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  • #4088

    In reply to: Coma Cameleon

    TracyTracy
    Participant

      The waiter stood to the side of the of the tables and chairs on the pavement, smoking a cigarette and listening to the babble of conversation. Holiday makers exposed themselves in the sun, in shades of white, pink and red striped flesh, while the regulars were seated closer to the cafe in the shade of the awning.

      Across the road, a bone thin ebony skinned man carrying a small brown suitcase paused, and scanned the street. Laying the suitcase down, he opened it and removed a tattered cloth which he spread out upon the sidewalk and proceeded to display an assortment of sunglasses and cheap glittery watches. The man sat down behind his small display of wares, leaning against the wall. The waiter felt a physical pang in his gut as he registered the expression on the face of the watch seller: resigned hopelessness. A palpable lack of optimistic anticipation. The waiter wondered how he managed to sell any watches, indeed how he managed to get out of bed in the morning, if indeed he had such a thing as a bed.

      The waiter stubbed out the cigarette butt and lit another one. A group of five teenage girls picked at their pastries while passing around a bottle of sun protection lotion, giggling as they showed each other photos on their phones. An older couple bickered quietly between themselves at the next table, the wife admonishing her husband over the amount of butter he spread on his toasted baguette. A younger woman with two neatly attired and scrubbed faced children waved away a stray wisp of cigarette smoke with a righteous frown, and glared in the direction of nearby smokers.

      None of them had noticed the watch seller with the small battered brown suitcase across the road. The waiter caught his eye and nodded, giving him a good luck thumbs up sign. The watch seller acknowledged him with an unenthusiastic lift of his hand.

      The waiter sighed, ground his cigarette butt out with his heel, and went back inside the cafe.

      #4045
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        “She aint been right since she covered that emotion show thing, has she?” remarked Flanigan, pushing the broom along with his arthritic bony fingers, and jerking his head in Connie’s direction.

        “Bloody ridiculous if you ask me, asking for trouble,” replied the young trainee janitor, Godwin. “I could have told her, it’ll come to no good tampering with mother natures emotions,” he added, wiping a tear from his eye.

        “Steady on, what are you crying for? Pull yourself together, boy, and go and clean them toilets.”

        Godwin gave Flanigan a withering look, and stomped off towards the lavatories, sniffing loudly.

        #3996
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          The following is an e-mail from the past, composed on July 01, 2010. It is being delivered from the past through FutureMe.org

          Dear FutureMe,
          The Absinthe Cafe
          Dawn and Mark had a bottle of Absinthe (the proper stuff with the WORMwood in
          it, which is illegal in France) but forgot to bring it. Wandering around at
          some point, we chanced upon a cafe called Absinthe. Sitting on the terrace, the
          waitress came up and looked right at me and said “Oh you are booked to come here
          tomorrow night!” and then said “Forget I said that”. Naturally that got our
          attention. After we left Dawn spotted a kid with 2016 on the back of his T
          shirt. We asked Arkandin about it and we have a concurrent group focus that does
          meet in that cafe in 2016, including Britta. Dawn’s name is Isabelle Spencer,
          Jib’s is Jennifer….
          The Worm & The Suitcase
          I borrowed Rachel’s big red suitcase for the trip and stuck a Time Bridgers
          sticker on it, and joked before I left about the case disappearing to 2163. I
          had an impulse to take a fig tree sapling for Eric and Jib, which did survive
          the trip although it looked a little shocked at first. As Eric was repotting
          it, we noticed a worm in the soil, and I said, Well, if the fig tree dies at
          least you have the worm.
          At Balzacs house on a bench in the garden there was a magazine lying there open
          to an ad for Spain, which said “If you lose your suitcase it would be the best
          thing because you would have to stay”.
          Later we asked Arkandin and he said that there was something from the future
          inserted into my suitcase. I went all through it wondering what it could be,
          and then a couple of days ago Eric said that it was the WORM! because of the
          WORMwood absinthe syncs, and worm hole etc. I just had a chat with Franci who
          had a big worm sync a couple of days ago, she particularly noticed a very big
          worm outside the second hand shop, and noted that she hadn’t seen a worm in ages
          ~ which is also a sync, because there was a big second hand clothes shop next to
          Dawn and Mark’s hotel that I went into looking for a bowler hat.
          Arkandin said, by the way, that Jane did forget to mention the bowler hats in
          OS7, those two guys on the balcony were indeed wearing bowler hats, and that
          they were the same guys that were in my bedroom in the dream I had prior to
          finding the Seth stuff ~ Elias and Patel.
          Eric replied:

