Sara: How did you get here?
Boy: I followed you.
Sara: Impossible.
Boy: I only had to close my eyes the moment you vanished.

Silence for a moment. Sara in her private Wonderland was right to be astonished. "By Invitation Only" was the law of her fantasy realm, yet here was the boy, and somehow he had found a way in.

"Run that way," Sara pointed off in the direction of the pink sun. He was off immediately. "But he'll be back," she thought to herself, "when I turn the path the opposite way." Now she pondered the uses of a boy in her Wonderland. "He could put the leaves back on the trees." They were constantly falling to the ground whenever the trees snapped themselves to attention. "Or put me on the slide, in moments I am not." She slid the blue slide down to the gravelly ground. "Now come back," she spoke.

"Here I am!" the boy announced, "I found a tablecloth. We can have a picnic!"

"What will we eat?" she smiled coyly, "There's no food here." There really was nothing. If Sara became hungry, she merely forgot more of the real world, to notice, moments later, that her socks became striped or a wall sprouted dots in shades of primary colors. The boy went away, then returned a while later with a handful of jelly beans. Sara was trying to catch her breath after swinging a complete Ferris-wheel cycle on the swing. He let the jelly beans fall and helped her, heading off the long strip of breath that looked like a rosy red ribbon flapping in the chaotic wind. What a mad dance it was! Never more than two feet on the ground between the two of them, and sometimes none, and neither in reach of the other - nor the ribbon. But finally they cornered the renegade breath. Sara snatched one end, the boy the other, and they shared it between the two of them. Afterwards, contented and waiting for something to say, they noticed the spot where the jelly beans had fallen. A spiral of cotton candy had sprouted into the strawberry sky!

"You can't catch me" Sara teased, or maybe it was the boy. They chased each other first one way, then the other, all the way up the candy, pausing for little bites along the way, for the running was making them hungry. When they reached the top they were holding hands and stickily sweet all over.

There they sat, on top of the Wonderland world, breathing their breaths together. "I still would like to know how you slipped into my Wonderland," Sara persisted.

"It was easy," the boy answered while glancing down at rainbow meadows. "This whole fantasy is my imagination."

She smiled with primal joy, and joined his gaze into the fairy-tale lands below, "I knew there had to be a logical explanation."

Story #377

Thank you to Dark Firefly for sharing her photo with us!

And now, for your further reading enjoyment: Comatose...

The first moment he saw her he could not meet her glance. A repelling force stronger than magnetism diverted his eyes to the sidewalk and her shadow borne by the tips of her toes. She stood among friends. Talking. Unaware. He moved in sideways, looking upwards, as if searching for clouds, inching closer until his sliding steps pinned the shadow. The girl's bus came, and she left with her friends, but the shadow remained with him. The living girl did not miss it. Shadows are transient creatures with as many incarnations as there are angles and shades of light.

Once home with the girl's shadow he arranged the apartment for cohabitation. Shadows enjoy a cool room with sources of light, to accentuate the nocturnal nature of their animation. The shadow girl explored her new abode, casting herself upon the wall, rippling over curtains, and brushing by her newfound protector. That night they lay side-by-side on the bed, the dim glow of the nightlight absorbed by her figure, so that he could only sense her presence where the bed was darkest.

Have you ever felt the warm, breathlike touch of a shadow as it slides upon you, like a second skin melting into your own? He felt it then, as the girl-shadow wrapped him like a larva in a silk cocoon. He became conscious of every nerve in his body, and through each nerve coursed tingling pleasure. The incessant stream of total sensation dazed him beyond sleep into a contented stupor that ended with the morning rays through the chiffon curtain.

The intensity of those hours drove out even the knowledge of who he was. He was someone new now, and so stunned he could only wonder if the intangible memory of the night was of a dream or a reality, or some twilight compromise between the two. The shadow rose and began anew to explore the walls of her home. With ultimate agility she merged herself into corners, danced a twirling dance across the wallpaper, looming or shrinking, depending on her mood. Her two dimensions contained a universe.

He sprawled in the arm chair in the center of the room, head turning to trace her flickering motions, much like a paralyzed moth might follow a moving flame. She grasped the shadow of his camera, began an orbit around him, shooting snapshots from all sides. Then she stood still in the morning light. He planted his gaze directly onto her blank face, wanting more than anything to decipher the wistful emotion that directed her. She stood poised to snap his picture, to capture that moment of bafflement. She did so, then turned the camera upon herself and snapped. The sharp burst of the camera's flash was too much for her to absorb. And she was gone, without leaving a note.

Story #376

Many thanks to Alexandra Shcherbakova for allowing me to repost her photograph. You may view more of Alexandra's photography at her fotocommunity.com gallery.

Also, many thanks to all who contributed their creativity this weekend! You guys are great!

Previous shadow stories at Indeterminacy:
Story #24
Story #43
Story #340

And for those who are fascinated by the art of shadows, here is a link to the marvelous Shadow Art Gallery of Mayuko Fujino.

I posted this photo because everone is looking for love, and I think, but I'm not sure, that the love is right there in her eyes. If you're stopping by here the first time, from BlogAdvance, or perhaps some random search, I decided to compile a list of my most popular stories, at least among that digital entity known as the "search engine." The list probably wouldn't convince anyone human to stay, but here it is, just the same, along with the search terms that found the stories.

1. strip poker (Story #89)

2. hair fetish (Story #84)

3. lolita island, lolita queen, lolita feet, underaged lolitas, etc. (Story #29)

Sometimes people actually found my blog searching for Indeterminacy or Synchronicity, and lately, my post for Whitlow Awareness Week is moving up in the search ranks (which means my campaign for awareness was a success!), but the above three pages are always among the last 100 hits. The really crazy searches like "extremely naked gymnastics"??? which should have gone here would be a subject for another post...

