Search Results for 'warming'

Eleri nodded off to sleep after a warming bowl of Alexandria’s mushroom soup, followed by a large goblet of mulberry wine, and woke up to the warmth of the flickering fire her friend had lit while she’d been dozing. They sat in a companionable silence for awhile, and even the little dog was silent. Alexandria smiled encouragingly at Eleri, sensing that she had things on her mind that she wished to share.

“I had an idea, you see,” Eleri began, as Alexandria topped up her wine goblet, “To do something about Leroway. I fear it may be considered intrusive,” she said with a little frown, “but I expect it will be welcome notwithstanding. Drastic measures are called for.”

Alexandria nodded in agreement.

“The thing is, since I had this idea, I’ve remembered something that I’d forgotten. Hasamelis It’s all very well turning people into stone statues, but I must ensure they don’t reanimate, and there was the issue of the vengeful emotions on reanimation. Luckily that damn rampaging reanimated guy never caught up with me, and we don’t know where….”

“Oh but we do!” interrupted Alexandria.

“You do?” exclaimed Eleri. “Where is he?”

“He’s behind you!”

Eleri slopped wine all over her lap and she jumped up to look behind her. Sure enough, Hasamelis was lurking, thankfully immobile, in the dark corner of the room. Eleri looked at Alexandria enquiringly, “Is he..?”

“Oh yes, don’t worry. He’s quite rigid and immobile again. We found the spell you see, Yorath and I.” Eleri swallowed a frisson of jealousy as her friend continued, “ Yorath got a clue from you, when you brought the bones home. I provided the missing ingredient by accident, when I spelled Hasamelis wrong.” Alexandria chuckled merrily at the memory. “I jotted down Hamamelis instead and when Yorath saw it he said that was it, the missing ingredient: witch hazel! Witch hazel and ground bones to reverse a reanimation.”

“I say, well done!” Eleri was impressed. “But how did you administer it?” She could not imagine getting close enough to him, or him being amenable to ingest a potion.

“We ground the bones up and mixed them with distilled witch hazel and rolled them into little balls, and then catapulted them at him. I’m not very good with my aim, but Lobbocks was brilliant. We had to run like the blazes afterwards though, because it took some time to work, but Hasamelis did start to slow down after a couple of hours. He was heading this way, to your cottage, and eventually came to a standstill right here in this room. We managed to push him into that corner, out of the way.”

“I wonder..” Eleri was thinking. “If I immobilize Leroway into a statue..”

Alexandria gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth.

“If I turn Leroway into a statue, I don’t want him reanimating at all. I wonder if we incorporate the witch hazel and the ground bones into the elerium in the immobilizing process it will prevent any reanimation occurring in the first place?”

“I think you need to speak to Yorath,” suggested Alexandria. “But where is he?”

“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?

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.

The early morning sea mist was evaporating as Fanella strolled around the village picking up dog shit. She reminded herself to fully appreciate the damp coolness, before the scorching summer sun enveloped them in a bone warming blanket, and then reminded herself to appreciate the bone warming effects of the full sun later. As she retraced her steps she noted how differently everything looked on a return journey, how piles of dog shit had escaped her notice while going one way, but were obvious on the way back. It reminded her of something she’d read recently in one of the books that Lisa insisted she read to improve her English ~ A Field Guide To Getting Lost . Hah! Had there been a cruel irony in that choice of book? Fanella had felt lost ever since she arrived in 2020. But according to the book, getting lost wasn’t a bad thing, not at all.

To be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery.

Fanella sighed. All sounds very philosophical, but I’m still stuck in the wrong time zone.
Another passage from the book popped into her head:

We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire, though often it is the desire between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing.

Fanella gazed up at the sky ~ the blue of longing was taking over, as the white wisps of clouds dispersed.

The people thrown into other cultures go through something of the anguish of the butterfly, whose body must disintegrate and reform more than once in its life cycle…. how often the early stages of change or cure may mimic deterioration. Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly….No, the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.

Charming, Fanella thought, just bloody charming. Rotting soup of change, that just about sums it up. No wonder I wake up every morning with my bones feeling like mush.

