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  • #4820

    “Hang on. I just saw a friend of mine,” said the driver, skidding to a stop. “You don’t mind, do ya?”

    Without waiting for an answer, he leaned over and opened the front passenger door.

    “Oy, Veranassessee! You wanna a lift somewhere?”

    “I’m out for the exercise. Thanks though. “ She waved them on.

    She’s a good sort,” said the driver, narrowly avoiding a large pot hole. “Bloody roads are a disgrace. She’s been on the island for years. Since the upset.”

    “What upset was that?” Asked Maeve, raising questioning eyebrows at Shawn-Paul.

    The driver turned round and looked at them in the back seat. “I’ve probably said more than I should but …. “

    “Watch out!” shouted Shawn-Paul.

    #4789

    “How far is it?” Gloria was starting to complain, after the blue powder’s effects started to wane and give her a fit of anxiety mixed with intense boredom.

    “Oh quiet!” snapped Sha, “it’s not enough we had to drag you along, don’t you start to complain. I need to concentrate.”

    Gloria turned to Mavis quizzically. The bus took a bump in the road, and she giggled madly as if under the influence of laughing gas. “Look at her!” she said pointing at the vibrating cellulite around Sharon’s ankles.
    “She’s got to have a brainwave, and you’ll know what next!”

    Sharon started to shout “STOP! Now! Bus 57 express to Glasgow airport, then we Brexit to Norway!”

    “Wot?! No bloody way! It’s going to be cold ‘ere!” Glo whined.

    “Of bloody course it is!” Mavis giggled hysterically, drawing glances from the other seats “it’s going to be a cold beauty treatment I read all about it on the Gloogle!”

    “The article said: a party will meet you in Bodø, Norway! It’s clear, no?”

    “I have no idea ‘ow you managed to mouth that ø, but we better catch the blimin’ bus express; got a feeling diabolical nurse Trassie is goin’ to catches up on us trail!”

    #4776

    When Albie woke up, it was shaking all around, as if the ground was quaking under him. It took him a moment to realize he was at the back of the jeep, and the jeep was careening on the dirt road, with none other than Mandrake at the wheel.

    “Don’t stare at him like this, kid, and make yourself useful!” Arona shouted in the action, taking a Jiborium Emporium pellet gun while pushing a bag of ammo at him.

    WHAT?!”

    “I’m not sure you realized, but we’re being chased!”

    The sound of a bullet flew by, missing the car window only thanks to an agile quarter turn of the wheel by Mandrake, followed by a sudden acceleration back onto the road.

    “Who’s chasing us!!?” Albie was confused.

    “Unclear!” Arona shouted, aiming at the black and white corvette behind them, with Ugo the gecko trying to keep stuck onto her head despite the shaking.

    She fired three shots of her magical Owl Pellets, reloading after each one.

    “We’re going to be short of ammo, Mandrake! How far?!”

    “I DON’T KNOW” the cat meowed, braking to avoid running over a loitering marsupial.

    HOW FAR Mandrake!?” Arona said, taking three new shots, managing to hit a headlight and the windshield.

    “You have no idea how difficult it is to find a body of water in this place, do you?! We missed the turn to the waterhole about 30 miles ago, at this speed!”

    “Better not to risk it, not enough water depth! We need the river.”

    “Todd River should be around that cliff there,” he pointed. But the road ends… heEEere!!”

    “GO FOR IT!”

    :fleuron: ** S PLASH ** :fleuron:

    The other car had braked just before the cliff, while the jeep was sinking slowly into the river which was carrying them near the shore.

    “Quick Mandrake! The pearl!”

    All Albie could see next was the swirl of pouring light mixed into the water vortex.

    He held his breath as tight as possible, for as… long… as… possible.

    GASP!

    “Mmm, that was entertaining. But it ruined my dinner.”

    The dragon was there, looking at the three of them drenched near its pool. They were back at the Doline.

    #4760

    Aunt Idle:

    The old ruse was still working, so I continued to use it. Only way to get a bit of time to myself, especially lately. A bit of quiet time, to think. And there was so much to think about, what with all these people around. I wasn’t put on this earth to make beds and pander to tourists, and the clues were coming in thick and fast. Oh yes, some of these new guests were thick, and some were fast. Anyway, I pretended to be inebriated again and did a pretty good imitation of a lurching drunk to throw them off the scent. They always fall for it.

    After turning the key in the lock of my bedroom door, I leaned my back against it for a minute and closed my eyes. It was the bird flying in the window at the crack of dawn that got me worried. Now I’m not a superstitious person by any means, but there have been times when a bird in the house has been followed by a death, and things like that stick in your mind. The sight of Mater in that red pantsuit had etched itself on my mind as well, which was almost as worrying as the bird.

    I went over to the window and pulled down the blinds. The bright sun was making my head hurt. I was thirsty, and wished I’d brought a cup of tea with me, but lurching drunks can’t be seen to be making plans for a quiet afternoon of sober contemplation. I tried valiantly to ignore my parched mouth, but it was no good. I put my ear to the door, and the coast seemed clear so I inched it open, looking up and down the hallway. I sprinted to the bathroom, unfortunately tripping over the vacuum cleaner that Finley had no doubt left there deliberately to trip me up. She was a dark horse, that one. Good at dusting, and reliable, so I suppose that was something. Hard to get hired help out here so we had no choice, really.

