Harpo
Getting away with it
The audience shifted in their seats, it was a long show with few breaks.
The Continuous Story
- Thread starter Naryaló S dú
- Start date
Just then, a subliminal advertising agent appeared on the screen for less than a second. Then almost as if out of nowhere (man!) In big bold letters, the word
INTERMISSION
appeared on the screen, followed by a beauteous rendering of a field of strawberries that seemed to go on forever. An hispanic looking gentleman jumped from his seat and shouted "CAMPOS DE FRESAS POR SIEMPRE!"
INTERMISSION
appeared on the screen, followed by a beauteous rendering of a field of strawberries that seemed to go on forever. An hispanic looking gentleman jumped from his seat and shouted "CAMPOS DE FRESAS POR SIEMPRE!"
Interference
Destroyer of Words
Part Two, Later That Evening ....
"You've been at that temple again, eh? You're as bad as your sister, coming home from work all hours and all colors!"
The Continuing Story
Part III
Act 1
Scene 1
Take 103:
“Figaro!” (Pause) “Figaro, Figaro, Figaro”
“Cecily, why do you keep singing the word Figaro?” Alien dad asked with just a hint of politeness.
“I’m not singing,” She replied. “I’m calling my cat. Figaro!” She shouted, with a sing-song-ish quality.
“I didn’t know you had a cat.” He replied, sniffing the air.
“Everybody’s got something to hide.” Frankie broke in. “Except for me and my monkey.”
Alien dad looked incensed. He was wearing a shaggy grey top-hat, and his forehead was sunburned. Cecily smiled, having spotted her spotted cat.
“And I didn’t know you had a monkey!” Alien dad remarked, staring at Frankie, while smelling of sandalwood.
“Yes, well… I need some kind of protection from those feline fur-balls that like to hack up fur-balls and chase birds around, now don’t I?” He muttered, whilst hopping up and down on one leg.
Alien dad was about to ask Frankie what was wrong with him, and then thought better of it.
Just a few meters away in the lake, a somewhat older looking red-haired skinny man with a long red beard was paddling past them in a Kayak. *At that moment the Glen Miller orchestra sounded a sharp C-flat * The bearded man’s singing could be faintly heard over the top of the Fog horns in the Sat-Nav graveyard. “Picture yourself on a boat on a river…”
“Say, old boy!” Alien dad shouted at the man.
The man looked up from his piddley little boat and stopped paddling. He looked a bit upset. “Now you’ve made me lose my place in the lyrics!” He cried, with a Scottish accent.
“I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll tell you the next verse if you’ll help us.” The old-ish looking man shrugged with a frown, and paddled toward them.
“What ken I due ferr ya?” The redhead said.
“Where did you get that Kayak? Alien dad asked, busily scratching the back of his head.
“Over thaere.” The man nodded his heed in a southwesterly direction as his kayak was floating due north.
They all looked in a direction they had never looked before and saw a gaggle of boats moored to an old pier next to a fruit tree.
“Is that a tangerine tree?” Cecily asked.
Splattering sounds began to clatter all around them. “Ow!” Frankie said. “What was that?” He was trying to bend his neck around to see what had landed on his back.
Alien dad was licking something off of the back of his hand. “It tastes like marmalade.”
Frankie stopped hopping. “C’mon people, let’s get out of this weather. I think I can get one of those boats free from the dock. I’ll just need a little help from my friends. Would that be possible?” He asked in alien dad’s direction.
“No problem.” He answered quite slowly.
The man with the kayak had climbed in the back with his head in the clouds, and was gone.
Lord Blanchett was standing at the dock. “The Yacht is 2000 pounds, and the dinghy is 25 p.”
“That’s pretty light for a yacht.” Cecily remarked.
Frankie shook his head in disgust. “Bloody Americans.”
“What about that motor boat right there?” Alien dad asked, rubbing his left eyebrow.
“Oh, right.” Lord Blanchett replied. “Five British pounds” he said with emphasis in Cecily’s direction.
Alien dad pulled his trouser pockets inside out to reveal nothing. “I haven’t got any money.” He took off his backpack and reached inside. He pulled out some strangely arranged cellophane. “I’ve got these flowers I made. They’re yellow and green.”
Lord Blanchett rubbed his chin. “Oh all right, I suppose. Give me those.”
They approached the motor boat, and some plasticene porters helped them get in. Figaro hesitated, at the sight of the water. Cecily petted him. “It’s okay Figaro. We’ll be back on dry land before morning.”
Lord Blanchett called out. “Gentlemen, start your engines.”
They all looked at him quizzically.
He shrugged and said, “I’ve always wanted to say that.”
Alien dad started the motor. Frankie flew through the air momentarily and came to rest on the handle of the motor. “I’ll drive.” He said.
“There was something strange about those porters.” Cecily remarked.
“What?” Alien dad asked.
“Well, how do you suppose they managed to make ties out of their looking glasses?”
“I haven’t the foggiest notion.” He replied.
They headed out into the fog. Cecily was singing Figaro’s name, this time in the key of E sharp.
“Must you sing?” Frankie asked.
“What would you do if I sang out of tune?” She asked.
Frankie decided it would be best not to reply.
“Where are we headed?” Alien dad asked.
“The Sat-Nav graveyard. Remember?” Frankie replied.
Part III
Act 1
Scene 1
Take 103:
“Figaro!” (Pause) “Figaro, Figaro, Figaro”
“Cecily, why do you keep singing the word Figaro?” Alien dad asked with just a hint of politeness.
“I’m not singing,” She replied. “I’m calling my cat. Figaro!” She shouted, with a sing-song-ish quality.
“I didn’t know you had a cat.” He replied, sniffing the air.
“Everybody’s got something to hide.” Frankie broke in. “Except for me and my monkey.”
Alien dad looked incensed. He was wearing a shaggy grey top-hat, and his forehead was sunburned. Cecily smiled, having spotted her spotted cat.
“And I didn’t know you had a monkey!” Alien dad remarked, staring at Frankie, while smelling of sandalwood.
“Yes, well… I need some kind of protection from those feline fur-balls that like to hack up fur-balls and chase birds around, now don’t I?” He muttered, whilst hopping up and down on one leg.
Alien dad was about to ask Frankie what was wrong with him, and then thought better of it.
Just a few meters away in the lake, a somewhat older looking red-haired skinny man with a long red beard was paddling past them in a Kayak. *At that moment the Glen Miller orchestra sounded a sharp C-flat * The bearded man’s singing could be faintly heard over the top of the Fog horns in the Sat-Nav graveyard. “Picture yourself on a boat on a river…”
“Say, old boy!” Alien dad shouted at the man.
The man looked up from his piddley little boat and stopped paddling. He looked a bit upset. “Now you’ve made me lose my place in the lyrics!” He cried, with a Scottish accent.
“I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll tell you the next verse if you’ll help us.” The old-ish looking man shrugged with a frown, and paddled toward them.
“What ken I due ferr ya?” The redhead said.
“Where did you get that Kayak? Alien dad asked, busily scratching the back of his head.
“Over thaere.” The man nodded his heed in a southwesterly direction as his kayak was floating due north.
They all looked in a direction they had never looked before and saw a gaggle of boats moored to an old pier next to a fruit tree.
“Is that a tangerine tree?” Cecily asked.
Splattering sounds began to clatter all around them. “Ow!” Frankie said. “What was that?” He was trying to bend his neck around to see what had landed on his back.
Alien dad was licking something off of the back of his hand. “It tastes like marmalade.”
Frankie stopped hopping. “C’mon people, let’s get out of this weather. I think I can get one of those boats free from the dock. I’ll just need a little help from my friends. Would that be possible?” He asked in alien dad’s direction.
“No problem.” He answered quite slowly.
The man with the kayak had climbed in the back with his head in the clouds, and was gone.
Lord Blanchett was standing at the dock. “The Yacht is 2000 pounds, and the dinghy is 25 p.”
“That’s pretty light for a yacht.” Cecily remarked.
Frankie shook his head in disgust. “Bloody Americans.”
“What about that motor boat right there?” Alien dad asked, rubbing his left eyebrow.
“Oh, right.” Lord Blanchett replied. “Five British pounds” he said with emphasis in Cecily’s direction.
Alien dad pulled his trouser pockets inside out to reveal nothing. “I haven’t got any money.” He took off his backpack and reached inside. He pulled out some strangely arranged cellophane. “I’ve got these flowers I made. They’re yellow and green.”
Lord Blanchett rubbed his chin. “Oh all right, I suppose. Give me those.”
They approached the motor boat, and some plasticene porters helped them get in. Figaro hesitated, at the sight of the water. Cecily petted him. “It’s okay Figaro. We’ll be back on dry land before morning.”
Lord Blanchett called out. “Gentlemen, start your engines.”
They all looked at him quizzically.
He shrugged and said, “I’ve always wanted to say that.”
Alien dad started the motor. Frankie flew through the air momentarily and came to rest on the handle of the motor. “I’ll drive.” He said.
“There was something strange about those porters.” Cecily remarked.
“What?” Alien dad asked.
“Well, how do you suppose they managed to make ties out of their looking glasses?”
“I haven’t the foggiest notion.” He replied.
They headed out into the fog. Cecily was singing Figaro’s name, this time in the key of E sharp.
“Must you sing?” Frankie asked.
“What would you do if I sang out of tune?” She asked.
Frankie decided it would be best not to reply.
“Where are we headed?” Alien dad asked.
“The Sat-Nav graveyard. Remember?” Frankie replied.
Interference
Destroyer of Words
(I think you missed a track there, Zube )
The story continues, as all stories must, inexorably to its conclusion, floating as a leaf upon a stream, as though leafing through the Book Of All Things Important-
"Leaf it out!" Alien Dad said, dusting his topper with the sleeve of his tee-shirt.
The narrator returned to his box and sat waiting for-
"I said shut it," reiterated the alien as he opened his David Bowie song book.
"What???" everyone gasped in outrage and terror.
Only kidding, the narrator says with a winning smile and a knowing wink, like someone who somehow knows he's won this particular exchange. Nyah! Naturally, as every fictional character somehow realises, they can't really progress very far without a narrator. Indeed, their very lives would be dull, lifeless and colourless, and they would soon discover the fultility of a life with no action, a scene with no description, an act without motivation. For, surely must they confirm within their very bones, which could not exist were I not to mention them, that their lives are mine to do with as I please. For example ....
Cecily removed her left shoe and put it over Frankie's beak. Frankie uttered a muffled complaint but was entirely ignored by all in the boat. Alien Dad discovered a Wii in his hat and said, "Wheee!"
Apart from this, all was uneventful and quiet.
"Oi!"
Silent and peaceful.
"Oi! You!!"
As peaceful as -
"Oi, narrator! Dialogue takes precedence over narrative every time."
