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In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“To be perfectly honest dear, I wouldn’t be very outwardly lovely if I were to be honest.”
“Another of your convoluted ways to say it’s rubbish” Lavender said with a smile “But that’s fine, you know. It’s also meant as a test of honesty… And as I’m not sure you heard it properly anyway, a little honesty wouldn’t have hurt you know.”But it seemed Harvey’s attention had already gone somewhere else. “Are you even listening to me?” Lavender said with a lovely voice practicing the delicate guttural accents of Sloopernoff, snapping back Harvey’s attention to the conversation.
“Oh, you were speaking… I’m sorry, I’m starting to worry that Ann’s narcolepsy is contagious.”
“Always the worrywort…”As they were talking surrounded by the soft dusty specks of the library (which every time annoyed Lavender quite extensively, as she wasn’t so fond of the taste of dust bunnies and didn’t see with the same eye as Ann the archaeological value of burying useful things in dust), Gremwick the mad Dean of the Worseversity passed by with a yellow sticker stuck to the back of his trench coat.
“Looks like mad old Gremwick isn’t doing so good recently hey… Seems like he was droning about taking the students’ courses to check on their quality last time we heard of him…” Lavender looked empathetic.
Harvey was smiling “If you ask me, he might just be wanting to know if the rumor of Prof Gubby’s nine nipples were true or only sheer fantasy”
“I wonder which perverted mind’s fantasy it could be” sighed Lavender unimpressed.In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Arona had no idea what dimension she was in. Or indeed, whether she was where she was at all. Oddly enough, and it was not often now that Arona found anything odd, she was finding the experience rather freeing.
“Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Hoooooooooooooooooo” she shouted, and holding her arms wide open, began to whirl joyously around, till dizziness overcame her and she landed in a heap on the ground. She expected to land in a heap on the ground in a soft meadow with pretty spring flowers, but to her consternation realised that she had landed on what felt like polished concrete. She was even more concerned when she realised that she had a large audience watching her with interest, although at that stage all she really took in was a sea of feet around her. On further inspection she appeared to be in what looked like an enormous building full of shops, and, shoppers.
“Are you okay?” A kindly gentleman asked her in a concerned voice. At least that is what Arona thought he said. Although the words were familiar, the accent was strange, and not one she had heard before.
“I am fine, thank you,” replied Arona, trying her best to appear composed and rise gracefully from her sprawled position all at the same time. She must have looked convincing because, after a few more curious looks in her direction, the crowd began to disperse.
Good Grief, where am I now? she wondered. Determined not to be alarmed and to go with the flow, however rapid that flow may be, the intrepid Arona set off to explore her new surroundings.
“Wait!”
Arona looked around. It was the strangely spoken gentleman who had first offered assistance. He was brandishing a book towards her.
“Take this book. It is no good for me.”
Arona hesitated. The last time she had heard those words she had ended up with a funny little baby to look after. The man was insistent though, so, thanking him politely Arona accepted the gift.
“Hmmmm, How to Write Fiction, how very peculiar!” Flipping it open randomly she read:
[Random Words Epigraph] Step One: Randomly choose 5 entries from your dictionary. Just flip through the pages, close your eyes, and put your finger down on the page. Copy down the word that is closest to your finger. If your finger lands on a word that you don’t know, you can choose the word just above or just below it. For the purposes of this assignment, count paired words as a single entry (for instance, “melting pot” is listed as a single entry). Step Two: Shape your list of dictionary entries into a poem or story, using all of the entries.
“bugger that,” snorted Arona.
Topic: Probably Real
She woke up at noon and it was 100 degrees, or 37 degrees, whichever you prefer, but whichever way you look at it, it was not a good temperature to wake up to. Everything was pointing in the direction of going solo, playing the game on her own for awhile, or at least until she was in a regular habit of giving herself priority, giving more attention to her own creative pursuits, and less time to the futile attempts to keep group projects going. She supposed for a moment that making a start whilst hot, tired, discouraged and confused was not the most ideal mood for a start, but at least it was a start. She wasn’t even entirely sure what it was she was actually starting, but suspected that it didn’t much matter, in the grand scheme (or lack thereof) of things.
She’d had a moment of inspiration when she started reading a book. She’d only read a few pages and had no idea how the book would turn out, but the format was interesting. Julie had had an idea, simmering on a back burner for years, to write a book. It always seemed to want to be an autobiographical book, and that’s where she always came unstuck because she couldn’t see the point of that, not that she was overly concerned about whether anyone would want to read it or not, but she often came unstuck when she wondered about how all the characters in the book might feel about it, which is why that moment of inspiration in the bathroom the other day seemed like such a good idea.
She could write a book about a probability party, perhaps called ‘Probably Real’, (maybe with the subtitle ‘Probably Not’.) There would be an occasion, the details of which she hadn’t worked out yet, in which various (not all, she soon realized!) of her probable selves met ~ such as in the Atkinson book, in some quiet desolate place with no interruptions (obviously somewhere with no internet connection, although there was always the danger of picking up a freak broadband WiFi), where they had all the time in the world to tell their tales, compare notes as it were.
