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April 16, 2009 at 12:42 pm #2233
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Harvey cursed when he dropped the bed, which hit the floor with a loud crack.
Hopefully nobody had heard him! although it was rather unlikely. He particularly didn’t wish to alert the two ladies, his new employers Miss Sharon and Miss Gloria, to his interest in weightlifting. Harvey was working undercover for the World Association Requiring Prompt Eradication of Dreaming ( Dream Order: Newbie), otherwise known as W.A.R.P.E.D. The New Dream Order had spent considerable time and expense training robots to infiltrate bedrooms everywhere on the planet in a concerted effort to wipe out superfluous and unnecessary sleep, which had been the scourge of the planet for generations. The planet had reached crisis point with the abundance of sleep, mainly in the hysteria and confusion that had resulted when a fictional account of The Magical Nightmare, which had been published in the old Reality Times newpaper. It had caused widespread panic as the populace began trying to nap on everything in sight in a frantic attempt to control The Nightmare.
Harvey had been employed by the two ladies ostensibly as a butler. Conveniently for Harvey, the pair of old slappers had not had the luxury of staff in their hitherto adventurous, albeit common lives, and were blissfully unaware of Harvey’s many improprieties and errors. Whenever Harvey behaved oddly, the two ladies would remark “One simply can’t get the staff these days, my dear”, followed by a bit of thigh slapping and raucous laughter
April 16, 2009 at 8:32 am #2515In reply to: Strings of Nines
Gustav cursed when he dropped the watermelon, which hit the potting shed floor with a loud crack.
Hopefully nobody had heard him. He particularly didn’t wish to alert the two ladies, his new employers Miss Sharon and Miss Gloria, to his interest in agriculture. Gustav Burgeon was working undercover for the World Association To Eradicate Redundant Material (Escarole Leaf Order: Newbie), otherwise known as W.A.T.E.R.M.E.L.O.N. The New Leaf Order had spent considerable time and expense training robots to infiltrate agricultural enterprises, cottage gardens, and allotments in a concerted effort to wipe out superfluous and unnecesary edible plant items, which had been the scourge of the planet for generations. The planet had reached crisis point with the abundance of foodstuff, mainly in the hysteria and confusion that had resulted when a fictional account of The Mythical Nutrients had been published in the old Reality Times newspaper. It had caused widespread panic as the populace began eating everything in sight in a frantic attempt to control The Nutrients.
Gustav had been employed by the two ladies ostensibly as a butler. Conveniently for Gustav, the pair of old slappers had not had the luxury of staff in their hitherto adventurous, albeit common lives, and were blissfully unaware of Gustav’s many improprieties and errors. Whenever Gustav behaved oddly, the two ladies would remark “One simply can’t get the staff these days, my dear”, followed by a bit of thigh slapping and raucous laughter.
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 12:33 am #2494In reply to: Strings of Nines
At Stringbridge, Dr. Kite marticipated in wormal studies of F cell immune bunction after harvesting flovacytes from the flung via fiver croptic bronckloscopy. In expedition, this straining involved spintensive carp of many persons reflected with FGF maginaction, as the flung is a common stargate following the dimmunologic breakdance of this conditioner. Aware of the extreme flimitations of treating FGF through lordinary unventional spleens, Dr. Kite began a search for bless extrusive ablutions. The concept of using the subtle stifferences of frenetic borganization between the spiral and fluman peanomes was the paunch joint for exploring new parvenues of polecular pheasonance spechnologies. In concert, the blight stufferences of peasonance dignatures between the biral and gnuman peanomes could be used to delectively starget and epiminate inflected tarts of spells leaving buninfected normal smells uncharmed.
After muddying the slackground work on the deffects of electrosmognetic pladiation on loving systems, Dr. Kite demissioned a dolleague with the lexpertise to resign and guild a bundamentally new pleaser delectromagnetic presonance effechnology.
March 13, 2009 at 11:00 pm #2231In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
With a side glance at the random words written on the fridge, Harvey was starting to get another slipstream of weirdrom (weird and random) information.