No it doesn't.
"It does when you forget a character but the reader remembers them," said Lord Blanchett who - oh ... I'd forgotten about him. Damn!
"All right, everyone, stop listening to the narrator, it's trying to deceive us and run our lives, spelt R-U-I-N. I've just realised where we are and if we all do as I say and if nobody interrupts until I've finished so the narrator can't get a word in, we'll do just fine. Now, we're obviously in the Sea of Confusion, near the Typing Pool, which is just a short distance away from The Babbling River that feeds the Confusion Falls, but once we get past all that, we'll be on our way to The Stream Of Consciousness where we can finally find out what this has all been about. Now, Cecily, take your shoe off the gull's beak and let the gull speak. Describe how you're doing it so the narrator doesn't have a reason to explain anything."
"I am now moving my left foot," said Cecily in a voice like Roy Kinnear. "Damn!" said Cecily - hee-hee.
That's right ... I'm back .......
)The story continues, as all stories must, inexorably to its conclusion, floating as a leaf upon a stream, as though leafing through the Book Of All Things Important-
"Leaf it out!" Alien Dad said, dusting his topper with the sleeve of his tee-shirt.
The narrator returned to his box and sat waiting for-
"I said shut it," reiterated the alien as he opened his David Bowie song book.
"What???" everyone gasped in outrage and terror.
Only kidding, the narrator says with a winning smile and a knowing wink, like someone who somehow knows he's won this particular exchange. Nyah! Naturally, as every fictional character somehow realises, they can't really progress very far without a narrator. Indeed, their very lives would be dull, lifeless and colourless, and they would soon discover the fultility of a life with no action, a scene with no description, an act without motivation. For, surely must they confirm within their very bones, which could not exist were I not to mention them, that their lives are mine to do with as I please. For example ....
Cecily removed her left shoe and put it over Frankie's beak. Frankie uttered a muffled complaint but was entirely ignored by all in the boat. Alien Dad discovered a Wii in his hat and said, "Wheee!"
Apart from this, all was uneventful and quiet.
"Oi!"
Silent and peaceful.
"Oi! You!!"
As peaceful as -
"Oi, narrator! Dialogue takes precedence over narrative every time."
No it doesn't.
"It does when you forget a character but the reader remembers them," said Lord Blanchett who - oh ... I'd forgotten about him. Damn!
"All right, everyone, stop listening to the narrator, it's trying to deceive us and run our lives, spelt R-U-I-N. I've just realised where we are and if we all do as I say and if nobody interrupts until I've finished so the narrator can't get a word in, we'll do just fine. Now, we're obviously in the Sea of Confusion, near the Typing Pool, which is just a short distance away from The Babbling River that feeds the Confusion Falls, but once we get past all that, we'll be on our way to The Stream Of Consciousness where we can finally find out what this has all been about. Now, Cecily, take your shoe off the gull's beak and let the gull speak. Describe how you're doing it so the narrator doesn't have a reason to explain anything."
"I am now moving my left foot," said Cecily in a voice like Roy Kinnear. "Damn!" said Cecily - hee-hee.
That's right ... I'm back .......
Peter Graham
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2007
- Messages
- 1,616
"That's torn it", muttered Frankie, as Interference retreated back into the skies in an omniscient sort of a way.
"What's wrong?" asked Cecily.
"We've got Revolving Narrative Voice Syndrome in this story."
"Is that such a bad thing?" asked Alien Dad. "That last chap was very good."
"He was. But, unfortunately, the next narrative voice up is the Virtually Illiterate Fantasy Wannabe" said Frankie.
Frankie, flaped his wings and looked at alien Dad, who had drawn his sword and was turning to face the sea devil that had come out from the water covered in sea weed and holding, a, trident in it's scaly hand's. "I am Xq'nwppt the Magnificent and I will kill you and then my army of demons will destroy the city of Zong and the Dark lord will rule supreme" said the Sea devil in a rasping voice. "You killed my brother and my father, and all of his brother's and their sons and now I will kill you" fumigated alien dad with a roar;
the sea deVil through his spear at cecily who duked down and screamed. "help" she screamed with a scream. alien dad struck downwards with the point of his blade and skewered the seadeviL: blood pored, Out of his side and he rived around on the boat and died.
"right" said alien Dad,With a big smile."that sure sorted that s***eating f*** pig?" now lets go and save Zong and the female archmage briony who is you real mother".
"what" said cecily you mean aunitie bryony who lives in castle Bweep and who has being captured by the Dark kings' goblin hoards and is being held in the dunguns is my mother" she shrieked with a shriek.
There was a pause. Frankie peeped out from underneath Cecily's coat.
"Has he gone yet?"
"Looks like it," said Alien Dad as he sheathed his sword in a grammatically correct manner.
"Thank God! I thought I was done for there. One of the good guys always gets killed in these situations, and given that you are the hero and Cecily is the nice girly, I reckoned I was in the frame. After all, who's going to miss a divinely anointed talking seagull?"
"So who's up next for the narrative voice?" asked Cecily.
"No idea," said Frankie. "Might be hard sci fi, might be Agatha Christie, might be eighteenth century burlesque."
"What's wrong?" asked Cecily.
"We've got Revolving Narrative Voice Syndrome in this story."
"Is that such a bad thing?" asked Alien Dad. "That last chap was very good."
"He was. But, unfortunately, the next narrative voice up is the Virtually Illiterate Fantasy Wannabe" said Frankie.
Frankie, flaped his wings and looked at alien Dad, who had drawn his sword and was turning to face the sea devil that had come out from the water covered in sea weed and holding, a, trident in it's scaly hand's. "I am Xq'nwppt the Magnificent and I will kill you and then my army of demons will destroy the city of Zong and the Dark lord will rule supreme" said the Sea devil in a rasping voice. "You killed my brother and my father, and all of his brother's and their sons and now I will kill you" fumigated alien dad with a roar;
the sea deVil through his spear at cecily who duked down and screamed. "help" she screamed with a scream. alien dad struck downwards with the point of his blade and skewered the seadeviL: blood pored, Out of his side and he rived around on the boat and died.
"right" said alien Dad,With a big smile."that sure sorted that s***eating f*** pig?" now lets go and save Zong and the female archmage briony who is you real mother".
"what" said cecily you mean aunitie bryony who lives in castle Bweep and who has being captured by the Dark kings' goblin hoards and is being held in the dunguns is my mother" she shrieked with a shriek.
There was a pause. Frankie peeped out from underneath Cecily's coat.
"Has he gone yet?"
"Looks like it," said Alien Dad as he sheathed his sword in a grammatically correct manner.
"Thank God! I thought I was done for there. One of the good guys always gets killed in these situations, and given that you are the hero and Cecily is the nice girly, I reckoned I was in the frame. After all, who's going to miss a divinely anointed talking seagull?"
"So who's up next for the narrative voice?" asked Cecily.
"No idea," said Frankie. "Might be hard sci fi, might be Agatha Christie, might be eighteenth century burlesque."
Interference
Destroyer of Words
"Ooooh, I hope it's Agatha Christie," Cecily said. "I like a good murder."
Frankie hid under Cecily's coat once more and uttered a muffled "here we go aga-ain" just at the very moment that Lord Blanchett's butler arrived with a card on a silver platter.
"It's a much bigger boat than it looks," said Alien Dad.
"An Inspector calls, M'Lud," enunciated the butler.
"An inspector called Meelud?" enquired an inquisitive Cecily.
"What a coincidence," said Lord Blanchett. "That's what people call me! Show him in, Smellers."
At which the butler bowed and exited holding his head high and pointing his nose in just such a manner as one might who has smelled something rotten all over Denmark. Like rotten bacon, for example. Though that's only an example. I might have picked rank cauliflower, just as eas-
"Get on with it," said Alien Dad. "These narrators are getting worse, not better."
"Have we started the Agatha Christie yet, do you suppose?" asked Cecily.
At that very precise moment, the Inspector entered.
"Whtcha," he said in an unintelligible fashion as one must when one mistypes and leaves out all the vowels ut one. Oops, there goes a consonant, now. And another vowel, please, Carol. Now, then, where are we? Oh, yeah.
"Whatchya," said the said Inspector. "I've coom t'inspect yer drains."
At that exact self-same moment, probably somewhere between the t and the apostrophe, the waters ahead seemed to divide and split so that the very river-bed could be seen - five thousand feet below the prow of their vessel.
Said Frankie, raising his beak above the coat, "I guess we're not in a Christie anymore ...."
Frankie hid under Cecily's coat once more and uttered a muffled "here we go aga-ain" just at the very moment that Lord Blanchett's butler arrived with a card on a silver platter.
"It's a much bigger boat than it looks," said Alien Dad.
"An Inspector calls, M'Lud," enunciated the butler.
"An inspector called Meelud?" enquired an inquisitive Cecily.
"What a coincidence," said Lord Blanchett. "That's what people call me! Show him in, Smellers."
At which the butler bowed and exited holding his head high and pointing his nose in just such a manner as one might who has smelled something rotten all over Denmark. Like rotten bacon, for example. Though that's only an example. I might have picked rank cauliflower, just as eas-
"Get on with it," said Alien Dad. "These narrators are getting worse, not better."
"Have we started the Agatha Christie yet, do you suppose?" asked Cecily.
At that very precise moment, the Inspector entered.
"Whtcha," he said in an unintelligible fashion as one must when one mistypes and leaves out all the vowels ut one. Oops, there goes a consonant, now. And another vowel, please, Carol. Now, then, where are we? Oh, yeah.
"Whatchya," said the said Inspector. "I've coom t'inspect yer drains."
At that exact self-same moment, probably somewhere between the t and the apostrophe, the waters ahead seemed to divide and split so that the very river-bed could be seen - five thousand feet below the prow of their vessel.
Said Frankie, raising his beak above the coat, "I guess we're not in a Christie anymore ...."
Peter Graham
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2007
- Messages
- 1,616
The boat plummeted through what had once been the sea. As it reached terminal velocity, it started to overtake other denizens of the deep. Cecily watched in wonder as they thundered past surprised-looking sea-trout, bewildered belugas and the odd esoteric eel.
Frankie tightened the straps of his leather flying helmet and gave Cecily and Alien Dad a sheepish look
"Now, I don't want you to take this personally," he said. "You need to know that in the normal run of events, I'm a huge fan of 'all for one and one for all' and all that. I shall miss you both terribly, but in the event that a new narrative voice doesn't rescue us before we hit Davy Jones' locker, I'm going to take advantage of the fact that I've got wings and I'm out of here."
The ground loomed up, ever closer. Cecily stared at the sea bed with growing horror, apparently oblivious to the fact that Alien Dad was fiddling with his wrist-mounted Convenient Teleporter whilst nonchantly whistling Jethro Tull's 'Cheerio'.
