Search Results for 'thought'
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September 29, 2015 at 1:11 am #3790
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
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.”September 24, 2015 at 6:29 am #3787In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
If anything special about being in the vacuum of space, was that anywhere else than in the pressurized and breathable areas, the silence was deafening, and explosions silent.
With the main galleries under tons of rubble, Godfrey was glad to have followed his instincts with the evacuation. It was an unbelievable miracle that there were so few people down with him at that time.
He could hardly prove whether there actually was a controlled explosion triggered down there, but even without dramatic fires, the effect had been felt all throughout the colony. A few of the most fragile structures had collapsed, but at least most of the security protocols were active, and had allowed people to evacuate without too much damage while sucking the air out to avoid dangerous explosive oxygen leaks.The medical bay was quite busy now treating the wounded, while everyone remained mostly calm despite the unusualness of the situation. Amazing how the survival training (more like brainwashing) they had before coming here was kicking in, with almost minute and automatic precision.
As the only member of the board of operations in duty, he had to report to the central area, where they would likely debrief about it. When he arrived at the pod, there was already quite a commotion, and quarrelling voices could be heard in the airlock.
“… decently leave like this!”
“ We should listen to…”
“stayed for too long to stop now!”
“plan? no strategy at all!”
“was all written over,…” “failure since the beginning…”When the airlock finally opened, people continued to speak out of turn without paying much attention to him. Good he thought, that was time people release the pressure and start being honest. Let’s just hope it doesn’t end in a bloodbath.”
He was already stuffed with kale fritters and almost drunk with free kale ale from the buffet when the monitors started displaying the broadcast everyone was apparently waiting for.
As usual, Earthlings are a bit late for the battle. he thought when the familiar face of the broadcaster appeared in the middle of interferences.
“… A wave of Greta rays has been delaying the communication, in conjunction with the super moon retrograde in Spices. We apologize for the inconvenience, as we were not able to warn you of the meteor impact that hit Mars surface a few hours ago.”
Godfrey wasn’t sure this was real, or his kalecohol level hitting his brain, but the science seemed sketchy at best. He struggled to pay more attention.
“Not only the actively increased meteoric warming, but also given the Manta ray pulses from Juice pitcher, we fear all electronic equipment on which the Mars ant colony depends may be fried and lead you very soon to eternal damnation without hope for safe return. Our commercial spacecrafts cannot be risked to save you, so we advise you to pray. This broadcast was brought to you by Dismay Channel.”
Even if Godfrey wasn’t sure everything he heard was completely right, he could tell from the confused face of his colleagues that there would be a hell of a run for your lives to follow.
If only they had anywhere to run to…September 22, 2015 at 2:19 am #3786In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
I dreamt about Mater last night. She was her old self, brilliant and snappily dangerous.
It’s been the first dream I’ve been able to remember in weeks. I don’t know why I expected the great beyond space to be less… claustrophobic, but there’s no escaping the confinement.
I was telling her I was missing home, the air, the smell of eucalyptus trees, the rains before winter. I think I even became sentimental about my sisters. Hardly a news from them these days, but how could I blame them. They are always busy on some down-to-earth cause, and I know better than to criticize those on the ground actually doing something to change the wrongdoings of the world.
When I started to cry uncontrollably, Mater told me I was a baby, and that I should man up. Typical Mater. Dido would have called her names under her breath, I think that was her way to express her love for her. People are silly.In the dream, I stopped crying but the tears had swollen into a river, and I was starting to drown, things became hellish and I could barely breathe, but somehow I could still feel Mater’s presence, like a beacon. I made it out of the torrents onto an island. There were many refugees. The doctors had the strangest blue eyes, and Mater’s voice told me to trust the process but not the doctors. Then I felt all the blue eyes looking at me, and I woke up in a sweat.
Hans is still deep in a peaceful sleep, so I went out of the bedroom to get some water and check on the piggy and her litter. They are always sleeping blissfully too. It’s a wonder when you think of it, that I thought it was just getting fatter when it actually was pregnant from before we left Earth. Now they’re mostly an open secret, as everyone finds them so cute.
