Mound of Hostages

Incredible, how credible that split second can seem like minutes . . . can make one jump to conclude that it was Donn, but I had to pull back on landing a dudno on that train of thought. Was it really Donn?

I had to pull back from fearing that, indeed, I was facing Donn . . . already dead, yet killed [again?] in a car accident . . . in my Rapide? Did he pull a Warm Leatherette on the M3 with my Viridian Green beauty? Quite normal to think such a thing, when one is emotionally attached to such a vehicle.

. . . but interrupted by that metaphorical phone call from Steve . . . Steve Munster. Is he a figment of my imagination? Stephen is his full name. I'm playing a game of chess with him, you know . . . somewhat like Mr French played by phone call moves across wires, across the ocean with his friend in that old US TV show: "Family Affair." Never a "bad hair day" when it comes to Mr French, although it seems to be a signature image that Steve portrays . . . hair all over the place . . . never seems to comb it . . . just like Marc Bolan.

I remember now.

That is why I have to see Steve. The Chess Game. I made a mistake . . . a wrong move . . . I need to know . . . is he a compassionate King, like he said to me at the outset of the Game?



It all started when I asked Steve to re-invent the lost Druidic Rules for a Great Game . . . a fidhcheall Chess Game (or gwyddbwyll - in Welsh.) Steve took all the centre pieces off my white army of 12, making it 8.

Then he moved one of his black pieces first. My starting move went OK - pretty basic. Then he moved right across the board, then I made what I thought to be an offensive move, but it was a Game Stopper . . . after I realized what I had done, that is.

I'll try to upload a picture of the first 4 moves a bit later on, but get a lode of this rather odd event just past:

dogmax had no idea that unkempt hair is Steve's and my outstanding facial feature. Steve and I do not own a comb or a brush.

Anyway, the figure emanating from the fog had no appreciable facial features. It reminded me of EggyBaby! He offered me an iron rod, then pointed at the ground off to my left. Funny, but the morning dew was not gathering in a roughly 8 foot by 20 foot rectangle area. EggyBaby! motioned me to poke at the ground, which I did very carefully. The bog was quite soft and my rod went in easily. It stopped at something hard.

I had been thinking of EggyBaby! since July 11, and this, being the morning of July 13, 2012, made it a couple of days since I had read his story about the Vadrang.

I didn't notice the ground swelling until the headlights were staring at me, all lit up like. dogmax and I got into the Rapide, pressed the keyblock in for a moment to start the machine and we were off!

A crawl at first, but dogmax hasn't been behind the wheel of a 570HP powerhouse before . . . give dogmax a break, eh?

Now he is One with the Rapide.

Where are we going, dogmax?

You're actually very good behind the wheel, dogmax. Very relaxing. And it gives me more time to think.

What do you think of this new intro? . . . I would have put it before the Twilight Zone video, but I seem to have run out of edits for the first post, which is a MetaBummer.

Maybe pickarooney could change the title and insert this intro . . . please?

---

July 13, 2012, 04:14 . . . the day time stood still for 7 days.

One man, Agent Weebley, a Master of The Magical Mystery Turing Number 7 . . . a man who hears a constant toll of the drum . . . gives the signal . . . . drum . . . drum . . . drum . . . For 4 days, then 3 nights he maintains an uplink to . . . The Hundredth Monkey . . . The Higgs Boson . . . the invisible wave/particle continuum . . . togetherness.

July 16, 2012, 09:54 . . . a lone voice echoes back . . . dun . . . dun . . . dun . . . confirmation The Irish Triangle of Dundrum, Dundrum, Dundrum is complete, contiguous and strong. Lia Fáil is now screaming in ear splitting silence across Ireland.

John Donne: "No man is an Island, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."

July 20, 2012 . . . after 7 days the unimaginable happens . . . time does not restart. Have we reached the end of elastic time as we know it? Is time now plastic? Have we reached Mile Zero . . . the end . . . or the beginning?

You, my friend, have already entered . . . The Twilight Zone.

---

Illusions of the mind . . . all over the place . . . that is true, on many levels. But "all over the place" could mean illogical and incoherent . . . it could mean logical and seemingly incoherent. Maybe the English I speak is the 7th harmonic of direct speech, tuned to a frequency that Enda Kenny and his ilk cannot hear . . . the perfect steganographic frequency . . . coded talk between friends . . . like the morphed English that subverted the French speaking Norman Courts in England . . . but I can speak directly, sans merde sensationaliste, which I did . . .