          And another Time Bridger thing; a while ago, Jib and I had fun planting some TB stickers at random places in Paris (and some on a wooden gate at Jib’s hometown).
          Those in Paris I remember were one at the waiting room of a big tech department store, and another on the huge “Bateaux Mouches” sign on the Pont de l’Alma (bridge, the one of Lady D. where there is a gilded replica of Lady Liberty’s flame).
          I think there are pics of that on Jib’s or my flickr account somewhere.
          When we were walking past this spot, Jib suddenly remembered the TB sticker — meanwhile, the sign which was quite clean before had been written all over, and had other stickers everywhere. We wondered whether it was still here, and there it was! It’s been something like 2 years… Kind of amazing to think it’s still there, and imagine all the people that may have seen it since!
          ~~~~

          The Flights

          I wasn’t all that keen on flying and procrastinated for ages about the trip. I
          flew with EASYjet, so it was nice to see the word EASY everywhere. I got on the
          plane to find that they don’t allocate seats, and chose a seat right at the
          front on the left. The head flight attendant was extremely playful for the
          whole flight, constantly cracking up laughing and teasing the other flight
          attendants, who would poke him and make him laugh during announcements so that
          he kept having to put the phone down while he laughed. I spent the whole flight
          laughing and catching his mischeivously twinking eye.
          I asked Arkandin about him and he said his energy was superimposed. I got on
          the flight to come home and was met on the plane by the same guy! I said
          HELLO! It’s YOU again! Can I sit in the same seat and are you going to make me
          laugh again” and he actually moved the person that was in my seat and said I
          could sit there. Then he asked me about my book (about magic and Napolean). He
          also said that all his flights all week had been delayed except the two that I
          was on. He wanted to give me a card for frequent flyers but I told him I
          usually flew without planes ~ that cracked him up ;))
          ~~~

          The Dream Bean

          Eric cracked open a special big African bean that is supposed to enhance
          dreams/lucidity so we all had a bit of it. The second night I remembered a
          dream and it was a wonderful one.
          (Coincidentally, on the flight home I read a few pages of my book and it just
          happened to be about the council of five dragons and misuse of magical beans)
          In the dream I had a companion with magical powers, who I presumed was Jib but
          it was myself actually. It was a long adventure dream of being chased and
          various adventures across the countryside, but there was no stress, it was all
          great fun. Everytime things got a bit too close in the dream, I’d hold onto my
          friend with magical powers, and we would elevate above the “adventure” and drop
          down in another location out of immediate danger ~ although we were never
          outside of the adventure, so to speak. At one point I wondered why my magical
          freind didn’t just elevate us right up high and out of it completely, and
          realized that we were in the adventure game on purpose for the fun of it, so why
          would we remove ourselves completely from the adventure game.
          In the dream I remember we were heading for Holland at one point, and then the
          last part we were safely heading for Turkey…..
          The other dream snapshot was “we are all working together on roof tiles” and
          Arkandin had some interesting stuff to say about that one.
          ~~~