The most difficult was to conceal them from the reality TV show’s cameras. The hysterical fans are always scrutinizing every move we all make, and keeping some privacy is tricky, but apart from the external prying eyes, pretty much everyone here know about them and it’s like a game of hide and seek. I like how it fuels the speculations and paranoia of the Mars bunker debunking association, who think we’re all part of a mass cover-up. I’ve spent some time on their website when I couldn’t sleep the first weeks when we arrived. I would probably have never known about it, but I just searched for myself on the web, and found this thread about the new conspirators. I had to laugh at the beginning, but they raise reasonable doubts in the middle of their rants. By now, I know better than to raise the topic, especially after all the religious nonsense. Seems there are some people that get really annoyed when I asked naive questions about it, like Maya.
Like I said. People are silly.
September 19, 2015 at 12:10 pm #3784In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
Pádraig was alone as usual with his dog when he felt the first tremors. Dust started to fall from the large columns of sandstone inside the cave. He wasn’t too worried at first, as the area still had some faint thermal and seismic activity, but the second aftershock took him by surprise.
He almost fell violently backwards if he hadn’t had good enough reflexes to grab on the half carved ledge of the column he was working on.
His dog started to howl violently.“Hush, Poppy!” the dust made him cough. “Must be those stupid government guys from the nearby base. I thought they’d stopped their nuclear testing decades ago…”
The dog didn’t stop barking though, but darted out in one of the carved galleries. It stopped just before going out of sight, as if waiting for his master.
“Oh, what now silly? I’m getting old for these games.”
But the dog was stubborn, a trait they had in common, his dead wife would have told him. So he relented, and went in the direction the dog was leading to.
It took him a few hundred meters in the tunnel to realize something odd had happened. The air was full of moisture, quite unusual at this time of year. He pressed on.
The dog’s paws were making tick-tick noises on the stones, and echoed in the chambers. His gait was less light, and he had to stop a few times to catch his breath. His life’s work was now quite monumental, and it could take quite a while to go from one end to another.
Before they reached the last chamber, he had to stop. His feet were getting wet.
It had been his dream for a long time, to bring water deep down to create a sort of natural healing pool, and bathe in the beautiful minerals, but he’d done some research, and although he’d always believed some underground river was nearby, he’d never managed to find it, or find any trace in the cadastral maps.Seemed it wasn’t as far as he’d thought after all.
September 18, 2015 at 7:11 pm #3780In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
Kale quickly contemplated cutting the cords that connected him to the whole thing. For a fleeting fraction of a moment, he even considered the possibility of Flynn being involved in a covert nefarious plot with the dark haired woman, but dashed the thought from his mind. A slight nagging uneasy feeling remained when he remembered the way Flynn had got a bit too big for his boltcroppers sending the application without consultation.
But Kale was curious. He made up his mind not to accept the position (just in case anyone was plotting against him: with his past, it was as well to be cautious), but that he would attend the interview.
“You have been chosen” she’s said.
Kale recalled the frisson of excitement he felt in his ungirded loins when she’d said that, and the flash of knowing recognition in her eyes before the scornful smirk returned. He’d never been able to resist a girl in cobalt blue loingirders. Especially an exotic enigmatic one.
September 18, 2015 at 7:52 am #3779In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
“Ah, here you are at last.” said the dark haired woman, a trace of impatience in her voice.
Kale looked at her quizzically, trying to place her. Up close, she seemed older than he had first thought.
“I’m sorry but do I know you?”
“No, Kale, you don’t know me. But I know you”.
She looked at him intently for a moment and gave an enigmatic smile before continuing:
“You have a job interview tomorrow. You must accept the position.”
“Okay, this is getting really weird now. How do you know me and what business is it of yours whether or not I take the job?”
“You have been chosen.”
September 16, 2015 at 3:50 am #3777In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
Finnley 21 had received new orders to amp up the headpiece device for thoughts projection. It was by now far exceeding the constructor’s safe range of usage, but the robot had scanned the vitals of Mother Shirley, and had not found them aberrantly different from when she’d just been shipped to MARS.
