Search Results for 'sea'

It was hot, although not as hot as usual for the month of August on the southern slopes of the Serrania de Ronda. It had rained, the black clouds and thunder a welcome respite from the searing dry heat of an Andalucian summer, plumping up the blackberries and washing the dust from the leaves of the fig trees. Blithe Gambol hadn’t seen her old friend Granny Mosca for months, although she wasn’t quite sure what had kept her from visiting for so long. Blithe loved Granny Mosca’s cottage tucked away in the saddle behind the fat hill and there had been times when she’d visited often, just to drink in the magical air and feast her eyes on the beauty of the surroundings. Dry golden weeds scratched her legs as she made her way along the dirt path, and she was mindful of the fat black snake she’d once seen basking on the stone walls as she reached into the brambles to pluck blackberries and take photographs.

Rounding a corner in the path she gasped at the incongrous and alarming sight of a bright yellow bulldozer just meters from Granny Mosca’s cottage. The bulldozer was flattening a large area of prickly pear cactuses. Unfortunately for the cactuses, it was fruiting time, and Blithe wondered if Granny Mosca had first picked the fruits and suspected that she had, those that she could reach. Nothing that could be eaten was left unpicked ~ Blithe remembered the many sacks of almonds that Granny had given her over the years, very few of which she had bothered to shell and eat.

The bulldozer was making an entranceway to the tiny derelict cottage that was situated next to Granny Mosca’s house. Granny had asked Blithe if she wanted to buy it, and she had wanted to buy it eventually, but the purchase of a derelict building hadn’t been a priority at the time. Now it looked as if she was too late, that someone else had bought it, perhaps to use as a holiday home. Horrified, Blithe called out for Granny, who was often in the goat shed or away across the hidden saddle valley cutting weeds to feed the poultry, but there was no sign of her. Two alien looking turkeys gobbled in response, and the black and white chained dog barked menacingly.

As Blithe retraced her steps along the dirt path it occured to her that whoever was planning to use the derelict cottage might be a very interesting person, someone she might be very pleased to make the acquaintance of in due course. After all, she had noticed that the holiday guests staying at the casitas on the other side of the fat hill were all sympathetic to the magical nature of the location, many of them arriving from a previous visit to a particularly interesting location in the Alpujarras ~ a convergence of ley lines. When questioned as to why they chose the fat hill casitas, they simply said they liked the countryside. Either they weren’t telling, or they were simply unaware objectively of the connection of the locations. Blithe could sense the connections though, both the locations, and that the people choosing to vacation at the fat hill were connected to it.

For one hundred and forty seven thousand years, Blithe had had an energy presence at the fat hill, although it was half a century of her current focus before she remembered it. She had felt protective of it, when she finally remembered it, as if she had a kind of responsibility to it. This place can look after itself quite well on its own, she reminded herself. The fat hill had watched while Franco’s Capitan looted the Roman relics, and watched as Blithe stumbled upon the remains of Roman and Iberian cities, and the fat hill had laughed when Blithe first tried to find the entrance to the interior and got stuck in thorn bushes. Later, the fat hill had smiled benignly when Granny Mosca led her to the entrance ~ without a thorn bush in sight. The cave entrance had been blocked with boulders then. Blithe had given some thought to an excavation, wondering how to achieve it without attracting the attention of the locals, but now she wondered if one day, when the time was right, she would find the entrance clear, as if by magic. Magic, after all, was by no means impossible.

{link: feast for the birds}

“These old ezines and blogs are fascinating” remarked Periwinkle, passing the one she had just been reading to Daffodil. “Thank goodness some folks had the foresight to print some of them!”

“I know, imagine if they hadn’t. We’d have no artefacts for the collection. Well, we have all those flat discs, but no way to decipher them. Oh, did I tell you? Bignonia found something even older than the discs!”

“NO!” exclaimed Periwinkle “Do tell!”

“Yes, even older! Funny looking contraption, with two reels and a ribbon. An information storage device, so they say, although they haven’t discovered how to decipher it.”

“I wonder why we’re still not simply accessing that information without, well, without messing around with the physical contraption, you know?”

“Wouldn’t be any point in being here in the first place, if we weren’t going to mess around with physical things, silly” replied Daffodil.

There was no answer to that, so Periwikle didn’t answer. She continued to thumb through the printed pages.

Periwinkle and Daffodil sat together on the patio in the warm spring sunshine, sipping lemonade
and leafing through the papers. Bright white clouds in cartoon shapes romped across the blue sky,
and the birds chattered in the trees,
occasionally landing on the printed pages and cocking their heads sideways to read for a moment, before flying off to tell their friends, which was usually followed by a raucous group cackling.

“Dear Goofenoff” read Daffodil, “This one looks interesting Peri, someone here is asking for advice on a problem.”