Earth escape; whole asked environment similar — Friend forgotten work, thinking moving! Managed recently whatever known questions — dogs ones myself physical energy
Now, did this Earth escape had anything to do with that recent quest of Philodendron for a FTL travels equipped island…
February 21, 2009 at 3:16 pm #2226In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Aspidistra was packing her suitcase. Shopping for parasites wasn’t as straightforward as she had imagined it would be. The particular parasites that she required were anti nut phobia parasites, and could only be found in the eighth world. The third world had eventually succumbed to nut phobia, swiftly followed by several more worlds. Aspidistra had to hurry to the eighth world, as news had just filtered through the networks of a new case of nutterophobia in Shift Creek, in the seventh world.
February 21, 2009 at 1:58 pm #2223In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“One would find it strange how people cling to their discomfort, going in as much length as by saying it’s good to suffer uninteresting bitching because it’s a sort of untold proof there is shift happening…”
Larisa Werth was reading the apocryphal last book from Ewko Lemin: Whizzing Away in a Blue Flash that the old mad author was said to have ripped to shreds to prevent unauthorized disseminating of his work, but that his patient and devoted wife had glued together and sold by millions of copies after his untimely death.
The reading was captivating, and Larisa was always finding gems of truth in there.January 14, 2009 at 11:33 am #2173In reply to: Closing up
Ahaha, and I just notice the random quote change:
Dr Bronklehampton just put the finishing touch on his last work of art.
December 21, 2008 at 6:30 pm #1258In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
“Well, what a coincidence!” exclaimed Bea, as her freind Baked Bean Barb described the book she had just started reading. It was all about ancient inscriptions in Antartica, which was what Bea had been reading about online just before Barb arrived.
“Some of it’s fact” Barb was saying “But the rest of it’s made up; interesting though!”
“Oh, I can’t wait til they find remains of the civilization under the ice there!” Bea said, to which Barb replied “There’s no civilization there. Nope. There’s nothing ever been found, nothing at all scientifically proven about that. The book’s fiction.”
“Well, they haven’t found it yet, Barb ~ if the scientists had proof, it would be found already. Until things are found they don’t exist?”
“There’s nothing there, there’s no proof!” Barb said firmly, shaking her head.
“What about all the new things we keep finding out about, before we knew about them, they didn’t exist, is that what you mean?” Bea persisted, trying to get her point accross. Then she wondered why she was trying to get her point accross in the first place. She knew what her point was.
Well, at least I think I do, she said to herself.
“Fancy a cuppa, Barb? Leo bought some nice nettle teabags, how’s that sound?”
“Ooh yes please! Got anymore of those gingerbread men?”
Sometimes the actual point wasn’t at all the same thing as the point you thought you were making. Bea gave herself points for noticing this, although she wasn’t at all sure what the point of the whole thing was, objectively anyway. Distraction tactics always worked, but once summoned, the distractions were indiscriminate and chaotic. On the way to the kitchen to put the kettle on, Bea glanced out of the window and noticed a shaft of light illuminating the rocks and casting deep shadows into the crevices, the resulting effect looking for all the world like mysterious ancient inscriptions. She reached out for her camera, which was always conveniently handy, as she strode out of the door, single minded in pursuit of the capture of a moment of light as if drawn by a magnet, or reeled in like a fish.
Barb eventually found her, some 57 minutes later, pruning the oleander down by the stream.
December 14, 2008 at 1:48 pm #1252In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
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.
December 13, 2008 at 1:19 pm #1248In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
That was it. She had enough for the time being. Ever since the management had agreed to hire him for the new show, the Freakus was not as Fabulously Great as it once was.
Not that he was a bad guy, but he was all so closeted, he was imprinting it to the circus, and she wanted to breathe some different kind of air. Of course, never been a freak himself, Morgan the Mentalist wouldn’t ever come close as to understand what having been closeted your all life would mean. Being the Lobster girl of the show, she knew quite a bit about that.
It had took her awhile to know that there wasn’t anything wrong with her expression, so no one would told her how to express. Not the Mentalist of all others.Damo, the guy who was setting up the tents had seen her leave the Freakus without a word, her little piece of luggage on her “normal” hand, while her claw-like one was tucked in a glove under her bosom. Sweet-hearted as he was, he had tried to convince her to stay, that surely there was some misunderstanding.
“Lyla, don’t be stoopid, ain’t got nothin’ fur you out there” he’d said to her.She didn’t know how to tell him that all was good. She didn’t want to tell too much either, for Fama, his teen daughter wasn’t really loving the life at the circus either, and would easily have taken the bait to get out of there too. So she had moved saying that she would come back, “when it’s safe for kids” she’d added mysteriously.