Cecily closed her eyes, at which point she was saved by the narrative voice of Heroes, which despatched a handful of flying Americans to whisk the boat to safety right at the last minute. As they rose back up to sea level, Cecily heard a precise voice-over boom across the sky in high definition.
"CHOICES ARE WHAT DEFINE US. WE CAN ALL CHOOSE. DO WE CHOOSE THE PATH OF LIGHT OR DO WE CHOOSE THE DARKER PATH. OR DO WE EVEN CHOOSE TO BABBLE ON IN AN IMPORTANT SOUNDING VOICE WHILST NOT REALLY SAYING ANYTHING AT ALL? FOR ULTIMATELY, OUR CHOICES DECIDE WHAT WE CHOOSE. AND WHEN WE CHOOSE, OUR CHOICE LEADS US TO OTHER CHOICES AND SO ON, UNTIL EVENTUALLY WE HAVE TO CHOOSE YET AGAIN. GOOD THIS, ISN'T IT? DEEP. MEANINGFUL. OR SHALL WE JUST STICK WITH NICKY IN HER UNDERWEAR AND PETER WITH HIS SHIRT OFF?
To be continued...
Frankie tightened the straps of his leather flying helmet and gave Cecily and Alien Dad a sheepish look
"Now, I don't want you to take this personally," he said. "You need to know that in the normal run of events, I'm a huge fan of 'all for one and one for all' and all that. I shall miss you both terribly, but in the event that a new narrative voice doesn't rescue us before we hit Davy Jones' locker, I'm going to take advantage of the fact that I've got wings and I'm out of here."
The ground loomed up, ever closer. Cecily stared at the sea bed with growing horror, apparently oblivious to the fact that Alien Dad was fiddling with his wrist-mounted Convenient Teleporter whilst nonchantly whistling Jethro Tull's 'Cheerio'.
Cecily closed her eyes, at which point she was saved by the narrative voice of Heroes, which despatched a handful of flying Americans to whisk the boat to safety right at the last minute. As they rose back up to sea level, Cecily heard a precise voice-over boom across the sky in high definition.
"CHOICES ARE WHAT DEFINE US. WE CAN ALL CHOOSE. DO WE CHOOSE THE PATH OF LIGHT OR DO WE CHOOSE THE DARKER PATH. OR DO WE EVEN CHOOSE TO BABBLE ON IN AN IMPORTANT SOUNDING VOICE WHILST NOT REALLY SAYING ANYTHING AT ALL? FOR ULTIMATELY, OUR CHOICES DECIDE WHAT WE CHOOSE. AND WHEN WE CHOOSE, OUR CHOICE LEADS US TO OTHER CHOICES AND SO ON, UNTIL EVENTUALLY WE HAVE TO CHOOSE YET AGAIN. GOOD THIS, ISN'T IT? DEEP. MEANINGFUL. OR SHALL WE JUST STICK WITH NICKY IN HER UNDERWEAR AND PETER WITH HIS SHIRT OFF?
To be continued...
No sooner had the voice-over boomed across the sky in very high definition, than Evershrike, ‘Ward Of Bones’ quivered his Quillspike at them from a nearby dinghy and said, “I shall quash and quell you, thereby quenching the reader's thirst for blood!”
“Oh great. Another quacksalver with a quicksilver.” Frankie quipped.
Frankie swiftly cached himself once more in the nether regions of Cecily’s London Fog. “I feel like quailing right now, if you don’t mind.” He added.
Cecily quickly grabbed the spear that had been hurled at her in our last episode, and flung it across the far flung Isles of Langerhan that stretched out between the two crafty boats. It landed squarely in the quadratic between Evershrike’s temples. Purple blood squirted in almost every direction except straight up, owing to gravity.
“What in hell’s high fury is going on here, now?” Alien dad asked, buttoning his shirt as he spoke.
“Whotchya mean?” Asked Frankie, falling toward the chine of the boat, on what would be his bum if he had one.
“This narrator seem to have a penchant for words with the letter ‘Q’ in them.” Alien dad replied, probing his knotted hair with a Pith comb.
Cecily’s cat and Frankie’s monkey were playing a game of Backgammon toward the back of the boat (sometimes called the stern).
“He also seems to ramble on at times, apparently spewing narrative that has nothing to do with anything, other than to impress the readers with his most recently researched knowledge of things.” Frankie replied, now pecking at the port side of the boats’ trim battens. “See, there he goes again!” He added, attempting to furrow his brow, or what would be his brow if he had one.
“And what’s with this ‘would be if he had one’ phrase? This guy has a lot more than just an obsession with Kayaks” Alien dad stated standing stoic, on both feet as if glued to the hull.
“I think he got that from one of the other omniscient ones.” Said Cecily, sifting sand with one hand, while stirring some silt with the other.
“Perhaps we could ignore him.” Frankie said quietly shifting his eyes from side to side as if that would somehow confuse or befuddle the narrator.
Lord Blanchett, having pulled alongside of them in his yacht addressed them through a pink bullhorn:
“I have those hopes of her good that her education promises; her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity; they are virtues and traitors too; in her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives her honesty and achieves her goodness.”
“Great. Now he’s quoting Shakespeare!” Frankie railed.
“Well yes, but I think he was talking about me.” Cecily crooned while gently ruining, er, eh, I mean running her hand along her soft golden locks of hair that flowed down across her supple warm inviting units.
Alien dad’s face took on a frenetic look of disgust. “Units? Oh my word, this one’s gone completely flibbertigibbet! Don’t encourage him Cecily for God’s sake, or Graham, or Interference, or Zubi-mundo, whatever you call them!”
The river that had once been the sea suddenly forked, and then forked again. They found themselves floating aimlessly down an unknown fjord they had never known before. It appeared as if Lord Baltimore… cough, excuse me, Lord Blanchett had gone down a different channel, but they could still hear his echoing words bouncing off the narrow walls of the crevasses between themselves and his Lordship’s vessel, “All’s Well That Ends Well.” He was obviously still using his bullhorn.
“Life goes on. Within you, and without you.” Cecily stated with a sigh.
“Oh great. Another quacksalver with a quicksilver.” Frankie quipped.
Frankie swiftly cached himself once more in the nether regions of Cecily’s London Fog. “I feel like quailing right now, if you don’t mind.” He added.
Cecily quickly grabbed the spear that had been hurled at her in our last episode, and flung it across the far flung Isles of Langerhan that stretched out between the two crafty boats. It landed squarely in the quadratic between Evershrike’s temples. Purple blood squirted in almost every direction except straight up, owing to gravity.
“What in hell’s high fury is going on here, now?” Alien dad asked, buttoning his shirt as he spoke.
“Whotchya mean?” Asked Frankie, falling toward the chine of the boat, on what would be his bum if he had one.
“This narrator seem to have a penchant for words with the letter ‘Q’ in them.” Alien dad replied, probing his knotted hair with a Pith comb.
Cecily’s cat and Frankie’s monkey were playing a game of Backgammon toward the back of the boat (sometimes called the stern).
“He also seems to ramble on at times, apparently spewing narrative that has nothing to do with anything, other than to impress the readers with his most recently researched knowledge of things.” Frankie replied, now pecking at the port side of the boats’ trim battens. “See, there he goes again!” He added, attempting to furrow his brow, or what would be his brow if he had one.
“And what’s with this ‘would be if he had one’ phrase? This guy has a lot more than just an obsession with Kayaks” Alien dad stated standing stoic, on both feet as if glued to the hull.
“I think he got that from one of the other omniscient ones.” Said Cecily, sifting sand with one hand, while stirring some silt with the other.
“Perhaps we could ignore him.” Frankie said quietly shifting his eyes from side to side as if that would somehow confuse or befuddle the narrator.
Lord Blanchett, having pulled alongside of them in his yacht addressed them through a pink bullhorn:
“I have those hopes of her good that her education promises; her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity; they are virtues and traitors too; in her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives her honesty and achieves her goodness.”
“Great. Now he’s quoting Shakespeare!” Frankie railed.
“Well yes, but I think he was talking about me.” Cecily crooned while gently ruining, er, eh, I mean running her hand along her soft golden locks of hair that flowed down across her supple warm inviting units.
Alien dad’s face took on a frenetic look of disgust. “Units? Oh my word, this one’s gone completely flibbertigibbet! Don’t encourage him Cecily for God’s sake, or Graham, or Interference, or Zubi-mundo, whatever you call them!”
The river that had once been the sea suddenly forked, and then forked again. They found themselves floating aimlessly down an unknown fjord they had never known before. It appeared as if Lord Baltimore… cough, excuse me, Lord Blanchett had gone down a different channel, but they could still hear his echoing words bouncing off the narrow walls of the crevasses between themselves and his Lordship’s vessel, “All’s Well That Ends Well.” He was obviously still using his bullhorn.
“Life goes on. Within you, and without you.” Cecily stated with a sigh.
Interference
Destroyer of Words
There is time, the wise have begun to realise, in the time between events, in the interstices, if you will, of sequential existence; and it is time to be aware of what has been and, to a degree, what is to come; from internal knowledge, to deduce the exterior; from an acceptance of the possessed, to aspire to the un-owned.
The separation between the within and the without is no more than a molecule's breadth. The interstitial fluids that energise and sanitise life and limb are all around us and all inside us. And the bi-product is ----
InterferenceIneInterferenceIceInterferenceInterferenceInterferefereferenceInterterference
"The Muddied Waters, I presume," said someone.
"It's bamboozling," said someone else. "Someone - some thing - is trying to distract us - confuse us."
"I don't think this is a narrative trick either," said a third and this voice was accompanied by sounds of flapping wings.
"No, it's a natural law of some description," said the voice of the Alien Dad. "We are between events - between realities - at the interstices --"
"The crossroads?" asked Cecily.
"No," said Alien Dad. "The Crossroads."
"This ain'd about makin' choices," an new voice said with guitar accompaniment. "This ain'd about no passin' decisions. This here's about Time."
"Well, it's about time," Franky said.
What has been, has been. What will be is more is than what was.
Unless of course, you are the proud possessor of ....
A Zubi Undo Button
The separation between the within and the without is no more than a molecule's breadth. The interstitial fluids that energise and sanitise life and limb are all around us and all inside us. And the bi-product is ----
InterferenceIneInterferenceIceInterferenceInterferenceInterferefereferenceInterterference
"The Muddied Waters, I presume," said someone.
"It's bamboozling," said someone else. "Someone - some thing - is trying to distract us - confuse us."
"I don't think this is a narrative trick either," said a third and this voice was accompanied by sounds of flapping wings.
"No, it's a natural law of some description," said the voice of the Alien Dad. "We are between events - between realities - at the interstices --"
"The crossroads?" asked Cecily.
