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In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“These old ezines and blogs are fascinating” remarked Periwinkle, passing the one she had just been reading to Daffodil. “Thank goodness some folks had the foresight to print some of them!”
“I know, imagine if they hadn’t. We’d have no artefacts for the collection. Well, we have all those flat discs, but no way to decipher them. Oh, did I tell you? Bignonia found something even older than the discs!”
“NO!” exclaimed Periwinkle “Do tell!”
“Yes, even older! Funny looking contraption, with two reels and a ribbon. An information storage device, so they say, although they haven’t discovered how to decipher it.”
“I wonder why we’re still not simply accessing that information without, well, without messing around with the physical contraption, you know?”
“Wouldn’t be any point in being here in the first place, if we weren’t going to mess around with physical things, silly” replied Daffodil.
There was no answer to that, so Periwikle didn’t answer. She continued to thumb through the printed pages.
Periwinkle and Daffodil sat together on the patio in the warm spring sunshine, sipping lemonade
and leafing through the papers. Bright white clouds in cartoon shapes romped across the blue sky,
and the birds chattered in the trees,
occasionally landing on the printed pages and cocking their heads sideways to read for a moment, before flying off to tell their friends, which was usually followed by a raucous group cackling.
“Dear Goofenoff” read Daffodil, “This one looks interesting Peri, someone here is asking for advice on a problem.”
“What’s a “problem”, Daffy?” asked Periwinkle. “For that matter, what does the word “advice” mean? Oh, never mind” she said as she noticed Daffodil rolling her eyes, “I’ll look it up in my pre shift dictionary of defunct words.”
“She’s asking the Snoot too, about the same problem. Oh, I think I’ve heard of them! It’s coming back to me, the old Snoot’n‘Goof team, they were quite famous in the beginning of the century, I remember hearing about them before in a Shift History discussion.”
“Well, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of them, but then, I’ve never been into history like you, dear. So what is this “problem” all about, then?”
“I’ll read it out to you, it’s way too convoluted to put in a nutshell. Lordy, they sure did complicate matters back then, it’s almost unbeleivable, really, but anyway, here goes:
Dear Goofenoff,
I don’t know what to do! I am confused about which probable version of a blog freind, let’s call him MrZ, I have chosen to align with. The first probable version was ok, nothing to worry about, and then I drew into my awareness the probable versions of MrZ that some of my freinds had chosen to align with….”
“Blimey”, interrupted Periwinkle, who was starting to fidget. “Is it much longer?”
“It’s alot longer, so be patient. Where was I? Oh yes:
“….and while that was very interesting indeed, and led to lots of usefully emotionally heated discussions, I started to align with their probable version, at times, although not consistently, which led to some confusion. So then I had a chat with someone who was more in alignment with my original probable version, although there were aspects of that probable version that were a little in alignment with the other folks probable version, notwithstanding. I suppose I was still in alignment with the other folks probable version when it came to my attention that there was another individual that might be aligning with a probable version, and my question is, in a nutshell, is it any of my business which probable version the new individual on the scene is aligning with?”
“Well, I can tell you the answer to that!” exclaimed Periwinkle.
Daffodil rolled her eyes. “Yes, dear, WE know the answer, but the point is, SHE didn’t know the answer at the time, which is why she asked Goofenoff.”
“If you ask me, she knew the answer all along” Periwinkle intuited. “What did Goofenoff say anyway?”
“He said:
Are you requiring a short or a long answer?”
Daffodil turned the page to continue reading. She frowned, and flicked through a few pages.
“What a shame, some of these pages appear to be missing! Now we’ll never know what Goofenoff said.”
Periwinkle laughed. “Well, never mind that anyway, have you seen the random story quote today? Rather synchronistic I’d say, listen to this bit:
Illi felt much better, and was sitting at the breakfast table, basking in the warm shafts of sunlight filtering in through the window, and listening to the birds singing in the lemon tree outside.”
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“There is one man to whom I am indebted,” said Shar, with a faraway look in her eyes.
“Blimey, who’s that then Shar?”
“Enric Lemoon is his name. One day he said words to me I will never forget, and at that moment, I knew that the most important thing in the world was that I learn to speak like him.”
“Oh you do tell a good story, Shar. Go on then! I am all goggle eared. What’d that Enric chappy say to you?”
“He said, the grumpy old cat must be white of old age by now.”