Trapped in an illusion? That is the 100 million dollar prize. Ahh, to be able to flip in and out from one illusion to another. I wish for us to be trapped, then free ourselves to go into yet another, and another. Let's go into EggyBaby!'s illusion, shall we?.

Oh, and Donn and his friends are legion . . . and they are on our side. He told me. He is in the back seat with us.

You asked: "now one question if you can give me a straight answer -- what did you see in that rectangle area"

Although I only saw the Rapide afterwards, when I hit something hard, due to intense "poking with an iron rod" training by the Elders Of The Internet, it felt like a slab of bog oak with legs.

Hang on a 'mo . . .

Hmm. I just got an email? Weird. I don't have my iPhone4. That "old telephone" ringtone sounded like my long lost iPhone 4. Agent Pete 8 never did go to get it back for me from Bloodbridge River, in the Mountains Of Mourne . . . it was left sitting on a rock (not by me, but for me to add yet another contra-Aquiphibian character into this story would be a little over the top, at this stage.)

Oh, an "old telephone" ringtone redux. Got it. My iPhone4! Yippee! Under the passenger seat! Thanks, Donn!

[no answer]

Really. An email from my budsky, Epstein. "When are you coming back?" he said.

Excuse me while I answer Epstein . . . I am a little thick fingered: “ I a m wit h D on n. B ac k in 15 mi nute s. ”

I included a short video of an Underwood 5 typewriter, to really screw his head around.

Oh, since I can now browse on Safari, I'll see what he did with my email . . yuk, yuk, yuk.

Er . . . No way! I didn't steganographically embed the link to this video! I've never seen it before in my life! I swear!

OK, dogmax. I stopped the Rapide. Switch!

Did that slab of Bog Oak with legs ring a resonant bell? It did with me. What could it be?

And I don't think the confused look on Donn's face can be changed like some sort of Mr Potato Head . . . he's probably wondering how the heck we're doing this time warp thingie . . . no he's not. He's faking Perplex City. I believe it. Do you believe it?

We have stopped time invisibly on a small scale quite a few times in the past, to cut our teeth, so to speak, but now we have done it on a big scale . . . thanks to the Hundredth Monkey . . . was that little Monkey you, dogmax?

The Druids stop time. They keep this MAGIC stuff a secret, you know. That is one reason for their hand-off to Christianity in Ireland. To teach everyone a lesson. Now we must recap the last 16 centuries . . . a long lesson, methinks. It should help us for quite a quite to come. I'm a little mischevious in that regard. I am explaining MAGIC to the best of my ability. The Druids, as before, are giving us the next direction for humanity . . . are they giving us another lesson?

Anyway, I'm not sure about us going down the Zombie-time road, dogmax . . . We do have lots of friends in the Valley, but pulling a Vincent Vega and blowing Marvellous Donn's head off would definitely throw us right into Pulp Fiction territory . . . not to mention the clean-up on the Rapide would be extensive, and would slow us down . . . remember our upcoming trip: "The Road to Suns?" Not to mention the PG13 rating on this site! The Vadrang may enjoy the splattered blood effect, but the Craul . . . not so much? Which reminds me . . . we need to bone up for our trip soon. I noticed a few contradictions and omissions in Eggy Baby!'s storyline, in which Eileen De Generously expounded on for us. EggyBaby! seems to be explaining more about the scene setup, rather than being in the thick of the events of the story . . . therein lies our opportunity to be there to help him see what we see . . . to help him. Wanna help?

Another thing is very difficult; how do I make the reader empathise with alien characters if many of them are incapable of human-like facial expressions? It would be difficult to describe conversation with the many-eyed Vadrang, for example.

Welcome. Take a seat, Dean09. I promise not to kick you in the head . . . unless you want me to, that is. Sit beside Donn in the back. Don't worry, he bites.

By the way, I've given up on being able to insert the 4 chess game moves here. IMG is turned off. I would ask pickarooney to turn them on for this thread only, but I'm not sure if he will do that.

. . . please, please, Mr Postman . . . can you do that for me?

It would be so much easier to explain the long lost rules to Fidhcheal Chess. Here's the links in the meantime to tide you over:
Move 01 - Steve,
Move 02 - Weebley,
Move 03 - Steve,
Move 04 - Weebley.

