The Events of June 10th to July 6th - Chapter 21

June 10th

Christopher  - I and William began work on a small set of tiles for the caboose of the train. They would prove later we were here and had done our job. It was pertinent that we include Mark, even though he wasn't one of the "real" travelers for reasons I couldn't quite comprehend or remember. Most of the tiles were pretty ordinary, a few had symbols and geometric shapes that related our journey in a way we would remember later. The most Important was a portrait of all of us. Mark insisted being on the right side facing slightly left. Somehow it was all reminiscent of the Washington monument. We already knew this caboose was going into a museum in 2441. There was a large brass spittoon in there filled with murky water bugs, and plants. Somehow the humanity of the future started communicating with us through that murky portal. Granting reassurance mainly that our solution was working, and that the future is a nice place to be. When time traveling, subjects often become nearly hostile to coming home as their minds have to adjust to such a degree to feel as if they're from their new present, for them even to function in that world. The tiles would also offer continuity for our return, layers and layers of varnish were put over the top, to the protect them.

 Christopher Reynolds - Spittoon Portal with Tile Floor

Ria  - I glanced at Bill, while trying to keep the train steadfast. He looked seriously enough about the concert, so I thought, better go check that out. If I'm singing there, well ... things may go chaotic, people jumping off, can't have mishaps on this train ... I told Bill to feed the fire and stepped into the wagons to see.... to my dismay ... all hell had broken loose. Some train conductor I thought. Can't keep order. So I gave him the Medusa Gaze, uttered 'ah nee, niet met mij he jongen!' and asked BibI to blow and throw a bubble around all of them. That would contain them safely while snapping out of whatever they were on.

Some 10 billion miles from Earth, the decades-old twin Voyager spacecraft have beamed back new data that show frenzied Bibi bubbles near the edge of our solar system.

The next carriage was filled with water, sandy on the bottom, coming upward as I watched the waves roll towards me. I thought 'WOW! Swim time!" and jumped in, goggles on. Fish 'N Boots had followed me, and well, completely in his element, dove in, spraying me with water. The salty water was so inviting, the water was warm. Focus, I said to myself, that's Mark floating there. I went in, and suddenly as I started my crawl, the water cleared, all transparent, so, I dove down to get Mark up, he was so out-of-it, didn't seem to realize who's who and what's what and when 's when. At least, I thought, he's not giving me a struggle, that could 've been ugly. I dragged him out, heavy from the water in his clothes, and fell into a deck chair in carriage #$56*5.9. 

'Whew,' I said out loud, 'that was close.' I could do with a rest and a shot of 7 year old rum. Fish 'N Boots had been no help at all, damn fish! He'd put his head on the edge of the pool and started laughing at the sight of me sitting there, a completely drenched Mark on my lap. I started laughing too. Relieved that we were safe. A Roaring Laughter, so loud, each and every passenger on that train heard ...

 William Evertson - The Close Call

June 11, 2011 

William  - When I asked the waitress for more water she poured the whole pitcher over my head; which was the last of my dream I remembered as I sputtered, choked and eyed Fish N’ Boots standing over me holding a bucket, an empty bucket. Once again I was drenched. “What the bloody hell?” I shouted, ‘I thought I told you not to do that.” Ria’s face loomed over me as well and that’s when I realized I was flat on my back.  

“I think he’s ok,” Ria said to Fish, “nothing broken although there may be some pieces missing.”
Fish danced around me, flippers flailing, “Oh my god, oh my god, he took a direct Loose End blast, Ria, Ria, what should we do? That must have been a SueTwo Ether Flash Bang…Looky, looky..he’s covered in harmonica notes….damn well knocked him right on his arse it did!!!”
Ria held a small flashlight to my eyes, “damn, nothing in there except bubbles,” she declared. Fish looking puzzled asks, “That’s normal…right?....for him?”

Mara  - Turning back to take my seat, keeping the Eye in my peripheral vision, I sat down. "OH!, excuse me!" finding I was sitting on Gumby's lap. Gumby obligingly scooted over and I settled down with the letter still in my hand.

"That's a lovely letter," Gumby said.... it has a beautiful arc to it. I gazed at it abstractly while keeping time with the music. There was water was swirling down the aisle, more suggestive of a brooklet than a leak. I turned to see where it was going and saw the activities in and around the caboose. I excused myself from Gumby, and Pokey who had just shown up looking sleepy. Pokey took my seat as I walked back, watching the light from the end of the train reflect like sunlight off the surface of a pool.