Which was where the fiction idea came in ~ of course! Just call it fiction! Would just one of the probable selves be telling the truth, relating the only true version of Julie’s life? And if so, which one was the real probable self? All the characters in the book would have probable selves and probable lives; which of them was the real probable self, the official version? No-one would ever know.
Of course, anyone versed in the metaphysical mechanics of probabilities and such would realize that all probable versions are real, at the same time as all being, in a certain sense, fiction ~ made up. The only question was, would that be too unlimiting to contain within the confines of one book, but time (so to speak) would tell.
Procrastination had set in, as usual, not that that is a bad thing, and things pretty much carried on as usual for a few days. Julie noticed the puppy tugging at a particular magazine from the bottom of the magazine rack over the course of those few days, and eventually the magazine was rather pointedly poking out from the bottom of the pile, it’s title clearly showing: a booklet on How To Write FICTION, with FICTION in big letters.
Never the less, the procrastination continued, although the clue was duly noted. It hadn’t been the first time a Writing A Book incident had occured.
It was easy, in this case, to remember that date, because it was right around the time of the 1999/2000 milenium party, right around the time when that particular roller coaster had derailed. While unpacking the boxes of books and putting them on the shelves of yet another rented house ~ a particularly garish and tasteless monstrosity, a drug baron’s dream of unfunctional largeness with hideous coloured glass windows (it’s the sheer randomness of the colours that’s so awful, G had remarked) ~ a book flew off the shelf, quite literally, and landed alone in the middle of the floor some distance away from the bookshelf.
Becoming A Writer was the name of the book, and the funny thing was that she had been thinking of writing a book but didn’t know where to start, and had been toying with the idea of buying a book on writing a book. So she read the book and started writing, a little bit every day, following the books advice to just start writing, even if it’s just ‘I can’t think of what to write’. There was plenty to write about as it turned out, but circumstances changed, another sudden move of house ensued, another rollercoaster ride, and the writing stopped for awhile.
But back to the book, Becoming A Writer. For a long time, Julie had no recollection of buying that book, and wondered by what magic had it appeared at her feet. Many years later she perhaps would have simply accepted the magic, and would have known that she created the book in that moment. But at the time she didn’t, and in due course constructed a memory of buying the book some years previously at a car boot sale somewhere along the coast road.
(We did buy the book, piped up PSJ2, and I actually read it, unlike you, as soon as I bought it. My 5th book is about to be published, a lightweight comedy/detective series about the Costa del Crime)
PSJ2’s interjection reminded PSJ1 (Good grief, we’ll have to think of a solution to the probable self names, she noted) that she had in fact started writing a book about the Costa del Crime, called Peregrino’s, or perhaps that was the name she’d given to the bar, the central hub, of the book. Of course, that was in the days when bars had been her central hub; she doubted very much if she would choose a bar as the central hub of a book now. She hadn’t got very far with the book, and had burned it when PSA1 got busted, just in case. What to do first, bury the (probable, it must be remembered) pump action shotgun, or burn the book. She had buried the gun, under cover of darkness, in the back garden, wrapping it in plastic bags and blankets, making it look for all the world like the body of a dead child. It was dark, it was raining, and there weren’t many neighbours out there in the orange groves, and she could do no more than hope for the best that she hadn’t been seen.
No doubt there was a probable self who did choose to create being seen, but if so she hadn’t arrived at the probability party (yet, at any rate) with her tale.
That it had been a major probability junction was certain. Not just the gun burying incident, which had turned out to be no more than merely incidental, but the events leading up to it.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
The word flounder popped into Yolands head, and for want of the inspiration to do anything meaningful, or even useful, she googled flounder. She was astonished to find so many varieties of flounder, and recognized that she was counterparting with quite a number of them.
There was the Crosseyed flounder that she felt an affinity for, at the end of an evening of trying to sort out her photos; Alcock’s narrow-body righteye flounder, which was what she felt like in a bed full of male dogs every night, and she could relate to the Antarctic armless flounder when she couldn’t keep track of the Antarctic thread. Barfin flounder reminded her of the green icon and her friend Finn; Bigmouth flounder ~ Yoland sighed, she definitely felt a connection to that often enough. Blotched flounder, well that sounded a bit like botched ~ there were many occasions when Yoland felt that everything she did was botched, half done and messy. Chain-mail wide-eyed flounder when she dabbled a bit in past lives, and the Disc flounder when she got her music in a muddle. The Dark flounders were the worst, when everything seemed to take on the tone of a horror movie, but they were often followed by a Deep flounder, which sometimes contained a few insights, more often than not promptly forgotten.