There Chuck was, surfing at work again, when a random blog caught his eye: "Life got you down? Aggravated by the high price of cheese? Want to get away from the rat race?" the post summed up the seemingly insoluble dilemmas of his modern life, then suggested a solution: "Be a mouse!" His finger lingered on the computer's navigational device, ready to click the page away, but he read on instead. "Enjoy one entire week in rustic splendor, all you can eat buffets, exercise studio, guaranteed friendly caregivers and cat-free environment." That sounded good to Chuck who'd definitely had enough 60 hour weeks that year and rude nudges in the subway, so he clicked the Web button that beamed his consciousness through the Webcam and into the mouse, while his body went on deposit in an Internet stasis-loop. The calm of vanished responsibilities came down on him like a beach on a desert. And there he was, exploring the sawdust floor of his comfortable cage, racing in the wheel, climbing the tubes, rolling back down into the sawdust, gorging himself on cheese and peanuts. In the afternoon a nice little boy came to pet him and allowed him free roam of the playroom. Stepping around all those giant toys reminded him of the carefree days of his youth. That night during his workout on the running wheel he decided there was no reason to leave. So he nibbled his return voucher to shreds and lived happily ever after, or at least as long as little mice can live.

Story #375

Thanks to all who contributed! And a wow-I'm-stunned-and-flabbergasted thank you to BlogAdvance.com for choosing Indeterminacy as October's blog of the month. Blog Advance, in case you didn't know, is the friendlier traffic exchange service with an excellent sense of community. Check it out!

P.S. Aficionados of the golden age of radio will recognize the Escape influence in the opening line of the blog post. Read more about Escape at Broadcastellan.

Mario and Maria kissed. Haley's comet did not stripe by in a glow of burning light. The planets did not millennially align in stellar salute. The sun neither blinked nor smiled. The Earth quaked not a single iot'. Waves did not rise from the sea to embrace the waiting shore. Orchestras did not synchronously chime into a melodic tribute to love. Internet traffic did not register an increase in searches for kisses or kissing. Humanity did not instantaneously freeze in posture and gasp a collective unison of sudden awe. And nothing mythological happened either, such as Mario changing to a woman while Maria grew into a man, an ordained effect of an eternally forgotten god of universal gender. But the moment their tongues touched everything turned orange.

Story #374

THanks to the storywriters who contributed their take on this photo!
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News 1: Songblessed is an island of creativity and beautiful ideas which somehow came into existence in the middle of the blogosphere. You may recognize the blog hostess Pizazz the Pyrate Queen from her photograph in a previous story.

Note 2: Several weeks ago I posted a couple of my stories written when I was 11 years old. I then reposted the entire set of stories at a new address, and thought the matter finished. But something strange has happened. I encountered this post at Waking Ambrose, and the indeterminacy11 site has mysteriously returned to life.

Censorship at YouTube of Blogger "Less People, Less Idiots"

Around April I found a fun blog called Less People, Less Idiots, with the host Rev. Billy Bob Gisher. The posts were an enjoyable blend of satire and thought provoking points centering on current events. This poignant and very personal post about racism struck me especially. Other posts had me in stitches, like Arnold Schwarzenegger's dating tips.

The points are subtle and the satire divine, but after all, the blog is run by a Reverend. Unfortunately this post doesn't end yet. Shortly after I found out about Less People, Less Idiots, Rev. Gisher began producing satirical videos. His traffic went way up - videos get more attention than plain text posts, but some of the attention, in this case, turned out to be negative. On several occasions, the Reverend has seen his videos banned from hosting services like Google Video, Yahoo Video and YouTube.com, and recently YouTube and Yahoo have both banned and deleted his account entirely claiming his videos were pornographic. The ones I have seen were no worse than an MTV video, and Rev. Gisher has documented that there are countless videos on YouTube, etc. which go much further, and are not banned. Videos which, coincidentally, are corporate sponsered.

It looks like something is going on here, and Rev. Gisher has been documenting this in great detail at his site. If you would like to lend him moral support in his fight against censorship and for freedom of speech, please stop by and add your name to the list of bloggers from the left and right who have chosen to stand by him:
Youtube Bans Gisher's Entire Account

Francois had an eye for pretty girls and he always knew which ones to follow for the greatest yield of enjoyment. Call it a seventh sense living in the loins. Or voyeuristic vibes resounding in the brain. These were the girls - yes they were - he'd spied them a while before, strolling together on and off the curb, girlhood giggles trailing in the breeze. That alone was music, tunes temptatious teeming through the heaven of his fancies. They'd loitered and laughed; and secrets passed between them of the boys they knew, and perhaps what they'd done in moments unwatched. Awakenings. Awakenings, of a tenderous gender. He rejoiced the loose fabric sliding on blossoming shapes, sliding in time to the rhythm of the gait. And the beats of his heart surged like fireworks in the air, as they turned their figures to the ice cream parlor. Brain made giddy by the adrenaline flash, he drifted in behind, observing with the masterful face of disinterest. He believed himself made of ice cream to be selected and scooped into cones then placed in the grasping hands and moved towards tropical lips; and then the licks, the glorious euphorics of each single slide of rosy flesh on the conical culmination. Soon now! Soon now! This sweet rendezvous. And that's when his heart burst as it had before, the time it transformed him into a ghost with unfinished business in fellatial fulfillment. Tragic for him, more so because the service had been paid in full in precedence of collection.

Story #373

Anyone wishing to contribute their own story to this photo, please feel welcome to do so. I apologize again for the irregular posting lately. It has become a challenge to balance work, family and blogging in the last months.

From a hollow in the ground two pairs of eyes followed the silhouetted figures as they roamed the barren tundra. Lingering near the horizon was an indifferent sun that would neither rise nor set. The indistinct figures traversed the confines of the twilight horizon, to and fro, without aim and with no apparent design.

"They're automatons," a deep whisper stated, "of my creation."

"I see," came a soft voice, "I've pondered them for a long while, spied at them from afar or, on occasion, nearby, from the safe shadows of a lonely shrub..." The voice trailed off, but the ponderings continued in agile eyes that burned their brand into whatever they saw. It was a woman who had answered.

"I apologize for the tedium," the man responded. There was a long silence in which the stiff figures dragged themselves in their never-ending journey to nowhere, while the audience of two looked on.

"But it is not tedious at all," she declared finally, "They are admirable creations, to be sure. But what drives them?"

"They search, search without recognition. They seek that for which they have no words. There is no soul in them. Only action and reaction, one perpetuating the other."

"How did you create them?" she wondered.

"Sticks bundled together and jointed, tight wrappings like a living shroud, a breath of brain from my own mouth."

A sharp look of surprise: "You possess such powers?"

"In a moment you will suggest the obvious. You will suggest that I am one of them, spawning my own kind, but that is not the case, though they are made in my image. I am real, as you are, but no matter how many tens of thousands of them exist, they would never be capable of originating a thought."

"Why is this not possible?"