"No," said Alien Dad. "The Crossroads."
"This ain'd about makin' choices," an new voice said with guitar accompaniment. "This ain'd about no passin' decisions. This here's about Time."
"Well, it's about time," Franky said.
What has been, has been. What will be is more is than what was.
Unless of course, you are the proud possessor of ....
A Zubi Undo Button
They happened to look at each other all at once.
Silence…
Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the thinnest of smiles began to grow. First on Cecily, then daddy alien, then on Frankie Shankly Acapella Sneet (It was rarely, barely, and narrowly known that Frankie had 4 names , and possibly more that no one knew about).
“Let’s push it.” Cecily said with a grin that could not hide her exhilaration.
Daddy alien put a hand to his chin and, cradling it between thumb and forefinger “I don’t know. It could mean big trouble. Very big trouble. So much big trouble that…”
Frankie cut him off. “We get it!” Frankie shook his head, and then shook what would be his shoulders if he had any.
Frankie looked up at the sky and rolled his eyes. “Okay”, he said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
Daddy Alien reached down and curled his fingers around the hilt of his sword. He gripped it tightly. “Whatever happens, I’m ready.” He said.
An indistinguishable sound erupted from Frankie’s mouth or what would be his mouth is he had one. Kind of a spurting sound followed by cackling that sounded more like a crow than a seagull. “How on earth do you think that ancient, meager, obsolete weapon is going to protect you from whatever it is that may or may not happen as the result of making such a choice as pushing a button.?”
Daddy Alien stared at The gull named Mr. Sneet for a few more moments and said, “Hold on a minute. I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering… where it will go.”
“Where it will go?” Mr. Sneet retorted.
“I’m filling the cracks that ran through the door, and…”
“ Yes, yes I get it. You’d prefer to daydream over answering my question.”
“No. Actually I was wondering why the narrator has switched over to calling me ‘Daddy Alien’ rather than Alien dad. To answer your previous question, the answer is… um, the answer is… er, the answer is… well I don’t know, but it give’s me a feeling of security I would not have otherwise.”
They continued staring at each other for a few more moments. Cecily licentiously flung out her hand and pressed the button. Everything became very quiet. They no longer heard the water. They no longer saw the water. The boat still held them in its hold, and bridged their path to the bridge, but other than the feeling of the ebbs and tides, there was nothing sensory, not even a smell to tell them what was happening. Faintly, but clearly, a voice said “The Future’s not what it used to be.”
A burst of sound surrounded them in surround sound like a realy brilliant audio set up. It was the sound of a symphony striking a single multi-harmonious chord that rang out in all directions and remained in a sustained periphonic way with an incredibly gradual decay that lasted roughly 18.769 seconds, but sounded like forever. Right toward the very end of the trailing end of the sound envelope there was a sound like a chair dragging across a hard floor surface, as if one of the performers in the symphony just couldn’t stay that long in one place, but no-one knows for sure.
Then without any sound at all, a bright and colorful display was presented overhead in the darkness. Streams of every color of the rainbow, and mixtures thereof streaked across the sky and out of each stream, little shapes with gleaming edges like stars, or stars within stars some looking vaguely triangular some hexahedronal or dexahedronal fell slowly down drifting like snowflakes in to an oblivion below them. They followed the rainbows with the only eyes they had, to the only place the rainbow was eminating from. It was an Angel.
Frankie started laughing.
Daddy alien turned to look at him.
“What so bloodly awful funny all of a sudden?”
Frankie did his best to recover from his condition of hilarity, and replied “I know that Angel. Her name is Lucy.”
He looked at Daddy alien, and miss Cecily with a grin and waited. They frankly stared blankly back at Frankie. “Oh come on.” He said trying to gesture with his hands, and quicly realizing he didn’t have any. “It’s Lucy.” They stilled stared vacantly.
“Lucy in the sky with diamonds.” He said. “I’m quite sure the readers caught on before you silly gits.”
“ahy, wotch it there matey.” Daddy alien said.
“Hmm, I don’t know where I got that accent from all out of the blue like.”
“It was…” Frankie paused, and pointed at the sky. “You know…”
“Ohh! Right. Goctha pardner.” Daddly alien shook his head violently as if trying to shake water from his hair.
“Just ignore it.” Frankie whispered, as if in whispering, the narrator would not hear.
“Well, it would seem as if nothing disasterous happened when we pushed the ‘ahem’ button, but I’m not quite sure what we should do now.” Frankie said, in an apparent attempt to take the plot somwhere.
“Maybe we should push it again.” Said Cecily, and no sooner had she said it than she had done it.
Milliseconds later, a structure popped up out of the black next to the motorboat with many different pipes bent at the top and facing all directions. The pipes were all yellow. An end of one of the pipes was facing directly at them so that they could look into it’s apeture. What they saw was an eye looking back at them through a lens at the opening on the end of the pipe. The eye retreated, some music began. It seemed to contain distorted trumpets, a reverberated organ, chimes, a glockenspiel, a bass guitar, and drums. What emerged from below their line of vision was attached to the pipes. It was a giant sized yellow submarine. Singing eminated from one of the speakers on the side of the enormous craft. “It doesn't really matter what chords I play/What words I say or time of day it is/As it's only a Northern song"
Frankie Shankly with the lanky legs slowly shifted his eyes together and said “Wait a minute!” he turned to face the other four. (Figaro the cat, and Frankie’ monkey were now listening intently as well.) “That song isn’t on the Seargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band album!”
“Right.” Said Daddy alien, It was only released later, but it was in the movie when they were in the sea of science. I wonder if that’s where we are?” he said.
They all felt a shift in momentum. And then a slight shift in angular momentum, and then a quantum shift in time, and they were now moving slowly into the submarine in a docking bay somewhere toward the stern of the vessel.
A door to the inside of the craft’s hull opened, and it was brightly light and somewhat animated. Four happy looking cartoonish gentlemen greeted them with a song. This one was more or less pure rock and roll. “Its wonderful to be here, its certainly a thrill, you’re such a lovely audience, we’d like to take you home with us, we’d love to take you home.”
The music faded quickly to a lone guitar playing a quiet meandering kind of melody, and in walked Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph. D., a strange, little, brown-furred man with a blue face, pink ears, and tail, who claims to have lived Sea of Nothing, speaks in rhyme, and describes himself as an "eminent physicist polyglot classicist prize-winning botanist, hard-biting satiryst talented pianist and a pretty good dentist too."
Cecily had wandered past the group and was now looking at a towering bank of dials and wheels and switches and buttons. She was reaching for one of the buttons.
“No! don’t touch that button!”, one of the animated long haired gents yelled.
It was too late. Some rather quaint sounding music began featuring a clarinet. The submarine picked up speed, and direction, and threw them out the port-side porthole. All of the clock on board started to move their pointy hands around their roundish dials rather quickly.
“Oh boy. Now we go… we go… we go…” Mr. Sneet’s words echoed.
The animated one they called Paul began to sing, “When I get older losing my hair, many years from now”
Actually their hair was getting longer and turning white. While Paul was singing, a new animated character called “Old/Young Fred” came out wearing a captains uniform, and seized the controls on the towering wall of dials and wheels and switches and buttons. The clocks started turning backwards. They kept going until several of them turn into babies, and the captain adjusts the dials again to return them to their former selves or something close to it. Except that now, the cat is the monkey, and the monkey is the cat, probably owing to something Zubi-Ondo did, but just try getting him to admit it.
Animated John started singing kind of to himself at first “I read the news today, oh boy,
About a lucky man who made the grade.” He sang for a while and then stopped. He looked at everyone. “I’d love to turn you on.” He said, in a dreamy fashion, almost like they did back in the sixties.
The submarine slowed and came to a halt. They looked outside and saw and endless matrix of black dots. They got out and walked around a bit. They discovered that they could fall through any particular spot and reappear through another one. “We must be in the sea of holes.” One of them said. (I didn’t see which one said it) The animated one called Ringo picked up one of the black spots and put it in his pocket. “Ayv’e got a ‘Ole in me poucket.” He stated with a rather British, you might even say ‘Cockney’ accent.
Jeremy fell into one of the holes, but did not re-appear. They had absolutely no idea what would happen next.
Silence…
Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the thinnest of smiles began to grow. First on Cecily, then daddy alien, then on Frankie Shankly Acapella Sneet (It was rarely, barely, and narrowly known that Frankie had 4 names , and possibly more that no one knew about).
“Let’s push it.” Cecily said with a grin that could not hide her exhilaration.
Daddy alien put a hand to his chin and, cradling it between thumb and forefinger “I don’t know. It could mean big trouble. Very big trouble. So much big trouble that…”
Frankie cut him off. “We get it!” Frankie shook his head, and then shook what would be his shoulders if he had any.
Frankie looked up at the sky and rolled his eyes. “Okay”, he said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
Daddy Alien reached down and curled his fingers around the hilt of his sword. He gripped it tightly. “Whatever happens, I’m ready.” He said.
An indistinguishable sound erupted from Frankie’s mouth or what would be his mouth is he had one. Kind of a spurting sound followed by cackling that sounded more like a crow than a seagull. “How on earth do you think that ancient, meager, obsolete weapon is going to protect you from whatever it is that may or may not happen as the result of making such a choice as pushing a button.?”
Daddy Alien stared at The gull named Mr. Sneet for a few more moments and said, “Hold on a minute. I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering… where it will go.”
“Where it will go?” Mr. Sneet retorted.
“I’m filling the cracks that ran through the door, and…”
“ Yes, yes I get it. You’d prefer to daydream over answering my question.”
“No. Actually I was wondering why the narrator has switched over to calling me ‘Daddy Alien’ rather than Alien dad. To answer your previous question, the answer is… um, the answer is… er, the answer is… well I don’t know, but it give’s me a feeling of security I would not have otherwise.”
They continued staring at each other for a few more moments. Cecily licentiously flung out her hand and pressed the button. Everything became very quiet. They no longer heard the water. They no longer saw the water. The boat still held them in its hold, and bridged their path to the bridge, but other than the feeling of the ebbs and tides, there was nothing sensory, not even a smell to tell them what was happening. Faintly, but clearly, a voice said “The Future’s not what it used to be.”
A burst of sound surrounded them in surround sound like a realy brilliant audio set up. It was the sound of a symphony striking a single multi-harmonious chord that rang out in all directions and remained in a sustained periphonic way with an incredibly gradual decay that lasted roughly 18.769 seconds, but sounded like forever. Right toward the very end of the trailing end of the sound envelope there was a sound like a chair dragging across a hard floor surface, as if one of the performers in the symphony just couldn’t stay that long in one place, but no-one knows for sure.