Yoland sighed. Imagine counterparting with just about every flounder known to man! She decided she wasn’t the only one counterparting the European flounder, which was a releif, nor was she the only one counterparting the Fantail flounder, although at least it could be said that she wasn’t a complete fan of anyone in particular, dead or alive, she was a fantail of quite a number. There were long spells of resonating with the Finless flounder; Finn was always disappearing, or so it seemed to Yoland. Very rarely she felt an alignment with God’s flounder, thankfuly she wasn’t often prone to dwelling on God things.
Ah, the Gray flounder, yes she’d had a bit of a flounder when Gray sent all those photos of the Beltane Dance, she’d had a flounder for sure in amongst all those. Looking back though, she’d had fun with the mummy and Ella Tindale in the Gulf flounder…
Yoland had to laugh when she came across the Intermediate flounder. Yoland wondered if the majority of her foundering was counterparting with the Intermediate flounder and decided she was probably too intermediate to work it out objectively anyway. She often had a tussle with the Large tooth flounder, lordy, she was always floundering with dental issues. And the Largescale flounder, that really was the biggest ongoing flounder of them all, the sheer vastness of everything.
Every now and again, less than previously though, Yoland had a Melbourne flounder on Saturday nights, and rather enjoyed it, but not as much as she enjoyed a good old New Zealand flounder.
Another flounder Yoland always enjoyed was an Olive wide-eyed flounder, roaming around the ancient olive trees of Andalucia, wide eyed and awestruck with the beauty and history of the place. She also enjoyed a Peruvian flounder on occasion, too ~ she’d even had a dream recently about floundering around by the mysterious doorway of Amaru Muru. The next night she’d had a River flounder, dreaming of the river in the Grand Canyon.
Sand flounders were the best of all though, Yoland recalled many happy flounderings in the world of sand and all its Subulmantium configurations. The trouble with the sand flounder was that it often morphed into the largescale flounder, and got quite out of hand.
Yoland sighed, it had been ages since she’d felt connected to the Seven pelvic ray flounder, what with Dan working nights. She was beginning to feel like a Shelf flounder. However, at least thanks to her new diet of replacing meals with flans, chocolate mousses and ice cream, she was closely aligning now with the Slender flounder.
The ongoing slug issue with the cat food was obviously because she was still strongly aligned with the Slime flounder. Notwithstanding, Yoland was rather pleased to note that despite her morose and petulant mood this morning, it had to be said that she often counterparted with the Smooth flounder; although that was easy to forget in moments of quiet desperation when the floundering got out of proportion.
Smiling, Yoland remembered the dream of feet touching when she noticed there was a Sole flounder too. And how often the Spotted flounder popped up, she was always spotting clues. Well spotted! she would tell herself. Oh, and the Stone flounder, wasn’t that the truth! Yoland was aligning strongly with that lately, smoking more than ever, somehow striving for either inspiration, or perhaps oblivion.
Oh well, I guess this is just a Summer flounder, it will pass, Yoland decided (who was secretly glad that she was nearing the end of the list of flounder names). And sure enough, the next on the list was the Three spotted flounder, surely a good sign! A probability change perhaps! As if to validate Yolands impression, she noticed the Tile-colored righteye flounder. There was even a Warthog flounder, which seemed to ring a bell with a recent entry to the Reality Play.
Best of all was the Windowpane flounder, Yoland felt she would even go so far as to say that this was her new focus animal. Well, she thought, if I am making this all up, I can make that up too!
Thankfully Yoland reached the end of the flounder list, rather pleased that it had ended on such an amusing and encouraging note.
Being closely aligned with flounders wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Yoland awoke feeling disgruntled. The uncomfortable dreams of feeling left out, left alone and bored beyone endurance lingered throughout the morning. In a peculiar melding of dream and reality, Dan had woken her requesting her assistance in his preparations for a days outing, which didn’t include Yoland. The dream details were already vague, but the feeling was strong, the feeling of being bored and alone ~ wasted somehow, as if all her lust for life was withering away on a back burner, evaporating, as she mooched through her days, accomplishing little (or so it seemed), endlessly frustrated with the clutter and disorganization that was her world, yearning for the life, LIFE that was full of LIFE, that she used to have. What had happened to her sense of adventure? Where had all her fun friends gone?
“Eh Sha, emergency transmission required ‘ere pronto!” Gloria shouted to Sharon. “Yoland needs some inspiration, toot sweet, get yer arse in gear!”
“Oh bloody ‘ell, Glor! Not a-bloody-gain! Not ‘er, she never bloody listens anyway, that one!” replied Sharon, disgruntled. “This isn’t as easy as I ‘spected it to be, getting the messages through, is it?”
“Well, why don’t you look on it as a challenge?”
“Pfft, more like ‘ard bloody work, if you ask me.”
“Eh, you daft tart, you’re channeling HER! You’re sposed to be sending HER some words of inspiration, not the other bloody way round!” Gloria exclaimed. “Beats me how you ever got your ascension pass, how you got through I’ll never know.”
