CLIFF NOTES - (Scroll to bottom for Glossary)
Chapter summaries courtesy of Mark Bloch
The Mt. Analogue Sequel Glossary of Noh Rhymes Noh Reasons
How Climbers Arrive
Mara, Susan, Ria and William seem to arrive spontaneously and are in the midst of an exploratory climb. (10/7/10)
Lee – Mentioned first as attending a blue squirrel party on 10/8/10
10/23/10 Appears in forest with “a” Mara (illusion?)
Lee appears to be watching the group from afar and reluctant to contact them.
Lee also officially arrives by boat on 11/27/10
Mark – Arrives in a vial that has been floating in the water at the shore of Mt. Analogue (11/18/10)
By 11/24 tempting Mark from his vial has resulted in his partial reconstitution. (due to a bit of squirrel mischief)
Jane, Cathy, Angela and Bibiana arrive by boat. (11/28/10) they have been summoned by mail art messages and Cracker Jack boxes.
Themes:
Disappearance
Climbers may disappear for no apparent reason.
Ria – 10/9/10 Into ground
William and Mara 10/15/10 – From studio (or ship?)
Mara (10/23/10) – through Driftwood and again on 10/25
Lee mentions possibilities of Time Warps (10/23/10)
Ria through Driftwood on 10/27/10 (finds Mara)
Appearances
Susan’s Loophole (10/15/10
SuTwo via a midair collision with Susan (10/25/10)
Dictionary
ISHKABIBBLE - Incantation
Terma - Tradition holds that terma may be a physical object such as a text or ritual implement that is buried in the ground (or earth), hidden in a rock or crystal, secreted in a herb, or a tree, hidden in a lake (or water), or hidden in the sky (space). Though a literal understanding of terma is "hidden treasure", and sometimes objects are hidden away, the teachings associated should be understood as being 'concealed within the mind of the guru', that is, the true place of concealment is in the terton's mindstream. If the concealed or encoded teaching or object is a text, it is often written in dakini script: a non-human type of code or writing.
Torma - figures made mostly of flour and butter used in tantric rituals
Doubles
(The exact nature of doubles is not clear – whether they are from different times or places or perhaps the climbers have the ability to perceive things differently on the slopes of Analogue)
First noted 10/12/10 William seems not to realize he has been climbing with Susan that day
Mara and William interact with Susan while Mara and Ria interact (beginning on 10/13)
Lee interacts with Mara(2) on (10/23/10)
SuTwo/Susan – (10/25/10) - first appearance.
Time
Mark introduces The End of Mt. Analogue. (12/1/10) - Found as a separate note under Mara's FB "Note" tab. The novel ends and is written in reverse.
Time Fissures mentioned (12/3/10) Several time fissures are plugged with musical notes on 12/5/10 and produce water.
Music:
Susan's harmonica mentioned (10/28/10)
It’s use in thin air (10/10/10) Breathing through the stems of eight notes.
To resuscitate SuTwo (10/28/10) Harmonica use in CPR
Big Blue can hum (10/19/10)
Small Blues sing sea shanties (11/21/10)
Tibetan Singing Bowl introduced (11/22/10) Used in combination with sea shanty notes on 12/5/10 to provide water source for blues.
Whistles mentioned on (12/1/10)
Born in Chicago" by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band - first mention by Susan (10/10/10) - Mentioned as the last song in "The End of Analogue" note
Animals:
Blue Squirrels
They stash things in their cheeks
(10/7/10 – A Campbell Soup label which may also be a map)
(10/19/10 – Big Blue – also a map
Appear to eat map (10/12/10)
Make origami (10/12/10)
Big Blue makes off with Ria’s rucksack – eats her chocolate and marvels at her waffle iron. (10/19/10
Give scalp massages – (10/19/10)
Small one scratches a tattoo into William (10/23)
Appear to argue with Mark who is in a vial (11/21/10)
Dips tail in vial contents (11/24/10)
Green Fairy (mentioned 10/19/10
Green Monkeys (mentioned 10/19/10
Lee explains further on (11/24/10)
Lee follows green monkey further into a cave on 12/3/10
Portents:
Papers are folded into eights (10/7/10)
A prism breaks into eights (10/9/10)
Bells, Doorbells (occurrences on 10/13/10 although Campbell occurs 10/7/10
Mara is a bell on 10/18/10 (see also Gongs and Bowls)
Nuts fall and hit people which trigger events (10/12, 10/13/10)
Susan's Ishkibble vision (12/1/10)
Nourishment:
Belgian chocolate (10/10/10)
Self Gathering Nuts and orchards of self-gathering nut trees (10/10/10)
Campbells Soup (10/7/10 Three Varieties Think, Don’t Think and Don’t Believe What You Think 10/15/10
Waffles (10/23/10
Objects and Talismans:
Gloves First mention 10/9/10)
Belgian origami gloves 10/14/10
Ria and Mara divine meaning from (10/15/10)
Mara picks up Mark with glove (11/24/10)
Glove linings contain a map (12/5/10)
Prism (10/9/10)
Numbers
Pairs of gloves
Paper folded into eights
Ria speaks in prime numbers (11/11/10)
William’s map is a Heart Curve projection (10/22)
Fibonacci (Mark mentions on 11/24/10)
Red Cowboy Boots
Susan is wearing them on 10/9/10
On 10/13 they disappear off Susan’s feet (replaced by Blue Mukluks)
SuTwo has them on in William's drawing of Susan's reccue of SuTwo
Ria lands in them during her glissade of the Waterfall
Red Climbing Rope
(10/7/10) Mara posts picture with red rope (William comments on the similarity of red ropes to Zen koans "Songyuan asked, Why can't clear-eyed Bodhisattvas sever the red thread?")
(10/12/10) Mara arrives with Japanese Spider weave
(Ria begins an abseil of the waterfall with red rope 10/18/10
William is pulled into the sky (11/25/10)
Gongs and Bowls
First mention on 10/14
Used by Ria 11/25
Notes used again on 12/5/10
Waffle Iron:
Found in Ria’s rucksack (10/19/10)
Used by blues to crack nuts (12/1/10)
Ria's Blue Bicycle:
first mentioned 11/22/10 - sometimes randomly changes color
(introduced same time as Tibetan bowl)
Cracker Jacks Prizes
first introduced when Angela, Cathy, Bibiana and Jane arrived
the prizes may exceed the size of a cracker jacks box (12/16/10)
Events:
Ria learns to fly (10/13/10)
Ship runs aground and the Peradam Waterfall discovery (10/16/10)
Susan rejoins group via a Loophole (10/15/10)
Susan destroys Peradam Waterfall 10/18/10 (During same event Ria glissades the falling debris of the waterfall and lands in red boots)
Susan learns Leaping/Flying (10/25/10)
Mara learns of the Squirrel water dilemma (10/25/10)
Mara discovers the Islands of Stability (11/7/10)
William swims to retrieve the seahorse and returns with a vial instead. (Contains Mark)
William’s shadow attempts to drink the vile liquid and instead becomes a Mark mold. (11/24/10)
Ria teaches William to fly (11/25/10)
Unicorn Whirlwind (12/1/10)
Mara's admonitions to aid the blues begins (12/1/10)
Mark writes the ending (12/1/10) see Maras FB Note "The End of Mount Analogue"
Chapter summaries courtesy of Mark Bloch
PREQUEL
A mountain climbing never-ending haiku:
Time and space explains nothing to the travelers. Pass me a waffle
Pass me a waffle. The crispy outside reminds. Hard shell hides soft heart
Susan's great Grandad’s long russet ringlets had protected him from harm when he was in fighting against the Reds. This talent was gifted to our family and handed down through generations when my ancestors were conjuring with Merlin.
Mara receives invite A trek to "the unknown"... oh sure, a cruise ship spot on a well worn route for a feeble old woman.
Mara arrives at Bill’s house and throws impressive Japanese spider weave red rope on the floor. Ria: I had read MA, how I had wanted to go on the expedition, how I enjoyed being a part of our team, a tight group.
Susan wonders later why did she go on this adventure with these exotic and unpredictable people? "Some, I had never met. The common thread was Bill. We all knew Bill."
What they were engaged in now had started as a brief exploratory climb intended to merely stretch our legs after the voyage.
Jane, Cathy, Angela, and Bibiana each receive a mysterious package from a mysterious unknown source which they each independently reshape and refold to reveal a map and a one way boat ticket from various locations to an unnamed location in the South Pacific along with a box of crackerjacks and they decide what the hell, let's all go to this place in the South Pacific, making arrangements to be away for about two years.
They leave and arrive at the base of Mount Analogue. Once there, each opens the box of crackerjacks, consume the contents and each take out a different "prize" realizing they need to fit together and thus discover their first instructions on how to reach the next camp safely where they go and find four more boxes of crackerjacks awaiting with each of their names on them.
CHAPTER 1
Bill bangs the can into the shape of a squirrel. A real squirrel comes over and the world stops. It peels the label off the can He stashes it in his cheek divided into 8ths. Why did we bring cans?
The squirrel cuts his hand and then he and Ria disappear.
Susan grabs the rope and tries to pull Ria back but instead a glove flies at her. A pic on it of a woman in a blue dress with a unibrow and skulls. Susan takes Bills mag glass and sees many kaleidoscopic squirrels, psychedelia.
"Fragments of prism and a soup label folded in 8ths. Turned on its side equals staring at infinity." Says Mara and they eat. Meanwhile Ria is lost in Talking Heads land. The others can hear her singing in the distance. Ria sees colors and blue kaleidoscopic prismatic colors. Squirrels walk by and touch her legs.
Bill is dancing. Susan sees notes going up from the mouth of the mountain??? Follows them into a cave and is transported back to 1967. Mara sees a cloud covering the land and decides Ria must be saved. Now Mara, Bill and Susan drink Oxygenated notes and scurry down a hole with their red rope to where Ria is in a peradam studded cavern, singing “the blue song”
CHAPTER 2
Susan has gloves given to her that were made by her great grandfather with red rope mentioned. A blue eats a map. (a big boom and then) Nuts fall from the trees. Bill looks at peradams and sees himself reflected in many different guises. Some obscure squirrel magician was holding Bill in a concealed chamber. An icy isolation barrier blocking all other sounds, sights and concerns. Susan tried to reach him but couldn’t. Mara had disappeared. Everything went black for Ria.
Mara was rolling on the ground, blue squirrels line up and give her back the map. A bell rings somewhere in the distance. The map lights her way and she finds Ria. We were meant to be on this slope, how I always was carried off by my curiosity, leading to beautiful findings, chasing after squirrels. As nut hits Susan’s head then falls on ground and grows, she hears a command to rub the bell she hears a doorbell ring when she presses the squirrel button and Bill answers the door and Mara is in there. Susan laughs and cries. Her boots have turned blue to help her read the map. Blue squirrel is now wearing red boots. Meanwhile Mara and Ria are interacting, talking about the map. When Ria had it, it was blank. Then Ria starts looking at the glove. Susan sees Bill and Mara are cardboard cut outs hanging on a red line.
CHAPTER 3
Susan walks into the cutouts or something and falls down. She gets up and waves hands over the window and door but something isn’t good. She notices something amiss with the front door. Open or closed? She thinks back.
She remembers a long uphill walk in her red boots. And sitting in a café where a waiter handed her a red rope.
As Bill is building tsuff amidst a pattern-filled busy studio-workshop, Susan’s feet are now in blue furry mukluks. She is hungry so she begins opening cupboards. Finds label-less cans. And then cans with labels about thinking.
Ria vaguely recalls that Big Blue’s glove was once within her possession. Mara recommends putting the map and glove on a boulder and the two of them begin moving them around mathematically, trying to see the future.
Susan is still hungry, still searching. On a wooden ledge with cut marks she notices embellished notes stamped with Bill’s monkey chop and inspects them. Behind the cutouts of Bill and Mara she sees a room divider with blue squirrel pattern in 8s. She takes a picture with her macro-digitizer to show Mara who will interpret the symbols later. Behind the divider she also sees a table with a blender on it and a bathtub. She concludes Bill is a good-doing alchemist in search of peradams making paper outs of soup can labels. From the corner of her eye, Susan sees a way out while staring at the cutouts.
An achy Mara and Ria look at the map and glove some more. They share a snack and then contemplate the label of a can, walking ten steps in each direction in search of water to orient themselves. It is revealed they are surrounded by invisible walls and curious sensations. They see rocks with lingum-shaped peradams in a cavern and nervously draw them. Ria walks to a porthole, looks out at the sea and it flies open. She awakes on a bed of grass and sees a waterfall.
Mara is dreaming. Ria writes she had disappeared into blue light, over an expanding drop into a cave showing her coordinates. She turned to speak to Mara but she was alone.
Bill Mara (and Ria?) are on a boast that has run aground, Bill has appeared and helps Mara up. They look up at a nearby waterfall with peradams in it, and notice instead of eroding it is bubbling into existence before their eyes. They decide to climb to the top. Mara calls to the boat for Susan to bring ropes
Susan has created a cone atop her head and made hair extensions with the rope then ties a rope around her shoulders as she hears Mara calling so she trudges across the shore pulling the rope in her mukluks. Bill and Mara admire her hair and we learn they have been gone 1/3 of a year with 2/3 more remaining on their journey.
Susan scolds Bill and Mara for suddenly turning into black and white cutouts. Bill explains to the reader and to Susan that his and Mara’s peak-selves had overloaded and arc-flashed them to their present location. Negative potential has been jettisoned but remains behind as a loophole. Apparently Susan, in the doorbell situation, had entered an unstable situation.
Susan sees Ria and Mara doubles atop the waterfall.
Meanwhile, at the top, Ria turns back to the map, still in her mysterious scene with Mara and hears water but it is blue diamond shapes tumbling down over the drop. She looks over the edge and sees Susan looking up at her. The two scenes are joined. She calls and waves then descends to the waterfall but starts laughing and falls into an abyss.
Mara has turned into an uncontrollable ringing sound and calls out to Ria that they should reunite. She drifts off into pleasant reverie.
CHAPTER 4
Bill also sees and calls to the figures atop the waterfall as Ria disappears leaving only a rope to be seen. Susan scrambles to the base of the Falls then up to save Ria. A symphony of ruining sounds. Mara and Bill run to catch up. Susan pulls a a chock, a simple wired hexcentric ???, from her hair and sticks it in the rocks but it turns to sand and then a black void. She places a roller cam with similar result. A peradam sheet crashes down as Bill pulls Susan out of the way. The rock formation looks fragile. Bill looks up with a magnifying scope and sees a vibrating transparent stringy Mara like figure. It absells over Ria and down. Ria has reappeared from the abyss. Susan exclaims it is the sound that is stabilizing the area where the two figures are. Mara’s arms are outstretched. We learn later the ground has crumbled beneath their feet as Ria and a second Mara fall from above as Bill and Susan watch. As the falling bodies pass, flashing lights, rocks come flying out of the waterfall toward Mara Bill and Susan on the ground. Susan's hair unravels as, muklucked feet anchored in the sand, she begins spinning with projectiles flying out. With the glove, she pulls the chock from her hair and heaves it into the waterfall, shattering the waterfall, creating an avalanche and then prays.
Ria surfs the avalanche in red boots and lands standing on a carpet thinking she has landed in Susan’s red boots. Blue squirrels rush by. One giant one stops and whirls his hands around like Kali. Ria tries not to look. Blue runs into a peradam.
Mara says Susan is inspiring me to take a step onto the wild side. Maybe one of those green monkeys can help me, or was that the green fairy?
Blue reaches into Ria's rucksack and gets chocolate bars with nuts and shares with other squirrels, spots the waffle iron packed there. Susan throws pistachios into her hair. Squirrel is massaging Susans scalp and eating nuts. Ria saw Blue scurry off with my rucksack and the chocolate. She knows that map he ate "the mongrel" by heart.
Mara has landed on an outcrop, above a clearing. She looks out at a Hunter Moon and can see a cave at the bottom of the water. She pulls a glow stick from her bag and waves it as a signal. Squirrels gather around. She looks below and can see Ria talking to someone in her boots.
Below, a group hug, laughter. The Hunter Moon obscured by a cloud. Bill sits on the long beach and realizes the sand is made of tiny peradams. Ria is mimicking a runway model in the boots, Susan is laughing and tossing nuts to a small squirrel nestled in her hair. Mara is sitting on a piece of driftwood looking up at the falls. Bill wondering about the other Mara he saw, follows Mara’s line of sight and and sees a glimmer of light atop the falls.
CHAPTER 5
(We learn the squirrels have invented an encoding system like the Aztec system using a 2D visual system capable of storing large amounts of data with parallel lines and geometric patterns as well the use of black ink normally required for proper bar coding. The information scripted may include letters, numbers, text and actual bytes of data, including extended characters. ) (it is suggested Ria will know how to interpret these.)
(We also learn the travelers would be dreadfully confused to know of multiple Mara's and the multiples of themselves... Sometimes they would catch a shadow or sliver of themselves. there are things the duplicates like to keep to quiet. )
Bill, Ria, Susan gathered together. Ria remembers big squirrel disappeared with her rucksack. “I want my waffle iron back."
Squirrel massaging them and taking readings of their heads, then runs away but left a pyramid like arrow symbol on Bill's skin...probably of waffles. Suspicions they are ready to scan Bill and catalog him first...Susan tells Bill, Ria, Mara they have to leave NOW. They weren’t budging.
Mara, sitting on a piece of driftwood, knocks on it and a wee door opened and a voice called, "Come in"!
Meanwhile Mara2 sat in the depths of the forest with Lee at sunset. Lee watched Mara2 writing frantically in her notebook. Lee has little time to round up the blues and get them back through the warp before they were discovered ...blues multiply faster in this atmosphere. ...We may need help Lee thought. Mara disoriented as her glow stick doesn't register as a call for help... feels ledge is following her. Lee realizes Mara2 was getting feedback from Mara1...how could that be? This is really not a good situation for either of the Maras...did they see each other and become hopelessly confused? It was such a rare thing for multiples to meet..it could cause a rip in the tunnel fabric.
Susan sprinted out of there in a flash to formulate a plan. She hops while running, mukluks propelling higher and across great distances with every stride elevating quickly.
WHEN the same height as Mara on the cliff waved frantically to her THEN started to feel faint and blackness started to overtake her...Brilliant flashing lights...fantastical designs.
(can't tell if it's 1 or 2) Mara1 sees self Mara 2 lowering a red rope down from the lip of the canyon AND sees self ready to receive said rope at the edge of the pool while Big Blue, the most handsome, is gingerly lowering himself over the edge, and is able to trace a path down the face, going past her. Landing on the cave floor he talks to MT down there letting his truly majestic tail soak in the water. MT looks up at MT and gestures.
Lee turned around Mara2 was gone... blue moon would be up soon making it nearly impossible to get all the escaped blues rounded up and back to where they belong. Lee wonders, “Where has SS1 gone?” then watched SS1 fly higher she wondered how soon SS2 would come through the warp to help with the roundup...Lee knew SS1 knew the true menace of the blues...
Big Blue started climbing back up the face of the wall slowly, stand next to MT on the ledge. Every 5 seconds or so he'd move his wet tail 45 degrees from it's last position with water at risk if he didn't perform this exactly so. Mara digs out empty soup can held it out and Blue scrambled up her arm, placing his tail into the can then vigorously shook it, freeing himself of the water, fetched the rope and handed it to her. Next he grabbed the rope below her hands and performed a graceful slide back down to the pool, checking that she was paying attention when a whirling Susan appeared for a moment in front of her.
Worried a thirsty Mara would morph into a “blue nose” Lee screamed, “Mara! Don't drink the water!” With many gesticulating blues at the top of the cliff. Lee saw a blue streak across the sky. As it got lower there was SS (1 or 2?) diving directly toward the blues on the cliff top in her red boots
After it left it’s message on his skin, William starts to chase the blue, then turned back to Ria and the rest, saw Susan sprinting full speed in the opposite direction and asks Ria about the symbol. she replies, "birds..two birds..pyramid in the middle..maybe it's an arrow...
Bill turned to the piece of driftwood where Mara had been seated but she was gone. Then on the ledge, sees Mara up there with Susan leaping away...
A sudden blue sparkle crossed the sky and hits Susan who falls from the sky and landed in the water, missing the ship. Bill tells Ria Let's go pull them out." Ria responds, "Them?"
CHAPTER 6
Susan landed on top of Blue, knocking the can out of Mara's hand. Something smashed into her. She tried to climb over the object, crashed into the water, bobbed to the surface, due to the buoyancy of her hair. A double of herself floating next to her face-down. She saw red cowboy boots swam towards it and turned it over.
William and Ria wade out in front of the boat AND glance back to the driftwood where we last saw Mara. Susan has her double wearing red cowboy boots and bright curly blue hair in a fireman's carry.
Susan collapses on the sand and begins CPR.The woman sputters and spits out a blue seahorse which wiggles back into the water. Ria looks at her own feet and sees that her feet are still clad in red cowboy boots, identical to the figure Susan was working to revive. Bill's feet have soggy black Converse high tops, his usual.
Ria takes a step back and sits on the driftwood where she last saw Mara. The wood slippery, she slides off backwards then back to a sitting position and finds herself sitting next to Mara, on a high ledge, peers down at the Susans and Bill on the beach. Mara says to Ria something strange is going on and instructs her to creep up to the edge and look over.
Ria says, "It's ... you?" Mara responded, "It seems we've the chance to examine ourselves and our motivations for coming on this trip." The Mara in the middle is holding the rope, not escaping but assisting Big Blue. The Mara at the bottom was listening to Blue's plea to explain to the higher Mara, attempting to get down via this rope and rig a system to transport empty cans filled with water, that the can would hold enough for what the abalcabal needed in their upper pools. They used to have an easily accessed water supply, but now Big Blue transports all the water via his tail.
Mara examines how the rope is anchored, turns back to Ria and they join the group by rappelling.
William sees the big one made off with with everything. Mara exclaims where'd Bill come from? Who lowered this rope? Perhaps it was Big Blue rather than one of us, anyway, the anchor job is first rate.
Susan feels body stretching and humming, looks down witnessing her own likeness. Are the red boots her umbilical cord to return back to the comfort of her world? Were they the totem created to transport me from this altered state to reality? Someone tells her to un-trance and open her eyes.
SuTwo With blue hair, skin tone blue, struggles to breath...Bill grabs Susan's rucksack which she abandoned when she had raced and leaped down the beach. He pulled her diatonic blues harp out of a side flap and placed it in SuTwo's mouth. With huge gasping intakes which sounds like a locomotive whistle her color began to return. SueTwo asks "Why did you pluck me from the sky and bring me here? Where is Hermes? Where is my horse? Then... Why are you all gawking at me?
She sees Bill with the blues harp helping her breathing, another stooped over blocking the light, something vaguely familiar about both.
Ria won't rappell as Blue had her lucky red rope and not anxious to damage her boots. she sat down and worked to get the boots off. A cluster of blue teeny tiny squirrels ran out, she grabbed one by its neck, like cats do with their kittens, forcing it to to spit out its cheek contents; a string of small bluish peradams. Says to Mara finding these- finding ourselves-can't ever be the result of our conscious effort. Then, a mistake: looks the squirrel straight in its beady eyes.
Mara stretching deeply and gazing at the roof of the cave--the infinite sky represented by blue is a field of continuity in a disconnected world sucked up into the sky by the void. Mara sees the sea. Go... she thinks of careening towards them into the shallow layer of woofie dust... go to that Island of Stability.
Lee watches from above while the travelers (and duplicates) struggled with what was happening. It seemed important to get all the duplicates and blues back through the wormhole before the blue moon rose--an impossibility now that the 1's & 2's & maybe 3's are aware of one another what could happen if they all stayed here? She wonders.
Bill regrets he had not spent more time with a small section of guides' recommendations concerning hollow men or onions.
Susan saw the outline of Captain Bill, saw his lips moving, what is that lovely melody then noticed her double staring back--again. A blue one this time? she wonders.
Page-us Interuptus--indecipherable scratching and slight blotching resembling animal tracks. Jump to page 105 mid sentence.
Bill focused on Ria's and SueTwo speech. Ria actually speaks in sentences in which the number of words are always a prime number, the number of letters in the sentence are also prime, unaware that she is doing this "Bloody hell he got my waffle ir" Bill realizes she meant "iron" and mentally filled the last letter in. She speaks in magic prime squares?" Next William kneeling down next to to SuTwo doesn't understand her song interspersed with clicking--is she African, Khoisan or....
We learn:
1)Extra dimensional or inner dimensional was not clear at all in Daumal's account. The lively enthusiasm of heated debates during our voyage here lasted well into several evenings with no resolution.
2) certain magnetic effects aligning geographically alter perceptions of the origin of thought. Things appear as if by magic exist as potential, requiring right conditions to make it seem as if it had always existed like layers in an onion.
Mara sees Terma all around them but no inclination to gather any of the peradams. She sees other glove.
In clicks from SuTwo William heard something: synesthesia blue. He goes for a swim in the surf and sees a blue flicker of light half way to the reef. He reaches for a small vial.
Chapter 7
Mark is in a vial reading Mt. Analog by Rene Daumal. He longs for his freedom but accepts his fate. Bill, thinking it is a peradam, grabs the cloudy warm vial as something passes in front of the moon. Bill gives the vial to Susan to look at. She listens to it instead and then tosses it to her double Su Two. Su Two in turn tosses it to a little blue squirrel nearby on a piece of driftwood who wiggled it's tail, cocked it's head and then made a noise that sounded like a sneeze. Bill looked back at Susan incredulously.
When Mark was a lad his friend Dr. Hunter Moon aka Moony disapperared in a mishap with a time machine in October 1966. Moony had been interacting with a woman named Susan Shoeman and moved to Mexico.