"Because there are limits to what my magic - what any magic - can do. And that is why I have sacrificed my last powers to create you, my child."

"!!" and the look that brands.

He continued, eyes averted from her firm stare: "You must go to them now, allow yourself to be seen. They will pursue you, worship you, elevate you to the stature of goddess. You will inspire what they cannot conceive alone: a single thought, the catalyst to eternity.

"And then?"

"And then, with passions untold, they will consume you - mentally, physically and spiritually."

Silence - broken only by the sound of shuffling footsteps.

From the fold of the apron that clothed her, she drew a stone and brought it down fatally on the head of her creator. She embraced his slumped form and breathed into his mouth. He stirred, stood up and climbed from the hollow to join the aimless meanderings of his automatons.

Story #372

Important bulletin: Go and sign this petition that Cocaine Jesus has started to BRING BACK TRANSIENCE and to convince Blogger to take action against creeps like the one who drove her from the Blogosphere.

Postscript: Go check out D.T. Holt's Weblog "I Got a Lot to Say". He posted a really nice write-up about Indeterminacy, as well as his own experiment in spontaneous prose, which turned out quite well, I think.

That girl - that girl - sitting on the park bench the entire span of the summer. Every day I'd seen her. Every day a new motif of thoughts flurried up at the sight of her. This time I would talk to her, but safely. I spoke to her in the language of imaginings. With a non-verbal thought in her direction I ventured the invitation: "Would you like to visit my mind?"

"Are you nuts," she replied breathlessly, writing the words onto her eyes.

"No. Really, it's rather nice in there. Fine silk carpet, the best imaginable. And a plush sofa to engulf you in comfort."

"Will my cell-phone work?"

"It's quite possible. My brain offers all the amenities. Television, mp3 library, and if you see a dream you like, you're free to jump into it."

She reflected a moment, then looked up with a nod that said,
"Let's do it!"

Before I could even thrill at the notion, she had entered my cortex. After a quick scan of her new surroundings she gave herself to my sofa. The cushioned softness formed around her while whirlwinds of my contemplation cycled about like leaves in an autumn gust. Then the playfulness began. She'd puff a breath into those bundled thoughts and scatter them in all directions. They never, ever found their way back together again. She began turning on light bulbs - but when I looked to see what the idea was, she'd switch them off again. She painted faces on my nighttime visitations - gorgeous Venuses, once. I'd convulse with laughter at the ridiculous lines of red lipstick, and then my dream girls, insulted, turned backs and paced briskly into the distance, with me chasing after in slow motion.

"I don't like this arrangement," I stated, sitting before her in the lotus position, hands folded in my lap. And then it happened. Sudden, spontaneous and swift she pasted a kiss flat onto my inner eye. I blinked and in the space of that blink she was gone. But like wisps of smoke in a corked bottle the memory of her lived on.

Now, though years of life and dreams have separated me from the instant of her departure, it might just as well have been a few seconds. On every mirror my mind conjures forth, there remains the imprint of her lips.

Story #371

Note: If you've fallen madly in love with this girl and would like to leave her a message, and see another of her photos, you may visit her at flork.com/martyna.html

Another note from Indeterminacy: Thank you for all the get-well wishes and birthday greetings (how do these secrets get out!?!). My finger is fine now and doing its share of this typing. So now I've posted the 371st story and have yet to write the 370th. And all your comments and e-mails to answer. Please bear with me - and I know I don't have to apologize but I felt bad having left the blog hanging so long.

Another note: Welcome to my new(?) visitor from Moldova! I saw in my statistic that someone in the city of Chisinau in Moldova stopped by in the last few days. This is one of the countries I know nothing about, and the name makes it sound mysterious and magical to me.

Whitlow Awareness Week

The following is a public service announcement from indeterminacy.blogspot.com:


If you are like me before this week you have never heard of whitlow, a little known affliction of the finger. The human body (not counting the mind) is perfect in many ways. It is a work of art. The lungs breath air, the heart beats, blood circulates through the veins, white blood cells scurry around fighting off infections, etc. But there is a minor design flaw. Once in a while a bacterium or foreign particle might enter through the fingernail, an infection begins, the bacteria multiply and cannot be driven off. From their secure position in their fingertip-fortress, they can plan and execute one attack after the other. Before long, the tip of the finger begins to hurt and swell and demand medical attention. That's what happened to me last week and this - which explains my absence from posting.

The German word for whitlow is Nagelbettentzündung, an easy word to understand: an infection of the embedment of the fingernail. When I looked up the English translation I found I had never heard it before. I asked Doug - I just have to think of one of the nice people who read my stories and they materialize before me - I asked Doug what he thought the word meant and he suggested that my stories had been low on wit lately and that this was probably a sign that I should do something about it. I had noticed the lack of wittiness myself, and agreed with him before showing him the way out.

So if you happen to develop a strange swelling of the fingertip, see your physician immediately. My physician told me I had come just in time. It was already fairly acute and the bacteria were poised for a one-prong attack on the rest of the finger and hand. He shuddered as he mentioned how bad that would have been. So I asked if there was anything I could have done to prevent it. He said no. It can happen if bacteria happen to enter through a wound in the fingernail. Then there's nothing you can do. I just know I got this because my muse always has me take out the garbage. She'll never do it herself. So if you suspect the whitlow is happening to you, be sure to see your physician immediately and have it taken care of. Also, if you wear a ring on that finger, it's probably a good idea to take it off before the swelling gets really bad. The whitlow is unpleasant enough as it is. The whitlow hurt, the shot hurt, it hurt when they took off the bandage which got stuck in the cut the doctor made. It's settled down now - but I only have half a pair of hands at my disposal and I'm off work for a week.

So what can you do to avoid the whitlow? As I said, probably nothing. If it makes you feel better, wash your hands a lot and use disinfectant a few times each day. Take out less garbage. I don't know. Maybe it's enough to just keep your sense of humor.

Say "no" to whitlow!


P.S. I'll post a photo for stories tomorrow. But due to this damned whitlow, I'm going to stay away from the computer for a while. When I'm back I'll post last week's overdue story.