“Cor!” said Mavis in awe. “Bloody marvelous! Was it a code? You know, one of them brain teasers like?”
Shar looked at Mavis pityingly and shook her head. “It was poetry, Mavis. Poetry.”
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Messmeerah (Winky) Maymhe, High Priestess of the Pendulous and Loose Otherworldly Threading, was going for a bath into the Pool of Rejuvenation. Her ineffable beauty had started to show the early signs of time tampering —signs she’d learnt to notice as soon as they’d appear. Luckily, the moons were in perfect alignment for the rituals of Spring Beautusk*.
News were good, very good indeed —which would certainly help in maintaining her perfect brow and forehead in pristine smoothness.
News were so good that she’d sent her minion Minky fetch the boy just right after her white crow Saggin had came back with news of finding him… after all those years (not that years did matter to her anyway, she prided herself on that).It’d been close to an eternity, and she weighted her words… (in actuality it was a few teens and futile years at most) that she’d been trying to recover the boy, but the dwarfs had played her, and had managed to hide him from her sight.
She had not thought he could be concealed by anyone powerful enough, and it was surely not by the magic of that headless Malvina and her pesky dragons. In fact, the boy had been concealed even after Malvina and her menagerie had left the boy and his caretaker. She was thinking the caretaker in question had a concealment charm far more powerful she thought could exist.But Minky would surely take care of that.
—
- It should be said that one of the effects of the rituals of Spring Beautusk were a slight stiffness of the overall face (and other dipped body parts), which earnt Messmeerah the cute and albeit ironic sobriquet of Winky, as she hardly managed to blink and was often victim of bouts of winking when she tried too hard.
In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
In reply to: Strings of Nines
While Malvina had been enjoying the fishy delicacies of Olliburthon, she had gathered again a sense of purpose.
“Not quite yet, but working on it…” she snapped at Leörmn, who was always quick to point out what wasn’t quite actualized. “You see, it is merely a matter of concentrating and soon it’ll be. Anyway, the fish is good here; look at those divinely prepared dishes! Leo would have loved them.”Leörmn wasn’t very concerned by the seeming (he almost thought “seaming” in another probability) lack of direction of late errands, as he was well aware they all served a purpose. Oh, he knew that very well indeed, so very well… — but bugger if he could explain what said purpose was. Of course he, like any dragon of his age, could have easily said, if the proper motivation, question or else had prompted him to investigate further. But in its own nature, a dragon wasn’t inquisitive. He was accepting, for all that is before him, is all that is.
So when the idea germinated inside Malvina’s head, he already knew it would lead to a manifestation of some form, sooner or later.
So how could he have been surprised when she told him.“You could at least play a little surprised!” she said “Doesn’t it sound fun and exciting to have our own Temple of Flove?”
“I hope it won’t smell too much of fish, or you may repel your patients…”
“Don’t be silly, we can’t be doing that here, you know that much better than I do!”
Leörmn cracked a smile, knowing indeed very well where this would all lead.
“And I will have a lovely white embroidered gown to officiate” Malvina was unstoppable “with pearls and shiny moonstones…”
“Oh, of course, and rubies for the boobies” Leörmn couldn’t really remain serious.
“That’s an idea!” Malvina was so enthralled she wasn’t really paying attention. Tomorrow she would bid farewell to Kalliona’s lovely company and Olliburthon charming gastronomy, and set her new journey’s destination to the Land of her ancestors, near the Great Lake of Umphillax, where her journey started, long before she even met her sisters.“Tally-oh!” Leörmn cheered, loving the way magic could make packing and unpacking so easy.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Yurick was feeling a whole new stream of possibilities open.
As always, it felt like the story they were writing was full of clues. He even had a wonderful dream with a huge hovering dragon made of a ball of energy snow from all of his friends.The white horse he’d made before was already manifesting in a new issue of Crisp… Fun ahead!
In reply to: Strings of Nines
The Great White Botherbrood were gathered at the Great White Detention Halls in the Alter Skye. Hilarionella was leading a chorus of Ascend With Me; the congregation of misfits and miscreants, scallywags and rebrobates joined in the uplifting melody, hoping, no doubt, to ascend the Great White Stairway to The Circle of The Eighth Heaven. A little known fact was that the doors were open to anyone, although not many people knew that. A feast of watermelon awaited them at the Table of The Ascended Party Fillers, headed by that charming old scoundrel, Saint Toblerone of Germaine. That batty old coot Hoomy was Head Waiterless, which meant there was no need to wait for a table when one arrived at The Circle of The Eighth Heaven, which was just as well, all things considered.
