Frank stole a glance at Alice in the looking glass. He had just been out with Alice's sister, the Alice on his side of the glass. He was devoted to both of them, but couldn't decide which one enflamed his passions more. The Alice in the reflection was intriguing in her way. She could be impetuous, in just the dose that turned him on. She'd grab him by the shirt and pull him onto her, then kiss him roughly. But she had not the sensitivity to know when to cease. The other Alice was passive, and let herself be kissed, but he never knew: was that her desire, or was he kissing the fear that could not announce the absence of passion. In her he loved the mysterious smile leaving him to ponder what was in her heart. While Frank stood distracted, glancing in the mirror, the two Alices stood communicating with each other in a code of silent gestures. In a few seconds passive Alice would give the signal, and they would both overpower Frank. By morning he would know that he needed them both.

Story #289

Note from Indeterminacy: Something is wrong with the time fluctuations. By all appearances, time is simply slowing down at my side of the blog. It's still Friday here, while I understand that most of you are already enjoying the weekend. I estimate by the time it turns weekend here and I post the weekend story photo, it will already be late Saturday night in non-fluctuated time. This is the Friday story.
----
Added Saturday?: I'm uncertain that I wrote the story above. I vaguely recall doing it, but the ending doesn't seem like it could be from me. Something seems to be wrong with the Indeterminacy. The story should have ended: By morning he realized he would have to go out and buy a new mirror.

The ploy had worked. It had worked like a charm. They were his now, and they gazed in awe at his nakedness. They'd come to feed him, drawn by his corporal symmetry and those spell-casting eyes. They could hardly tear themselves from the eyes. Eyes that saw, eyes that yearned, eyes that commanded, one fixed on each of them. The saline fluid reacted with the electrical currents coursing through neural fibers, causing an eerie glow to emanate from the epicenter that he now was, a brain floating in a fish tank, the two visual organs still attached. The experience had left him more philosophical than he previously had been, in bodily form, when he reacted to those girls with the will to touch, the will to have, a will he suppressed for fear of alarming the watchful eye of their father, the professor he had lunched with daily in discussion of the latter's untested theories of cerebral perseverance. In the corner of his mind he'd been lucidly aware of the adolescents spying from the stairs, trying to catch a glimpse of him, the tall, mysterious stranger. He didn't give a damn about the professor's theories. When he donated his brain to the crazed scientist it was for the sole cause of getting close to the daughters - of stilling that physical want. Now that it was done the desire shifted to a desire of their company, of their proximity. The pleasant physical reactions he was a slave to before were all just brain processes now. The physical side had become completely foreign, a fading memory in what was now all memory and intellect. He tried a new trick he had mastered, flashing varied hues of glowing light. The girls moved in closer, to see.

Story #288

Note from Indeterminacy: Something happened to disrupt my flow through time this week. It might have been the last story I wrote, I don't know. All I know is my time seems somehow out of synch with that of the people around me. What day are you reading this?

A note about this story: This was written after listening to a broadcast of a brilliant project by the sound artist Felix Kubin. Maybe it's just me, but I think it's the most significant and remarkable radio broadcast made since "War of the Worlds." It was about broadcasting DNA through space. There was an interview with a mad lady scientist that had all the madness of genius driven by pure science, like Gene Wilder in "Young Frankenstein". I hope the program is made available to download at the station that broadcast it (Resonance FM). If it is I'll let you all know.

P.S. I couldn't find any online downloads of Felix Kubin's music, but this link is to a video collaboration with the Finnish band Aavikko. The song is called "Super Lake Beat", a cool catchy number.

It began several years ago, years that I fear to count for chance of disturbing the distance lying between then and now. I stood at a street corner waiting for the light to change, turned my eyes upward to glance at a face in a window high above, when everything around me began to waver and collapse, as if the entire reality were painted on cellophane rippling violently in a forceful gale. It was terrifying , and I closed my eyes tightly, but I wondered also how it had been done. When I dared to look again, reality was as it had always been. I took the episode as an imploring omen to leave behind my job and home and move into a monastery, which I did. But that did not settle matters. Reality wavered there, too. The monks of the order told me this was a problem of transition to be solved by fervent meditation. As a novice to the ways of spirituality I had not yet conquered the reflex of looking back.