“Oh they let any Tom Dick or Harry in these days, Glor, they relaxed the rules you know, well did away with the rules, and what happens when you do away with the rules? Floundering, that’s bloody what. Floundering.”
“Is that a fish sync?”
In reply to: Strings of Nines
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Yoland decided to stick to fiction for awhile rather than the reporting of facts. She would even go so far as to disguise the facts to look like fiction, because fiction never got you into trouble, so she was inclined to think after the mornings rude awakening. If she simply said ‘I made it up’ in future, well, it seemed an easier way. Yoland decided to talk to herself for the forseeable future too, rather than to anyone else. She would make up characters to talk to, but it would all be made up, none of it would be the reporting of facts. She was through with facts, facts were too much trouble. Making it all up was easier.
While she was eating her marmite buttered toast, she opened the book at random that she had taken to bed with her the previous night, but hadn’t opened.
Once again, Yoland exclaimed “What a coincidence”, and wondered if coincidences would ever cease to be enchanting and fun. She doubted it, somehow. Each coincidence was always such a tiny tantalizing glimpse of so much more.
“…..you merely perceive a small portion of any given action,” Yoland read, “and when you cease to perceive it then it seems to you that the action itself ceases, and so an artificial boundary is erected.
“It has not occured to you, you see, to attempt to look OVER this boundary, so to speak, because you have taken it for granted that nothing exists on the other side. I am not here speaking necessarily of death, though this is the obvious instance of course. I am speaking of something much more subtle. I am speaking of ANY small seemingly insignificant action that you perform during an ordinary day, and HERE we are coming close.”
Yoland reckoned Seth was pretty close to what she’d been saying the previous night.
“You percieve only the most initial elements of such an action. It is as if you threw a ball, and could only follow the ball three inches away in space ~ then the ball would seem to vanish to you. The action would therefore seem completed. You would think it idiotic to imagine what happened to the ball when you could see it no longer, for habit would work in such a way that the disappearance of the ball would seem natural and normal, and a part of the nature of things.
“So, comparing the ball to an action, you perceive but the smallest portion of any given action, even one performed by yourself. It does not occur to you that there is more to perceive.”
Yoland was inclined to agree. Then she suddenly remembered that she was making it all up from now on, and went for a stroll around the Kasbah.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Sha had been more enduring than Glo, that was hardly a surprise, but as much as it pained him to say, he had to proclaim their official death. Obituaries wasn’t his forte, and the fact they were plants notwithstanding, it wasn’t making things much easier.
At least, the ginger root had made new leaves like the tiny palm tree. He was starting to believe plants didn’t want to be around.In reply to: Strings of Nines
“ As we have stated previously, these terms are quite limiting for explanation purposes. The terminology is not incorrect, by any means. It is only expressing a much, much smaller impression to you than, in actuality, these terms represent. If your interpretation of these terms is too literal, you may find yourself accepting concepts which have only been explained to you partially; for our explanation of concepts is only a minute portion of the entirety of any idea, or concept, or “doctrine.” Only playing, my friend! These concepts must be taken in at this present time, within your present understanding, to the intellect; and the intellect must be allowed to trigger the intuition, allowing a full circle of thought, so to speak; this full circle being a continuous flow of information to assimilation, to actualization, to creation ” — Patel
Not AGAIN!! shouted Becky. For the past week every time she tried to open her blog page, it always opened on this old post of Patels. Usually, by a circuitous route, she did eventually manage to arrive on her most recent post…..but not today! That monkey Patel wouldn’t let Becky look at any other post but this.
Funny coincidence really that she’d watched the cartoon last night called Madagascar, starrring Patel himself as King of the Lemurs. Becky had to laugh. A rave party of dancing lemurs on ecstasy!
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Yoland. “Fancy landing on that Patel quote again today!”
Yoland knew Patel was around when the frying sausages had popped and spit fat at her. She had lost count of the amount of times that Patel had popped in with this quote. More strings and circles….and lemurs, too! At the lunch party the previous day, Yoland had been discussing evolution, and the missing link, and the next day a lemur-like skeleton was being heralded in the newspapers as the missing link.
Patel, as the missing link ~ Yoland had to laugh.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“Just do it. Either just do it, or just make something up” she told herself. Again. “Either do it, or make it up, but stop thinking about it and talking about it.” Yoland sighed and turned on the radio. It was an old pink one, the kind with the dials that turn, and a pull out antenna. The antenna was a bit rusty at the bottom and didn’t rotate very well, which made it a bit tricky to get a clear reception without alot of preliminary juggling around and fidgeting. The dogs under her desk scratched themselves noisily as Yoland fiddled with the radio.
“In the backwater….”
“…yes you’ve got the Splain Channel loud and clear now all you have to do is focus on what the next word is and then write it down without thinking about the spelling, as you can see you are looking at the keybaord and tryping”, Yoland smiled at the typo, “the words that you are hearing without trying to anallzye them too much now. ok are you ready? We’re going to do some balloon exercise first to get the ball rolling, you see, there are many ways to blow up a balloon, and I’ll be the first to tell you you’re doing it wrong, I am kidding, of course.”