Telless was waiting patiently for the Watermelon Party to start, having recently been cured of the lisp that had plagued him for centuries, an unexpected side effect of the Less Telleth More course he had eventually completed, despite being inundated throughout the semester with More, rather than Less, translations to unravel and decipher.
The tables, the watermelon, and other sundries had been procured with the aid of the enigmatic E. Baynoch, whose 21st century mission was to put a spanner in the works, so to speak, of the tightly held exchange mechanism currently ruling the Dense Dimension. He felt it was a key part of the Great Tilt that the inhabitants of the Dense Dimension were experiencing, and had set plans in motion for a new kind of online system in which receiving without exchange was the key factor. An interesting side effect of the new system would be that everyone could get rid of any old rubbish easily, once differences in perception were regarded in a favourable and usefully practical light.
Lady Paula Adoremyanus, not surprisingly, would be providing rest room facilities, providing soothing energy for those who had over-indulged in the spicy Kwan Yin Chow Mein at the Tables of the Feast of The White Parrot. Having a thousand arms was obviously a great help in her work, considering the quantity of hot spices in the Kwan Yin Chow Mein, and the popularity of her Soothing Energy Rest Rooms.
In reply to: Random RewrEights – The Del’Eights thread
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
The summer Holidays were nearly over, or the Hollow Days, as they were known to some. The last days of summer had been a bit hollow for Ann at any rate, rattling around inside her own head, not really knowing whether it was full or empty. Ann had spent most of the summer sleeping, and with virtually no dream recall, it seemed as if half of the summer was missing. Probably just as well, what with it being such an odd summer. She wondered if she would simply sleep through the shift, like Ned Young slept through the mutiny. Didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
“Normally” the Worserversity students started rolling back towards Poubelleville round about now, but the word “normally” was becoming obsolete. What was normal, what could be expected? Ann didn’t know. She packed her coloured pencils, her detachable hand and her wooden men, and fished out her homework assigments for the holidays that she had only just remembered.
Alliteration. Bugger bollocks and blast, blimey but what a bother, too bloody hot and bored.
That’s a bit bloody depressing, she muttered to herself, try another letter.
Sweltering summer of sweat and sand, sleeping and sleeping, sublime surruptitious snooze, sail away in the sunset swell, sunrise surrender, ships ahoy!
Fan the flames, far sighted fellows! There’s a flash in the funnel for fast falling fishermen. Far flung, fun fueled, oh fast fleeting fantasies, follow the folks with the flags! Flounder not, fresh fishies, for fun feels fantastic!
Ah, wallow in wisps of wordless wonderings, weather the winds of wandering whispers, while weighty wells of wishes work winsome wonders, woven with worn wool and worrisome white weathered windows. Whether we will, whether we won’t, who will win, what will work, will we watch it water the weeds….
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Gremwick was glad the Fisherman had come to repair the Cloud Fishes of the Inner Aerial Pool of the Worseversity.
It’s been a few days that he’d noticed an unusual lack of randomness in the swimming patterns of the little Cloud Fishes.
As they were usually used for the divination courses, no sooner was the issue identified than the students had to temporarily recourse to the use of pigeons for their assignments —which sadly left a stinking trail of devastation on the usually pristine marble floors that greatly infuriated Charity, the cleaning lady, otherwise known for her great patience and candor, who’d kept cursing like a sailor against the winged demonic creatures the last past weeks.The incident in itself was not of immense consequence in the grand scheme of things, but it felt worrisome for the Dean that these swimming creatures known for their quite reliable and, yes, totally unfloundering randomness had suddenly decided to adopt a monotonous pattern.
In that disposition, they were merely echoing the requester’s requests in a manner of a mirror instead of evoking strange and obscure meanings from the depths of the universe.It had amused the students very much, as it was making their assignments apparently far easier —there was no thing left in need of deciphering, unless the students’ requests were themselves incoherent, which could on occasion happen especially after the Special Crop Circle Lessons. As no incident was without meaning, the Dean had pondered this one, but without any satisfactory answer as of yet.
At least, it had been the occasion to meet the Fisherman, and to ponder on the plainness of a world without unpredictability.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“Oops, I got me directions wrong again” said Gloria, “I think we’re a trifle overdressed. I weren’t aiming fer the nudist beach, I was aiming fer the prehistoric cairns.”
