Éric

“Mmm, they can use whatever politically correct word to say Ann isn’t having a serious case of Dissociative Identity Disorder, but frankly her speaking to herself would be really worrisome were it not for that all that Shifting around.” Growdon was discussing with Franny.

“Yes,” she nodded with a soft and contagious smile, “doesn’t it look like she denies herself her physicality by burrowing inside the meanders of her short-span attention so deeply and carelessly?”
… “Oh,” she added swiftly covering her fine lips painted purple with her long fingers, seeing the look on Growdon’s face “I’m not suggesting that… No, don’t be silly”

Growdon was finding Franny so delicately considerate about their friend.

He gave the thought a time to sift through his perceptive mind, while looking at the red roses of Geroges and Franny’s store, and had to come to the same conclusion. It definitely looked like Ann was always avoiding to flesh out her DID characters, perhaps out of fear of the dreaded lack of continuity or palatable tangible proof (that as much dreaded “P” word) of the reality of her visions. Truth be told, he and Franny and Geroges were finding her bouts of imagination quite fantastic on their own, they didn’t really need any proof whatsoever. But sincerely they all needed to get a grip!

Obviously, when Ann had taken those Wows of Continuity within the hoity-toity (so said the writer) Sisterhood of Continuous Universal Meditation, it had been one of those flimsy whims which were probably only a clever (so she thought) way of putting her friend’s continual fretting at ease.

But more secretely, she’d joined the Sisterhood as a way to be closer to the closeted founder… Walter Crumble.

Harvey had enjoyed tremendously the underwater experience with the air bubble blowing dolphins and orcas …

Cleaning gave lack circle reality
Under sudden strings essence saying morning soft
Liked himself baby aspidistra case fine whole dark sha

That unexpected call from the Dean had put the Fisherman in abyss of perplexity.

The fishes weren’t really his prime concern. He only needed to paint a little red nose on one of the cloud fishes to stir the others out of their unerratic routine.
The matter wasn’t really worth his coming back to the Worseversity, but he and the Dean knew better. If the fishes had snapped into that randomless routine, it was most probably a protective reflex to anticipate some trauma.

Trauma hadn’t really been seen in ages —in fact, not even once since the Great Shift, which had been an orgiastic experience of trauma of all kinds for people prone to indulge into this emotional drug. The coincidence had not been lost on the two old men. Of all the Worseversity’s, there were very few true artifacts remaining from before the Great Shift; barely a handful of them. Most of the known artifacts were in actuality clever re-creations from older designs, but not the “real” thing. And for good reason actually; most of the laws of physics had changed since, and made almost all of the older designs broken and unusable.

The pool was hiding one of these few artifacts that had mysteriously gone through the Great Shift without decaying. Furthermore, this very artifact was quite old, and signed by the visionary architect Rumbold the Pale boasting in carved letters which had once been golden, now mostly erased by the passing of times: “The real game is only played whence it started”.

That fishy omen seemed so dire that it couldn’t help but put the Fisherman out of his lifelong passion questing for the great Trouts of the Universe.

Gremwick was glad the Fisherman had come to repair the Cloud Fishes of the Inner Aerial Pool of the Worseversity.

It’s been a few days that he’d noticed an unusual lack of randomness in the swimming patterns of the little Cloud Fishes.
As they were usually used for the divination courses, no sooner was the issue identified than the students had to temporarily recourse to the use of pigeons for their assignments —which sadly left a stinking trail of devastation on the usually pristine marble floors that greatly infuriated Charity, the cleaning lady, otherwise known for her great patience and candor, who’d kept cursing like a sailor against the winged demonic creatures the last past weeks.

The incident in itself was not of immense consequence in the grand scheme of things, but it felt worrisome for the Dean that these swimming creatures known for their quite reliable and, yes, totally unfloundering randomness had suddenly decided to adopt a monotonous pattern.
In that disposition, they were merely echoing the requester’s requests in a manner of a mirror instead of evoking strange and obscure meanings from the depths of the universe.

It had amused the students very much, as it was making their assignments apparently far easier —there was no thing left in need of deciphering, unless the students’ requests were themselves incoherent, which could on occasion happen especially after the Special Crop Circle Lessons. As no incident was without meaning, the Dean had pondered this one, but without any satisfactory answer as of yet.

At least, it had been the occasion to meet the Fisherman, and to ponder on the plainness of a world without unpredictability.

“BLING!”

Yurick and Yann jolted up from the couch at the sound of the crashing pot.

“What on Earth are they on about… again!”

Their two new cats Eeckup and Eelas were practising their new hops and jumps, reaching for the topmost shelf of the cupboard, where the pot full of earth, and topped with the remains of a dying dry plant was put —they’d thought, out of reach of the little beasts.

“You know what?” Yurick said after having vacuumed the remains of dirt on the carpet “it may sound a bit strange (perhaps completely nuts even), but I had the impression Eeckup was making something with the plants just before I surprised it…”

But Ann had already briefly fallen asleep in one of her bouts of narcolepsy she was well-known for.

G3 (short for GGG, which was shorter for Good God Gordy) asked as if to himself “Anyone met the Fisherman yet?”

Gremwick put down the Psychic Politics book he’d taken for his assignment, his five words written on a lemon coloured sticker:

Oof… here we go, “state — briefly — fisherman — library — pigeons”… There’s a bit of challenge here. he sighed, mostly uninspired.
“Perhaps I should have stayed with the easy words like ‘more, is, less, think, true’”.

“Do you mean the Fisherman’s coming? How long has it been already?” Ann started to count briefly on her chubby fingers.
“Well, I guess if you’d be more assiduous in Pr. Rose’s class in bird divination, you’d found out that the pigeons’ flight was unmistakably precise on that matter.”
“I tried, believe me, I tried to pay more attention,…” Ann said, “but frankly, I prefer direct experience of the broom cupboard to the draughty corridors of the library…”
“Oh, I should say I’m a bit disappointed at you; I’ve always believed the state of dustiness would have been an incentive to you rather than a deterrent.”

“Don’t underestimate the incentive of detergent” Monica said almost mischievously under her breath.

Harvey nodded to Aspidistra when he told her:

“Has been the same cloud over and over… Ain’t it weird?… must be because the cloud’s random feeds on new inputs…”

“Oh look, it looked like it budged!”

Before their eyes, in the awkward silence, a slightly new message appeared like a new clue to their next adventures:

“dear lavender odd world seen wonder
otherwise attempt movements inner communications
Arona less escape later
nobody dream dancing god side needed”