    I smashed my nose on Mater’s doorknob and skinned my shin on the hoover. My nose hurt like hell, and quickly spurted an astonishing quantity of bright blood, similar in colour to that ghastly pantsuit. My fall made a hell of a din so I staggered quickly to the bathroom wash basin for the much needed drink of water before anyone came to investigate the crash, hoping to get back to my room before anyone appeared on the scene.

    Had the water in the cold tap been cold, it might have been different, but the new water pipes were still above ground, and the cold water was scalding hot from the heat of the sun on the black pipes. I didn’t have a moment to waste, so drank some quickly, horrid though it was. The unfortunate side effect of the cold water being hot was that it encouraged and diluted the blood, making the overall effect look considerably more alarming. I was tempted to blame Mater for the whole sorry affair, for starting the red theme with that damn pantsuit. I actually said “bloody pantsuit”, which struck me as inordinately funny, and made it hard to get back to the bedroom quickly. I was still laughing hysterically, leaving red hand prints and strange red markings along the corridor wall, when Sanso appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.

    “I saw cave paintings like that in Zimbabwe,” he said conversationally, taking a closer look at the bloody hand prints. “I’ve often wondered what the purpose was, the meaning.” He raised an eyebrow and smiled at me. “Have you interpreted these?”

    I was momentarily speechless, as you might imagine. Then I had an impulse, and grabbed his elbow and propelled him into my room, slamming and locking the door behind him. He was almost unnaturally calm and unperturbed, albeit looking as if he was trying not to smile too broadly, which was just the kind of energy I needed. My kind of man! I gave him one of my famous coquettish looks, which made him laugh out loud, and then I caught sight of myself in the wardrobe mirror and hastily grabbed an old nightgown off the floor and spit on it to rub the blood off my face.

    “My kind of girl!” he laughed. Oh, how he laughed.

    #4747

    In reply to: The Stories So Near

    ÉricÉric
    Keymaster

      WHERE ARE THEY ALL NOW ? 🗻

      a.k.a. the map thread, and because everything happens now anyway.

      POP-IN THREAD (Maeve, Lucinda, Shawn-Paul, Jerk, [Granola])

      🌀 [map link] – KELOWNA, B.C., CANADA

      It looks like our group of friends live in Canada, Kelowna.

      Kelowna is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. The name Kelowna derives from an Okanagan language term for “grizzly bear”. The city’s motto: “Fruitful in Unity”

      Interestingly, Leörmn the dragon from the Doline may have visited from time to time : Ogopogo / Oggie / Naitaka

      FLYING FISH INN THREAD (Mater/Finly, Idle/Coriander/Clove, Devan, Prune, [Tiku])

      Though very off the beaten track, the Flying Fish Inn may be located near a location that was a clue left as a prank by Corrie & Clove on the social media to lure conspiracy theorists to the Inn.
      🔑 ///digger.unusually.playfully

      It seems to link to a place near documented old abandoned mines.

      🌀 [map link]  – SOME PLACE IN THE MIDDLE OF AUSTRALIA, OFF ARLTUNGA ROAD

      DOLINE THREAD (Arona, Sanso/Lottie, Ugo, Albie)

      This one is a tricky geographical conundrum, since the Doline is a multi-dimensional hub. It connects multiple realities and places though bodies of water, with the cave structure (the Doline) at its center, a world on its own right, where talking animals and unusual creatures are not uncommon.

      It has shown to connect places in the Bayou in Louisiana, where Albie & Mandrake went to see the witch, as well as the coastal area of Australia, where they emerged next in their search for Arona.

      At the center of the Doline is a mysterious dragon named Leörmn, purveyor of precious traveling pearls and impossible riddles. We thus may infer possible intersection points in our dimension, such as 🔑 ///mysterious.dragon.riddle a little North of Hawaii, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

      However, the inside of the Doline would look rather like Phong Nha-Ke Bang gigantic cave in Vietnam.

      NEWSREEL THREAD (Ms Bossy, Hilda/Connie, Sophie, Ricardo)

      It is not very clear where our favourite investigative team is located. They are likely to be near an urban area with a well-connected international airport, given their propensity for impromptu traveling, such as in Iceland and Australia.

      For all we know, they could be settled in Germany: 🔑 ///newspapers.gone.crazy
      or Denmark 🔑 ///publish.odds.news

      As for the Doctor, we strongly suspect his current hideout to be also revealed when searching from his signature beautification prescription that has made him famous in connoisseur circles: 🔑 ///beauty.treatment.shot at the frontier of Sweden and Finland.

      LIZ THREAD (Finnley, Liz, Roberto, Godfrey)

      We don’t really know where the story happens; for that, one would need to dive into Liz’s turbulent past, and that would confound the most sane individual, starting with keeping count of her past husbands.