Story #287

It wasn't at all easy to get into the seminar on creative writing held by the widely respected Professor Thomann. Most people waited years, even decades for their acceptance by the honorable academic body. Only a few succeeded before their 50th birthday - as was generally known - through special relations with the dean's advisory board. A not uncommon requirement of would-be ladies of letters - as the advisory board was of a generally male constellation - was the demonstration of certain physical talents as a prerequisite for the privilege of applying their intellectual-creative talents in the seminar. All this lent a somewhat stifling atmosphere to the seminar itself. Most of the participants had writer's block in the first hour, and those who finally overcame their handicap after month-long sessions of psychotherapy gushed their experiences to each other. Nobody seemed aware that Professor Thomann had not appeared a single time in the seminar. Nobody was surprised to find that none of them had ever seen Professor Thomann face-to-face, or even read any of his works. And so it was that none of them drew the conclusion that Professor Thomann was a fictional creation of the honorable board of advisors, one of whose members happened to be a great admirer of Thomas Mann. This was one of those meaningless job-training measures of the new administration, towards the goal of keeping over-the-hill intellectuals and unemployed female writers off the streets.

Story #286

Note from Indeterminacy: Today my muse wrote the story, and I translated it into English.

I struggled my way through a suffocating swamp wide as an ocean and ridden with hostile creatures of amphibian physiology whose forte seemed the strangulation of all thought. This was the path to the house where she lived. I had been there many times before, but each time the way was different and I had to divine it anew. Invariably the journey was perilous and taxing. A previous time I stumbled my way through the crass outline of a city, erring through an eternal crescendo of traffic and noise and anonymity to find my way to her. But despite the physical ambiance of the journey, she was always there in her abode, waiting with exactly the words, some spoken, some held in her eyes, woven like a net, to catch and draw out the idea slumbering unseen inside me, visible only to her. It was so light there, so airy, in contrast to what I knew, and I always found her dancing to a music only she could hear. But as I undertook the journey of return, the idea clutched in my hands, I could almost hear the melody following me with the breeze, and I felt like skipping along whatever path it was that held me.

Story #285

Note from Indeterminacy: The photo is one I took in 1996 of my muse. Thanks to everyone who contributed a story. They have been reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com

Nat went after the night monster, wielding the patio chair he kept by his bed for defense during his deep sleep times. He slipped out of the side door of his own dream and into another's nightmare, lurking in wait of the invincible figure meaning to torment the actual sleeper. He saw the fiend, dressed darkly so as to blend into the stuff of dreams, but hands and head glowed in the twilight shining in the sleeping imagination. Strange how the figure he stalked might even have been himself, a thought sparked through his mind as he raised the chair against the nightmare tormentor, who seemed unable to run. He crashed the plastic frame down hard into the head - and never woke up.

Story #284

Bad breakups, sudden inexplicable psychoses, menstruation. One out of ten men have extreme difficulty coping with these phenomena of the female gender. They are gripped by a sudden debilitating condition known as femiphobia. To them a day at the beach sunning among bikinied beauties with bare skin and semi-exposed breasts is worse than a nightmare of pursuit by knife-wielding nurses at a castration clinic. What can you do to help? If you're a girl: walk up to him, softly caress his cheek, take his hand, wrap your arms around him, search for his lips with yours and plant a gentle kiss on them. After a few repetitions the fear will have magically vanished. If you're a guy: walk up to him, softly caress his cheek, and so on. After a few repetitions there will be no more fears...

Story #283

Gaby, Gabi, Gabbie, and Gabriella had similar names and tastes, so no one gasped when they arrived at the party in identical attire. For them it wasn't a nightmare, as with other women who might have buried their face in their hands, edging slowly into the most distant corner, an emotion of dismayed shame guiding their flight. The quartet of Gabys stayed and had a great time. Soon it was noticed that they were hitting on the same men in some kind of regular rotation. The men, whose intoxication increased by the minute, hadn't the discernment necessary to register the discontinuity in conversation and feminine presence. And the women, it was further noticed, had only touched the lemonade. They left together, all eight of them, but no one ever found out what happened afterwards. The men had complete and total blackouts, caused presumably by the quantities of alcohol they had consumed. The Gaby variations were seen the next day sitting on a bench near the park, smiling quite harmlessly.