“What’s a “problem”, Daffy?” asked Periwinkle. “For that matter, what does the word “advice” mean? Oh, never mind” she said as she noticed Daffodil rolling her eyes, “I’ll look it up in my pre shift dictionary of defunct words.”

“She’s asking the Snoot too, about the same problem. Oh, I think I’ve heard of them! It’s coming back to me, the old Snoot’n‘Goof team, they were quite famous in the beginning of the century, I remember hearing about them before in a Shift History discussion.”

“Well, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of them, but then, I’ve never been into history like you, dear. So what is this “problem” all about, then?”

“I’ll read it out to you, it’s way too convoluted to put in a nutshell. Lordy, they sure did complicate matters back then, it’s almost unbeleivable, really, but anyway, here goes:

Dear Goofenoff,

I don’t know what to do! I am confused about which probable version of a blog freind, let’s call him MrZ, I have chosen to align with. The first probable version was ok, nothing to worry about, and then I drew into my awareness the probable versions of MrZ that some of my freinds had chosen to align with….”

“Blimey”, interrupted Periwinkle, who was starting to fidget. “Is it much longer?”

“It’s alot longer, so be patient. Where was I? Oh yes:

“….and while that was very interesting indeed, and led to lots of usefully emotionally heated discussions, I started to align with their probable version, at times, although not consistently, which led to some confusion. So then I had a chat with someone who was more in alignment with my original probable version, although there were aspects of that probable version that were a little in alignment with the other folks probable version, notwithstanding. I suppose I was still in alignment with the other folks probable version when it came to my attention that there was another individual that might be aligning with a probable version, and my question is, in a nutshell, is it any of my business which probable version the new individual on the scene is aligning with?”

“Well, I can tell you the answer to that!” exclaimed Periwinkle.

Daffodil rolled her eyes. “Yes, dear, WE know the answer, but the point is, SHE didn’t know the answer at the time, which is why she asked Goofenoff.”

“If you ask me, she knew the answer all along” Periwinkle intuited. “What did Goofenoff say anyway?”

“He said:

Are you requiring a short or a long answer?”

Daffodil turned the page to continue reading. She frowned, and flicked through a few pages.

“What a shame, some of these pages appear to be missing! Now we’ll never know what Goofenoff said.”

Periwinkle laughed. “Well, never mind that anyway, have you seen the random story quote today? Rather synchronistic I’d say, listen to this bit:

Illi felt much better, and was sitting at the breakfast table, basking in the warm shafts of sunlight filtering in through the window, and listening to the birds singing in the lemon tree outside.”

“You know, I could sit on a beach til the end of time” Shar remarked, letting the sand run through her fingers as they watched the sun go down over the sea, “and I’d never really understand how we started off as Sand ~ A Shard is nothing like Sand. Window, yes, I can see how a Shard came from Window, that makes sense ~ but SAND?….”

“The dream of caves in which I wander comes nightly now. Minkah has never appeared again.”

“He never did, did he?” interuppted Godfrey. “Minky I mean.”

“Oh yes he did!” replied Elizabeth, and continued to read the email from Hypatia. “ But each night I find myself lost there and each night I search for a child. So odd, so odd, as I know I will never give life to another.”

“Where is Yikesy, anyway?” asked Godfrey.

“With Minky, of course!”

He was lying on her massage table, his nudity covered with a blue satin towel. Josephine had really soft hands and was a really good masseuse. Almondus Blondor had been waiting for so long for this massage that he wouldn’t let one bit escape his awareness; though, he was feeling as if he was inexorably slipping into the drum world, his heart was pounding, more and more present. His attention was merging with his old drum self, when he could remember clearly how it was before he came here through the portal himself.

Josephine was using the very potion she was preparing when she heard the tinkling sound… and she was unaware that her hand had taken a wrong ingredient, one of the most important ones. Even if she had known, she would have been unable to tell the consequences of the switch. Almondus could just disappear, melt, transform into a big giant dragonfly… at the moment, she was into a trance, far even from the idea that she could do such a mistake. She never did mistakes!

Bentworth Sadnick was all but confident in his new appointment by his peaster. He had never been alone at the portal before, and he feared most of all that someone would come ask a question. In his mind, it was unthinkable that someone would even dare ask to open the portal…

He was lost in his hamster wheel, too exhausted by the race to do the usual chores —sure his peaster would notice when he comes back. But what if some official came by? It would certainly be a disaster, Bentworth would be caught stammering and that would only add to his confusion. Wasn’t it hot here? So hot, maybe if he could just put his head aside for a few moments… no, it was forbidden, his peaster had repeated it thousands of times to him, and had him repeat it ten times more… though it could help, sure, release the pressure in his head. His hands reached the hook of his head-fastener and a sudden release of pressure popped into the silence, ending in a harmonious whistling sound.