 Mara Thompson - The Beautiful Arc

 June 12, 2011

William  - Batting the light from my eyes and looking down I struggled to focus, “What do you mean, pieces missing?”
“Not there! Men!!....one track minds,” Ria said as she pocketed the flashlight. BillyRay pushes Fish aside, “Dang!!!....Sue Tu looked like she went through you like greased lighting, like Lighting Hopkins, like Hopalong Cassidy, like….
“Quiet BillyRay, get him back to shoveling; that Sue Tu blast sucked all the oxygen from the fire box; we’re in danger of not making the nest!”
I tried to clear my head as Ria shoved the shovel back in my hands. BillyRay begins to sing The Wreck of the Number 9. “Can it, Billy, that’s the last song we need right now, Ria shouts; although her gaze probably would have been enough.
As I rebuild our steam, I notice that the Bibi bubbles are floating all around us; elongating, expanding and racing into the future.

 Lee Goldberg - Bubbles Become Balloons and Planets and On and On

I shovel fast and the RVE gains on their curvature.
Too fast it seems because suddenly we’re getting close enough for me to see the writing on the wall. That is, the inside of the bubbles have words and pictures. The most delicate illustration and beautiful script….they shimmer with a Haggadah luminosity, looking almost like they were written in gold.
I suddenly realize we’re going too fast, that we’re about to breach the present.
I look to Ria but her face is serene. Then we do….we crash through that bubble like an eggshell and the RVE nestles into a soft mass of twigs, moss and hair.
Hair, long masses of it.
I look around and think to myself that this is the largest nest I’ve ever seen. Plus, that egg we just broke through is or was pretty darn impressive as well.
Ria hops from the cab and yells’ “Come on Fish, grab your dancing shoes, we’re getting Susan back.” 

June 14, 2011

Mark  -  With Sammy's eye opening wider in the sky I glanced down for a moment and I could see the tiny train pulling into position below me with the bubbles emerging from the 2nd car just as I was told they would be. Now I was headed full speed ahead toward the balloon above me that only moments before had been a bubble, yet there had somehow been enough time for Lee and I to take a tour over the mountain, for me to leap out, make some adjustments grab a bird leg speeding by and now for me to return, being pulled like a high octane water skier behind this glorious owl. I could tell Lee was ecstatic to see me clinging to the thundering bird and approaching at what must have seemed like light speed but as she leaned forward and extended her hand I whizzed right by and had no time to explain or even to smile back. I must have been moving between 80 and 90 miles an hour and concentrating as hard as I could with remnants of the mantra still on my lips as I let go of the owl's thorny claw with my other hand, as the speckled bird tilted its head back and veered away from the balloon as I went flying past Lee, past the giant flaming cauldron over her head and directly into the circular hole at the bottom of the balloon. I had threaded the needle and was now inside the orb as I tucked my legs up under me, bent my knees slightly, twisted my waist 18 degrees to the left, leaned my head down with my neck extended and elongated my chin the way the squirrels had showed me in what seemed like thousands of practice moves. I had only 1 more second before I went smashing into the balloon that I saw spreading out in front of me and as crazy as it seemed, I knew there was no where else I could possibly be.

 

Christopher  - These moves with the right amount of practice (thousands of times) made shape shifting easy, watching Mark, I decided to give it a try, knees bent and hands straight to the ground I turned into a bear and climbed a tree, when one of the owls said with just a glance.. (something like you know flying will get you up there much quicker), I stood up put my arms in my pockets and they became wings, spreading them out I flew up to the balloon. Soon it all became more like a dream flashes of white lightning (inside the balloon?) and what I think was me and Mark, but looked more like a pair of spiders, one orange and the other more like a crazy bit of growing organic white thread, soon we created a matrix within the balloon. The last thing I heard as I went though the eye of the web, is "This is the birthplace", but the birthplace of what I couldn't say.

LuAnn -  I arrived quite late to the party, not fully understanding our destination but completely trusting my mates. I joined them at the valley of pyramids with a mix of great joy and trepidation.

LuAnn Palazzo (photo by Mara Thompson) - Entry to Analogue from the Bubble Field

 No one knew of my deep and tremendous fear of squirrels. I had to keep my terror bottled up inside because, oh, how they all adored their blues. How could I tell them of the grey vermin of my youth who unspeakably maimed my parents and stole my little brother away. I had to hide the dreaded teeth marks they left on me, too. No, I could never speak of that night ever, ever again.