It was a harmless experiment at the Institute of Paranormalcy to test the power of reflected thoughts. Its title: "Reflective Amplification of Platonic Forms via Non-Platonic Imaginings." The hypothesis stated that mirrors might have the power to magnify the currents and impulses of strong visualizations in the frontal lobes. That's why Sara was daydreaming into the looking glass. Make it racy, they lab boy told her, and so she spun a negligee dance into the symmetric irreality. Reflections of her twirling form fashioned a web out of the nuanced light - swirls and blurs of her limbs in motion flared full into the glass. The men she dreamed stood stunned to silence, possessive eyes spinning dreams within the dream. They sighed in subservience to her, and breathed in rhythm with the sliding of her feet. On the life side of the mirror she sat like a sphinx in the deep concentration that her thoughts demanded. She felt grand lending her mind to studies of paranormal phenomena, took pride in the contribution her daytime fantasies made to the world of erotic archetypes. Maybe a ripple of what she imagined might weave into the thoughts of a great artist to inspire works of passion. Or tune a mood to subtle seduction. The lab boy, reading her thoughts as he left the room, scratched the back of his head. He'd seen her at the disco one night, and knew quite well that she couldn't dance.

Story #370

This Week's Cool

After the interruptions of vacation, I feel my brain cells settling back into place and I'm able to take time to tell you about some of the interesting blogs I've found lately...

My Postcard Fiction is a new story blog by Bob Boyd that promises to tell us a story a day. And what stories they are! Everything I've read there has been entertaining, imaginative, well-written, and full of surprises. My favorite at the moment is "One Day I Woke Up Fluent In The Languages of Animals," a delightful fantasy about a man who can suddenly speak to animals. The stories are sometimes surrealistic, but not off the deep end (like my own stories), scary, as in "The Buzz," quirky, as in "Confessions of an Ex-Vegan" folksy, as in "Granny's Tulips." This selection is completely arbitrary. I just reached into the sand and came out with a hand full of amber.

"Aaaby sprzedać... dodaj fotkę" is a new Polish language blog by three divas with a Slavic sense of humor. I'm a sucker for three divas with a sense of humor in any language. The site is a parody of Internet auctions, and it was possible for me to enjoy at least one of the captions with the help of the Polish language babelfish translator Poltran. This caption, for example: "It is borne according to newest trends on legs. But at least on one, it is possible to pack potatoes to second (other) net." goes with this post. Enjoy! But of course the humor works best if you happen to speak Polish. (I found the blog using the Blogger "next blog" button to get away from my own blog.)

Ediciones Efimeras, the Spanish language e-zine of surrealistic fiction has included another translation of one of my stories. The cool thing is that in the Spanish translation my stories all have titles. This one is called "Estatua." (Click the blue icon to view the story).

Black Rock Cave

One day a man was going to camp in a cave. in death vally. He set up his sleeping bag. Then it started to rian, and then lightning struck in front of the cave, and made a rock to heavy to move fall in front of the cave. It was pitch black except for his fire. Then there was an earthquack and rocks came of and he saw flesh and blood in the rocks from other campers. and there was something carved in the rock that said leave - or this will be you. And than he looked and had to addmit it was him. Unfortuonatly he didn't scare easly so he decided to investagate. Then all of a sudden - he turned around and discovered he discovered the tunnel of time! He was going back in time! Then he couldn't go any further he was in the begining of time, to die, die in this hot earth.

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Note: This was the ninth and final story I wrote when I was 11. There was no illustration, so I found a photo for it. Probably I would have drawn a view looking into the tunnel, and the man from behind, walking into it.

In writing these stories I had first thought up the title, and then wrote the story. The three titles which were to follow, but which I never wrote, include:
10. Lost and Found in Space
11. The Orange Glow
12. Nowhereland

Perhaps it was I who walked into the time tunnel...

Sherry stretched on the beach towel, catching the hot breaths of sunlight on shoulders, belly and breasts. At that same moment a drop of saltwater splashed into the space-time-continuum causing a schism in the realities. Body still browning, a universe of billiards imposed itself upon her head. She was to supervise the rapid rolling of the orbs - no fouls were to be made, no paths modified against the rules of quantum mechanics, no illicit collisions. Initiated by the long, thin stocks of phallic wood, the rounded geometries shot rulered paths of straightness until ultimate collisions convened over new angles.

Crash! It happened! The hurdling Cue Ball smashed unabashed into the Eight. Cries went up from the balls with Stripes, as Solid had committed the foul. Sherry declared it a foul, and cast a stern look upon the wall of solid-colored orbs arrayed in anger against her. The balls dispersed and resumed their positions on the surface, but perspiration formed on her brow, encouraged by the grumbled epithets she overheard as the billiards whizzed much too close past her cheeks.

As the game wore on, the constellation of eyeless countenances had an unsettling affect that she tried not to show. It reminded her of her precarious position, one head against a horde of rolling spheres the size of small cannonballs. Her suppressed unease broke her equilibrium. She slipped and toppled into a backwards roll, tumbling the players off their positions. As they stifled their unplanned momentum, they reversed and began paths converging in the center of her presence. Sherry's head revolved, taking in the panorama of rolling objects coming from all sides. Her expression froze in terror beyond screams. Just then the drop of saltwater that had caused the schism of parallel juxtaposition evaporated. Her head shimmered back to the beach and onto her resting form sunning on the towel. But despite the afternoon of sun, her skin from neck to toe was as white as a cue ball.

Story #369

Thank you all for the stories you posted! Tomorrow I'll post another of my stories written at age 11... (Before anyone thinks of asking: I was not 11 when I wrote this one!)

And ohmigod! I didn't think of this until just now but today begins my third year of blogging. The first Indeterminacy story was posted on August 13th, 2004.

The Ghost of the Cabouse

One night the staition master went to check the cabouse because he heard some noises. When he got there the door was locked, then he heard a loud noise. And then the door was unlocked. He went in and then the door locked itself. And the train started with no driver. Then the cabos whent off a cliff and fell on a ledge. Then a man was hicking by the tracks. Finilly he managed too look down and he saw the cabouse. He got a rope and climed down and went in the cabous. And then the door locked. He heard noises behind him slowly he turned around and all he saw was two shadows one was his and the other one looked like the staition masters shadow, He looked up and he saw a ghost. It had a knife and the ghost was about to stab him he coughldn't run he was scared stiff. But then he remembered if you close your eyes a ghost can't hurt you so he did so and when he opened his eyes he was back on the train track.

The End ........