Chapter 8
Susan remembers she was born to liberate Mark from the vial. This was predicted by oracles. We learn Susan was born on Feb 17 and that according to her firasr soothsayer she would rescue Mark today, the 17 of November, a Wednesday. She was instructed to search for clues her entire life. She bought her first red boots including images of blue squirrels in a peace sign. Susan sets out to get the vial back from the blue squirrels. Sue Two playing the harmonica says Susan isn’t following protocol. Bill rebutts this saying there is no protocol but Susan cites Pandoras Blochs. Meanwhile the blue squirrel seems top be arguing with the vile then pops it in his cheek. Susan urges everyone to let their thoughts flow more freely as Sue two flings herself at the Blue. The squirrel opens his mouth and a sea shanty, a little sailor’s song, comes out. He then removes the vile and places it into Susan’s hand, sneezes and wipes his mouth as he takes cover. A ship is seen circling inside the vial from the outside but inside the vial Mark is reading Daumal’s Mt. Analogue. He remembers losing his friends and feeling abandoned. As he reads, he is simultaneously thrust in to his own novel which is about someone riddled with doubt lost in time. He is reading and writing and experiencing his own novel simultaneously at the same time he is reading Daumal.
Outside the vial Susan whispered while caressing the vial near her face, "You are now found and pay attention this time. I have been told so much about you and hope you will stop your rhetoric long enough to take directions?" She paced nervously, looking at the others. She considered making a run for it and wished Ria were here to calculate some mathematical equations.
Mark, riddled with doubts, reading the Daumal novel over and over again for what seemed like eternity reveals that whoever buried him in this vial saw his character as some kind of masterpiece to be discovered at a later date.
Ria appears over the horizon on her blue mountain bicycle bearing a long red rope tied around her waist and a Tibetan prayer bowl. She reaches Susan and stops; takes the bowl and strikes it and the loud, deep ringing sound shakes Mark from his self-reflection catapulting him back into the moment. Before he knew it, Mark was transported back to 1967, listening to “Born in Chicago” by the Butterfield Blues Band. But Mark had never heard that song before and passes out.
Susan meanwhile, also was transported and she knew where she was. It was on Sherbrooke Street in Montreal at the New Penelope Blues Bar. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was playing and a man came over and divulged his name in his Irish accent. “Call me Hemingway”. It must have been the music blaring and the absinthe she was soon drinking. She then snaps out of this flashback and says “It won’t be much longer Mark!"
We learn what could be the key to the novel’s riddle: Mark heard before his captivity of a tradition called Terma: a physical object such as a ritual implement that is buried in the ground (or earth) or a text, one often written in Dakini script: a non-human type of code or writing but nonetheless hidden in a rock or crystal, secreted in a herb, or a tree, hidden in a lake (or water), or hidden in the sky (space). Though a literal understanding of terma is "hidden treasure", and sometimes objects are hidden away, the teachings associated should be understood as being 'concealed within the mind of the guru', that is, the true place of concealment is in the Terton's mindstream the way the peradams were being found along the way on the climbing of Mt. Analogue.
Whoever buried Mark in this vial must have seen him as the vessel for something to be discovered later. We learn it was Pandora who found a way to institute the "...on second thought.." clause, and at the dedication ceremony, involving absinthe among other things, there was a slip up and Bloch was locked in the vial like a Genie in a bottle. Can he grant their wishes? Or...is he like the Mark on the other side? Evil encased-imprisoned for all time? Both Susan's seem to have a connection- one negative the other positive- which will be let from the vial to be discovered at a later date. But as to why we do not know. The second thought clause was about a chameleon mind that seems incapable of understanding anything but mediocrity. Mark’s friend Dr. Moony had warned him about this.
Chapter 9
BIll’s shadow takes on a voice of its own. Susan, shocked, drops the vial accidentally and Bill’s shadow picks it up from the sand and begins to drink the contents. Mark shouts "I am that unlikely genie," as he emerges from the vial, remembers vaguely it was blue squirrels that locked him in there and drops the copy of MT. ANALOGUE he has been reading for eternity. He knew that this must be the work of the kabala numerical alignment he was warned about decades ago.
Bill’s shadow gulps the contents of the vial which resemble a frothy liquid which then emboss a figure into the sand that becomes a mold. Susan yells a mold!!!! as a thick greenish blue slimy liquid started to gel. A blue squirrel dips his tale in the mixture then runs toward the waterfall where the red rope is still emerging. He grabs it.
Other blues were hopping out a rhythmic set of beats with their sharp blue claws. They clicked a series of sounds transmitting messages around the island. Bill was staring blankly at the horizon stomping his feet in a trance to the beat of the blues.
The sand particles mixed with the goop started to form some kind of protoplasm of glistening granules sparkling and exploding on the beach which eventually took the shape of ….GUMBY? it is GUMBY! Everyone was guffawing out of control “Mark, what kind of tomfoolery is this?” they tried to blurt out.
W.E merely felt a slight tickle in his own throat and could not speak. The book was lodged in the shadows throat.
A light rain had begun to fall and William let the falling water calm the searing feeling in his throat and felt a tiny blochage dislodge.
Mark had two bodies at this point. One was tiny and swirling through the shadow’s digestive system, half hollow, half evil and all made of tiny Peradam crystals; the OTHER body was staring down at the scene-- floating above it but his feet were planted firmly on the ground. And was there a third Mark too? Gumby?
Mara tossed a blue burnoose like garment over the shadow’s depression and immediately all felt better. “There. That should calm everything down.” Slipping on the 2nd glove, she gingerly lifted the material to look directly into Gumby’s eyes thinking it was Mark. It’d been 1967 the last time they’d ran into each other with a shipment of absinthe missing and all the usual suspects promising to send a postcard.
Mara was referring to that1967 meeting but Mark was only 11 years old then. The Butterfield Blues Band was out of his league let alone absynthe. Could this have been the result of the time machine mishap that disappeared Moony? Mark suspected the Kabbalistic sequences of the Fibonacci Infinite Series Algorhythm.
Ria knew deeply, 'if Fibonacci strikes, we may all be lost' and turned her bike around Bill, skidding the wheels, and flew, running the red rope around Bill's waist. He was looking at the sky as Ria sighed, put the Tibetan bowl on her head and started singing 'do you know the way to San Jose,' and set off towards the East along the horizon with Bill, like a kite, flying behind.
Bill rises above and detach from his shadow. He glances into the small sack he had by a string tied like a necklace, He feels he knows the meaning of the Red Thread.
As elsewhere on the island Mara’s double said, "Look! The little one is making origami!" The blue squirrel focused on his folding, creating the “Red circle becoming a cone,” Then, the group on the shore, staring into something blue, creating the "downward looking cone, the vortex, the nadir." Susan whispered to SueTwo "nadir is an anagram for drain" . all of a sudden a great crack of thunder sent nuts again falling from the trees but this time each was accompanied by it's doublenut, falling up from the ground and lodging in the trees where tiny green monkeys had been waiting all along.
Lee woke up and staring down was the major monkey, patiently waiting…"time for you to leave here to start climbing now to reach the summit of return.” As Lee and the green monkeys looked down on the travelers and doubles below, "you know they can only travel the portal once and they won't really remember where they're from.”
LG began to climb higher & higher as a sphere was just coming into focus in the distance. As it began to spin, LG realized it would only be a matter of minutes before it vanished. As the air grew thinner the negative ions multiplied pushing her faster and faster toward the sphere--one look back was all there was time for--then LG and the sphere dissolved into the atmosphere.
As the boat smoothly sailed into the port, LG thought about the long journey to this strange place. She realized this certainly was something she was meant to do and these were people she was destined to meet. She stepped onto shore at Port O'Monkeys. Now LG sat at the edge of a blue rock at the top of Mount Analogue.
With sighs of relief people took places around the campfire. "What exactly are in those nuts and what just happened to us?" Heads snapped up to double check that yes, it was still the Bill they'd embarked with and not the blue squirrel Bill. Mara placed the 2nd single glove on a rock to look at it until she fell asleep.
We learn the streams there ran icy cold and was a deep deep blue. White rocks along the banks had flecks of blue that glistened in the sun, leading the way to the vast mines of the mountain. The blue is the treasure of the mountain with veins of blue that ran through the mountain - mined by the small blue squirrels. The mines were run by a band of green monkeys with wild eyes. Generations of squirrels working made the small animals a lovely shade of blue. Their world was quite dismal, their only pleasure being the nuts that they were paid-- for the precious blue stones mined from the depths of the mountain. Over the years some of the blues would escape through the rip between worlds. The blues tried to avoid detection of searchers that would come to round them up for return to the blue mines on the other side. Occasionally the green monkeys would slip over to find special miners. Things are much more complicated for the searchers from the other side now that these travelers were here.
Chapter 10
Mindful of Daumal's admonitions to properly prepare each camp for future travelers before departing, our disruption of the waterfall has to be set right.
William was drained and in need of some down time from Ria's provided flight. He could still see the tiny red filaments that attached him to his friends, the last sight he saw before Ria "oopsed" and he came to rest.
Small blue dipping it's tail in the frothing Mark puddle and scurrying to the waterfall cliff a reminder of Mara's quest to help the blues before they press on. Unhappy GUMBY caused by the blue --a guide for our next set of actions. Lee's arrival with her news of green monkey sightings has also caused a bit of a stir and several theories as to their connection to the blues have been advanced.
Mara has rigged the ropes into a potentially serviceable solution to the squirrel’s water problem.
Lee, whilst sailing saw a large pack of flying green monkeys heading towards shore a bit . She eventually joined the explorers that must partake of the Island mushroom. She heard some of the bizarre happenings the travelers have already encountered...blue squirrels..and flying about at will..and what's with the twins? I'll just sleep on it...that fire is so comforting...What have I gotten myself into? - Lee
Susan gawked over to the depression in the sand still steaming with green smoke and viewed Mark nonchalantly sitting there, near the campfire tossing some nuts into the cracking fire seemingly unaware of the past events. Susan was relieved and still wore red string bracelet on her left wrist. She had offered the others this Kabalistic talisman and insisted they should wear this to defend them from any negative energy and Ria and Mara agreed. They secretly braided together yards of red twine to form the thick protective climbing ropes.
Susan recalled the past few days and now wondered if it was only one long night of chaos, too much drink or spoiled food and discreetly scanned around the quiet campfire. No one was really saying much. Mark started to sing. Immediately, Bill turned towards the sky and stood up declaring with a loud “Shazaam” popped out his telescope to view the constellation of Ratatosk (gnaw-tooth) – the squirrel constellation with one star for its head, one for each foot, one for its body, and two for its tail.
Bill went on to enlighten us “According to Norse mythology, Ratatoskr is a squirrel who runs up and down the world tree Yggdrasil to carry messages between the unnamed eagle, perched atop Yggdrasil, and the wyrm Níðhöggr, who dwells beneath one of the three roots of the tree. Our success is based on the Blues here on Mount Analogue!”
Mark wants forgiveness for not believing in unicorns and thinks he pissed off Susan. the story told about childhood wasn't entirely true. He knew no one would join in on his song. They just sat there staring. Thank God Bill broke the tension
Before Mark had been thinking that separating from the group…”Maybe no one is mad at me and I just think they are.” Mara had decided to off on a journey to somewhere on the other side of the world, that might not even exist.
Cathy slipped behind the trees to watch this grouping of people from a safe distance.
Who are these people and why are they all wearing tin-foil hats?
They seem happy...Dare I enter the grove?
Lee thinking back on that conversation with Mara "You should come", she said, surely knowing I'd say no. Instead she opened the battered briefcase shoved under a bed years ago. It belonged to her father and contained bits and scraps of his very short life. Going through this case again brought back memories. A hand drawn hard to read map was the very place Mara and her group went to find. She wondered what do I do now????
William notices Ria folding tin-foil into party hats. "For the bonfire for Mukla. "Hey, where's Mark?" I look over to where he was sitting not eight minutes ago.
Mara "Hey Susan, did you end up with the first glove, or did I? I'm thinking we need to look at them together, I've an idea what they're about, and I hope it's wrong." Susan gasping for air because she’s so excited. "Yes, Mara, the gloves contain the clue.... We need to place them finger to finger to form the directional compass. The map has been at our fingertips all this time!” She searched frantically inside one of my many deep pockets for the glove as a green florescent spark shimmered and twinkled flying up in the sky vanishing into the starlit darkness. " I've got the 2nd glove,” Ria stifles a snicker. Mark just flew into the sky! Mara assigned it to a residual effect from the nuts. looked up, along with Susan.
William concerns about our lack of progress have evaporated tells her "you're distracting them." Tin foil are causing some amusing green flashes in the campfire. "Just one more." Fzzzst
Chapter 11
Lee trying to lighten the load a bit... found a little book of maps with one to Mt Analogue…It can't be real...can it? "Hey Mara, I think you need to look at this......
Mark whirled through the sky but had been previously trained. The Doctor had told him even at the center of a hurricane is a very calm place. Mark looked down at Lee fumbling with her map near the fire, How did I get here? Mark was thinking of a time after he got the letter “but before this climb.
FLASHBACK
I remember a long uphill walk; Bill walked ahead of me in his red cowboy boots. Everything was normal …Bill sitting in the sidewalk cafe waiting for coffee to cool.... the waiter handed him the end of a red rope. Now we were in a studio. Susan was talking about unicorns.” He told her "no way in hell" we'd see one. Moving into the small kitchen alcove Susan, nervous about Mark’s unnecessary attack, began to open the cabinets. Susan opened the first cupboard which was filled with cans, most of them with no labels. Bill: "Let her have her dream." Susan opened the second cupboard to find three cans of Campbells soup: "Think", "Don't Think" and "Don't Believe What You Think." I came up behind her, opened a door that she hadn't and saw an empty vile way in the back on the right. She saw me looking at it. I told her I was sorry.
Now in my minds eye we were back on the trail again. "I think I will hike by myself for a while," was the next thing I remember saying but no one else was nearby so I added another sentence knowing no one was listening and not quite sure why that mattered or why I chose this particular sentence. "Hey Susan did I ever tell you about the first time I heard the Butterfield Blues Band?" To Susan and Bill down below I yelled: "Did you know there are gloves made especially for folding origami? They are very high tech, and use the latest inventions. You know... silicon and carbon fiber.”
A large rotating column of air is whirling from the ground, growing in height and width with silver and green sparks flashing inside the azure funnel. Inside was Mark floating completely still and posed within the turbulent display of fireworks. Susan stood up , grabbed Bill’s telescope, broke the glass and used it like a bullhorn hoping it would amplify her voice. “Mark…Mark…do you believe now…do you believe?”
William was wondering about provisions. Mara's year or more on the expedition and his own failures in the past stemmed from poor logistics and lack of a strong team. He thinks “At some point I'll have to return to the ship and sort through the pantry. The canned goods certainly can be cached at lower camps…the cans themselves have proven useful and we have used the tin to make whistles with bits of the soup labels still adhere.”
Mark in funnel cloud as a herd of angry, stampeding unicorns advanced rapidly toward the fire in a cloud of blue-green dust. The glass from the ocular lens of Bill's smashed telescope twinkled at Susan’s feet in the twilight as nothing below Susan's figure seems solid at all and she looked at thousands of vibrating strings in the form of the other people. She feared for her friends. Above her and to the left on the mountain was the cracking sound of an avalanche.
She saw the options for our escape decreasing as a bunch of blue squirrels rushed past them… echoed the giant swarm of unicorns moving closer. Susan choked in her breath as one giant blue squirrel whirling his arms so fast looking like a thousand. She reached out to touch it with Bill's telescope and all of a sudden a great crack of thunder was heard and nuts once again started to fall from the trees where tiny green monkeys were waiting…doublenuts began falling up from the ground and lodging in the trees, the fire first roared large then abruptly extinguished itself as all campers slowly rose up off of the ground in unison with their possessions and joined Mark in the sky. All the animals on this island swirled in a giant cacophony of movement around them, then every camper landed on what felt to be a woolen carpet upright safely. Atop the cliff of the ruined waterfall, Big Blue and other squirrels have found the rucksack. The Waffle Iron has been placed on a level rock. The self gathering nuts arrange themselves into patterns the small blues quickly bang the lid down. Blue glances at RIA’s name backwards on the rucksack –and chatters a strange sound.
Susan rising up surveyed the screeching and banging hurting her hearing so she used her hair as earplugs. The blues were scribbling into the sand with the tips of their fluffy blue tails crude letters the word “ISHKABIBBL" Mark saw the squirrels writing LBBIBAKHSI-what Susan saw, backwards. He looked at Susan but she had not heard a thing because her ears were plugged.
The monkeys descended from the trees and the animal’s leader shouted "Let's be brave! I believe a kidnapping has solved it!"
Mara looked down to the right at a cave entrance next to a pinnacle of rock and waved the group there. “We need to go back down to the landslide, complete the preparations for the next climbers and then begin the trek to hut 8 (see Bill’s original map), passing the ruined waterfall.” they couldn’t exactly hear. Meanwhile the climbers not present were making their way towards hut 8 in order to join them later .
We know the landslide had separated the squirrels from their cave water source. Big Blue, ragged, used his tail as a mop to bring water to their pools is the only one big enough to climb down to the source and return to the top over the landslide. The squirrels nervous & chatty, run to the other side of the tree and hide, rather than calmly laying it all out in front of the group. Susan, Mark, Bill and Lee move towards the pinnacle, landing on its top. Mara pointed to the two gloves and Bill stated, “the squirrels are asking for our help, and we can give it to them.” “They want one of our ropes,” whispered Mark. Mara suggested if they help them rig a pulley and leave some empty cans they will be able to have their water and pool days back but will loose a rope. If they caused the landslide is not relevant but it was figured out that those nuts happen to gather over a certain moss, then their properties change. So when bagging, note which contain the food and which the clues.
Bill and Mark had started walking deeper into the cave, a substance on the walls illuminated their way...Lee landing in the cave sees a safe place with reeds and other natural materials. “I think the rope situation is not a problem as it's quite easy to make more and if we need to dye them red we have the cacti beetles to use for the dye…and water....I expect if we go deeper in that cave we just might find a natural spring in there. Where has Susan gone now?
Chapter 12
A small blue had followed Mark and Bill with something stuck to it's tail. Bill reached down and pulled a tiny book from the fur. This was the same one who imitated Blue's tail mopping and had dipped into Mark upon his "resurrection" in an attempt to help his clan's water crisis. Mark's features (and personality) had caused Susan to believe we had uncorked Gumby.
Bill looks at the book which appears to be Mark's account of our climb. Bill hands it to Mark whose greenish pallor improves. Bill inquires how could Mark write so much with the answer being that this was the ending. ”Daumal could not complete Mount Analogue but we did. We planted the Daumal flag at the peak. We had returned from the 25th century to finalize his endeavor.”
Reading on, Bill learned Susan pressed the PLAY button on her audio vibration unit, the rest of us lined up in our positions to form the Fibocinci grid in "The Shape of the Waffle", completing a prophecy and dance. Bill forgets finding a proper source of water to aid the blues. Not understanding the writing he asks "Mark, do you believe time runs in two directions here?" Yes, he implied, just on this mountain. Bill turned back to the cave entrance looking for Ria, thinking of how this knolwege may have affected his previous climbs, spotting her at the mouth of the cave rapping the Tibetan Singing Bowl atop her head.
Ria, who had been just tagging along seeing the others as hyperactively saving squirrels and running after time, strolled after Bill towards a cave. Blue had taken her rucksack. She could physically feel time pulling and decided to use the bowl as antenna of sorts atop her head then tells Bill and Mark, "Time is the substance I am made of."
Mark thought Ria must at least have an inkling of vertical slices in the time-space continuum all around us, now containing time-space grids. He too feared the others did not see things as he did. Mushrooms made everyone crazy. He sensed he could just exit AT WILL through one of those slits... BY CHOICE. it was becoming very uncomfortable inside that cave as he contemplated disappearing into one of the fissures. Mara also moved further into the cave, feeling deja vu and jamais vu, an effect of the 4th Time Wave Principle.
Ria, and her Singing Bowl removes a small pouch from her pocket. As she opens the pouch several of the small blues in the cave begin to sing. Notes from the little blue's shanty and Ria's bowl join to form a harmonic convergence. Plucking several of the notes from the air, Bill tucks them into the time fissures. The notes ripple slightly as if there is air passing over them then condensation then water trickling from each like tapping maple trees for sap. Bill recalls the waffle iron as the quite happy blues begin to lap up the water as puddles form.
"Mara, we have a source!" Honorary Big Blue Bill was carried around the cavern by the blues joyfully.
"Let's leave them our empty cans," which Mara fished out of her rucksack with the silver squirrel from that first day she placed it on a natural shelf writing "Silver Springs" below. They decide it’s better than hauling it over the landslide with a pulley system and all contribute some equipment for the mechanical water brigade.
Susan entered the cave and stood motionless overcome with the emotion of happiness as they celebrated. Blues fanned each other in a sequence from smallest to tallest, the temperature dropping. They surrounded Big Blue and with their “derrieres” to him, rapidly waving tails. She sways to the music. Swishing tails pounding on silver cylinders. She thinks negatively about the climb… “Susan! Snap out of it ishkabibbl again... ishkabibble”, then everything vanished.
Mara pulled out the gloves whose lining had a map showing the huts and other locations but no trail.
Sounds were coming from Susan. “She’s slipping away again,” Mara said while the others flicked water in her direction then grabbed her. Mara reached and caught Mark by the pocket, which seemed to annoy him but they didn’t want to lose track of him again. They circled Susan about to be whisked through another loophole so they all grasped handfuls of hair their visions became tuned as they started to see the arrival of a second group, The Sisters. Their departure had been delayed due to the performance schedule of Jane and Cathy and we'd been anticipating their arrival for two months , now their skills would help insure the success of the ascent. Angela and her sister were similarly indisposed for the October departure and were due to arrive with Cathy and Jane.
Now, everyone clinging to Susan's hair and watched Jane and Cathy perform on the low flying trapeze like a playground swing set with Susan moaning the word ishkibble. The small blues cradled Susan forming a couch as her past intertwined with her future. Her sea horse aquarium, her Paris commune days, her university studies in fluid dynamics. Her future inspired interpretive dance at the Mulka bonfire two weeks in the future. Now Lee with her eyes wide …where was she?
Lee off again-on her own went deeper into the cave with walls that lit her way, heard the others is the distance revealing pictographs on the wall, carvings left from a time long ago. Who lived on this mountain? Niches had been taken over by small squirrels as homes with streams of blue liquid seeping from the walls, giving them pleasure. Seeing a shimmer to the air like a wave in front of her, a monkey flies thru the wave and disappears, does she follow?
Mark was still in the cave, hypnotized by the repetitive pounding of the silver cylinders, a pattern as they repeated 1,2,3,5,8,13,21... then 34,55,89,144 and back. He tried to see through the slit but could only make out a couple of monkey faces darting back and forth. They first appeared weeks earlier as he hiked alone up the mountain and then back down sent to keep him company he figured.
More monkey heads appeared, falling streams of blue liquid, which slowed as they reached the cave floor. Mara and Mark watching this in amazement. Then in Susan's past Mark saw the visage of his friend and mentor Dr. Hunter Moon –mysteriously gone since he was a lad. He was talking to the young Susan about Sammy Davis Junior, Sammy Davis Junior? Was this another Gumby situation? Mark succumbed and flew into a time-space slit which carried he and Susan, or some version of her, to a similar cave further up the mountain.
Mara left behind saw that the mountain is climbed not in space... but in time! Who is waiting at Hut 8, getting ready to leave as we approach? How can we all travel and arrive, well, at the same time?
After Lee's discovery Bill and others all poured over the parchments and ...tablets with great enthusiasm. "For the Time Being” AND "All at Once" had a more global connotation than our common use today. The sister group is near and Bill looks forward to seeing Dr. Ferrara soon....."
Susan faded in the distance chanting “ISHKABIBBLE” floating on a cushion of thick blue fur listening to what seemed like endless reciting and singing reverberating connected with the true meaning of the BLUES and MOUNT ANALOGUE. Their MANTRA: kibbehs BLEAKISH keblahs kiblahs ETC. She realized in they were giving us the clues all from the word ISHKABIBBLE! She tries to locate everyone so they will know! Ria quietly removed her Tibetan bowl and placed it gently on Susan's head.
Lee asks is this just an illusion? Are we all still on the beach sitting around the fire stoned on those damned mushrooms or is there really something more and why am I not with the group, where are they, are they in a collective dream?
Mark tells Susan he’s lost but she was sleeping & looked deep into her eyes to see if I could tell which Susan he was talking to. “The cave we were in was quite like the one we had just been in but quiet. We were further up the mountain because the air was thinner and the temperature was colder.”
Susan began to giggle and rings of frosty hair came out of her mouth as she began to speak: "I know you heard the thing about Sammy and the Anthony Newley song." Hunter was talking to me about him and then he suggested we come here for a moment." As in this cave here? Moody Duck?" "Yes!" she explained "He wanted you to know about the song. The lyrics to Born In Chicago by the Butterfield Blues Band explains everything. That and the glass eye. It takes us back to his birth which would have been in 1941 and that was the precise moment that Daumal was working on Analogue and completing his trip to the the 25th Century. So when he found you and you had come from there, he knew you were the one he had been looking for!
I am not from the 25th Century!" But she went right back into her rant: " The other thing you have to consider is the Anthony Newley play 'Stop the World I Want to Get Off' which was quite popular in Canada around then, 1961 or '62 with a wave of her hand little slits began to appear in the cave walls and blue liquid was pouring out of them, first one then another, just like they had been in the other cave but this time Susan began moving about the cave waving her hands and as she did the blue streams floated away from the cave walls and into the center of the room where they aligned into a beautiful turquoise blue waterfall.
"How did you know Dr. Moon?", I asked her. she waved her hands again and she had a little black moustache and a funny hat and onto the waterfall she projected out of her right hand an image that began to move! It was Sammy Davis Junior and she looked at my defiantly and said "Dig this, Gumby!" and with that Mark began to watch a holographic image of Sammy.
Lee with Toto in fields of lavender had a monkey perched on her shoulder who flew around before landing back on her shoulder. The hot sun was not uncomfortable. At the edge of the field the beginning of the forest that lead to the mountain but with no trail. She could see the ocean and the mountain. I think I'm still on the same island..I don't know what year or even century I'm in. The group was no where to be seen.
William adjusted Susan's head as Ria began plucking notes from the air and began a vigorous thumping of bowl. Ria called over the banging, "A little help here!!!!...just use the quarter notes for now; we'll see how that goes." Mara and Bill and a few of the small blues joined in; increasing tempo to bring Susan around.
Back in the cave Susan waved her hand and the holographic ethereal sculpture thingy kind of faded away.
