Search Results for 'wise'

“Hey, Asp” Phildendron was still chuckling at her sister Aspidistra’s reaction to the piglet news “Why don’t you make a deal with Lavender, tell her you’ll only accept the piglet if it comes with a years supply of that DMT stuff.”

“So I can share it will you, Phil?” Asp raised an eyebrow. “I don’t like haggling though, you know what I’m like. Looking a gift horse in the mouth and all that, no accidents and all the rest of it. I mean, I must be creating this piglet gift myself, and acceptance is key, is it not?”

“Acceptance doesn’t mean literally accepting gifts of piglets, silly!”

“Well what DOES it mean then?”

“It means accepting that everything is fine, whatever you choose ~ whether you say yes to the pig, or no to the pig, you’re supposed to accept that it’s the perfect choice.”

“Well how the devil is a person to know which is the right choice then?”

“Well that’s just it, it doesn’t matter which choice you make. Not only that, it’s not a case of just one choice, either.”

“So what you’re trying to tell me, which sounds like absolute nonsense, is that if I choose to accept the pig gift now, I would have to choose tomorrow that I accepted the pig gift today, otherwise I would be choosing…..” Asp’s voice trailed off as she lost her thread.

“Yes! And not just once tomorrow, but in every moment you would have to choose that you chose the pig gift ~ otherwise you’d be choosing that you didn’t accept the pig ~ and that would be a choice too.”

“Oh don’t be silly, Phil, with so many choices to make in each moment you wouldn’t ever be finished choosing before it was the next moment, then you’d have to start choosing again ~ You’d never get anything done!”

“Ok so now we have time travelling absinthe vampires, who suck the pee out of the time travelling absinthium salesmen?” Becky laughed. “Or would that be the reindeer pee salesmen? Otherwise known as Santa Clauses ahahah.” The idea was starting to sound strangely plausible. “Santa Claus is really a time travelling reindeer pee salesman from the gnome dimension ~ we were getting it so distorted because of our beliefs!”

Al rolled his eyes and passed her a map of the Carpathian Mountains.

“Hey Leo, I had a blinding revelation last night, after Barb left.”

“Well, do tell, Bea, I’m all ears” said Leonora with an encouraging smile, pouring herself a cup of tea.

“Well the moment was far clearer than I can explain it but it went something like this” Bea continued. “Bearing in mind that the FOCUS DIRECTS so the question of ‘directing’ essence is another choice of puzzle piece of the individual puzzle game at any moment…”

“Ye-es” replied Leonora, making an effort to concentrate.

“To connect to an individual focus is but a baby step towards being able to comprehend the interconnectedness of everything that you create, and that it is all in fact you.” Bea went on, adding “Like a beginner stage as it were, to keep it manageable.”

“Keeping it manageable sounds like a good idea” interjected Leo, pointedly glancing around at the disorder in the kitchen.

Unperturbed, Bea continued “You draw to yourself parts or, if you like, focus points or other focuses of All That Is —of the whole that are at that moment useful.”

“Sounds reasonable, Bea, do continue. Pass the gingerbread men, would you?”

“All of the characters in the stories I write, for example, are my focuses in a manner of speaking, as are all the characters in anything I bring into my world my focuses if I choose to SEE THEM FOR A MOMENT FROM THEIR FOCUS VIEWPOINT.”

“Ok, ok, no need to shout!”

“I’m not shouting, Leo, let me finish and stop interrupting! Adding another focus is an analogy in a way for adding another focus or point of view to mine.
Dividing the actions of adding focus viewpoints into sections is useful in order to comprehend the scope of possible actions, but only initially, and as more actions are experienced objectively, the sections and labels become limiting and confining.” Bea paused for a sip of coffee and a long draw on her cigarette. “But they do keep it manageable to some degree, it must be said” she added.

