket? Then it dawned on her ~ the dog leg riddle. Of course! He appeared just after the first dog leg clue ~ and no doubt left, via the mop bucket, when the dog leg riddle was solved.

                            Mari Fe shivered, it was all rather spooky. No wonder she felt a bit mad.

                            #3007
                            ÉricÉric
                            Keymaster

                              The impending strategy and budget review was now quickly upon them.

                              The much questioned old new authority of the Surge Team had decided all the countries had to join for that week long first round of strategy plan and as Long Poon was too much of a reminder of work (they said, but many suspected too much of a reminder of Ed Steam’s empire), Madam Li had graciously offered to host the venue in Shangpoon, where they had managed to corner 15,000 floating piglets and her services were still probably needed.

                              All the thirteen chief operatives were busy setting things in order, and delegating current tasks during their business trip. Some of them were still hopelessly fumbling in spreadsheets and slides —a inane exercise in style they thought, but still…

                              “I can’t stand it!” Cornella almost exploded in front of her computer, now returned to decent level of cleanliness since Aqua’s return. She was sick of this old ageing alzheimering authority. Not that she missed Ed too much now. He was a pig —and gawd, this waxed mustache from another epoch… A pig they all liked because they didn’t know better at the time and his charisma covered for all the tiny slips of behaviour or even judgement. She’d seen that same feeling when the ceremony was held for his ashes spreading; most of the tears shed there had looked a bit contrived.

                              The mission to replace the pope with an alien-reconfigured Jesuit was a success, thanks to clever team work and her stellar delicate planning skills. A plan hatched before Ed’s demise, but that the old guys had been glad to call theirs. That was the waking call for her. If they could get rid so easily of the papacy, she would blow that budget convention from inside.
                              That required thorough planning though, and a bit of luck. Most of the chick would gladly be on board with this.
                              That’s when the mysterious vanishing dog legs cabinet came back to her attention.

                              #3006
                              Jib
                              Participant

                                The pond was full of black tadpoles. The creatures were wriggling restlessly, following invisible currents, connecting dark stains packed with thousands of them. Benjamin Goat immersed a small plastic bottle into one of the biggest node, it sucked the little buggers like a fat syringe.
                                “Such a small container won’t reduce their population too much”, he thought. Indeed, he had always wondered why there were so many of them in the early stages and why you would see so few frogs or toads. The remaining tadpoles were beginning to gather around his hand. He repressed a shiver. A new idea for a movie just sprang up from his subconscious. Something to do with man-eater tadpoles. That would certainly hit the box office for months.
                                He smiled. There were enough of them in the bottle.

                                “Yuck!” said a fat pink lady before licking her strawberry ice cream.

                                “It’s for my son”, said Benjamin just before realizing he was justifying again. His psychiatrist had told him there was no need for justifying, it was like apologizing, and he needn’t apologize, he was the great Benjamin Goat after all. He snorted and mimicked drinking from his bottle. This time, she was disgusted. She made the mistake to hold her ice cream too far from herself and one of those Gib’s monkey with the pink ass stole it. She was shouting now, people would pay attention to her instead of him. People always pay attention to what’s more annoying.
                                Paradoxically, he felt a pang of jealousy. He was not used to let go of others’ attention.

                                His cell phone vibrated, three long vibrations and seven short ones. The code for his secret society. It was a great idea to put it in his last movie, unfortunately it hadn’t had the desired effect. People were so gullible that they would believe everything that came out in a fiction movie.
                                “The Jesuit is in the place”, said a vocoded voice. That was all. It could only mean one thing. It was all going according to the plan. He smiled and handed out the bottle to a kid. He wouldn’t need that after all.

                                #3005
                                Jib
                                Participant

                                  The phone rang while she was preparing her cabbage with soy sauce. It triggered a memory of a blue helmet. Quickly gone.
                                  She hesitated a moment and stopped what she was doing to pick up the phone.
                                  Her mother began speaking straight away.
                                  “Where have you been all this time ? You’ll turn me mad. You’re so like your father, keeping to himself all those times when he was out playing mahjong with his friends. But I knew where that bastard was…”
                                  Her voice was raspy after years of never being able to be speechless, and most astoundingly, she never repeated herself. The woman was even a sleeptalker. No wonder her husband would rather sneak out of the house to play with his friends.
                                  Aqua Luna had developed an opposite habit, she would find her solace in silence and in doing house cleaning. But this time, the voice of her mother was fascinating. Something in it seemed different.

                                  A blue flash interrupted her fascination. She almost jumped out of her pajamas.
                                  Listen carefully”, was saying the blue helmet.

                                  #3004
                                  Jib
                                  Participant

                                    Aqua Luna woke up. She was in her bed. She spent a moment wondering how she got there. She had no recollection whatsoever of what happened and her last memory was about the time she left work and met Tony in the parking lot.
                                    She was craving. She went to the kitchen in her green frog pajamas, automatically turning on the TV on her way. The program was about the recent retirement of the Pope. The reporter was saying something about a possible blackmail by a secret society famous for their recent appearance in a Benjamin Goat’s movie.

                                    She winced. The fridge was almost empty except for a few chinese cabbages and century eggs.