“Trust you to land us ‘ere, Glor!” Sharon replied, averting her eyes from the spectacle or milk bottle white flesh and unappetizing dangly bits. “Speaking of tea bags, I fancy a nice cuppa.”
“No bloody tea bag icon” grumbled Gloria.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“It’s the 57th Creative Challenge theme, so I have to do it,” Ann remarked to her editor. “Obviously”, she added.
“What do you mean, obviously?” asked her editor (Ann had forgotten his new name in the second book, and toyed breifly with the idea of making up a new one ~ perhaps Rumbold the Pale?)
“Well, I would have thought that was obvious, Godfrey!” Ann replied tartly, secretly delighted that she’d remembered the old boy’s name. Notwithstanding, Ann continued to make little ‘cuh’ and ‘tut’ noises, and rolled her eyes a bit, until Godfrey eventually replied.
“Spiggot on the spike freak, Lingenburg Dash”.
“I beg your pardon?” Ann looked at Godfrey in astonishment. “Holy Moly, I said that earlier myself, whatever does it mean?”
“I haven’t got a clue, dear,” he replied. “Just popped into my head, you know, how it does…” His voice trailed off as he stared into space.
“I’ll google it.” As Ann started the search, she realized she’d completely forgotten that she was doing the 57th Creative Challenge entry. “Blimey O Riley, what am I LIKE” she said to herself, with a wry grin ~ she wasn’t altogether sure what wry meant, but somehow she felt it was wry ~ “Now what was the theme again?”
“Misery Loves Company” Godfrey piped up. “And dare I say, it’s rather obvious what has occurred here.”
“What do you mean, obvious?” retorted Ann, somewhat snarkily, although nowhere near as snarkily as Lavender might have said it.
Godfrey resisted the urge to respoond with a few little ‘cuh’s’ and ‘tut’s’, and chose to simply smile enigmatically.
Ann scowled at her old freind and said “If you don’t spell it out, you maddening old coot, I’ll write you out of this story. I’ll delete you.”
“You can write me out of YOUR story if you wish, but I may continue to write YOU into MY story.”
“Oh Gawd, WHAT?” Ann said to herself. “Where did that come from?”
“Ann, let me explain.”
“You sound just like Elias, Godfrey!”
“Ha! Ha! Ha!”
“Ahahahahahahah”
“Now shut up and pay attention”
“Elias would never say that”
“That’s YOU saying that, Ann, to yourself,” said Godfrey.
“YOU said that Godfrey, it’s right here in black and white!” retorted Ann.
“It’s never black and white, Ann, and it’s only here in black and white as ME saying it because YOU wrote it.”
“Well there’s no answer to that” replied Ann. She went to put the kettle on.
Ann returned to her computer with a steaming mug of tea.
“Now, shall we get back to the point, Ann?” inquired Godfrey, with a wry grin.
“I must look up that word later”, Ann mused. “I seem to be inordinately fond of the word wry tonight, I wonder why. I Wonder Wry…”
“ANN!” Godfrey shouted. “Back to the point!”
Ann looked pained. “What point?”
“The point of this story, and the obvious occurence therein.”
“Welp, you’ve lost me there, Gordon, there was a point?”
“Oh My God, this could go on all night” Gordon was wringing his hands.
“Good God Gordon, didn’t see you come in!” exclaimed Godfrey.
Ann was giggling helplessly. She was rather pleased with the way she covered her faux pas over the editors name.
“‘Ann was giggling helplessly’; you see Ann, there is your clue!” Godfrey said excitedly, as he read aloud what Ann had just written.
“OH! NOW I get it! D’oh! Nonsense loves company! Giggling loves company! No wonder I couldn’t stay focused on misery!”
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Tuning into her other focus Becky, which was happening with an alarming increase in frequency, Yoland scribbled down a few lines of what might loosely be termed poetry.
Methinks it’s time to ponder not
Upon the box of black and white
Methinks the time has come again
To thinketh not and ponder not
Upon the need to clear explain.
Begone, oh wordy facts, begone!
And leave me free to talk some rot
And note and jot alot of snaps
Of this and that, beguiling snips
Of snaps and wisps, of tongues and lights;
Hums and sparks of nonsense blips
And plates of eggs and french fried chips.I’m running out of steam, said she
Report back now, Immediately
Toot! Toot!