How weird is that? Move 04 is so boring looking. The last time I accessed the image for Move 04, it had 4 ancient Leprechaun flutes in the image . . . 2 for Steve and 2 for me. The first time I saw these flutes was on a video from some Irish Diaspora in Mobile Alabama, just before St Atrick's Day. A Leprechaun was in a tree. Tree is Irish for three . . . 1 and 1 and 1 make 3.

I really like my flutes, as they ward off spells.

Here's the video from Mobile AL:



NB: the lady in the car @ 0:55 . . . she thinks that the Leprechaun is on craic . . . a CraicHead. I think that a CraicHead would not be able to communicate . . . lost in their own mind . . . agreed? If you are reading this on drugs . . . stop, please stop . . . forever. The reasons will become apparent later . . . much later.

Ha ha ha ha . . . I met you in the future, dogmax . . . but I did not speak to you at the time . . . maybe that will change?

The Rapide is only a metaphor. We do not need it to move from place to place . . . quite literally . . . or from time to time . . . quite literally.

Oh, and Dean09 and I have a little inside joke going from the future as well.

I took my wife, Lucy, with me to see Steve. We're still here with him, working on a mound of issues. We'll be back soon with a laundry basket of what has transpired so far, for those that need everything to hang nicely in their mental closet. We're ironing out the last few things right now . . .

With any luck, we won't stay stuck in a moment, and you too will be able to go with us to EggyBaby!'s world.

Steve's home seemed empty. It was a hot night. The stars were glittering in the night sky. The city lights were 50 miles away, and not a cloud in sight; it was another good night for star gazing. But we were here to see Steve and his wife.

No lights were on in their home. Even the lawn lights were off. The MDX and the UC van were in the driveway, so the chances of them being home were high. I unlocked the front door and Lucy walked in ahead of me. She turned on the kitchen light and proceeded to put the kettle on to make some tea. I made off to go downstairs. I wanted to see the Celtic Chessboard . . . what was Steve's move 5?

I turned the basement light on so I could see my way downstairs, then the main basement light once I was down there. Huh, Steve hadn't put the cover on the billiard tablet. It's going to get dusty. I walked over to the far end of the basement where the chessboard was sitting on a coffee table. I turned the light on.

It felt cold and clammy down there.

There it lay . . . the chessboard . . . move 5. Dang. No mercy. And what's the Shillelagh for?

Then I noticed something moving in the shadows near the cold cellar. Being a pretty big basement, I would have needed to walk a little way to reach another light switch, so I decided to see if my eyes were playing tricks on me instead. The slight movement stopped . . . it seemed almost black on black.

Then . . . someone spoke . . . "It's when you start to become really afraid of death, that you learn to appreciate life. Do you like life?"

Me, being the ultimate optimist, said yes. I picked up the Shillelagh.

"That's good," he said.

Although the intial bizarre statement, followed by that simple leading question made me think I was dealing with a priest, it's what he said next that gave me the heebeegeebees . . .

"I take no pleasure in taking life, if it's from a person who doesn't care about it."

Then, the 27" TV lit up and played this video . . .



Once the video ended, I looked over to the shadows. "Does that mean you actually take pleasure in taking life, if the person does care about life?" I said.

There was a short pause, then a "yes" came from the darkness.

"But you will still take the life if the person does not care. You feed on fear?" I said.

"You have stopped time once too often, Weeble. People are beginning to notice. You will pay with your life. Do you care?"

Just then, the lights went on throughout the basement. Every corner was now lit up.

"Hi, Weebley," said Steve. "How's it hangin'?"

"Excellent," I said, as I looked over into the corner. Nothing was there.

We sat there talking, laughing, chatting . . . but I was elsewhere.

My lips were moving, and I was engaged in conversation, but all I could think about was dogmax.

He thought I was a female?

We were apparently talking about kids. Steve and Lucy^2 have a cosy home out in the country, which is a great place to raise kids . . . they have 4 kids . . . no, 3 . . . actually 2 . . . just like us . . .

dogmax . . . glyph . . . dogma-x

I tuned in for a moment, because the word wedding, a keyword in my databank, was uttered by Lucy^2.

Oh yes, we'd love to come!

It was now Saturday, July 14:
An all day affair: church (cool priest, by the way) at noon, then the wedding party went off for pictures while we went off for a few drinks with other guests before the reception started at 5 pm. It was such a joy to see the 2 young love birds giggling away at the mic' giving their combo speech . . . the new hubby announced they were going to be having kids as fast as possible . . . 2 children, maybe 3. [applause]

More giggling . . . she could hardly get a word out . . .