"What was that?" Mark asked. "It's like a TV from the 25th century," she continued. "Wasn't Sammy great? Daumal was writing his book about the poets of the 25th century and that's how he found us. And Sammy.
In 1941, at Detroit's Michigan Theater, Sammy first met Frank Sinatra who was the Dorsey vocalist. That was happening just as the guy who was the protagonist in that song 'Born in Chicago' was born...in Chicago!".
"That gave Daumal 13 years to arrange for the peradam to be planted in Sammy's skull in the guise of a glass eye! No one would think of looking for it there. Bloody hell brilliant!"
As Mark listened peripheral monkeys had not appeared. It was as if this story was keeping the monkeys at bay.
Susan was back home ’67 watching the performance of Jefferson Airplane “White Rabbit” dancing on stage with them, jerking on the platform wearing my “Je suis francais” black beret and fringed dress shimmying, jerking, swaying, laughing, tapping the floor, keeping time with my red boots, watching the fireworks exploding into vibrant colors morphing into translucent blue bubbles rising into the sky as a strobe light caressed us all, grooving, looking for the answer from Alice, as the sky cracked open with a clamor and rich blue nectar from the gods seeped down all around me pouring into my very existence!
Susan noticed hundred of sparkling and flashing blue eyes staring. Bill and Ria and Mark converged into focus. Blue liquid on the walls of the cave and the tiny blues smiling. She felt goop on her face and wiped some off. Mark looked a little bit like Sammy Davis Jr. staring at her with a shimmering lens radiating towards her in spiral light.
“ I am ready to continue the climb” she blurted out. Mark looked at Susan. Then “ I am ready to continue the climb” blurted out of his mouth in response but it wasn't him that was speaking. He thought they should get moving but didn’t know why.
Lee who thought she was alone and lost somewhere in time could see a tall figure moving towards her. Toto chattered & giggled with excitement.
Maramara was feeling beside herself. A rock reappeared from behind the short film on Sammy. Looking to her left, Mara there was humming and smiling, drawing a symbol onto the face of the rock. She felt sleepy and slow, as if half asleep and reluctant to move. Wait, I can’t move. Do I have to move? Am I floating? What is the other Mara thinking? "The images must be drawn just so, to reverberate with the vibration unit. We are moving on! What date and time is it at Hut 8? Who has their unit handy?"
Chapter 19
Mara - I heard clearly in my mind, "Take these multi multi purpose shelters. Set them up at the Tree of Notes, you'll find your group." I peeked into a crack and saw a huge space... tables laden with food.
I found the pyramids had moved off across the glade towards a stream. I'd been sitting... when my knees straightened I kept rising.. as if gravity had left along with everyone else. Catching a branch I wedged myself into a fork of the tree and found myself looking at a nest. Brushing a few notes out of the way and leaning forward I saw the occupant and it blinked. Someone cleared their throat behind me..
"We've been watching you", he said. I had a feeling that once I turned around I could not turn back. They shuffled a bit closer. "Why are you here?" Bibi once said, "To see an owl may be telling you to let go of the past or certain negative behaviors” I slowly turned towards the voice in the branches, was a pyramid with the loveliest and largest owl I'd ever seen. The owl's eyes were locked on me. “I'm looking for my fellow climbers, did you seen them?" I aked. "Yes, I saw them, you will join them--first find your purpose." the owl said.
I heard a small voice call, "Mara!" voice of a baby owl and two ants and I added my piece to the note tree," with a largish blank note. I heard an increasing ruckus coming from my friends. As usual portent loomed.. air is thin … I wrote. "Wow, my life off the island...", no sooner than I'd thought that I found myself at the door of my home, talking to a Dyson™ salesperson, at least I think he's a person, though he looks rather like a fish. the vision shrunk as I was rather roughly pulled backwards towards the island. "I need this to stop!" I said and found myself dropped short of Mount Analogue and onto the Island of Stability clutching the note on the beach. "Of course moments don't mean much when you're hurling through Timestream space," Mark reminded me on a note was on the reverse of the paper I was writing on. These are the moments that waken the muses, centaurs and sirens… a huge HUGE test is coming my way..
Christopher - Water Crystals scattered around the base of the tree…a giant clear jello…I looked him in the eye he nodded,…I don't know who I am anymore. I gave everyone a jingle bell attatched to a saftey pin to wear, so as it rings I might not disapear completely. I made a note of it.
Susan - In the distance, I heard someone...."who goes here?"
William - machete in my hand… fish stops dead in his tracks and shouted, “Damn…it’s the sushi devil!”…. tapping gyrations with his tethering strings. The BillyRay puppet, which bore a striking resemblance to me singing Highwayman. Shoe Tree mimicked my voice exactly... with its’ other heads discomfort. I slashed the strings on the puppets. BillyRay went silent and we ran, the three KaliKuties in the lead followed close behind by Fish N’ Boots and BillyRay, their strings bringing up the rear.
We plunged into a clearing with a pile up of a big pile of feet, arms, guitars, hair and fins wrapped up. BillyRay pulled his guitar free from Susan's hair and yelled, "It's a Hootenanny!"
Susan was unraveling fast out of control. The vibrant colours surrounding me became one big blur of blues…strumming and hooting sounds. screeching sounds then her body was slowing down in a circular motion. I had been swinging in the air from side to side, and when I looked up again caught a section of an owl playing a guitar…HELP me Fish ‘N Boots..anyone!”
William - Ria and I were not amused “BillyRay, don’t startle that owl”. But it was too late; the enormous bird lifted off, almost disappearing from our view circling high above our heads with Susan dangling from his beak. Fish N’ Boots not a snack began disco inferno. Ria interrupted “You know what Bibi says about owls.-- letting go of the past or certain negative behaviors. This could be a wonderful opportunity for Susan’s ultimate fulfillment in life.” As shrieking drifted down to our ears.
Lee - The last thing Mark said as he slid down the ladder was, "don't worry- it's tethered - I'll be back with the rest of the group," an hour ago and about 50 minutes since the balloon drifted off. Now it is drifting up towards the Mountain top. Looking down I seemed to relive the past months; fields of lavender, the trees full of notes and goats; huts leading the trail up the mountain.
Mark - What good fortune to be falling off a ladder when the largest most regal owl foot appear and I clung to it as we ascended back to where I had just been. I had to get back to Lee. We had just completed the most amazing run- drifting above all of the island and seeing all of Mt. Analogue in a much needed vacation-- not as rescue mission of poor unfortunate squirrels. We could see that time and space mean nothing to this crazy island.
We could see and sometimes even hear ourselves and all of our friends in all different forms-- past present and future as we floated by on the Dyson Fibonacci Timestream. we drifted from the the Doubting Side of the mountain to the Confident Side--equal and opposite aspects of ourselves and other members of the climbing party colliding and disappearing as well as just missing each other via the time slits, creating yet more notes on the path with every collision.
But my ever-increasing techie role (I owe it all to Ria) to fix the obstruction in the Klein bottle called. Condensation was collecting in the "spout" area and I was getting Gumby readings varying but falling off the ladder into a free fall did the trick and now Lee on A runaway orb. But I was on a Timestream via the Dyson brand super suction. I undertook 26 days of training as an apprentice to a vacuum salesman-- as the owl ascended at breakneck speed toward the balloon.
A mountain climbing never-ending haiku:
Time and space explains nothing to the travelers. Pass me a waffle
Pass me a waffle. The crispy outside reminds. Hard shell hides soft heart
Susan's great Grandad’s long russet ringlets had protected him from harm when he was in fighting against the Reds. This talent was gifted to our family and handed down through generations when my ancestors were conjuring with Merlin.
Mara receives invite A trek to "the unknown"... oh sure, a cruise ship spot on a well worn route for a feeble old woman.
Mara arrives at Bill’s house and throws impressive Japanese spider weave red rope on the floor. Ria: I had read MA, how I had wanted to go on the expedition, how I enjoyed being a part of our team, a tight group.
Susan wonders later why did she go on this adventure with these exotic and unpredictable people? "Some, I had never met. The common thread was Bill. We all knew Bill."
What they were engaged in now had started as a brief exploratory climb intended to merely stretch our legs after the voyage.
Jane, Cathy, Angela, and Bibiana each receive a mysterious package from a mysterious unknown source which they each independently reshape and refold to reveal a map and a one way boat ticket from various locations to an unnamed location in the South Pacific along with a box of crackerjacks and they decide what the hell, let's all go to this place in the South Pacific, making arrangements to be away for about two years.
They leave and arrive at the base of Mount Analogue. Once there, each opens the box of crackerjacks, consume the contents and each take out a different "prize" realizing they need to fit together and thus discover their first instructions on how to reach the next camp safely where they go and find four more boxes of crackerjacks awaiting with each of their names on them.
CHAPTER 1
Bill bangs the can into the shape of a squirrel. A real squirrel comes over and the world stops. It peels the label off the can He stashes it in his cheek divided into 8ths. Why did we bring cans?
The squirrel cuts his hand and then he and Ria disappear.
Susan grabs the rope and tries to pull Ria back but instead a glove flies at her. A pic on it of a woman in a blue dress with a unibrow and skulls. Susan takes Bills mag glass and sees many kaleidoscopic squirrels, psychedelia.
"Fragments of prism and a soup label folded in 8ths. Turned on its side equals staring at infinity." Says Mara and they eat. Meanwhile Ria is lost in Talking Heads land. The others can hear her singing in the distance. Ria sees colors and blue kaleidoscopic prismatic colors. Squirrels walk by and touch her legs.
Bill is dancing. Susan sees notes going up from the mouth of the mountain??? Follows them into a cave and is transported back to 1967. Mara sees a cloud covering the land and decides Ria must be saved. Now Mara, Bill and Susan drink Oxygenated notes and scurry down a hole with their red rope to where Ria is in a peradam studded cavern, singing “the blue song”
CHAPTER 2
Susan has gloves given to her that were made by her great grandfather with red rope mentioned. A blue eats a map. (a big boom and then) Nuts fall from the trees. Bill looks at peradams and sees himself reflected in many different guises. Some obscure squirrel magician was holding Bill in a concealed chamber. An icy isolation barrier blocking all other sounds, sights and concerns. Susan tried to reach him but couldn’t. Mara had disappeared. Everything went black for Ria.
Mara was rolling on the ground, blue squirrels line up and give her back the map. A bell rings somewhere in the distance. The map lights her way and she finds Ria. We were meant to be on this slope, how I always was carried off by my curiosity, leading to beautiful findings, chasing after squirrels. As nut hits Susan’s head then falls on ground and grows, she hears a command to rub the bell she hears a doorbell ring when she presses the squirrel button and Bill answers the door and Mara is in there. Susan laughs and cries. Her boots have turned blue to help her read the map. Blue squirrel is now wearing red boots. Meanwhile Mara and Ria are interacting, talking about the map. When Ria had it, it was blank. Then Ria starts looking at the glove. Susan sees Bill and Mara are cardboard cut outs hanging on a red line.
CHAPTER 3
Susan walks into the cutouts or something and falls down. She gets up and waves hands over the window and door but something isn’t good. She notices something amiss with the front door. Open or closed? She thinks back.
She remembers a long uphill walk in her red boots. And sitting in a café where a waiter handed her a red rope.
As Bill is building tsuff amidst a pattern-filled busy studio-workshop, Susan’s feet are now in blue furry mukluks. She is hungry so she begins opening cupboards. Finds label-less cans. And then cans with labels about thinking.
Ria vaguely recalls that Big Blue’s glove was once within her possession. Mara recommends putting the map and glove on a boulder and the two of them begin moving them around mathematically, trying to see the future.
Susan is still hungry, still searching. On a wooden ledge with cut marks she notices embellished notes stamped with Bill’s monkey chop and inspects them. Behind the cutouts of Bill and Mara she sees a room divider with blue squirrel pattern in 8s. She takes a picture with her macro-digitizer to show Mara who will interpret the symbols later. Behind the divider she also sees a table with a blender on it and a bathtub. She concludes Bill is a good-doing alchemist in search of peradams making paper outs of soup can labels. From the corner of her eye, Susan sees a way out while staring at the cutouts.
An achy Mara and Ria look at the map and glove some more. They share a snack and then contemplate the label of a can, walking ten steps in each direction in search of water to orient themselves. It is revealed they are surrounded by invisible walls and curious sensations. They see rocks with lingum-shaped peradams in a cavern and nervously draw them. Ria walks to a porthole, looks out at the sea and it flies open. She awakes on a bed of grass and sees a waterfall.
Mara is dreaming. Ria writes she had disappeared into blue light, over an expanding drop into a cave showing her coordinates. She turned to speak to Mara but she was alone.
Bill Mara (and Ria?) are on a boast that has run aground, Bill has appeared and helps Mara up. They look up at a nearby waterfall with peradams in it, and notice instead of eroding it is bubbling into existence before their eyes. They decide to climb to the top. Mara calls to the boat for Susan to bring ropes
Susan has created a cone atop her head and made hair extensions with the rope then ties a rope around her shoulders as she hears Mara calling so she trudges across the shore pulling the rope in her mukluks. Bill and Mara admire her hair and we learn they have been gone 1/3 of a year with 2/3 more remaining on their journey.
Susan scolds Bill and Mara for suddenly turning into black and white cutouts. Bill explains to the reader and to Susan that his and Mara’s peak-selves had overloaded and arc-flashed them to their present location. Negative potential has been jettisoned but remains behind as a loophole. Apparently Susan, in the doorbell situation, had entered an unstable situation.
Susan sees Ria and Mara doubles atop the waterfall.
Meanwhile, at the top, Ria turns back to the map, still in her mysterious scene with Mara and hears water but it is blue diamond shapes tumbling down over the drop. She looks over the edge and sees Susan looking up at her. The two scenes are joined. She calls and waves then descends to the waterfall but starts laughing and falls into an abyss.
Mara has turned into an uncontrollable ringing sound and calls out to Ria that they should reunite. She drifts off into pleasant reverie.
CHAPTER 4
Bill also sees and calls to the figures atop the waterfall as Ria disappears leaving only a rope to be seen. Susan scrambles to the base of the Falls then up to save Ria. A symphony of ruining sounds. Mara and Bill run to catch up. Susan pulls a a chock, a simple wired hexcentric ???, from her hair and sticks it in the rocks but it turns to sand and then a black void. She places a roller cam with similar result. A peradam sheet crashes down as Bill pulls Susan out of the way. The rock formation looks fragile. Bill looks up with a magnifying scope and sees a vibrating transparent stringy Mara like figure. It absells over Ria and down. Ria has reappeared from the abyss. Susan exclaims it is the sound that is stabilizing the area where the two figures are. Mara’s arms are outstretched. We learn later the ground has crumbled beneath their feet as Ria and a second Mara fall from above as Bill and Susan watch. As the falling bodies pass, flashing lights, rocks come flying out of the waterfall toward Mara Bill and Susan on the ground. Susan's hair unravels as, muklucked feet anchored in the sand, she begins spinning with projectiles flying out. With the glove, she pulls the chock from her hair and heaves it into the waterfall, shattering the waterfall, creating an avalanche and then prays.
Ria surfs the avalanche in red boots and lands standing on a carpet thinking she has landed in Susan’s red boots. Blue squirrels rush by. One giant one stops and whirls his hands around like Kali. Ria tries not to look. Blue runs into a peradam.
Mara says Susan is inspiring me to take a step onto the wild side. Maybe one of those green monkeys can help me, or was that the green fairy?
Blue reaches into Ria's rucksack and gets chocolate bars with nuts and shares with other squirrels, spots the waffle iron packed there. Susan throws pistachios into her hair. Squirrel is massaging Susans scalp and eating nuts. Ria saw Blue scurry off with my rucksack and the chocolate. She knows that map he ate "the mongrel" by heart.
Mara has landed on an outcrop, above a clearing. She looks out at a Hunter Moon and can see a cave at the bottom of the water. She pulls a glow stick from her bag and waves it as a signal. Squirrels gather around. She looks below and can see Ria talking to someone in her boots.
Below, a group hug, laughter. The Hunter Moon obscured by a cloud. Bill sits on the long beach and realizes the sand is made of tiny peradams. Ria is mimicking a runway model in the boots, Susan is laughing and tossing nuts to a small squirrel nestled in her hair. Mara is sitting on a piece of driftwood looking up at the falls. Bill wondering about the other Mara he saw, follows Mara’s line of sight and and sees a glimmer of light atop the falls.
CHAPTER 5
(We learn the squirrels have invented an encoding system like the Aztec system using a 2D visual system capable of storing large amounts of data with parallel lines and geometric patterns as well the use of black ink normally required for proper bar coding. The information scripted may include letters, numbers, text and actual bytes of data, including extended characters. ) (it is suggested Ria will know how to interpret these.)
(We also learn the travelers would be dreadfully confused to know of multiple Mara's and the multiples of themselves... Sometimes they would catch a shadow or sliver of themselves. there are things the duplicates like to keep to quiet. )
Bill, Ria, Susan gathered together. Ria remembers big squirrel disappeared with her rucksack. “I want my waffle iron back."
Squirrel massaging them and taking readings of their heads, then runs away but left a pyramid like arrow symbol on Bill's skin...probably of waffles. Suspicions they are ready to scan Bill and catalog him first...Susan tells Bill, Ria, Mara they have to leave NOW. They weren’t budging.
Mara, sitting on a piece of driftwood, knocks on it and a wee door opened and a voice called, "Come in"!
Meanwhile Mara2 sat in the depths of the forest with Lee at sunset. Lee watched Mara2 writing frantically in her notebook. Lee has little time to round up the blues and get them back through the warp before they were discovered ...blues multiply faster in this atmosphere. ...We may need help Lee thought. Mara disoriented as her glow stick doesn't register as a call for help... feels ledge is following her. Lee realizes Mara2 was getting feedback from Mara1...how could that be? This is really not a good situation for either of the Maras...did they see each other and become hopelessly confused? It was such a rare thing for multiples to meet..it could cause a rip in the tunnel fabric.
Susan sprinted out of there in a flash to formulate a plan. She hops while running, mukluks propelling higher and across great distances with every stride elevating quickly.
WHEN the same height as Mara on the cliff waved frantically to her THEN started to feel faint and blackness started to overtake her...Brilliant flashing lights...fantastical designs.
(can't tell if it's 1 or 2) Mara1 sees self Mara 2 lowering a red rope down from the lip of the canyon AND sees self ready to receive said rope at the edge of the pool while Big Blue, the most handsome, is gingerly lowering himself over the edge, and is able to trace a path down the face, going past her. Landing on the cave floor he talks to MT down there letting his truly majestic tail soak in the water. MT looks up at MT and gestures.
Lee turned around Mara2 was gone... blue moon would be up soon making it nearly impossible to get all the escaped blues rounded up and back to where they belong. Lee wonders, “Where has SS1 gone?” then watched SS1 fly higher she wondered how soon SS2 would come through the warp to help with the roundup...Lee knew SS1 knew the true menace of the blues...
Big Blue started climbing back up the face of the wall slowly, stand next to MT on the ledge. Every 5 seconds or so he'd move his wet tail 45 degrees from it's last position with water at risk if he didn't perform this exactly so. Mara digs out empty soup can held it out and Blue scrambled up her arm, placing his tail into the can then vigorously shook it, freeing himself of the water, fetched the rope and handed it to her. Next he grabbed the rope below her hands and performed a graceful slide back down to the pool, checking that she was paying attention when a whirling Susan appeared for a moment in front of her.
Worried a thirsty Mara would morph into a “blue nose” Lee screamed, “Mara! Don't drink the water!” With many gesticulating blues at the top of the cliff. Lee saw a blue streak across the sky. As it got lower there was SS (1 or 2?) diving directly toward the blues on the cliff top in her red boots
After it left it’s message on his skin, William starts to chase the blue, then turned back to Ria and the rest, saw Susan sprinting full speed in the opposite direction and asks Ria about the symbol. she replies, "birds..two birds..pyramid in the middle..maybe it's an arrow...
Bill turned to the piece of driftwood where Mara had been seated but she was gone. Then on the ledge, sees Mara up there with Susan leaping away...
A sudden blue sparkle crossed the sky and hits Susan who falls from the sky and landed in the water, missing the ship. Bill tells Ria Let's go pull them out." Ria responds, "Them?"
CHAPTER 6
Susan landed on top of Blue, knocking the can out of Mara's hand. Something smashed into her. She tried to climb over the object, crashed into the water, bobbed to the surface, due to the buoyancy of her hair. A double of herself floating next to her face-down. She saw red cowboy boots swam towards it and turned it over.
William and Ria wade out in front of the boat AND glance back to the driftwood where we last saw Mara. Susan has her double wearing red cowboy boots and bright curly blue hair in a fireman's carry.
Susan collapses on the sand and begins CPR.The woman sputters and spits out a blue seahorse which wiggles back into the water. Ria looks at her own feet and sees that her feet are still clad in red cowboy boots, identical to the figure Susan was working to revive. Bill's feet have soggy black Converse high tops, his usual.
Ria takes a step back and sits on the driftwood where she last saw Mara. The wood slippery, she slides off backwards then back to a sitting position and finds herself sitting next to Mara, on a high ledge, peers down at the Susans and Bill on the beach. Mara says to Ria something strange is going on and instructs her to creep up to the edge and look over.
Ria says, "It's ... you?" Mara responded, "It seems we've the chance to examine ourselves and our motivations for coming on this trip." The Mara in the middle is holding the rope, not escaping but assisting Big Blue. The Mara at the bottom was listening to Blue's plea to explain to the higher Mara, attempting to get down via this rope and rig a system to transport empty cans filled with water, that the can would hold enough for what the abalcabal needed in their upper pools. They used to have an easily accessed water supply, but now Big Blue transports all the water via his tail.
Mara examines how the rope is anchored, turns back to Ria and they join the group by rappelling.
William sees the big one made off with with everything. Mara exclaims where'd Bill come from? Who lowered this rope? Perhaps it was Big Blue rather than one of us, anyway, the anchor job is first rate.
Susan feels body stretching and humming, looks down witnessing her own likeness. Are the red boots her umbilical cord to return back to the comfort of her world? Were they the totem created to transport me from this altered state to reality? Someone tells her to un-trance and open her eyes.
SuTwo With blue hair, skin tone blue, struggles to breath...Bill grabs Susan's rucksack which she abandoned when she had raced and leaped down the beach. He pulled her diatonic blues harp out of a side flap and placed it in SuTwo's mouth. With huge gasping intakes which sounds like a locomotive whistle her color began to return. SueTwo asks "Why did you pluck me from the sky and bring me here? Where is Hermes? Where is my horse? Then... Why are you all gawking at me?
She sees Bill with the blues harp helping her breathing, another stooped over blocking the light, something vaguely familiar about both.
Ria won't rappell as Blue had her lucky red rope and not anxious to damage her boots. she sat down and worked to get the boots off. A cluster of blue teeny tiny squirrels ran out, she grabbed one by its neck, like cats do with their kittens, forcing it to to spit out its cheek contents; a string of small bluish peradams. Says to Mara finding these- finding ourselves-can't ever be the result of our conscious effort. Then, a mistake: looks the squirrel straight in its beady eyes.
Mara stretching deeply and gazing at the roof of the cave--the infinite sky represented by blue is a field of continuity in a disconnected world sucked up into the sky by the void. Mara sees the sea. Go... she thinks of careening towards them into the shallow layer of woofie dust... go to that Island of Stability.
Lee watches from above while the travelers (and duplicates) struggled with what was happening. It seemed important to get all the duplicates and blues back through the wormhole before the blue moon rose--an impossibility now that the 1's & 2's & maybe 3's are aware of one another what could happen if they all stayed here? She wonders.
Bill regrets he had not spent more time with a small section of guides' recommendations concerning hollow men or onions.
Susan saw the outline of Captain Bill, saw his lips moving, what is that lovely melody then noticed her double staring back--again. A blue one this time? she wonders.
Page-us Interuptus--indecipherable scratching and slight blotching resembling animal tracks. Jump to page 105 mid sentence.
Bill focused on Ria's and SueTwo speech. Ria actually speaks in sentences in which the number of words are always a prime number, the number of letters in the sentence are also prime, unaware that she is doing this "Bloody hell he got my waffle ir" Bill realizes she meant "iron" and mentally filled the last letter in. She speaks in magic prime squares?" Next William kneeling down next to to SuTwo doesn't understand her song interspersed with clicking--is she African, Khoisan or....
We learn:
1)Extra dimensional or inner dimensional was not clear at all in Daumal's account. The lively enthusiasm of heated debates during our voyage here lasted well into several evenings with no resolution.
2) certain magnetic effects aligning geographically alter perceptions of the origin of thought. Things appear as if by magic exist as potential, requiring right conditions to make it seem as if it had always existed like layers in an onion.
Mara sees Terma all around them but no inclination to gather any of the peradams. She sees other glove.
In clicks from SuTwo William heard something: synesthesia blue. He goes for a swim in the surf and sees a blue flicker of light half way to the reef. He reaches for a small vial.
Chapter 7
Mark is in a vial reading Mt. Analog by Rene Daumal. He longs for his freedom but accepts his fate. Bill, thinking it is a peradam, grabs the cloudy warm vial as something passes in front of the moon. Bill gives the vial to Susan to look at. She listens to it instead and then tosses it to her double Su Two. Su Two in turn tosses it to a little blue squirrel nearby on a piece of driftwood who wiggled it's tail, cocked it's head and then made a noise that sounded like a sneeze. Bill looked back at Susan incredulously.
When Mark was a lad his friend Dr. Hunter Moon aka Moony disapperared in a mishap with a time machine in October 1966. Moony had been interacting with a woman named Susan Shoeman and moved to Mexico.
Chapter 8
Susan remembers she was born to liberate Mark from the vial. This was predicted by oracles. We learn Susan was born on Feb 17 and that according to her firasr soothsayer she would rescue Mark today, the 17 of November, a Wednesday. She was instructed to search for clues her entire life. She bought her first red boots including images of blue squirrels in a peace sign. Susan sets out to get the vial back from the blue squirrels. Sue Two playing the harmonica says Susan isn’t following protocol. Bill rebutts this saying there is no protocol but Susan cites Pandoras Blochs. Meanwhile the blue squirrel seems top be arguing with the vile then pops it in his cheek. Susan urges everyone to let their thoughts flow more freely as Sue two flings herself at the Blue. The squirrel opens his mouth and a sea shanty, a little sailor’s song, comes out. He then removes the vile and places it into Susan’s hand, sneezes and wipes his mouth as he takes cover. A ship is seen circling inside the vial from the outside but inside the vial Mark is reading Daumal’s Mt. Analogue. He remembers losing his friends and feeling abandoned. As he reads, he is simultaneously thrust in to his own novel which is about someone riddled with doubt lost in time. He is reading and writing and experiencing his own novel simultaneously at the same time he is reading Daumal.