“What I really love about this, Yoland” Grace said when she’d read her friend’s poem, “Is that it really is complete rubbish. I mean, it’s not cleverly pretending to be rubbish, it really IS rubbish. But I am feeling the energy, and I feel that you enjoyed posting utter rubbish, and that’s the feeling that counts.”
“Er….thanks, Grace…I think,” replied Yoland with a smirk.
“You rude tart” she added.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“Well, it’s a fiction, she could be anywhere. That and if you stopped changing the facts and names for a moment, you’d be able to knit them together into new understandings.”
Charmille was knitting while answering to impatient young Becky who for all of the birds’ chatter in the apartment couldn’t really concentrate on her schoolwork, and had only one thought in mind (more insistent than the fleeting thousands other ones that is): she wanted to go outside immerse herself in the helter skelter of New York City.
“And why should I care!” Becky was about to start another tirade of self-righteous indignation at the failure to recognize her brilliance when she stopped herself in her tracks. She was suddenly amazed at the intricacy of the pattern Charmille was creating with two simple sticks and the many colourful threads in her black and white box. That was an art in itself, and Becky wasn’t impervious to art, quite the contrary. She could spot art in the slightest and singlest stroke of graffiti on the walls of the City. She could even see them dancing endless farandoles in front of her eyes. She was perhaps the only one she knew who was able to see that, but what her aunt was doing was very much like it.
Sometimes, she’d had people laugh at her when she was younger. She was telling them about her vivid dreams, that she’d spent hours in one dream looking at a single napkin, how soft it was, how superbly almost real it was —even if that was just a dream napkin— while, according to others, she could have done more “lofty” things instead —like go and see ascended masters.“But I like movement! I don’t want to be stuck in slimy facts!”
“Well dear, you should know that… wherever you are, there you are. Even if wherever is elsewhere.”The cryptic statement made by the poised lady somehow struck a cord. She wanted to disguise facts into fictions, or fiction as facts, but any way she was going, she was still struggling with herself, the essence at her core. It didn’t matter if she wanted to have the needle jump to another loop (and get out of that particular loop) because it was all part of the same cloth she was creating. It suddenly gave her much to ponder…
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“That would depend” Gordon replied “On whether you wish to create plain white functional cotton or an elaborate brocade tapestry. You may wish to create strong reliable durable corduroy with it’s dependable grooves, or something eye catching in contrasting black and white. Gossamer fine colours, or sturdy weaves, lace and beadwork, traditional designs, and new ones, always new ones, take your pick!”
“I’ve forgotten what it was I was choosing now, Gordon” replied Ann. “Pass the walnuts.”
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Ann was beginning to wonder about the two Yoland threads that she appeared to have created, somewhat unwittingly, and possibly ill advisedly. There had been some discussions on bi polar extremes recently at one of her quilting bees, and there were all the black and white outfits and soft furnishings at the lunch party, as well as the interior designers flowers all coming up white this year instead of colours.
Ann knew enough about the magnitudes of potential strings (otherwise known as MP’s) to appreciate that she had a choice whether to attach any symbolic meaning to any of this, or not, in myraids of merry multitudinous ways, methodical, medicinal, mesmerising, or otherwise.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Yoland woke up feeling lighter somehow. The sun was shining, the young puppy, Phunn, scampered about without a care in the world as she perused the morning mail. The random daily Circle of Eight’s quote once again delighted her, synchronizing with her recent meditation.
“Fiona woke suddenly from a dream. In her dream she had been communicating with her online friends, through drawings and messages. She had been trying so hard to convey something, and the more she tried to say it, the more distant they felt to her.
She had woken feeling saddened. Her energy was greatly disturbed, and, unable to get back to sleep straight away, she meditated. She felt herself connect with the energy of a Snowy Owl, who invited her wordlessly to ask her questions. The Owl’s eyes seemed to have such a depth of wisdom and kindness, and no sooner had her thoughts begun to ask their questions, than she would feel the Owl’s answer merge with her own knowing.
She felt herself being able to say without words what she had tried so hard in her dream to convey, and understanding there was no need for any effort, she felt greatly comforted, and peaceful sleep swept over her again.”