Then without any sound at all, a bright and colorful display was presented overhead in the darkness. Streams of every color of the rainbow, and mixtures thereof streaked across the sky and out of each stream, little shapes with gleaming edges like stars, or stars within stars some looking vaguely triangular some hexahedronal or dexahedronal fell slowly down drifting like snowflakes in to an oblivion below them. They followed the rainbows with the only eyes they had, to the only place the rainbow was eminating from. It was an Angel.
Frankie started laughing.
Daddy alien turned to look at him.
“What so bloodly awful funny all of a sudden?”
Frankie did his best to recover from his condition of hilarity, and replied “I know that Angel. Her name is Lucy.”
He looked at Daddy alien, and miss Cecily with a grin and waited. They frankly stared blankly back at Frankie. “Oh come on.” He said trying to gesture with his hands, and quicly realizing he didn’t have any. “It’s Lucy.” They stilled stared vacantly.
“Lucy in the sky with diamonds.” He said. “I’m quite sure the readers caught on before you silly gits.”
“ahy, wotch it there matey.” Daddy alien said.
“Hmm, I don’t know where I got that accent from all out of the blue like.”
“It was…” Frankie paused, and pointed at the sky. “You know…”
“Ohh! Right. Goctha pardner.” Daddly alien shook his head violently as if trying to shake water from his hair.
“Just ignore it.” Frankie whispered, as if in whispering, the narrator would not hear.
“Well, it would seem as if nothing disasterous happened when we pushed the ‘ahem’ button, but I’m not quite sure what we should do now.” Frankie said, in an apparent attempt to take the plot somwhere.
“Maybe we should push it again.” Said Cecily, and no sooner had she said it than she had done it.
Milliseconds later, a structure popped up out of the black next to the motorboat with many different pipes bent at the top and facing all directions. The pipes were all yellow. An end of one of the pipes was facing directly at them so that they could look into it’s apeture. What they saw was an eye looking back at them through a lens at the opening on the end of the pipe. The eye retreated, some music began. It seemed to contain distorted trumpets, a reverberated organ, chimes, a glockenspiel, a bass guitar, and drums. What emerged from below their line of vision was attached to the pipes. It was a giant sized yellow submarine. Singing eminated from one of the speakers on the side of the enormous craft. “It doesn't really matter what chords I play/What words I say or time of day it is/As it's only a Northern song"
Frankie Shankly with the lanky legs slowly shifted his eyes together and said “Wait a minute!” he turned to face the other four. (Figaro the cat, and Frankie’ monkey were now listening intently as well.) “That song isn’t on the Seargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band album!”
“Right.” Said Daddy alien, It was only released later, but it was in the movie when they were in the sea of science. I wonder if that’s where we are?” he said.
They all felt a shift in momentum. And then a slight shift in angular momentum, and then a quantum shift in time, and they were now moving slowly into the submarine in a docking bay somewhere toward the stern of the vessel.
A door to the inside of the craft’s hull opened, and it was brightly light and somewhat animated. Four happy looking cartoonish gentlemen greeted them with a song. This one was more or less pure rock and roll. “Its wonderful to be here, its certainly a thrill, you’re such a lovely audience, we’d like to take you home with us, we’d love to take you home.”
The music faded quickly to a lone guitar playing a quiet meandering kind of melody, and in walked Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph. D., a strange, little, brown-furred man with a blue face, pink ears, and tail, who claims to have lived Sea of Nothing, speaks in rhyme, and describes himself as an "eminent physicist polyglot classicist prize-winning botanist, hard-biting satiryst talented pianist and a pretty good dentist too."
Cecily had wandered past the group and was now looking at a towering bank of dials and wheels and switches and buttons. She was reaching for one of the buttons.
“No! don’t touch that button!”, one of the animated long haired gents yelled.
It was too late. Some rather quaint sounding music began featuring a clarinet. The submarine picked up speed, and direction, and threw them out the port-side porthole. All of the clock on board started to move their pointy hands around their roundish dials rather quickly.
“Oh boy. Now we go… we go… we go…” Mr. Sneet’s words echoed.
The animated one they called Paul began to sing, “When I get older losing my hair, many years from now”
Actually their hair was getting longer and turning white. While Paul was singing, a new animated character called “Old/Young Fred” came out wearing a captains uniform, and seized the controls on the towering wall of dials and wheels and switches and buttons. The clocks started turning backwards. They kept going until several of them turn into babies, and the captain adjusts the dials again to return them to their former selves or something close to it. Except that now, the cat is the monkey, and the monkey is the cat, probably owing to something Zubi-Ondo did, but just try getting him to admit it.
Animated John started singing kind of to himself at first “I read the news today, oh boy,
About a lucky man who made the grade.” He sang for a while and then stopped. He looked at everyone. “I’d love to turn you on.” He said, in a dreamy fashion, almost like they did back in the sixties.
The submarine slowed and came to a halt. They looked outside and saw and endless matrix of black dots. They got out and walked around a bit. They discovered that they could fall through any particular spot and reappear through another one. “We must be in the sea of holes.” One of them said. (I didn’t see which one said it) The animated one called Ringo picked up one of the black spots and put it in his pocket. “Ayv’e got a ‘Ole in me poucket.” He stated with a rather British, you might even say ‘Cockney’ accent.
Jeremy fell into one of the holes, but did not re-appear. They had absolutely no idea what would happen next.
Peter Graham
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2007
- Messages
- 1,616
Z-O - a cockney accent? May you be forgiven....
"The Beatles are bad enough at the best of times, but talking to that arrogant, bum-faced drummer after what he did on his website the other week really is the last straw," said Frankie, as he grabbed another black dot and threw it over them all.
Everything went momentarily dark, but as a pale light started to leech back in, Cecily realised with relief that they had escaped the feeble faux-psychedelic nursery rhymes that characterised all of the Beatles' films and most of their witless songs. Anything was better than looking at a bunch of bog-eyed scousers who'd spent too long at the Fancy Dress Hire shop, which was just as well, as Cecily was now staring up into the eyes of her wierd mother and her wierd mother's toyboyfriend, Raoul who (as astute followers of this thread may recall) had been enjoying a rubber of bridge with Cecily's sister for the last year or so.
"Why on earth are you lying on the carpet gibbering on about meter maids and talking seagulls?" asked mother in the sort of voice she usually reserved for tradesmen.
"Oh goody!" said Cecily's sister, clapping her hands in glee. "Cissy's home! That means we can cast the spell at last, doesn't it Mama? Jolly lucky that dear, sweet Raoul is already here to offer us his earthly soul, isn't it? Thanks awfully, Raoul - you're an absolute brick!"
"What!" exclaimed Raoul.
"Ah...." began mother.
Cecily looked around for Alien Dad and Frankie - one of them would know what to do! But there was no sign of either of them.
Above the fireplace hung an old print of "The Roll Call". Although Cecily didn't notice it at first, one of the Light Brigade officers bore a striking resemblance to Alien Dad, whereas another of them - a bearded giant from the 7th Hussars - had a pronounced beak and a wing bound up in a tatty bandage.
"The Beatles are bad enough at the best of times, but talking to that arrogant, bum-faced drummer after what he did on his website the other week really is the last straw," said Frankie, as he grabbed another black dot and threw it over them all.
Everything went momentarily dark, but as a pale light started to leech back in, Cecily realised with relief that they had escaped the feeble faux-psychedelic nursery rhymes that characterised all of the Beatles' films and most of their witless songs. Anything was better than looking at a bunch of bog-eyed scousers who'd spent too long at the Fancy Dress Hire shop, which was just as well, as Cecily was now staring up into the eyes of her wierd mother and her wierd mother's toyboyfriend, Raoul who (as astute followers of this thread may recall) had been enjoying a rubber of bridge with Cecily's sister for the last year or so.
"Why on earth are you lying on the carpet gibbering on about meter maids and talking seagulls?" asked mother in the sort of voice she usually reserved for tradesmen.
"Oh goody!" said Cecily's sister, clapping her hands in glee. "Cissy's home! That means we can cast the spell at last, doesn't it Mama? Jolly lucky that dear, sweet Raoul is already here to offer us his earthly soul, isn't it? Thanks awfully, Raoul - you're an absolute brick!"
"What!" exclaimed Raoul.
"Ah...." began mother.
Cecily looked around for Alien Dad and Frankie - one of them would know what to do! But there was no sign of either of them.
Above the fireplace hung an old print of "The Roll Call". Although Cecily didn't notice it at first, one of the Light Brigade officers bore a striking resemblance to Alien Dad, whereas another of them - a bearded giant from the 7th Hussars - had a pronounced beak and a wing bound up in a tatty bandage.
Interference
Destroyer of Words
Cecily's sister had forgotten her name for now, but she was sure someone would remember it. In truth, she wasn't entirely certain that she had a name. And it was this that protected her.
"I only said I'd visit for a spell," said Raoul, misplacing the occasional vowel sound and dropping entirely the odd unwanted consonant like some johnny foreigner chappy. More importantly, perhaps, certainly to Raoul himself, he spoke with the kind of urgency and desperation that, when properly judged, can afford a period of respite in a desperate situation of a sort that may permit a means of escape to present itself. Unfortunately, his was not properly judged and within a few moments, he found himself stripped naked (look away, ladies) and tied to the oval-shaped mahogany table that Cecily's non-alien dad had brought back from his time in Allahabad, where he served with honour as a head waiter. What a fine restaurant that was, he would say often throughout his dotage, which made him particularly dull company at parties.
"Oh dear," said Cecily's non-alien mum, "Look at the floor!"
"I see it needs sweeping," said Cecily's amnesiac sister - it'll come to her, honestly - who had taken a moment's pause from sharpening an ornate and curved dagger of oriental origin.
(Incidentally, had anyone at that point said anything even resembling "While my sitar gently weeps" they may have found themselves victim to a particularly nasty case of homicide as perpetrated by an increasingly homicidal co-narrator, currently rated as PG. However, the suicidal phrase remains to this day, as far as I know, completely and utterly unuttered, apart from by me, just then --- oh .....)
"Shall we start with the finger?" asked Cecily's non-alien mum who had come to consider Raoul a starr.
"Wait!" protested Cecily, whose name was Cecily as far as anyone could recall. "You can't do that!"
"No, not likely," said Raoul who suddenly sounded all cockney for some reason.
"You poor, deluded child," said Cecily's non-alien mum. "Have you been away so long you hardly know the place?"
Cecily looked around her. It was true - it was great to be back home, and yet she recognised none of it. And, again, yet, again, she knew that this -- this was where she once belonged. Why did it all seem so strange to her? Why ....