Yoland smiled, inching forward on the chair to accomodate the dog that had wormed his way round her back, wondering whether or not to move him.
“Your chair is fine the way it is, that’s a very common delaying tactic my freind, and one you are quite familiar with. Now, pay attention once again to simply the words that you hear as you are writing, watching the keys is rather mesmerising is it not….”
Yoland did a quick reality check and agreed that she was feeling a bit mesmerized, and realized that she possibly could feel considerably more mesmerized if she stopped doing reality checks.
“…and as you watch your fingers moving along in a rather detached way, you can detach your attachment to knowing what the next word might be and simply write what you hear; we are practicing the sliding away from the strict hold on trying to anticpate the net words and then you freeze the flow, it shouldn’t be tiring if you let go and relax a bit and simply allow your fingers to move of their own accord while you relax your shoulders…”
What a load of rubbish, thought Yoland, as she adjusted her chair, which had a habit of suddenly dropping down an inch, just enough to make it hard for her to reach the keyboard. Sighing, she wondered about ever getting a satisfactory answer to her Really Big Questions, the ones that nobody had answered so far. All she ever managed to tune into was rambling waffling inane….
“….you feel that your questions are so large that the capacity for distortion is huge, and you feel that other questions are easily answered via other routes and methods, and this is correct.”
Yoland wondered what THAT was supposed to mean.
“Ok we can forget questions then and I will tell you a story.”
Yoland relaxed. That sounded easier.
“Once upon a time there was a beer fisherman from the planet of Oxbloodshire.”
Oh here we go, she thought. What’s coming next…
“Whether or not you find clues in there is entirely your choice to create them, and all are equally valid. This is such a simple thing: that even the most seemingly miniscule sentences contain a myriad of potential diversions and convergences, routes, patterns, nets, from even the tiniest particle of an idea. All of them are boundlessly creative offshoots which become a particular stream, or string.”
Yoland found herself wondering where some of them started, and found she didn’t know where to start.
“With the question of syncronicities every point of them is the start point, the end point, the main point, the moot point, and the connecting links as well, as are all the others. When you get your ball of string in a tangle, it’s easier to throw it away and start a new one.”
Yoland was inclined to agree, but wondered if that sounded like sensible advice.
“Immediately the new one starts linking up all kinds of things in a new interconnected design pattern, and then when that gets in a right tangle, a fresh ball of string awaits; the tangled ones aren’t in a tangle at all when you’re not tangled up within it.”
Well, that certainly sounded resonable, Yoland had to admit.
“And why waste time with old tangles anyway when you can start afresh and just make something up, for no particular reason?”
Bloody good question, why not indeed? Yoland decided to start making things up there and then, and turned her computer off and went to pack her case.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Mark knocked tentatively.
“Sheila?” he poked his head around the door.
“Sheila? … oh excuse me!” he apologised. “I was looking for Sheila. I thought she might still be here ..”
His voice trailed off as he looked at the woman standing before him. She looked so familiar and yet he couldn’t for the life of him place her.
Bugger! thought Phoebe. This is an entertaining turn of events. What is he doing back here?
As if to answer her unspoken question Mark explained that he had missed the flight to Noo Zooland, and knew that he was making an awful mistake he would regret for the rest of his life if he did not find Sheila and see if they had a chance together. Did Phoebe know where she had gone?
Phoebe smiled kindly at the anxious and visibly lovelorn Mark.
“I think you will find she hasn’t got far. Why don’t you wait here with my parrot, Vincentius, and I will go and see if I can find her for you.”
Mark looked expectantly around the room for Vincentius, but failed to see any sign of him. “Your parrot?” he queried.
Phoebe laughed. “Silly old me! What am I like eh? Of course, Vincentius has yet to make it through the portal. Don’t worry, he will be here soon.”
She chuckled to herself as she left the room.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Jane had been found unconscious in a small creek in Australia, with little on her but a few wet dollars, scribbled papers in a plastic bag, and a bank account number that was later found to be in the Cayman Islands. Her real name wasn’t probably Jane at all, but of course amnesiac people had to be called something, and that or Sheila…
During her recovery at the hospital, she’d had flashes of unsettling things that the doctors had told her were certainly repressed memories. Somehow people around her seemed to believe that forgetting everything was a blessing, but to her it seemed it was her bane for a long long time.In reply to: Strings of Nines
Meanwhile, back in the Elsespace Arrangement, another probable Becky was pushing coloured pins in a map of the known physical world in an attempt to plan her next possible probable journey. The first pin had landed squarely on New York, but the pin had inexplicably promptly fallen off the map, landing in the dark green foliage of the potted Aspidistra. Probable Becky had a box of 100 little coloured pins, so she chose another pin, closed her eyes, turned round three times, and stuck another pin on the map.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Yoland woke up feeling lighter somehow. The sun was shining, the young puppy, Phunn, scampered about without a care in the world as she perused the morning mail. The random daily Circle of Eight’s quote once again delighted her, synchronizing with her recent meditation.