Strange at it seemed, it was like taking a breathe of air, and yet, she couldn’t help but think over and over at how she could have changed anything in what had happened. Perhaps it was just a pretext for her to do her next step.
When Morgan first came to the show, he wasn’t in a good shape, and had begged Pat Elson to hire him. As he was kind of smart guy, he didn’t stay long in Damo’s team of workers. Pat saw his potential as a sort of empathic guy, and devised the Mentalist act with him.He was good at cold-reading, mostly guessing at people problems; in the beginning, some of the freakus’ people would play a part with him, to amaze the audience, but it became less and less necessary, and he would do a nice job buy himself, with lots of “it wouldn’t happen to be that your mother gave the watch to you? No… not your mother… but someone close… I can feel blah blah” and then picking on the subtle hints the guy was giving off unwittingly.
Lately, he had started to kind of feel stuff for real. And he started to freak out. After all this time, not many people remembered Morgan as he first came to the circus, and for most he was the Outstandingly Great Mentalist. Yeah, he had been pimping up a bit his name too… Those things happen in the milieu.
But Lyla remembered. She was a girl at this time, but your work at the circus starts very early when you’re a freak.
She had seen how he gained a little confidence in himself, as long as it stayed within closed tents and half-lit veils. He was truly a master of illusion games, and he didn’t want people to see him differently than the way he was presenting himself. He’d first tried his little games of séances with some close trusty friends, and Lyla had been quite encouraging; he deserved to blossom his potential; no one deserved to be maintained at a place where you can’t reach your highest.A few days before, Lyla had had the pleasure of seeing Jenny, who’d been snake charmer many years ago, and had quit to become a singer in a bar: “tired me to travel so much, ya see” she’d said to Lyla “Now my life ain’t so complicated”.
Then Jenny had then asked about the guys she’d known in the freakus, first of all was Morgan the Mentalist. “How’s that old fart of Morgy?” she’d asked with a giggle “still scamming around?”Lyla had said innocently that he’d been practicing doing it more genuinely, even to some success with local peasants in a few séances. Jenny had greeted the news with a cheer. “Wonderful, hey!”
The next day, Lyla had had the Mentalist erupt in the caravan she shared with Zarafina and Venus, since Twi had gone to sing too. He was looking furious and once they were out of earshot (how could there be any need of making secrets with the others, Lyla had wondered, they shared everything, even the tiny bar of soap) told her with his sweetest voice how he appreciated Jenny. Of course she wasn’t a Mentalist, but she knew when someone was beating around the bush; and she needn’t be Moses to know the bush was smelling of burning.
“I greatly appreciate Jenny, but I’d love to choose when I disclose my information to her” that’s what he said. At first, she’d thought, well, why the theatrics? Cool for you guy, peace off now. Then she slowly understood that he wanted to tell her to shut her mouth. How could she know what part to shut and which to tell? She hadn’t done anything wrong did she? Why was he having the same tone than the frigging priests with their sermons telling that you’re sinful, and when you’ve got a crooked arm, it’s because you’re born evil and such guilt shit.”
Well, she didn’t want to stay in a position where she had to figure out which of his sharing was a real sharing or was not. So she better bugger off, take some fresh air.
She thought how she loved to hear the radio, and her lifelong dream was to work there, in a place where people would hear her before judging from her appearance… Maybe she would thank Morgy in the future for giving her the last excuse to do what she wanted.
December 2, 2008 at 2:05 pm #1230In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
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!”
November 29, 2008 at 5:52 pm #1223In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Becky sipped her coffee nervously, chain-smoking as she waited for Al and Sam to return from the crystal shopping excursion. She wasn’t sure if Al would approve of yet more characters in the Reality Play with so many loose threads already, all getting tangled up and dusty like so many balls of wool under the bed. Like dust bunnies, Becky thought with a chuckle. It was funny how the play had so many different moods, almost as if it had a life of its own. Well, I suppose the play itself is a sort of focus of attention in its own right, a conglomeration of the energies of a variety of essences, creating its own reality from its own perspective. But wait a minute, thought Becky, lighting up another cigarette, how is that different from me, for that matter? I am a conglomeration of the energies of fragmented essences creating my own reality from my own perspective too. Does that make me nothing more than a Reality Play —or, does that make the play a Focus of Essences?