"Mee-aow," said the monkey atop the organ-grinder's barrel organ on the street outside, but no one heard it - not even the monkey - over the music that issued from the quaintly elderly device. It had mee-aowed with a cockney accent, which might have sounded downright odd to anyone or anything that or who might or might not have heard or not heard it, as it had never set foot, hand or table outside Liverpool before this day ... as far as it knew, and if, indeed, it was, indeed, currently beyond the perimeters, as indeed it might or might not have been, of that celebrated and feted town.
The barrel organ played on.
"I only said I'd visit for a spell," said Raoul, misplacing the occasional vowel sound and dropping entirely the odd unwanted consonant like some johnny foreigner chappy. More importantly, perhaps, certainly to Raoul himself, he spoke with the kind of urgency and desperation that, when properly judged, can afford a period of respite in a desperate situation of a sort that may permit a means of escape to present itself. Unfortunately, his was not properly judged and within a few moments, he found himself stripped naked (look away, ladies) and tied to the oval-shaped mahogany table that Cecily's non-alien dad had brought back from his time in Allahabad, where he served with honour as a head waiter. What a fine restaurant that was, he would say often throughout his dotage, which made him particularly dull company at parties.
"Oh dear," said Cecily's non-alien mum, "Look at the floor!"
"I see it needs sweeping," said Cecily's amnesiac sister - it'll come to her, honestly - who had taken a moment's pause from sharpening an ornate and curved dagger of oriental origin.
(Incidentally, had anyone at that point said anything even resembling "While my sitar gently weeps" they may have found themselves victim to a particularly nasty case of homicide as perpetrated by an increasingly homicidal co-narrator, currently rated as PG
. However, the suicidal phrase remains to this day, as far as I know, completely and utterly unuttered, apart from by me, just then --- oh .....)"Shall we start with the finger?" asked Cecily's non-alien mum who had come to consider Raoul a starr.
"Wait!" protested Cecily, whose name was Cecily as far as anyone could recall. "You can't do that!"
"No, not likely," said Raoul who suddenly sounded all cockney for some reason.
"You poor, deluded child," said Cecily's non-alien mum. "Have you been away so long you hardly know the place?"
Cecily looked around her. It was true - it was great to be back home, and yet she recognised none of it. And, again, yet, again, she knew that this -- this was where she once belonged. Why did it all seem so strange to her? Why ....
"Mee-aow," said the monkey atop the organ-grinder's barrel organ on the street outside, but no one heard it - not even the monkey - over the music that issued from the quaintly elderly device. It had mee-aowed with a cockney accent, which might have sounded downright odd to anyone or anything that or who might or might not have heard or not heard it, as it had never set foot, hand or table outside Liverpool before this day ... as far as it knew, and if, indeed, it was, indeed, currently beyond the perimeters, as indeed it might or might not have been, of that celebrated and feted town.
The barrel organ played on.
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The cat looked up at the monkey and said, “don’t forget what Interference said: There is time, the wise have begun to realize, in the time between events, in the interstices, if you will, of sequential existence; and it is time to be aware of what has been and, to a degree, what is to come; from internal knowledge, to deduce the exterior; from an acceptance of the possessed, to aspire to the un-owned.”
The monkey said, “Meow.”
The Cat continued “You see, Science already knows that there are immense interstices between atoms, and there is nothing to explain what fills that space. The only thing they know for sure that fills the space is energy, and E=MC squared, and E stands for energy.”
The monkey licked the backside of its left hand. “Yes that’s all fine and good, but what was all that flak that one narrator said about the Beatles? You know, saying they were bad, and all that stuff about ‘feeble faux-psychedelic nursery rhymes that characterized all of the Beatles' films and most of their witless songs.”
“Well by bald-butted friend residing in my former body, if Z-O had done his homework, or had half a memory he would have known that the Omniscient one they call… he paused and cupped his had toward the monkey, ‘Peter Graham’, he would have known that this Graham fellow is not a big fan of the Beatles.”
“How could anyone not like the Beatles?” the monkey replied scratching at his side. “They only ever sing about love and stuff like that.”
I know Monk buddy, but he seems to think they are somehow to simplistic, too parochial if you will.” What Mr. Graham most likely didn’t know is that Z-O was doing that to entertain the other one. The one they call Interference He’s actually quite the Beatles fan.”
“Hmm…” the monkey purred. The cat jumped up on the monkey barrel, and the monkey jumped to the ground . “Besides, if you are to be true to the message of love that the Beatles were conveying, then you should be accepting of others no matter what their likes and dislikes are. Love has nothing to do with liking. Love is unconditional acceptance.” The cat walked in a circle and sat looking down at the monkey once again. “Besides, I do think it was rather naive for John Lennon to say, “All you need is Love.” I’m 43 years old in cat-years and I can tell you life is a lot more complex than that. If there were no such thing as free-will and people had to love each other, then the theory just might work.”
“Okay, so how come you know all of this about the omniscient ones out of the blue?”
“Are you kidding? I taught Frankie most of what he knows. I was entrained and ordained by the Archangels Metatron and Seraphina. Believe it or not you yourself are now on a journey that is certain to change your life forever. If you were never a special being before you are becoming one as we speak.”
“Weowie Zeiowie Meowie”, he said.
Later that evening…
“Celly dear, you look terribly confused whatever ever could be the matter?”
Celly, known for the past 20 years as Cecily looked unintentionally groggy. “Mum, is that really you?” My non-alien mum who goes by the name of ‘Millicent Kirby-Electrolux’!
“Why of course my dear who did you expect, your alien mum, that wretch of a wench named Archmage Briony!”
“Mum, how could you say that about Auntie Briony? She was always sweet to me and sent me those little chocolates called ‘after eight’ or something.
And why are you calling me Celly?
“About 2 months ago you went to the House of Commons and asked that your name be changed from Cecily to Celly.” She chuckled a bit, and then continued. “They all had a good laugh since that rather wasn’t the place to go for changing one’s name, but they went along with it, and now every one calls you Celly.”
“Are you sure you’re my mother?”
“Yes, dear I’ve got the documents right here… erh, um. Hmph. Well there were right here a minute ago now what did I do with those fake birth certificates, and doctored up digital photos?”
Frankie flew in and perched on top of Raoul’s head, and Raul frantically tried to swat him away. Frankie flew in the most perfect circle around the room any seagull had ever flown. A bright feather Blue Heron that bore a slight resemblance to Groucho Marx walked in on what would be his feet if they weren’t so webbed. Behind him, walked a blue footed booby, and a procession of terns, gulls, fulmars, kittiwakes, guillemots, cormorants, penguins, and still there were more. Egrets, Pelicans, Cranes, Albatross, petrels, auks, and gannets donned in suits with their heads held high as if they had smelled some rotting grass clippings in Rottingdam.
Frankie alighted atop Cecilia’s head. Just then, Alien Dad walked in. The blue heron yelled at him, “Shut the door, damnit your letting all of the draft in.”
“Oh no, they re-instated the draft?”
“Never mind just close the bloody door will you?”
“Of course.” He said with a slam.
“Who is that?” Alien dad said, pointing to Charlotte.
Frankie opened his beak to speak. “I couldn’t have said it better myself Lord Baltimore.”
“What do you mean Lord Baltimore, my name is Alien dad. They’ve been calling me that since page 10.”
“Yes, exactly. That’s when they pulled the ole switcheroo on poor dear Cecily who now prefers to be called Celly. You wouldn’t know Cecily from Charlotte because you’re not their real father.” Frankie flipped a wing in Cecily’s direction. “She thought she was going home with her real dad, and the impostor who had sent her the postcard popped in right when the semblance of the devil showed up on page 10. It’s all here in the ICD.” He flapped his wings a few times. “Could you please not do that, it’s making my ears tickle” Celly asked Frankie.
“Sorry dear.” The only crime Cecily ever committed was killing her father in law, who by the way quite deserved to die.”
All of the of Terns, gulls, Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Guillemots, Cormorants, Penguins, Egrets, Pelicans, Cranes, Albatross, petrels, auks, and gannets, and the blue footed booby were listening intently.
He was part of the whole plot, which I might add was thought up by Raul, and Robert, his now dead brother. Meanwhile Millicent Electrolux here fooled Cecily’s poor mother at the hospital when Cecily was born. She kept erasing the pian dosage history on Archmage Briony’s charts, so she was 0over drugged and when she came out of it, Millicent told her Cecily had died in childbirth. She took Cecily away to live with this imposter here whose real name is Lord Baltimore.”
Frankie flew over and opened the front door and in walked a gentleman who looked very familiar to Cecily.
“Lord Baltimore!” Daddy!” You’re home.” She cried.
There was only one real dada in the world that could quote Shakespeare the way Lord Blanchett, Celly’s real father could and so he did:
Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-bearded bumbling-kayakerwith a red beard on the top of the inlet to the lake, and good mounsieur, bring me his bum-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and, good mounsieur, have a care the bum-bag break not; I would be loath to have you overflown with a Kayakers bum-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur Mustardseed?
A tall lanky older gentle man, quite well dressed in a tuxedo brought out some papers on a tray. “I believe these are the missing papers that tell one how to operate the Sat-Nav system.”
“Ah, thank you Mr. Mustarseed. Please place them in the foyer .
The monkey said, “Meow.”
The Cat continued “You see, Science already knows that there are immense interstices between atoms, and there is nothing to explain what fills that space. The only thing they know for sure that fills the space is energy, and E=MC squared, and E stands for energy.”
The monkey licked the backside of its left hand. “Yes that’s all fine and good, but what was all that flak that one narrator said about the Beatles? You know, saying they were bad, and all that stuff about ‘feeble faux-psychedelic nursery rhymes that characterized all of the Beatles' films and most of their witless songs.”
“Well by bald-butted friend residing in my former body, if Z-O had done his homework, or had half a memory he would have known that the Omniscient one they call… he paused and cupped his had toward the monkey, ‘Peter Graham’, he would have known that this Graham fellow is not a big fan of the Beatles.”
“How could anyone not like the Beatles?” the monkey replied scratching at his side. “They only ever sing about love and stuff like that.”
I know Monk buddy, but he seems to think they are somehow to simplistic, too parochial if you will.” What Mr. Graham most likely didn’t know is that Z-O was doing that to entertain the other one. The one they call Interference He’s actually quite the Beatles fan.”
“Hmm…” the monkey purred. The cat jumped up on the monkey barrel, and the monkey jumped to the ground . “Besides, if you are to be true to the message of love that the Beatles were conveying, then you should be accepting of others no matter what their likes and dislikes are. Love has nothing to do with liking. Love is unconditional acceptance.” The cat walked in a circle and sat looking down at the monkey once again. “Besides, I do think it was rather naive for John Lennon to say, “All you need is Love.” I’m 43 years old in cat-years and I can tell you life is a lot more complex than that. If there were no such thing as free-will and people had to love each other, then the theory just might work.”
“Okay, so how come you know all of this about the omniscient ones out of the blue?”