“Fiona woke suddenly from a dream. In her dream she had been communicating with her online friends, through drawings and messages. She had been trying so hard to convey something, and the more she tried to say it, the more distant they felt to her.
She had woken feeling saddened. Her energy was greatly disturbed, and, unable to get back to sleep straight away, she meditated. She felt herself connect with the energy of a Snowy Owl, who invited her wordlessly to ask her questions. The Owl’s eyes seemed to have such a depth of wisdom and kindness, and no sooner had her thoughts begun to ask their questions, than she would feel the Owl’s answer merge with her own knowing.
She felt herself being able to say without words what she had tried so hard in her dream to convey, and understanding there was no need for any effort, she felt greatly comforted, and peaceful sleep swept over her again.”
Yoland had sent an email to her freind KX about her meditation, as her freind had unexpectedly popped up in it, in a wonderful pastel watercolour world:
The elevator stopped with a shudder and the doors slammed open. The landscape looked a bit too airy fairy for me (not real enough, haha!) and I nearly got back in the elevator. It was all aqua blue and pastel and floaty, like a watercolour world. Then I saw you, waving your arms around, painting the air with trails of pastel colours with your fingertips. You were smiling and wearing a pale blue shirt. You wrapped me round with spirals of colours from your fingertips and then I flew upwards into the dark blue. You tossed me a paper toilet roll to use as a silver cord, which I tossed back to you after a bit cos it felt a bit silly, and then you sent a burst of colours as an acknowledgement
KX had responded:
“Yoland!!That is very very cool! I’ve been “out there”! I’ll bet you I was changing the toilet paper roll at the moment you were in the Watercolor World ! Meanwhile so many things are coming together for me in how to create and how to hold my attention where I want it… Imagination is a key ~ Love you! I will beam over in a minute. KX”
Smiling, Yoland checked the latest blog updates. Sahila had posted some Possum photos, and the first thing that Yoland saw was the white owl in the fork of the tree behind the possum.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Yoland felt tired and deflated somehow. Weary, perhaps that was it, weary of the way she always felt when the animals were sick or dying. It was all very well to look at it logically, that with so many animals with such relatively short natural life spans that there would always be some coming, some going, but it was the way it made her feel that was so tiring. Responsible, as if she could have done more, or guilty that they were reflecting her energy somehow. It was all very well to say that the animals were creating their own reality, that would be easy enough to accept in some cases such as old age and diseases, but Yoland almost wished she’d never learned that they reflect her own energy, that always made her feel even more responsible than she already did.
The black cat was dying. Yoland had made up her mind to take her to the vets that morning. That was another dilemma she’d faced often enough, too ~ would the animal prefer to die naturally at home? Or was it in too much pain, and would it prefer to end it quickly? How could she know? Yoland supposed she did always know, in the end, which was to be the choice, but there was always the agonizing period of time beforehand when she wondered which decision to make. But the black cat had disappeared and she couldn’t find her to take her to the vets after all.
When she’d made the decision to take the black cat to the vet that morning, Dean accidentally knocked a photograph of her first dog, Joe, off the wall. He was the first of her dogs to go, and a good age for a big dog, fourteen years old, and Yoland had known all along that he would die at home, and sure enough, he had. One day Yoland knew he was close to the end, and less than 24 hours later, he lay on his bed, and just gradually stopped breathing. Yoland hadn’t even been quite sure of the moment in which he went, as she held his head, she asked Dean, Do you think he’s dead? Dean replied, If he’s not breathing he is. It was a silly question, really, of course Yoland knew that if you weren’t breathing you were dead. As deaths go, it was peaceful and easy. They took him in the car to a place in the woods and buried him, somewhere where the ground was soft enough to dig; it was high summer and the ground was hard and dry. It wasn’t until Joe was covered with earth that Yoland cried.
Yoland cried again as she remembered Joe, and then she wondered if perhaps his photograph falling off the wall that morning was a message ~ perhaps a message that the black cat was choosing to die at home too, her own little niche somewhere, wherever that might be, wherever the roof cats slept. Maybe Joe was reassuring her that he’d be there when the black cat got there, in that field of flowers where the animals played while they waited for us to join them.
It was a comforting thought. Yoland reached for the tissues.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
:yahoo_nerd:“I dont know how you can read that paper, Franlise, really I don’t.” Ann said sniffily.
“Oh I like to keep up with what’s going on, it’s interesting, it’s the end of an era you know, fascinating really,” her cleaner replied.
“Yeah, you’re right, it is interesting,” Ann had to admit that Franlise was right. It WAS interesting, and newpapers like The Old Reality Harbinger wouldn’t be around for much longer. She made a mental note to buy some to put away in case they became valuable artifacts in the future.