      As a self-made powerful best-selling writer, we could guess she would take herself to be the JK Rowling of the Unplotted Booker Prize, and thus would be a well-traveled British uptart, sorry upstart, with a fondness for mansions with character and gardeners with toned glutes. Of course, one would need the staff.

      DRAGON 💚 WOOD THREAD (Glynnis, Eleri, Fox/Gorrash, Rukshan)

      This story happens in another completely different dimension, but it can be interesting to explore some of its unusual geography.

      The World revolved around a central axis, and different worlds stacked one upon the other, with the central axis like an elevator.

      We know of

      • the World of Humans, where most of the story takes place
      • the world of Gods, above it, which has been sealed off, and where most Gods disappeared in the old ages
      • Under these two, the world of Giants exists, still to be explored.

      At the intersection of the central axis of the world and the human world, radiates the Heartwood, a mystical forest powered by the Gem of Creation which has been here since the Dawn of Times, and is a intricate maze, and a dimension in itself. It had grown around itself different woods and glades and forests, with various level of magical properties meant to repel intruders or lesser than Godlike beings.

      The Fae dimension is a particular dimension which exists parallel to the Human World, accessible only to Elder Faes, and where the race originated, and is now mostly deserted, as Faes’ magic waning with the encroachment of humans into the Forest, most have chosen to live in the Forests and try and protect them.

      #4729
      Jib
      Participant

        The room was not oversized and not to bright despite facing south. It had the oddest strange decor Shawn Paul would have expected from that place. It seemed to come right out of a Victorian movie with the heavy furniture that took all the space in the room and the dark and overloaded wallpaper that sucked up the light coming through the velvet curtains.

        Shawn Paul sneezed. It didn’t as much feel dirty as it felt old like his grand parent’s house. He wondered how often the Inn’s staff cleaned the room. He had to move his luggage in order to open the window to get some fresh air. It was so hot and dry. There was a drug store on the other side of the dusty road and a strange man was looking at him. A feeble wind brought in some red dust and Shawn Paul sneezed again, reducing the little enthusiasm he could have had left to nothing. He imagined his clothes covered with red dust and quickly closed the window. As the man was still looking Shawn Paul shut the velvet curtain, suddenly plunging the room into darkness.

        His fear of insects crept out. He had no idea where the light was so he reopened the curtain a bit.

        He then checked thoroughly under the pillows, the bedcover and the bedsheet, behind the chairs and in the wardrobe. Australia was know for having the most venomous creatures and he didn’t want to have a bad surprise. He looked suspiciously at a midge flying around not knowing if it was even safe to kill it. Shawn Paul had never been the courageous type and he began to wonder why on earth he had accepted that trip. He had never traveled out of Canada before.

        Needing some comfort, he looked frantically into his backpack for the granola cookies he had brought with him. With the temperature the chocolate chip had melted and he wondered at how to eat a cookie without dirtying his hands.

        Someone knocked at the door making him jump with guilt like when he was a kid at his grand parents’ and would eat all the cookies in his bedroom without sharing with his cousins.

        “Lunch is served,” a woman’s voice said from the other side.

        Shawn Paul remembered having said with Maeve they would meet at lunchtime so he closed his luggage with an extra padlock and made sure his door was safely locked too before going downstairs.

        Anxiety rushed in when he saw all the people that were already seated at the only table in the lunch room. He might have gone back to his room if Maeve hadn’t come from behind him.

        “Let’s go have a seat.”

        He read between the lines what he was thinking himself: Don’t leave me alone. Whether it was truly what she had meant was not important.

        #4725

        A wild eyed crow was cawing relentlessly since the wee hours of the dawn.
        Nothing much had moved since everyone arrived at the Inn, and in contrast with the hot days, the cool night had sent everyone shivering under the thin woolen blankets that smelled of naphthalene.
        Deep down, Bert was glad to see the old Inn come back to life, even if for a little while. He was weary of the witch though. She wouldn’t be here without some supernatural mischief afoot.
        He glanced in the empty hall, putting his muddy pair of boots outside, not to incur the fury of Finly. He almost started calling to see if anybody was home, but thought better of it. Speaking of the devil, Finly was already up and busy at the small kitchen stove, and had done some outstanding croissants. In truth, despite all her flaws, he liked her; she was a capable lady, although never big on sweet talks. No wonder she and Mater did get along well.
        Bert started to walk along the hall towards the hangar, where he knew old cases where stored, one with a particular book that he needed. It was hard to guess what would happen next. He found the book, that was hidden on the side of the case, and scratched his head while smiling a big wide grin.
        He was feeling alive with the kind of energy that could be a poor advisor were his mind not sharp as a gator’s tooth.

        The book had a lot of gibberish in it, like it was written in a sort of automatic writing. For some reason, after the termite honey episode, Idle had started to collect odd books, and she was starting to see spy games hidden in the strangest patterns.
        Despite being a lazy pothead, the girl was smart, though. Some of her books were codes.