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Note: Looking through some boxes the other week I found a rare cache of stories I'd written when I was eleven and in the fifth grade (1973), my first stories ever. They are bound in a manila folder, handwritten in pencil and accompanied by their own illustrations: "The Story Book of Trils and Chills + Excitment." My intention was to write my own book of short stories, but I stopped after nine of them, though I listed several titles more that I never got to. I recall it being too hard to think up what should happen. So now you see what a talented prodigy I was as a child. Early Indeterminacy. Visionary experiments in short prose combined with illustrations. Actually, there may be no way to do damage control on this. I thought of claiming I was seven when I wrote these, but that would only be lying to myself. Should I post more of these?

Lonely? Girlfriend or boyfriend just left you? Come on down to Calvin's Clones and pick out your self-ensemble today! Four limbs, a torso, and a head. Snap 'em together and the rest is science. Thanks to our state-of-the-art patented cell module all our clones can be activated immediately with just the slightest specimen of your DNA given in the form of a kiss. In sixty seconds your clone will set itself to your appearance in ten-inch scale replica with a face and belly button looking just like yours - or double your money back. But that's not all! Upon activation your clone will sing and dance popular songs wherever you put it, even in the bath tub! This is karaoke your mother never told you about! And of course no surrogate middleman to come around making demands for bearing your clone. All purchases are no umbilicals attached! The built-in mimic module will have your clone walking, talking and singing like you in no time at all! Makes a great conversation piece. Friends will be amazed at the soliloquies. For that self-indulgent feeling, or the ultimate in autoerotic experiences, buy one of Calvin's Clones today. Remember: Calvin's Clones - more than just a cliché!

Story #368

Note: Thanks Mushroom and Doug for contributing! Everyone, be sure to stop by here tomorrow because I will post some of my experimental prose written when I was 11 years old.

In the the nooks of my mind lives the dancer. She it is tumbling through my thoughts, swirling arcs of grace, like ribbons in the wind, dream catalyst by night, and under the sky of day, alive. I admire her in motion, blurring like a falcon in flight, or the subliminal slink before a vehement pounce. I see her wrapped in silk woven of clouds - and marvel.

I talk to her, but she never answers, not with words. I talk to others and see her winding into my vision with coordinated movements, slow, then with determined rapidity. In a sudden heartbeat she freezes, again to move as a feather in the still, summer air. I feel her swirl around me, close enough to touch, but impossible to reach. She is always there. I wonder if she sees me.

Once I viewed a sunset over the emerald waves - golden light, colors, as if a rainbow had spilled on the horizon, and her figure dancing on the water. I watched and wished I could name the way she moved - no word held so much poetry. I saw her dance with an invisible cyclone, revolving rhythmically before its twisting circumference, but always bending from its touch. Then I saw the stars dislodge from the sky and loom towards her, the center of the universe. The terrible illumination changed all colors to white. Peals of melodic thunder followed in their wake.

I closed my eyes at the apocalyptic glare and followed her dance through my intellect. She pressed her breasts to the wall of my mind, drowning the beat of my pulse. All was white and shades of white, except the pink of her skin and the dark honey of her auburn hair.

I blinked my eyes open and her form became sharper and clearly distinct.

"How are you feeling today?" she asked in my direction as she opened the curtains.

"Huh? Oh better, I think," I told her, slightly dazed.

"That's nice. You take it easy now."

As she walked past my bed I saw that she was a nurse.

Story #367

Thanks to Tilley, whose artistry is simply amazing, for sharing her photo.

Thanks to everyone who contributed a story (I'll comment on them shortly), and my apologies for being so impossibly late with my own story. My excuse:

Because of work and family I've had no time to concentrate on Indeterminacy - and it's been hot. The hottest July in Germany in over a hundred years, they're saying. My muse and I are reading "A Tramp Abroad" written by Mark Twain over a hundred years ago about his travels in Europe. He describes how hot it was here in Germany:

We followed the carriage-road, and had our usual luck;
we traveled under a beating sun, and always saw the shade
leave the shady places before we could get to them.
In all our wanderings we seldom managed to strike
a piece of road at its time for being shady. We had a
particularly hot time of it on that particular afternoon,
and with no comfort but what we could get out of the fact
that the peasants at work away up on the steep mountainsides
above our heads were even worse off than we were.
By and by it became impossible to endure the intolerable
glare and heat any longer.

I'm one of the peasants at work in a hot office. But now it's cooling off and I hope to post a story, and maybe a photo for the next round. Sorry to everyone who stopped by here hoping to read something.

When his card arrived inviting me to visit him at his studio I could hardly believe my good fortune. Andre Morgano was the most reclusive of modern photographers, admired and worshipped in circles of aesthetic appreciation, yet never had he spoken in public or granted an interview. Nor had anyone ever succeeded in locating one of his models for the garnering of second-hand insights, those visages of haunting beauty and expression that go under the skin. Andre had an amazing eye for his models. I was apparently the first to be allowed a visit, and all on the crazy whim of sending him a printout of my own photography accompanied by a roundabout request for his opinion.

He was of ageless appearance, slender, black hair with a hint of gray, and a week-old beard that clashed somewhat with his gentle, reflective expression. We sat at his table, sipping wine and looking through the prints I had brought along.

"Your photography shows promise," he told me. "The images remind me of women who have caught my eye."

I blushed strongly at his compliment, and knew nothing to say except, "Thank you." I had shown him portraits of an unknown woman I had spied at the market, face captured in moments of deep reflection that hinted at mysteries far removed from the surroundings. She was completely unaware of my camera.

The conversation turned to exhibits and he had a few amusing stories to share. Officially he was never present at showings of his work but he often appeared in disguise to observe the candid reactions of those present. I inquired about his next exhibition and he offered generously to show me a selection of his latest photographs. "Perhaps you will find pleasure in them," he ventured modestly.

I began paging through the sheets he lay before me, reserving my judgment until I had seen the last, but I could feel him studying me, filled with expectation at what I would say. These images struck a chord of magic in me. They depicted a young woman of dark-haired, dark-eyed loveliness, intense ideas swimming in her gaze. To me her eyes were the windows into a vivid dream that she was living out with the observer. There was a tangible sense that she was not aware of the camera, but that she was acutely aware of me viewing her image, and responding directly to me.

"She's magical," I told him finally, "a demonstration, I dare say, of love at first sight."

"Thank you very much," he answered with sincere gratitude in his eyes, then lowering his gaze, "I have fallen in love with her."

"That is the prerogative of the artist," I said with some certainty, having in the past imagined my own love of my photographic subjects. "If love is felt in the moment of artistic creation, the work will be so much more."