Outside the vial Susan whispered while caressing the vial near her face, "You are now found and pay attention this time. I have been told so much about you and hope you will stop your rhetoric long enough to take directions?" She paced nervously, looking at the others. She considered making a run for it and wished Ria were here to calculate some mathematical equations.
Mark, riddled with doubts, reading the Daumal novel over and over again for what seemed like eternity reveals that whoever buried him in this vial saw his character as some kind of masterpiece to be discovered at a later date.
Ria appears over the horizon on her blue mountain bicycle bearing a long red rope tied around her waist and a Tibetan prayer bowl. She reaches Susan and stops; takes the bowl and strikes it and the loud, deep ringing sound shakes Mark from his self-reflection catapulting him back into the moment. Before he knew it, Mark was transported back to 1967, listening to “Born in Chicago” by the Butterfield Blues Band. But Mark had never heard that song before and passes out.
Susan meanwhile, also was transported and she knew where she was. It was on Sherbrooke Street in Montreal at the New Penelope Blues Bar. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was playing and a man came over and divulged his name in his Irish accent. “Call me Hemingway”. It must have been the music blaring and the absinthe she was soon drinking. She then snaps out of this flashback and says “It won’t be much longer Mark!"
We learn what could be the key to the novel’s riddle: Mark heard before his captivity of a tradition called Terma: a physical object such as a ritual implement that is buried in the ground (or earth) or a text, one often written in Dakini script: a non-human type of code or writing but nonetheless hidden in a rock or crystal, secreted in a herb, or a tree, hidden in a lake (or water), or hidden in the sky (space). Though a literal understanding of terma is "hidden treasure", and sometimes objects are hidden away, the teachings associated should be understood as being 'concealed within the mind of the guru', that is, the true place of concealment is in the Terton's mindstream the way the peradams were being found along the way on the climbing of Mt. Analogue.
Whoever buried Mark in this vial must have seen him as the vessel for something to be discovered later. We learn it was Pandora who found a way to institute the "...on second thought.." clause, and at the dedication ceremony, involving absinthe among other things, there was a slip up and Bloch was locked in the vial like a Genie in a bottle. Can he grant their wishes? Or...is he like the Mark on the other side? Evil encased-imprisoned for all time? Both Susan's seem to have a connection- one negative the other positive- which will be let from the vial to be discovered at a later date. But as to why we do not know. The second thought clause was about a chameleon mind that seems incapable of understanding anything but mediocrity. Mark’s friend Dr. Moony had warned him about this.
Chapter 9
BIll’s shadow takes on a voice of its own. Susan, shocked, drops the vial accidentally and Bill’s shadow picks it up from the sand and begins to drink the contents. Mark shouts "I am that unlikely genie," as he emerges from the vial, remembers vaguely it was blue squirrels that locked him in there and drops the copy of MT. ANALOGUE he has been reading for eternity. He knew that this must be the work of the kabala numerical alignment he was warned about decades ago.
Bill’s shadow gulps the contents of the vial which resemble a frothy liquid which then emboss a figure into the sand that becomes a mold. Susan yells a mold!!!! as a thick greenish blue slimy liquid started to gel. A blue squirrel dips his tale in the mixture then runs toward the waterfall where the red rope is still emerging. He grabs it.
Other blues were hopping out a rhythmic set of beats with their sharp blue claws. They clicked a series of sounds transmitting messages around the island. Bill was staring blankly at the horizon stomping his feet in a trance to the beat of the blues.
The sand particles mixed with the goop started to form some kind of protoplasm of glistening granules sparkling and exploding on the beach which eventually took the shape of ….GUMBY? it is GUMBY! Everyone was guffawing out of control “Mark, what kind of tomfoolery is this?” they tried to blurt out.
W.E merely felt a slight tickle in his own throat and could not speak. The book was lodged in the shadows throat.
A light rain had begun to fall and William let the falling water calm the searing feeling in his throat and felt a tiny blochage dislodge.
Mark had two bodies at this point. One was tiny and swirling through the shadow’s digestive system, half hollow, half evil and all made of tiny Peradam crystals; the OTHER body was staring down at the scene-- floating above it but his feet were planted firmly on the ground. And was there a third Mark too? Gumby?
Mara tossed a blue burnoose like garment over the shadow’s depression and immediately all felt better. “There. That should calm everything down.” Slipping on the 2nd glove, she gingerly lifted the material to look directly into Gumby’s eyes thinking it was Mark. It’d been 1967 the last time they’d ran into each other with a shipment of absinthe missing and all the usual suspects promising to send a postcard.
Mara was referring to that1967 meeting but Mark was only 11 years old then. The Butterfield Blues Band was out of his league let alone absynthe. Could this have been the result of the time machine mishap that disappeared Moony? Mark suspected the Kabbalistic sequences of the Fibonacci Infinite Series Algorhythm.
Ria knew deeply, 'if Fibonacci strikes, we may all be lost' and turned her bike around Bill, skidding the wheels, and flew, running the red rope around Bill's waist. He was looking at the sky as Ria sighed, put the Tibetan bowl on her head and started singing 'do you know the way to San Jose,' and set off towards the East along the horizon with Bill, like a kite, flying behind.
Bill rises above and detach from his shadow. He glances into the small sack he had by a string tied like a necklace, He feels he knows the meaning of the Red Thread.
As elsewhere on the island Mara’s double said, "Look! The little one is making origami!" The blue squirrel focused on his folding, creating the “Red circle becoming a cone,” Then, the group on the shore, staring into something blue, creating the "downward looking cone, the vortex, the nadir." Susan whispered to SueTwo "nadir is an anagram for drain" . all of a sudden a great crack of thunder sent nuts again falling from the trees but this time each was accompanied by it's doublenut, falling up from the ground and lodging in the trees where tiny green monkeys had been waiting all along.
Lee woke up and staring down was the major monkey, patiently waiting…"time for you to leave here to start climbing now to reach the summit of return.” As Lee and the green monkeys looked down on the travelers and doubles below, "you know they can only travel the portal once and they won't really remember where they're from.”
LG began to climb higher & higher as a sphere was just coming into focus in the distance. As it began to spin, LG realized it would only be a matter of minutes before it vanished. As the air grew thinner the negative ions multiplied pushing her faster and faster toward the sphere--one look back was all there was time for--then LG and the sphere dissolved into the atmosphere.
As the boat smoothly sailed into the port, LG thought about the long journey to this strange place. She realized this certainly was something she was meant to do and these were people she was destined to meet. She stepped onto shore at Port O'Monkeys. Now LG sat at the edge of a blue rock at the top of Mount Analogue.
With sighs of relief people took places around the campfire. "What exactly are in those nuts and what just happened to us?" Heads snapped up to double check that yes, it was still the Bill they'd embarked with and not the blue squirrel Bill. Mara placed the 2nd single glove on a rock to look at it until she fell asleep.
We learn the streams there ran icy cold and was a deep deep blue. White rocks along the banks had flecks of blue that glistened in the sun, leading the way to the vast mines of the mountain. The blue is the treasure of the mountain with veins of blue that ran through the mountain - mined by the small blue squirrels. The mines were run by a band of green monkeys with wild eyes. Generations of squirrels working made the small animals a lovely shade of blue. Their world was quite dismal, their only pleasure being the nuts that they were paid-- for the precious blue stones mined from the depths of the mountain. Over the years some of the blues would escape through the rip between worlds. The blues tried to avoid detection of searchers that would come to round them up for return to the blue mines on the other side. Occasionally the green monkeys would slip over to find special miners. Things are much more complicated for the searchers from the other side now that these travelers were here.
Chapter 10
Mindful of Daumal's admonitions to properly prepare each camp for future travelers before departing, our disruption of the waterfall has to be set right.
William was drained and in need of some down time from Ria's provided flight. He could still see the tiny red filaments that attached him to his friends, the last sight he saw before Ria "oopsed" and he came to rest.
Small blue dipping it's tail in the frothing Mark puddle and scurrying to the waterfall cliff a reminder of Mara's quest to help the blues before they press on. Unhappy GUMBY caused by the blue --a guide for our next set of actions. Lee's arrival with her news of green monkey sightings has also caused a bit of a stir and several theories as to their connection to the blues have been advanced.
Mara has rigged the ropes into a potentially serviceable solution to the squirrel’s water problem.
Lee, whilst sailing saw a large pack of flying green monkeys heading towards shore a bit . She eventually joined the explorers that must partake of the Island mushroom. She heard some of the bizarre happenings the travelers have already encountered...blue squirrels..and flying about at will..and what's with the twins? I'll just sleep on it...that fire is so comforting...What have I gotten myself into? - Lee
Susan gawked over to the depression in the sand still steaming with green smoke and viewed Mark nonchalantly sitting there, near the campfire tossing some nuts into the cracking fire seemingly unaware of the past events. Susan was relieved and still wore red string bracelet on her left wrist. She had offered the others this Kabalistic talisman and insisted they should wear this to defend them from any negative energy and Ria and Mara agreed. They secretly braided together yards of red twine to form the thick protective climbing ropes.
Susan recalled the past few days and now wondered if it was only one long night of chaos, too much drink or spoiled food and discreetly scanned around the quiet campfire. No one was really saying much. Mark started to sing. Immediately, Bill turned towards the sky and stood up declaring with a loud “Shazaam” popped out his telescope to view the constellation of Ratatosk (gnaw-tooth) – the squirrel constellation with one star for its head, one for each foot, one for its body, and two for its tail.
Bill went on to enlighten us “According to Norse mythology, Ratatoskr is a squirrel who runs up and down the world tree Yggdrasil to carry messages between the unnamed eagle, perched atop Yggdrasil, and the wyrm Níðhöggr, who dwells beneath one of the three roots of the tree. Our success is based on the Blues here on Mount Analogue!”
Mark wants forgiveness for not believing in unicorns and thinks he pissed off Susan. the story told about childhood wasn't entirely true. He knew no one would join in on his song. They just sat there staring. Thank God Bill broke the tension
Before Mark had been thinking that separating from the group…”Maybe no one is mad at me and I just think they are.” Mara had decided to off on a journey to somewhere on the other side of the world, that might not even exist.
Cathy slipped behind the trees to watch this grouping of people from a safe distance.
Who are these people and why are they all wearing tin-foil hats?
They seem happy...Dare I enter the grove?
Lee thinking back on that conversation with Mara "You should come", she said, surely knowing I'd say no. Instead she opened the battered briefcase shoved under a bed years ago. It belonged to her father and contained bits and scraps of his very short life. Going through this case again brought back memories. A hand drawn hard to read map was the very place Mara and her group went to find. She wondered what do I do now????
William notices Ria folding tin-foil into party hats. "For the bonfire for Mukla. "Hey, where's Mark?" I look over to where he was sitting not eight minutes ago.
Mara "Hey Susan, did you end up with the first glove, or did I? I'm thinking we need to look at them together, I've an idea what they're about, and I hope it's wrong." Susan gasping for air because she’s so excited. "Yes, Mara, the gloves contain the clue.... We need to place them finger to finger to form the directional compass. The map has been at our fingertips all this time!” She searched frantically inside one of my many deep pockets for the glove as a green florescent spark shimmered and twinkled flying up in the sky vanishing into the starlit darkness. " I've got the 2nd glove,” Ria stifles a snicker. Mark just flew into the sky! Mara assigned it to a residual effect from the nuts. looked up, along with Susan.
William concerns about our lack of progress have evaporated tells her "you're distracting them." Tin foil are causing some amusing green flashes in the campfire. "Just one more." Fzzzst
Chapter 11
Lee trying to lighten the load a bit... found a little book of maps with one to Mt Analogue…It can't be real...can it? "Hey Mara, I think you need to look at this......
Mark whirled through the sky but had been previously trained. The Doctor had told him even at the center of a hurricane is a very calm place. Mark looked down at Lee fumbling with her map near the fire, How did I get here? Mark was thinking of a time after he got the letter “but before this climb.
FLASHBACK
I remember a long uphill walk; Bill walked ahead of me in his red cowboy boots. Everything was normal …Bill sitting in the sidewalk cafe waiting for coffee to cool.... the waiter handed him the end of a red rope. Now we were in a studio. Susan was talking about unicorns.” He told her "no way in hell" we'd see one. Moving into the small kitchen alcove Susan, nervous about Mark’s unnecessary attack, began to open the cabinets. Susan opened the first cupboard which was filled with cans, most of them with no labels. Bill: "Let her have her dream." Susan opened the second cupboard to find three cans of Campbells soup: "Think", "Don't Think" and "Don't Believe What You Think." I came up behind her, opened a door that she hadn't and saw an empty vile way in the back on the right. She saw me looking at it. I told her I was sorry.
Now in my minds eye we were back on the trail again. "I think I will hike by myself for a while," was the next thing I remember saying but no one else was nearby so I added another sentence knowing no one was listening and not quite sure why that mattered or why I chose this particular sentence. "Hey Susan did I ever tell you about the first time I heard the Butterfield Blues Band?" To Susan and Bill down below I yelled: "Did you know there are gloves made especially for folding origami? They are very high tech, and use the latest inventions. You know... silicon and carbon fiber.”
A large rotating column of air is whirling from the ground, growing in height and width with silver and green sparks flashing inside the azure funnel. Inside was Mark floating completely still and posed within the turbulent display of fireworks. Susan stood up , grabbed Bill’s telescope, broke the glass and used it like a bullhorn hoping it would amplify her voice. “Mark…Mark…do you believe now…do you believe?”
William was wondering about provisions. Mara's year or more on the expedition and his own failures in the past stemmed from poor logistics and lack of a strong team. He thinks “At some point I'll have to return to the ship and sort through the pantry. The canned goods certainly can be cached at lower camps…the cans themselves have proven useful and we have used the tin to make whistles with bits of the soup labels still adhere.”
Mark in funnel cloud as a herd of angry, stampeding unicorns advanced rapidly toward the fire in a cloud of blue-green dust. The glass from the ocular lens of Bill's smashed telescope twinkled at Susan’s feet in the twilight as nothing below Susan's figure seems solid at all and she looked at thousands of vibrating strings in the form of the other people. She feared for her friends. Above her and to the left on the mountain was the cracking sound of an avalanche.
She saw the options for our escape decreasing as a bunch of blue squirrels rushed past them… echoed the giant swarm of unicorns moving closer. Susan choked in her breath as one giant blue squirrel whirling his arms so fast looking like a thousand. She reached out to touch it with Bill's telescope and all of a sudden a great crack of thunder was heard and nuts once again started to fall from the trees where tiny green monkeys were waiting…doublenuts began falling up from the ground and lodging in the trees, the fire first roared large then abruptly extinguished itself as all campers slowly rose up off of the ground in unison with their possessions and joined Mark in the sky. All the animals on this island swirled in a giant cacophony of movement around them, then every camper landed on what felt to be a woolen carpet upright safely. Atop the cliff of the ruined waterfall, Big Blue and other squirrels have found the rucksack. The Waffle Iron has been placed on a level rock. The self gathering nuts arrange themselves into patterns the small blues quickly bang the lid down. Blue glances at RIA’s name backwards on the rucksack –and chatters a strange sound.
Susan rising up surveyed the screeching and banging hurting her hearing so she used her hair as earplugs. The blues were scribbling into the sand with the tips of their fluffy blue tails crude letters the word “ISHKABIBBL" Mark saw the squirrels writing LBBIBAKHSI-what Susan saw, backwards. He looked at Susan but she had not heard a thing because her ears were plugged.
The monkeys descended from the trees and the animal’s leader shouted "Let's be brave! I believe a kidnapping has solved it!"
Mara looked down to the right at a cave entrance next to a pinnacle of rock and waved the group there. “We need to go back down to the landslide, complete the preparations for the next climbers and then begin the trek to hut 8 (see Bill’s original map), passing the ruined waterfall.” they couldn’t exactly hear. Meanwhile the climbers not present were making their way towards hut 8 in order to join them later .
We know the landslide had separated the squirrels from their cave water source. Big Blue, ragged, used his tail as a mop to bring water to their pools is the only one big enough to climb down to the source and return to the top over the landslide. The squirrels nervous & chatty, run to the other side of the tree and hide, rather than calmly laying it all out in front of the group. Susan, Mark, Bill and Lee move towards the pinnacle, landing on its top. Mara pointed to the two gloves and Bill stated, “the squirrels are asking for our help, and we can give it to them.” “They want one of our ropes,” whispered Mark. Mara suggested if they help them rig a pulley and leave some empty cans they will be able to have their water and pool days back but will loose a rope. If they caused the landslide is not relevant but it was figured out that those nuts happen to gather over a certain moss, then their properties change. So when bagging, note which contain the food and which the clues.
Bill and Mark had started walking deeper into the cave, a substance on the walls illuminated their way...Lee landing in the cave sees a safe place with reeds and other natural materials. “I think the rope situation is not a problem as it's quite easy to make more and if we need to dye them red we have the cacti beetles to use for the dye…and water....I expect if we go deeper in that cave we just might find a natural spring in there. Where has Susan gone now?
Chapter 12
A small blue had followed Mark and Bill with something stuck to it's tail. Bill reached down and pulled a tiny book from the fur. This was the same one who imitated Blue's tail mopping and had dipped into Mark upon his "resurrection" in an attempt to help his clan's water crisis. Mark's features (and personality) had caused Susan to believe we had uncorked Gumby.
Bill looks at the book which appears to be Mark's account of our climb. Bill hands it to Mark whose greenish pallor improves. Bill inquires how could Mark write so much with the answer being that this was the ending. ”Daumal could not complete Mount Analogue but we did. We planted the Daumal flag at the peak. We had returned from the 25th century to finalize his endeavor.”
Reading on, Bill learned Susan pressed the PLAY button on her audio vibration unit, the rest of us lined up in our positions to form the Fibocinci grid in "The Shape of the Waffle", completing a prophecy and dance. Bill forgets finding a proper source of water to aid the blues. Not understanding the writing he asks "Mark, do you believe time runs in two directions here?" Yes, he implied, just on this mountain. Bill turned back to the cave entrance looking for Ria, thinking of how this knolwege may have affected his previous climbs, spotting her at the mouth of the cave rapping the Tibetan Singing Bowl atop her head.
Ria, who had been just tagging along seeing the others as hyperactively saving squirrels and running after time, strolled after Bill towards a cave. Blue had taken her rucksack. She could physically feel time pulling and decided to use the bowl as antenna of sorts atop her head then tells Bill and Mark, "Time is the substance I am made of."
Mark thought Ria must at least have an inkling of vertical slices in the time-space continuum all around us, now containing time-space grids. He too feared the others did not see things as he did. Mushrooms made everyone crazy. He sensed he could just exit AT WILL through one of those slits... BY CHOICE. it was becoming very uncomfortable inside that cave as he contemplated disappearing into one of the fissures. Mara also moved further into the cave, feeling deja vu and jamais vu, an effect of the 4th Time Wave Principle.
Ria, and her Singing Bowl removes a small pouch from her pocket. As she opens the pouch several of the small blues in the cave begin to sing. Notes from the little blue's shanty and Ria's bowl join to form a harmonic convergence. Plucking several of the notes from the air, Bill tucks them into the time fissures. The notes ripple slightly as if there is air passing over them then condensation then water trickling from each like tapping maple trees for sap. Bill recalls the waffle iron as the quite happy blues begin to lap up the water as puddles form.
"Mara, we have a source!" Honorary Big Blue Bill was carried around the cavern by the blues joyfully.
"Let's leave them our empty cans," which Mara fished out of her rucksack with the silver squirrel from that first day she placed it on a natural shelf writing "Silver Springs" below. They decide it’s better than hauling it over the landslide with a pulley system and all contribute some equipment for the mechanical water brigade.
Susan entered the cave and stood motionless overcome with the emotion of happiness as they celebrated. Blues fanned each other in a sequence from smallest to tallest, the temperature dropping. They surrounded Big Blue and with their “derrieres” to him, rapidly waving tails. She sways to the music. Swishing tails pounding on silver cylinders. She thinks negatively about the climb… “Susan! Snap out of it ishkabibbl again... ishkabibble”, then everything vanished.
Mara pulled out the gloves whose lining had a map showing the huts and other locations but no trail.
Sounds were coming from Susan. “She’s slipping away again,” Mara said while the others flicked water in her direction then grabbed her. Mara reached and caught Mark by the pocket, which seemed to annoy him but they didn’t want to lose track of him again. They circled Susan about to be whisked through another loophole so they all grasped handfuls of hair their visions became tuned as they started to see the arrival of a second group, The Sisters. Their departure had been delayed due to the performance schedule of Jane and Cathy and we'd been anticipating their arrival for two months , now their skills would help insure the success of the ascent. Angela and her sister were similarly indisposed for the October departure and were due to arrive with Cathy and Jane.
Now, everyone clinging to Susan's hair and watched Jane and Cathy perform on the low flying trapeze like a playground swing set with Susan moaning the word ishkibble. The small blues cradled Susan forming a couch as her past intertwined with her future. Her sea horse aquarium, her Paris commune days, her university studies in fluid dynamics. Her future inspired interpretive dance at the Mulka bonfire two weeks in the future. Now Lee with her eyes wide …where was she?
Lee off again-on her own went deeper into the cave with walls that lit her way, heard the others is the distance revealing pictographs on the wall, carvings left from a time long ago. Who lived on this mountain? Niches had been taken over by small squirrels as homes with streams of blue liquid seeping from the walls, giving them pleasure. Seeing a shimmer to the air like a wave in front of her, a monkey flies thru the wave and disappears, does she follow?
Mark was still in the cave, hypnotized by the repetitive pounding of the silver cylinders, a pattern as they repeated 1,2,3,5,8,13,21... then 34,55,89,144 and back. He tried to see through the slit but could only make out a couple of monkey faces darting back and forth. They first appeared weeks earlier as he hiked alone up the mountain and then back down sent to keep him company he figured.
More monkey heads appeared, falling streams of blue liquid, which slowed as they reached the cave floor. Mara and Mark watching this in amazement. Then in Susan's past Mark saw the visage of his friend and mentor Dr. Hunter Moon –mysteriously gone since he was a lad. He was talking to the young Susan about Sammy Davis Junior, Sammy Davis Junior? Was this another Gumby situation? Mark succumbed and flew into a time-space slit which carried he and Susan, or some version of her, to a similar cave further up the mountain.
Mara left behind saw that the mountain is climbed not in space... but in time! Who is waiting at Hut 8, getting ready to leave as we approach? How can we all travel and arrive, well, at the same time?
After Lee's discovery Bill and others all poured over the parchments and ...tablets with great enthusiasm. "For the Time Being” AND "All at Once" had a more global connotation than our common use today. The sister group is near and Bill looks forward to seeing Dr. Ferrara soon....."
Susan faded in the distance chanting “ISHKABIBBLE” floating on a cushion of thick blue fur listening to what seemed like endless reciting and singing reverberating connected with the true meaning of the BLUES and MOUNT ANALOGUE. Their MANTRA: kibbehs BLEAKISH keblahs kiblahs ETC. She realized in they were giving us the clues all from the word ISHKABIBBLE! She tries to locate everyone so they will know! Ria quietly removed her Tibetan bowl and placed it gently on Susan's head.
Lee asks is this just an illusion? Are we all still on the beach sitting around the fire stoned on those damned mushrooms or is there really something more and why am I not with the group, where are they, are they in a collective dream?
Mark tells Susan he’s lost but she was sleeping & looked deep into her eyes to see if I could tell which Susan he was talking to. “The cave we were in was quite like the one we had just been in but quiet. We were further up the mountain because the air was thinner and the temperature was colder.”
Susan began to giggle and rings of frosty hair came out of her mouth as she began to speak: "I know you heard the thing about Sammy and the Anthony Newley song." Hunter was talking to me about him and then he suggested we come here for a moment." As in this cave here? Moody Duck?" "Yes!" she explained "He wanted you to know about the song. The lyrics to Born In Chicago by the Butterfield Blues Band explains everything. That and the glass eye. It takes us back to his birth which would have been in 1941 and that was the precise moment that Daumal was working on Analogue and completing his trip to the the 25th Century. So when he found you and you had come from there, he knew you were the one he had been looking for!
I am not from the 25th Century!" But she went right back into her rant: " The other thing you have to consider is the Anthony Newley play 'Stop the World I Want to Get Off' which was quite popular in Canada around then, 1961 or '62 with a wave of her hand little slits began to appear in the cave walls and blue liquid was pouring out of them, first one then another, just like they had been in the other cave but this time Susan began moving about the cave waving her hands and as she did the blue streams floated away from the cave walls and into the center of the room where they aligned into a beautiful turquoise blue waterfall.
"How did you know Dr. Moon?", I asked her. she waved her hands again and she had a little black moustache and a funny hat and onto the waterfall she projected out of her right hand an image that began to move! It was Sammy Davis Junior and she looked at my defiantly and said "Dig this, Gumby!" and with that Mark began to watch a holographic image of Sammy.
Lee with Toto in fields of lavender had a monkey perched on her shoulder who flew around before landing back on her shoulder. The hot sun was not uncomfortable. At the edge of the field the beginning of the forest that lead to the mountain but with no trail. She could see the ocean and the mountain. I think I'm still on the same island..I don't know what year or even century I'm in. The group was no where to be seen.
William adjusted Susan's head as Ria began plucking notes from the air and began a vigorous thumping of bowl. Ria called over the banging, "A little help here!!!!...just use the quarter notes for now; we'll see how that goes." Mara and Bill and a few of the small blues joined in; increasing tempo to bring Susan around.
Back in the cave Susan waved her hand and the holographic ethereal sculpture thingy kind of faded away.
"What was that?" Mark asked. "It's like a TV from the 25th century," she continued. "Wasn't Sammy great? Daumal was writing his book about the poets of the 25th century and that's how he found us. And Sammy.