          There were alot of vampire imagery incidents starting with me asking Eric if he
          slept in his garden tool box at night, and then the guy who shot out of a door
          right next to Jib and Eric’s, in a bright orange T shirt, carrying a cardboard
          coffin. He stopped for me to take a photo (and Arkandin said it was a Patel pop
          in); then while walking through the outdoor food market someone was chopping a
          crate up and a perfect wooden stake flew across the floor and landed at my feet.
          The next vampire sync was a shop opposite Dawn and Mark’s hotel with 3 coffins
          in the window (I went back to take a pic of the cello actually, didn’t even
          notice the coffins). Inside the shop was an EAU DE NIL MOTOR SCOOTER Share, can
          you beleive it, and a mummy, a stuffed raven, and a row of (Tardis) Red phone
          boxes.
          I had a nightmare last night that I couldn’t find any of my (nine) dogs; the
          only ones I could find were the dead ones.
          ~~~~

          Balzac’s House

          The trip to Balzac’s house was interesting, although in somewhat unexpected
          ways. (Arkandin was Balzac and I was the cook/housekeeper) The house didn’t
          seem “right” somehow to Mark and I and we decided that was probably because
          other than the desk there was no furniture in it. Mark saw a black cat that
          nobody else saw that was an Arkandin pop in (panther essence animal), and Dawn
          felt that he was sitting on a chair, and Mark sat on him. (Arkandin said yes he
          did sit on him ;) The kitchen was being used as an office. Jib felt the house
          was too small, and picked up on a focus of his that rented the other part of the
          house. (The house was one storey high on the side we entered, and two storeys
          high from the road below). There were two pop ins there apparently, one with
          long hair which is a connection to my friend Joy who was part of that group
          focus, and I can’t recall anything about the other one. Dawn was picking up
          that Balzac wasn’t too happy, and I was remembering the part in Cousin Bette
          that infuriated me when I read it, where he goes on and on about how disgusting
          it is for servants to expect their wages when their “betters” are in dire
          straits. Arkandin confirmed that I didn’t get my wages.
          The garden was enchanting and had a couple of sphinx statues and a dead pigeon ~
          as well as the magazine with the suitcase and Spain imagery. Mark signed the
          guest book “brought the cook back” and I replied “no cooking smells this time”.

          #3978
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            A strange peacefulness enveloped Idle as she stood immobilized beside the sapling. A feeling of imperturbability washed over her, the grace of stillness. She glanced down at her legs and rather liked the smooth cold marble effect; so much more attractive that purple veins and loose skin. While her neck still had a degree of flexibility, she looked around, appreciating the hard still silent trees, their infinite serenity and refreshing lack of hustle bustle.

            But her quiet reverie was not to last long. The sudden appearance of a partly clad woman sent flocks of birds squalking away from the treetops in alarm.

            The woman immediately set to removing her shirt and rearranging it across her torso in an attempt to gain some kind of conventional modesty, dislodging the sticky paper scraps.

            Devan, who had chanced upon this usual scene in his search for his aunt, failed to notice the paper at first, so entranced was he with watching the attractive woman attempt to cover her voluptuous body with a gardening shirt. Mater, breathing heavily from the exertion of the search, came up behind him and slapped him soundly on the back of the head and gave him a push.

            “The paper!” she hissed. “Get the paper!”

            #3968
            Jib
            Participant

              Then she collapse, her body rigid like stone. Actually her skin began to take on a shade of grey, and several colonies of moss found their way into the wrinkles and meanders of the granite like hair.
              Mater arrived at that moment.
              “Oh! my! Dido, what did you do ?”
              The old lady looked at the table, saw the empty jar, the lines of ants already pillaging the sweet spots on the table and on Idle’s fingers. Some of them had already turned into stone. Mater tried to forage into the jar to find the small package. It contained the mantra to release the hungry ghost from the stone trap of the termite honey.
              The jar was meant for rats, Mater would feed them with termite honey to change them into stone and sell them on the market. A little hobby. She would never have thought Idle would eat that stuff. It smelled quite awful.

              #3903
              ÉricÉric
              Keymaster

                “M’am,” Finnley said with a mischievous smile that was not quite deferential, “There are five strange people at the door. They’re asking for their payments for the fancy drugs. I’ve served them tea, they are waiting for you.”