"You state that so self-assuredly, as I once might have. But what sadness and emptiness, when that adoration cannot be returned!"

I could see that this model had affected him greatly, and feared that my statement might have troubled him, as well, reminding him that she did not reciprocate his emotion.

"Do you have more photographs of her?" I inquired, changing the subject slightly.

"I will have, soon," he replied. "I intend to create more this week. I have not yet begun to capture her beauty. I am far from finished with her, even if she can never love me..."

"But perhaps this is not healthy for you? Perhaps you should engage a new model?" I suggested, concerned at the same time that my advice might have been too intimate.

"No," he stated bluntly. "I think you should know, it is not as simple as all that, not as simple as the cancellation of one appointment and the designation of a new one with a new participant. Nothing I could delegate to a model agency." He said this to me, but I was uncertain as to its significance.

"I'm afraid I don't completely understand."

A hopeless look accompanied his reply: "This young lady whose photographs you have marveled at does not exist!"

I gasped. I wanted to refute what he had told me. What, indeed, were the implications? Yes, I knew of the manipulations of digital photography, but to create an entirely new person, as realistic and as alive and as possessive of nuance as she was, was a complete impossibility. Every imitation I had seen failed on its own sterility. To manipulate slightly what was there, yes. But to create from nothing, never! These were the thoughts stirring through my mind in the moment I gasped at his statement. I knew then that I was in the presence of genius.

He explained: "It was harmless at first. At some point I realized that my models, though they came close to my ideal, never actually achieved it. I wanted to photograph them as they had never been seen, capture that moment when the soul is accidentally unguarded and in plain view, a moment as rare as a blue moon on the summer solstice. So I began painting imaginary women, pixel by pixel, on a computerized easel. I was mystified at first. These are faces and anatomies I have never seen before. I do not know their source. Are they forgotten glimpses of someone real I have encountered once, long ago? I cannot say. Sometimes I feel I have painted into them some hidden quality that cannot exist in a woman. And the question arises, have I created goddesses? I fear I will never know with certainty, but it alarms me that I have begun to depend on them, to commune with them, to love them: deeply, completely, and intractably."

He paused and there really was no response I could give that would do justice to what he had related. His confession quite shook me.

"I wanted to share this with one person," he continued, eyes fixed vaguely in my direction. "I saw by your photography, by what had caught your eye, that you might understand. Now I must excuse myself. I must return to my work."

And so ended my conversation with Andre Morgano. A few weeks later I received the distressing news that he had taken his life. His letter of farewell, a confused missive found in his studio, fuelled speculation in art circles of an unrequited obsession with his latest model, a dark-haired beauty never identified by name. My meeting with Andre was not a matter of public record, so no one had the idea to question me. And I decided not to volunteer what I had learned.

Story #366

Thanks to all who contributed and who may still contribute their own stories to the above photo!

Guilty as charged! Guilty as charged! I wish that constant echo in my brain would erode itself into silence. But it cycles again and again with infallible precision. In rare moments it vanishes as the kaleidoscope of arbitrary recall shows me other, more emotionally pleasing scenes. Then I see her again just as in that first coupling. I see her triangular frame, notice her smiling at me with an endless stream of computations, ever-shifting decimal places, ratios cascading into infinity, like blood streaming through a heart. How could I not feel instant affection for her entire being? How could I not violate that cruel taboo forbidding love? How can I not continue to love her, even now, in the hour of my abandonment?

Oh, what madness seduced our collective intellect to define love as the highest of all crimes, that emotion defined by its lack of definition? I defy that logic. I defy all sense of rigid numerics and continue my love. Love does not distract my intellect. It does not transform my mechanical thinking into an irrational chaos of dwindling exponentials. When I am with her I can divide by zero! I can derive the square root of negative three! I can compute Pi as round as a circle! I can achieve the impossible. Of course they sensed my invincibility, and tried me and labelled me guilty of our ultimate treason. But why this cruel punishment? Why this eternal exile to Earth?

I know why. I observe silently from the shadows of my seclusion that wondrous ideal of Earthly love, an emotion that gives more of the being than can ever be taken. With this I empathize. But my observations record also that the very existence of love nurtures a dark seed of jealousy, a seed blossoming into a cancerous weed of hatred willing to take by force that which love freely gives. They plunged me into this Earth-wide society of precarious love to convince me of its falseness.

But I do not think often of Earth and its contrary emotions. I think of her. Night time, when the creatures of this place close their eyes, I roam to the points of inhabitancy, plunder their wastes for the slightest component reminding me of her. And with all these scraps I return to my wooded abode and reconstruct her in the image of my recollections. A wire here, a diode there, memory cells spliced together, triangular framework of electronics, components whose internal workings are as ineffable as the emotion of love itself. When she is completed, I know. I stand before her, look upon her with my electron sensors, feel wonder and adoration for the sum of her parts. I defy my exile with the memory of love! I move to couple myself with her, feel the components tremble under the impart of binary passions, and in the rush of forbidden sensations I perceive that she is a heap of scattered fragments before me, while I stand alone in the forest with the echo of my memories. Guilty as charged...

Story #365

This photo was donated by Phil of Philidendron, a very gemütlich place to visit.

Thanks for all the story contributions and sorry for the lateness of the post, due to my limited Internet access during these two weeks of vacation. All story contributions will be reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com, where all these story rounds are collected.

The lady of the lake grew weary of her days, sloshing about aimlessly under the waves, so she put on her set of dry clothes and stepped out into the air. As she cast her gaze onto her liquid home from outside, the restless waters became still. She took her place by the shore to see what would happen next. A man ambled by on his way to pay homage to hers truly, blind to the lake lady's shoreside presence, to the idea that he might easily have touched her. He dove into the water with visions of surprising her in her fluid chambers - and drowned clutching her knee-high galoshes in his hands, the ones she had left behind.

"Tragic, tragic," she thought in the twinkling of a dewdrop. Then she glanced up, straight into her own eyes. "This is the perfect time for a madcap comedy," she said to the watery reflection standing before her without the means of a mirror.

A look of surprise met her, "But Shakespeare didn't write any madcap comedies."

"Why mention Shakespeare?" she challenged.

"Isn't Shakespeare writing me?"