In 1941, at Detroit's Michigan Theater, Sammy first met Frank Sinatra who was the Dorsey vocalist. That was happening just as the guy who was the protagonist in that song 'Born in Chicago' was born...in Chicago!".
"That gave Daumal 13 years to arrange for the peradam to be planted in Sammy's skull in the guise of a glass eye! No one would think of looking for it there. Bloody hell brilliant!"
As Mark listened peripheral monkeys had not appeared. It was as if this story was keeping the monkeys at bay.
Susan was back home ’67 watching the performance of Jefferson Airplane “White Rabbit” dancing on stage with them, jerking on the platform wearing my “Je suis francais” black beret and fringed dress shimmying, jerking, swaying, laughing, tapping the floor, keeping time with my red boots, watching the fireworks exploding into vibrant colors morphing into translucent blue bubbles rising into the sky as a strobe light caressed us all, grooving, looking for the answer from Alice, as the sky cracked open with a clamor and rich blue nectar from the gods seeped down all around me pouring into my very existence!
Susan noticed hundred of sparkling and flashing blue eyes staring. Bill and Ria and Mark converged into focus. Blue liquid on the walls of the cave and the tiny blues smiling. She felt goop on her face and wiped some off. Mark looked a little bit like Sammy Davis Jr. staring at her with a shimmering lens radiating towards her in spiral light.
“ I am ready to continue the climb” she blurted out. Mark looked at Susan. Then “ I am ready to continue the climb” blurted out of his mouth in response but it wasn't him that was speaking. He thought they should get moving but didn’t know why.
Lee who thought she was alone and lost somewhere in time could see a tall figure moving towards her. Toto chattered & giggled with excitement.
Maramara was feeling beside herself. A rock reappeared from behind the short film on Sammy. Looking to her left, Mara there was humming and smiling, drawing a symbol onto the face of the rock. She felt sleepy and slow, as if half asleep and reluctant to move. Wait, I can’t move. Do I have to move? Am I floating? What is the other Mara thinking? "The images must be drawn just so, to reverberate with the vibration unit. We are moving on! What date and time is it at Hut 8? Who has their unit handy?"
Chapter 13 "To Mulka and Beyond"
Lee and Toto- A man came closer with a bit of a belly; not what I expected a true mountaineer to look like at all. why aren't you with the group because you followed Otto the monkey
‘He sits on a rock and wrestles off a pair of red cowboy boots that look like the ones Susan wore
My friend René used to call me Milefo; now tell me Lee; how do I know your name?"
The monkey reaches into Milefo's sack, retrieves an apple; takes a bite. Both are looking at me for an answer.
Lee - I've lost track of my companions as well as time and place.
The last thing I remember is being in a strange cave and walking through a kind of wave in the air. It seems that on the other side of the wave is this lavender field
But there's no sign of my friends here
Am I on other side of the island? Milefo started to laugh...Otto flew around giggling....
Maramara began to feel a tickling in her toes. there was a hush whoosh and she was standing as integrated Mara with Beaman's) gum in a can and a squirrel hair brush in the other.
leaving a trail for any followers, and if we find ourselves way off base these will help us find the time." Placing the tools on the ground Mara asked, "William, Mark, Susan, Ria, are you ready to go to the Hut 8 of 1908? I think that Lee may have proceeded us,
Lee in the midst of the lavender field on smooth stones. Miliefo shared some dried fruit and nuts with Otto and me to explain things to me.. Otto's name..it is Toto on the other side of the time wave."
Milefo continued; "There are many things on the other side that are quite different from here, this IS the island of the lost and maybe every other fantastic place you've ever heard of.
visitors make things change."
remember the mind is the most powerful element in your story.
What you remember, what you experience, what you imagine, all are parts that intermingle with the experience and imagination of your companions.
You are all creating the journey you are on.
Something caught my attention on the horizon..Milefo was gone.
..Otto/Toto was gone
I sat alone in the field of lavender.....
go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
I looked around for a path NOT to follow, so I could find my way to the others.....
Mara - Mulka is December 21st. We set our thoughts on Camp 8, 1908, looking forward to seeing the other climbers. The squirrels telepathically assured us that all the food and prep would be their pleasure, they will meet us there.
Please go to my Festival Album
(The squirrels' wagon has arrived at Camp 8.!!)
the trip through the warp was smooth as usual
unspoiled Island in 1908...
Mark - Susan and I abruptly found ourselves trudging up the mountain toward Base Camp 5. ascending forever and not getting anywhere
“because of the Butterfield Blues thing," she said. "The higher we climb, the further back in time we go."
"And we've been climbing at just the right pace so that with each step we take, we stay exactly where we just were" said Ria's voice behind us. Startled, Susan and I turned around to look at her but there was no one there!
Susan - I was partaking in the festivities and then in one instant, one zap, poof I found myself climbing a most precarious cliff with Mark.
That was some celebration last night;
music and singing…
I pushed Mark into the snow made a snow angel.
I must be behaving oddly due to the thinness of the air!
Mark s gold Victorian explorer’s pocket compass from 1860 that his grandfather gave him fell and got stuck in the snow. …Mark’s family invented the compass!!! I wondered if it actually works here on Mount Analogue. Maybe that is why he joined the climb. Another mystery to solve I wondered.
All of a sudden, Mark put his finger to his lips to tell me to be quiet. “Ria and the gang are finally catching up to us”. Ria’s shape meandering towards us vanished
I am scared
he tries to humor me with some monkey jokes!
Lee - group decided to start climbing I go in warm hut. There are still many caves to explore as well.
check out the contents of my backpack
there is a Bloch Co. compass
"Don't follow the path to find THE PATH
Mark and Susan waited for Ria Bibiana, Angela and others who were so far away and yet around the corner,
we departed from Hut 3
. I had grown used to Ria's voice emanating from behind us;
After monkey jokes we discuss the the roots of cubism , all the surfaces of depicted objects in a single picture plane,
we wondered where Ria was.
Chapter 14
Ria - I had been wondering where I was, I used the SD-Device to look for clues saw kaleidoscopic shapes and forms, cubism. multiple faces, monkeys and fleas. Ah I knew exactly where we were....
William picks up a message with pyramids from Ria who is in 1908
Ria started singing Madame Butterfly always does when scared.
Susan 1908 in St. Petersburg! my trapeze act …Marc Chagall--- modeling for him in his cold studio. --- nude! Mark and Susan stuck in that year and need to move forward in space or we will run out of time”. Mark melts and evaporates. In his place, screaming green monkeys enclosing Susan
Mark - I had gone from Susan into a frothy goo, then rubbery green form and icy sculpture, angular and stiff. one reality to another--people into environment. I look like a glistening egg carton.
Lee look through the backpack as memories flood . past future
Now to find a portal to get me to them. Or them to me.............
Ria gathered things up as a tight crevasse opening up right next to her and jumped in, feet first, SD Device on stand by.
yelled at the top of my voice 'MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRK" Where Art Thou?
William writing in notebook had just finished a satisfying lunch of Campbell’s Don’t Think hears Ria’s yell and then something hit the snow drift and hitching a rope between his waist and the Self Gathering Nut Tree peered over the edge of the newly formed crevasse and sees Ria upside-down boots wiggling . a flock of Doublers to take flight.
Bill bury my ice ax rig a second rope over my rucksack lowers himself in a harness and pitched a second loop of rope and rescues Ria by the feet who calls him a mothball.
the blues had joined
pulled and pulled but I couldn’t free her, she was pulling him to the edge.
Mara concerned about food storáge. she called the squirrels telepathically and a harvest wagon full of more squirrel snacks arrived
Lee thought
Milefo was helpful but seemed to think she knew more than she did.
move on huts will have an answer. small monkey whispered start with hut 7''.......!!!!!
sun went down over Mount Analogue all got sleepy.
it was the 19th Century, 1908, 1943, 1947, 1960, 61 or 67, 2009, 2010 or 2011. Even the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th Century
A thin layer of skin closed over Sammy's peradam and all was calm across the land.
Lee with neither Otto OR Toto. Monkey said call me Maku"
Maku gently said, light.. that is how we travel..it is what we are made from. Please just embrace the feeling let the energy flow through you."
Lee took the Portal to Hut 7 ?
Susan monkeys were lunging higher and green fur touch my face.
Toget away from them boots were starting to slip and I was sliding in slow motion backwards, snow cascaded around me somersaulting now balancing precariously on a cornice that would collapse under me. laughing, flew off the edge for safety! If Mark can do it, I can too!
William on the edge, Ria stuck and melting deeper. Pulling me in too. Suddenly Ria jackknifed herself around grabbed hold of the rope and climbed right past me.
I see her boots disappear over the top; She yells down at me and he follows Ria over the top to safety. she sits heavily against the SGN tree
a figure falls from the sky, tangles into my rope and plunges into the crevasse. Bill pulled back over the edge by Susan in blue mukluks.
Chapter 15
Susan plummeting deeper and deeper down the slide of the mountain. bent my right knee stroking the fur of my blue mukluks I crashed down on my derriere. Rolling over a few times staring at yet another strange creature floating in the air in front of me.
Mark - I awoke to the sound of jostling outside the tent. I peeked out through the opening and saw Susan and Bill chatting.
remembered my dream.
hiking with Susan
Ria's voice appeared behind us
we could not connect with her.
I felt like it had really happened.
my sketchbook and began to make some notes.
Lee - Moving into that wavy light
found myself standing in front of a dilapidated cabin..
No wonder the others all kept talking about hut 8..
no one had used this or been here in many years; there was not even a path close by.
aku must be wrong and meant us to go to hut 8 or 9.
"Trust me" , she whispered.
without the other travelers. They must be half way up the mountain by now
I knocked on the door.
I heard footsteps, the door was thrown open and I was invited inside..
Mark I drew a diagram. I had been to Hut 8, Hut 7 and Hut 6, but before that there was only the vial. I could only remember being inside that vile. It had been decades since I was actually in Hut 8
I would return there as if in a dream...
via the live writing on the cave walls, the waffle broadcasts and that strange waterfall Mara had found in that woman's hat.
It seemed as if at least once of us was going back there once a day.
what makes Hut 8 so appealing?
William - a rope lasso my feet and start to pull. Reaching out, I lock hands onto Susan's harness and Ria soon has us both pulled to the edge.
Susan up over me. They fish me the rest of the way out.
two women none the worse for wear.
Ria said; "Non-Euclidian extractions."
discovered a Non-Euclidian creavasse!!!"
Ria as having a PHD in Non-Orientable Surfaces concerning the decanting of a Klein Bottles.
Lee Hut 7 teepee looking structure...it is Mt. Analogue. other travelers upstairs in a teepee climbing way past hut 8 not hut 7...
I saw myself sitting in the doorway....opps...that's not right.
Maku calmly said, "Obviously you zigged when you should have zagged...we just go back
I turned Maku on my shoulder retraced the way we came a wave of energy that I gingerly stepped through.
Susan -Ria William arguing
I looked up in the air grabbed telescope under my chapeau
Mark, round and swollen, like a bluish blow-fish swaying in the breeze with A giant squirrel tail. Mark had joined the blues.
He was always researching a lot about his art and his life morphed into one of them.
he floated carelessly then dropped like a dead weight. smashing onto the east side of the mountain. Momentum built up as he rolled continuously down the side
Bill and Ria Susan, have a way to get to the top of the Mount Analogue!”
Mark crash into the sea bobbing up and down with the waves.
“Yes..Mark has great altitude or is it attitude..” I chuckled. “
We can use the red ropes, create a basket and make some sand bags.
Mark - I continued scribbling in my journal. "Let's see," I muttered to myself, "yeah, Hut 8 but then Hut 2,3, and 4. The waterfall.... a fresh rock fall below, and above an opening to the sky.... "
it was such a rare thing for multiples to meet rip in the tunnel fabric
Susan was the same height as Mara on the cliff and waved frantically to her. never saw her.
As I watched them
flashing lights were sparkling
I was safely here in the tent. "I'd better get up continue diagramming later."
Lee 'hut 7'
information overload
large with quite a few rooms.
floors are stone
walls are covered with stuff; pictures of some of the island's plants and animals.
A green monkey was sitting beside a red shoe and there were a couple of blue squirrels with a sweet looking orange and black cat. On the table was a large raven standing in front of a large interesting looking box, rolls of papers were behind the table with other bits of information.
In a corner behind a chair was a very strange looking figure; part bug-person, what?
He did look friendly.
The bug man said have some soup."
I'd love to."
William's Insect Self - I offered broth.
the blues who supply the hut a bit overdue.
the sunlight reflecting from her like jewels cut into geometrics by the shore dwellers.
first of this group to arrive did she know the Bibita.
and handed Lee a magnifying glass.
Chapter 16
Cathy sat down after traversing this canyon, between two ragged peaks, looking for a way out
sound of voices far away looking for a pattern of light, or cloud, that would bring me to my fellow climbers again.
Lee - Waking
I seem to be heading down, not up, as the other climbers are doing.
Retracing steps already taken...but...maybe not....those caves-- one that led me to the lavender fields. I want to see what is below ground; maybe leave the Mountain to other climbers
Mark - unzipped sleeping bag glanced down at the loose diagram I had just sketched zig zagging pattern caught my eye.
Ria - friends chattered away
Blue! I turned towards him
On his back my rucksack concentrating on our gang,
giving me back my backpack now Blue?
Belgian waffle iron
he froze, all four stretched out. The bag slipped from his shivering shoulders and he scurried off light speed. I peered into it, I saw ... light.
Christopher was assigned the cleanup of the mud, began to spread the stones
cause the killing of a rock rat
I spread the stone, eventually forming patterns,
stones with blue moss on them
the larger plants, cross between a gourd, and a shred of meat. grow faster than the others, turned into a purplish-pinkish flower, that brought all the wasps back
I found three small peredams which I added to my pouch.
I showed them to the guides, they laughed
He saw his future: There were visits from my wife, and news from my son who was attending a local botany school,
Then it happened. The gourds were gone except one on the edge of the field
starring at a single point,
three holes appear at once, one quite close to the gourd, the same size as one of the others, and yet both smaller than the one in the middle. It moved about a foot over dropping the gourd into the earth.
I leaped forward to clutch this strange animal, and was swallowed by the earth. As I flipped over to climb back out again, buried to the neck. I stayed there for the next three days.
I envisioned my wife finding me this way,
rumbling began, as if a volcano was growing around me. Each ripple of mud grew a lump, and branched around me in a circle,
bloomed out of a lotus flower, into the mud. The lumps grew higher, till it became clear: These were them, the hollow men not as an allegory, but as a reality.
mud, they were capable as wearing it as a suit.
around me in a circle, as if praying over a dying man.
They broke formation, reaching to lift me up.
Up on my feet,
These hollow men could experience and above ground life. Explorers in a world that was as strange, as Mount Analogue was to me.
stone slabs in the area.
I stacked them over the next month, making tall cubes, each with a pile of mud on the side
In the center was a table. I sat and waited, hoping they would come. A hollow-man did come, taking on the form of the mud, and sat across from me.
“Why would you do this for us?” “No-one has ever done anything like this”.
we want to meet Full-People, Can you put roofs on the buildings?”
I told him I would.
As I was building the roofs, my wife came back, over the horizon.
she saw the Hollow-Men walking from solid cube house to another
she said, “I want to climb the mountain with you.
More travelers were on their way (one with red boots). So we walked over to gather supplies, as she said “We should call them Mudheads”.
Lee needed to leave notes for the other travelers.
There is a book that has been started here, unlike some of the other huts that expected individual letters.
detailed regarding the time warps,
important to have a good guide, as silly as the little monkey can be, he's been quite reliable....as a guide.
we are now moving lower on the mountain I will explore one of the many caves on the way down.
I doubt if the others will be close by any time soon.
Christopher time warp possibly a life's
My wife finally wrote "cause effect, effect cause, when are we?" on the cover of our journal
we found a cave on the west side of the wall,
entering
a lack of time and space starting to seem ordinary, even comfortable..
Lee traveled maku tug at my ear or hair if I went off his course.
surprise ahead"
through a stand of trees to see a large winged monkey waving to us in front of the largest and most unusual tree I'd ever seen.
information trees
"My name is Rekees, and I know you're Lee, since I've been reading your notes
His voice was deep and sounded a bit old.
Here travelers can leave notes, warnings, and all sorts of information for the next group. It's been this way for more than 100 years.
You notice the squirrels in the upper branches?
They are such good guardians.
pesky black birds try to stealing all the bits for their nests.
late in the day, this will be a great place to stop
Maku was already snoring
Mark - I stared at my diagram.
time slits were growing like bamboo. Popping out of the ground one at a time.
Lee
So many of the scraps and bits were personal notes
Rekees said it doesn't matter what is written....it matters that there are traces of life left
All were changed by the experience of the island and the mountain.
I had read the first layer of notes.
Rekees directed me to a small hut that was hidden in the woods behind the tree.
I decided to not rush to a destination without enjoying the journey......
Chapter 17
Lee hut that I was led to last night is IN the tree.
Climbing the ladder to gigantic information tree.
it had not been used in a very long time.
no way to communicate with the group.
I hoped that they would find the many notes I'd left
Mark imagined a time slit that was a note that grew like a plant. time-space passenger would squeeze through the slit at just the right moment and emerge on the other side precisely when and where they needed to be,
William - Flames were erupting from Ria's rucksack. Blue in a nearby with a sheepish look on his face.
Susan exclaims. "Grab the balloon and hold it over the flame."
balloon gradually started to fill with hot air. Soon it towered over us and it did resemble Mark tried to keep in weighted down with the ropes we had thrown over the top.
three of us were fully airborne clutching the ropes for dear life, but laughing madly
I looked back at the beach as it slowly receded and spotted Blue scurry back to the pack, flip the flap and extinguish the flame. he waved I was snapped back to our situation when Ria yelled, "Tree - straight ahead - Brace for impact!"
We hit those branches In a tree. Filled with notes.
Lee sat in the hut
Someone must be taking care of these huts and I doubt it it's squirrels or monkeys.
whap the entire tree shook.
the squirrels have handled food delivery for eons. Mara, in unison the squirrels and I went to the front of the wagon. I decided to climb up the boulders I reached the top. The view from here was exquisite. I noticed something that was different from the surrounding area. "Yikes, how can I communicate with the other hikers
Susan altitude we were achieving.we glided hastily up the mountain. I managed to lift one knee and felt the fur on my Mukluks pulled out a tiny red engraved kazoo I found in the cave under my hat. With both hands now clenching the painful ropes ancient mouthpiece, kazoo to San Francisco Bay Blues.
instantly stopped by what felt like the softness of a net
Mounds of colored paper were atop of me., I saw faces staring down at me. “Lee we made it. We found the source….”
Mara - Looking up climbers sailing up the mountain side.
squirrel abalcabal handed me a flat packet. "Take these multi multi purpose shelters. Set them up at the Tree of Notes, where you'll find your group."
I began to follow their giddy ascent.
Lee untangled and out of the tree top."
They were a mass of red ropes, paper and leaves, not to mention a few indignant monkeys and squirrels
I haven't even been up this high myself.
oldest bits are up here and were put here when the tree was young; hundreds of years ago
We moved gingerly down the branches
enter the hut thru the skylight.
Grogg offered Lee
let the party begin
Menwhile where am I mark’s ed. note---tangled in the tree outside?
Mara upwards. stopped at a brooklet spotted it, floating downstream...
William picked some leaves from my hair and was surprised to realize there were words written on them.
Grog
I began to recognize some items from own studio here in the tree-hut. My old Smith Corona typewriter
My 11th Hour Clock
several of my notebooks on a table.
a small monkey pulls pages out and feeds them to the roaring campfire.
Mara Sigrún creature said "Hello, I'm here to guide you the rest of the way. Your friends have already arrived.""
Wh-what shape are you,"I'm which-ever... the one that seems right to you"
I started to climb, and Sigrun became a little blue ape,
Sigrún and I progressed uphill she began to tell me about "The Tail of the Tree" ...
Lee and Bill walked down the path to the forest
'Bill? do YOU see what I see????'
William he’s burning your journals
bill pitched the contents of the Susan’s grog100 proof.mug on the fire which suddenly roared
he fell and Lee and the little monkey were helping me up
we leave provisions, advice and whatever to prepare a camp for climbers to follow, Maku weeds out that bad advice;
I pushed a few vines from the path and pointed up.
Goats in trees. munching of the notes pinned to the tree branches.
Susan the same critical tones of the major scale from the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”.
Bill was playing Tag with the monkey holding a flamethrower.
found my kazoo started imitating the sounds
blue lights started pulsating on a wooden swinging globe hanging on a hook \
Bill and Lee were leaving and Ria was staring in my direction your hair is lighting up like a Christmas tree!”
"The Tail of the Note Tree" as told to Mara by Sigrún
the tree a shelter and inspiration for climbers assimilates and produces a variety of "fruit" or "notes". If you saw through a piece of its dead wood you'll see encased in the rings snippets of letters, numbers, diagrams and the like. Some of these notes are fully developed and workable, others are not.
you must commit to continue on the farther slopes. If not, you will be immediately escorted back to port on the honor system.
Some notes unfinished
Some for the remainder of the climb. cautioned against taking information prematurely
A John, hid some notes in his vest and made his way down and left the island but he was rounded up and led back to the mountain.
he brought them the flying shuttle. For this he was allowed to stay and work the mills, where beautiful brocades are created to this day. John married and never returned to the continent.
Sigrún finished the story as we arrived at the foot of the Note Tree.
Mark looking at the map had drawn of the various huts. I could see a pattern. That same zig zag. We had been arguing about whether the numbers of the huts got larger if we went up or down. was it 5-6-7-8 or 8-7-6-5? And where had they started? Which was Hut 1? As it all moved into focus and the quandry was about to be answered, whoever it was I was talking to that dayMara or Ria had pulled out this familiar looking zig zag symbol
I thumbed hurriedly back through my notebook heard continued commotion outside the tent.
the little gold colored ribbon that came with my journal to mark a spot was crinkled on that page I pulled it when all of a sudden a queasy sickly feeling came over the entire tent
The book had turned into a launching pad for rectanglular papers
little unfolded thank-you notes, floated upward toward the roof of the tent just above my head!
0, 1, and 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, and 55-- a Fibonacci series 89, 144, 233, 377, 610 987, 1597, 2584, 4181 6765, 10946, 17711. page marked 28657 on its underside tore itself from the book
I could see Mara, Ria, Bill and Susan smiling and peeking in at me through the opening of the tent.
46368, 75025, 121393. 196418, 317811, 514229
roof of the tent began to move further and further away, I felt my body expanding 832040, 1346269, and 2178309
so was everything else!
tent, had turned rubbery, pliable and a deep green. Page 3524578
5702887
rubberry stretching
36th page, 9227465 repeated
my tent was a beautiful sky dotted with rectangular papers
if I lifted my arms and legs ever so slightly that the edges of the matrix, which mimicked my every movement, would wrap around themselves.
a giant spiralling cocoon in the shape of a Klein bottle that engulfed everything as far as my eye could see. Was I inside the enclosure or outside or was it... both?
I had turned into a giant deep blue sphere. I was hollow and filled with wind. I was exploding, in fact, with air pressure,
I was floating above the familiar landscape of Mount Analogue and racing upward at breakneck speed leaving the controversial huts 3,4,5,6, and 7 behind toward a giant tree pulling something
Cathy lay on the ground, did she float?
Did she rise above the tree line, did she float beyond reason and doubt?
The vacuum cleaner salesman knocked at the door.
Mara at the Note Tree, now find the note that tells you why."
campfire and and victuals nearby.
Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven 1874 - 1927 Last seen purchasing mountaineering equipment...
Chapter 18
After hiding the only peradam she found where the sun doesn't shine the Baroness took out a small pistol and shot one of the blue squirrels.
Cathy - The Vacuum Cleaner Salesman got his foot in the door.
"Root Cyclone™ technology... a Dyson vacuum uses patented cyclone technology to spin the dirt out ...of the air.
Suddenly hit with vertigo, he fell into the room and grasped onto a table,
he was lost to the world of filtered bags, the collection of dust particles, forever.
Mark - Dust, it turns out, was an invention of the squirrels to mark the passage of time ie what hairline of the rubber Gumby arc they were presently witnessing.
Cathy watched the Vacuum Cleaner Salesman come in to focus
picture of the blue squirrel, that once belonged to her great-grandmother, fell off the wall, glass smashing everywhere.
Ria in the back pack I got off of Blue's back to find the waffle iron half eaten- this rucksack of mine is stacked with peradams."
William - Lee I climbed up beside her. We made our way higher then sat on a large limb,
The goats agilely made room for us
Lee continued,
I believe this small grove of trees to be a crossroads where confusion is assimilated and returned to the mountain so that clarity can be found
I also spotted Mara approaching the gate with a leggy lemon tart.
Goat chewed a hole in the trunk of the tree and bill saw the handle of an antique revolver with the initials E. vFL.
Lee said, " it explains our unique relationship with the blues."
Susan
blue rays glowed stronger and like a growing hand with long azure extended and probing fingers, reached closer to my body
painting blurred & I saw all of us on Mount Analogue. There I was inside the tree, as Bill was outside with Lee going up the tree as Ria was checking her waffle iron.
A tornado commenced to envelope me and I had the odd sensation that I was being rearranged.
I was transported into the painting.
a green furry goat gnaw on the corner of my world. I turned
down the stream trying to avoid the rocks
tree had vanished and numbers were raining around me!
Lee -
Bill was pointing at a herd of pygmy goats moving toward the ocean.
sound of wind and crashing from INSIDE the hut.
I hurriedly started to climb down saw through the window of the tree hut
there was Susan.
Something was whirling her around as she drew closer to the painting near the door...
then she was gone; the painting fell to the ground.
Bill-come quick; somethings happened to Susan."
I looked down at the painting on the floor, it was a landscape a brook, trees and a figure
WITH RED BOOTS AND BLOND HAIR.....
Mara - Walking around the tree, I didn't see them now.
William - I looked at the antique revolver embedded in the tree. Lee “I believe that must belong to the Baroness.”
“Elsa…Elsa von Fretag-Loringhoven. Get moving! This means we could be in danger.” I began scrambling down
made our way up to the porch. Lee peered through the window a small tornado had ripped through the room.