Proceed with mass extinction prophet syndrome simulation 10-B-Alpha
At the commands of the dome, Eb noticed Central Finnley was taking initiatives to prepare the Mars populace to a doomsday scenario through religious belief manipulations. At least, the artificial intelligence apple didn’t fall far from its creator’s tree he would say.
But he was running late for his interview with the only candidate they’d found. He’d better be good, or at least have a convincing costume. Eb hated those interviews where he had to pretend to listen and care, why all he wanted was a nice bottle of brandy.
September 11, 2015 at 3:11 am #3765In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
After a night of restless sleep, Eb’s practical ideas for the plan B were not much.
He’d weighted multiple options, even toyed with mad ones like playing a sort of second coming, 3 days of night and so… but none had yet the potential to elegantly solve the issue at hand. Not that it was a matter of being elegant, but Eb liked elegant and simple solutions.
He flipped the calendar to today’s picture. Run away, and don’t look back it said. “Great… If only…” he started to mumbled to himself.
He poured himself a drink, and dragged his feet towards the console, eyes still swollen by the lack of sleep. His brother, Jeb, would have told him to do some wegong energxices to keep the juices flowing, but hell, there wasn’t much room in his cubicle, and for better or worse, he preferred to stick to booze.
He liked to observe his ant farm, there were so many quaint and endlessly fascinating people in there. He liked the girl with the piglet for instance. She was often opinionated and sometimes oddly quiet. He had bent the rules for her, and didn’t report the piggy she’d brought to Mars with her. What harm could it bring.
Now she was talking to it. He waved at the console to zoom in and put the speakers on.Remember, those odd stories Mater used to tell us. The Peaslanders and the blubbits was one of her favourites, she would go on and on about it, and laugh at our faces when we didn’t understand where it was going…
She was lost in thoughts for a moment.
It started like this “There was trouble in New Peasland. A plague of hungry blubbits had wiped out the pea crops.” Mater used to say it was from an old book of tales, and that the author had surpassed herself. She chuckled I guess for a long time, she was the only one to believe that. Now look at us…”Eb cut the sound before the inevitable complain about missing Earth blahblah. But Peasland? That was new… He wasn’t one to dismiss an out-of-the-blue clue, and did a quick research on the network to learn more about the tale. It took a while for the Central Intelligence to run the search. It had to go deeper than usual.
After half an hour of waiting, he’d almost run out of scotch. Thankfully, the CI had found it. Pressed by time, and impatient by nature, Eb asked the CI to do a quick summary of the plot.
The central intelligence almost bugged at the request, and could only apologize for not being able to degibberize it.It took him a few hours to read the book on the holographic screen, and at the end, couldn’t say if it was just a waste of time. Preposterous story, with no head nor tail, literally… But then his genius elegant solution appeared as an evidence.
He’d known people were more likely to comply and control if they are told a plausible lie, within the frame of their accepted reality. He just had to bridge the discontinuity of their reality, with the reality of everyone else on the planet. The tale had reminded him of this popular movie about blue aliens. Blueus ex machina, that was it!
He spoke at the console “Record this and run simulation parameters:”
The blue men are from another planet —or rather the Mars settlers are led to believe they are from another planet.
They bundle them all into a fake spaceship
and take them on a fake spaceship ride
and deliver them back to Earth. where they have been all along of course
da dah!The answer came back after another painful hour of scotch-less waiting.
“Probability of success: 68%”
Well, that was the best Eb had in days. He was about to go with it when the CI chimed in“We took the liberty of running a modified simulation based on your setting, which we believe can yield a ratio of 97% of success.”
Eb was surprised at the initiative by the machine, and was curious to hear about it.
“We adjusted two points:
1. We can simulate some event on Mars like earthquakes to increase the likelihood of a willing departure from the planet.
2. The blue aliens may be a future inconvenience if they are fake actors, when the Mars colony comes out of simulation and back to Earth. We would rather suggest using religious beliefs and invisible hand of God or non-corporal aliens.”Eb was annoyed by the machine’s dismissal of his blue aliens. Kill his darlings?
“CI, any other suggestion for point 2?” he asked.