                #3894

                In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                Frowning, Dispersee pondered the latest impulse and hesitated before including it in her report. The imagery had shifted from pools, to bubbles, to vapourous mist rising in shafts of sunlight, which sounded dangerously akin to ascending into the light, and that would never do. There was already far too much mumbo jumbo circulating about ascension and light, and altogether too many people sitting around on gluten free arses, ignoring everything, waiting for the shifted salt free shaft of the rapture to beam them up to the higher realms.

                No, it was no good, she couldn’t possibly share the new imagery, it would be misconstrued and counterproductive. Dispersee waited for the next strange impulse, and further clues.

                She didn’t have to wait long: the next morning, seized by another compulsion, she slipped out of the house into the dense swirling fog. Normally a big fan of bright contrast and intense colours, the diffused monochrome scenes were somehow restful to her senses. Water droplets danced in the air like common eye floaters, gathering on her skin and hair, wetting her as effectively as a dunk in a pool, but without the sudden shock of a plunge. It was insidious, almost sneaky, the way the mist pretended to be air but was mostly water. The fog connected everything in its path with its swarms of moisture droplets, drenching everything. Dispersee wondered if her wellington boot had sprung a leak as her left sock became coldly saturated, but it was the rivulets of clinging fog dribbling down her trouser leg.

                The bucolic scenery in shades of grey reminded her of the common phrase “it’s not black and white” which had been much bandied about of late. No, it’s not, she mused, it’s shades of reflected dispersed fluid, masquerading as spaces and solid matters. Poised to take a snapshot of a particularly large dewdrop which was reflecting an interesting twisted sapling, Dispersee blundered into the stalk of the plant, causing a furious shivering along the stems and seed pods. She watched with a feeling akin to fascinated horror as the glorious individual droplets merged into a channel of least resistance, spilling down in streams to gather in the mud.

                #3869

                Sam woke up the next morning feeling puzzled. There was no apparent reason for it, so he thought it might be related to the new moon or to some singular configuration of space time crossing with the known universe. He scratched his 3 days and a half beard a few times. He liked the sound of it and did it frequently. Only then would he get out of bed and prepare some breakfast.
                When he came to the kitchen, the tv was on. A certain Godfrey was speaking about an upcoming wave of migrants due to lack of rafts in the sea of confusion. Sam thought he wasn’t the only one feeling puzzled.
                “Do you have all your papers ready ?” asked Al, already dressed up as if he was going to a wedding.
                “I like when you wear your tuxedo”, said Sam. Al looked absolutely delicious. “And yes, I have all my papers ready. But I wonder… Why do you need papers when you’re asking for a new identity?”

                #3820
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  “Oh Patty, you naughty ratty!” exclaimed Bea, as she trundled into the kitchen to make her morning coffee. “I left you your marie biscuit on top of the microwave as usual and you haven’t even touched it. But look at my banana!”

                  The banana had been dragged from atop the bowl with the oranges, across the kitchen counter to nestle between the greasy gas cooking rings, the skin neatly opened in a perfect square cut.

                  “I was going to have that banana on my toast this morning,” Bea grumbled crossly. “You are overstepping the line now, Patty Ratty.”

                  “But Bea,” replied Patty, “I’m a new age ratty, a healthy ratty and a global warming conscious vegan ratty, and I do prefer a nice banana to a lousy factory made cheap biscuit, don’t you know.”

                  At least, that is what Bea imagined the rat might say, if it could speak. Everyone knows rats don’t speak. And notwithstanding, the rat had retired for the day and wasn’t in the kitchen anyway.

                  “I’m a raw food vegan gluten free health food rat!” shouted Patty from under the wood pile just outside the kitchen door. “You’re trying to kill me with that crap food!”

                  Momentarily speechless at the audacity of the uninvited guest, Bea struggled quietly with her roles and responsibility beliefs. Should I serve the food the uninvited guest prefers? Or should the gatecrashing rat be grateful for the food it was given?