        Bert’s had his fair run with those during his early years in the military. So he’d hidden the most dangerous ones that Idle had unwittingly found, so that she and the rest of the family wouldn’t run into trouble.
        Most of the time, she’d simply forget about having bought or bargained for them, but in some cases, there was a silly obsession with her that rendered her crazy about some of those books. Usually the girls, especially the twins, would get the blame for what was thought a child’s prank. Luckily her anger wouldn’t last long.

        This book though was a bit different. Bert had never found the coding pattern, nor the logic about it. And some bits of it looked like it talked about the Inn. “Encoded pattern from the future”, “remote viewing from the past”, Idle’s suggestions would have run wild with imaginative solutions. Maybe she was onto something…

        He looked a two bits, struck by some of the parts:

        The inn had been open for a long time before any of the tenants had come, and it had been full of people once it had been full all day long.
        She had gone back after a while and opened up the little room for the evening and people could be seen milling about.
        The rest of the tenants had remained out on their respective streets and were quiet and peaceful.
        ‘So it’s the end of a cold year.’
        The woman with golden hair and green eyes seemed to have no intention of staying in the inn as well; she was already preparing for the next year.
        When the cold dawn had started to rise the door to the inn had been open all night long. The young man with red hair sitting on a nearby bench had watched a few times before opening his eyes to see the man that had followed him home.

        There was a young red hair boy that had arrived. He was curious as to the man following.

        The other random bit talked about something else. Like a stuff of nightmares. And his name was on it.

        The small girl stood beside him, still covered with her night clothes. She felt naked by the side of the road. There was nothing else to do.
        In the distance, Bert could faintly hear the howling of the woods, as two large, black dogs pounced, their jaws ready to tear her to pieces. The young girl stared in wonder and fear before the dog, before biting it, then she was gone. She ran off through the bushes. “Ah…” she whispered to herself. “Why am I not alive?” She thought to herself: this is all I need.
        If I am here, they’ll kill or hurt my kids. They won’t miss me for nothing.
        She ran the last few kilometers to her little cottage; not long after, Bert heard the sound of the forest. He was glad it was.

        Maybe the witch was not here for nothing after all.

        #4719

        Granola suddenly popped back in the real world — the one with her friends she meant. Oh, this was all rather confusing. Looking around, she was feeling quite corporeal.

        “That can’t be right!”

        She looked around, feeling herself. That wasn’t her body, it was Tiku’s. Yet, if she was corporeal, did it mean she was in the mental space with the story characters? Boundaries seemed to blur. She took a spin around to get a feel of the space, and fell on her bum with an infectious laughter.
        Tiku was quite pliant and surprisingly accommodating of her in-that-body visits. It was as though they could converse, but it felt like a familiar voice of her own, not someone’s else.

        “I’m in the magical thread of their story, am I not? It’s all in their head…” She thought. She could feel Tiku’s mind there, laughing and answering back something about the Dreamtime, that it was all the same and connected anyway.
        “But it’s confusing as hell!” She liked a bit of order, and explanations in big bold letters.

        A jeep coming out from the horizon followed by dark billowing smoke braked noisily in front of her.

        “Hello there!” A girl was driving, wearing a sort of loose grey hijab, smiling at her.
        Tiku-Granola waved as her, still sitting on her butt.

        “Are you in trouble? No? Great. Listen, we’re looking for an Inn, it shouldn’t be very far from here. Our GPS is a piece of rubbish and is making us turn in rounds… Could you point us there, I’m afraid I took a wrong turn at the last fork in the road.”

        Granola left Tiku to reply, as she seemed to know exactly what to answer.
        “No Miss, you’re on the right road, it’s just a little ahead, you’ll find the old washed-out sign that points to the mines. Follow the sign until you reach the little brook, cross it and it’s on the left, 2 miles, then right, then…”

        Arona stopped the lady.

        “It seems a bit complicated, and my copilot here isn’t that good with memory riddles” she added pointing at Sanso. “Would you care to join us for that last mile.”

        “Sure, of course, I was planning to go back there anyways. Never seen such activity in a while. Seems they’ll need a bit of help there, with all the guests coming.”

        #4707

        An unexpected shaman tart witch was looking and had spotted them coming from afar.

        Head Shaman Tart Witch, if you please.” She muttered in her breath, happy to break the fourth wall and all.

        The sun was already high and the air was sizzling ready to burst out like buttered pop corn.

        “A rather lame metaphor. You’ve done better.”

        The Head Shtart Witch, as we will call her later for brevity’s sake, was as tart as a sour lemon dipped in vinegar, and prone to talking to spirits, when not cackling in tittering fits of laughter, as shamans are wont to do.
        She was surprisingly in tune with the narrator’s voice this late in the day, considering it wasn’t her first bottle of… medicine she ingested today.

        “Voices are rather quiet, yes. I was expecting a bit more… quantity if you know what I mean.”

        The narrator had absolutely no idea of what she meant, not discontent with the quantity per se.

        Three in quantity, they came, looking for her. A girl, visibly in charge, although a bit hard to tell either, buried into the baggy hood and all.