“Indeed. We can create artificial intelligence blue bodies based on my algorithm, which would make convincing aliens that can later interact with your governments and continue the disinformation.”
Eb was too drunk to realize he was about to make a devil’s pact when he agreed to launch the secret order for cybernetic blue bodies.
September 11, 2015 at 12:36 am #3764In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
Kale yawned and, pouring himself a large cup of steaming hot coffee which was already brewing on the stove, asked Flynn to check the situations vacant. Kale had built Flynn himself in 7 days —7 long days living off sleep and coffee and not much else. Sure, Flynn might not be as pretty or as high tech as some of the robots out there nowadays but he sure did the job. He was a dab hand at research and could communicate with other robots on the network system. He would watch the house when Kale was away, start appliances, open doors and of course make the coffee. Also, most of the time, Flynn was damn good company.
“I thought you might be interested in this,” said Flynn. “In fact, I hope you don’t mind, I took the liberty of sending in your application.”
Kale did mind a bit and wondered if Flynn might need some rewiring. That was tricky—last time he had done some maintenance work Flynn had sulked for days.
Still, he had to admit after hearing the ad, the job sounded intriguing.
ARE YOU SPECIAL?
We are looking for special people to join our team.
We need people who love travel, are flexible, physically agile and have a passion for adventure.
This is a short term position initially, but could lead to permanent work in the future.
We are an innovative company with big ideas, and we are looking for special people to help us get there.
All applications will be treated in strictest confidence.July 24, 2015 at 2:07 am #3751In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
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.”
July 24, 2015 at 1:44 am #3750In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
The Matrimandir was empty at this time of night, deserted by the occasional late devotees, and only silently browsed by the maintenance robot.
Its exterior was shaped as a sphere covered in gold — well, not entirely yet. It was first built to be the heart of the future city, and to this date, partly a work in progress, half-coated with the gold foils of discarded satellites and other space craps.
The interior was rather large now, and air conditioned, though it was probably smaller and hotter in the past — John never had the curiosity to look at the archives, he’d known it like this since he was a child. It was meant to be a sacred place, or a place of simple beauty, which was odd, when you thought about it.
All around them was infinite space, boundless opportunities to connect to the great mysteries beyond, and quite frankly, this was often scary as hell. Maybe that’s what this place meant, a safe retreat, like a bubble with only a thin wall of soap dividing space between here and out there, but open for the world to see.He’d brought another batch of water-stones, and opened the hatch below the meditation altar. When he jumped the last rug of the ladder, his boots landed in a splatch of water. Something had changed. The rate at which the stones were exuding water had increased. He would have to move them again after the next commercial shuttle departure. He couldn’t risk the Consortium getting notice of this… Not yet, not before they figured out what it meant.
July 15, 2015 at 9:51 am #3749In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Aunt Idle:
It was going to be a long hot summer. Summer this year started early, and we were barely half way through July. I hadn’t had a moment to think, which isn’t true at all ~ my brain had been non stop chuntering since the end of April, but all the thinking was about errands and other peoples problems and trips to the bloody airport or the detention centre to pick up more waifs and strays. What I mean is, I hadn’t had any time to STOP thinking and just listen, or just BE. Or to put it more accurately, I hadn’t made much time for me. It had been an endless juggle, wanting to be helpful with all the refugees ~ of course I didn’t mind helping! ~ it wasn’t that I minded helping, it was the energy and the constant stream of complications, things going wrong, the complaining and defensive energy. It was a job to buffer it all and stay on an even keel, to ensure everyone had what they needed, but without acquiescing to the never ending needy attention seeking. It was hard to say no, even if saying no helped people become more confident and capable ~ it was always a mental battle not to feel unhelpful. Saying no to ones own comfort is always so much easier.