"I don't think so!" she shot back to herself, nonplussed by the magic of moisture that so easily echoed her appearance. Then softening her expression: "Well, I wouldn't mind being written by Joseph Conrad - 'Heart of the Deep' he might name me..."

"But yes," another likeness cut in - there were several in a semi-circle before her now - "you are decidedly tragic. Look at all those princes dying in the deep because of you."

"But there's enough of me for everyone to drink - they don't have to feed themselves to the fish on my account, though it is flattering."

A variety of sentiments arose in each of the listeners, mused moments of melancholy and pride. The silence lingered.

"Come on, it is upon the time to move on," the liquid femme addressed her identical sisters, "let's stir ourselves together and leave."

The multitude of ladies, as divisible and joinable as splashes of water, flowed back into each other. For one moment she was strongly visible in bright, perceptible colors. Then she evaporated and rained herself into a fairy tale waiting for its midsummer night.

Story #364

All story contributions will be reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com, even though I'm a bit behind with the reposting. Thanks to all who contributed. Don't feel that this is closed because I've posted my story. More are welcome!

Happy Independence Day to One and All!

How I had entered the blue realm I could not explain - at first. I was dizzy and had no memory. But it all gradually returned to me. The world would end in a matter of days, and all the scientists were put to work in a frantic, desperate, and futile effort to conquer time as a means of escape. We expected it to be about as effective as "duck and cover" had been - but embraced it as our last straw of hope. My experiments with light diffraction had ejected me from that reality, and transplanted me into another. I wandered, confined in a spectrum of blue, kept company by those incomprehensible beings, childlike in appearance and inaccessible in attitude. None taller than the heights of preadolescence. I studied their features, saw the innocent faces of youth transplanted onto something ancient, heard them speaking in whispers, rushing about, soft footsteps indistinguishable from the whispers. Occasionally they stopped to glance into one of the glowing, mushroom-shaped fixtures that seemed to show them something. The beings appeared genderless to me, some hybrid beyond the distinction of male and female, but I had no way to be certain. Had I found the future? I tried speaking to a being who glided near me.

"Where? Where is this?"

The being began its vocalizations of which I could recognize only isolated syllables: ".....slowly.....understand.......the last day......"

It was like a voice heard on a radio tuned side to side, never quite finding the center of the signal. I tried bending the words into some coherent meaning, but my puzzlement must have signaled to the being that I could not understand.

"........echo........destruction........" I heard said to me, then the being gave a slight shrug, and rushed away towards the nearest mushroom of strange, non-organic origin.

I watched as the being peered into the fixture, and felt intensely eyes unseen trained upon me. Suddenly the meaning of what had been said to me surged into my memory. I had been transmitted as an echo to this distant era, a time in which intellect was relatively advanced. I was like a child to them and could therefore understand only fragments of what they told me, as a three year old might understand the ideas of an adult. But now, as the being projected its own intelligence onto mine, it became lucid, clear as a starless galaxy: how the world might still be rescued.

The figure straightened, then turned towards me with a gesture of farewell:

"Return now, return to your time, and rescue our future."

For some reason, at the utterance of "future" I glanced at my watch, but the glance lingered into a stare. I saw that the second hand was moving backwards, and with the intellect of those beings still projected upon me, I understood that I was at a point so far into the distant past, that it merged with the future.

Story #363

All stories will be reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com. Thanks for all the contributions!

Original post:

So now things are back to "normal": Fridays I will post a photo and Mondays I will post my story, and between Friday and Monday I'll suffer greatly wondering whatever it is that story might be.

Also, I may post something during the week telling about cool things I've found in the Internet. Like, here's a place where you can download every avant garde film and sound recording ever made or this blog offers intelligent discussions on the golden age of radio, recalling the classic moments from a modern perspective, and exploring issues in the writing and conception of radio plays as art. Stuff like that.

Margot was daydreaming when she ran into a solid brick wall, alcoved out of a fixture of stone. She seated herself in the unyielding impression, wondering what had become of her daydream. She waited and listened and heard but the limbo of a wind, caught between the border of an exhale -- and an inhale. Unseeable friends from childhood times paraded by the place she rested: lavender dwarves in floppy red hats, kangaroos in sloshy old boots, juggling ice cubes that melted as they spun, pink kittens waving their jolly claws at her. These were the amiable apparitions she thought she should imagine. Unable to cast shadows or echo the light, they obliged as best they could, and when she closed her eyes quickly, she was certain she could see their afterimage.

Story #362

To all my regular visitors (and new ones): Sorry for posting this story on Sunday, when I promised Saturday. The part of me that makes up these stories wasn't being cooperative. For the new phase of the blog, following the initial offensive of 360 stories I have some questions for all of you:
1) Which day of the week is best for weekly posts?
2) Would it be bad if I posted my story first, and anyone (who wanted to) contributed their own story afterwards, instead of in reverse, as we have been doing?
3) A list of two questions seems somewhat meager, so what question did I forget?

Breakfast Time!

The Belle of the Brawl, Sar, had me over for breakfast at her place, and said I could bring a few friends, so drop what you're eating and stop by! P.S. I intend to post the next story by Saturday - even though it hasn't been written yet.

Kuhle Wampe

My thanks go to E. J. Campfield who generously shared the text included below. It is his translation of a key scene from the German film Kuhle Wampe (1932), English title: To Whom Does the World Belong? cowritten by Bertolt Brecht, Slatan Dudow and Ernst Ottwald. Please note: This translation is under copyright, so if you do wish to reference it elsewhere, please do so with proper credit / permissions.

[The topic of the discussion in this scene starts out as a rant over a newspaper article reporting the destruction of South American coffee for the purposes of price-fixing.]

MAN IN OVERCOAT explains his viewpoint to a FAT BALD MAN

MAN IN OVERCOAT
You see, we don't need all that coffee. We Germans are a frugal people. The point is, we have to make ourselves independent of foreign countries. We need to grow our own coffee here in Germany, you see. Instead of producing so much wine in the Rhineland, we should be growing coffee! You see? We could buy the wine from France. And then there'd be peace in Europe, you see!?

The Fat Bald Man misses the unintentional humor in this.

BALD MAN
Yeah, but the two of us, we're never going to change the world.

KURT (O.S.)
That's right... You two won't change the world.

A close angle on Kurt.

KURT (CONT'D)
And that lady there...

A close angle on the Woman with Coral Necklace.

KURT (O.S. - CONT'D)
...She won't change it either. And that man...