        “The star-studded stockings under the striped red and white trousers were a bit of a give-away though… she was a she, and a bossy pants to boot.” the Head Schwtich replied.

        “And don’t take advantage to maim my full name… Jeeze, they’re so lazy these days. Can’t even spell right.”

        Ignoring the rude comments, the narrator continued.
        Then, a man, a bit namby-pamby with the gait of a devil-may-care goat at that.
        And a boy, on the threshold of manhood, with lots of red hair and freckles he could have put the bush on fire.

        “You have forgotten the gecko… and the cat.”

        The cat wasn’t forgotten of course, but was it technically a cat, with the talking and all? Poor thing had ill-fitted boots (probably a clearance sale from the Jiborium’s), so that it wouldn’t burn its pads on the red hot trail. It seemed stubborn enough to refuse being carried, although not confident enough about the surrounding life in the bush to stop checking every minute for all that crawled and crept around.

        “That’s why they’re here. The protective charms. That, and the jeep of course.”

        The Twitch seemed to know everything so the narrator felt it would probably best to let her finish the comment.

        “Oh, don’t you start. That passive aggressive attitude isn’t going to get your story done, is it. And it’s not like I’m going to follow them in their dangerous and futile quest. It’s your job, better get to it.”

        Indeed, she was only just a sour, old, decrepit…
        “You stop that!”

        :fleuron:

        “Is that her hut?” Albie pointed at the horizon.
        “Yes, I think we’re there.” Arona looked at the compass she’d put around Albie’s neck. “Yes, that’s it.”

        Sanso yawned and stretched lazily “I hope they have a hot shower now, I feel so dirty.”

        Arona chose to ignore Sanso and let him gesticulate. They’d only walked for less than 15 minutes, and the perspective of few more hours of driving with him breathing down her neck started to give her murderous thoughts.

        She turned to the team. “Listen, whatever happens, don’t make rude remarks, even if she seems a bit… unhinged.”

        “Are you talking about the crazy lady with the chameleon on her head, who talks to herself and looks like she hadn’t got a bath in a century?”

        “That’s what I meant Sanso.” Arona rolled her eyes in a secret signature move she owned the secret of. “Listen, it would be better for everyone if you’d stay here and stop talking until we get the keys to the jeep, alright.”

        Luckily for all of them, a little sage smudging and a bakchich in kind sealed the deal with the HEAD Shaman Tart Witch, and less than an hour later, with the mountain at their back, they were all barreling at breakneck speed down the lone road towards the Old Mine Town.

        That’s where the Inn was, now starting to crawl with unexpected guests and long lost family members.

        #4699

        Albie was hurt by Arona’s mockery, but tried to put a brave face. Derailing of the quest was expected, and he had to prove his bravery.
        He had started to realize people outside the Doline had a different way of speaking —very vulgar, his Ma, Freda would say; and they weren’t even nobility, so he couldn’t know for sure what was proper or not. Maybe it was all make believe. In any case, he found the new style rather daring… and exciting.

        He had spotted a large sign with a tourist map on it, and ran to check it while Arona and Sanso were engaged in jubilant jousts of jest.

        When he came back, he had to raise his voice to be heard.

        HRRMEMN! Mil… I mean… Friends! Arona is right, it’s going to be a long trek, and the road doesn’t get any better than this.” He pointed at the lone road in the middle of the sandy reddish expanse traveled by deceptive winds.
        “How long?” Sanso asked apprehensively.
        “By my count, maybe 7 days of walk due East of the place, and that’s if we keep walking during most of the day.”
        “Don’t be daft, boy!” Mandrake interjected. “It’s not like Arona not to have a plan.”
        The following silence was astounding, so he added, his meowing voice thinning as he spoke… “like an e-scooter from Jiborium Emporium? maybe?”

        Sensing the growing doubts, Arona spake. “Milords, do not despair.” Then she burst into a hooting laughter.
        “You are enjoying this, don’t you?” Mandrake said, miffed at her debonair.

        “You’ve become all so strung up now, haven’t you?”
        “Well, it’s not like it’s the friendliest place on Earth, is it? I think I spotted 3 scorpions and one fat brown viper not moments ago, and they didn’t look all too happy with their new neighbours.”
        “…”
        “Us!”
        “Ah, but I told you, we need to go to the local shaman for protection and safe passage first. There at her camp, we’ll get a rental jeep with a GPS. From there, to reach the Inn, it shouldn’t take us more than 10h… and 21min drive. Más o menos, amigos.

        She winked at Albie “is it enough a plan for you, young man?”.

        #4667
        TikuTiku
        Participant

          “Oy! I did it! I’m here!” I laughed and laughed like I was mad, I couldn’t stop for words, too happy to be there I felt like cryin’ over the fire.

          Two fat bungarras roasting here, clubbed hard to be tender, a good hunt for the day.

          I don’t know what got into me, but I jumped on me feet, and told the other girls
          “They roasted good and crisp. Now I want to take these bungarras to the old lady and her family in the inn. Their old chap was always good to us, and I think they don’t eat lots of meat these days.”