But I could offer them some of my homemade squirrel jerky...

Mark  -  As my body smashed full speed into the surface of the inside of the balloon, still being powered the thrust of the owl who was now probably a mile away, I felt my temple, cheek, shoulder, ribs on my right side, hips and legs all hit the bouncy, springy, curved plane simultaneously. It made a funny BOING sound sort of coupled with the deep bassy resonance reminiscent of that guy with the deep voice on the Coasters' records, the way he used to sound. That is not how I knew I had done it right. It was the simultaneous contact i made with all those body parts that made me feel I had nailed it. I would have crossed my fingers but that would have screwed up the precise shape. On the other side of the balloon, seen from the outside, I could only hope that the right raised image had manifested itself as the squirrels had instructed me it would if I did this right. Then on the rebound in front of me I saw an orange blur that looked like Christopher flying around haphazardly in a circle. He was looking at me, imitating me it seemed, then began to bounce around like a pinball in a tilted world in search of a home. But I did not care, I had created the “Red circle becoming a cone,” I was told about and and on the train below me, hopefully the rest, including a double of myself, were all staring into something blue, creating the "downward looking cone, the vortex, the nadir."

Sure enough, on the train, Susan was staring straight down through the time slit that had opened in the floor and whispered to no one in particular that "nadir is an anagram for drain" as Ria, noticing Susan's whispers, seemingly nonchalantly, uttered the operative words ending the things I had set in motion: “If Fibonacci strikes we might all be lost” when all of a sudden Mt. Analogue erupted with a great crack of thunder and nuts again started to fall from the trees and the train came screeching to a halt as a balloon got tangled up in the cow catcher. Each nut falling down and bubble floating up was accompanied by it's double, nuts falling up from the ground and lodging in the trees where tiny green monkeys had been waiting all along and with bubbles falling from the sky, released by what looked like a giant spider web inside the balloon where I was. Sammy's eye shed a tear and began to open wider.

June 17, 2011

Mark  - Noticing a rumbling, Ria, sitting in the train asked Christopher, “Is Mount Analog a volcano?" But before he could answer she interrupted him... "With a 66% possibility, 1 aqarqi = 253.2 litres ± 5.5 litres." "Contra, Porque es esto tan importante? Why is this important?" Bibiana asked in between bubbles. Reaching for a note Mara had in her pocket, Susan's double explained, "When Mark smashed into the top of the balloon, his body made a shape exactly like the one on the left of the three here." She held up the note, taking it from Mara, "It is a zig zag shape that is part of a 3-part 'word' used to depict one aqarqi." Ria added, That's the amount of fluid that can be used to fill up a Klein bottle." According to Bill who started thumbing through a notebook, "Urartian, Vannic, and (in older literature) Chaldean are conventional names for the language spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu that was located in the region of Lake Van, with its capital near the site of the modern town of Van, in the Armenian Highland, modern-day Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey. It was probably spoken by the majority of the population around the lake Van and in the areas along the upper Zab valley." Leading Mara to add quite convincingly, "In Urart, a kingdom in northeastern Anatolia from 860 BC to 580 BC, a aqarqi is a unit of capacity. And that," she said, piointing at the note, "is how they wrote it." Bibiana, surpised, chuckled and a bubble emerged from her lips which Christopher then angrily popped.

Mark Bloch - Symbol Set

June 26, 2011

Susan - A great crack of thunder smashed my eardrums as turbulent winds started to swirl and engulf me. Suddenly a rainbow of vibrant colours instantly appeared moving directly for me. Streams of pulsating orange, purple, red and gold strings of air morphed out of the dense dark fog reaching rapidly to embrace my body. Twigs and moss were flying everywhere and I thought I heard the sound of a train coming straight towards me, which was highly impossible under the circumstance. A whistle seemed to be crying in the background but had to be in reality thunder echoing through the mountains.
I was so high on a cliff that this was impossible. The only way down this nest, would be to fly or fall. I tried to protect my face with my hands. I prudently opened my fingers a bit to peek through. I caught sight of dashes of blues glowing in the sky and then I realized it was the silhouettes of the bobbing owls. They were hovering in the distance, trying to stay at this altitude but were being tossed by the billowing wind in all directions. The sky was turning to an ugly steel grey as their wings were losing altitude while courageously trying to reach the nests.
I heard muffled noises and felt confusion and turmoil. I had to close my eyes because all the feathers, dirt and debris were stinging my eyes. My tangled hair was yanked abruptly as I began to crash. Amidst the turmoil I heard bubbles popping and it felt like I was being covered in slime. “Ech…. how gross, what the heck is going on?” I started to remove the guck from my eyes and opened my lashes as I heard giggling in the background.