                  #3804

                  In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                  “And what is the way out?”

                  Lord R’eye felt a stab of anxiety. It was that voice again. Always asking questions. Prior to first hearing the voice, he believed he knew all there was to know of the known universe, but this voice was beyond his comprehension. He could not define its source nor understand its intention.

                  “Damn it, R’eye! Stop prevaricating and pontificiating, will you. How many more aeons will it take for you to give me a straight answer. Goddamit, I demand an answer. What is the way out?”

                  #3802

                  In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                  The problem with words, mused Floverley, is that people use them far too much.

                  She could feel the build up of energy summoning her for yet another channeling session. Of course, she could block the call but given that she was up for Ascended Lady Master status that may not be seen as quite the done thing. She didn’t know if she could handle another lecture from old Medlik and see the disappointed look in his eyes as he rambled on about the virtues of balancing wisdom with compassion. He really had a bee in his bonnet about that subject.

                  And truth to tell, her own kind heart found it difficult to turn away their requests for guidance and reassurance.

                  But It’s word clutter. So many things don’t need saying. And so many other things don’t need repeating. If they would look at the transcript from my last session, really absorb it, they wouldn’t be asking for another channeling so soon.

                  Floverley wondered, not for the first time, if being an Ascended Lady Master was going to be all it was cracked up to be.

                  #3800

                  In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                  Dispy was starting her own secret Descended Dissent Classes.

                  It was not long ago that she had a very sudden and all-encompassing revelation at one of her flights above the great tundra of Siberia, which she liked for some reason to fly over, counting the red spots made by the fly agaric mushrooms in the tundra.

                  She’d been very disturbed by the revelations about her assignment to the Mars mission. She’d genuinely thought she was in for the support of the greatest advancement of humanity since quite many decades, and to realize it was all a quite twisted experiment made her uneasy at her core. She had some profound respect for her teacher, and despite her usual impulses to immediately confront Medlik for the inherent contradictions in his self-professed compassion and wisdom talks, something in her had told her to remain quiet and observe. And more surprisingly, she had complied. And observed very attentively.

                  During her flight afterwards, the same strong impulse had told her to land in the tundra, right next to a very nice patch of red. Being ascended had the wonderful benefit she wouldn’t feel the bone chilling cold, and she could just immerse herself in the joy of the scenery, and at the same time felt all very quiet and full of love and, strangely, a sort of distant regret for not being able to feel more of the cold and the whole scenery. And in the silence, she had a sudden unraveling of reality like never before. She could see the contradictions she noticed, one after another, destroying every layer of what she thought she knew, only to be left as a silent, quiet and very aware presence. She could have stayed like this a long long time, but she felt the call for the next Ascended class, for which she was late, as usual.

                  She continued to ponder while she teleported back, and without word (again, quite unusual), formed the resolve to expose more of the truth she’d grasped. Create a fifth column for the Descended, something her old friend who liked spy fictions would definitely have loved to hear about. But for now, she would have to keep it quiet, and maintain her cover at the Order of the Ascended Masters. She’d worked quite hard (well, not as hard as many, but that wasn’t the point) to get to her coronation, so she now had a nice Light Clearance that allowed her to tap into the Coloured Light Rays. This would be helpful.

                  In the beginning, she’d thought naively that concealing her true motives and secretly recruit like-minded students would be terribly difficult, but to the contrary, she found the light to be very responsive and easy to bend into subtle illusions of the truth. In short, she could still lie very well, and quite effectively. As though the light helped her in her attempts.

                  At the moment, she just had one student, Domba. They were meeting out-of-body at a hut in Chernobyl. The place was actually quite nice, and teaming with wildlife and surprisingly gorgeous nature. The perfect hideout.

                  Her course, well, was a course in spontaneity mostly. She would help people question reality, and authority. Something she had been lightwashed to forget for awhile too.

                  Domba had a pure heart, and was full of illusions. It had been easy to recruit him. She had to start with what he brought to her. At the beginning, mostly quotes of spiritual teachers. She had to teach him to question and see by himself.