Ria sitting in meditation, singing bowl on her head, oblivious to the mess. Ria’s head nodded toward the painting and mouthed, “Susan.”
Lee and I looked down at the canvas
I think the paint is moving.”
Susan made her way to the woman holding the vacuum cleaner.
Lee - Bill, Ria and Lee watched in amazement at the moving painting /
The woman threw the vacuum cleaner aside and began to run towards Susan waving and screaming
Susan it's the... boots"
She and Susan hugged while Susan clicked her red boots; the painting started to vibrate and pieces were breaking away.
The small room of the hut filled with a whirling smokey substance as Susan and Cathy appeared in the center of the room.
Susan shouted " why didn't I realize the real power of these boots"
Susan couldn’t cease coughing. standing before me was Cathy.
back in the hut wheezing, wearing my red boots.
my hand, where droplets of crimson red were spilling I was shot.
odd woman was wearing a WW1 gas mask, storming after me, saying I have seen you before, you are in my dreams”
Cathy was pointing to my boots. I skillfully touched the yellow icons tooled into the leather precisely in the correct sequence with the thumb of my right hand and they morph back into the blue mukluks again.
rubbed my damaged index finger on the magical fur
eyes of a tiny blue squirrel watching me and I knew it knew
Lee - Baroness Elsa von Fritag-Loringhoven was married to Baron Rudolf Ludwig von Fritag-Laringhoven, geneticist with the humans with laboratories were hidden in the mountain accessible only by a labyrinth of passages from the larger chambers aided by his partner Dr. Nicholas Koppertop from Russia.
Together created part human part animals unknown to all including Baroness Elsa, who arrived after the Baron had been there 20 years.
Baroness Elsa soon became pregnant .
She had a difficult pregnancy and thought nothing of the shots that were given to her by the Baron.
When Elsa's child was born healthy but with oddly monkey like features she became quite distressed.
Her husband calmed her fears by explaining that his family had similar traits .
She very soon became pregnant again...this time the child had close set eyes and the distinct look of a rodent.
children grow and become more animal-like, more walks in the forest, catch sight of all sorts of 'creatures'.
followed the Baron into the caves
twisting paths to the laboratory, ] she got dynamite and a gun.
she shot her husband then Koppertop...
She freed the captives and blew up the passages to hide her husband’s deeds roamed the woods increasing becoming more and more mad
William - I accidentally triggered the Dyson Susan was pulled into the machine.
Susan felt myself falling into “blue nothingness”.
bathing in the shades of the sea of blues. Waves & sounds of those B and E flats
I was back in Bill’s studio. Impossible.
life-size cutouts of Bill and Mara dry mounted on cardboard swaying freely in the air
blue and not black.
wondered if Cathy knew the power of the transformation vacuum cleaner.
William wants to crawl underneath Ria's Tibetan bowl. - Cathy reached back, flicked the switch off Lee pointed to the clear Dyson chamber frothing Klein blue with bits of boots and curly hair occasionally bubbling into view
Lee -the Baroness is in there with Susan pull her out
Ria teased a thread loose from her bulky red sweater, handed Bill the end
Ria gives a quick nod to Cathy who toggles the Root Cyclone Technology to life; the vacuum sucking Ria hurls herself into the Dyson and in a blur is gone.
shakes the Note Tree's branches until message leaves cloak the mountain slope.
Lee - I'm going mad as Elsa
Mark - I pointed to the gauge on the Gumby arc and assured Lee that soon people would start making their way through the slit and she could begin her ascent to the blimp where it would all make sense. She looked at me quizzically so I added "but you have no way of knowing that yet." Somehow, as I had been told, and even though it had no reason to, this calmed her down.
Mara was leaning against a tree and gazing at the notes flap Shapes began to repeat and connect
I stood and began to gather objects to a central area.
Susan shades of blues were floating to form hexagons. soothing and captivating
I was becoming the universe
I heard the letters: S - u - s - a - n - A face started to take form and I was staring at the penetrating eyes of RIA.
William the suction was set to max. Mark your Gumby Arc gauge sucked into the Cathy’s prosthetic vacuum over the Dyson’s Whisper Quiet™ roar
Mark had just finished reassuring Lee that Harmony was almost within reach…. just a couple more ticks on the gauge.
Ria’s weight times the velocity of the Dyson’s 136,000G cyclonic separation technology yanked me off my feet --end of her rope whipped me around the room I was inside the canister.
I managed to hold on I hit the water
I find myself sitting in a rather large claw foot bathtub full of bubble bath.
VW bus with a flat tire, “The KaliKuties”.
Ria, dripping says, “I think we’re about to go on.”
Susan pulls herself out of the tub and strides onto stage. Suddenly I realize the Whisper Quiet™ roar is the crowd. encore!”
Susan red strips of my costume
Bill and Ria bubbles exploded around them,
water poured over the edges of the billabong
lights from the pyramid were flashing the crowd.
, the tall man and the jugglers perform after us.
saw my daughter smiling as the Roo rubbed his soft furry head against her hand.
Bill, with sunglasses, grabbed his didgeridoo
to carry in his rucksack along with all the climbing gear.
Ria, pitched humming
Mara - "Help",
can't see or hear you all, tapping out a signal on a rock
William - strange tapping rhythm filled my head.
Lee - Mark reached down and grabbed me by the arm and hauled me aboard the basket of the balloon with a big whommp!. "I thought we were waiting for the others and an airship", As Mark
we've been left behind and need to catch up
they've headed to the other side of the island
we started to move upwards over the note tree grove. We rose over the lavender fields and the huts heading away from the beach to the hills ahead
Mara - locating device should be active soon
looked up a balloon moving away
I missed all the other climbers
Lee - we were traveling away from what I thought was the accessible side of the mountain, and the huts along the way
we are going the way of Daumal and will leave the island with the mountain unclimbed. We seem to be a distracted group that link and scatter on their migration routes.
a TOWN in the distance...
Mark seemed to know where to go by instinct
not believing my eyes there was a cruise ship heading toward the small port town
Susan - rewarding performance
do you hear voices in the wind
looked down tree notes marking a path leading to whirling sounds
“tanglers” trying to hook our
We tied some red rope to each of us for fear lost we have found the SHOETREE
Geppetto a shoemaker,
Bill, Ria, instead of Pinocchio, he has made youAnd red boots.”
Ria - Fish wearing boots?! I'M DEPLOYING RIA TECH
William - audience approval by pelting us with self gathering nuts
the audiences here in Dyson™ have even been known to throw fish
using my machete to prune a few tanglers, we made our way towards the sounds \
puppet replica of me was being gyrated by the Shoetree;
fish puppet was nearing exhaustion from his frantic tap dancing.
Mara - I heard clearly in my mind, "Take these multi multi purpose shelters. Set them up at the Tree of Notes, you'll find your group." I peeked into a crack and saw a huge space... tables laden with food.
I found the pyramids had moved off across the glade towards a stream. I'd been sitting... when my knees straightened I kept rising.. as if gravity had left along with everyone else. Catching a branch I wedged myself into a fork of the tree and found myself looking at a nest. Brushing a few notes out of the way and leaning forward I saw the occupant and it blinked. Someone cleared their throat behind me..
"We've been watching you", he said. I had a feeling that once I turned around I could not turn back. They shuffled a bit closer. "Why are you here?" Bibi once said, "To see an owl may be telling you to let go of the past or certain negative behaviors” I slowly turned towards the voice in the branches, was a pyramid with the loveliest and largest owl I'd ever seen. The owl's eyes were locked on me. “I'm looking for my fellow climbers, did you seen them?" I aked. "Yes, I saw them, you will join them--first find your purpose." the owl said.
I heard a small voice call, "Mara!" voice of a baby owl and two ants and I added my piece to the note tree," with a largish blank note. I heard an increasing ruckus coming from my friends. As usual portent loomed.. air is thin … I wrote. "Wow, my life off the island...", no sooner than I'd thought that I found myself at the door of my home, talking to a Dyson™ salesperson, at least I think he's a person, though he looks rather like a fish. the vision shrunk as I was rather roughly pulled backwards towards the island. "I need this to stop!" I said and found myself dropped short of Mount Analogue and onto the Island of Stability clutching the note on the beach. "Of course moments don't mean much when you're hurling through Timestream space," Mark reminded me on a note was on the reverse of the paper I was writing on. These are the moments that waken the muses, centaurs and sirens… a huge HUGE test is coming my way..
Christopher - Water Crystals scattered around the base of the tree…a giant clear jello…I looked him in the eye he nodded,…I don't know who I am anymore. I gave everyone a jingle bell attatched to a saftey pin to wear, so as it rings I might not disapear completely. I made a note of it.
Susan - In the distance, I heard someone...."who goes here?"
William - machete in my hand… fish stops dead in his tracks and shouted, “Damn…it’s the sushi devil!”…. tapping gyrations with his tethering strings. The BillyRay puppet, which bore a striking resemblance to me singing Highwayman. Shoe Tree mimicked my voice exactly... with its’ other heads discomfort. I slashed the strings on the puppets. BillyRay went silent and we ran, the three KaliKuties in the lead followed close behind by Fish N’ Boots and BillyRay, their strings bringing up the rear.
We plunged into a clearing with a pile up of a big pile of feet, arms, guitars, hair and fins wrapped up. BillyRay pulled his guitar free from Susan's hair and yelled, "It's a Hootenanny!"
Susan was unraveling fast out of control. The vibrant colours surrounding me became one big blur of blues…strumming and hooting sounds. screeching sounds then her body was slowing down in a circular motion. I had been swinging in the air from side to side, and when I looked up again caught a section of an owl playing a guitar…HELP me Fish ‘N Boots..anyone!”
William - Ria and I were not amused “BillyRay, don’t startle that owl”. But it was too late; the enormous bird lifted off, almost disappearing from our view circling high above our heads with Susan dangling from his beak. Fish N’ Boots not a snack began disco inferno. Ria interrupted “You know what Bibi says about owls.-- letting go of the past or certain negative behaviors. This could be a wonderful opportunity for Susan’s ultimate fulfillment in life.” As shrieking drifted down to our ears.
Lee - The last thing Mark said as he slid down the ladder was, "don't worry- it's tethered - I'll be back with the rest of the group," an hour ago and about 50 minutes since the balloon drifted off. Now it is drifting up towards the Mountain top. Looking down I seemed to relive the past months; fields of lavender, the trees full of notes and goats; huts leading the trail up the mountain.
Mark - What good fortune to be falling off a ladder when the largest most regal owl foot appear and I clung to it as we ascended back to where I had just been. I had to get back to Lee. We had just completed the most amazing run- drifting above all of the island and seeing all of Mt. Analogue in a much needed vacation-- not as rescue mission of poor unfortunate squirrels. We could see that time and space mean nothing to this crazy island.
We could see and sometimes even hear ourselves and all of our friends in all different forms-- past present and future as we floated by on the Dyson Fibonacci Timestream. we drifted from the the Doubting Side of the mountain to the Confident Side--equal and opposite aspects of ourselves and other members of the climbing party colliding and disappearing as well as just missing each other via the time slits, creating yet more notes on the path with every collision.
But my ever-increasing techie role (I owe it all to Ria) to fix the obstruction in the Klein bottle called. Condensation was collecting in the "spout" area and I was getting Gumby readings varying but falling off the ladder into a free fall did the trick and now Lee on A runaway orb. But I was on a Timestream via the Dyson brand super suction. I undertook 26 days of training as an apprentice to a vacuum salesman-- as the owl ascended at breakneck speed toward the balloon.
Mara - I heard clearly in my mind, "Take these multi multi purpose shelters. Set them up at the Tree of Notes, you'll find your group." I peeked into a crack and saw a huge space... tables laden with food.
I found the pyramids had moved off across the glade towards a stream. I'd been sitting... when my knees straightened I kept rising.. as if gravity had left along with everyone else. Catching a branch I wedged myself into a fork of the tree and found myself looking at a nest. Brushing a few notes out of the way and leaning forward I saw the occupant and it blinked. Someone cleared their throat behind me..
"We've been watching you", he said. I had a feeling that once I turned around I could not turn back. They shuffled a bit closer. "Why are you here?" Bibi once said, "To see an owl may be telling you to let go of the past or certain negative behaviors” I slowly turned towards the voice in the branches, was a pyramid with the loveliest and largest owl I'd ever seen. The owl's eyes were locked on me. “I'm looking for my fellow climbers, did you seen them?" I aked. "Yes, I saw them, you will join them--first find your purpose." the owl said.
I heard a small voice call, "Mara!" voice of a baby owl and two ants and I added my piece to the note tree," with a largish blank note. I heard an increasing ruckus coming from my friends. As usual portent loomed.. air is thin … I wrote. "Wow, my life off the island...", no sooner than I'd thought that I found myself at the door of my home, talking to a Dyson™ salesperson, at least I think he's a person, though he looks rather like a fish. the vision shrunk as I was rather roughly pulled backwards towards the island. "I need this to stop!" I said and found myself dropped short of Mount Analogue and onto the Island of Stability clutching the note on the beach. "Of course moments don't mean much when you're hurling through Timestream space," Mark reminded me on a note was on the reverse of the paper I was writing on. These are the moments that waken the muses, centaurs and sirens… a huge HUGE test is coming my way..
Christopher - Water Crystals scattered around the base of the tree…a giant clear jello…I looked him in the eye he nodded,…I don't know who I am anymore. I gave everyone a jingle bell attatched to a saftey pin to wear, so as it rings I might not disapear completely. I made a note of it.
Susan - In the distance, I heard someone...."who goes here?"
William - machete in my hand… fish stops dead in his tracks and shouted, “Damn…it’s the sushi devil!”…. tapping gyrations with his tethering strings. The BillyRay puppet, which bore a striking resemblance to me singing Highwayman. Shoe Tree mimicked my voice exactly... with its’ other heads discomfort. I slashed the strings on the puppets. BillyRay went silent and we ran, the three KaliKuties in the lead followed close behind by Fish N’ Boots and BillyRay, their strings bringing up the rear.
We plunged into a clearing with a pile up of a big pile of feet, arms, guitars, hair and fins wrapped up. BillyRay pulled his guitar free from Susan's hair and yelled, "It's a Hootenanny!"
Susan was unraveling fast out of control. The vibrant colours surrounding me became one big blur of blues…strumming and hooting sounds. screeching sounds then her body was slowing down in a circular motion. I had been swinging in the air from side to side, and when I looked up again caught a section of an owl playing a guitar…HELP me Fish ‘N Boots..anyone!”
William - Ria and I were not amused “BillyRay, don’t startle that owl”. But it was too late; the enormous bird lifted off, almost disappearing from our view circling high above our heads with Susan dangling from his beak. Fish N’ Boots not a snack began disco inferno. Ria interrupted “You know what Bibi says about owls.-- letting go of the past or certain negative behaviors. This could be a wonderful opportunity for Susan’s ultimate fulfillment in life.” As shrieking drifted down to our ears.
Lee - The last thing Mark said as he slid down the ladder was, "don't worry- it's tethered - I'll be back with the rest of the group," an hour ago and about 50 minutes since the balloon drifted off. Now it is drifting up towards the Mountain top. Looking down I seemed to relive the past months; fields of lavender, the trees full of notes and goats; huts leading the trail up the mountain.
Mark - What good fortune to be falling off a ladder when the largest most regal owl foot appear and I clung to it as we ascended back to where I had just been. I had to get back to Lee. We had just completed the most amazing run- drifting above all of the island and seeing all of Mt. Analogue in a much needed vacation-- not as rescue mission of poor unfortunate squirrels. We could see that time and space mean nothing to this crazy island.
We could see and sometimes even hear ourselves and all of our friends in all different forms-- past present and future as we floated by on the Dyson Fibonacci Timestream. we drifted from the the Doubting Side of the mountain to the Confident Side--equal and opposite aspects of ourselves and other members of the climbing party colliding and disappearing as well as just missing each other via the time slits, creating yet more notes on the path with every collision.
But my ever-increasing techie role (I owe it all to Ria) to fix the obstruction in the Klein bottle called. Condensation was collecting in the "spout" area and I was getting Gumby readings varying but falling off the ladder into a free fall did the trick and now Lee on A runaway orb. But I was on a Timestream via the Dyson brand super suction. I undertook 26 days of training as an apprentice to a vacuum salesman-- as the owl ascended at breakneck speed toward the balloon.
Chapter 20 not done
Lee - Well, here I am again, alone on Mt.Analogue. This balloon with a mind of it's own.
Mara - We are all alone in this experience.. it's certainly hopeless... will a blockage be overcome and breached? "Have I done it right?" my eyes squeeze shut, tears leak out and run into my ears as the speed increases. "Why didn't I pack goggles," I think. Sharp pricks of ice pepper my face as I twist to avoid the worst of the onslaught. "This is not the Island of Stability I remembered," …my butt is wet… there’s a crumbling edge and the consequential pit I've fallen into… tears had frozen on my face in a horizontal pattern caused by the speed I'd slid down the tube.
"The air is thin up here…..Perceptions take on a clarity not usual for our lives off the island."
As I scanned the climbing crew… they were not climbing, but flying. "It has been a long time since a group hug, "I need to complete this Note Tree note and find my friends", "Shit. Shit, shit, shit” Then from a fissure a glob slipped out, “a turd!" I moaned. "WTF… what am I missing?" Gingerly poking the turd with my figure a peradam topped key revealed itself that looked like the rib cage from a mouse.
Lee - the balloon was breaching the time slit, I felt a jolt, then a push, then the balloon seemed to be reversing it's course. There was a breeze, gentle, then stronger, increasing to a very heavy gust, I was on the top of a tornado! It was coming from the other side, pushihg me back to where I'd come from… I was no longer moving into that unknown universe beyond the slit… the balloon began to spin. I grabed the bottom of the basket to avoid being thrown out..'holy crap' I shouted above the scream of the wind...'here I go again.
Mark - As I gazed up around the owl's wing I thought I could see Lee's eye up in the sky only it was 300 miles wide. Was that her or was it some kind of optical illusion?
Mara - With a deep breath, I looked up and saw a huge eye. Quickly slipping the "key" into my peradam (or peradamn, as that's how I felt) I rose, spontaneously, up towards the eye. "I don't want to end my life as a mote." I thought.
Mark - I was being pulled toward the giant eye an indecipherable phrase popped into my head and I began to repeat it as fast I could. "Urart Anatolia Aqarqi Luwian Boustrophedo Rongorongo Motifus Corpusi Jinci" yet I was compelled to scream it again and again as the owl picked up speed.
Susan - dizziness subsided. I used my hands gingerly. Soft, bouncy material expanded in my fingers then felt more like hard stones and straw….twinkling. Blue sparkling brilliance was pulsating wildly in a circle around me. As my eyes focused better, I realized I was the centre, the core. Surrounding me were about 50 peradams! Numbness has set in, I took a deep breath as I gazed all around me, taking in the panoramic view. Mountaintops, air balloons in the distance, sky was so dark and I was on one of these majestic peaks surrounded by magical crystals. I took a deep breath, feeling dread, I realized I was possibly in a nest… this was an owl’s sanctum…the noise of fluttering wings increased. The sound of a guitar strumming some blues flew into my ears. I waited!
Mark - "Urart Anatolia Aqarqi Luwian Boustrophedo Rongorongo Motifus Corpusi Jinci ....Urart Anatolia Aqarqi Luwian Boustrophedo Rongorongo Motifus Corpusi Jinci.... Urart Anatolia Aqarqi Luwian Boustrophedo Rongorongo Motifus Corpusi Jinci"
Ria - I heard a latin mantra of sorts as I was trying to get a good focus on the owl. 'There's no end to this is there?" "Bill," I spoke determined, "let's get some grip. Think! time slits are all around us, I think Mark is having a Latin breakdown or revelation in one of them. Time Slits Bill! Lets study them a bit before gallivanting into them like the others obviously do, lets use them to our advantage, for once, get this team together. Playtime's over! get that gps thingy out! I have a train to catch!"
Susan - "was that a train whistle i heard in the in wind... can't be....."
Lee - The last time I was in a balloon over Napa valley it was so peaceful. First the tornado time slit roar that pushed me back toward Mt.A. Then I heard the sound of flapping wings all around me; the wings of OWLS making the wind now guiding me back to the others...now...I'm hearing...urart anatolia aqarar luwian boustrophedo rongorongo motifus corpusi jinci....and it was being screamed by MARK from below the balloon and a gigantic owl.....well, at least I know he's close by but I'm not sure what to think about a rescurer that speaks in tongue.....maybe he needs the rescuing ? now I'm hearing a train a comin' ? there are NO trains on Mt.A. so....where am I now? and where is everyone else?
William - Ria was pointing to Susan’s rucksack, which she must have abandoned when she decided playing with a giant owl might be fun. I started to rummage through it looking for her fortuneteller GPS paper thing.…waffle iron, train schedule…GPS.” She cuts me off, “Waffle iron? Train schedule. Give me those and the black crayon.”
Ria quickly looks over the schedule and shouts, “Not a minute to lose…run back and gather all the loose ends you can find.”
She turns and quickly sketches an elongated semi-circle on the rock wall behind us.
Ria gets some type of reading on the fortuneteller.
She points to the waffle iron and says, “layer those loose ends in there…make a short stack; we need to get higher or we’ll miss it!”
With Ria overseeing our waffling, BillyRay and I weave the loose ends onto the waffle iron and soon we have enough. We climb to the top of the rather impressive pile as Ria checks the GPS and the sun position and says, “Wait for it.”
Suddenly, I realize her semicircle is a tunnel; a brilliant siding off a time slit and finished none to soon because she shouts. “Right on time, the RVE”, as a monstrous locomotive pulls through and stops next to our stack.
Mark - What is this train schedule doing here I thought to myself. And why would this particular route, fare and departure time be circled? Who put this here? The notes had been flying around my tent, numbers everywhere, prime numbers, Fibonacci numbers. I could hear the voices outside my tent. This was the first time that Bill, Ria, Susan, Lee and I had been together at one campsite in such a long time when the Fibonacci numbers began to fly and the next thing you know I am in some sort of Gumby time warp. The next thing I remember I was trying to piece together an explanation in my various logs and tables and books and now I find this train schedule. A train schedule! On a mountain! I don't mind people rifling through my knapsack; it happens all the time. But no one ever touches my books. Nobody cares! Only Ria and half of these are hers. The "loaners" she calls them.
Now what was I looking up again? Oh yeah Arquarar or Arkarare. Let's see... how would you pronounce that?
William - Caught like a flounder in the headlights, Fish N’ Boots stared at the massive machine that stopped inches from his dorsal. As Ria shouted, “Attention all passengers,” I quickly repacked Susan’s rucksack and tossed it and a large stockpile of the loose ends into the coal car. BillyRay seemed delighted and hopped aboard and launched into Love Train. Fish looked nervous as Ria fixed her Medusa stare on him, “And where do you keep your ticket ?”
I grabbed the little fellow and tossed him on, just as a blast of steam signaled our departure. Handing him a shovel I shouted over the whistle, “keep that coal coming like your life depends on it.”
He looked blankly at me. I began loading the furnace and building our steam.
Ria leaned in and said, “we’re going to need a lot of pressure; we’re way off script and it’s time to reverse the Root Cyclone™ technology that got us here.” we were gathering light speed.
Mark - As the speeding owl neared the basket of the balloon I could see Lee peering anxiously over the edge. I had been inexplicably chanting all the way through this amazing ascension and now, kind of coming out of my trance, I remembered something that seemed important and I doubt it was a coincidence:
It was Bill that had originally mentioned Urart and Anatolia that day on the trail,
Ria who told me about the Aqarqi measurement with regard to the Klein bottle,
Luwian inscriptions was something Mara knew about and told me by the fire near Hut 3,
Boustrophedo was a Lee concept about back and forth writing... something she drew a sketch of in my journal...
and yes it was Susan who told me about Rongorongo and Rapa Nui. But when?
And what is Motifus Corpusi?
And wasn't Jinci the place I had seen a bridge in China? It was just before I came here.
Where am I? Oh yeah clinging to an owl's leg on Mount Analogue! I had been flitting in and out of time for days now... no years.... I felt so distracted... hadn't I just been in my tent?... no, Lee and I were looking at the mountain from above... the huts.... the two sides of the mountain.... the zig zag... No, I was in the vile... gotta focus....
William - The RVE picked up steam, BillyRay sang and Ria gazed ahead, her eyes on a small seam. I shoveled for all I was worth. We rode that machine into the wall pushing matter and light in all directions. Fish pulled the whistle but the sound was lost far behind. The darkness was overpowering, the RVE's headlamps illuminating only vast emptiness. A thin knife edge of light suddenly appeared and we bore down on it like a vortex from hell. Riding gossamer rails and expelling a huge volume of air ahead of us we passed through.
Fish looked out and said, "Is that a balloon on the cowcatcher?"
Mara - Intense buzzing … a safe stop.
Ria - a vague round shape exactly straight before us. Hey, I thought, that kinda like looks like Mark. I shouted at Billy Ray and the fish; at both, just to be sure, "Get that balloon line now! Get that line NOW! No stalling. If you miss it, they will be lost!" and rode the train like the devil, straight into time slit Cat.*89 #45.87
Mark - As the train rounded the turn we all took our seats.
Lee was sitting with Bibiana and Mara to the left of the aisle. Bibiana was laughing and hot air balloons popped out of her adorned in the most beautiful colors ---right through the ceiling and up. We could see them collecting behind the train as we moved and organizing themselves in a straight line.
Bill and Susan were seated across the aisle and were dusting themselves off from an intense performance.
I returned to my seat behind Lee, Bibiana and Mara just as Mara shouted, pointing out the window, Hey isn't that Angela?
Just then the conductor came happily down the aisle, punched art we had made with his hole punch. "All aboard for the 21 century" he said. When Bill asked what he meant, he explained, "Veins of blue run through Mount Analogue - mined by the small blue squirrels and the mines are run by a band of green monkeys with wild eyes. The precious stones of the mountain are not unlike lapis lazuli of this world.
Because of the harsh work by generations of squirrels, the small animals are now a lovely shade of blue. Their world is quite dismal, their only pleasure being the nuts that they were paid for the precious blue stones mined from the depths of the mountain. Over the years some of the blues have escaped through the rip between worlds. The blues tried to avoid detection of the searchers that would come to round them up for their return to the blue mines on the other side. Occasionally the green monkeys would slip over to find special miners. But now you are here to change all that."
