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AuthorSearch Results
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April 17, 2009 at 4:55 pm #2236
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“Leo focuses ancient city within probable space
nonsense waiting believe
phone start stories
shift known sign nut
dragon green high rubbish”Fer sure sounds like junk to me said Lavender when Harvey was trying to decipher the newspaper aloud with his pinhole third-eye monocle on…
She then started to wonder why she was speaking with a heavy American accent, her eyes distractedly following the little pet mouse running in circles in its wheel.April 16, 2009 at 7:35 am #2512In reply to: Strings of Nines
When Ann read about “that place lost between the pine trees” in The Play she started coughing again. She was beginning to wonder about her cough, after reading in the New Reality Herald last night about the man with a fir tree growing in his lung.
In tandem with her coughing, the ground started to tremble beneath Amarilla, The Forgotten Eggleton, and flecks of sun melted chocolate spattered the gravestones and pine trees.
It’s a lungquake, run for your lives! she shouted, but there was nobody there. The ground heaved and cracked beneath Amarilla and she lost her grip and plunged headlong into an abyss of vile sticky mucus.
April 15, 2009 at 11:08 pm #2509In reply to: Strings of Nines
A suspicious thought crossed Yoland’s head… Could it be that this… ‘demon’, for lack of a better word was responsible for that unexpected incursion of a snake which came in through the bathroom window ?
— “Yeah… I’d say, about time you notice!” snickered Sumhellfi (or ‘Sulfi’ for short). “You sometimes get so lost into puzzlement of which of your aspects is responsible for your creation that you don’t even wonder it might be a simple hello with no strings attached…”
— “Saying hello with a venomous snake?… You’ve got strange customs in Dhataland…
And as far as string goes…” Yoland smiled fondly thinking of the spoil of war in the wardrobe she kept in there for long winter nights
“err… I mean, better a string than a sting… well, if you know what I mean…”
— “As a matter of fart, I think I might know just exactly what you mean” Sulfi answered with a wink.April 15, 2009 at 3:08 pm #2506In reply to: Strings of Nines
Yoland was disgruntled. Despite not worrying about money, and regardless of generally feeling abundantly lucky, several large bills had inexplicably all come at once. And then, as if to underline her feeling of losing control, her car skidded badly while she was slowing down for a speed control bump, causing her to career over it at full speed. Rather shaken, Yoland frowned, wondering where she was going wrong. Suddenly she felt a million miles away from ease. Change your energy, she said to herself, but she couldn’t remember how to. She managed to make it home relatively unscathed, and then one of her big dogs accidentally trampled on the new puppy. His squeals of pain as he held up his leg made her even more determined to change her friggen energy, and change it fast. Sheesh, she said. Pfft.
April 5, 2009 at 4:47 pm #2504In reply to: Strings of Nines
The smell of the incense was giving her a sense of comfort and was helping her unfocus her attention in order to let the trance occur. She was one of the Seers of the Crimson Feather Order and when she was in a trance, the Goddess was speaking through her for those priests or priestesses who were seeking directions.
The Seers usually had no memories of what was happening when they were speaking for the Goddess and they were usually coupled with a Witness so the message would not be altered by the requester to best suit his or her desire. Depending on the clarity of the message, a period of evaluation and interpretation could be necessary and in case of official communications it was then forwarded to every temple.
Though in certain occasions the Witness could be missing as it was the case today. The archbishop Boorla had requested a meeting with no Witness, and in such cases the value of the information was only considered of personal nature. He was late, and she could put off the meeting if she wanted to, but a faint feeling was suggesting her to wait a bit longer.
When he entered a few minutes later, introduced by her usual Witness, he seemed furious and having great difficulties containing his anger. He was a red long-haired cat and his collar was particularly imposing in such moments. She had to focus on herself and not let his irritation make her loose her balance for the trance. As the Witness left the room, she took a deep breath and purred gently as she began the ritual. The Requester had to keep silence until being invited to do ask their question and she needed some time to calm him.
She felt at first his irritation grow as she was purposefully delaying the beginning of the trance, but he couldn’t resist longer the soothing purr of the Seer, and as she asked the ritual question, she felt her consciousness fading out.
