Stories around a group of friends, in early 2000s, Dory, Fiona (Finn), Quintin (Yurick) and Yann.
Linked to stories of the future, with young Becky, daughter of Dory (see Wrick).
So the Story goes...
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Dan chortled and rubbed his hands together, watching the poker chips pile up on his corner of the computer screen.
Fives and Eights again, they seem to be my lucky numbers lately.
Fives and eights? really? asked Dory. What a coincidence.
~~~~
Trini was fastening her seatbelt when she noticed the time on the dashboard clock: 11:11. Plenty of time to get to the port. Isobel was going away for awhile, sailing off to who knew where. Trini sighed, and decided not to think about it. So many comings and goings…..
The round trip took longer than expected and Trini was surprised to notice that it was already 1:11 on the way home. And on the 11th of the 1st month, too, she noted, smiling…
Yann was glad he made it for the 530th comment
The week end with Yurick was going quite well and unexpectedly he enjoyed cooking and stroking the cat.Yann was looking a TV show in which a clown was trying to juggle with many different plates. Plates with different colors, some with odd looking shapes, not quite balanced at first sight…
Yann was fascinated with the behavior of the man, looking for the approbation and the awe of the public, he was exaggerating many of his actions, it was quite colorful as were his clothes. It was a patchwork of different tones and different quality of material. Some were shiny and dark, some were matt and others almost transluscent
If the public hadn’t responded to his last foolery he would engage himself in an even more foolish action. Though there was a great fulfillment, it was visible on his face. He was quite enjoying being seen and observed even if it was with disdain.
Yann switched off the TV set and choose to go outside on this winter evening, not too cold but a bit chilly. His soft gloves were giving him a sense of warmth on his hands. It triggered the memory of his last week end with Yurick, his friend lighting the fire. Those were other fascinations of his
the fire, and his friend. The fleeting movement of the flames, their orangeness and their yellowness, the warmth of the fire and the gradient of temperature around the fireplace. The cat in her basket not so far but still where she could find a fresh breeze.Thinking of his friend, a pleasant warm feeling in all his body began flowing freely
Yann was feeling very tense since a few days. He had difficulties focusing on his inner self.
Everything was distracting him and pulling his attention on the outside.Well a many changes were happening at once in his life. And one of them was Yurick’s arrival in 11 days.
Yann had changed.
Or rather he was expressing differently. He had felt that thinking about being something or someone was generating an absolute about self…
Self is not something and it is not one quality or several qualities… self expresses continuously and it can express all.
Hahaha, and currently it expresses tension… well what am I to do with all that?He sighed and felt relaxed, looking at a bird perched on the top of a blue car. The bird was making small jumps, and this movement was sort of massaging him inside. All the tensions were released. Yann smiled and thought of his friend.
With all these alternating aches in his body, Yurick’s legendary patience was easily worn out these past few days.
Of course, the news of his very near-future moving with Yann, which had finally come to be, was to be something he wanted to dance on, and rejoice and laugh with a delightful ravenous chuckle —or something a little less scary, for that matter…
But these seeming dysfunction of his body (of course they were seeming, it was only a transformation… like a baby growing its first teeth… and who said it was to be a bed of roses for the caterpillar, under the pretext that it was inside a warm silky cocoon?) were making him very sensitive to lots of things. Other people’s energies for once, even if buffering them was becoming easier now…A loud ring from the telephone… Again, that woman looking for Océane. “There’s no Océane here”, he’d said, with the congeniality of a civil-servant who would have been disturbed two minutes before the morning coffee break.
Having hung up, Yurick was thinking… Those wrong numbers may be important messages from my essence.
And all he could think of… was that Yuki had definitely fingers too big for the dial buttons, especially if he was looking for Ogean!
Anyway, in a few days time, it would be another one’s trouble to pick up those calls.Yann was introducing many magical aspects of his inner world in his everyday life world.
It was becoming like an anime.He had been having images of a blond guy, often laughing and giggling. Really mischievous at times. Who was he? In his dreams he was with a weird fox, a nine-tailed fox. What on earth was the significance of that!?