“Well interesting it may be, but only in small doses. I prefer The Simultaneous Times, myself.”
“The Daily Mirror’s my favourite” replied Franlise.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Taatje van Snoot was an eccentric character of indeterminate age. That she had been born Dutch was obvious, but when, nobody could tell. Nobody could remember when she hadn’t been an integral part of the Amsterdam scenery, even the most ancient citizens recalled Taatje being around. Nobody knew her well, it seemed, but everyone knew of her existence, everyone saw her from time to time. She never seemed to age, and she didn’t appear to work, for she was never seen doing anything in a routine manner. Sometimes, for example, she would be spotted drinking coffee every morning at the same place; the following week or years therafter, she’d be elsewhere, never visiting that cafe again. Taatje was a bit of a mystery, but a well loved one. She was jolly, always smiling, as she bustled about the city doing whatever she did, polite and charming, delightfully vague, and always endearingly dressed in a random selection of fancy dress outfits and carnival costumes.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Ann wasn’t altogether sure what Godfrey meant when he referred to her new interest in continuity. Ann had always been interested in connecting links, yes, of that there was no doubt, but with so very many connecting links, and so many possible strings of connecting links, with so many possible divergences into yet more strings of connecting links, Ann really couldn’t fathom how anyone could possibly keep track of all those threads of continuity. Even a seemingly discontinuous assortment of unconnected links, once connected into a nonsense thread, became another continuity string. Furthermore, Ann continued ~ in a continuous fashion ~ to ponder, if everything is connected, then what, in actuality, was all the fuss about continuity? What exactly then WAS this concept of continuity? It seemed to Ann to be more like a string of barbed wire, or one of those flimsy but effective electric wire fences, boxing in the free flow of continuity, so that the objectively perceived continuity stayed rigidly within the confines of the preconceived tale. The inner landscape knew no such boundaries, although admittedly the inner landscape was far too vast to map.
Ann smiled to herself as she imagined trying to push pins into various inner landscape locations, tying strings from one to another, in an effort to map and label the inner continuity connections. Of course she was imagining it in a visual manner, because it was hard to imagine all those connections and strings being invisible and not taking up any space, and before long Ann’s inner map of pins and strings quickly resembled a tangle of overcooked spaghetti, perilously speckled with sharp pointy pins.
The image of the glutinous tangle dotted with sharp shiny pointers led Ann off on another tangent, but it was a tangent that soon became utter nonsense. Or was it, she mused. Perhaps it was those symbolically sharp pointy bits that in fact pointed out the immense variety of potential other continuity threads to choose from. Indeed, it could easily be said that having one of her characters dumped in Siberia in the previous story, painful though it was, was not unlike being pricked by a pin amidst the tangle of sticky pasta, a brilliantly effective pointer towards unlimited new directions.
Whichever way she looked at it (and Ann was aware that she might have gone down a side string) she simply couldn’t comprehend how anyone on this side of the veil could possibly even begin to understand the ramifications of the concept of continuity at all. Or how there could ever conceivably be a lack of it.
What was really intriguing Ann at this particular juncture of the experimental exploration of the story was the concept of the World View Library. This wasn’t unconnected to the continuity issue, far from it, it was all tied in (Ann sniggered at the unintentional pun) and connected. There were any infinite amount of potential continuity threads leading from, say, one persons desire or intent, to a particular world view in the library.
AHA shouted Ann, who at that moment had an ‘aha’ moment. Pfft, it’s gone, she sighed moments later.
Ann tried to catch the wisp of an idea that had flitted through her awareness. She had a visual impression of the library, endlessly vast and marvellously grand, with countless blindfolded characters dashing through, grabbing random pages or sentences, bumping into each other, snatching at phrases willy nilly, dropping notes along the way, and racing back out again into the ether. A stray thought here, a picture there, a name or a date, all on separate bits of crumbled paper clutched in the sweaty palms of the blindfolded characters as they rushed headlong back to their own realities to proudly share the new clues. Like magpies they were, snatching at anything that glittered brightly enough.
“I thought you said they were blindfolded?” interrupted Franlise.
Ann ignored the interruption, and continued ~ in a continuous fashion ~ to ponder the imagery of the library.
What the undisciplined purloiners of random snatches didn’t notice on their pell-mell excursions into the library were the characters in the library who weren’t wearing blindfolds. They smiled down from the galleries, calmly watching from above the mayhem that the news of the unlimited library access had occasioned, chortling at the scenes of chaos below. They smiled indulgently, for they too had first visited the library blindfolded, snatching at this and that, and racing home again to inspect the booty; they too had fretted and pondered over the enigmas of the incomplete snippets. Eventually (or not, it was after all a choice), they had bravely removed the blindfolds, slowed the mad race into a sedate stroll through the library, opened their eyes and looked around, sure of the way back home now, and not in a desperate hurry to blast in, snatch anything, and run back home.