“Are you kidding? I taught Frankie most of what he knows. I was entrained and ordained by the Archangels Metatron and Seraphina. Believe it or not you yourself are now on a journey that is certain to change your life forever. If you were never a special being before you are becoming one as we speak.”
“Weowie Zeiowie Meowie”, he said.
Later that evening…
“Celly dear, you look terribly confused whatever ever could be the matter?”
Celly, known for the past 20 years as Cecily looked unintentionally groggy. “Mum, is that really you?” My non-alien mum who goes by the name of ‘Millicent Kirby-Electrolux’!
“Why of course my dear who did you expect, your alien mum, that wretch of a wench named Archmage Briony!”
“Mum, how could you say that about Auntie Briony? She was always sweet to me and sent me those little chocolates called ‘after eight’ or something.
And why are you calling me Celly?
“About 2 months ago you went to the House of Commons and asked that your name be changed from Cecily to Celly.” She chuckled a bit, and then continued. “They all had a good laugh since that rather wasn’t the place to go for changing one’s name, but they went along with it, and now every one calls you Celly.”
“Are you sure you’re my mother?”
“Yes, dear I’ve got the documents right here… erh, um. Hmph. Well there were right here a minute ago now what did I do with those fake birth certificates, and doctored up digital photos?”
Frankie flew in and perched on top of Raoul’s head, and Raul frantically tried to swat him away. Frankie flew in the most perfect circle around the room any seagull had ever flown. A bright feather Blue Heron that bore a slight resemblance to Groucho Marx walked in on what would be his feet if they weren’t so webbed. Behind him, walked a blue footed booby, and a procession of terns, gulls, fulmars, kittiwakes, guillemots, cormorants, penguins, and still there were more. Egrets, Pelicans, Cranes, Albatross, petrels, auks, and gannets donned in suits with their heads held high as if they had smelled some rotting grass clippings in Rottingdam.
Frankie alighted atop Cecilia’s head. Just then, Alien Dad walked in. The blue heron yelled at him, “Shut the door, damnit your letting all of the draft in.”
“Oh no, they re-instated the draft?”
“Never mind just close the bloody door will you?”
“Of course.” He said with a slam.
“Who is that?” Alien dad said, pointing to Charlotte.
Frankie opened his beak to speak. “I couldn’t have said it better myself Lord Baltimore.”
“What do you mean Lord Baltimore, my name is Alien dad. They’ve been calling me that since page 10.”
“Yes, exactly. That’s when they pulled the ole switcheroo on poor dear Cecily who now prefers to be called Celly. You wouldn’t know Cecily from Charlotte because you’re not their real father.” Frankie flipped a wing in Cecily’s direction. “She thought she was going home with her real dad, and the impostor who had sent her the postcard popped in right when the semblance of the devil showed up on page 10. It’s all here in the ICD.” He flapped his wings a few times. “Could you please not do that, it’s making my ears tickle” Celly asked Frankie.
“Sorry dear.” The only crime Cecily ever committed was killing her father in law, who by the way quite deserved to die.”
All of the of Terns, gulls, Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Guillemots, Cormorants, Penguins, Egrets, Pelicans, Cranes, Albatross, petrels, auks, and gannets, and the blue footed booby were listening intently.
He was part of the whole plot, which I might add was thought up by Raul, and Robert, his now dead brother. Meanwhile Millicent Electrolux here fooled Cecily’s poor mother at the hospital when Cecily was born. She kept erasing the pian dosage history on Archmage Briony’s charts, so she was 0over drugged and when she came out of it, Millicent told her Cecily had died in childbirth. She took Cecily away to live with this imposter here whose real name is Lord Baltimore.”
Frankie flew over and opened the front door and in walked a gentleman who looked very familiar to Cecily.
“Lord Baltimore!” Daddy!” You’re home.” She cried.
There was only one real dada in the world that could quote Shakespeare the way Lord Blanchett, Celly’s real father could and so he did:
Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-bearded bumbling-kayakerwith a red beard on the top of the inlet to the lake, and good mounsieur, bring me his bum-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and, good mounsieur, have a care the bum-bag break not; I would be loath to have you overflown with a Kayakers bum-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur Mustardseed?
A tall lanky older gentle man, quite well dressed in a tuxedo brought out some papers on a tray. “I believe these are the missing papers that tell one how to operate the Sat-Nav system.”
“Ah, thank you Mr. Mustarseed. Please place them in the foyer .
Interference
Destroyer of Words
"Jack."
She forced her eyes open, her mind to wakefulness and she sobbed.
"Jack."
It was more a whisper, now, as pain grasped her heart and constricted around her larynx.
"Your name is Celly," a man said, his face shrouded in the shadow of the room's doorway, his glove-clad hands barely illuminated by a dim street lamp that gleamed at her through her bedroom window. "You'll not feel like this for long."
"Why did you show me these things?" she asked, throwing back the blankets and stepping into her slippers as she bound her naked body with a gown. Her dark eyes were couched in anger and hatred. The words were forced from her through clenched teeth. "What's your act?"
"Do you know the meaning of your name?" he said in a voice so gentle even squawking children might have been mollified.
"I don't do pub quizzes," she sneered.
"Cecily. It means 'blind'."
"Yeah, that and two quid will buy me a coffee."
The man leaned forward slightly and light caught the firmness of his jaw, the kindness that seemed to set his mouth at a slightly quizzical, slightly mocking angle, and thick black lenses that hid his eyes from the world.
"I showed you your past, I showed you the personal Hell that you call your now. Would you like me to show you your future?"
"Jack?" she said, uncertain of her own senses, of her self.
"Would you like me to strip away the illusion, the imagery and reveal your inner truth?"
"It's you, it really is," she said as joy threatened to engulf her and she tempered it and quelled it with her rage.
"In death you'll find life, remember?" he asked her.
Raoul had died, slaughtered by her games, her foolishness. Her father was dead, she knew that now, not an alien who was whisked away at the last moment before he died. Her friends, her loves, Frankie whom she had thrown from a cliff-top, strangers whose name she would never know who had drowned by her hand, whose throats she had cut, whose heads she had removed - her husband ... her sister ... mother. Mother. All gone, all lost to life and for what? What had been gained? What does anyone gain who owns the world but loses their soul? What tide in the affairs of man had washed her ashore as this forsaken, forlorn flotsam?
"You're meant to be dead, too," she said and Jack seemed to laugh, though his lips barely moved and the sound of it was too faint to be definitely ascribed.
"You crazy, mad thing," he said as a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "You said it over and over, all the signs were in everything I showed you - nothing is real," and he reached forward and took her hand, "but my love for you, yours for me."
Her eyes moistened and tears fell down her cheek. She wiped them angrily away.
"No," she said, "I hate you!"
"Hate?" he said, "Love? Same coin, different toss," and he smiled openly, broadly, happily.
She looked into his face and felt her heart beating hard against her chest.
"No difference," she whispered and leaned towards him and kissed him.
"You have lost everything, now," he said, earnestly, pushing her from him yet still holding her tightly so she could not escape even had she wanted to, even had he wanted her to. "Are you ready to start again? No, not again," his head turned as he seemed to be struggling over the proper word - then he returned his glazed gaze to her, suddenly, excitedly, "No, not again - but anew."
She saw her reflection in his blackened shades and hated what it showed her - loved what it might yet reveal to her.
"I hate you so very, very much," she said.
"More than all the world, all the universe and all it holds?" he asked her.
"More than all of that, more than any of it," she said and he held her even more tightly than before so that she felt she would never breathe again and it didn't matter. None of it mattered, only that he was there with her that she was his again and he was hers.
"Do you know what Celly means?" he asked her as she nestled her head in his chest. She thought about her answer but said no words to express it and yet it seemed somehow that he had heard her for he hooked his forefinger under her chin and tilted her head towards him.
He said, "It means 'happy'," as he lifted her in his arms and carried her towards the bed.
She forced her eyes open, her mind to wakefulness and she sobbed.
"Jack."
It was more a whisper, now, as pain grasped her heart and constricted around her larynx.
"Your name is Celly," a man said, his face shrouded in the shadow of the room's doorway, his glove-clad hands barely illuminated by a dim street lamp that gleamed at her through her bedroom window. "You'll not feel like this for long."
"Why did you show me these things?" she asked, throwing back the blankets and stepping into her slippers as she bound her naked body with a gown. Her dark eyes were couched in anger and hatred. The words were forced from her through clenched teeth. "What's your act?"
"Do you know the meaning of your name?" he said in a voice so gentle even squawking children might have been mollified.
"I don't do pub quizzes," she sneered.
"Cecily. It means 'blind'."
"Yeah, that and two quid will buy me a coffee."
The man leaned forward slightly and light caught the firmness of his jaw, the kindness that seemed to set his mouth at a slightly quizzical, slightly mocking angle, and thick black lenses that hid his eyes from the world.
"I showed you your past, I showed you the personal Hell that you call your now. Would you like me to show you your future?"
"Jack?" she said, uncertain of her own senses, of her self.
"Would you like me to strip away the illusion, the imagery and reveal your inner truth?"
"It's you, it really is," she said as joy threatened to engulf her and she tempered it and quelled it with her rage.
"In death you'll find life, remember?" he asked her.
Raoul had died, slaughtered by her games, her foolishness. Her father was dead, she knew that now, not an alien who was whisked away at the last moment before he died. Her friends, her loves, Frankie whom she had thrown from a cliff-top, strangers whose name she would never know who had drowned by her hand, whose throats she had cut, whose heads she had removed - her husband ... her sister ... mother. Mother. All gone, all lost to life and for what? What had been gained? What does anyone gain who owns the world but loses their soul? What tide in the affairs of man had washed her ashore as this forsaken, forlorn flotsam?
"You're meant to be dead, too," she said and Jack seemed to laugh, though his lips barely moved and the sound of it was too faint to be definitely ascribed.
"You crazy, mad thing," he said as a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "You said it over and over, all the signs were in everything I showed you - nothing is real," and he reached forward and took her hand, "but my love for you, yours for me."
Her eyes moistened and tears fell down her cheek. She wiped them angrily away.
"No," she said, "I hate you!"
"Hate?" he said, "Love? Same coin, different toss," and he smiled openly, broadly, happily.
She looked into his face and felt her heart beating hard against her chest.
"No difference," she whispered and leaned towards him and kissed him.
"You have lost everything, now," he said, earnestly, pushing her from him yet still holding her tightly so she could not escape even had she wanted to, even had he wanted her to. "Are you ready to start again? No, not again," his head turned as he seemed to be struggling over the proper word - then he returned his glazed gaze to her, suddenly, excitedly, "No, not again - but anew."
She saw her reflection in his blackened shades and hated what it showed her - loved what it might yet reveal to her.
"I hate you so very, very much," she said.