Dory was bored. She didn’t really know whether to be Dory, or Becky, or even Illi today. Maybe I will be someone new, she thought. Hmmm……
Elvira, how about that. Well, Elvira was just as bored as Elvira as she would have been as Dory, Becky or anyone else for that matter. What happens when the inspiration goes? Where does it go? One minute the world is full of interesting things, and then Poof! nothing is very interesting at all……
Elvira had lots of interesting things to do, she had many books, and various artistic projects half started or not even started, just thought about on and off for ages, and she had puppies to play with, and a big drawer full of pens and things to draw with. She had a camera that took little videos that was often a lot of fun…but nothing seemed worth the trouble today, nothing at all…..not even that silly wacom thing, and after all that fuss to buy it, too…it was more fun talking about buying it then the darn thing ever was afterwards…..
The Internet, how could anyone be bored with an internet! There must be something seriously wrong with her to be bored when she had Internet! But she halfheartedly googled this, googled that…ho hum, tedium, nothing very interesting there….
Well, what about your imagination then! Elvira sat up a bit straighter, challenging herself. You can surely do something interesting in your imagination, can’t you?
She slumped back down again, and sighed. Like what? Well, imagine you are out in the sun, going for a walk…..
Well ok, then, I am on the beach. At first I feel the sun on the top of my head and I squint at the bright sparkles on the sea. Then, my ears are ringing with cold, it’s a windy cold day after all and not much fun on the beach at all. Oh pull yourself together, woman! Pull your scarf round your ears! It’s a great day for driftwood, just look at those waves rolling in.
I am trudging along, and the sand is hard to walk on and makes my legs ache. My God, I am out of shape! There are soggy oranges and piles of bamboo sticks, and plastic bottles all washed up in curving heaps. A soggy Marlboro carton; my, are they still smuggling fags from Gibraltar, I am so out of the smuggling loop these days….
Well, was that it? Elvira chastised herself. Not much of a flight of imagination there, was it? Maybe a walk along the river instead…..
Oh alright, if I have to…..actually I can’t be bothered to do this imaginary walk either, it’s no use….nothing is really very interesting today. I would like someone to amuse me, charmingly, pointlessly, something funny and light, and delightfully meaningless and simple…..
And god forbid, nothing to do with beliefs, please! Or any of that weird stuff, like other lives and other dimensions, and talking to aliens and all that weirdo stuff….weirdo, weirdo, stuff! UGGHHH Elvira shuddered.
Well, one thing I am pleased about, she mused almost happily, I can smoke again now my lungs are behaving. I thought I would be gloriously happy forever if I could only breathe without fear, and already I am Ho Hum about breathing….thought for sure I’d remember to focus on every brilliantly wonderful NOW moment, I did, after that fright with the lungs, but no….back to normal, well, worse than normal really, because now I am not even interested in anything……
I wonder if I should start drinking again…..Oh don’t be silly, Elvira told herself rather sharply. Well, drugs then, maybe that would buck me up. It’d buck you up alright, but for how long? Well when they wore off, I could take some more.
Yeah, right…..
Elvira sighed again. Even Bertie Wooster hadn’t even managed to raise a smile this time, and he always used to make her smile. Reading Wodehouse now made her frown, wondering what ever she had used to find so amusing……
The birds are making a racket out there, she noticed. Whatever do they find to sing about all day? Chirp chirp…jeeze….. maybe I should take up golf, she wondered. Dan seems to always have an interest, something passionately all-consuming……he never has enough hours in the day for all HIS interesting things….
Where have all my interesting things GONE?
So tell us about Russia, Elvira, Fleur asked the rather formidably silent old woman. What was it like?
Elvira raised an eyebrow, and then frowned. Well, I…..quite honestly I don’t remember much about it. She sighed deeply and her shoulders sagged.
Well, did you take any photos? pressed Fleur. Did you bring any souvenirs back?
Oh, I…..yes, I have some photos……
Elvira rummaged in her oversized carpet bag and pulled out a manila envelope, tattered along the edges. She passed it to Fleur.
Unable to focus his attention on the now, Yann was amazed at his ability to create misunderstandings all around him.