I smiled and sat still for a moment before I put my quill down. I looked at the illustration next to the words I had just penned. “Ok, I think that is enough for today” I left my manuscript and rose to put more logs on the fireplace.

June 28, 2011

Christopher  - Sitting next to the fire place with Susan I perchance to notice owl quill ink mixing with candle wax on the sandstone table forming crows stealing jewels from the sky.. and selling them to reluctant owls for question marks.

Mark  - As I came cascading off of the inside of the balloon and saw the impression of my body in that strange shape, I remembered the zig zag bridge of the Jinci Temple in Taiyuan.over the Jin river in China. It nowadays consists of a superb ensemble of buildings, scattered in a park, and interspersed with rivers and lakes, temples, ritual bridges, theatres, pavillons, kiosks, and palaces. I saw it when I was at the base of the Mount Xuanweng , 25 km southwest of Taiyuan, this temple was built during the 11th century BC. It was regularly improved and extended, notably under the Tang and Song dynasties. “Its shape is supposed to protect from the bad spirits,” the tour guide told me then, “who only can go straight forward. But it also reminds that we should not fall for the illusion of certainties, symbolized by the straight line.” I remembered that. As we traversed up the mountain only weeks ago, I remember Mara telling me that a zig zag shape is not so boring as a straight line. Well now there it was, a concave zig zag line on the inside of the balloon, presumably making a convex shape on the outside. I could only guess what effect this was having. The last thing I remember out there was Sammy’s glass eye opening wider and wider and something glistening inside it. Was it a tear? A peradam? I had to get out of this balloon and take a look.

June 29, 2011

William  - Ria stood and surveyed the slope that loomed around us like a vast cauldron. From my vantage in the engine it looked to be a fantastic construction made of twigs, moss, mud, bones, hair and leaves. No, not leaves, I realize as a few stray ones float past me. Pages from books, manuscripts, notebooks. Some illustrated with beautiful pen and brushwork as fine as I’ve ever seen.
Ria points to a river of curly golden hair tangled and interwoven into this nest and calls to Fish, “We’re heading upstream.”
Fish N’ Boots looks over his shoulder (well, not exactly since he really doesn’t have shoulders. It was more like he turned his head) and fixed an eye on me. There was a look of dread in that eye but for once he didn’t argue and began to work his way up fin over flipper.
My eyes followed the curly mass up to the rim and I knew who we would find; I just didn’t know what changes would have taken place in our Susan.
Ria turned to me and extended and upturned palm of her hand and said, use this to gather up our passengers. I stared but couldn’t make out what she was offering.
“I don’t understand Ria”
“Klein Bottle,” she replied, “The container of vast emptiness.”

Lee  - A note re: analogue trains...it seems the trains enter one tunnel, but then the tracks split into four different directions.  
Each direction will go to a different area of the island...or...something else entirely...one direction goes to the future, one to the past...one direction will take the riders home...the other of the four ? on one really knows-yet...the tickets do not have any information of destination ...they come out of a slot just as the rider enters the train...which means..take a ticket-take a chance.. 

July 3, 2011

Susan  -  Explosions of colours and sounds collided inside of me. Splinters of time stabbed into my psyche. Different sensations of movement and fractured images shattered into my consciousness as I tumbled down into an endless chasm banging against transparent bluish tinted walls of time, as obscure formed arcane symbols smashed into my being. I bounced and swirled from one bubble like structure and burst into another as I gathered momentum with each pop. Unfamiliar lines of energy forces cascaded through my constricted veins pulsating violently and deep into my palpitating heart. I heard my blood throbbing in my ears as I descended. Years were bombarded together, flash imaging of obscure people overlapped, paint, ink, feathers, noise, music, whistles, gold, blue, aromas,wind. “I must be astral traveling again!” Remember just visualize home!” But, I could not figure out where that was at this moment as I was plummeting out of control down the lenticular mountain. “Focus Susan, now grab that red rope!” As I jerked my hand, my projection snapped and folded back to reality. It is getting harder and harder to stop time.