What I found I missed the most was doing things my own way, in my own time. How I wish I had appreciated being able to do that before all the refugees arrived! I’d wanted more people to do things with, living in this remote outpost ~ thought how nice it would be to have more friends here to do things with. Fun things though, not all the trips to the supermarket, the bank, the pharmacy, all the tedious errands. And in summer too! I like to minimize the errands in summer so I’m not worn out with the heat to do the fun things like go for early morning walks. But this lot didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning, and they weren’t really up to much walking either. I’ve been hobbled, having to walk slower, and not walk far. It had interfered somehow with my photography too, I haven’t been much in the zone these days, that place of observant appreciation. Ah well, it was interesting. Things are always interesting.
Not many countries had been willing to accept the hundreds of thousands of refugees from USA, and small wonder, but our idiotic government had been bribed to take more than a fair quota. All of the deserted empty buildings in town had been assigned to the newcomers, and all of our empty rooms at the hotel too.
Mater hardly ever came out of her room, and when she did venture out, it was only to poke them with her walking stick and wind them up with rude remarks. Prune seemed to be enjoying it though, playing practical jokes on them and deliberately misinforming them of local customs. Corrie and Clove were working on an anthropology paper about it all ~ that was a good thing and quite helpful at times. When the complaining and needs got overwhelming, I’d send them off to interview the people about it, which took the brunt off me, at least temporarily. Bert was a good old stick, just doing what needed to be done without letting it all get to him, but he didn’t want to talk about it or hear me complaining about it all.
“Aint much point in complaining about all the complaining” was all he’d say, and he had a point.
July 2, 2015 at 9:51 pm #3738In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Well, here we all are again!” Liz beamed, after a momentary pause in which she considered snorting. Not finding that snorting was consistent with her mood, notwithstanding the sparkle in the air of anticipated unexpected impishness, she beamed, and beamed again as she looked around the room.
No one spoke. There was a sense of suspended animation for a few moments, or was it longer? A bit like holding ones breath while easing into a hot bath. Or perhaps not a hot bath, thought Liz, delicately mopping the sweat dripping down her cleavage with a paper towel.
“Finnley, have you seen my reading glasses anywhere?” Liz asked on impulse.
Finnley’s sunny beam shifted as she rolled her eyes and replied, “I saw them in a dustbin on Brighton Pier.”
“My god, it’s started already!” Godfrey exclaimed, although he wasn’t at all surpised. “ Have you seen the new dragon tree in the park?”
March 31, 2015 at 10:38 am #3735In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions
Master John was infusing L.O.V.E. (Love Octarine Vortex Emotion) communications through e-Ther, the energy framework supporting physical reality and the emotional world around it. He was a 5thD master choosing to touch the masses and chosen individuals more specifically. He’s been participating in several source events as he’d learned to expand his awareness of time and space.
He was also observing the training of the FAMs (Future Ascended Masters) while learning himself to expand his awareness in other directions. He’s always been busy while on earth, when he was a prophet. He’d always loved to teach and guide, although he’d lost his head for that. Who would have thought that woman would be more interested by his red head rather than his other attributes. Truth as that he had beautiful blue eyes at the time. Unfortunately they lost their luster in death.
The e-Ther was rather sluggish over most of the continents of the Northern hemisphere, due to intense fear and agitation after the market went down once again. It’s been over crowded since the demographic explosion that began during phase three of the “Human Harvest” source event. Furthermore, ever since the invention of hypnotherapists, the emotional network wasn’t reliable anymore. Unable to receive H.O.L.Y. communications the usual way because they had forgotten how to listen, they had hacked the e-Ther to find their own answers. That has caused many interference and mistranslations of data that weren’t addressed to the hypnotherapist or their clients, taken out of context and of time framework.
They have been in dire need of new masters in order to catch those fast increasing RFA (Request For Answers) and correct the course of the current source event.
March 31, 2015 at 8:42 am #3732In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
once explore thought
spirit says everyone answer
wings home liked maps
sound boy somehow behind
lady disappeared fear friend bear igorMarch 27, 2015 at 10:23 am #3731In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions
Dispersee Blather, or Dispy for short, was late for the crowning ceremony. It wasn’t unusual for Dispy to be late for official ceremonies and meetings, or to miss them altogether, but she was aware that her unique presence would be missed at this particular ceremony, as she was the one to be crowned. She had recently, much to her astonishment, achieved the coveted goal of the Descended Dispersed Tradition, or DDT for short, and her newly recognized super powers were to be publicly acknowledged in the crowning ceremony.