Was it a nightmare? It felt nightmarish, but why? How? What was the nightmare? Was she going mad, finally slipping, down down into the swarming fogs of fear? Making it up? A tormented sick April fool, a late fool, creeping around in the dark? She rubbed her ankles, cold as ice, achilles heels scorched from the lightning. Was she making it up? Lighting, like Victorian gas lamps, the flashing pinpoints on the grey neutral gridweave of perception, falling, falling, into the damp dripping mist. A howling beagle held tightly in the confines of a rigid box, surely she makes it up, but why? It doesn’t make sense, it’s too loose, she howls for the tight rigid box of perception, while the beagle howls to be released. Black drips, drips onto the stack of books, smelling of smoke, inky tar drip drip drip from the chimney pipe, it doesn’t make sense, there was no fire at all that night, where do the black inky drips come from? Is she making it all up, and if so, why? Behind the row of trees a voice calling, calling, the haggard face of a crone appears, offering the black and white puppy from behind the fence. Oh no, a black and white puppy, not black and white, no, she replied, no, no, averting her eyes from its innocent face. Layers of nightmares swirl in the river mist, and nothing makes sense. And it all makes sense, and she screams for the confines of the rigid box as the beagle howls for release.

Some shaven sheep on the floor where mother goose got pens… that’s what I call giant game! Meddling it’s intricate design, and its daft words pointed to the distinct lack of any mention of God.

We’re talking threads, spinning a myth, warming and weaving, all meaningless beleifs with which to travel, peanuts that can’t be contained inside ones own weaving, in and out of the warped story, and the weft Text.

Viewers may be considerd to be a patchwork piece. These indiviual multitudes are loom weights to create a tapestry in the style, so to speak, of the background qualities of Finnley.

In this focus you choose this situation, that of God. You shall focus an attention to detail and perfection, balance, movement, with tremendous detail.

“Tell me about it” remarked God drily, offering challenging information. “The Sumari does not concern itself with Finnley” who stuck her tongue out at God, sighed in resignation and reached for the peanuts. “No point in fighting your warp.”

“Serenely on her tiny loom she weaves her story with careful art.
And who am I, with meddling pen to send it’s loveliness apart?

For I, who am a weaver, too, look on that intricate design,
And know its daft embroideries are just as beautiful as mine….”

LizAnn read the poem out loud, subsituting a few words of her own, and pointed out to Godfrey the distinct lack of any mention of spiders.

“We don’t have to include any actual spiders, Godfrey,” she said firmly. “Forget the spiders! We’re talking here about weaving a story from all the loose threads, not spinning a web with which to ensnare anyone. The myths” continued LizAnn, warming to the subject, “Concerning spiders and weaving are being rewoven anew. The Text Tiles are myriad, and all equally meaningless. The purpose of Text Tiles is no longer a sticky web of beleifs with which to ensnare the unsuspecting traveller, but a patchwork of …of….”

“Lost your thread, LizAnn?” inquired Gordon, smugly.

“You rude old coot” she replied, “Have some more peanuts, and allow me to finish.”

“Finish? Well, that will be a first.”

“What I was trying to say is that the weaving of the story can’t be contained inside the confines of the linearly constructed Reality Play. One only needs to focus on ones own weaving, in and out of the warped story, and the weft wide world outside, so to speak. The same principle applies to the other weavers and the Text Tile viewers. Each comment may be considerd to be a single Text Tile, or patchwork piece. These indiviual Text Tiles may be arranged in multitudes of ways according to the manner in which they are woven into an individuals own story weaving experience.”

“That’s as may be, LizAnn, but what about loom weights? To anchor the warp? Or is it the weft…”

“You see, by no manner is it an issue if things aren’t continuous” Walter was saying, which immediately brought to Ann’s mind the latest development at her end of the group project. For some reason lately she found that she was permanently signed in, as opposed to previously, when she’d had the dickens of a job to stay signed in long enough to make an entry. Permanently connected, as it were.

“….and I know it’s almost blasphemous to say that” Walter continued, causing Ann to raise an eyebrow, “…but the crux of the matter lays in the measure with which things are expanded and linked together.”

“If I may be so bold as to interrupt, sir,” Ann couldn’t restrain herself from interjecting, “Surely that is what readers are for? Is not the purpose of the writer, or indeed any artist, to simply offer particles, or pieces, for the viewer to add, or not, as they choose, to their own continuous storylines?”

Walter opened and closed his mouth like a godfish. (Ann had to laugh at the typographical error.)