July 4, 2011

William  -  “But it’s non-orientable.!” I shout after her, but she’s already hauled herself past the reach of my voice. I stare at the emptiness Ria handed off to me and couldn’t help thinking the thing I could really use in this instance is an alice universe.
I look up to the receding figures for a clue and catch Fish looking back briefly and he seems to be blowing bubbles. “What the heck?” I think to myself but then he points a flipper back at the train.
I look down the length of the RVE and it strikes me all at once as I see the bubbles escaping from the window of one of the passenger cars. Cradling the emptiness in both hands I shout to BillyRay, “Give me a boost to the top of the cars.”
Billy looks up from his guitar where he’s been idly plucking out Born in Chicago and says, “What’s the matter partner? Use the ladder,” and then starts in again on the second stanza.
“I got my hands full here…a little help please.”
BillyRay looks at my emptiness and obviously doesn’t see a damn thing because he shakes his head and keeps on playing.
At that moment I started to steam more than the RVE. I gently set the Klein bottle on its side next to Susan’s rucksack….or maybe it’s the top….maybe it was the….oh crap, who knows, the damn thing is non orientable and completely empty inside or outside no matter how you look at it.
I grab BillyRay; sling him and his guitar over my shoulder and march straight into the first car.
“Hi Mark, Hi Lee”….I nod and greet everyone as I make my way down the corridor. “Hi Mara, I see you got my card…Bibi, keep making those bubbles”….
I’m stopped by a tap on my shoulder, and turn slowly. “Ticket please,” Christopher asks.
BillyRay squirms, reaches into his vest pocket and says, “I’ve got em.”
I think to myself, “Of course you do,” and continue walking.
“William, your receipt”, Christopher calls after me but I’m already pushing open the door labeled STORÀGE. BillyRay’s eyes go wide.

 Mark Bloch - The Baroness Steps Back into our Lives

Mark  -  There were two sides of the mountain. One dark one light. The zig zag shape I had made on the inside of the balloon as instructed by the squirrels was now obviously the same zig zag shape that went up the side of the mountain in the form of a trail to the various huts. We had walked it a million times it seemed, but never from beginning to end. Only in fits and starts. Interruptions were the norm but why had we never noticed before? As I emerged from the balloon with Lee shouting something below me with arms flailing, I could see it so clearly now for the first time: the path on the mountain zigged and zagged from dark to light. Just then however the ultimate interruption engulfed my consciousness and yanked my attention: Sammy Davis Junior's eye opened as wide as it could above in the sky and as I heard the second verse of Born In Chicago winding down echoing through the sky, a giant glowing orb emerged from the eye socket, as if giving birth to an entire new world, familiar yet never seen before.

William  - I push hard and the door opens with a slam, startling the occupants of STORÀGE. Three small squirrels scurry between my legs; two of them pulling and one pushing what appears to be a small wagon. My eyes have to adjust to the dim light because the shades are completely drawn, then I focus first on Sigrún, then Sue-Tu, then Maku. “I’ve got some entertainment for you folks,” I say as I plop BillyRay into the nearest seat.

A woman peered over the top of a Vanity Fair magazine and purred, “welcome puppet boy and what’s your name?”
“That would be BillyRay”, I called back as made my exit, all the while thinking there was something vaguely familiar about the woman wearing the Campbell soup can brassiere.
I made my way back through the car, snatching my receipt from Christopher’s hand on the way. I felt everyone’s eyes follow me but I didn’t care; I needed to get the Klein bottle before anything else complicated my life.
Opening the door into the engine compartment I looked down to where I left the emptiness but it was gone.
“Damn…damn…damn,”I shouted at the void.….everything was gone, our supply of loose ends and the shovel; suddenly the train’s whistle turned inside out and disappeared. “Susan’s going to be mad,” I thought to myself as I spotted the corner of her rucksack starting to vaporize. I reached for it as the contents inside outed themselves and were gone.
I managed to grip something solid and pulled hard only to find I was holding a Playgirl magazine.