Lucy and I danced our hearts out that night. Great extended family, great friends, great food, great music, great atmosphere . . . great DJ, and lots of laughs all around. Lucy and I escaped Operation BlueBalls for a day.

But now . . . we must return to dogmax . . . and prepare for our trip to Another World.

But first, I need to speak to tomasocarthaigh . . . in the future . . .

Hold the phone!

I stumbled upon Steve's dog . . . the only person at home right now, except for me, but I don't count, as you already know I am in Steve's home

. . . like duh! [pointing 3DL finger at myself for being such a Legolas]

I put on his leash and figured I would take him out for a long walk. His name is Yogi, by the way. He looks just like my dog, DelKey. DelKey used to eat much of my written work, but now has become Agent DelKey and is with Aslan in Blarnia . . . but I digress (as usual - sorry) . . .

I just clicked the link again for that old Twilight Zone Pilot Intro, but another video came up instead!

Very weird:

Chapter 2 - A Myriad Of Hostages

A funny thing happened as I was composing this post. After formulating what I would regard as a rather decent post, I pressed "Preview Post" but the session had timed out and I was kicked right out of boards.ie. and onto the virtual street . . . on my arse.

I quickly ran back in, but my work was gone into the ether!

Come to think of it, that may have happened because I erase "low level cookies" on a regular basis, as they breed like Tribbles in that folder! Maybe one of those cookies was from boards IT Dept.?

Anyway, whatever it is that I wrote is now gonzo. I was explaining a little bit about time stopping yesterday, July 13, 2012, who I am, and where I came from, but to write that all over again would be a little tiresome and repetitive, even though you didn't experience the first iteration, I did! I can't imagine saying the same thing twice . . . how boring.

So I will take a different tack and just use a song that epitomises who I am so I can get it over with:



Oh, rather than end the post right now, as I am tired and shagged out after writing so much today . . . I need to ask a question . . . and I am becoming convinced that my iPhone4 is magical . . . I pressed the image for that Twilight Zone pilot promo video once again, and once again it came up with a different video . . . any ideas on what this means?

Yogi, Steve's dog, who is smarter than your average dog, is gazing up at me with those big, loving, juicy black eyes of his . . . OK Yogi, let's keep walking.

We are trundling along the side of the road; the cornfield to our left is sprouting nicely. It's pretty quiet around here in the Caledon Hills; just the twittering of birds and hearing the breeze in the trees along the roadside. I've heard that farmers plant 10 feet of cattle corn around the edge of their fields for the drive-by pluckers to enjoy . . . an unlimited supply of freebie-seekers that only steal corn twice . . . the first and the last time.

The "peaches and cream" corn is well protected from pests.

Yogi is peeing every few seconds, sniffing everywhere . . . probably sniffing out rabbits, deer and foxes. Oh my . . . already? . . . we're at the brow of Coats Hill, overlooking "The Shire," as I like to call it. Mount Pleasant Road drops down, rises slightly on a mound, drops right down, then proceeds to undulate off into the distance. Small ponds cause patches of fog early in the morning, and it being 6:58AM, the Sun, the road, the trees and the fog are making for a nice fuzzy watercolour effect.

Why did that Underwood video show a crumpled W? I must ask Steve.

I raise my eyes and see the Toronto skyline in the distance, with that phallic CN Tower as a centrepiece to the downtown cluster. It looks surreal, like LA looks from the Hollywood Hills. Why does it remind me of that?

Maybe it's Angelll's Twilight Zone robo-daughter story?

Suddenly, I remember . . . I am sitting atop the W on the HOLLYWOOD sign in the hills, and my arse is killing me. All the stock pictures make the HOLLYWOOD sign look substantial, but I cut myself another one sitting on that sign for an extended period . . . razor thin plywood letters with a steel fence tube sub-structure. Hot buns and I was cross . . . just kidding! I would get into the story, but I am constantly reminded of EileenG's "closure" issue. Something about regularly closing off loose ends or the reader gets confused . . . or something like that.

But I'm kinda confused, so I just like to spread it around!

Anyway, here's Yogi and I . . . standing there . . . gazing . . . sniffing around . . . peeing . . . and Yogi is patiently sitting there with me . . .



Angelll's story was the only one I did not critique out of the 3 stories I liked. I was in the process of developing what I would consider to be a nice critique, when I got the metaphorical finger-wag. I felt it would be cool to give the decoder key for the Underwood story, and the nuclear war story . . . but then I was in the mood for straight talk, which is unlike me.