Dispy’s old friend Floverley (and by old, lest we be misunderstood, we mean old in the sense of having known each other for eons and countless lifetimes, not decrepit, wrinkled or senile) had offered to design the crown that was to be placed on Dispy’s sparse, dare we say wispy, head of hair ~ something light and elegant, she said, with a feeling of fluidity, something that wouldn’t swamp her delicate features.
At the crown fitting appointment the day before, it quickly became apparent that Floverley had misjudged the extent of the fluidity of the materials she used to construct the crown, resulting in a thorough drenching. Dispy was a good sport by nature, easy going and able to see the funny side in most situations, but she had not been pleased. She had been on her way to meet Stinks Mc Fruckler, a double agent posing as a descended trickster, for the purpose of writing a report on his activities in disrupting artificial ascension practices, and had to cancel the date at the last minute.
Not one to hold a grudge, partly due to having no borders with which to contain a grudge, Dipsy had forgiven Floverly for the drenching.
I just hope she has managed to rectify the crown in time for the ceremony, she thought, as she tried to scrub the last traces of martian mist stains off her eyebrows.
February 10, 2015 at 10:10 am #3721In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
focus others soon thought bad paper tattler closed following picked side world situation flora huge heat liked odd leave itself pointing
February 7, 2015 at 9:36 am #3718In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
I don’t really want to write, Elizabeth was thinking, I want to read, just read. And perhaps write a little bit about what I’m reading, or draw a map to illustrate the connections between what I’m reading and what I’m doing. Or what all those others out there that pretend to not be me are doing.
She paused and looked around. Is there anything more perfect than a warm house, full of firewood and full of books? She had just read something about the “beast”, and welcoming the beast. The beast in question was illness, and the author was welcoming the beast because it was an excuse to just read and do nothing else. Elizabeth’s beast the other day was no internet connection, and she had pulled the sofa up to the patio doors to lie in the sun all day, just reading. I’ll lie there every morning, when the sun streams in just so, lying on the sofa and just reading, she thought. But she hadn’t.
But she kept thinking about lying on a sofa reading all day, not just any sofa, but a sofa that was positioned to catch the winter sun through the window. It reminded her of many years ago in a cold climate, (or was it a chapter in a book, a character that had done it? She wasn’t sure, but what was the difference anyway) lying on a sofa all day, a large American one that was longer than she was and wider too and would have had room for several dogs, if she’d had any then, not a short European sofa that cuts off the circulation of the calves that hang over the arm, with no room for dogs. She was sick, she assumed, because she had the house to herself and because she spent the entire day reading a book. She wondered if anyone did that even if they weren’t sick, and somehow doubted it. The book was Bonjour Tristesse, and she never forgot reading that book, although she promptly forgot what the book was about. It was the delicious feeling of lying on a sofa with the winter sun on her face, when beyond the glass window all was frigid and challenging and made the body rigid, despite it’s dazzling white charm.
There was no winter sun shining in today, just rain trickling down the windowpane, cutting through the muddy paw prints from when the dogs looked in. But just seeing the sofa positioned in just the right place to catch the sun was warming, somehow.
January 18, 2015 at 6:24 pm #3710In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Baby? What baby?” asked Liz. “I thought that baby had been dealt with in the last chapter, it seems ages ago. Has anyone been feeding it, do you think? What happens to all the characters when nobody writes about them? Are they glad of it, happy to do what they want? Or are they bored and frustrated at having nothing to do? Do they like being plucked from whatever they were doing once in a blue moon, and flung into an improbable scenario, and then left there, with no way out even imagined yet?”
“You only have to ask,” replied Aunt Idle, pushing the bowl of peanuts over to Liz.
January 13, 2015 at 6:16 pm #3704In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
I think I might have over~egged the brûlée again, thought Elizabeth, but was immediately distracted by the rock hard knob end of stollen shoved into a truffle box on the caravan shelf.
This really is the last straw, she exclaimed self righteously. -
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