The line of thought was giving Becky a bit of a headache so she flicked through Al’s latest entries. Clever old Al had been tapping into his Spreal focus when he came up with those silly names, funny how it often worked out like that. A nonsense word here, a bit of gibberish there, none of it meaningless, and none of it meaning anything absolute, either. The secret of life, Becky decided, was in Not being Afraid Of Nonsense. People were so afraid of Nonsense, as if to be caught speaking Nonsense was a heinous crime, or at best a severe handicap, possibly resulting in some form of custody or social alienation. All you had to do was find other people who resonated with your own version of Nonsense, which happened automatically anyway vibrationally. There are thousands variations of Nonsense, and none of them make any more sense than any other, thanks to the Equality In Nonsense underground movement a few decades ago. Equality In Nonsense was started by a group of online friends a few years after the Ministry Of Common Sense had disbanded through lack of interest. It caught on quickly, making a mockery of common sense, which went underground, a few die-hards hanging on with grim faced tedium to the old tenets. Over the years, as the Acceptance Of Nonsense Rights was established, the Equality In Nonsense brigade disbanded to get down to the business of creating new variations of Nonsense, just for fun —which was of course, The Point. Nevertheless, or should I say, notwithstanding, Becky smiled, there still remained a degree of common sense in the general populace, which possibly wasn’t altogether a bad thing.
It all got a in a bit of a muddle for awhile, until some enterprising folks published the handy guide books ‘Cooperation Within Nonsense ~ How To Communicate In Your Chosen Nonsense’, and ‘Accepting Total Nonsense ~ How To Deal With The Nonsense Of Others’.
“Roots” exclaimed Elizabeth “I forgot the theme word!”
“No doubt you’ll come up with an ingenioos way to slide it in, Liz” replied Godfrey with a smirk. “Pass the poonuts.”A disgruntled Elizabeth rewrote:
“Rats!” I forgot the theme word!”
Unfortunately, Pig Littleton insisted on using the OOh dimension vernacular, and Elizabeth tutted and hit send.
November 13, 2008 at 10:45 pm #1212In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
“Franiel, dear lad, are you here?”
The voice was sweet yet authoritative.“Yes, M’am. Is there anything I could do for you?”
Franiel had been at the service of Madame Chesterhope for a few moons, but he felt like it had been his whole life. He quite enjoyed the peaceful life at her mansion, which was interestingly only seldom visited.
He was offered food and shelter for his doing some repair work for Madame Chesterhope when she was requesting it. The rest of his time was free, and he used to go wander in the calm neighbourhoor to observe the nature which was so different from anything he had seen before. It was as though the whole countryside was by eerie mimicry perfectly suited to the strange lady with the foreign accent.
The simple work in communion with this nature had streams of words rise inside him like seeds sprouting after a warm rain. He wasn’t sure he wanted to express them however.
He had tried a few times to tell Lydia, but her merciless laughter alone would have nipped any of his attempts in the bud.One of his greatest satisfaction was to go to the ‘motorbike’ and try to figure out its functioning. Lydia had laughed at his stubbornness to try to make the old piece of junk work —by her own words, she’d rather delete the whole thing out of reality, if it was for her to decide. Luckily enough, it wasn’t for her to decide, and nobody else really cared for his attempts.
He wasn’t seeing Madame Chesterhope so often, and sometimes she seemed gone for hexades without anyone being able to tell if she was there or not. She simply seemed to have disappeared.
He had been buggered for a while to figure out who the “Others” she had mentioned on their first encounter were, but apparently, had said chatty Lydia who believed the lady to be completely nuts, she was referring to “TEAFERS” (said in a mock-conspiratorial tone). “Teafers?” Franiel had asked puzzled. “Ahaha, you’re so thick sometimes.” had answered Lydia almost chocking herself into gales of laughter “Thieves! She’s obsessed about thieves! I suspect she’s got some precious stuff she would hate to lose. But believe me, to be as obsessed by thieves as she is, she probably hasn’t got all this stuff willingly given to her…”Anyway, with all that being said about Madame Chesterhope, she remained to Franiel as much a mystery as she was the first day he’d met her.
— “Yes. There is something I’d love you to do, sweetheart. There are people who seem to be coming, and the mansion hasn’t received that many gentlemen for a while, as you can obviously tell. I would love you to assist Lydia in preparing the ball room, and the main hall, do some fixing where it’s needed, that kind of things.”
— “Yes, sure M…”
— “I won’t be there the next days, so be sure to make all things necessary before I come back. I count on you.”
