In the Eights’ Shift saga, Continuity Classes flunkers Ann, Lavender, Phenol et al.
So the Story goes...
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For her new course, Pr. Moose was a dolphin.
It was a fancy-dress course entitled: ‘Act out your characters’.Pedro was naked, and when she asked him in what kind of disguise that could be, he told her “I’m the Universe”. She was, a moment, hypnotized by his so blue eyes that she’d forgotten her question. She gulped, speechless and looked at him more closely, appreciating the physique of his body…
— Is it real? she asked.
— It’s the Universe.
— Well, ok then, go get a seat and let’s begin our course.Following him with her eyes, or more precisely following his butt with her eyes, she also noticed a few other students. Ann was wearing a nine-titsed alien costume and there were two glowing ladies with fishes stuck to their ghostly bodies…
This butt, she thought again, her attention distracted from the other students.
The summer Holidays were nearly over, or the Hollow Days, as they were known to some. The last days of summer had been a bit hollow for Ann at any rate, rattling around inside her own head, not really knowing whether it was full or empty. Ann had spent most of the summer sleeping, and with virtually no dream recall, it seemed as if half of the summer was missing. Probably just as well, what with it being such an odd summer. She wondered if she would simply sleep through the shift, like Ned Young slept through the mutiny. Didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
“Normally” the Worserversity students started rolling back towards Poubelleville round about now, but the word “normally” was becoming obsolete. What was normal, what could be expected? Ann didn’t know. She packed her coloured pencils, her detachable hand and her wooden men, and fished out her homework assigments for the holidays that she had only just remembered.
Alliteration. Bugger bollocks and blast, blimey but what a bother, too bloody hot and bored.
That’s a bit bloody depressing, she muttered to herself, try another letter.
Sweltering summer of sweat and sand, sleeping and sleeping, sublime surruptitious snooze, sail away in the sunset swell, sunrise surrender, ships ahoy!
Fan the flames, far sighted fellows! There’s a flash in the funnel for fast falling fishermen. Far flung, fun fueled, oh fast fleeting fantasies, follow the folks with the flags! Flounder not, fresh fishies, for fun feels fantastic!
Ah, wallow in wisps of wordless wonderings, weather the winds of wandering whispers, while weighty wells of wishes work winsome wonders, woven with worn wool and worrisome white weathered windows. Whether we will, whether we won’t, who will win, what will work, will we watch it water the weeds….
Ann sighed. She suddenly realized that she’d spent the summer time travelling, back to the Summer Before the Great Shift Trauma. She’d completely forgotten that the Worserversity was Post Shift. Oh well, she would write a historical account of The Times Before The Great Trauma Started.
“What Great Trauma?” asked Monica, who had been reading her mind again. “There was no Great trauma in MY shift experience.”
“Really?” Ann was momentarily puzzled. “There wasn’t in mine either.”
“If you’re going to write about trauma, you’ll have to make it all up.” Monica replied.
“Why would I want to do that?” Ann was still puzzled.
“For the fun of it?” Monica suggested.
“Oh yes, of course…for the fun of it…”
Ann was still puzzled.
Lavender was a little peeved she did not win the trip to the Worserversity for her fine limerick. She was wondering if she may drop out of Gubby’s course and enrol in one of Prof Moosy’s underwater dolphin experiences.
Harvey had enjoyed tremendously the underwater experience with the air bubble blowing dolphins and orcas …
“Oh well, the problem is Harvey, I can’t actually swim”, Lavender confessed. “So I didn’t see the dolphins blowing rings. But thank you so much for the movie. I think it was probably lying around in the rain pretending to be a mermaid which got me this cold. Last time I am doing one of Moosy’s daft classes”.
Lavender rolled her beautiful eyes and sneezed again.
“I didn’t know you couldn’t swim, Lavender. Oh!” Ann exclaimed. “Lavender sync! I left one of mothers Yardley English Lavender soaps in the car, and it’s great for covering up the smell of smoke.”
Lavender rolled her eyes.
Privately, Lavender was thrilled to find she knew Ann! She couldn’t remember when she had met her of course, however that was nothing unusual these days. Everybody seemed to know each other! It was really quite a thrill. Maybe she would go and have coffee with her new friends Becky and Tina, after she had been to the hairdressers of course.
hmmm, it can’t be a thrill, thought Lavender, The “writer” has already used “thrilled”.
The writer wondered, huffily, how to strike out text. The writer wanted to write “It was really quite a blast”
The writer wanted to write, full stop. The problem was that the writer’s desire to write was continually interrupted with things in brackets assuming monstrous and all comsuming proportions. Endless chains of things in brackets that always seemed to have priority.
“You could always write about the things in brackets, Ann,” remarked her new friend Lavender. “Might be fun. A thrilling blast, even.”
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.
“Walter, I am so releived to see that you’ve finally seen how flimsy continuity really is,” Ann said, and flung her arms around him.