That is when time stopped. I was just waiting . . . and the Please Mr Postman video was really just a joke! Now we are into day 2. The only activity is EileenG's new book . . . congratulations EileenG . . . where can I get a hard copy?

But we are in the voting and critique period for the Twilight Zone #9 competition . . . and no-one is talking! I'm really conscious of not monopolising the conversation, so I think it is better if I hang back . . . time to go and see Steve . . . and go to EggyBaby!'s World! Time to meet Captain James T Craic, Mr Spook, and Scatty, the Engineer . . .

Hang on . . . dogmax . . . where are you?

Listen dogmax, let's make a deal . . . how about we both drive Rapides . . . anything is possible . . . dead people get to drive them . . . even Donn! All we have to do is pretend that we are driving by seeing through someone else's eyes. Ever thought that you are viewing for more than just yourself?

I'm all alone (except for Yogi,) standing here, by the phone, waiting for you . . . and EggyBaby!

Oh, the iPhone4! I almost forgot . . . another bizarre Twilight Zone video, maybe?



Magical things seem to happen around us . . . has anyone noticed yet?

A prime example . . . August 11 is the 1 year anniversary of the UK riots stopping. The weirdness begins as I am on vacation in BC with Lucy. Lucy tells me in no uncertain terms: "stop posting!"

I did my best on that 3 week vacation from July 28 onwards . . .

That vacation was around the period of us being focused on taking over Sevenstone in Sheffield, England. A beachhead. Our team of crackpot professionals had been in Sheffield for an extended period of time, but no-one could see us, so we left. I remember saying the Irish people will be able to see us . . . they see Leprechauns . . . or something like that.

Anyway, here's me not posting, except for a short conversation with amanfromMars about Stephen Hawking talking through his arse about "operating on 14 levels" or something, so I replied to amanfromMars and sent a terse email to "the Hawk." He didn't reply . . . typical . . . I guess I don't vibrate on his level?

Then the UK Riots began . . . it was horrible to watch. By August 11, I could not stand it any longer.

I wrote a posting.

It involved explalning a little about the Doukhobor settlement in Grand Forks, BC, Stalin's Russian Pogrom killings, and how the Doukhobors got royally screwed by the Canadian government and The Queen . . . a long story about terrorism and governments causing people to fight with each other, when the real enemy is Money Power. Anyway, I tied it into the riots by playing this tune:



Then a few more words about how the government got an Oswaldian patsy to dynamite the Doukhobor leader and burn the co-op, and blame it on other radical Doukhobors.

Then I said this, and played this song:

Please stop the rioting . . . forgive them and go home.

They know not what they are doing with your tax money. It’ll be over soon.



Then I said: There’s a better way to cut a new icehole in a fargin’ bastage . . . smile!

That night, the riots stopped.

The van sped up as Steve merged onto the Gardiner Expressway, Westbound. "You need to tell everyone about Game Theory, Weebley."

Instantly, a thought flashed across my mind about John Nash and how his Game Theory needed revision . . .

"But they aren't ready for it yet, Steve. Here we are in the Turing Machine, waiting for an input for the next decision to be made . . and the only person to change the direction a few times . . . was dogmax . . . and now he seems to have backed off!"

Steve sat there at the wheel. I watched him make ever so slight adjustments to the direction of the van to keep it in the centre of the lane as we approached highway speed. He backed off the gas pedal a little as we reached 100 km/h, then added and removed the tiniest amount of pressure to maintain a constant speed. but I could see he was thinking . . . pondering . . . getting ready to answer me. His right foot was acting mechanically . . . his left hand on the wheel, a little left, a little right . . . like his body was a machine connected to a machine. He slowly reached over to his travel mug and brought it to his mouth without looking at it. I also thought about the daily direction changes amanfromMars gives the Turing Machine . . . such as: OK, Heineken is a great beer, too!

Slurp!

"Damn fine cup of coffee, Weebley! Want some?"

That's it? The sum total of his massive brain power hard at work?

The traffic slowed down. A jam up ahead. Stopped. Steve looked over at me.

"If it wasn't for dogmax, I wouldn't be here with you right now. Apparently, I have this incredibly important thing I need to tell you."

Waiting for him to tell me, I watched his right hand move to the Sony Vaio Zee.

"Everyone needs to ask you why you are doing this . . . why you are in Ireland . . . otherwise, time will continue to stop and start until everyone realizes they need to admit that something is indeed happening here. You need people to ask questions on this thread . . . so the Turing Machine can compute the answer."

Click.