Story #282

Tara spent her vacation reclining on a rainbow. The sun glowed perfectly all day long, and replaced the moon and stars at night. She marveled at the clouds in the sky dissolving into dew as they approached her. The metamorphosis stimulated her eyes in a manner to make the Northern Lights seem like a monochrome sunset. She swam in a fog of colors she'd never been aware of. They soaked into her skin, tanning her brightly and with fine-toned nuances, as if she were a canvas for a master to paint. Suddenly she perceived the moon hovering towards her, visible despite the solar rays straining futilely to drown it out. Thick tears dripped from the moon's countenance, landing near her, on her, the warm drops of a summer shower. She sat up with surprise, fixing her questioning gaze on the lunar disc. "Why are you so sad?" she asked it. "I am sad," the moon sniffed, "because I have never seen a rainbow."

Story #281

Jersey the lone percussionist banged away on the tensed surface of the drum barrels, crashing a cymbal at occasions when the beat required. Her band mates were gone now, moved to other neighborhoods, going to other schools, making new friends. They'd known each other since nursery school - that early, and so it wasn't hard to understand how their musical sense had become so intertwined with each other's sensibilities. Now, separated from Jersey, the tones were without their familiar heartbeat, and the heartbeat began to wither for loneliness. Jersey sat at the drums and recalled the music of her friends as she beat out the accompaniment, music for the spirit, that only she could hear.

Story #280

I didn't expect the girl of my dreams to suddenly walk through the door, although I had actually expected it to happen. Some people spend their entire lives, search the entire world hoping to find the man or woman they've waited for since they were born. Maybe these people are running to meet their destiny, or unintentionally running away from it. Who can know for sure? But I knew that for me such a search would be ridiculous. The girl of my dreams would just as well walk into this certain bar at this late hour at some point in her life. I merely had to wait there each night at that same hour. And so, here I had been for years every night at ten o'clock.

The waiting would have to pay off sometime. Now it actually had paid off and I was completely stunned, had never thought about what I would do in the actual situation. There she was. Besides not leaving she began to look indescribable, though everything about her was just as I had imagined it would be. Her hair fell magically across her face as a blind painter could only have captured imperfectly in a masterpiece. Eyes, nose, mouth: all were there, perfectly constellated, as a coincidental constellation of stars fits together.

What would I say to her? What could I say to her? And what if I did say something? True, it was her I'd always waited for. But how would it be if I no longer had the thrill of waiting? And what, really, should I say, "Uh, you come here often, don't you?" or "Hi, do you have a sign?" or... But then she started walking towards me! Oh God, now I had to say something. Yes! and I knew exactly, yes!, the most beautiful words to say to this most beautiful of all women.

I opened my mouth, heard myself asking her, "Do you know what time it is?"

"Five past nine," she answered back, and I sat there speechless.

"But it can't be nine o'clock! I...I've never been here before ten. I mean, I always come here at ten because... I..."

She laughed, "Relax! The clocks were turned back yesterday. Didn't you know that?"

No, I hadn't known that, but felt then suddenly at ease and a little embarrassed because I had made such a fool of myself and because it had now become completely unimportant, saying the right words to her.

"Did anything like that ever happen to you?" I asked her, noticing that it brought a pleasant tingle of excitement, trading the few trivial sentences with her.

"Yes," she replied and smiled, "what's your name?"

Story #279

To everyone who stopped by today expecting a story, I'm terribly sorry but I will have to pause until next week. We have company, we're working on the Polish language version of the blog, I'm spending time in the dark room, finally turning out the photos I've promised everyone, and tomorrow night, best of all, I'm going to finally see Lederhosen Lucil in concert. She's one of my favorite musicians, from Canada, and I've wanted to see a concert of hers for more than a year. Check out my story about her, and check out her Website. And if you're in Europe, check out her concert schedule. I fell in love with her music immediately. I think everybody will.