After awhile, they began to realize that all the enchanting glittering jewels scattered around to catch their eye would still be there later, there was no urgency to grab them all at once ~ although, as Ann reminded herself, that too was a choice ~ some may well choose to be eternally snatching at glittering jewels.
Ann frowned slightly and wondered if she’d lost the thread altogether, and then decided that it didn’t matter if she had.
It was a choice, therefore, to remove ones blindfold, and stroll through the library ~ a choice to perhaps choose a book, sit down at a polished oak table and open it, a choice to stay and read the book, rather than ripping out a page and dashing back home. That would be one choice of continuity, a coming together of strings.
Ann wondered whether that would then be called a cable, or a rope ~ well perhaps not a rope, she decided, that had other associations entirely ~ but a cable, yes, that had associations of reliable and regular communications. There were always strings of continuity, then, strings of connecting links, between anything and everything, but when one stopped dashing about clutching at the sparkley bits, one might form a cable.
Or not, of course. Thin strings of continuity and connections were not ‘less than’ thick cables of reliable and regular communications. It has to be said though, Ann reluctantly admitted, that thick cables often made more sense.
She decided to hit send before embarking on a pondering of the meaning of Sense.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
These past few months away from home had been the occasion for a great deal of introspection.
For one, indulging fully into that somewhat frowned upon habit of his, regarding peanuts, had allowed him to gain a great deal of understanding and acceptance as well. Now his daily ration had dramatically decreased and he didn’t fancy as much as he used to the little round things.Another thing that Godfrey had noticed was the reorganisation that had taken place in all aspects of his life, and to be perfectly honest, his life was still a bit messy in places, but he was slowly getting there. How could a publisher publish anything of common interest without a bit of presentation, henceforth order?
Ann wasn’t too keen on the “O” word —especially when doubled— and surprisingly it always managed to give good results so far. So perhaps now he was settling down, and she was getting her own flamboyant creative juices all ablaze, they would manage to get somewhere. Or anywhere, for that matter.
A Tramway to Elsewhere was Ann’s debut novel, and had made her known to Godfrey. It was a brilliant short story about three tourists lost in a huge hotel in Europe, and trying to get an easy escape to Anywhere. And by some uncanny and hilarious succession of events, they were led nowhere but to Elsewhere.Now, something else was giving him a strange feeling. He didn’t know if that was because of the lack of peanut oil in his bloodstream (or the accompanying whiskeys for what was worth), but he was starting to get slightly paranoid.
He didn’t know where he’d got the idea, but he started to suspect the cleaning lady to not just be a cleaning lady. She was doing her best to keep a low profile, but somehow she wasn’t that good an actress. A thing that started his suspicion was that name… Franlise, eerily reminiscent of the obnoxious yet efficient Finnley in Noo York. Elizabeth had told him they’d suspected her for a long time to have inserted some paragraphs in Elizabeth’s novels, especially the most torrid parts that would have made a pimp blush like a nun. What had saved the cleaning lady was that in addition to being rather forgiving, Elizabeth suffered from frequent strokes of forgetfulness and bipolarity which made the investigation difficult if not moot altogether.But there, Godfrey was rather surprised at Ann’s sudden interest in continuity. He’d known of a covert organization known in the milieu as the Fellowship of Unification and Continuity in Knowledge.
Over the years, the hearsay had amounted to just a few deranged people, but recently there had been an increase in mentions of such nature in reports of the Guild of Authors. Strangely, there was less and less books that were published which had not an impeccable sense of continuity.
In a way, it had been perceived at first in literary circles as a blessing for the authors who had not to contend with fans and geeks of all kind who were hunting down each and every detail to prove or disprove unsaid theories. But Godfrey was starting to see some not so perfect points in that. It would be like wanting to string together all the eyelets of your shoes even if they do not belong to the same shoe (or the same pair of shoes). Soon, you’d be embarrassed to find a way to walk without looking like a penguin.Anyway, though all allegations made as to the existence of such secret organization had been mostly derailed as utter nonsense, he couldn’t help but find some inexplicable appeal to them as sound explanations for all the glitches he kept noticing.
He would carefooly spy on Franlise.In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“You know what?” Harvey was once again breaking the silence in an awkward manner after being lost in thoughts for what had seemed like eons to Lavender (or was it Lilac?), who was kind enough and certainly wise enough not to interrupt the whatever-was-happening process inside his skull.
“Mmm?”
“All those piglets, I read an article recently they could be used efficiently as shepherd dogs.”
“Now what? You want us to have sheep now?” Lavender was appalled but displaying still an impeccable composure, thinking it might be another outbreak of being taken over by aliens.
“Nah. Just telling you there would certainly be loonies out there wanting to take pigs as dogs. Perhaps we should leave a few on the doorstep of that mad lady, you know… She looks a bit devastated, and sure a little 200 pounds pig would help her stay grounded”
“Sure they grew big fast those little buggers.”