People that were calling him, people that were emailing him… even himself with himself!
Trying to work, he was always clicking on the “wrong” mail, the “wrong” application, the “wrong” icon… wrong wrong wrong… he was laughing inwardly, thinking about what their friend Abby had told them yesterday about always thinking on the lack of or on the I can’t have it… well she was always doing this movement as if she was playing drums… and today at work, a friend of his came and told him it was an beautiful Monday, and she did this very same movement of playing the drum!!! he wasn’t aware that it was quite fitting the day coming.Though he could still focus on what was accomplishments in this day full of seeming obstacles. He really appreciated having lunch with Yurick, and laughing, talking of dolphins and stuffs
well they were planning and doing many things now that they were living together.Inspiration was here again, and the motivation too.
He had a dream last night about something that seemed quite important, something connected to him intimately. Almadar
what was the name about?When telling Yurick, it appeared that he had no impression about it, nonetheless he seemed quite interested, and it was also a synch as Yurick was also in the dream. Yann was asking him about modifying a pattern, energetic pattern to help a girl…
Who was she? She seemed familiar.
I must be talking to an angel Yurick thought, as he was feeling the presence of the lady he had seen in his dreams a few times before. Her presence was remarkably soft, yet, she was unmistakably here, like a loving sisterly figure. Yurick could see at times streaks of a shimmering blue-green halo when he was thinking of her, and this morning, walking in the underground corridors, as he was humming and thinking of this angel, his gaze landed on a movie poster, with beautiful women profiles. None of these profiles had attracted his gaze at first, but a name. Salomé.
Then only, the poster slowly began to unfold itself into focus around that name…
The women were beautiful and seemed to be like beams of a multitude of variations from a single energy essence, like some traditional Avalokiteshvara (Kuan Yin) representations.
The title of that movie was “Les Femmes de l’Ombre” (Women of the Shadow), and that “Salomé” he had seen was the name of the director… How interesting symbolic information…While she reminded him not of the Salomé of Wilde’s play, but of another biblical figure, the Salomé of the New Testament, follower of the Christ, and likely sister of Mary, Yurick decided he would call that gentle feminine presence “Salomé”…
A woman of the Shadow. For now…Finn knew what She was up to, even if Finn couldn’t remember what Her name was currently. She was trying to get all the remaining “570” comments.
Fuck it said Finn, (with an evil laugh, just for added effect) 579 is mine, even if I have bugger all to say.
As the bride and groom were exchanging the rings, Al was brought back a few weeks earlier, when Becky had announced the little group she and Sean would get married. The initial excitement gone, Tina, Sam and Al had been given the honor to organize that very special day, while Becky surely wouldn’t care to be bothered by such petty things.
I think she’s already getting that distinguished snobbish style of the Wricks muttered Tina who was not so fond of being handed down these kinds of unprompted crottes.
Al, who was probably thinking as much managed a Don’t be so hard on her, that’ll be a mighty fine wedding, after all, marrying a Wrick has its advantages, we don’t have to be measly on the expenditures
Sam, a bit lost in circles, had acknowledged.Well, that had been fun after all, at least Al was thinking, he had not needed to deal with Becky’s own mood fluctuations. As the only Sumafi of the group, he had willingly taken care of the list of the guests, and all the catering orders, while Tina was taking care of the decoration (bride included), and Sam was arranging for the organization and rental of the places and hotels for the wedding and its slew of guests.
Of course, as intimate Becky had first required the wedding to be, she had soon changed her mind, and had not resisted long the temptation to gather lots of people she had almost forgotten over the years.
Al could almost see clear as day — now the weather had brighten up a bit — in his mind his notepad full of Becky’s recommendations:— Becky’s family and friends
Sam, Tina & Al (of course)
Sabine Baina (mother) and Patel Mahapushtra, her new husband (a child’s toys mogul)
Dan (father) and Dory (step-mother; might fear a trip to New Venice, you’ll have to use some extra coaxing with her)[long list of friends, snipped for reader’s comfort]
— Sean’s family and friends
(mother deceased, father unwilling to come, pretexting his rheumatisms and not being able travel so far, but most likely unwilling to see Sean)
Sean’s children, Perry and Guiny
(aunt and cousin, Deirdre and Dorean Wrick) — Al’s update: they have unexpected guests coming back from Russia at their home, wonder if they could come? Becky: Sure!… Mmmm, Russia you said?Now, finding some great gift for someone as easily distracted as Becky, and as spoiled as Sean was another ball of wax…
Yann was so tired that he couldn’t do anything but sleep.