                                    #3001
                                    ÉricÉric
                                    Keymaster

                                      Ed Steam’s brilliant plan was simple enough. He had dreamt about it a while ago and the idea had grown on him ever since. Now, he had all he needed to make it happen. The land, the materials, and the artefacts and rotes needed to manipulate the bulk of it around.

                                      It was simple, actually and yet every detail had to be perfect. There were matters of perspective and proportions that were delicate to manage.
                                      And of course he had to be careful using the artefacts with finesse, to be undetected by the Surge team’s monitoring systems. He had designed most of them, so he wasn’t too concerned, although Cornella’s upgrades may be more efficient.
                                      He had calculated the project would probably take him years to complete, but he was fine with it, it was a fun adventure, creating your own palace so to speak.

                                      First, the grounds. That of a glorious castle, with French gardens on a large lightly sloped tumulus. His armoured bears could stay in the surrounding forest where beehives were strategically placed.
                                      On top of the tumulus, instead of a castle, there was a large mill, a cross between a windmill, castle and lighthouse maybe, with walls white and round, many entrances, rooms and stairs leading to the upper levels. That was where most of the work was to be organized. The whole roof was actually like a city, with narrow streets even.
                                      Except the buildings where made from entire stacks of full-sized caravans, making living units, each with its own interior and decoration.

                                      He didn’t know why the stacks of caravans were so appealing to him. Frankly, said like this it could seem like a hill of rubbish dump. However, he had visited this dream place when it was full of people, a fellowship of people living in the caravans and enjoying this particular place. He’d figured, this seems so great and I have the means to create it, so if not me, who else?

                                      #3000

                                      “How do you feel now?”
                                      “Not so bad, considering I just survived a slug indigestion…”
                                      Ernie and Jett were giving sad glances at their nearly empty glasses of Bourgogne red wine. Ernie’s plate of snails au beurre persillé was barely touched, and Jett who was eyeing at it for a while now as he was sucking on his empty shells decided now was a good time to grab it and switch it with his own empty one while continuing to rant loudly in the French restaurant with his mouth full.
                                      “You see, that’s why I don’t like those bloody Chinese greasy spoons, especially after a surge. You never know what you’re goin’ to get. Me in’ haffin’ none of it sea bloody bottom-feeders cucumber…”

                                      Ernie was still looking a bit pale, except for the occasional patches of purple hematomata, that the doctor mentioned would disappear once the body manages to expel the impossible to digest slug.
                                      “Should have had that blessed surgery, would have been faster” he moaned.
                                      “Are you kiddin’? Look, don’t want to be gross or anythin’ but last time I had things expelled too fast, it wasn’t a pretty sight!”
                                      “Oh stop it again with your oily shit fish, that’s a blessin’ disgusting memory I would merrily forget!”.
                                      “L’addition!” Ernie had had enough of Jett’s snail munching. It was time to get to their next assignment. Even if the occupational medicine doctor had tried to deter him resuming work too quickly, it was better that than dragging around an empty house in flip-flops and pajamas.
                                      The good thing was that the Disaster Damage Team was never short of assignments. Most of the time they were working in locksteps with the Surge Team, clearing the aftershocks, so they didn’t have to fear about boredom.

                                      #2997

                                      After a few months travelling from Spain to France in their quest for the dragons, with already two visa applications for China rejected, endless unkind mocking laughs or condescending looks from strangers, and having had to pawn temporarily the sabulmantium to buy Vincentius a shirt, Arona and her motley family were thinking it was time for a turn of fate.

                                      It didn’t take them too long hopefully.
                                      Of course, the sabulmantium was recovered as soon as they had realized it was actually more lucrative in this dimension to have Vincentius take off his shirt in shady bars at night for a few meals and lodging, and some little extras. Mandrake had been kind to provide ample squeaking mice supplements, which Arona had politely declined, for which Mandrake faked each time the saddest of disappointments. All in all, so far their life on the roads had been easier than she would have thought.
                                      Of course, they’d lost Sanso a few times as he couldn’t stay at one place for too long, and keeping track of his movements was near impossible. So they relied on trust that he would always find his way, which surprisingly enough, he did every single time.

                                      He had been the one to provide them with the way to the island actually. One day, after weeks without news, he’d reappeared, hammering at the door of their little room at the top of their 9 storey hotel in Paris, near the St Honoré Market Place. He was wearing the quaintest bright violet velvet surplice, and was carrying a bottle of glowing green liquor.

                                      To settle in a lovely island of the Ocean they called Pacific… It didn’t take too much convincing: Paris was starting to get boring, and far too cold. Arona missed the moist glowing warmth of Leormn’s cave, that was so good for her skin. She didn’t miss the riddles though.

                                      The entry point of the tunnel was inside the catacombs, and they’d almost got lost a few times, she could have sworn, although Sanso was ever confident they were on track, even when a few dead-ends were staring at him in the face with toothless skulls grins. But after a few hours, the tunnel actually broadened, and glowed a lovely shade of orange.

                                      It was funny, traveling through the Earth’s crust, made her almost feel at home. If all the dragons of this realm had left, and were hidden somewhere, she was certain it had to be to such a place. It gave her hopes again to meet one in this strange land which had forgotten magic.

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