“Steady on!” he gasped, trying to extricate himself from her clutches.
Luckily for Walter, Ann realized she was late for her Flimsy Unravelled Continuity Knowledge class.
“Sincerely Bodry,” Walter was saying to Bodry, Becky’s brother, a high-ranking member of the Sisterhood, “I think the issue is not really about Continuity, it’s more about Expansion.”
Bodry frowned as if perplexed beyond mesure by the words of the wise man.
“Don’t be ludicrous” he said “that would be tantamount to saying Lavender the cleaning lady would look divine even if sporting a mohawk, were it pink notwithstanding.”
“Actually, I daresay she would. But let us not sway off the subject. You see, by no manner is it an issue whether things are continuous or not —and I know it’s almost blasphemous to say that— but the crux of the matter lays in the measure with which things are expanded and linked together.”
“Mmm, I’m afraid an expansion of the Sisterhood of Continuous Universal Meditation on the world would not be such a bad thing, even if we would have probably to merge with the Sisterhood of Human Infinite Technology.”Walter was in fact speaking of things far more metaphysical, and was hinting at the fact that the writer wasn’t taking good care enough of resolving some of the blatant or lingering contradiction by taking the time to properly express and connect to the world the writer was writing (some would say, but not the writer, babbling and raving) about.
All of these of course were once again lost to the poor soul he was talking to.Ann was having a nightmare. In her dream she was an olive in a catering sized saucepan of spaghetti. The oily sauce made it impossible for her, especially given her round shape and lack of useful appendages, to gain purchase on the slippery strands.
“You see, by no manner is it an issue if things aren’t continuous” Walter was saying, which immediately brought to Ann’s mind the latest development at her end of the group project. For some reason lately she found that she was permanently signed in, as opposed to previously, when she’d had the dickens of a job to stay signed in long enough to make an entry. Permanently connected, as it were.
“….and I know it’s almost blasphemous to say that” Walter continued, causing Ann to raise an eyebrow, “…but the crux of the matter lays in the measure with which things are expanded and linked together.”
“If I may be so bold as to interrupt, sir,” Ann couldn’t restrain herself from interjecting, “Surely that is what readers are for? Is not the purpose of the writer, or indeed any artist, to simply offer particles, or pieces, for the viewer to add, or not, as they choose, to their own continuous storylines?”
Walter opened and closed his mouth like a godfish. (Ann had to laugh at the typographical error.)
“For example” Ann continued, warming to the subject, “When I random read book pages, then channel surf the TV, followed by a random roam around online, interspersed with perhaps a few phone calls, or various incidents throughout the day, I’m making a continuous story of my own, with pages and screenshots and conversation snippets borrowed, if you like, from many external sources (and before you say anything, I am aware that no source is external, but don’t let me start digressing). The era of being ‘told’ a story to beleive in its entirety is over! Everyone knows these days that we each make our own story, with a bit of this, and a bit of that. It’s The Age of Random Tips & Snippets, after all, everyone knows that! It’s T.A.R.T.S. time now!”
“Let’s put it this way” Ann continued, “Tis better to allow the snippets to flow out than to bottle them up, which is where the expression ‘to rack ones brains’ comes from. Rows and rows of bottles of thoughts on metal racks in a dusty cellar, contained within the confines of the glass, denied freedom of expression, and all because the Bottle Rack Attendant, or BRA for short, refused to set them free to find their own way in the world of infinite individual storylines.”
Ann slapped her forehead when she realized her mistake, notwithstanding that there were no ‘mistakes’ as such.
The story is for the writer that writes it, not the reader.
What the repercussions of that were for the future of publishing, Ann wasn’t quite sure.
“Oh, I can answer that for you, dear” Lavender responded. “On my recent trip to the future I went to the Pick Your Own Pages book store. There’s a wonderful Pick ‘N’ Mix section, and a Lucky Dip. You can pick various quantities, such as chapters, pages, paragraphs or sentences, and you arrange them yourself.”
“What a wonderful idea!” Ann replied.
“Oh, the idea was an old one, very old!” Lavvie explained. “People were doing it all along, though they didn’t realize it. The idea of being spoon fed an entire story went out with the Ark. It was the advent of random quote generators that started the ball rolling.”
Ann beatled off to check the random quote for the day….
“Arona! Sanso! Oh, how wonderful to see you guys again! Come and meet Lavender and Walter, we’re discussing continuity….”
“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!
“That perhaps is your task” Virginia was whispering in Ann’s ear”…to find the relation between things that seem incompatible yet have a mysterious affinity, to absorb every experience that comes your way fearlessly and saturate it completely so that your poem is a whole, not a fragment; to re-think human life into poetry and so give us tragedy again and comedy by means of characters not spun out at length in the novelist’s way…”
“Did you catch that, Walter? ‘Not spun out in the traditional lengthy continous way’ she’s saying.”
“…but condensed and synthesized in the poet’s way—that is what we look to you to do now.”