It was hard for him to go to work and see people that he wasn’t sure were real.
It was hard for him too with Yurick because he couldn’t explain what was happening to him, though he was sure enough that it wasn’t connected to his friend.
He was evaluating his life and how he was creating it.
He was evaluating his relations.He was just afraid to become sort of an autist.
Going back to work on this bright Tuesday afternoon, Yann was looking at his shadow. He had had a hard morning, not because of the tons of work… it was a rather light day, not because of the harshness of his colleagues, they were all easy living people… well except his boss that made him think of Darth Vador at times… a strong threatening aura, feared by everyone. Though he never bothered Yann actually.
He was having the weirdest feeling of appreciation of the shape of his shadow.
He liked it.
It was the shape of an adolescent, his fluffy hair and relaxed silhouette. Not worrying about the future, not thinking about the past. Just enjoying the warmth of the sun in this not so cold winter day.His attention was quite centered on himself, he was aware of much more stimuli than he had been used to, and it had been overwhelming. Especially concerning his ideas of how to get information on certain subjects or how to explore things. He was used to closing himself from the outside when he was focusing on his work, or on what he was passionate. Lately it had been 3D modeling, and Yurick had expressed many times the desire to help him, and he had been received quite harshly.
No wonder he had imagery of server non-receiving data at work. It was quite clear actually. Clearer and clearer. Even his dreams that he had once considered to be quite obscure where simply so concise and precise. Dreaming about the ring primitive in the 3D software, it was dreaming about its own attention, focused on the outside, he was trying to reduce the inner radius of the ring to make a plain disk, and he wasn’t able to do it properly, he was forcing.
Well actually he had done quite well, so centered on self he had been today…
How he reacted was so different from how he would have reacted a few months ago. Now he was just appreciating the movement, the experience of this overwhelming centeredness…
During the afternoon he got news from his friends Finn and Dory, and he had a good laugh. It was messages sent the day before. He wouldn’t have appreciated them then, but now he was so enthrilled by what they had written with Yurick. Another pure moment of appreciation to add to his experience.
And now, it was news from their friend Malika who had decided to move into a new house. A taupe House, located in the Island City or Wilton Manors. The house had a tree behind it, and she was sure it was a dragon lair, with a mommy dragon and an egg! and many little playful dragons.
It was planned for the week end. The moving in, not the hatching…Yann promised to be here in spirit and told her friend Malika that there was a small dragon connected to him in the herd.
Yann was feeling a bit drowsy. He couldn’t fix his attention on anything at work.
He had chosen to work on a script that was easy enough so he could let his mind wander about a bit.
His attention was now focused on some pushing aspects of himself. Aspects that were quite sure about how things should happen or should be… all he could do was notice how and when he was doing that because mainly he was judging this pushing aspect and camouflaging it very quickly.After lunchtime, the open space where he was working was very quiet except for the little typing sounds of the keyboards… but they were quite rare too. All the staffs weren’t back from lunch yet, and those that were, were involved in a deep digestive process.
Malika and her dog Leo stood at the entrance of the cave and was so excited to see the little draggies, she screamed with joy… and sent such loving, tender energy into the cave that all the little draggies came out to play with her and Leo, and familiarize themselves with each other. There was a mother dragon that resided inside the cave and as Malvina put her head inside the entrance, she was met with a smile, from the mother of whom was sitting atop a purplish egg.
The Mother Dragon introduced herself as Glordieoun…and said, softly, that this cave was a portal to her world, and a birthing chamber for all mother dragons, that were to be stationed there. It was a pregnancy chamber, a hatching chamber and a childcare chamber, that served the little draggies until they were able to fly themselves, and all the other attributes were in place, for them to be independent.