When she came out of trance, she was feeling sick, the delivery of the message had been interrupted and though he was silent she could feel the fury of the archbishop flowing like waves. Apparently the message didn’t please him at all, and he barely spoke the ending ritual Thanks to the Goddess before he left the room hissing.
Though she was feeling tired and would need some rest, she couldn’t help wondering what had happen.
April 2, 2009 at 3:16 pm #2498In 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.
March 30, 2009 at 10:52 pm #2495In reply to: Strings of Nines
‘“It may have been the sudden change of environment, but Leörmn had great difficulty at staying focused.”
‘Aspidistra Merryweather, suddenly disconcertingly finding herself in a completely different place, with a new name and an unfamiliar body, was marginally relieved to discover that the wonderful synchronicity of the random quote selector hadn’t changed.’
Cordella wondered how many times, and with how many additions, this perfectly timed random quote would thread its way through the volumes. She had been trying to balance her universal celebration lettuce somewhat unsuccessfully, wishing she’d paid more attention to the lecture, when she spotted the orbs.
March 29, 2009 at 11:31 pm #2492In reply to: Strings of Nines
Cordella opened Circle of Eights at random. It was the part where Felicity was trying out for the new job, the job where ‘the ability to say the first thing that popped into her head’ was the only requirement. How appropriate, she said drily, having spent the past week and a half wondering what to write on the vast field of possibilities stretched in front of her. It wasn’t that she had nothing to say, rather a question of where to start.
Well, that’s the start sorted out now then, she said with a satisfied smile.
March 1, 2009 at 5:35 am #2041In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
told
ask
choice
looked
wonder
escape
lady love earth
often
soon
seeing
running
meaning
thoughts clue
mind adventureFebruary 21, 2009 at 2:42 pm #2225In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Annabel Ingram was chatting the tourists through her guided tours, but most of the time, her mind was wandering elsewhere.
As a matter of fact, she often thought she should have been named “Wandering Elsewhere” instead. These were her two favourite words in the whole Manilvan language. Scholars had made fancy claims like basement portal or something of that ilk was the loveliest words combination, but she’s never been one to follow the trends and fleeting modes anyway.All in all, it was probably time she got herself a new job; touring the tourists in the middle of “ohs” and “ahs” to the Doorway of the Goddess Amarylis Moo Rue? Not for her any longer.
To be bluntly honest she was beginning to find herself a little of a fraud, as she tried to maintain a decent level of excitement at the ridiculous amazement of the tourists when they recounted their litanies of visions of Goddess Amarylis surrounded with cohorts of naked ladies and bare butt cupids holding wreaths of flowers. Amarylis was the Goddess of Flove. A glorious goddess representing the duality of the aspects of love and death. Quite a hype for people coming from the cities, eager to get a quick shot of esoteric experiences.But she’d seen Amarylis more than once, and it was not all that pretty behind the scenes. She was not as mean as herself, but she wasn’t the last to poke fun at people for whisking unwarranted followers to the altars. Anyway, that and her perfumes, honestly you had to wonder. Lavender and decaying morue (cod), what a blend…
February 18, 2009 at 8:39 am #2219In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Decimus! Yoo Hoo! OH MY GOD! how wonderful to see you here. What are YOU doing in Manilva? Is Antonio here too?
LAVENDER! How great to see you!….. Oh Antonio, Decimus shook his head, his joy at seeing Lavender quickly replaced with sadness at the thought of his Beloved. I have not seen her for many months. Only in my dreams does she visit me, and there she is doing the strangest of things. Things no man can decipher. It is strange times indeed Lavender. Decimus sighed heavily, then rubbed his eyes and scratched his head. God, he really needed to get some help. He wondered if the great Dr Limur might be able to help him get rid of these nervous twitches. Ever since Antonio had been gone he had been rubbing, sighing, scratching! It was driving him mad. And the odour of fermented fish which constantly plagued him! Dear God, what had he done to deserve this.
Lavender regarded her friend with compassion. Poor fellow, he really was behaving oddly. However, recalling her recent rather embarrassing encounter with Harvey, she decided against trying to rid Decimus of any potential lurking demons. Perhaps it was better to try and emulate the famous Tattler twins, Ann and Sally, and simply listen, rather than trying to jump in and help all the time.