Yoland had sent an email to her freind KX about her meditation, as her freind had unexpectedly popped up in it, in a wonderful pastel watercolour world:
The elevator stopped with a shudder and the doors slammed open. The landscape looked a bit too airy fairy for me (not real enough, haha!) and I nearly got back in the elevator. It was all aqua blue and pastel and floaty, like a watercolour world. Then I saw you, waving your arms around, painting the air with trails of pastel colours with your fingertips. You were smiling and wearing a pale blue shirt. You wrapped me round with spirals of colours from your fingertips and then I flew upwards into the dark blue. You tossed me a paper toilet roll to use as a silver cord, which I tossed back to you after a bit cos it felt a bit silly, and then you sent a burst of colours as an acknowledgement
KX had responded:
“Yoland!!That is very very cool! I’ve been “out there”! I’ll bet you I was changing the toilet paper roll at the moment you were in the Watercolor World ! Meanwhile so many things are coming together for me in how to create and how to hold my attention where I want it… Imagination is a key ~ Love you! I will beam over in a minute. KX”
Smiling, Yoland checked the latest blog updates. Sahila had posted some Possum photos, and the first thing that Yoland saw was the white owl in the fork of the tree behind the possum.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Yoland was inordinately pleased with her purchases, trifling though they were. She smiled at the little bottle of cherry red nail varnish, imagining how it would look on sun browned and callous free toes. Painted toe nails was one of life’s simple pleasure, she reckoned. Nothing fancy or expensive or uncomfortable, like her new brassiere, which had never the less given her spirits a bit of a lift, as well as her breasts, with its bright blue moulded foam shape. She wondered if she could suspend the brassiere and its contents from something other than her shoulders for once, but couldn’t see how it could be arranged and still allow a modicum of freedom of movement. Perhaps some of the new scientific discoveries that she was eagerly awaiting would include some kind of gravity and weight defying device, possibly helium filled foam support. Perhaps even in the future, anyone with a high squeaky voice would be described as a bra sucker. Or perhaps one day breasts worn on the waist would be fashionable. This thought made Yoland a bit uncomfortable, as she hadn’t really believed she was following fashion, but maybe she was after all.
Yoland wondered if she was verging on the ridiculous again, and decided that it didn’t matter if she was. There was something rather splendid, she was beginning to discover, about the mundane and the silly. Something serenely pleasurable about ~ well about everything she’d been taking for granted for so many years. The things she hadn’t really noticed much, while her mind was busy thinking and pondering, replaying old conversations, and imagining new ones, sometimes with others, but often with herself, inside the vast jumble of words that was her mind.
It was always a wonderful change of pace to go away on a trip, with its wealth of new conversations and words, events and symbols to ponder over later at her leisure, the many photographic snapshots providing reminders and clues and remembered laughs, but it was the renewed sense of appreciation for the mundane that was ultimately most refreshing about returning home.
The word home had baffled Yoland for many years. For most of her 51 years, if the truth be told. So many moves, so many houses, so many people ~ where, really, was home? She’d eventually compromised and called herself a citizen of the world, but she still found herself at times silently wailing “I want to go home”, but with the whole world as her home, it didn’t make a great deal of sense why she would still yearn for that elusive place called home.
Of all the words that swam in her head some of them seemed to keep bobbing up to the surface, attracting her attention from time to time. That was the funny thing about words, Yoland mused, not for the first time, You hear them and hear them and you understand what they mean, but only in theory. The suddenly something happens and you shout AHA, and then you can’t find any words to explain it! Repeating the words you’ve already heard a hundred times somehow doesn’t even come close to describing what it actually feels like to understand what those words mean. That kind of feeling always left her wondering if everyone else had known all along, except her.
Yoland was often finding words in unexpected places, and these were often the very words that were the catalysts. (Even the word catalyst had been one of those words that repeatedly bobbed to the surface of her sea of words). Her trip had been in search of words, supposedly, channeled words (although Yoland suspected the trip had been more about connections than words) and yet there had only really been one word that had stood out as significant, and oddly enough, that word had been watermelon.