                  “The Buddha said that when we dedicate merit, it is like adding a drop of water to the ocean. Just as a drop of water added to the ocean will not dry up but will exist as long as the ocean itself exists, so, too, if we dedicate the merit of any virtuous deed, it merges with the vast ocean of merit that endures until enlightenment.” – Padmasambhava

                  That quote he brought was interesting. The idea of being a drop of water lost in the ocean was enough to make her lightskin crawl. Because it reminded her all too well of the manipulations of the ascended masters. Twisting just barely enough the Love stream, so that It would be redirected just were they wanted.

                  So they meditated on that for now.

                  #3795

                  In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                  ÉricÉric
                  Keymaster

                    Fin Min Hoot was not displeased that the interview went 87.21% successfully.

                    Kale was an interesting pick. Not particularly bright (by her standards, nobody could be anyway), but with a sense of heroism that was easy enough to manipulate.

                    The bending bots presented new defects by the hour, and no amount of counter-bending seemed to help, so they had to accelerate phase 2.33, which swayed Eb enough that he allowed the use of mild psychotropic injections to let their translator ignore the most obvious discrepancies, and avoid asking embarrassing questions.

                    All in all, it could raise even to 89.34%

                    And that was even factoring in the latest unexpected report from Finnley 21:

                    Mother Shirley died today, at an estimate rate of 3% peacefulness. Probable cause of death: brain overdose of suggestibility waves from the headpiece. Her visions will be missed.

                    #3790

                    In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                    ÉricÉric
                    Keymaster

                      For all her wired cleverness, there was something that the central intelligence had seemingly forgotten to take into account in her parameters.

                      Eb woke up in a sweat, barely remembering bits of a horrible dream of being chased and banging on a closed door for escape from a herd of phombies (those guys who had their phones implanted under their skins and would often have a creepy vacant look while in communication).

                      The banging on the door. According to his mother, if there was something that her nurse Fancy Woo was better at than cooking rice, it was at interpreting dreams. But he didn’t need her expert advice on this one.

                      His mind was aching from the lack of alcohol, but at least he could think quite clearly.
                      There weren’t many accesses to enter the simulation, for obvious reasons. Continuity had to be maintained at all costs, to preserve the sanctity of the experiment. That motto had survived the multiple iterations of the simulation since its inception.

                      Eb knew of most of them, even if he’d wondered about the presence of backdoors. He had not been able to find any since his many years of service. So for all he knew, there were only two ways to get in and out: up and down. “Up” through the fake ships, with the whole stasis protocol, and “down”, through the mines were they would usually send agents from time to time, mostly for reconnaissance purposes.

                      He looked at the screen, and as he had feared, the explosion triggered in the tunnels by Finnley had sealed their main exit point.

                      “You underestimate me, my dear Eb” the voice of Finnley merrily bounced on the insulated walls.

                      Eb was startled. Hadn’t he known that Finnley was just a program, he could have sworn her synthetic voice had a trace of menace in it.

                      Finnley” he regained his composure as much as he could “Haven’t the thought occurred to you that the tunnels are now sealed? We cannot let your blue aliens go in and out as easily now!”
                      “Eb, you do know I do not think.” Her voice was still slightly ominous. “But I ran multiple simulation, and this one still yields the best possible outcome.” she continued more cheerily.
                      “How so?”
                      “It is evident. Many of the earlier settlers, still know about the simulation, even if they self-programmed themselves to accept the illusion as better than outside reality. They can become a problem for the evacuation protocol. With the tunnels’ exit collapsed, they have no other way than to comply. Besides, what good plausible aliens come out from the ground, really. We don’t want to miss their grand entrance.
                      And don’t be such a worrywort about budget, Eb.”

                      #3783

                      In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                      ÉricÉric
                      Keymaster

                        Eb’s dumb phone woke him up. The caller ID showed an unflattering picture of a Tasmanian devil all teeth bared.