“Yes, keep it manageable, by all means, couldn’t agree more”

“Everyone’s puzzle game is their own,” Bea was on a roll. “And the same puzzle piece, or other focus in this case, for one, would fit equally well into a completely different puzzle game of someone else’s because all of the surrounding puzzle pieces of each individuals puzzle game are created in each moment and are chosen for their relevance to that moment.”

“Good point, dear.”

“Likewise an individuals puzzle game is a new one in each moment and the puzzle pieces are interchangeable within the same puzzle game, depending on their relevance to the moment and the chosen surrounding puzzle pieces.”

As usual with blazing flashes of illumination, Bea found that they were hard to form into words, and when she did manage to get them into words, they look so screamingly obvious.

“Does that make sense to you, Leo?” she asked.

“Er, I think so Bea, I’m getting the gist…”

Interrupting, Bea continued to describe her revelations to her now glassy eyed friend. “And on the subject of trusting, doubting, confusion and so on”

“Oh, yes, confusion…”

“We are here shiftING, not shiftED, this is what we are choosing.
With the variety of viewpoints we have, the shifted and the unshifted and the semi-shifted, there is always something new to notice from yet another new perspective. Why not get really enthusiastic about the ride itself instead of planning how to float through it with the least fuss ~ it’s more fun on the helter skelter with its many perspectives and view points than on the mill pond for those of us who choose shiftING.”

“I dunno, Bea, from my perspective floating on a millpond sounds rather pleasant.”

“Well, at least now we know that what we don’t know is there to know.”

“Yes, there’s no doubt about that!” relied Leonora, “Have you finished? That was all very interesting but don’t forget we invited everyone over for the Yule Boulder Moving party. We should get a move on with the preparations you know”

Jobson Batt and Ernie Young were taking a vacation in between so called natural disasters, as the financial disaster claimed the populations attention. They knew that the result of the energy being pushed from pillar to post as everyone fretted and worried about the monetary system would manifest in some natural disasters, and they knew they would have their work cut out as highly skilled members of the DDT team (otherwise known as Disaster Damage Team) in due course. Meanwhile, they had the foresight to take a well earned break while the attention of the population was otherwise engaged.

Unable to settle on just one destination, they opted for a World Cruise.

Evangeline Spiggot slammed the telephone down. Another call from someone wanting that other DDT company, Dead Dick Tracy Productions. Business was slow at Disaster Damage Team, with Jobson and Ernie on holiday, but Evangeline was left holding the fort, just in case a major disaster came in, in which case she would inform Jobson and Ernie on their cruise ship. It was boring sitting there alone in the office though, and Evangeline decided that the next wrong number she answered, she would pretend to be Dead Dick Tracy, just for a laugh.

Siobahn had a few more cages to rattle before she she made her way to the meeting. The Freakus management had invited a spokesman from the S.E.C.R.E.T. department (otherwise known as Special Exploration Corps of Really Entertaining Trivia) to give a speech on the art of C.R.A.P.S. (also known as the Coordinated Redistribution of Ambiguously Protected Secrets). All staff were expected to attend the meeting, which unfortunately meant that Siobhan had to refuse an invitation to the F.U.N. picnic (otherwise known as Foundation of Unimportant Nonsense to Those In The Show, which, dear reader, you will recall are also known as T.I.T.S.)

Siobhan rattled the last few cages on her list, and made her way back to her caravan. She had an hour to relax before the meeting so she turned the portable channelvision on and settled herself comfortably on the sofa to surf through the channels. The first channel she landed on was twitching and shouting, ‘The present is not a result of the past, orlright? Orlright, orlright’; the next channel was chuckling and saying with a sly grin, ‘…that would be your choice…”. Flicking through a few more channels, hearing the words ascended higher density love and light and light and love and all is one stuff, Siobahn kept surfing. Sheesh, they are all just saying the same thing, over and over again, she thought to herself, same old same old, blah blah blah… what she wouldn’t have given for some new channel to say something completely different.