Holding his head in his hands, face turned to his chest, he was unable to see the strangers coming from the distance. He sat on the first step of the stairs climbing to the portal, his head resting on his lap, looking at his belly button (his clothes were too short for him, and he was looking like a child grown too fast). Though he was the only one present and when he suddenly heard a raucous voice asking if he could make his bird sing, he feared that it was some kind of sexual offer and were his head on, it would have blushed, but it was still releasing pressure and the sudden squirck sounded like a yes.

That’s when he lost his head, he stood up briskly and his head rolled on the ground, hitting a stone in the process. His head was knocked out, and he couldn’t use it for the moment. What had his peaster told him so often: “Always do as if you know what to do! Don’t let people see you don’t know, even if you don’t… pretend that you have all the answers. You’re here the most trusted Peaslander and everybody will trust what you say.”

“Sh-show mme yu-your bi-bird!”

The Aunt and Dolores looked at each other… the others being headless it would have been pointless.
“Are you the Keeper of the Old and notwithstanding Great portal of Nibabuz.”

As he was about to say yes, another release of pressure from his unconscious head made a squirmish sound. As they were waiting, he said the word that would seal his destiny.
“Yeyes!”

That’s when Almondus, falling asleep, farted. Was it the mixture of Josephine? Was it that he hadn’t done a detox cure for centuries? Nonetheless, that had the disastrous effect of inducing Josephine in a lethargic state. She stopped massaging him and stood there still. Her spearit gone, far worse than if her head had popped out on its own.

“And how do I play these notes?” asked Pee raucously. “I can’t even see them without my head.”

“Mmmh! Yes that could be a problem” acquiesced Fwick. The saucerer scratched his chin for a few seconds as he couldn’t remember where he had put that ancient device.

“Well maybe I could just send you to the bird keeper, and he can give you one of our last Anthornis Melanura…”
“I beg your pardon?” Pee’s voice was more raucous than ever, it was quite disturbing to the saucerer who wasn’t used to talking with a headless Peaman, but he couldn’t show his discomfort though, as he thought of it, the headless Peaman was also eyeless and couldn’t see his discomfort.
“Hum! This is the ancient name of the legendary Bul Bird of New Peasland. Mewrich Peamon, the bird keeper, his family has been breeding these birds since the great Peaphetess Frean Psea found these notes some millenia ago; they are the only ones which can open the ED. Any other sequence of notes would… well we don’t know exactly what could occur. You’re on your own on this one, Pee. ehr, I’m sorry, ehh, But be assured that I’ll take care of Peanelope for you.”

“Oh! You’re too kind, Saucerer” said Pee who couldn’t have known that his faithful wife and the Saucerer were having an affair.

A sudden cry from Lilly startled them both. She had burst into tears and her brother was looking like a culprit. But Fwick wasn’t sure as he hadn’t got a head either…

“What have you done, Pickel?” asked Pee with his raucous voice.

Ann was savooring a coughee with Lavender and Phenol. It was certainly not easy to follow a conversation when you were coughing all the time after a sip of coughee but it was quite savoory and tasty, and Flove knows why it was soo expensive.
Phenol was one of those students at the worserversity with acne and he or she wouldn’t allow another person to see his or her real face. So maybe for convenience only we can call him or her: IT.
It was the only moment you could hear a sound coming out of ITs hood, during thoose coughee sessions it was hard to keep completely silent.
Ann was very curious though, and it could be the only reason that she kept asking Phenol to come. She was still in search of clooes about that when a man arrived.

He was wearing a black hood and speaking with that particular raucous voice you only hear in movies… She got the chills and asked him to join their company. Lavender rolled her eyes because the man with the raucous voice stepped on her right foot. Not that she suffered much, because she couldn’t feel her right leg since that accident a few years ago.

The man ordered a coughee with croombs and stayed there, saying nothing. That was not unpleasant at all, since Ann was chatting and coughing, taking the coughs of the others as a yes or a no to her questions. At least an acknowledgment that she was heard.

One thing led to another, as it tends to do, while Sanso sat meditating on the enigma of The Dead Cow. Random and seemingly disjointed images flashed through his mind, not unlike a random google had been back in the old days, the first being an odd word, Kogaionon . Accessing further information, Sanso discovered that it was an ancient Transylvaniun skull. The link between the dead cow and the skull was clear ~ it was a bone sync, they both had bones, there was no denying it. Encouraged, Sanso continued to meditate.

After some images of a battle at sea , presumably Trafalgar, Sanso intuitively felt, he heard the words “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Wise words, he thought, and appropriate too. He popped these snippets into his indigo clue bag and continued to meditate. An image of a strange creature, half fish and half lion appeared next, a Merlion, which quickly morphed into an entertaining old movie playing across the screen of his minds eye, so to speak, in which someone who reminded him of Becky arrived in Paris during a rainstorm with just the clothes on her back ~ and interesting clothes they were, too! Sanso was glued to the screen, in a manner of speaking, and watched with amusement as a whole new wardrobe was delivered to the puzzled woman, followed by her mysterious benefactor: Georges.