"More than all the world, all the universe and all it holds?" he asked her.
"More than all of that, more than any of it," she said and he held her even more tightly than before so that she felt she would never breathe again and it didn't matter. None of it mattered, only that he was there with her that she was his again and he was hers.
"Do you know what Celly means?" he asked her as she nestled her head in his chest. She thought about her answer but said no words to express it and yet it seemed somehow that he had heard her for he hooked his forefinger under her chin and tilted her head towards him.
He said, "It means 'happy'," as he lifted her in his arms and carried her towards the bed.
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He laid her on the bed softly, gently, and tenderly hissed her cheek. She pulled him toward her and ripped off his shirt. He opened the button to his pants *CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED**CENSORED* “Oooh, Yes! Yes! Yes!” Cecily cried.
Just then, the man that had no face, well nothing that resembling a face but more like scars and loose skin that looked like it had been burnt in an inferno kind of an appearance, walked in and said “I’ll have some of what she’s having!”
“Oh no you won’t!” Jack shouted, whilst unsheathing his scabbard in a grammatically correct manner.
“Well okay, but could I at least have my digital camera back?”
“It’s… uh, oh Jack!” Celly began. “Ohh, eeeha, yes, yes, yes.” Celly continued. “It’s in the … Oh Jack Oh my God Jack, oh, oh oh.” *CENSORED* Celly let out a long sigh. “It’s in the foyer.”
The the man that had no face, well nothing that resembling a face but more like scars and loose skin that looked like it had been burnt in an inferno kind of an appearance, said “Thank you.” and left.
When Cecily awoke she found herself lying on a massive bed, soft and warm. A fire was glowing from the far side of the room and what a room it was, the most opulant room she had even been in.
She became dimly aware that something was changing. There was fog pouring out of the vents in the ceiling. She could hear strange laughter echoing from the other side of the door. It was coming from somewhere down the hall.
The closet door started to creak. It gradually started to fall open. Faster and faster, until it swung wide open, and a dozen, at least, heads of all different sizes and nationalities bounced towards her - some with fancy hats perched on top of them, some in wigs - but all screaming blue murder and revenge as their eyes were blazing with red LED’s.
She heard a train whistle blow from somewhere in the house. It sounded as if a train was starting to move down the tracks. Gradually picking up speed with a very unusual sounding repetition. “amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides amo-peptides , amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides.” It was getting louder and louder as if the train was approaching. Amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides. It was so loud now it was terrifying. Suddenly, the door to the room burst open and Jack jumped in with Archmage Briony, (Celly’s real mother) and said, “HAPPY HALLOWEEN!”
Just then, the man that had no face, well nothing that resembling a face but more like scars and loose skin that looked like it had been burnt in an inferno kind of an appearance, walked in and said “I’ll have some of what she’s having!”
“Oh no you won’t!” Jack shouted, whilst unsheathing his scabbard in a grammatically correct manner.
“Well okay, but could I at least have my digital camera back?”
“It’s… uh, oh Jack!” Celly began. “Ohh, eeeha, yes, yes, yes.” Celly continued. “It’s in the … Oh Jack Oh my God Jack, oh, oh oh.” *CENSORED* Celly let out a long sigh. “It’s in the foyer.”
The the man that had no face, well nothing that resembling a face but more like scars and loose skin that looked like it had been burnt in an inferno kind of an appearance, said “Thank you.” and left.
When Cecily awoke she found herself lying on a massive bed, soft and warm. A fire was glowing from the far side of the room and what a room it was, the most opulant room she had even been in.
She became dimly aware that something was changing. There was fog pouring out of the vents in the ceiling. She could hear strange laughter echoing from the other side of the door. It was coming from somewhere down the hall.
The closet door started to creak. It gradually started to fall open. Faster and faster, until it swung wide open, and a dozen, at least, heads of all different sizes and nationalities bounced towards her - some with fancy hats perched on top of them, some in wigs - but all screaming blue murder and revenge as their eyes were blazing with red LED’s.
She heard a train whistle blow from somewhere in the house. It sounded as if a train was starting to move down the tracks. Gradually picking up speed with a very unusual sounding repetition. “amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides amo-peptides , amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides.” It was getting louder and louder as if the train was approaching. Amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides, amo-peptides. It was so loud now it was terrifying. Suddenly, the door to the room burst open and Jack jumped in with Archmage Briony, (Celly’s real mother) and said, “HAPPY HALLOWEEN!”
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Peter Graham
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2007
- Messages
- 1,616
"You stupid josker!" shouted Cecily. "You frightened the bejasus out of me! What on earth are you doing dressed as an orange plastic pumpkin? You're a grown man! You're far too old for Halloween. Not one post ago you were exploring my CENSORED whilst I CENSORED CENSORED your CENSORED CENSORED CENSORED engorged CENSORED CENSORED shuddering CENSORED and now here you are, pratting about like a trick-or treating eight year old on a sugar rush! You're dumped!"
Jack's face fell, but Archmage Briony decided to intervene in a grammatically incorrect manner.
"dont be like that Cecily she said". "he's a good man and he killed Throb the Goblin king to save me from the ravenous hoards of goblins, at my castle, where I had been caprtured by them since but when before is."
"And who the hell are you?" demanded Cecily.
"im the archmage sorceress Briony" said the archmage sorcereess briony with a wink of her eyeball. Her magic cloak which was covered in strange Rune's swished forwards reflecting the candel light which glittered off of it in a lustrous sheen of glittering colours as she smiled "i am your mother".
"No you aren't" said Cecily. "You're an Unconvincing Plot Device. Now go away and let me tear a few more strips off Jack."
She turned to face Jack, who was trying to hide in a wardrobe.
"I want answers, Jack. Do you hear me? I want to know why I am being pursued, why my trophy head-hunting days are over, why I have an Alien Dad and two mothers, where I am at this precise moment in time and, above all, why my life has been hijacked by an addled former colonial, a tree-hugging firbolg and an odious little northern soot fettler.
Jack's face fell, but Archmage Briony decided to intervene in a grammatically incorrect manner.
"dont be like that Cecily she said". "he's a good man and he killed Throb the Goblin king to save me from the ravenous hoards of goblins, at my castle, where I had been caprtured by them since but when before is."
"And who the hell are you?" demanded Cecily.
"im the archmage sorceress Briony" said the archmage sorcereess briony with a wink of her eyeball. Her magic cloak which was covered in strange Rune's swished forwards reflecting the candel light which glittered off of it in a lustrous sheen of glittering colours as she smiled "i am your mother".
"No you aren't" said Cecily. "You're an Unconvincing Plot Device. Now go away and let me tear a few more strips off Jack."
She turned to face Jack, who was trying to hide in a wardrobe.
"I want answers, Jack. Do you hear me? I want to know why I am being pursued, why my trophy head-hunting days are over, why I have an Alien Dad and two mothers, where I am at this precise moment in time and, above all, why my life has been hijacked by an addled former colonial, a tree-hugging firbolg and an odious little northern soot fettler.
*****
The cat licked his front paw and proceeded to give his whiskers a clean. He pretended to ignore the shaggy wolfhound who had come into the dream sequence and was talking to the monkey.
"It's not that he thinks they are too parochial, per se", said the wolfhound with a brisk wag of her tail. "It's just that he thinks they are totally overrated and can't understand what all the fuss is about."
"But peace and love is good, isn't it?" asked the monkey.
"Of course. But traffic wardens, hallucinating walri and people who sleep in baths are not good and do not deserve to be praised in song. You've got to see the bigger picture."
"But they influenced so much, didn't they?" protested the monkey. "They infuenced Oasis and Beethoven and those chanting monks that uber-cool disc jockeys pretend to like. And they invented the modal scale, the relative minor, the middle eight, guitars, electricity and the concepts of parliamentary democracy and free universal health care at point of delivery!"
*****
Jack gave Cecily a weak smile.
"Well," he said. "It's like this...."
“The trap of being a character in a story is that you are at the mercy of your author, or in this case Author(s).” He lit up a cigarette, and blew 3 perfect concentric smoke rings, one right after the other each passing through the center of the previously puffed portion of pollution, and as he did so he wondered what had ever happen to those two characters named ‘smoke’ and ‘fire’ that were introduced back on pages 6 and 7. “And we're also at the mercy of their perilous narration as you might have noticed.”
“So, tell me jack is there such a thing as fate, or do we have free will?”
“In our case there certainly is no free will, and our fate is in the hands of our author/narrator/creator ones".
"But who is their creator? And who’s his creator, and who created the one who created the next one who created the other one that created the ones who created us?”
“You asking the wrong character. I think maybe you should go talk to the cat. He seems to be a pretty fart smeller, er, uh I meant smart feller.”
“Okay, maybe I will, but right now, could we have some more of that *CENSORED* stuff?”
“I’m up for it.” He paused with a grin. “get it… up for it?”
“Let’s dispene with the dumb jokes, and get on with it shall we?”
“Right.”
*CENSORED* *CENSORED* *CENSORED*
***
“Well that was fun, wasn’t it dear?
“Sort of. Am I imagining things or are you climaxing quite a bit more quickly than you used to?
“You must be imagining things Celly, I am the greatest lover since Don Quixote.”
“Didn’t you mean Don Juan?”
“Who’s Don Juan?”, He asked while buttoning his shirt.
Never mind.” She replied. “I’m going to talk to the cat… now where is that little cat?
Last time I saw him he was eating a banana.
“So, tell me jack is there such a thing as fate, or do we have free will?”
“In our case there certainly is no free will, and our fate is in the hands of our author/narrator/creator ones".
"But who is their creator? And who’s his creator, and who created the one who created the next one who created the other one that created the ones who created us?”
“You asking the wrong character. I think maybe you should go talk to the cat. He seems to be a pretty fart smeller, er, uh I meant smart feller.”
“Okay, maybe I will, but right now, could we have some more of that *CENSORED* stuff?”
“I’m up for it.” He paused with a grin. “get it… up for it?”
“Let’s dispene with the dumb jokes, and get on with it shall we?”
“Right.”
*CENSORED* *CENSORED* *CENSORED*
***
“Well that was fun, wasn’t it dear?
“Sort of. Am I imagining things or are you climaxing quite a bit more quickly than you used to?
“You must be imagining things Celly, I am the greatest lover since Don Quixote.”
“Didn’t you mean Don Juan?”
“Who’s Don Juan?”, He asked while buttoning his shirt.
Never mind.” She replied. “I’m going to talk to the cat… now where is that little cat?
Last time I saw him he was eating a banana.
Peter Graham
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2007
- Messages
- 1,616
"Here puss puss! Here puss!" said Cecily.
Interference
Destroyer of Words
The cat was phoning his stock broker and refused to answer to what he considered an insulting diminutive.
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