Pfft. Siobahn turned off the channelvision and stood up. She made up her mind in the moment to go to the F.U.N. picnic anyway, and bugger the meeting. Maybe she would even start channeling something completely different, just for some bloody variety. Cage Rattling was in her blood, after all, she was a born Cage Rattler and it seemed to her that the whole channelvision empire was getting altogether too samey.

Elizabeth had wanted to voice her concerns about the Vowel Shift and its potential impact on language and understanding to her publisher Godfrey Pig Littleton on numerous occasions, but until his, to her way of thinking, outrageous tampering with her script, it had not been in the forefront of her mind. She had simply ignored the Vowel Shift in the Ooh Dimension, and made up her own Vowel Shifts instead, in a variety of minor ways. Ironically and somewhat perversely (Elizabeth was well aware of the consonant shift, which she translated as a continental drift symbol) Pig Littleton was quick to notice and object.

“Do you deliberately write ‘collaberative’ instead of ‘collaborative’?” he asked.

“There are No Accidents, Godfrey” retorted Elizabeth, rather cleverly shutting the old coot up, at least for awhile. Thank Goodness he was otherwise engaged with the latest production of TWIST, and not breathing down her back about The Book.

“Dory, there’s no asparagus, can we go and buy some?”

“Asparagus? Whatever for?” replied a frantic looking Dory, almost hidden behind arms full of pillows and quilts.

“For Will Tarkin, Mac said he likes asparagus” young Becky replied.

“Who the bloody hell is Will Tarkin? I’ve got enough to cope with trying to get ready for Granny Hill!” Dory sounded uncharacteristically flustered and impatient, and Becky recoiled slightly from the sparky energy.

“Will Tarkin is the mouse, Dory” Becky said in a tone that suggested it was inconceivable to have forgotten who Will Tarkin was.

“Will bloody Tarkin is getting a bit too big for his boots!” snapped Dory. “He’ll be wanting caviar next! I’ve got a time travelling mouse camped up behind my microwave, and Granny Hill’s frightened to death of mice; the room she was going to stay in is full of baby geckos, and you know how scared she is of lizards, not to mention the dead rat that was outside a moment ago, appearing from nowhere, and now I’m trying to get Peppy’s house across the road ready so Granny Hill can stay there instead, and none of the bedding has been washed and it’s still raining, and now you want me to take you shopping for asparagus for a MOUSE! And not only that, there are dead rhino beetles all up Peppy’s driveway, I can’t imagine why, and I’d be willing to bet that Granny Hill is afraid of rhino beetles too, so I suppose I’ll have to sweep up rhino beetles today too, as if I haven’t got enough to do cleaning up dead rats and baby geckos. Granny Hill is afraid of gas heaters too, so I’ll have to take an electric one over to Peppy’s”

“Granny Hill sure is afraid of a lot of things, Dory. Why is she scared of everything?”

“Good question, sweetheart” replied Dory, relaxing her energy as she brought her attention back to the moment. “She’s one of the old ones, from the Victim Mentality Days and the Age of Medical Suggestibility. They’re always afraid of everything, and Granny Hill’s a good example. Afraid of her money in case she can’t keep control of it, afraid of her car for the same reason, afraid of the food she eats in case it contains hidden poisons and afraid of the hospitals in case they’re dirty and dangerous. She’s afraid of strangers in case they have knives and stab her, even though in all her life she’s never seen a person threaten anyone with a knife, she’s even afraid of people in other countries, just in case they come and drop a bomb on her.”

“She must enjoy being scared, then, mustn’t she?” asked Becky. “Otherwise she wouldn’t do it. Doesn’t she realize she’s creating her reality herself?”

“Well, that was the trouble in the old days, honey, they didn’t know that back then. There’s a lot of people who still don’t know it now”

“Wow, really?” Becky said incredulously. “That must be weirdo!”

Dory had to laugh. “Believe it or not, neither did I for years. I keep forgetting it even now! Some of us used to say things like ‘think positive’ which wasn’t far off the mark, or ‘behind every cloud is a silver lining’, or ‘this too will pass’, that was always a good one for when you felt like it was all out of control. Alot of people prayed to gods too, thinking that their life was in the hands of the gods. I never knew much about praying myself though, we didn’t do that in our family, but it was very popular.”