Anyway my dear Lavender. What brings YOU to this god forsaken place?
I have an appointment to see Annabel… um, hang on I can’t remember her name .., Lavender rummaged in her purse. Oh that’s right, Annabel Ingram. She is a certified dream navigator. I found her on gloogloo when I was searching for some help with my seven new born … anyway, long story … Aspidistra has them now so that is okay … and then… the strangest thing! I found 57 of her business cards in my mail box. Isn’t that rather odd Decimus?
Decidedly odd indeed, replied Decimus, with a sigh.
February 16, 2009 at 8:22 am #2214In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Ann woke up thinking of Annabel Ingram. The name sounded very familiar, quite close to the name Annabel Ingman actually. The funny thing was that Ann had seen images of Annabel’s face, lots of them, a series of faces of all the ages of her life. She felt like a ‘real’ person’, whatever that meant. Ann wondered which came first ~ the ‘real’ woman that inspired the character, or did the character now have a life?
February 14, 2009 at 12:29 am #2211In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Oh bugger this Harvey pestered against his pinhole third eye monocle which had just fallen again in his tea.
He’d developed a strange case of telepathy myopia —which he had hoped to alleviate with the monocle— that prevented him to hear the thoughts of the others when they weren’t as close enough a distance.
Doc Limure, a strange fellow, had diagnosed him when he had told about the strange symptoms and advised him to carry the pinhole monocle for awhile. But it wasn’t really practical at all to maintain before his eye; he had to keep his telekinesis in check, and as soon as he let his thoughts drift away, the thing would fall.
He started to wonder if Dr Limure had not made some practical joke on him.February 10, 2009 at 6:47 am #2209In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Ann Tattler groaned. Perhaps listening wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The latest novel was degenerating rapidly into trivial nonsense, in large part thanks to the collaborative writing efforts of her publisher, and the cleaner, Daisy. It was hard keeping quiet when confronted with such an outpouring of nonsensical rubbish.
She wondered despondently whether even the erudite Eremurus Lemon would be able to help her this time. She opened his latest book, “How to Sing Like a Bird in Fifty Three Relatively Easy Lessons” at random.
Take advantage of the Beast’s sleep to have some.
Of course! Duh! How could she have doubted Lemon. Didn’t he always come through? She should be taking advantage of this time of silence! While her inner noisy beast was sleeping she should be having some.
But some what?
February 7, 2009 at 10:52 am #2204In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“I’m noticing alot of threes lately!” remarked Rhodedrendron, Aspidistra’s freind. “I wonder why?”
“I keep noticing sevens” replied Aspidistra.
February 7, 2009 at 3:48 am #2203In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
The Fellowship wish to extend our greetings to you young lady, and to thank you most sincerely for gracing us with your delightful presence.
Lavender smiled encouragingly at the pointy headed gentleman who was welcoming her so warmly. Still, she was wondering anxiously why she had been summoned to this meeting of the Fellowship, when her little Essence was not due for another two days.
Thank you, it is I who am honoured to be here. she responded politely.
The Speaker smiled benignly at her. I sense your anxiety. Let me assure you there is no reason for concern. We are very happy with your pregnancy. However we did encounter some unexpected challenges. Perhaps, it is best if you just see for yourself.
He nodded to one of the Helpers, who waited like silent black shadows around the edges of the room. The Helper disappeared, and returned a moment later carrying a large bundle, which appeared to be wiggling vigorously. The Helper laid the bundle gently at Lavender’s feet and unwrapped the cover. Three little striped piglets emerging, squealing indignantly.
Yes, smiled the Speaker. We are delighted to inform you that your pregnancy has resulted in triplet piglets. I am sure even though this is unexpected, you will be as thrilled as we here at the Fellowship are.
Lavender hoped Aspidistra liked piglets as much as the Fellowship clearly did …
February 5, 2009 at 4:52 am #2195In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Speaking of sex? Lavender’s ears perked up. Oh X! He was speaking of X. Now SHE was mishearing … or mis-mindreading to be more accurate. Pity, sex sounded more interesting than all this X business. She did wish Harvey wouldn’t call her Lavy, for obvious reasons, she would have thought. No wonder in the 6 years they had been friends she hadn’t told him her name.