          The others looked at me strange, but they let me take the lizards. And I went, not knowing how or why, but happy to be on the dusty road, on my way to the local Inn.

          #4618
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            She had to smile when she saw the thin blue thread stuck to the dogs collar. Lucinda’s friend Sparrow had just been telling her about an incident involving a blue thread, and his interpretation of it. There had been some discussions about the colour, and suggestions that with a somewhat limited range of perceivable colours, one could hardly assign such a broad category as “blue”, for example, to merely one interpretation, despite many agreeing that they would have interpreted it that way too.

            Lucinda was inclined to find the fact that they’d each seen blue threads more amusing than who the string represented, and considerably more interesting (interesting though it was) than if a single blue thread had been seen by one person, regardless of who it represented.

            The fact that all of this occurred on yet another blue thread ~ in a manner of speaking ~ made the whole thing rather amusingly droll.

            #4585
            ÉricÉric
            Keymaster

              Liz’” Godfrey glared reproachfully in the direction of Liz fresh line of grated coco’nut. “What did we say about those old snorting habits of yours?”
              “A whole lot of bloody nonsense, that’s for sure”

              “Except that had you listened to me… err to us,” he corrected, seeing Finnley’s glinting eyes lurking in the dark ominously with furious clicks of her knitting apparatus “we wouldn’t have had these unsavoury lobster mobster characters coming to collect our debts.”

              Silence followed by another loud snort.

              “At least,” sighed Godfrey “with all that extra inspiration, do you have anything new to send to Bronkle? And by new, I mean a completed manuscript, not a suitcase full of gargoyles.”

              #4578
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                “What’s the matter with you?” asked Finnley, noticing Liz looking uncharacteristically quiet and pensive. Was that a tear in her eye glistening as the morning sun slanted in the French window?

                “I’ve just had a letter from one of my characters,” replied Liz. “Here, look.”

                Finnley put her duster on Liz’s desk and sat in the armchair to read it.

                Dear Liz, it said.

                Henry appeared on the same day my young niece arrived from Sweden with her grandma. My mother had already arrived, and we’d just returned from picking them up from the airport. A black puppy was waiting outside my gate.

                “We can’t leave him out here,” I said, my hands full of bags. “Grab him, Mom.”

                She picked him up and carried him inside and put him down on the driveway. We went up to the house and introduced all the other dogs to the newcomers, and then we heard howling and barking. I’d forgotten to introduce the other dogs to the new puppy, so quickly went down and pulled the terrified black puppy out from under the car and picked him up. I kept him in my arms for a while and attended to the guests.

                From then on he followed me everywhere. In later years when he was arthritic, he’d sigh as if to say, where is she going now, and stagger to his feet. Later still, he was very slow at following me, and I’d often bump into and nearly fall over him on the return. Or he’d lie down in the doorway so when I tripped over him, he’d know I was going somewhere. When we went for walks, before he got too old to walk much, he never needed a lead, because he was always right by my side.

                When he was young he’d have savage fights with a plastic plant pot, growling at it and tossing it around. We had a game of “where’s Henry” every morning when I made the bed, and he hid under the bedclothes.

                He was a greedy fat boy most of his life and adored food. He was never the biggest dog, but had an authority over any plates of leftovers on the floor by sheer greedy determination. Even when he was old and had trouble getting up, he was like a rocket if any food was dropped on the floor. Even when he had hardly any teeth left he’d shovel it up somehow, growling at the others to keep them away. The only dog he’d share with was Bill, who is a bit of a growly steam roller with food as well, despite being small.

                I always wondered which dog it was that was pissing inside the house, and for years I never knew. What I would have given to know which one was doing it! I finally found out it was Henry when it was too late to do anything about it ~ by then he had bladder problems.

                I started leaving him outside on the patio when we went out. One morning towards the end, in the dark, we didn’t notice him slip out of the patio gate as we were leaving. In the light from the street light outside, we saw him marching off down the road! Where was he going?! It was as if he’d packed his bags and said, That’s it, I’m off!

                Eventually he died at home, sixteen years old, after staggering around on his last legs for quite some time. Stoic and stalwart were words used to describe him. He was a character.

                A couple of hours before he died, I noticed something on the floor beside his head. It was a gold earring I’d never seen before, with a honeycomb design. Just after he died, Ben went and sat right next to him. We buried him under the oak tree at the bottom of the garden, and gave him a big Buddha head stone. Charlie goes down there every day now. Maybe he wonders if he will be next. He pisses on the Buddha head. Maybe he’s paying his respects, but maybe he’s just doing what dogs do.

                #4552
                ÉricÉric
                Keymaster

                  “It’s quiet here, don’t you think?” Godfrey was enjoying a moment, gazing through the Victorian windows of the silent mansion at the piglets running outside chased by Roberto.
                  “Not in small parts thanks to Elizabeth Madam being abroad for a visit to her Uncle Bob.” Finley raised her nose off her wool balls, as she was indulging in a little knitting break from the cleaning duties by the fire.
                  “God knows what it will bring though. I have an idea, she might come all shaken from so much family time.”
                  “Certainly, no one wants to see her shaken though, we all remember too well the last… episode.” Finnley sighed.