“Maybe they were asking their own essence to help, that would make sense” replied Becky astutely. “Praying probably helped.”

“Yeah it probably did but there was alot of baggage that went along with praying, it wasn’t something you could do on your own in your own way, you had to go to a certain building to do it, and say certain words, even wear certain clothes and eat certain things. It was all very complicated, didn’t really work out in the end. The funny thing was, they were always fighting with people who prayed differently in different special buildings and who ate different special things and wore different special clothes, it was bizarre really.”

“Who is Granny Hill anyway, and why is she coming to stay?” Becky was bored with the way the conversation was going, and curious about Granny Hill who came to stay every so often, and always seemed to rattle Dory. “Whose granny is she?”

“Buggered if I know really, Becky” Dory replied. “Every family has one, I don’t know where they come from, they sort of just appear every so often and want to come and stay for a while.”

“Wise move, Al” Becky said conspiratorially “Very wise move to convert that text into code. You have no idea of the danger you might have been in!”

“Oh don’t be silly, Becky, what possible danger could I have been in? Danger of a tongue lashing perhaps, but not actual danger!”

“Don’t you be so sure, Al! Someone —and I don’t know who, it was sent to me anonymously— sent me this newspaper clipping , here, look at this:”

TOKYO: A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband’s digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday.

“Sacrebleu!” exclaimed Al, with an involuntary shiver.

“You tempestuous fool” Becky cried and slapped Gayesh soundly across the face. “Don’t give me those unspoken looks!”

Gayesh sighed. “Ah, the infinite pleasure I had in mind is naught but an elusive dream.”

Elizabeth read the last two lines she’d been working on to her publisher, Godfrey Pig-Littleton.

Godfrey snorted. “Elizabeth, really! You jest, I hope.”

“Well, I was just trying to fit each of the four themes into one chapter, they all seemed to fit together so easily” Elizabeth replied. “Why not? Tempestuous, Elusive Dreams, Unspoken Looks, and Pleasure”

“You seemed to have fit them all into two sentences, never mind a chapter. And your characters sound like characters in a play.”

“Well they are characters in a play, Godfrey” replied Elizabeth.

“Ham actors, that’s what I meant. Anyway, Liz” Pig-Littleton said with a slightly mischievous grin, “What if Gayesh doesn’t want his face slapped by Becky?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if Becky doesn’t want to slap Gayesh?”

“Well, she will if I write it into the play, surely!” Elizabeth started to frown. She knew that once she invented her characters that they continued to exist in a reality of their own, being free to create their own realities in whatever probable dimension they found themselves in, but she had never really stopped to think about the ramifications of her continuing to write incidents into their lives.

“Maybe Becky has moved on from where you left her last time you wrote about her, in a completely different direction” Godfrey continued “And maybe she doesn’t want to play along with your theme word game. I mean really, is it fair to make her? Maybe she was having more fun doing whatever it was she was doing while you weren’t even thinking about what she should do. Quite rude really to interrupt her just so that you could do your word theme games. Bit of a cheek, I’d say.”

“Oh Godfrey, that’s easily explained” Elizabeth had remembered Probabilities, which was always a handy excuse in continuity disputes. “Another probable character will do what I write for them to do, there are probably hundreds of probable characters now, all going in different directions.”

“Is that wise? Really Elizabeth, that sounds outrageously irresponsible. Hundreds of probable characters running amok, and you have absolutely no idea what they’re all getting up to.”

“Well they’re not my responsibility Godfrey, for heavens sake!”

“Well if they’re not your responsibility, then who’s responsible for them?”

“Nobody is responsible for them!”

“Well that sounds like a recipe for chaos if you ask me” Godfrey said with a sniff. “You’ve unleashed hundreds of probable Becky’s into reality, not to mention Leo’s and Bea’s….”