Speaking of names … do you think Essence is a good name for a pig? she asked, hoping to get Harvey off the rather boring subject of procrastination. She would speak of X later, maybe … if she had time.
Maybe I should let Aspidistra name the pig?
Harvey wasn’t paying attention. He was balancing the waiter on his nose.
You know I might have to go through the portal if the bridge to Asgard has crumbled, Lavender mused, to no-one in particular.
February 5, 2009 at 12:32 am #2194In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Harvey wondered for a moment why he’d thought he’d heard “Sylvander”… He made Lavender repeat her name to be sure he got it right.
At least, that was easier to remember than Aspooh’s full name.
A striped cute little piggy… He’d heard about those funny Japanese Tokyo X ones. Speaking of Xs, there was a ten steps list to remember to help him out of procrastinating further on his current task that Lavy had kindly sent to him, but bugger if he could remember any one of them…
Now… if that were to be a Japanese pig, they would have to learn how to say ‘Essence’ in Japanese…
February 4, 2009 at 10:18 am #2192In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Harvey was thinking if anything had escaped his friend’s keen eye for details…
She was so good at it that his attempt was only futile and hopeless.He gave a distracted look at the menu of the restaurant.
He’d kept getting the strangest reads recently by “mis-understanding” other people’s words, in an entirely bizarre yet funny and enlightening way. Like when his friend talked about Bifrost, he first thought she was talking about getting roasted beef.Speaking of which, the menu was saying (so he first read)
“pig bed wonder
hairy expect reason liked universe
behind certain Tina doctor busy light individual”“Oh, egg Benedict for starters” she said, “sounds just great”
“What? Why did I read ‘pig bed something?’” he muttered to himself.
“Pig?… Did you just say ‘pig’? I am sure that is a synch… can’t remember what though… Piggy I have to remember”Harvey noticed that he had seen pigs recently as well. The first occurrence was after a crappy condition, about recycling pigs’ waste to make gas; and the other was about a pig feeding piglets on the road.
January 27, 2009 at 12:12 pm #2190In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Col had been in the business of intergalactic sleuthing and profiling for many years now and his tall broad stature and kind, poised black face was well known all around. They used to call him “the Zebra”, not so much because he made black and white statements —he was very nuanced— but because of his unusualness and knack for blending himself in questions.
As a matter of fact, he’s made himself quite a reputation of a highly skilled professional, with no one up to par for finding clues and solving mysteries.Col Umbro’s motto was “all you have to do is to ask the right questions, in the right order.”
Of course, he wouldn’t tell which way was the “right” one and which was not. But one thing was sure enough, most people completely overlooked the last part of the sentence.And that was what he intended to teach to his next assignment. A distant focus of his essence in mid-shift. For the moment, dream projections were the easiest and safest way to catch their attention, because they were not accustomed to a shifted state enough to pay attention to more physical projections.
It was hilarious to see that most of the enthusiastic ones were waiting for unexpected events to come and rapture them in awe. Sillies… For one, “unexpected” shouldn’t be so… expected.
Besides, most of the time, (most of the now) people were simply blind to the facts not in alignment with their allowance for disbelief. A pink elephant, say… They had grown so blasé that should they even see it standing in from of them, that they would probably then dismiss its appearance as another miracle of genetics (or debasement thereof)…
So, reaching them would actually require quite a tactful and sly approach. Qualities he possessed enough.“Who’s this new person appearing disguised in a pseudonym?” His assignment was wondering.
They had forgotten rule number one. Nothing is hidden from you. Granted, a pseudonym is a mask, but the choice of the mask is revealing enough of a clue.
Then, you had to ask the questions in the right order. “Who is it?” should be the last of them all. Same with all the “how’s”. “What and why” where more important questions to consider.
Once you got the “what”, the who is so self-evident, that it would not even retain the slightest of interests…He had found a nice slot, just after an entertaining equilibristics dream show. Making a dream for his assignment would be fun. And probably even more fun as she was the most impossible subject who wouldn’t remember dreams at all! He would have to use a proxy dreamer. Someone close enough to her. He knew exactly who to choose…
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AuthorSearch Results