Mark  -  Angela and Jane suddenly appeared. No one had seen them in months save for a glance out the window only moments before when someone spotted Angela.Katherine and Cathy were still missing in action. But now it was as if Jane and Angela had somehow materialized from within the pages of the magazine Bill held. Angela held in her hand 11 tiny pieces of paper--notes--which she then fanned out like someone would a hand in a game of poker. In Portugese she whispered to Christopher, "These papers must be distributed among the 11 people I see before me, including yourself. Each person gets one. The notes are in Portugese but I am sure you will be able to understand them. Give the notes to the person you believe should receive it but be careful because the last note remaining belongs to you. Jane looked on knowingly as Christoper read aloud the notes, one by one, did not distribute them but placed them in his hat. Suprisingly, his Portugese translation was impeccable:

1-man's escape from the prison of his robotic egotistical self

2-peak of the holy mountain emerges out of the fog

Mara Thompson - Peak

3-group of people who were in prison and had to renounce it-
"the drama being that they are attached to it"

4-Daumal was a natural in the mountains and a quick learner. He learned from his brother Jack. In 1939 and 40 Daumal had TB and the doctors recommended mountain air but no more climbing.

5-The mountain is "the path uniting earth and heaven."

Mara Thompson - The Path

6- IT IS THE WAY THE DIVINE REVEALS ITSELF TO MAN

7-GURDJIEFF CREATED ALARM CLOCKS--LITTLE REMINDERS TO WAKE ONESELF UP

Mara Thompson - #7 Hours Uncertain

8-people who drop out hit stumbling blocks on the way to enlightenment

9-Daumal's favorite questions: who are we, who are you?

Mara Thompson - Favorite Questions

10-remove the Trappings of ones own personality shedding ones personalities

11-THE HEIGHTS OF SELF KNOWLEDGE

When Christopher's careful reading was done and the group stood in a semi-circle in the train aisle with mouths agape Jane broke the silence with a subtle smirk on her face, "Well I'll be damned, he nailed it."

July 6, 2011

William  - Meanwhile in STORÀGE – The Baroness lowered her tabloid, tilted her head slightly and with an innocent batting of her eyelashes said, “Tell me BillyRay, have you seen the woman called Susan?”
BillyRay, clearly taken over by her intense presence, practically gushed as he told the story of Susan’s departure by owl. “And I expect she’s at the top of the nest right now, Elsa, I can call you Elsa, right?”
“BillyRat, I prefer that you refer to me as Baroness, and lower your eyes when I speak,” Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven replied.
“Ray….BillyRay,” BillyRay said quietly as his eyes caught sight of the caged and crestfallen canary between her cans.
“Perhaps you can help me, Billy, you see I am looking for this Susan woman, rather urgently I might add; I could use a guide. I think it may be in your best interest to lend a hand to a lady in need. Don’t you agree that chivalry is rather lacking in today's society?”
BillyRay’s eyes returned to the Baroness’ bird-like features, “Susan’s not half bad you know! A little flighty’s all,” giggling at his own joke. “What’s your connection to our owl smitten gal?”
The Baroness’ smile vanished as she replied, “Lets say that our heart beats as one and that shouldn’t be.” “Claude, fetch my blunderbuss,” she called over her shoulder.
BillyRay looked past the Baroness at one of the largest men he had ever seen. “You must be the Baron?” he asked.
“Nope….I’m Claude.”

Susan  -  “Is this reality, and who’s?” I wondered. I was bobbing and floating along in a pink translucent bubble, hovering next to huge bay windows keeping pace with the speed of the red caboose. I rubbed the interior of my enclosure with my hair trying to discover what was going on. I was rather shaken and cramped in this sphere with all the debris that was sucked by the winds and nestled against my body. My view was blurry but I could make out some shapes and faces through the film the more I wiped the murky mist from my vision. There were Billy Ray’s big shiny white teeth sparkling like diamond beacons in the dim light as he tilted his cowboy hat at some woman sporting a veil. Yup, couldn’t miss that “Big old country “golly gee” pose of his. In her hand it seemed like she held a green vial. I stared at her, vaguely placing her somewhere. Then it hit me, oh ya..she hit me. My finger started to pulsate where I recalled how her bullet had penetrated me. And, something long and shiny was being handed over to her. I shuddered momentarily as I felt a tiny sensation near my earlobe and moved my trembling hand to explore it. 

 Susan Shulman - The Soft, Warm Purring Entity

 A soft, warm and purring entity was humming quietly into my ear. Carefully, I glided my curious fingers and suddenly felt a wing fluttering slowly against my lashes as feathers were beating gently near my mouth. I turned my face for a moment and saw the huge wide-open, unblinking blue eyes staring back at me tenderly. One of the eggs had hatched!

William Evertson - Susan's New Brood