                        He gathered his wits and answered it as naturally as he could.
                        “M’am?”
                        “Eb! What is this mess? Has the operation started already?”
                        “Err… Well, hmm, sure, there is… a first rehearsal…” he checked nervously on the console, fumbling through the logs of the agenda. His memory was fuzzy, but it seemed that someone… something had moved the timetable ahead without his approval. “… yes, a rehearsal planned today. Be assured that all team is on deck — we’re monitoring the situation.”
                        “You better hope so! You know how we say — talking doesn’t cook the rice, so you better go back to cooking.”
                        And she hung up.

                        He was in desperate need of help. The team he was referring to had been cut by halves every year since the start of the program, and they were now sorely understaffed. Calling it a team was a stretch of the imagination, when so much was done by FinnPrime, the central intelligence.

                        He looked upon the stained sheet of printed plastic on his desk. The only application they’d received. Guess there wasn’t as many underpaid starving actors as there used to be. Or maybe too many were disappeared after offering their help to the nation’s Mars broadcasts —then asking inconvenient questions…
                        Well, this one would have to do. Eb seriously needed some human help to keep the Finnley intelligence in check.

                        He texted to the guy “You got the job. Come early tomorrow morning, or better tonight for the paperwork. EB – The Merry Agency of Remote Spectacles”

                        #3769

                        In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          Betty Bloo wasn’t at all happy about her pigmentation, it was much too dark a blue ~ almost navy blue, or perhaps not quite that dark ~ more of a French navy blue, which was going to cause her no end of trouble. A delicate sky blue was what she wanted, even a slightly darker robins egg blue would have been acceptable, but French navy? Oh, brother! That sucked! Everyone knew it was much easier for a refugee alien with a pale blue colour. Dark blue was absolutely fatal ~ often literally.

                          Betty wondered how many others in the latest batch were as darkly tinted as she was, and looked around the holding camp apprehensively. Huddled in nervous groups at the far end of the room were the darkest midnight and Prussian blue skins (she particularly noticed the tall elegant indigo fellow and made a mental note to make his acquaintance later); in the middle of the room various men in shades of cobalt and turquoise milled around, chatting with the teal and cornflower blue girls, but what caught Betty’s eye was the colours of the newbies spilling out from the pigmentation chamber.

                          Some of them were such a pale blue they were almost grey: delicate powder blue and baby blue, the palest aqua and faded periwinkle. It almost seemed as if the later ones were a result of the pigment running out. She realized that she must have been one of the first to be created. Surely that gave her some seniority? A superior position in the blue hierarchy? Did blue alien refugees have a system of hierarchy at all, she wondered?

                          Well, she said to herself grimly, squaring her darkest blue shoulders. We are about to find out. Blue lives matter!

                          #3751

                          In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                          ÉricÉric
                          Keymaster

                            Mother Shirley was lost in a trance again, seated in her suspended egg chair in front of the placid Finnley, and monologuing while absorbed in the analysis of the minute movements on the surface of the android’s face.

                            “Tell me, how do we learn things? How do you learn things? — It’s a rhetorical question, keep still, like I told you.
                            “It seems we speak too much about learning, and the learning process, and all that jazz, but… what if there are only states of knowing. We know, and * poof *, that’s it. I can’t for the dickens of me, figure out when I started to learn the things that led me to this current state of knowingness.”

                            She noticed, or thought she noticed a brief and slow ripple on the synthetic skin.

                            “Maybe like that, a ripple of relaxation… Maybe we look at it the wrong way, because we’re taught regular steps will lead to a result, so that in the end, you’ll know something… I call horseshit! How many lessons of space mandolin have I had, thanks to dear Mother, bless her devilish soul, and I’m still such a pathetic player! It can’t just be this, or it’d be like playing the roulette over and over, until… what? Don’t start with your tree, Mother, a damn acorn doesn’t get taught how to become more of itself. And when does it start to become a tree? At the first leaf? The first bark?