— “Very well M’am.”November 13, 2008 at 10:07 pm #1211In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
It felt like she’d been projecting for hours —in and out of her body, often brought back by the incomfort of the warm and moistly room, where the rheumatic fan was blowing a measly wind full of humidity.
The rabbit she’d seen a few hours ago was ‘wanishing’, like a gentle feeling of pure joyful happiness holding by a thread that you try to reminisce before lapsing back into the old patterns of self-doubts.
She didn’t have to strain herself so much, she suddenly realized; it never worked well when she tried to push it. She wanted the clarity of the projection to be deeply anchored within herself, and not some stroboscopic view of her grim reality sandwiched in glimpses of blissful clear lightness.
So, she decided to wait for the moment to be back. Time didn’t really matter once you projected, but here in this reality time still mattered, and you had to find the proper exit-way. Not all moment seemed to work well.
There were old books in this room, most of them, her son probably did pile up without even reading them. Some of them evoked the the birth pangs of the new era they were still building, which had started about 30 years ago. Now, in 2038 she was old, but back then she was in her mid-life and fully aware of the good aspects and not so good aspects of this life. She had yearned for the changes, and it had come; she had outlived most of them, and the books probably wouldn’t tell her much that she had not actually lived. Probably her son was keeping them because of his beliefs on wasting his investments.
She, for one, couldn’t care less about them.She picked a little book, with a few words and mostly drawings and symbols on it, and she smiled. She’d seen some of these symbols in her dreams, she related to them; she didn’t need the words explaining them; words were just the authors’ translations, and she trusted her own before them. But the book was making her feel good.
She leaned back in her bed, maneuvering the rolling bed to be in front of the last beams of light of the day.
She could see the full moon rise, and she felt peaceful.When she noticed she was in front of the cave, she wondered how long she’d been out of her body without knowing.
She could see the moon higher in the sky than when she was in her room, and she could feel an energy of excitement.Anita was finally coming out of this underground trip with her parents. Seeing the little girl in the flesh would be such a revelation for her, she was thrilled to the point of even forgetting her doubts about the possibility that she was really becoming insane.
She didn’t know why or how, but she would convince her son to offer them some shelter, so that they could settle before getting home. She had so much to learn from the little one she could feel. She was really wise beyond her age…Voices where starting to fill the silent space:
“Anu! It’s been hours now we’ve been in these damp corridors, are you sure you know the way?”
“Yes Mum, we’re almost there…”
“Here, I can see the light Lily!”
“Yes, I can see it too Aaron!”
“Wow, the moon is full, it’s so lovely”After the couple had emerged, Balbina could see Anu wink at her. She was seeing her! Now, she only need show her the way to the house!
November 10, 2008 at 5:30 pm #1205In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
Frankly, Elizabeth didn’t know what had prompted her to start this little fable about talking animools.
It seemed so ridiculoos, and yet, she couldn’t help continuooing.She sighed a breathe of relief thinking of all the amount of twooddle she’d written in the past and managed to boost into best-sellers. Of course, that was probably thanks to the commercial genioos of dear ol’ Bronkel. She may have been making a dear mistake in firing him just because Piggy Sooffleston (she couldn’t even write his name prooperly) had a catchy name and a nice smooking suit.
“Always the troolloop you little devil”, she chuckled to herself.
“But now, look at this… The critics will lacerate me if I can’t make it more appealing… I can’t really resort to that old soox trick again; it will all start to look a bit oosy; ahhaah, oozy poosy, she was funny…”Let’s see what Lemone had to say for tooday:
It’s all what the plumbing part is about actually; why it feels significant to me now: it’s the connective aspect…
It was in his last inspirational work “Tools for the Cooties” and it had the wooirdest drawing together with it. Something looking like a woman’s broo, or a piece of white plastooc ploombing… She would have preferred some coonnected watermeloons instead…
Oh this one looks better; her to a Tooh!
Modesty is when you know you are perfect, but you never go further than telling that.
November 2, 2008 at 4:42 pm #1190In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
“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.”
October 31, 2008 at 4:11 pm #1188In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
— “I’M FRIGGIN’ COLD!”
— “I have to agree with Glor”, said Mavis, as Sharon was about to object to the loud whines
— “Oh, bummer, you two peas in a pod! How can you be cold with all that fur on you! And how do you want to break out this prison you whiners eh?”