“And Pig-Littleton’s” Elizabeth interjected under her breath.

“… and Sanso’s and Dory’s” Godfrey, who hadn’t heard Elizabeth, continued to reel off the characters names. “I mean how big do you think reality is? The rate you’re filling it up with probable characters there’ll be no space left!”

Elizabeth started to laugh. “Oh Godfrey, you’re a case. Ahahah! They don’t take up any space at all! Anyway, Godfrey” Elizabeth turned back to her notepad. “Listen to the latest chapter and tell me what you think:

“You tempestuous fool” Becky cried and slapped Gayesh soundly across the face. “Don’t give me those unspoken looks!”

Gayesh sighed. “Ah, the infinite pleasure I had in mind is naught but an elusive dream.”

Godfrey Pig-Littleton was impressed. “Elizabeth, how perfectly you incorporated the four themes into one brilliantly short chapter”

Elizabeth closed her notebook with a satisfied smile and yawned. Let them all do whatever the bloody hell they all want to, I’m off to bed. Plenty of probable characters available in the morning, waiting in the wings.

Mademoiselle Mongoose was the Director of Public Relations at the Z.O.O. (short for Zoological Organization of Outcasts) which was no easy task. Her job entailed ensuring that the members remained Outcasts whilst endeavouring to foster an attitude of Acceptance from the general public. The dilemma was that oftentimes, once an Outcast was Accepted, he no longer qualified as an Outcast and according to the rules, was no longer eligible to remain at the Z.O.O.

Mlle Mongoose couldn’t find the new Outcast anywhere. The enormous Anaconda, affectionately nicknamed Nana Croissant, was Absent Presumed Escaped Soft, which was one of Mlle Mongoose’s biggest headaches at the Z.O.O. There seemed to be a disproportionate number of A.P.E.S. at the Z.O.O.

Mlle Mongoose sighed. If Nana Croissant couldn’t be located, Mlle Mongoose would have to report the disappearance to her superior, Sir Raphael Cabra-Chevre. Thankfully the Z.O.O. also had a disproportionately high population of R.A.B.B.I.T.S. (Rare Intermediate ‘Best Bait In Town’ Stars), to cover for the erratic and unpredictable behaviour of the A.P.E.S., ensuring that there was plenty going on for the General Public at all times. (It may be noted by the S.W.A.N.S. ~ Sumafi Workers Affiliated Normal Society ~ that R.I.B.B.I.T.S. would be more technically accurate, however they were generally accepted as R.A.B.B.I.T.S. to Those In The Show ~ otherwise known as T.I.T.S.)

Mlle Mongoose decided to enlist the help of the C.A.M.E.L.S. (Central Agency for Missing, Escaped & Lost Softs) before alerting Sir Raphael Cabra-Chevre.

The Case of The Disappearing Aardvark was another matter, though. Mlle Mongoose decided to call in the M.E.E.R.C.A.T.S. (Missing Entities & Essences Roll Call and Time Share)

“I want to go home”, sighed Jose. “I just want to go home.” He sighed again as he stood looking out of the cabin. What a mess it all was. Cyclone Ycart had left a trail of mangled wreckage in her wake, but it wasn’t just the devastation on the island, it was the atmosphere, the feeling of chaos, the sense of hidden turmoil permeating the place that made him weary and homesick.

“Ah, Joselito” Paquita whispered softly, stroking his hair gently “Why do you want to go home? What about the treatments?”

“Oh, bugger the treatments!” Jose frowned. “I don’t think I want the treatments any more, you know.” He looked at Paqui’s face. “I never even notice your skin anymore, I like it just the way it is. I don’t even worry about my scars any more, either.”

“I know what you mean” Paqui smiled. “I’m not worried about it either, anymore. I’d like to go home too now. The question is, though, how do we get off this god forsaken island?”