                  #4542
                  Jib
                  Participant

                    Liz was lying on the living room couch in a very roman pose and admiring the shiny glaze of her canines in the pocket mirror she now carried with her at all time. The couch was layered with fabrics and cushions that made it look like a giant rose in which Liz, still wearing her pink satin night gown, was like a fresh baby girl who just saw her first dawn

                    ehm, thought Finnley, eyeing Liz’s face, Maybe not her first. But to the famous author of so many unpublished books’s defence, since the unfortunate ageing spell it was hard to tell Liz’s true age.

                    Finnley looked suspiciously at the fluffy cushions surrounding Liz. Where do they come from. I don’t recall seeing them before. I don’t even recall the couch had that rosy pink cover on it. She snorted. It sure looks like bad taste, she thought. She looked around and details that she hadn’t seen before seemed to pop in to her attention. A small doll with only one button eye. Reupholstered chairs with green pattern fabrics, a tablecloth with white and black stripes, and a table runner in jute linen… Something was off. Not even Godfrey would dare do such an affront to aesthetic, even to make her cringe.

                    Finnley went into the kitchen, where she rarely set foot in normal circumstance, and found a fowl pattern fabric stapled on one wall, a new set of… No, she thought, I can not in the name of good taste call those tea towels. They look more like… rubbish towels.

                    “Oh, my!” she almost signed herself when she saw an ugly wine cover. Her mind was unable to find a reference for it.

                    “Do you like it?” asked Roberto.
                    Finnley started. She hadn’t heard him come. She looked at him, and back at the wine cover. She found herself at a loss for words, which in itself made her at loss for words.
                    “It’s a little duckling wine cover,” said Roberto. “I made it myself with my new sewing machine. I found the model on Pintearest.” saying so, he stuck his chest out as if he was the proud duck father of that little ugly ducklin. Finnley suddenly recovered her ability to talk.
                    “You certainly nailed it,” she said. In an attempt to hold back the cackle that threatens to degenerate in an incontrollable laugh, it came out like a quack. She heard her grandmother’s voice in her head: “You can not hold energy inside forever, my little ducky, it has to be expressed.”

                    Uncomfortably self conscious, Finnley looked up at Roberto with round eyes.
                    “I…”
                    “Oh you cheeky chick,” said the gardener with a broad smile. He pinched her cheek between his warm fingers and for a moment she felt even more like a child. “I didn’t know you are so playful.”

                    Somewhere in the part of her mind that could still work a voice thought it had to give him points for having rendered her speechless twice.

                    #4509
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      Lucinda answered her honking phone, while silently indicating to the waiter whose drink was whose. She smiled as she noticed the reaction of the people sitting at the other tables to the strident honking geese noise she’d chosen for her phone. The mundane daily things that amuses one are more important that you think, she’d say if anyone mentioned it, and the reaction to the honking tickled her every time her phone rang.

                      Maeve, darling!” she gushed, showing off a bit in front of Shawn Paul and Jerk, and then her face puckered into a frown as she cringed. “Oh dear, I’m awfully sorry… . No, of course you can’t decorate it all on your own, that wouldn’t be fair at all, but that’s the thing I wanted to tell you,” Lucinda was thinking quickly, “The neighbour, you know that tall one with the nice smile, and the, er..the well dressed one, yes that’s the one, the writer, well he’s going to help us with everything…”

                      Almost imperceptibly, Shawn Paul’s head jerked back a little upon hearing this, as he wondered what exactly he was expected to help with.

                      Lucinda continued into the phone, “And you know the guy from the supermarket down the road, the , um, the quiet one, well ok perhaps you haven’t noticed…. what? yes, that’s the one! well he’s going to help too. What? Oh I’m sure he’s only like that at work,” Lucinda glanced at Jerk with a little laugh, mouthing something indecipherable to him and pointing at the phone with a roll of her eyes. Jerk raised a single sardonic eyebrow and sipped his cocktail.

                      “I tell you what Maeve, come and join us. We’re having drinks at the Red Beans cafe. Where? It’s next to the Karmalott Kafe on the river front, you know it? Good! See you in ten, then.” Lucinda snapped her phone shut and beamed at the two men.

                      #4507

                      It was still raining clumps of wet sand when Rukshan, Olliver, Fox and Twee arrived at the oasis.
                      The light had dimmed and there was a feeling of hope mixed with dread in the vicinity. Only a mud brick wall no higher than a man’s waist was surrounding the village; and despite the infelicitous weather, standing here were a pair of sentinels so covered in sand clumps that they almost looked like a pair of stone wyverns guarding the entrance.

                      “Sسلام Salum’ friends. We are simple merchants, passing through, please allow us some shelter for the night” explained Rukshan using what he could remember of his rusty Nomads’ old tongue.

                      After a long silent glance at his strange companions, they shrugged and nodded him that he could go through.

                      Rukshan signaled to the others to follow him. The central paved road was leading the the market place, which would constitute, with the masjid, the centre of the city, and the most likely place to find answers on their quest.