“For example” Ann continued, warming to the subject, “When I random read book pages, then channel surf the TV, followed by a random roam around online, interspersed with perhaps a few phone calls, or various incidents throughout the day, I’m making a continuous story of my own, with pages and screenshots and conversation snippets borrowed, if you like, from many external sources (and before you say anything, I am aware that no source is external, but don’t let me start digressing). The era of being ‘told’ a story to beleive in its entirety is over! Everyone knows these days that we each make our own story, with a bit of this, and a bit of that. It’s The Age of Random Tips & Snippets, after all, everyone knows that! It’s T.A.R.T.S. time now!”

With the weak Scottish sun warming their backs, India Louise and Cuthbert made sand castles on the deserted beach. Very few holidaymakers visited The Orkneys in the days when the Wrick twins were growing up (Elizabeth was tempted to add ‘whenever that was’ but refrained) and they had the beautiful sweep of coastline to themselves, all but for their nanny, the eccentric Breton, who was sitting on a tartan blanket in the sand dunes practicing her Scottish accent. Nanny had heard somewhere that a Scottish accent had been voted the ‘most reassuring in an emergency’, and in her position as nanny, she felt it would be an advantage, especially while working for the eccentric and adventurous Wrick family.

Seagulls squawked overhead as she recited “… pRRoid te the lowkel in-abitents und steps av bin tayken in RResunt yeers… to improve the appearance of the city …… impRRoov the appeeRents uv the citay…”

Nanny’s studies were interrupted by shrieks from the two children, who were running down to the waters edge, pointing towards an unusual object which appeared to be floating towards them on the incoming tide.

By the time Nanny reached the children the mysterious floating contraption had beached itself on the sand. As India Louise and Cuthbert paddled over to it, a wizened and emaciated Ella Marie Tindale whooped and cackled “Hooley Mooley, that was quoot a rood!”

“Och aye, ma wee bairns, dinnae tooch it!” shouted Nanny “Ye dinnae ken owt aboot it, och! Oof, and what ‘ave we ‘ere, what eez zeess?” she said, lapsing back into her natural French accent, in a state of shock at what the tide had brought in.

The twins became alarmed immediately, backing away and asking nervously “Is it an alien?” “Is it a ghost?” so Nanny resumed the reassuring Scottish accent.

“Nay ma wee poppets, och and it’s nowt but anoother mummay!”

Cuthbert and India Louise exchanged looks surreptitiously. “What does she mean, ‘another’ mummy?” whispered Cuthbert to his sister. “How did she find out about the mummy in the unlocked room?”

“I don’t know!” she whispered back “Maybe she heard me telling Bill!”

Nanny gave both of the children a cuff round the back of the neck, reminding them of their manners.

“Help ze lady off and ztop zat rude wheezpering!”

START! said Tina.

Becky and Tina were doing a meditation together, and Becky decided to just write whatever popped into her head. She could always delete it afterwards, or edit it, she reasoned.

“Bagpush got out of the washtub”, Becky scribbled, “ And scooted down along the river line to the marks butty big one by the farm. Heavens above, fishly, what’s that brown thing on the water butt? Gawbsmacker said, don’t be talking like that, shekeltons in a hide to ho where and its first light, fair bright and hey ho the wash go. Abbon Ipswich, slaty flats of corncake, hey dee on the wash bucket, spittin in the hole hey down dooly. Margaret Apsworth laying on the white cotton cake spread, fair dooly down the one hooly. Ay and its a hey ho fair fooly down by the wash pooly, drum rolling in the har fool haley, down by the dash darnly. I said, hey ho the brown tooly, hoggin all the raw tooly, stewing in the far fooly for eight pence an hour. Said Mavis of the green sportwear, theres may flowers in the far horse hair, weel butter in the spar for tucker and muck down in the cow butter, said bree in the bird barny, a flying for the far fooly, well its knees up and out your dooly for the green hay beer fair. Its a fine night for a hooly in the row bottom in the far fooly, said mavis of the tom fooly, in the wash bucket down stairs. Once more, sell a nickel farthing, in the morning and in the darning, and say way more is in the star sign than a wash bucket down stairs.”

Good greif, exclaimed Becky, What was all that about?

What a load of twaddle, Becky, said Tina with a laugh.

Well you know what? It was kind of fun and refreshing to just write nonsense
I am sick of things MEANING something, Becky said, and then, warming to her subject:

Lets have some good old fashioned MEANINGLESSNESS!