Glordieoun, said, that she was a bit tired and required some rest, but that she was glad that Malika finally found her way to the house, as her and all her people, knew they were now in safe and caring hands.
When Yann came home for lunchtime, the furniture had been delivered.
Yurick was already busy assembling them as that was assemble-it-yourself furniture…That was fun.
On his way to work, Yann was singing. These last few days had been harsh to his self appreciation process, he had lots of judgments against everything he was doing. He had found it quite exhausting and quite detrimental to his relationships with his friends.
Well, despite the fact that Archibald puppet had told him about his bucket… or his garbage he couldn’t remember, and not to forget to empty it regularly, he had been submerged with stimuli from everywhere and from everybody, to the point that he wouldn’t allow a single smile inside himself.
Yesterday, they had received their furniture with Yurick, and in the process of assembling them and putting them into place, rearranging the configuration of the apartment, he found himself appreciating of his new home.
When he woke up that night, it was 5:12am. He couldn’t sleep, and he wouldn’t wake Yurick up. He had noticed several times that he had many associations with this hour of the day… like a burden, a new day of work soon approaching all that crap again and so on…All he had to do was just… yes like that, he was appreciating his own being. Himself lying in the bed, the breathing movement of his friend beside him, still and relaxed.
When the alarm clock was about to ring himself out of the bed, he was already awoken and he cut it off before it could awake his beloved. It was 7:57am.
On his way to the bathroom, Arona the cat was quite demanding of caresses… he took some time and appreciated deeply the contact of her soft fur, long and warm silky hairs.Thus, Yann was singing, and when he arrived at the crossroad just before his workplace, there was that man… and their gaze met surreptitiously. And the man started singing. Yann smiled.
Yurick (also now spelt as Ewrick) had had great fun this week-end, each time the capricious neighbours’ baby was crying to be pampered.
He had finally managed, thanks to a dream crash course in didjeridoo by Yann to master (well, almost) the impressive phallic abori-genius instrument. And it was turning each annoying cry into jolly peals of hysteric laughters and groovy vibes.Now what else? Dory was having an epiphany recently with all her spam box, investigating the reason of a sudden accrual of increasing size of manhood messages…
So far so good…
Quite frankly, Midora didn’t know how and where to look for Badul. She had spent lots of time delving into the labyrinth of chapters that composed the book, at first to no avail.
Only after some familiarization with the narrative had she come to roughly understand that the two books where rewriting the pages —or even, rewiring them— so that each time she started over, it was like a similar yet different story. Most of the alternate versions did occur within the same kind of environment, or the same dimensions as the previous ones, but there were always all kinds of small hints that made her get a small hunch that it was not quite the same story she had read before that was taking place now.
She had even become quite good at tracking down these flimsy moments where she found herself wondering what felt “different”, at odds, or simply not quite at the same place. Like in her dreams, these were precious cues telling her to pay attention. More than simple cues, of course some of them where howling at her face that something required her attention. The additions made by her distant relative Dory, or later on by her step-daughter Becky were compelling cases of such occurrences. Asynchronous apparitions of mummies sometimes reminded her of stories told by one of her father and where more generally speaking of symbolic death and regeneration, but when all of these cues where as many portals the details of which she could lose herself in…Naasir had told her to find Badul. She knew Badul… Like Midora herself, Badul was a facet of the dreaming dragon who was exploring the many facets of itself in an intricate play, and it felt to her that Badul was stuck somewhere in the process and required some attention. In fact, she remembered that in all the versions of the stories that she had read about, Badul’s history was never ended. Each time, he was on his way to explore the new land he had discovered, and somehow, he just never get there.
When she was trying to get to the rest of the story, as much as she would search for it, there were only blank pages.
Perhaps it was for her to write them, like Indy did after she encountered that mummy decades ago, not necessarily to exorcise the experience, but rather to learn more about her connections.What were her own connections? She wondered.