Hell was a bar and grill presided over by three women. They chuckled at the misconception that a figure like Mephistopheles could be thought in charge. Mephisto worked for them, to be sure: washing dishes. But he had no supernatural powers whatsoever. His reputation was based on frequent sightings in cafes and restaurants, always an extravagant and generous tipper. But he hadn't the imagination to make hell hot. The three sisters of sadism, however, were mistresses of the subtle art of torture, applicable on male and female alike, with slight variations as to gender. Males were teased by titillation, suggestive flashes of skin unsuccessfully covered by meager scraps of skirt, and their skill of looking right through a man as if he were of no interest whatsoever. The men would beg to be served a drink or meal, or an attentive smile, but they were ignored. Women, on the other hand, were treated with piercing, dirty looks that throttled self-esteem, achieving belittlement that no amount of male thoughtlessness could ever cause.

That was the nature of hell. Apart from the myth of Mephisto's powers, the conditions of entry had also been clouded by inaccuracy, as introduced by centuries of oral tradition. Good intentions wouldn't get you there, neither would evil actions. If, however, you forgot to tip a waitress, a special table would be reserved for you.

Story #278

Stories have been reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com.

I just read a great story in which Satan appears: "Enoch Soames" written by Max Beerbohm. It should be fun reading for the likes of the Devil and Mrs. Weirsdo (as it deals with literature). (P.S. Wouldn't "The Devil and Mrs. Weirsdo" make a great title for a movie?)

Steve lay quietly on the floor, pressed hard against the carpet. He inhaled and exhaled as inconspicuously as a conscious person is able. Perhaps fifteen minutes went by, perhaps an hour, when he noticed the mirror girls creeping up to the surface of the glass. He threw his entire concentration into the pretense of sleep. Squinting through quivering eyelids, he noticed them at play, tumbling over and under each other like impish squirrels, and with his ear discretely turned in their direction he heard their secretive whispers to one another. They were spying on him, waiting for him to reach that deep phase of sleep where dreams overwhelm the organism. Then they would roll through the mirror, surround him and whisk him away with them, back into the reflection. Now he waited, not daring to move, not daring to squint, for fear of fluttering an eyelid. Without a breath of warning he felt their fingers touching in synchronized choreography. He twisted away and lunged at the girls, hoping to capture at least one of them in a subduing embrace. But each of the nimble nymphs darted out of his reach and back into the other world. Overcome by the lost opportunity, Steve tried to follow them, face pressed against the cold glass, fists pounding on the unresponsive surface. But it was too late. He moaned his lament into the mirror while tears streamed down his cheeks: "You fiends," he cried, "give me back my brother!"

Story #277

For one moment the music faltered. The soul hesitated, ears straining to pick up the vibrations that had guided the heartbeat. Souls have ears. And souls have hearts. This soul shuffled to the syncopations sounding in its world, the riffs blending one into the other, seamlessly, like waves of a gentle sea: Louis Armstrong's trumpet, notes swirling by so fast they left no time for breaths, the roundabout loll of Jack Teegarden's trombone, sounding like a friendly old dog coming up to lick your face, the tinkling of Jelly Roll Morton's fingers on the piano keys, tasting to the ears indeed like jelly on a roll, King Olver directing it all from out of the shadows. But now it was silent...

With footsteps echoing the way they never did while the music played, the soul strolled over to the center of its universe, cranked the gramophone handle, and smiled satisfaction as the primal sound of jazz filled the realm again.

Story #276

This story is dedicated to the wonderful city of New Orleans.

Out of respect for the situation in New Orleans, I'm going to skip the weekend story. I don't feel like writing a story, and I'm sure no one else does, either.

Karla stood by the water's edge, watching the sun set for the last time ever. Most people had remained indoors, indifferent to the last goodbye of the light they had known. But Karla came to pay her farewell respects, to feel a final ray of warmth in a world growing colder by the moment. She squinted her eyes and stared into the glare, but there was no face to be seen, no eyes conveying an emotion of tragedy or elation in the countenance that had once shone on her, tanning and kissing her skin. Soon it would be over. She showed her profile to the vanishing body in the sky, wondering what it would be like in the dark. Though she did not notice, a parting ray streamed into her, to wait, aslumber, for the moment it would reappear in a fleeting smile that Karla would give.

Story #275