“I didn’t know you channeled Virginia Woolf, Ann,” replied Walter. “Doesn’t mean she is necesarily right, though, notwithstanding.”
“I didn’t say she was ‘absolutely right’, Walter. I’m just pointing out what’s right for me.”
Walter popped another anchovy stuffed olive into his mouth.
“So how was your lunch date with your new best friend?” Harvey sounded distinctly sarcastic, even to Lavender’s forgiving ears.
“Oh, you know …”
Harvey raised his eyebrows. No mean feat when you have a book balancing on your nose. He sighed, and let the book fall. A few months ago he was balancing four poster beds, and now he could barely manage a Lemoine novel. Heavy as they are! He sniggered to himself. Oh well, at least I havn’t lost my sense of humour, along with my sense of smell!
“Well, to be honest Harvey .. I think I may have been possessed by those pesky aliens. I suddenly came to and I was talking all this rubbish about ‘random quote generators’ and using words like ‘dear’.
Lavender shuddered in horror at the memory, and then rolled her beautiful eyes and sighed. “Poor Ann, I think she is a really tortured soul.”
The writer wondered if it was time to add a dark side to Lavender’s personality. All this beautiful eyes business was getting a tad irritating, the beauty of Lavender’s eyes not withstanding. Not to mention her lips which she painted a bright shade of amaranth for every day wear, and on special occasions, rose madder. The writer wondered if the last thought made sense and wondered again how to strike out text. The writer decided to try that last line again.
Lavender shuddered, and then with an enigmatic smile which even her good friend Harvey found hard to decipher, she said softly, “I ate olives for lunch. They were yummy.”
The writer sighed and then noticed the random quote generator said “mean cleaner coming soon.” The writer wondered if it was a sign.
Ann spent the morning (or a mere half hour, if truth be told) enjoying her physicality in the gentle autumn morning sun before returning indoors. The drop in temperature was still new enough to remember to appreciate fully. She felt at peace with her world, a happy balance of words and sunbeams, that is until she perused the latest additions to the BA (Bash Ann, by the looks of things) group project.
Ann frowned. Who the heck was Harvey? It was almost the last straw, despite Ann’s sunny mood. The very idea of trawling back through the paperwork to find out who he was, and indeed who everyone else was, was too daunting. “If it’s not fun don’t do it!” That’s what they all said. Over and over again they said “if it’s not fun don’t do it”.
The writing was fun, and the random reading was fun, but it wasn’t fun ~ in fact, it gave her a headache ~ to try and remember who and when and where everyone was. Perplexed, Ann wondered if she simply wasn’t cut out for working in a group. On the other hand, she simply wasn’t a loner either.
“Be remebering,” the disembodied voice whispered in her left ear, “That they are all YOU.”
Oh! Right, yes….herm….well where does that leave me?
“Right at the centre of it all, as always,” the voice replied.
Er, so it’s all MY story, then? The whole thing is all me, all mine? All the characters are ME?
“Quite!”
So I can do whatever I want, then?
“Of course!”
Right then, so I can write whatever I want, which is fun, and not write what I don’t want, which isn’t fun, and that will be quite alright, will it?
“Correct!” the voice chuckled indulgently. “And it may behoove you” it continued in a conspiratorial tone, “To remember than any flak from the others in the group, is in fact, YOU giving YOURSELF a flakking reflection.”
Oh. Well Right Ho, then. Toot! Toot!
Harvey wasn’t really annoyed nor offended that Ann couldn’t remember him each and every time they met. In fact, it was quite funny, that her version of Harvey was different every time.
He wasn’t bound to be the same old Harvey as with anybody else.Nonetheless, he wished Ann would express more of her own perception of the Harvey she had in front of her eyes, instead of moaning she couldn’t or should remember anything. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time they would then all conspire to make a stretch (sometimes to the verge of rupture) in the fabric of the story to make it all fit.
And which Harvey and Ann were they? Were they only bound to be one ‘other’, without any substance safe for the fact that they were probable versions of a Prime Ann, and a Prime Harvey in the First Universal Comments Kosher (or kookish?) dimension? The mere thought of it was rather depressing to this probable Harvey.
With all this probable purée, it was as if everything wasn’t really occurring anywhere else but in some even less probable writer’s head… (he couldn’t help to wonder too how this snippet would be interpreted in the near future when it would only be a fragment of a random quote itself…)
Ann had to admit it wasn’t a bad idea. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of that herself. Why haven’t I been expressing more of the perecption in front of my eyes, I wonder? The more she thought about it, the more confused she became. It did sound like a good idea, and she was pleased that she had created another ‘her’ as it were, to mention it.
On the other hand, of course, there was nothing stopping Walter (or was it Gordon? No, Godfrey…wait, wasn’t it Al?) from creating another one of his ‘hims’ masked as an Ann to express more of her perceptions in HIS own ‘It’s All You’ story.
Am I getting this right? Ann whispered to her left ear.