That had been a lesson in itself, if indeed lesson is the right word. Yoland had been attempting to exercise her psychic powers for six months or more, trying to get Toobidoo, the world famous channeled entity, to say the word watermelon ~ just for fun. She couldn’t even remember how it all started, or why the word watermelon was significant ~ perhaps a connection to a symbol etched on a watermelon rind in Marseilles, which later became a Tile of the City. (Yoland wasn’t altogether sure that she understood the tiles, but she did think it was a very fun game, and that aspect alone was sufficient to hold her interest.) By the end of the last day of the channeling event Toobidoo still hadn’t said the word watermelon which was somewhat of a disappointment, so when Yoland saw Gerry Jumper, Toobidoo’s channel, in the vast hotel foyer, she ran up to him saying “Say watermelon.” The simple direct method worked instantly, where months of attempts the hard way had failed. Yoland felt that she learned alot from this rather silly incident about the nature of everyday magic, and this particular lesson, or we might prefer to call it a communication, was repeated for good measure the following day in the park.
Wailon, the other world famous channeled entity who was the star attraction of the Words Event, had proudly displayed photographic evidence of orbs at the lecture. Like Yoland had tried with the watermelon, he was choosing an esoteric and unfamiliar method of creating orbs, suggesting that the audience meditate and conjure them up to show on photographs, rather than simply creating physical orbs. Yoland and her friends Meldrew and Franklyn had chanced upon a beautiful glass house full of real physical glass orbs in the park, underlining the watermelon message for Yoland: not to discount the spontaneous magic of the physical world in the search for the esoteric.
It had, for example, been rather magical and wonderful to hear Gerry Jumper explain how he had mentioned watermelon to his wife on the previous day in the dining room ~ mundane, yes, but magical too. It would have been marvellous to create Toobidoo channeling the word watermelon for sure, but how much more magical to create an actual slice of physical watermelon in the dining room and have Gerry remark on it, and to have an actual physical conversation with him about it. Who knows, he may even remember the nutcase who spent six months trying to get him to say watermelon whenever he sees one, at least for awhile. It might be quite often too, as his wife is partial to watermelon. Yoland wondered if this was some kind of connecting link, perhaps the connection to Gerry and Cindy started in Marseilles and watermelon was the physical clue, the pointer towards the connection.
Perhaps, Yoland wondered, the orbs were the connecting link to Wailon, although she didn’t feel such a strong connection to him as she did to Toobidoo and Gerry Jumper. She had been collecting coloured gel orbs for several months ~ just for fun. There was often a connecting link to be found in the silly and the fun, the pointless and the bizarre, and even in the mundane and everyday things.
In the days following her return home ~ or the house that Yoland lived in, shall we say ~ she felt rather sleepy, as if she was in slow motion, but the feeling was welcome, it felt easy and more importantly, acceptable. There was nothing that she felt she should be doing instead, for a change, no fretting about starting projects, or accomplishing chores, rather a slow pleasant drifting along. Yes, there were chores to be done, such as watering plants and feeding animals and other things, but they no longer felt like chores. She found she wasn’t mentally listing all the other chores to be done but was simply enjoying the one she was doing. Even whilst picking up innumerable dog turds outside, she heard the birds singing and saw the blossom on the fruit trees against the blue sky, saw shapes in the white clouds, heard the bees buzzing in the wisteria. The abundance of dog shit was a sign of a houseful of happy healthy well fed dogs, and the warm spring sun dried it and made it easier to pick up.
It was, somewhat unexpectedly, while Yoland was picking up dog shit that she finally realized what some of those bobbing words meant about home, and presence, and connection to source. It seemed amusingly ironic after travelling so far (not just the recent trip, but all the years of searching) to finally find out where home was, where the mysterious and elusive source was. (Truth be told, some printed words she found the previous day had been another catalyst, by Vivian channeled by Wanda, but she couldn’t recall the exact words. Yoland had to admit that words, used as a catalyst, were really rather handy.)
Wherever you go, there you are ~ they were words too, and they were part of the story. Now that Yoland had come to the part where she wanted to express in words where home, and source, was, she found she couldn’t find the right words. In a funny kind of way the word vacant popped into her head, as if the place where the vast jumble of words was usually housed became vacant, allowing her to be present in her real physical world. It really was quite extraordinary how simple it was. Too simple for words.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
A second Helper materialised, with another squirming bundle.
Yes, as well as the triplet birth of black and white striped piglets, the pregnancy also resulted in a quadruplet birth of miniature pink elephants. A very successful pregnancy. You will appreciate the significance of the seven of course?
Lavender didn’t have a clue, but as she had been rendered speechless, decided just to nod anyway.
Oh and one last word of advice – if you need any assistance in caring for your new born, we suggest you use gloogloo as a reliable source of seeking information. This is the Fellowship’s search engine of choice.
Well, what a coincidence.