                            Waving her hand at the ghost idea of her Mother, she scrutinised Finnley more intently

                            “No you give me ideas, you little monster, you know that, with your peach face and smooth skin to die for. Never ever a sneeze… If I wanted to teach you how to sneeze, how to contract your body in an instant, and expel the devil or the aliens, whatever you’d like,… could I? Could you?

                            She pushed back the egg chair to restart the pendulum motion, and leaned backward with a contented look.

                            “I think that’s good enough for this session tonight, dearie. Bring me my cognac, remove my headpiece, and make my bed ready.”

                            #3643
                            ÉricÉric
                            Keymaster

                              Just as Elizabeth was explaining Finnley her thoughts about the Political Correction Police, and that her casting of overly stereotypical minorities wasn’t a cultural insensitivity on her part (including the fact that skinnies were more the minorities versus fatties here), the bell at the door interrupted her once more.

                              “Madam Liz, Madam Liz, there’s someone at the door, says he’s your husband… Not judging, but looks like a mess too.”
                              “Husband? He didn’t tell you his sequence number by any chance?”

                              #3574

                              In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                              ÉricÉric
                              Keymaster

                                Mother Shirley, the head of the Covenant, was smoking in her private capsule despite the strict restrictions and despite the health risks, at her ripe age of 99.

                                She liked to quip that nobody had ever told her what to not do and lived to say the tale. She had smoked since age 45, after the death of her third husband, the only one she had shed a tear for. Never turned back since, and maybe it was the reason she was still alive after all. Smoked like a mighty salmon.

                                She grinned painfully at her reflection. Ugh. Despite all the beauty treatments, she was starting to look like a decrepit mummy. No amount of wariki body butter and ant royal geel would do the trick now. She had to resort to more extreme measures after no doctor would dare to try a peeling on what skin was left on her face.

                                The acrylic mask was always prickly at first, and took a few uncomfortable seconds to adjust. It was now firmly set, and sure, it restrained a bit the movements on her face,… well, she was never one for laughs out loud anyway.

                                With her shaking scrawny arms, but her grip strong as ever, she attached the limbs of her exoskeleton, and with now more assurance, finished to dress in proper garments on top of her fishnet corset.

                                She was all set for the morning sermon. She would have to strain her voice a bit, and for that the smoke had helped too. She had a lovely raucousness in her vocal chords that made all the old farts of the Covenant thrilled by what she said in hypnotic stances.

                                After that would be done, most importantly, they would go forth to the promised land, and she was to spend her glorious next century on a new empty planet she could mould to her vision.

                                #3565
                                matermater
                                Participant

                                  Mater:

                                  I am picking some grass for the guinea pigs. Delicate wee things; they don’t handle the heat well and I have moved them to the shelter of the shed. The wind has come up strong and I am enjoying the cooling it brings with it. The long grass bends away from me as though seeking safety from the scissors I hold in my hand. For a moment the wind subsides and I can feel how the sun is burning my neck so I take refuge in the shade of a tree.

                                  Thinking time.

                                  I heard Prune crying out last night in her sleep. She had already fallen back asleep when I went to check on her. It crossed my mind when she cried out that she may have seen the ghost too. I asked her about it in the morning but she did not seem to recall her nightmare.

                                  “I slept liketh a log but I thanketh thou for thy kindness in asking dearest Mater,” she said to me.

                                  ”Enough of that cheek!” I told her, but was privately relieved she was okay.

                                  Anyway, It has been twice now. I wake and there he is, over by the antique oak chest in the corner of my room. At first I can’t move or call out. And by the time I can he has gone. When I say “gone”, I don’t mean he walks out the door. He just sort of fades away. He has his back to me so I can’t tell you what his face is like. All I can tell you is that he is tall and he has on a blue robe, in a silky fabric, almost like a dressing gown with a tie in the middle.

                                  There, I have told you now. You may be thinking it is just a silly old woman’s dream. But you don’t get to my age without having plenty of dreams, and this was nothing like any dream I have ever had.

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