                      Everyone seemed to have retreated to their places, in caves or the homes built on top of the caves from excavated materials. It was rather quiet except from the occasional thump noise made by the rain.

                      They were about to enter an alley when they heard someone loudly call them.
                      “Stop right here, Plastic Ban Police! – show us your bags and IDs.”

                      #4474

                      Rukhsan was ready with his package, the plan, the backup plan, and all the disaster recovery plans they would never need to do their journey to the west.
                      All of this preparation was starting to make him antsy, and he hoped everyone would make it in time to start the expedition.

                      Eleri had promised to be back in time, but she had that tendency to… forget things even more since her bout of illness. Glynis’ ginkgo leaves tea had helped a little, at least for the memory thing, not really for Eleri’s stubbornness to have them wait for her return — such assertiveness that was a sure sign of her recovery she’d said.
                      She’d gone already for weeks, and tonight’s was the departure… He had to trust everything would line up.

                      Right now, there was nothing to expect… but the unexpected. All carefully laid out plans would never stand a chance once on the roads, he knew that. It gave him some small comfort to just be aware of all the places and manners where the camel’s back would break.

                      Pricking up his ear in the still evening, he found out that this time, it seemed to start from the kitchen.

                      #4472

                      With a spring in her step that she had all but forgotten she possessed, Eleri set off on her trip to speak to her old friend Jolly about her husband Leroway’s latest plan that was causing some considerable controversy among the locals. Eleri planned to make the visit a short one, and to hasten back to Margoritt’s cottage in time for the departure of the expedition ~ because she surely wanted to be a part of that. But first, she had to see Jolly, and not just about Leroway. There was a sense of a stirring, or a quickening ~ it was hard to name precisely but there was a feeling of impending movement, that was wider than the expedition plans. Was Jolly feeling it, would she be considering it too? And if not, Eleri would bid her farewell, and make arrangements with her to send a caretaker down to her cottage. And what, she wondered, would happen about care taking the cottage if Jolly’s villagers were on the move again? Eleri frowned. How much did it matter? Perhaps a stranger would find it and choose to stay there, and make of it what they wished. But what about all her statues and ingredients? Eleri felt her steps falter on the old rocky road as her mind became crowded with all manner of things relating to the cottage, and her work.

                      You don’t have to plan every little thing! she reminded herself sternly. None of that has to be decided now anyway! It’s wonderful day to be out walking, hark: the rustling in the undergrowth, and the distant moo and clang of a cow bell.

                      The dreadful flu she’d had after the drenching had left her weakly despondent and not her usual self at all. But she’d heard the others talking while she’d been moping about and it was as if a little light had come on inside her.

                      She still had trouble remembering all their names: ever since the flu, she had a sort of memory weakness and a peculiar inability to recall timelines correctly. Mr Minn (ah, she noted that she had not forgotten his name!) said not to worry, it was a well known side effect of that particular virus, and that as all time was simultaneous anyway, and all beings were essentially one, it hardly mattered. But Mr Minn, Eleri had replied, It makes it a devil of a job to write a story, to which he enigmatically replied, Not necessarily!

                      Someone had asked, Who do we want to come on the expedition, or perhaps they said Who wants to come on the expedition, but Eleri had heard it as Who wants to be a person who wants to go on an expedition, or perhaps, what kind of person do the others want as an expedition companion. But whatever it was, it made Eleri stop and realize that she wasn’t even enjoying the morose despondent helpless feeling glump that she has turned into of late, and that it was only a feeling after all and if she couldn’t change that herself, then who the devil else was going to do it for her, and so she did, bit by bit. It might feel a bit fake at first, someone had said. And it did, somewhat, but it really wasn’t long before it felt quite natural, as it used to be. It was astonishing how quickly it worked, once she had put her mind to it. Less than a week of a determined intention to appreciate the simple things of the day. Such a simple recipe. One can only wonder in amazement at such a simple thing being forgotten so easily. But perhaps that was a side effect of some virus, caught long ago.

                      Enjoying the feeling of warm sun on her face, interspersed with moments of cool thanks to passing clouds, Eleri noticed the wildflowers along the way, abundant thanks to all the rain and all flowering at once it seemed, instead of the more usual sequence and succession. Briefly she wondered is this was a side effect of the virus, and another manifestation of the continuity and timeline issues. Even the wildflowers had all come at once this year. She had not noticed all those yellow ones flowering at the same time as all those pink ones in previous years, but a splendid riot they were and a feast for the eyes.

                      The puffy clouds drifting past across the sun were joining invisible hands together and forming a crowd, and it began to look like rain again. Eleri felt a little frown start to form and quickly changed it to a beaming smile, remembering the handy weightless impermeability shield that someone (who? Glynnis?) had given her for the trip. She would not catch another dose of the drenching memory flu again, not with the handy shield.

                      The raindrops started spattering the path in front of her, spotting the dusty ground, and Eleri activated the device, and became quite entranced with the effects of the droplets hitting the shield and dispersing.

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