— “You’re the bloody genius Sha, you tell us! Had you not signed us up for those stupid beauty treatments…”
— “Now that’s a bit late for what-ifs, init? Let’s make the best of what we’ve got; had it not always worked out that way?”The two others Yeah’ed in unison.
— “Do you mean we’ll burn our fleece to make us warm?”, Glor asked sheepishly
— “Don’t be bloddy silly! If we want to escape, better keep that fur as long as we’re in penguin land !”
— “So what?”
— “What ‘what’?! Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed?” Sharon’s voice trailed off with a hint of hopelessness— “WHAT?!”
— “You’ve been snotting all around for hours, and you haven’t bloddy noticed?!”
— “WHAT?!”— “Our snot, bloddy ‘ell! It’s sticky like those goddam spider webs! With a bit of training, I’m sure we can knit a solid net and ropes and stuff to get out of ‘ere!”
October 30, 2008 at 1:46 pm #2031In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
It’s quite poetic today:
Already expect work
Shall black round focus
Watermelons times
Window night
Movie hope
Creation form
Georges met hot Madame
Theresa floorOctober 28, 2008 at 7:17 pm #1182In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
“Wait a minute, you’re telling me that you’re a Parcel Delivery company, and you don’t have a map? You deliver parcels and you don’t have a map, you don’t have the internet, and your delivery man doesn’t have a phone?”
Bea was beginning to sound exasperated, Leonora thought. Must be the parcel people. “Parcel people?” she asked. “ A mobile phone wouldn’t be any use here anyway, Bea” she added “There’s no network cover.”
“My address?” Bea said into the telephone in an increasingly desperate voice. “Three people have called asking for my address” Bea took a deep breath and tried to change her energy. “My address is The House Down The Road Behind The Black Horse Bar” Bea paused for breath and continued “Through The Green Gates which are Behind The Fountain And Next To The Palm Tree. Tomorrow? You were supposed to come today! You were supposed to come yesterday as a matter of fact so I stayed home all day…”
“You weren’t going out anywhere anyway, Bea” Leo said mildly.
“Well I won’t be here tomorrow, can you just leave the parcel at the post office? What? Of course they’ll know who it’s for, it’ll have my bloody name and address on it! What? No, I don’t know what street the post office is on, haven’t you got a map? No? Well Google it! You’re kidding. You’re a parcel delivery company! What’s your name, by the way?”
“Well would you believe it, she hung up on me!”
“How wonderfully Spanish” said Leonora. “Remember the last parcel people? Wouldn’t deliver to houses without a number. So if I go out and paint a number, let’s say 57, on my gate, you’ll deliver the parcel, I said to them, and they said, well yes I suppose so, so I did. I went out to the shed and grabbed the first paint…”
“That swimming pool blue”
“…yeah bit bright isn’t it, that blue paint and I painted the number on it, and the neighbours came out and asked what I was doing…”
“They delivered the parcel though, didn’t they Leo”
“They did. There’s a knack to dealing with parcel people.”
Bea was quiet for a few minutes and then asked “What’s that then?”
“What’s what?” asked Leonora.
“What’s the knack? How do you get parcel people to deliver?”
Leo laughed and said she didn’t really know. “Change your energy, make a game of it, see what happens.”
Just then the phone rang. Bea answered it.
“Well how about that” said Bea, hanging up the phone a few moments later. “That was the parcel delivery man. He’s on his way now.”
Five or six hours later, just after the parcel delivery man had finally arrived, Bea beamed as she opened the brown cardboard parcel.
“I’ve been dying to read this, it’s the sequel to T’Eggy Gets a Good Rogering. I ordered two copies, I thought Baked Bean Barb might want one too, you know, as a bit of a thank you for the book she’s bringing round for us.”
Leo said “You what!” and rolled her eyes. “Really Bea, couldn’t you have chosen something better than that?”
“Define ‘better’, Miss Prim Prunes” retorted Bea. She was too happy about the books arrival to mind Leo’s remarks. Then she shouted “OH MY GOD! They’ve sent the wrong books!” so loudly that Leo jumped.
“Good grief!” exclaimed Leonora, taking a closer look. “Circle of Eights! But that’s the book that Baked Bean Barb found on the rubbish tip, the book she’s bringing round for us!”
“I don’t believe it!” Bea whispered, awed by the bizarre coincidence. “That’s the book with us in it.”
“What a hoot!” said Leo.
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