Lee spoke first, "Do you think we were sent here to save the squirrels?" the conductor turned to get a better look at her, Ria blurted out, "you're not gonna tell me I have to chase after squirrels yet again? sheesh!!!!" To which Bill replied "Shhhhhhhhh.”
Christopher - "It's easy" exclaimed the conductor, "just let the balloons out the window and the squirrels will hop in …keep feeding her these holes I'm punching. The air will keep her balloons full, the only request is you protect them from the owls. The squirrels have been trying to protect the color blue (owls prophesied the day when there would be little or no blue left).
William As I shoveled, Billy grabbed Susan’s rucksack, dragged it off the coal pile and began pulling coils from it. His practiced hands made a lasso. He pitched it forward at the balloon caught on the cowcatcher but the velocity of the air pressure sent it flying back around my legs pulling me off balance. I fell to the floor with a crash. Fish poured water on my face. Ria grabs the rope and Spinning it fast enough to suck the yellow spectrum from Susan’s Crayola box she lets the storyline fly; handily snagging the balloon and begins arm over arm reeling it in.
I think I see a woman waving from the basket but Fish tugs me to the first passenger car where I see passengers. they are transparent….I mean they are there but not there.
Susan - I think I am on a train…my thoughts of my last memories before they disappear too…A blurry and rippling creature of whites and blues whisked closer with extreme velocity, I was sure it would knock me off the cliff …I grab onto the stones as the debris from the nest started to swirl up into the sky. I was fluttering out of control a few feet in the air, I felt the surprising caress of feathers delicately holding me down on the nest. The air stopped billowing and it was then I realized I had a giant wing draped over my back keeping me still.
I gawked up at this enormous bird. His wide unmoving eyes were gazing into me. “I have much to explain. There are ancient wisdoms and priceless treasures to impart to you and the searchers but so little time is left. We must start right away before they come! Before the end!”
Bibi -I could not stop laughing…more balloons kept popping out.
Mark - As I sped through the sky I could clearly see Lee …meanwhile her OTHER giant left eye looking down at me.... morphed into the eye of.... Sammy Davis Junior!!!!! I had come up with the mantra myself as I walked along the trail with Sue Three and Ria so I would remember this moment: I had to quickly arrange my body into the proper position so that when I hit the balloon I would make just the right shape. I pulled my legs toward me and carefully let go of the owl's foot with my right hand which was holding on pretty damn tight! I had practiced this a thousand times with the squirrels. I could see Lee reaching out to grab me …I was about to fly right by! The poor thing.
Christopher - An owl landed in my window of the train …Mark with a Babe Ruth stance pointed out the window, William threw him a bat (the animal) and the owl went flying. I looked over to Bibi who just kept laughing and somehow knew we would be ok.
Mark - As the peak of the mountain emerged out of the fog, the conductor explained "Mt. Analogue is about man's escape from the prison of his robotic egotistical self." To which Mara abruptly replied "Hey we are experiencing THE HEIGHTS OF SELF KNOWLEDGE here!!!!!" The conductor calmly retorted, "Daumal said the mountain is 'the path uniting earth and heaven.'" Then he added sternly with a knowing sneer out of the corner of his eye, "IT IS THE WAY THE DIVINE REVEALS ITSELF TO MAN."
Bill said Daumal was no theorist. "He was a natural in the mountains and a quick learner. He learned from his brother Jack." Christopher (the conductor) replied, "Yes, and in 1939 and '40 Daumal had TB and the doctors recommended mountain air but no more climbing." By 41 he was working on Mount Analog the book but did you know he also wrote an essay that year about poets of the 25th Century?"
Mara - I landed softly on something dry and crinkly. I saw a station with huffing trains, landing air vehicles along with the scurry of squirrels and other animals wearing various items of clothing and carrying valises. The driver turned around and gave me a fishy stare. I tossed a bag of mail over my shoulder and staggered gracelessly over to the passenger car. "Ticket!" the conductor exclaimed. "It's Mara!" I heard in chorus. As the conductor punched my exhaled note and tossed it over to Bibi.
"OMG Here you are!" I felt teary and happy. I have a letter for us all."
William - There were passenger cars to the RVE. They hadn’t been there. Bibi seemed to blow bubbles of some sort. Mara boarded from a station.
Looking forward I saw the scenery…speed makes everything looks like pulses. I saw Ria helping Lee aboard.
Lee seemed entirely nonplussed at seeing herself already in one of the rear cars having tea and enjoying the lively conversations.“I think I’ll join myself,” she exclaimed
Mark - As Lee claimed her (second) seat, and Mara fiddled with her paper, Christopher turned to look at Susan and he said, "I have come to tell you that YOU are the poets of the 25th century! You may not remember it but Daumal sent you here to do his dirty work for him because he knew he was going to die."
Susan - I am trying to speak, but my words are cutting in and out like a bad short wave radio.
Mark - Christopher asked the Kali Cuties to accompany him. With Mark and Mara and Lee looking on, Chris removed his conductor hat and later his conductor blazer as he asked the band to back him up on an old blues song...
I was born in Chicago in nineteen and forty-one—(1941)
my father told me, "Son, you had better get a gun"
Well, my first friend went down when I was seventeen years old—(1958)
I could say about that boy, "You gotta go"
Well, my second friend went down when I was twenty one years, baby—(1962)
I could say about that boy, "You got it babe"
Well, my blues are alright if there's someone left to play the game
Well my rules are alright if there's someone left to play the game.
Oh, they just don't seem the same, baby
William - Ria returned to the gauges. we are in the back giving a concert, said Bill." "not possible; I can't carry a tune."
Fish N'Boots said, "there is a maximum speed that anything can get through space/time. If a photon has more energy than required (and they all do), then there is a back up while waiting for the next present moment. Your seeing potential waiting to happen"
I looked at his legs…evolution tsuff can happen fast.
Susan was whirling around, dancing uncontrollably…red strips started to shift and unravel all over Bill, Ria and Chris, then downs the aisles. I knew from my studies that this occurred through abandoning one's egos or personal desires or in my case by listening to certain music. Oh, "Born in Chicago" always did this to me. All I saw was blue blurs of colors. I shimmered brilliantly and vanished!
Mark - Sue Two disappeared into the ether. Her double Susan innocently stepped from the back of the car where she had been exploring the rest of the train with Bibiana who was still giggling and releasing "Up up and away!" said Lee, " Susan and Ria joined the band for the final verse, The conductor retrieved his hat and jacket … "And so you see it was 2441 when Daumal sent you all here, hurling back in time and space exactly 500 years to the second for the purpose of rescuing the squirrels from the oppressive green monkeys. Only ripping the lid off of Mount analogue itself could save them and--" Susan interrupted him "it's the prophecy! Christopher calmly continued. "You are from the 25th century but Mark is not. In fact Mark doesn't really exist at all. At least not yet. He was just made up by you and Doctor Moony who was born in 1941, just like the song says and in 1941 when he began his quest for someone to serve as your proxy when it was time to save the squirrels, he chose Mark. "So we really ARE here just to save those fucking squirrels? It doesn't seem fair!" muttered Ria in a strange dialect. Bill smiled at her and handed her a clump of photons and searched in his rucksack for her waffle iron.
Susan - odd man came to visit me in my atelier professing he was a time traveler. I knew he was authentic. I looked down at the colour images illustrated on the vellum on my worn wooden table. This material is much better than the sheepskin I used to use. This book was my finest creation. “The Haggadah of Mount Analogue”. I slowly scanned some pages, my eyes smiled at the images of beautiful blue squirrels, green goats and owls in the margins around each page. I intertwined those twelve strange artists, climbing the mountain to find nirvana with constellations and astrological signs
How did he find me? The monks knew that I created this Haggadah and only here I am liberated. Father William had been the monk who completed the over sewing and gluing in all my books with his signature marks well hidden within the spine. I knew that after I completed my creation, I had to hide it. The traveler claimed that this book be buried until the year 2441, when all that has been penned will be revealed to those who are ready.
I carefully added the final touches of liquid gold--1442, the final mark to date my creation forever. This was going to be a magnificent looking manuscript with so much ornamentation.
I could return to my world to be left in solitude. It always commanded so much energy to maintain that hologram on the mountain. Never knowing when I would become transparent and they would notice. It was not, in reality, much easier in this century, choosing the life of an artisan. Fortunately I lived here at the monastery in the mountains, allowing me a simple life where I wrote and illuminated manuscripts.
Chapter 21
Mark wasn't one of the "real" travelers.
Christopher and William began work on a small set of tiles for the caboose, going into a museum in 244l, to prove later we were here and had done our job. the tiles had symbols and geometric shapes that related our journey in a way we would remember later: a portrait of all of us--Mark on the right side facing slightly left, reminiscent of the Washington monument. Through a large brass spittoon filled with water bugs, and plants, humanity of the future started communicating with us, granting reassurance our solution was working, and that the future is a nice place to be. Time travelers become hostile as their minds have to adjust to function in that world. The tiles would also offer continuity and layers of varnish were put over the top, to protect them.
Ria glanced at Bill trying to keep the train steadfast and told Bill to feed the fire then stepped into the wagons to see all hell had broken loose. Train conductor can't keep order. She gave him the Medusa Gaze, asked BibI to blow and throw a bubble around all of them that would contain them.
The next carriage was filled with water, sandy on the bottom, waves roll towards her so she jumped in, goggles on. Fish 'N Boots had followed. Mark floating there, the water cleared, all transparent, so she dove down, he was so out-of-it, not giving a struggle so she dragged him out, water in his clothes, and fell into a deck chair in carriage #$56*5.9. Fish laughing at me sitting th ere, a completely drenched Mark on my lap. Ria wanted a shot of 7 year old rum. Every passenger on that train heard Fish’s loud laugh.
In a dream flat on his back, William asked for more water waitress poured the whole pitcher over his head; he sputtered as Ria’s face an Fish N’ Boots with an empty bucket watched nearby. Do not do that he said but Fish sang and danced, “he took a direct Loose End blast, a SueTwo Ether Flash Bang… he’s covered in harmonica notes….and he’s on his arse!!!” Ria checked his eyes, “bubbles,” she declared. Fish asks, “That’s normal for him?” William struggled to focus, BillyRay pushes Fish aside, “Dang!!!....Sue Tu looked like she went through you like greased lighting; that Sue Tu blast sucked all the oxygen from the fire box; we’re in danger of not making the nest!”
Mara, keeping the Eye in her peripheral vision, sat down letter in hand on Gumby's lap. Gumby scooted over. Gumby saw beautiful arc to the letter. water swirling suggestive of a brooklet down the aisle, excused myself from Gumby, Pokey who had just shown up looking sleepy, took the seat as she walked toward the light from the caboose end of the train.
Ria shoved the shovel in Bill’s hands who rebuilds our steam,. BillyRay begins to sing The Wreck of the Number 9. Bibi bubbles are floating all around us; elongating, expanding and racing into the future. They have words and pictures, shimmer with a Haggadah luminosity, written in gold. We’re going too fast, about to breach the present. Ria’s face is serene as they crash through that bubble. The egg we just broke opened into a soft mass of twigs, moss and hair, the largest nest ever seen. “Come on Fish, grab your dancing shoes, we’re getting Susan back.”
Sammy's eye opening wider in the sky Mark glanced down to see the tiny train pulling into position below with the bubbles emerging from the 2nd car just as he was told they would be. Headed full speed ahead above him to the balloon that had been a bubble with enough time for Lee and him to take a tour over the mountain, leap out, make some adjustments grab a bird leg speeding by and now return, being pulled behind this owl. Lee was ecstatic, approaching, leaned forward, extended her hand. Mark whizzed by 90 miles an hour, concentrating, mantra on lips and let go of the owl's claw, as it tilted its head back and veered away. mark went flying past Lee, past the cauldron and into the circular hole at the bottom of the balloon inside the orb doing his often-done practice moves. Bullseye! In 1 more second smashing into the balloon in the correct position.
Christopher watching Mark, decided to give it a try, turned into a bear and climbed a tree, when one of the owls said flying is quicker. His arms in pockets became wings, he entered the balloon as flashes of white lightning saw he and Mark, like a pair of spiders, on orange and white thread, creating a matrix within the balloon. The last thing heard, is "This is the birthplace".
LuAnn arrived late, trusting, and joined the climbers, who adored their blues, at the valley of pyramids. No one knew her fear of squirrels when she offer them homemade squirrel jerky.... How to tell them they maimed her parents and stole her brother leaving teeth marks she could never speak of.
Mark smashed into the surface of the balloon, still powered by an owl a mile away, with a BOING sound knowing he had done it right, nailed the precise shape. On the other side of the balloon, seen from the outside, the raised image had manifested itself as the squirrels had instructed, Bouncing he saw an orange blur--Christopher --flying in a circle looking, imitating,bouncing like a pinball.
Mark had created the “Red circle becoming a cone,” so on the train below, the rest, including a double of himself, were all staring into something blue, creating the "downward looking cone, the vortex, the nadir."
On the train, Susan was staring straight down through the time slit that had opened in the floor the nadir as Ria, noticing Susan's whispers, uttered the operative words ending the things Mark 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. Sammy's eye shed a tear and began to open wider.
Ria asked Christopher, “Is Mount Analog a volcano?" But before he could answer she interrupted him with numberical facts then Bibiana asked questions between bubbles. Reaching for a note Mara had in her pocket, Susan's double explained, "Mark made a shape exactly like the one on the left of the three." She held up Mara’s note, of a zig zag shape that is part of a 3-part 'word'--one aqarqi." Ria added, That's the amount of fluid that can be used to fill up a Klein bottle." Bill and Mara spoke about an ancient city in Turkey as Bibiana, chuckled and a bubble emerged from her lips which Christopher then angrily popped.
A great crack in Susan’s eardrums engulf her. vibrant colours reach to embrace her and moss is flying everywhere with a train coming straight towards her, high on a cliff in a nest, she saw the silhouettes of bobbing owls tossed by the billowing wind in a sky steel grey trying to reach the nests. Feathers, dirt and debris were stinging her eyes. With bubbles popping being covered in slime, she sat still for a moment before putting her quill down. She left her manuscript, rising to put more logs on the fireplace. Sitting next to it, Christopher notices owl quill ink mixing with candle wax on the table forming crows stealing jewels from the sky and selling them to owls for question marks.
Mark came cascading off of the inside of the balloon and saw the shape, remembering the zig zag bridge over the Jin river in China. “Its shape protects from bad spirits,” and the tour guide had said not to fall for the illusion of certainties, symbolized by the straight line.” Mara said a zig zag shape is not so boring as a straight line so a convex shape on the outside was probably what had made Sammy’s glass eye opening wider and wider and something glistening inside---a tear? A peradam? He wanted to exit the balloon and take a look. He went past Lee who was signaling.
There were two sides of the mountain. One dark one light. The zig zag shape Mark 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 but never from beginning to end and the path on the mountain zigged and zagged from dark to light. 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, never seen before.
William saw twigs, moss, mud, bones, hair and pages from books, manuscripts, notebooks illustrated with fine brushwork. Ria surveyed the slope around us like a vast cauldron then points to a river of hair tangled and interwoven into this nest and calls to Fish, “We’re heading upstream.”. Fish N’ Boots turned his head and fixed an eye on Bill who followed fish up to the rim to find Susan. Ria turned and the upturned palm of her hand contained an invisible “Klein Bottle, The container of vast emptiness.”
Lee: The trains enter one tunnel, tracks split into four different directions to a different area of the island...or.. to the future, one to the past...one no 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..
Susan tumbled down into a transparent bluish tinted walls of time and arcane symbols and bounced from one bubble like structure and burst into another. 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, down the lenticular mountain trying to focus, and grabbing that red rope, Susan, snapped and folded back to reality. It is getting harder and harder to stop time.
“But it’s non-orientable.!” William shouts but she’s already hauled herself past the voice and stares at the emptiness Ria handed off. Bill looks up to the receding figures for a clue and Fish looks back briefly blowing bubbles. He points a flipper back at the train as bubbles escape from the window of a passenger car. Cradling the emptiness in both hands Bill shouts “Give me a boost to the top of the cars.” to BillyRay, who looks up from his guitar plucking out Born in Chicago and keeps on playing. Bill sets down the Klein and grabs BillyRay and marches straight into the first car to greet everyone. “Ticket please,” Christopher asks. BillyRay squirms and says, “I’ve got em.” Christopher calls after bill whos pushing open the door labeled STORÀGE. BillyRay’s eyes go wide.
William pushes hard and the door opens with a slam, startling the occupants of STORÀGE. “I’ve got some entertainment for you folks,” and plops BillyRay into the nearest seat. Three small squirrels scurry pulling and one pushing a small wagon. Sigrún, Sue-Tu, Maku.
A woman wearing a Campbell soup can brassiere purred, “welcome puppet boy and what’s your name?” Bill introduces them and exits through the car, snatching the receipt from Christopher’s hand on the way to the Klein bottle before anything else. Opening the door into the engine compartment it was gone. “Damn ….everything was gone, loose ends, the shovel; the train’s whistle turned inside out and disappeared. “Susan’s going to be mad,” Bill thought as he spotted the corner of her rucksack starting to vaporize then were gone with all he being able to salvage was a Playgirl magazine. Jane and Angela had somehow materialized from within the pages of the magazine Bill held.
Angela and Jane suddenly appeared. No one had seen them in months. Katherine and Cathy were still missing in action. Angela held in her hand 11 tiny pieces of paper--notes--which she then fanned out like a game of poker. In Portugese she whispered to Christopher, " distribute among the 11 people including yourself. Each person gets one. 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.
1-man's escape from the prison of his robotic egotistical self
2-peak of the holy mountain emerges out of the fog
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."
6- IT IS THE WAY THE DIVINE REVEALS ITSELF TO MAN
7-GURDJIEFF CREATED ALARM CLOCKS--LITTLE REMINDERS TO WAKE ONESELF UP
8-people who drop out hit stumbling blocks on the way to enlightenment
9-Daumal's favorite questions: who are we, who are you?
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 “he nailed it."
Meanwhile in STORÀGE The Baroness asked BillyRay, for “the woman called Susan?” BillyRay, 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. “refer to me as Baroness, and lower your eyes when I speak,” Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven replied.
“ help me, Billy, I am looking for this Susan woman, I could use a guide.”“Susan’s not half bad you know! What’s your connection to our owl smitten gal?”
The Baroness replied, “Lets say that our heart beats as one and that shouldn’t be.” She then summoned Claude, one of the largest men Billy Ray had ever seen.
Susan was bobbing in a pink translucent bubble, keeping pace with the speed of the red caboose and rubbed the interior with her hair to reveal Billy Ray’s big shiny white teeth and some woman sporting a veil and in her hand a green vial. She stared, vaguely placing her somewhere. Then she recalled her bullet had penetrated, something long and shiny was being handed over to her. Susan felt a tiny sensation near her earlobe and reached to explore it. A soft, warm wing was fluttering slowly against her. blue eyes stared back as one of the eggs had hatched!
Chapter 22
William held what he rescued from Susan’s rucksack; her treasured, dog-eared copy of Playgirl which she spent time looking at it and nodding appreciatively. Ria and Fish N’ Boots were scaling a nest back into the passenger cars. Susan warned everyone to keep their paws off.
Bill slowly peeled the cover back of an illuminated manuscript of wondrous beasts, mountain vistas and people in native costume from around the world. He examined elegant cursive, its serpentine line describing the trials of climbers on Analogue…many, many centuries of failures… tragedies….and far too many near successes. The pages were dated far into the future. He thought what of our success including today, July 9, 2011, and suddenly the gold lines began to spool off the page unraveling and disappearing after the rest of Susan’s rucksack into the Klein emptiness. He wedged the Haggadah behind the passenger car door and the fellow climbers, clutched the thread which once was a word, and was pulled into the emptiness, then hit a hard surface and spun to a stop. He saw a huge pile of the gold thread, months or even years of writing. There is a reverse, right next to the off/on switch all along.” said Cathy, holding the Dyson™.
“I was starting to worry,” she said, "you guys were gone almost ten minutes before I found the switch.”
Mara said time has no meaning, it had been a lot longer than ten minutes. There was a concert and a shoe tree…Susan was kidnapped by an owl… Trains and balloons then Mark flying and contorting and…”
Just then Mara said something from behind Bill, lowers the moss she had been snuffling and added, “Now THIS is real" Lee drops a painting she was examining. Looking at the Dyson, Bill says this has to be an O, I’s….. and pulled out a pair of knitting needles.Cathy watched me, shrugged and said, “Mr. Klein assured me this was no Eureka.”
Susan was living multi-dimensional lives simultaneously weaved the golden letters in the air, magically looping notes in the sky and heard wings fluttering, lost so many pages, so many notes, so many serifs and so many exceptional years. They grinned as they watched me.
“Well, Susan, focus! Remember your mantra, or there will be nothing!” And then poof, they were gone once again. Susan could almost believe she could just reach into the train through the fog and collect text.
Lee sat on the not so comfortable seat on the train...we are all here, with even our duplicates on this train...our numbers duplicate and multiply. As we head toward the large opening in the mountain, looking out the train window, she spotted balloons in the distance...lee saw herself floating holding a bunch of balloons wondering if that “me” will catch the train before it enters the tunnel. We can be in more than one place at a time..time has no meaning? how long has this been going on-- on this island? The Baroness is on the train. She knows the mystery of Analogue Island. Bill has a relationship with her...she likes men..
Lee - (Same time, different place) hanging on tightly to the balloons catching up to the train can see the faces looking out the window. Is that me? What's that large pink bubble hugging the side of it? letting go of a couple of the balloons drops me closer and closer to the flatbed. Just over it with seconds to spare, I let go of the other balloons and drop gingerly to the train then into the car and finds the others including look-a-like “taking my place in there.”
William started in with the knitting needles, Jane was nowhere to be seen. one end of the gold thread was in the Dyson™\ Klein. Cathy, Lee and Mara patiently watched clumsy fingers find a rhythm “all the way around and back through the other side and here I am”
Mara looked at Lee and said, “I think your goat is upside down.”
I looked at my hands, backed tracked with my needles, straightened the errant curl on the g and went on, “Nope…boat, it’s boat and we’re going for a ride. I think it’s time to pull ourselves together and get to the heart of the matter on these doubles.”
This time it was Lee who began the rapid blinking, “That usually spells trouble.”
“Lee,” I said, “We’ve got a train to catch and a whole lot of history to return.” Some analogue creatures, Mara, Lee, Cathy and Bill climbed into the canoe shape d and we were off followed Susan’s golden thread back into the Dyson™. Cathy sighed feeling comfortable again. H'ordeuvres are served. Susan had words in hand that then vanished, gold dissipating in the distance as the train whistled again.
Angela heard a mournful cry, ran down to the ledge overlooking the sea and saw a bright, pink, shiny and glowing Walrus crying "Angela!! Save-me!" She threw a silver cape into the air. The pink walrus leapt for the cape and disappeared into the water. A rainbow appeared, Angela saw the walrus again and heard him singing a song so sweet and beautiful but a very bad walrus to Portuguese translation.
William steered through rapids, to the main channel. The gold words were a trail of breadcrumbs. Channels merged reminiscent of the long sea voyage that first brought us to Analogue. Cathy passed snacks around. we were all grateful since food is often forgotten for elevation. Squirrels munched on the asparagus crepes. Lee said, “the ocean getting rather thick” The Susan Thread was tangling with others, symbols and signs vibrating in the water. The monkeys began chattering nervously as we reached the horizon.
Mara said, “shouldn’t we start rocking the boat?” But one of the Blues dropped the nut he was clutching, shifting the balance.
Susan stopped drawing to catch the scripts in her dimension and pluck them into the Haggadah box case. more were squeezing though the brilliantly lit crack below the front door. Then the Herdrix like blues guitar riff-- Muddy Waters ”Catfish Blues” she remembered hearing at the Penelope club. Billy Ray had arrived through the NASA space elevator. she pressed the down button!
The boat was in thick syrup, things began whirling around us. Susan had found something that got her extremely excited and motioned for Bill to come closer for a look. she had found some sort of trap door in the bottom of the ship. Lee thought being on a ship meant we would be on our way home not another adventure. Up in the sky Sammy's ancient eye opened wide and a peradam fell out and was hurling toward the mountain. Lee was clutching those balloons, there WAS no tomorrow. Mark, conducting science experiments, could sense we would soon be dancing and didn't have the heart to tell her. Susan was clutching her high tech unit she had nabbed. Bill was right. It was a Klein bottle. The amount of monkeys didn’t have any effect, the bigger unicorn sizes weren’t registering significant results. He was writing down the locations of the various huts. the average height the hits on both sides of the dividing lines got to was 4.5 metres. He concluded that the squirrel size didn’t make much of a difference, and plotted lines averaged over the 3 owl sizes.
Mara leaned over the side of the boat I reached into the syrupy stew to snag at a lower case "h" "Sheep, bookbinding sheet or shillings." A squirrel dove after his escaped nut then rebounded and landed on Mara as the boat tipped. Susan grabbed the lever and pulled open the trap door..."we don't have much time," she yelled and dragging a white owl and green creatures...dove in leading all climbers through with monkees and squirrels last.
A red line appeared dropping down swaying back and forth, capturing more words, “Billy Ray, don’t hurt yourself” Susan laughed with elevator wheels grinding as creatures started to pour by her head… embedded into the rope were squirrels, green monkeys, white owls and people screaming. The noise caused a crack in the floor that started to spread like an earthquake lesion and all fell through the huge hole.
except Susan who rang a bronze cupola bell for William. “The witch is ringing the bell again, William” said the large fish beside the stream.
“A witch, devilry-that’s what creatures up and down the river are calling her,” The monk and the fish set out to see why Susan was chiming. As Lee and Mark trudged breathless up the zigzagging mountain path, Lee pointed to a "long cut" sign to Hut 8 where they had just come from below--" that's spooky… devilry" said Mark, “No it says 'Delivery.'" responded Lee.
Chapter 23
Lee looked at the sign...delivery.... a narrow zig zag path, Mark, what if it means a birthing place? At this Mark started laughing, he shook his head and walked down the path towards hut 8....
Thinking of strange creatures and experiments deep in the caves... Lee hurried to catch up with Mark already quite a ways ahead.