What did happen to Badul on his way to the clandestine traveling portal of Gralm Tur? And why did it matter? Did he found something about the network, and some link to the skulls which have been an obsession for quite some time for some of the major and most intriguing characters of this inter-dimensional sopoohpera?Truth was, Badul felt a bit like an oddball to her. She didn’t know how to get close to him. Apparently, when she had read the early articles from her great-uncle Cuthbert, she had found out that he had connected quite well to the daunting character. As a matter of fact, most of his comments had helped flesh out the character, while most of the other participants in the books had been only remotely observing his deeds. However priceless these clues were, Midora knew by now that they were not absolute, and would rewrite differently if the story was asking for it. And in fact, perhaps her own addition would change whatever his fate would have been.
Midora could feel Badul differently now… a young boy, whom she is babysitting, in another life.
Bastian is baby Badul’s name and he’s a toddler, a toddler exploring an unknown world made of colourful toys.
Midora (her name’s Ada in that focus) likes to work for little Bastian’s family. The woman, his mother, looks a bit odd like Morticia Addams, or like a Cher just out of her bed, but Ada likes her. She’s busy traveling alot, and doesn’t have much time to care for the baby.Midora thinks she has read about his woman somewhere in the books…
Could it be that? Yes,… there is little doubt about it.
It seems like she’s just run into young Carla…Still no parcel from NZ in the mail…
:weather-few-clouds-night: (mmm, looks like a prout kiwi)
Yurick almost laughed thinking it was quicker to mail stones and rusty keys…Small parcel, gone for a long trip around the globe :www:, what a great adventure it was.
Miles and miles, and the ability to reach distant friends…
Perhaps they could try some kind of experiment, like sending a little book or a paper with a few words, and have it completed at each stage of its trip, with a count of the miles crossed… That would be another kind of exquisite story link between them…
That is, until they could figure out a way to turn into a little mouse able to travel into a mail parcel
The sun had just come back on the Andalusian mountains. After a day of frying sun on the beach, and showers of cats and dogs (especially dogs), everything was still for a moment.
It’s been a few days that Yurick and Yann had arrived at Dory and Dan’s house near Gibraltar, and they were beginning to feel like fishes in water —a little bit like smoked hot pink salmons somewhat.
Last night was full moon, and among the howling of dogs around the room, they could at times feel the presence of their friend Finn who had promised to appear as a fishnet stockings sun-glassed trenchcoated sexy spy pop-in. So far, they only had got clues as to her presence, though they got the distinct feeling she was drawing closer each passing hour.
In any case, life was different here, slower, and peaceful. The endless trail of pyramid shaped green mountains and rocky serpentine paths seemed to be each leading to a hidden network of long-lost treasures.
Only Flove knew what they would discover on their way to Salitre…What really was Salitre’s mound? For most people around this valley, who had forgotten about the old times, it was nothing more than a rocky and steep piece of earth, barely good enough for Barbary sheep and piglets.
In fact, when you were coming from the new macadamized roads encircling the mountains, it could almost slip unnoticed. But when, like Granny Mosca, you knew the paths for having worn countless shoes walking on them, you could no longer ignore the towering presence of this place.
For her, it was a magical realm, a doorstep truly.Granny Mosca was the official owner of this place, though she preferred to think of it as being the gatekeeper.
She kept a few animals up there, and went everyday here to feed them, pacing up and down the treacherous paths despite her old age.Something you couldn’t really realize until you first reached the top of the mound was that the mound was at the center of the valley, giving an impressive view miles and miles around. In that land of mountains, it could be just another peak among others, but when you were here, you knew it wasn’t.
Granny Mosca had felt it many times, this surge of energy, almost as if there were streams flowing down the surrounding slopes, up to the top of Salitre’s mound. At special times of the year, it was like you could feel the dwellers of the past moving around… At this very spot were almond trees were now growing.Those tourists who came a few days ago where funny. Especially the blond woman, with the high-pitched laugh who had come a few times here already.
For sure Granny Mosca didn’t fear that they discover anything, as the place had knew how to shroud itself without her for ages, even before she was born. In fact, it was the contrary. She was willing to share some of the secrets to people daring enough and open-minded enough to crack some of these nuts of wisdom.
The land would tell them…That is… unless they left the bag of almonds to the dogs…