Well, fancy Georges turning up again like that! Sanso was delighted. Perhaps Georges could shed some light on the mystery of the Dead Cow Blocking the Cave Entrance.

Sanso returned to his meditation and found himself eavesdropping on a conversation.

— Well, and Sanso, and Georges then, are they dead or what? How come Dory can see them?
— These ones are special, they have mastered the crossing of the Worlds, and can move through them. They move differently though. Sanso comes from a lineage of an ancient tribe of Zion, and had learn from them how to activate some portals, but only through the physical world of Dory, in their own time. He is not yet aware that he can also move through time as well, or even through other Worlds — worlds that he has no conception of yet.
Georges is more consummate in that art. Their meeting is not coincidental. You will see that.
— Thank you Grandad, it’s becoming a bit less confusing.
— Just flow with the story my little one, don’t hold on too much, or you will find it too difficult, and you will stop to find fun in it.

“Their meeting is not coincidental” Sanso repeated to himself, popping it into his clue bag. “Well, I don’t know about Meanings, but at least I have a new bag of clues now!”

Ann realized she was late for her Flimsy Unravelled Continuity Knowledge class. A couple of months late, in point of fact, as Worserversity classes had resumed two months previously.

“Where have you BEEN?” Lavender whispered as Ann slid as inconspicuously as possible into the seat beside her, while the professor at the front of the class was facing the blueboard.

“Do I know you?” asked Ann, with a puzzled expression. The girl beside her did look vaguely familiar.

“Oh how rude you are, Ann. Are you trying to be funny?”

“Oh no, not at all!” Ann’s eyes filled with tears.

Lavender frowned. It wasn’t like Ann to start blarting and blubbering in public. “What’s the matter?” she asked kindly.

“I’ve lost my memory!” exclaimed Ann. “I can’t remember a thing!”

“Oh, is that all,” replied Lavender dismissively. “I’d have thought you’d be used to that by now.”

“No, no, you don’t understand! I can’t remember anything at all now, it’s all gone, poof! Gone!” Ann wept and started to wring her hands.

“Well the first thing you need to do is stop that bloody snivelling and wipe your nose. Here” she said, handing Ann a tissue. “And the next thing you need to do is stop worrying about it, and just fake it until you get your memory back. Worrying about it won’t help, you must focus on the things you do remember.”

“But it’s all jumbled up and muddled in my head, I remember bits, you know? But I can’t fit them all together. I CAN’T FIT THEM ALL TOGETHER!”

“SHHH!” snapped Lavender. “Try not to draw any attention to yourself! I’ll help you, don’t worry.”

“You’re so kind” Ann smiled weakly. “What did you say your name was?”

“Lavender. My name is Lavender, and I’m going to help you remember. Just remember this, for now: what you can’t remember, don’t worry about, the important thing is to carry on. Just CARRY ON REGARDLESS, ok?”

“OK.” Ann sighed with releif. “What’s the Professor going on about?”

“The next assignment. We’re to read that cryptic old classic book Circle of Eights and try to decipher it.”

“Good greif! Nobody has ever managed to decipher that book!”

“You see?” said Lavender. “You can remember that! Well done, girl!”

(same random quote as above link #87)

Actually, thinking of Dory made Quintin remember:

“They are really bit rude around here”.

Dory stretched and yawned, and took in in a cloud of dust.

Dory wondered out loud if she should have an older man with curly grey hair and a long maroon djelaba and a tall narrow brimless black hat and watch him get laid.

I am so easy really, she thought giving it a last fond stroke. She finally surfaced from the flapping tangle of cloth just in time to see a group of people squatting next to a large oblong hole in the ground.

PFFFFFT! Deserted again.

Dory was getting bored waiting for this motley crew, looking slightly bemused, but smiling happily, she set off in search of Dory.

For her new course, Pr. Moose was a dolphin.
It was a fancy-dress course entitled: ‘Act out your characters’.

Pedro was naked, and when she asked him in what kind of disguise that could be, he told her “I’m the Universe”. She was, a moment, hypnotized by his so blue eyes that she’d forgotten her question. She gulped, speechless and looked at him more closely, appreciating the physique of his body…

— Is it real? she asked.
— It’s the Universe.
— Well, ok then, go get a seat and let’s begin our course.

Following him with her eyes, or more precisely following his butt with her eyes, she also noticed a few other students. Ann was wearing a nine-titsed alien costume and there were two glowing ladies with fishes stuck to their ghostly bodies…

This butt, she thought again, her attention distracted from the other students.