Susan’s first time to get a good look at Billy Ray was drifting alongside the window of the train spying on all the passengers and noticed his movements… realistically painted wooden beady eyeballs scanning the climbers. His thick log neck…red bandanna whipped in the air. Yes, there had been nothing but trouble since he manifested one day on the mountain. Maybe he escaped from the tree, promising them anything to give him his freedom. Is he a watcher, a player or just a puppet on a string. He seems to be shadowing Bill for the longest time to learn his traits and how to behave. Always asking irritating questions--where everyone came from and about how to make it in the music industry. Billy Ray followed Bill on he train just behind Fish ‘n Boots in the lead. he attempted to trip the poor aquatic creature several times when no one was looking.
tipping his cowboy hat at all the ladies, he grinned at the Baroness, “Where did he get my boots? They were multiplying” said Susan.
Billy Ray and Susan’s eyes met. She disappeared back to the Atelier. the elevator took him away the second time, Susan was relieved. A trap door opened from the Mountain, and Susan was sucked into the draft of wind and began to tumble down violently behind the other climbers then veered left towards the sea below the water. She knew she could get back
On a shell in coral reef Billy Ray was ready to perform. He had parted the waters. Rowboats with the climbers aboard peering down into the water. Ria, William and Mara in scuba gear were under the water holding on to the same long red rope led by Fish ‘n boots and he started to play.
Stream flowed through the train emptied under the world, keeping the turtle who carried us on it's back happy. Christopher could delay Fish N Boots apparent boot licking, but not for long. "There it is!" Mara pointed at the massive airborne composite of a train and dirigible with a mechanical claw to snag our sea worthy ship. "There's a vehicle for everyone," she mused.
Now, the planning will begin; we will return, Mark already knows that part and how long to stay this time: we just plant the Daumal flag or continue where we left off but what year shall we pick to do all this? up for discussion.
All are gathered together around this large glass table waiting for Mark to arrive to chair a meeting. All think back to Analogue Island together...now, in 2511, Mark has called us together to plan another trip...back to 2011..back to Analogue to finish planting the Daumal flag...the adventures we shared so long ago, that has kept us connected through many years and time jumps...many lives.
Mark said, "we really aren't doing this for Daumal, but for us, even though our adventures continue we must have the closure of planting that flag". Lee still thought there was much to be learned from Analogue Island...It held it's secrets close….must find out the answers hidden in the caves where so many experiments were done. Mara still the blue squirrels had a hold on her.
In the beginning we didn't understand the other aspects of ourselves and the ability to jump from one time to another. We had only the vaguest concept of parallel worlds and alternate personalities. After our time on Analogue Island we all agreed and understood the interconnection of many lifetimes. There is past present future all happening in the now of our awareness.
Susan and Bill want one more performance ...the singing and dancing never ended with those two.
William and Fish N Boots raced up the steep trail, the incessant tolling of Susan’s bell at the Delivery Trail crossroad. “Maybe she’s out of hieroglyphics, the pyramid wagons are overdue by two days,” Fish mused as they sipped a few oxygenated quarter notes. Bill said “she’s got plenty of regular glyphs and in a pinch she uses Chinese characters with a pinch of Gibberish.”
They quickly covered the last kilometer to the steps leading to Susan’s studio high atop Hut 12, the one we referred to as the Double Boxcar. Fish said, “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.” Bill replied “feed it to Susan maybe she can fit it into the story.”
“I don’t think people believe in me,” said Fish and Bill told the drama queen, of course we believe in you. You’ve always come through. “ Believe in my existence, you don’t understand what that’s like.” “Later Fish, we’ll get back to your Existential therapy in a minute, first lets’ see what up with our Scribe.”
Bill opened the door and saw Susan had several tables set up to work on her various manuscripts yet she was nowhere to be seen, instead the words from the various volumes were running off the pages and leaking into large hole in her floor.Susan appeared from the stairwell to the bell tower, “There’s been some type of disaster…there were squirrels chattering, green monkeys howling, white owls squawking, flapping wildly and people screaming hysterically and they went down there.” She pointed. “And they knocked over my jar of Meanwhile.” Fish N Boots looked at the roiling froth in the pit that had been Susan’s trapdoor and said, “the loose ends are finally in one place.”
Fish N Boots surveyed the watery depths that had materialized beneath the floor of Susan’s studio,
Bill pointed out they’d climbed seven flights of stairs and missed the fact that it was ocean.
Susan added, “there is ocean in the mountain, all the past story lines plunged through my roof”
Bill glanced at the four desks in the room, words forming puddles then pouring into the abyss, “Susan’s future works are off the pages and mixing with the past”
Fish said “You humans thinking you’re on some sort of spiritual quest, I don’t think you’re really up to the task.” Susan said help me salvage this.
Fish and Bill poured the contents on blank vellum sheets that Susan held and attached the sheets to a clothesline to dry in the wind.
Fish had trains and lavender fields and a big clump of maramaramara all tangled up and all the numbers are sinking to the bottom, and wondered “Does that matter?”
Susan’s illuminated manuscripts were bleeding into each other… ink spread wildly, expanding wider…Water was rising fast, engulfing boots, Susan submerged in ice-cold liquid blending with the words forever. She saw an ambigram appear from the winds with the words Fish’N boots and had to interpret this symbol!
Fish’N Boots had hit her on the head by accident with his bucket, She had to hang the dripping letters on the line hoping it was not too late!
Lee heading due east on the northwest side of the island, facing south, sees a large grove of the Trees of Confusion. People of the island harvest the trees in September to keep confusion limited to a small area of the island. If left to to drop or wind, the confusion would spread.
Many years ago everyone living on the island could never make a decision or understand how to live their lives. But neighboring towns were able to harvest the small grove of trees to keep confusion at a minimum, known as 'Confusafest' due to the current travails of the travelers. A break to harvest the trees sounded like a necessary side adventure....a date was picked, plans were made.
Christopher explained the typos. Looking out to Mark, "All the windows are hallways", he just said, "only 8 of them", Eight words?.....a pile of wet letters on the floor, or fish, I couldn't tell. A blue bear with raccoon hands, started screaming, "we have to clean this up real quick"! I washed all the letters with my tiny hands, two by two…The sun was rising through the eight windows of hut eight, and Chris wanted to go back to the trail, but felt trapped by this terrible mess, Susan said "what mess", and it was gone. Susan pulled a bow off her boot and shot Chris out the window wearing a conductors hat. A crooked arrow in the lower clouds, landed up above, formless and void, like milk. Milk pouring into water Life is the dream here, on MA.
Everyone was gone. Mark was alone as in the vial. Alone for years accepting it none the less. So a peace descended and he saw luscious milk, stretching out in all directions it did not touch him, it merely surrounded, pleasantly engulfed me, even cradled me. Where are my friends?
Mark was going to meet Ria but she was not here. Bill and Susan were off to meet her but they had not brought her back. All the other voices felt within reach--they were there which is why he was able to accept fate. A monkey dual-horned uni-demon had been chasing him, a horrible, scary, hot and sharp glowing, electric blue demon… Right behind him. It turned into a room where Mark sat writing, “passed me by on its way to catch me.” Suddenly he was part of a whirling flow, words and all the solid matter in the world was a flowing mosaic, an undulating quilt sensitive to his movements. It was a euphoric feeling. "This is what I was waiting for," Mark thought. "It was so simple all along."
Susan still wrestled with the Ambigram FONTS IS HOB! That was it! The fonts are all magic. There it was, the power of the written word.
The lines of the letters were expanding in all directions stretching beyond the atelier. They were alive. Activated. Serifs and san serifs were jumping the paths, crossing over, intertwining to form sentences and new thoughts. Pigments of colours were racing Susan turned to look at Fish ‘N Boots and Bill. Everything had vanished, suspended in time and space. In the distance she saw Mark swimming. There was Christopher waving his cap. Susan waved her arms in slow motion. Fish ‘N Boots was jumping up and down with his four legs crossing over back and forth…Sparks started exploding from his red boots….smell of smoke….bottoms of his red boots were on fire…letters were becoming words and the words were becoming sentences:
In 1944 René Daumal's Mount Analogue ended in mid sentence. In 2010 a small group of artists resume his quest in mid stride. These are the ongoing accounts and documents of their journey”
Susan saw Mark and Christopher floating in the sea of knowledge as the sound of the distant train whistle sounded.
Bill quickly hosed down Fish ‘N Boots causing smoke to billow as letters began to form our names on all the outreached bands magnifying beyond our dimension: Susan, Ria, William, Mara, Lee, Mark, Christopher, Angela, Jane, Cathy, Kathleen, Bibiana. Fish ‘N Boots looked at Bill slyly and said. “ So, are you still wondering who is actually creating the story here?
Mark wondered how to tell Susan to squeeze back through that time slit, grab the machine and return? That was the one thing I had left out of the story when I had a chance to tell her, Bill and Ria but I failed to mention the end of the beginning of the end, when she goes back in time, grabs the machine and makes it back in time to catch the blimp which is just then passing overhead allowing us to make our exit. How to convey it now that we were separated again? The written word. If I could pass her a note somehow it would compose itself with the necessary information... If serifs and san serifs were intertwining to form sentences and new thoughts on some kind of Ouija board-cum-note-cum-telegram...
Susan heard some kind of buzzing...chattering......trying to hear...coming from afar.......taking out a ram's horn to hear…
The curtains in the doorway parted, Fish 'n Boots pulled on his slippers and settled on a damp pile of rope, "In anticipation of finding the blimp coordinates each of us need to pull out their part of the map and any new clues. We piece the meta meaning.. as long as it's done before the ship leaves the mountain. IF the ship leaves, and you're not on it... it will be a long long time before another opportunity. Please place your items on the table, and watch out for the time fissures."
"I brought the Dumal flag." Slowly removing it from her rucksack, Mara places the flag, as yet unfurled, on the table.
The chaff was mixed into everything that Susan had ever written. Now that the notes, the paper the letters, words, dates and the serifs were dried and finally shoveled into a pile we were able to get a sense of what we were up against. Big pile. Very big pyramid shaped accumulation Susan has sown and her harvest is spectacular.
They began the slow process of placing shovels full of the story onto blankets and tossed them in the light breeze, the light chaff fluttering away, leaving us unusually large and plump words.
Chapter 24
Ria stepped onto the nest's edge, Fish 'N Boots shadowing, and a gust of wind blew all over mixing hair with the nest's texture, enwrapped. Trapped in a nest, Ria’s mind flooded. All she heard was hair waving in the wind.
An owl flew over. OooHOOO ... Fish 'N Boots was mesmerized by what happened. The hair slipped off his skin.
Where's Bill? Where's the train? Under Ria, in water? More water?' She fell hard on some rocky sharp formation and saw LIGHT.... Crystals all around—peradams—she stood up in an amazing mirror palace, thinking ‘Susan would get a kick out of this.' And there she was, surrounded by infinite loose ends. So Ria shook her hair. Tied it in a bun.
Maramara brought the Chaf Wagon round and we loaded the seasons harvest in preparation for the journey to Hut 24 where the villagers were celebrating. Many of them already a bit tipsy from the grog Susan had donated and sent on ahead. We had climbed high these last few weeks but still weren’t acclimated despite over a years worth of testing routes past the obstacles the Mountain placed in our path. A brief pause for celebration on the lower flanks would be a welcome respite.
Wagons were unloading their chaff during concert stage construction. Fish thought KaliKuties were performing at Chaf this year.Bill asked Susan, “What’s the last you wrote about BillyRay?”She read out loud, “To my surprise, there before me, on a shell in the middle of the coral reef was Billy Ray posed and ready to perform. Bill insisted “we can’t let BillyRay go on during Chaf!!
BillyRay was returning for an encore. Bill saw BillyRay hand his guitar to the Baroness, then reach down into Susan’s familiar but long lost rucksack and hold something over his head.
He held an eight track tape player and he was using it to make feedback loops into the microphone. Suddenly he placed the machine on the floor and with a flourish began dousing it with lighter fluid.
The Baroness knelt beside him holding a vintage Zippo lighter, igniting the eight track in a conflagration that caused a panic in the squirrel’s mosh pit.
The strains of “Born in Chicago” began to fitfully die out as the Baroness and BillyRay danced round the fire when Fish looked from Bill to Susan then said, “He wasn’t supposed to do that, was he …. the Hendrix's thing….was he?” "No Fish," William said, "he wasn't supposed to do that. It's not the right time". "In fact, I don't think that was in the script at all".
The Baroness had one arm in the future and the other in the distant 19th Century past so Mark had to act fast. The Baroness caught his eye and as I approached her to ask if she had seen Ria she faded away into one of the adjacent time zones. I could not yet tell which one because I was still waiting for the shimmering Gumby arc to form. Mark was about to place a phone call to Bill and Fish using the Baroness’s armpit.
Next he went from table to table, each covered with snow, or was it hair, or were those notes written on paper, musical notes, frames of a storyboard that were taking shape as quickly as they were mentioned. He imagined Lee was somewhere close by gluing the notes together creating paper quilts and tents and balloons but Bill, Ria and Susan were nowhere to be seen. At each table it was standing room only. Tsuff piled higher and higher, each one forming a beautiful pyramid shape. First there had been squirrels, now people but none of them looked familiar. Bill and company had said they would be here, now they weren't. But where WERE they?
Mara heard Mark say, "The only way out is through the final remaining time slit. The others will disappear one by one". She could see wavering time slits, appearing and melding into a Star War-ish looking bar scene. The thing is, how to locate the "final" time slit? "Mark, MARK!" No matter how she yelled and waved my arms, he didn't seem to recognize me, or even see me. Looking about, the odd packages were definitely piled on and under her table, so in typical dreamlike fashion I struggled to gather them together. It seemed like the thing to do, at the time. But was it the right time?
Fish, Let's get back to the Chaf wagon, maybe there's still grog left said Bill. They turned through the crowd. Fish suddenly turned and said, "William, who is This Time Being. The one that it is good for him to be on the mountain"?
Bill ‘s 8 track tape player began to ring. It was Mark calling from the cave. "Where are you guys? I thought you were going to meet me here?" "We are going back to the hut," Bill replied. "And how is it you are calling me here? Cell phones have not yet been invented and there is no reception on the mountain." Mark was frustrated. "If there aren't cell phones then how was I supposed to have found out you are headed back to the hut?" "It was too crowded in that cave. We got Ria her 8 track tape machine that exactly matches mine but tell me how are you able to place a phone call to it?" Bill asked.
"This is not a phone call," Mark replied as the time slit began to close. "I am screaming into the Baroness's armpit! I'll meet you guys back at the hut!"
Another image of the same Baroness waltzed up to Mark, "Would you dance with me?" She asked and smelled rather good. They danced.
Susan awoke alone bathed from the illumination of endless notes in different hues. All the craziness had passed. A celebration, the grog, the lights, the lines of truth, the moon, the water and the music. The explosion of the eight-track down below and the anarchy. Mark, what was it he wanted me to do? The ground was covered with more notes—erosion, curled as they wrinkled and fermented. They disintegrated at the very touch of my delicate fingers. “Man, my notes, tumbling down like the leaves of time from the tree of life!” Was it now time to hibernate and contemplate life. She started to weep for the earth as the soil below was watered with tears and she grabbed my telescope from her pocket and saw a sign. It was an omen.
All was not over
She started to make “note angels” with her arms flapping. Faith had been restored once more for Susan on the mountain.
Back in the nest, Ria saw it wasn't Susan, but a humongous billboard, a sign to guide me back to the train, the others, whatever time slit they were in now, I could hear mumbling, laughing, shouting. An echo "helllloooooooo! I'm in layer cat. 98.0875# registered by climber SS.".... Fish 'N Boots, was rolling his eyes. Right, he thought the same, here we go ... I rumbled thru my back pack, neatly organized, changed into my Issey Miyake coat for friction and of we slid down the owls nest. We'd stayed there way too long.
"See?" Ria shouted at Fish 'N Boots as we were sliding, "I don't get notifications of these happenings, someone is messing with the standard climbing notification system, how on earth, well, how on MA, is climber Ria to know who went into which time slit? I just hate it when peeps run all directions/times without warning. I'm a control freak! ... 'Now this is going surreally fast."
Mara heard Mark say, "The only way out is through the final remaining time slit. The others will disappear one by one".
Susan wasn't cooperating and there wasn't time to warn her so Mark just gave her a push and she disappeared into the slit.
One by one the evil monkeys ceased to torment their squirrel hosts. Thousands of light years of Sciuridae slavery were coming to an end in the wink of an eye. Meanwhile Sammy's eye WAS winking, letting Lee know that the notification system was back in operation. "I am no field squirrel," said Big Blue, "Nor cave squirrel. I am OUTA HERE!!!!" And with that he stormed out into 25th Century air for the first time in days. monkeys just stared each other.
Fish 'N Boots slid better. And then suddenly he bumped into Big Blue. Not much longer Ria slid against both of them. Kinda hurt too. Fish was out of it. Big Blue looked at Ria Is that a waffle iron? she said. Mara was stuck. Opening eyes, ears, nose and mind as wide as Mara could the scent of maple wafted, followed closely by butter...
We were all flitting in and out of the present like a strobe effect but instead of dark and light it was between the past and the future. The resulting effect made us all feel the present for the first time since we had embarked up the trail to the various huts and it was all making sense to Mark now. But why was Ria standing so close?
Bill went on lecturing but concluding you all must now admit with this evidence how critical our success is based on the Blues here on Mount Analogue!” William was about to answer Fish but he winked out... poof…taking that time-stream back to the beginning much better than I." thought Bill who decided to take stock, and found a good sized nut tree and sat under it. Reaching into rucksack to pull Ria's Tibetan bowl out and place it on hismy head and listened to the ping...ping ...pinging of falling nuts lull me to sleep. Each of us settled down and drifted off in their own way and Mara wondered... "What will we wake up to tomorrow?
William drifted off and dreamed Fish N Boots and he strolled down a rocky beach when a beautiful carp walked out of the sea on a pair of red Louboutin pumps. She tried in vain to wink her lidless eye at Fish and settled for a slight puckering of her lips, which definitely caught Fish’s attention.
“Do you think she’s looking at me?” he whispered and Bill said “go on introduce yourself.” Very light on her feet. “Perhaps she’s a dancer.” Fish stumbled.
Bill found himself at a wedding as Fish N Boot’s best man. Tibetan bowl was rather abruptly removed from his head to see Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. She smiled curiously then said, “Haven’t you stopped to wonder why lately?” “Why? Why, What?” she replied, “Why are you here? Here on the Mountain. You and your group have been climbing for over a year now and yet you seem to make no progress. I see circles. I see advance and retreat. Is this some type of game?”
The Baroness was kneeling on Bills chest. “Elsa, can you get off me?” Next she was rifling through his rucksack. “Just look at all this tsuff you’re carrying. No wonder you can’t make any progress. Cans of soup, train schedules, harmonica, rope, carabineers, glove liners, long underwear, waffle iron…”She glared, “I’m lightening your load, you’ll thank me later.” His sack over her shoulder she started up the trail. She briefly turned and said, “Well, are you coming?
The wedding party I had just dreamed of scampered past me and fell in behind the Baroness. I watched the backs of Sigrún, SueTu, the several goats, Gumby, Maku, and a rather large frog disappear around the back wall of the corrie.
The Mt. Analogue Sequel Glossary of Noh Rhymes Noh Reasons
How Climbers Arrive
Mara, Susan, Ria and William seem to arrive spontaneously and are in the midst of an exploratory climb. (10/7/10)
Lee – Mentioned first as attending a blue squirrel party on 10/8/10
10/23/10 Appears in forest with “a” Mara (illusion?)
Lee appears to be watching the group from afar and reluctant to contact them.
Lee also officially arrives by boat on 11/27/10
Mark – Arrives in a vial that has been floating in the water at the shore of Mt. Analogue (11/18/10)
By 11/24 tempting Mark from his vial has resulted in his partial reconstitution. (due to a bit of squirrel mischief)
Jane, Cathy, Angela and Bibiana arrive by boat. (11/28/10) they have been summoned by mail art messages and Cracker Jack boxes.
Themes:
Disappearance
Climbers may disappear for no apparent reason.
Ria – 10/9/10 Into ground
William and Mara 10/15/10 – From studio (or ship?)
Mara (10/23/10) – through Driftwood and again on 10/25
Lee mentions possibilities of Time Warps (10/23/10)
Ria through Driftwood on 10/27/10 (finds Mara)
Appearances
Susan’s Loophole (10/15/10
SuTwo via a midair collision with Susan (10/25/10)
Dictionary
ISHKABIBBLE - Incantation
Terma - Tradition holds that terma may be a physical object such as a text or ritual implement that is buried in the ground (or earth), hidden in a rock or crystal, secreted in a herb, or a tree, hidden in a lake (or water), or hidden in the sky (space). Though a literal understanding of terma is "hidden treasure", and sometimes objects are hidden away, the teachings associated should be understood as being 'concealed within the mind of the guru', that is, the true place of concealment is in the terton's mindstream. If the concealed or encoded teaching or object is a text, it is often written in dakini script: a non-human type of code or writing.
Torma - figures made mostly of flour and butter used in tantric rituals
Doubles
(The exact nature of doubles is not clear – whether they are from different times or places or perhaps the climbers have the ability to perceive things differently on the slopes of Analogue)
First noted 10/12/10 William seems not to realize he has been climbing with Susan that day
Mara and William interact with Susan while Mara and Ria interact (beginning on 10/13)
Lee interacts with Mara(2) on (10/23/10)
SuTwo/Susan – (10/25/10) - first appearance.
Time
Mark introduces The End of Mt. Analogue. (12/1/10) - Found as a separate note under Mara's FB "Note" tab. The novel ends and is written in reverse.
Time Fissures mentioned (12/3/10) Several time fissures are plugged with musical notes on 12/5/10 and produce water.
Music:
Susan's harmonica mentioned (10/28/10)
It’s use in thin air (10/10/10) Breathing through the stems of eight notes.
To resuscitate SuTwo (10/28/10) Harmonica use in CPR
Big Blue can hum (10/19/10)
Small Blues sing sea shanties (11/21/10)
Tibetan Singing Bowl introduced (11/22/10) Used in combination with sea shanty notes on 12/5/10 to provide water source for blues.
Whistles mentioned on (12/1/10)
Born in Chicago" by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band - first mention by Susan (10/10/10) - Mentioned as the last song in "The End of Analogue" note
Animals:
Blue Squirrels
They stash things in their cheeks
(10/7/10 – A Campbell Soup label which may also be a map)
(10/19/10 – Big Blue – also a map
Appear to eat map (10/12/10)
Make origami (10/12/10)
Big Blue makes off with Ria’s rucksack – eats her chocolate and marvels at her waffle iron. (10/19/10
Give scalp massages – (10/19/10)
Small one scratches a tattoo into William (10/23)
Appear to argue with Mark who is in a vial (11/21/10)
Dips tail in vial contents (11/24/10)
Green Fairy (mentioned 10/19/10
Green Monkeys (mentioned 10/19/10
Lee explains further on (11/24/10)
Lee follows green monkey further into a cave on 12/3/10
Portents:
Papers are folded into eights (10/7/10)
A prism breaks into eights (10/9/10)
Bells, Doorbells (occurrences on 10/13/10 although Campbell occurs 10/7/10
Mara is a bell on 10/18/10 (see also Gongs and Bowls)
Nuts fall and hit people which trigger events (10/12, 10/13/10)
Susan's Ishkibble vision (12/1/10)
Nourishment:
Belgian chocolate (10/10/10)
Self Gathering Nuts and orchards of self-gathering nut trees (10/10/10)
Campbells Soup (10/7/10 Three Varieties Think, Don’t Think and Don’t Believe What You Think 10/15/10
Waffles (10/23/10
Objects and Talismans:
Gloves First mention 10/9/10)
Belgian origami gloves 10/14/10
Ria and Mara divine meaning from (10/15/10)
Mara picks up Mark with glove (11/24/10)
Glove linings contain a map (12/5/10)
Prism (10/9/10)
Numbers
Pairs of gloves
Paper folded into eights
Ria speaks in prime numbers (11/11/10)
William’s map is a Heart Curve projection (10/22)
Fibonacci (Mark mentions on 11/24/10)
Red Cowboy Boots
Susan is wearing them on 10/9/10
On 10/13 they disappear off Susan’s feet (replaced by Blue Mukluks)
SuTwo has them on in William's drawing of Susan's reccue of SuTwo
Ria lands in them during her glissade of the Waterfall
Red Climbing Rope
(10/7/10) Mara posts picture with red rope (William comments on the similarity of red ropes to Zen koans "Songyuan asked, Why can't clear-eyed Bodhisattvas sever the red thread?")
(10/12/10) Mara arrives with Japanese Spider weave
(Ria begins an abseil of the waterfall with red rope 10/18/10
William is pulled into the sky (11/25/10)
Gongs and Bowls
First mention on 10/14
Used by Ria 11/25
Notes used again on 12/5/10
Waffle Iron:
Found in Ria’s rucksack (10/19/10)
Used by blues to crack nuts (12/1/10)
Ria's Blue Bicycle:
first mentioned 11/22/10 - sometimes randomly changes color
(introduced same time as Tibetan bowl)
Cracker Jacks Prizes
first introduced when Angela, Cathy, Bibiana and Jane arrived
the prizes may exceed the size of a cracker jacks box (12/16/10)
Events:
Ria learns to fly (10/13/10)
Ship runs aground and the Peradam Waterfall discovery (10/16/10)
Susan rejoins group via a Loophole (10/15/10)
Susan destroys Peradam Waterfall 10/18/10 (During same event Ria glissades the falling debris of the waterfall and lands in red boots)
Susan learns Leaping/Flying (10/25/10)
Mara learns of the Squirrel water dilemma (10/25/10)
Mara discovers the Islands of Stability (11/7/10)
William swims to retrieve the seahorse and returns with a vial instead. (Contains Mark)
William’s shadow attempts to drink the vile liquid and instead becomes a Mark mold. (11/24/10)
Ria teaches William to fly (11/25/10)
Unicorn Whirlwind (12/1/10)
Mara's admonitions to aid the blues begins (12/1/10)
Mark writes the ending (12/1/10) see Maras FB Note "The End of Mount Analogue"