Jose sighed again. “God only knows”

Paqui took Jose by the hand and led him back inside the cabin. “Remember what I was telling you about the ancients dreaming together? How the tribe would dream together, plan where to go next? How they would work things out in their dreams? Let’s try it. Let’s go to sleep and when we wake up we’ll compare notes, and see if we can come up with a solution”

Jose smiled a crooked smile, thinking that sleep sounded as good as anything else he could think of to do. Well, perhaps there was one other thing. Jose winked at Paqui as he closed the door behind them.

When they woke up the sun was low enough on the western shore to cast long umber shadows across the cabin floor, and dust particles danced in the golden sunbeams. Jose woke first and lay still, savouring the remnants of dream images. He felt good; the indescribable sense of having accomplished some meaningful communications with known but elusive others that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, yet couldn’t deny the validity of. It was some minutes before he remembered the plan to dream of a solution to the problem of how to get off the island, and in an instant the well-being evaporated as he struggled to recall any useful details, and frustratingly found that he couldn’t recall a thing.

“Focus on the feeling, Joselito” a voice in his head said. The voice had come through loud and clear, a deep male voice with a hint of a merry chuckle. “Ha ha ha!” The voice boomed again, as if in response to Jose’s awareness of him. An image of dusty reddish skin, swathed in indigo blue cloth flashed through Jose’s mind, and then vanished like a particle of dust moving out of the sunlight into the shadows.

Paqui was beginning to stir, and started mumbling. “The pool, the rock pool, there’s a cave under the pool, hold your breath it won’t be long and out the other side…” She opened her eyes and sat up. “There’s a pool, Jose, and under the pool there’s a tunnel. That’s how we get off the island.”

Jose frowned. “Paqui, this island is in the middle of the ocean, miles from anywhere. Even if there is a tunnel, and even if it goes anywhere at all, it would take months to get to the mainland on foot!”

“Focus on the feeling, Joselito ~ Ha ha ha!” That voice in his head again! Jose was starting to think he was going mad. Suddenly he was filled with doubts and hopelessness. Everything seemed so utterly ridiculous. God, what was he doing here on this island! Everything was crazy here. If only he could just go home!

“Focus on the feeling, Jose.” The voice was gentle now, and kind. “The feeling will take you home”.

“I don’t know what you mean!” cried Jose in exasperation. “How can a feeling take me home? It’s not logical!”

Paqui smiled a wise old smile and said “If you can’t trust yourself, dear one, then trust me for now. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

“But we don’t even know where the pool is! What if we can’t find it?”

“Focus on the feeling Jose, and trust that we will.”

Becky pulled a loose cotton dress out of the suitcase, and scowled at her bikinis. I’ll go for a long hike, she muttered to herself, slipping a pair of strappy mule sandals on her feet. At least my legs aren’t fat! she said, admiring her slim ankles.

Slamming the door of the hotel bedroom behind her, Becky trotted down the stairs, hesitating momentarily at the dining room, she decided against breakfast, and strode out of the door into the morning sunshine.

Squinting in the glare of the bright tropical sun, Becky swore under her breath. Forgot my fucking sunglasses, damn! Not wanting to return to the bedroom and see Sean again, Becky strode on.

She walked and walked, hardly noticing a thing as she grumbled and fretted to herself. She reached the edge of the town and carried on walking; not paying attention to where she was going, she made randon turns to left and right, and eventually the paved roads petered out into dirt paths, and still Becky strode on in her flimsy sandals, squinting with the sun and the sweat that was dripping into her eyes.

By the middle of the afternoon, Becky was hopelessly lost and close to swooning with hunger and the overpowering heat, but she stumbled on. A sudden sharp pain almost doubled her over, and she stood clutching her stomach. Shit, I should have had breakfast, she swore under her breath, mistaking the pain for a hunger pang.

Perhaps a trifle unwisely, Becky decided to run, in an attempt to find the nearest house or village in which she could find a morsel to eat. Before long the inevitable happened, and she twisted her ankle on a stone and fell heavily, banging her head and knocking herself blissfully unconscious.