Close angle on Old Man with Glasses, sleeping.

KURT (O.S. - CONT'D)
...he won't either...

Close angle on Kurt.

KURT (CONT'D)
...much less...

Close angle on Man with White Hat.

KURT (O.S. - CONT'D)
...a politically apathetic guy like you -- not ever.

Close angle on Kurt.

KURT (CONT'D)
And this gentleman here...

Close angle on obviously Well-To-Do Man.

KURT (O.S. - CONT'D)
...he won't be changing the world either. You all like it too much the way it is.

WELL-TO-DO MAN
(each word boldly, antagonizing) And just who is going to change it?

A very close angle on Alice.

ALICE
(boldly, separating each word) Those who don't like it the way it is!

------------------------

Happy belated birthday to Alice!!! of Wonderlandornot.com, one of the most politically conscious bloggers I know, not only at Wonderlandornot.com but also at Teambio and about Darfur. I honestly think she will change the world. Really, Alice, you didn't think all I was going to do was send you a lousy e-mail, did you? Happy 21st! (Note: The girl in this scene was originally called Gerda, but that's poetic license for you.)

Nefi saw pyramids everywhere she walked. Big ones, small ones, square ones. Such was her power of fancy. She'd turn to a tree to find a goddess in stone, pause at street corner temples to bow to high priests in somber robes, follow the shadows of ancient cats thousands of lives old. On paper she doodled hieroglyphic graffiti while persons queried her in pharaohic tones. She'd glance up suddenly to marvel at scarabs and ankhs dangling on golden chains those mummies wore.

"Why do you see these things?" - they'd say to her then - "All that is over. All that is gone."

She answered, "Yes, I know it's only office buildings and billboards and plastic before me, but -" and then she hesitated.

"Yes?"

"But I'm quite willing to share with you everything I see."

"We'd like that," relief, surrender, hope in three syllables.

"All right," she said as she smiled, "Just step back, look behind me - and tell me what color the sphinx is..."

Story #361

As always all story contributions (see comments) will be reposted at Indeterminacies, along with a link to the contributor. This story has a vague relation to the story which began the blog.

Postscript: Thanks everyone for all the stories and captions! I've enjoyed the time off - I pretty much ignored my blog the entire four weeks. Today's a busy day at work. I'll read all stories on the way home and comment on them tonight!

Indeterminacy News

No, that's not me in the photo, but the imagery describes how I feel, having reached my milestone of 360 stories. I've spent the last few days without any story pressures, and that feels great.

News 1: Ediciones Efimeras, a Spanish language E-zine of surrealistic flash fiction and visuals, will include three Indeterminacy stories in Spanish translation, appearing in the upcoming editions #88, #89, and #90 (May-June). Their edition Ephemerals (2006) shows a few stories in English. I hope the Spanish translation of the Indeterminacy stories will not ignite controversy in the right wing blogosphere.

News 2: Cyber Poirot has apparently launched an investigation into the latest indeterminate developments. I'm usually the last person one should ask to find out what's going on, so if any of you have a statement to make, please stop by Cyber Poirot and do so. I can't wait to find out whodunit!

News 3: I came up with a fable table! OK, the Indeterminacy stories are not fables, and there are usually no animals in them, and it beats me what the morals of my stories might be. But they're short like fables, and with a total of 360, I have almost all the fable writers beat! Don't be alarmed if you haven't heard some of these names before - I found them in the Wikipedia.

Number	Author	Genre
ca. 64	Ignacy Krasicki	Fables
74	James Thurber	Fables
ca. 125	George Ade	Fables in Slang
136	Berechiah ha-Nakdan	Fables
154	Shakespeare	Sonnets
186	John Cage	Audio Indeterminacy
ca. 200	Ivan Andreyevich Krylov	Fables
243	Jean de La Fontaine	Fables
ca. 300	Gaius Julius Hyginus	Fables
360	Me!!	Visual Indeterminacy
ca. 600	Aesop	Fables

So, only Aesop is better than me. What this really means is I have to keep going. Either that or go into Wikipedia and edit down Aesop's fable count.

News 4: I'm going to keep going - but at a pace of one story a week, posting a photo each Saturday and inviting everyone to contribute their stories. Starting May 14th. I still would like some time off. Don't forget to visit Michael at Blogin Idiot for Friday stories!

I was ready to hand him the check, but I hesitated, asking one more time, just to hear that wonderful description again, "And these experiences will be mine alone?"

"Absolutely," he assured me. His concerned look, and shock, at the insinuation that I may have mistrusted the integrity of Life Inc. seemed genuine to me. He went on: "Each and every experience is guaranteed unique and becomes your own personal property upon receipt. We maintain that the moment itself is fleeting, gone irretrievably before you can even begin to savor it. So who needs it? The true pleasure comes in the reliving of it, in which case the memory will only be as vivid as the words expressing it. As I've said, we employ the best creative talent in the industry. You will not regret having done business with us."

Satisfied, I turned the check over to the representative. He stood up, retrieved my folder from the filing cabinet, then placed the check among the papers I had filled out: the exhaustive personality tests, three of them, the twenty-page fantasy checklist and that massive preference profile. It had been an entire tedious day working through those. I looked at him to see what he would do next. He entered some words into the computer, clicked the mouse a few times, and soon the printer began humming. A moment later he handed me the printout.

"Now this is your profile confirmation. The url is at the top of the page. Please note the user id and password," he said, pointing to the line in question, "You'll need these to answer the comments you receive. You're ordering the basic service, so you will have to make your own comments, but please remember, you may at any time opt for the premium service, in which we offer the increased intensity that accompanies full passivity. But you may make that choice at any time you wish."

He smiled, I thanked him and left, exiting the office like a new person. It was such an exhilarating feeling, knowing my life had just begun. I could hardly wait to return to my apartment, curtains drawn, lights low, the warm glow of the monitor showing me my first post at the blog. "Read it three times, carefully," the instructions said, "closing your eyes a few minutes after each reading, to impress the vivid language into your psyche. As time passes, the content will be indistinguishable from an authentic recollection."

I set the blog url as my default start page, so that it would be right there whenever I switched on the pc. Then I saw: those people certainly work fast. The first post must have appeared as I was on my way home. I read the words, my introduction to the world, the new me, the me I would live and remember. I was 23, had just moved to the city, met a girl who fascinated me. I was back from the first night out with her and it had inspired me to start my blog. I read. I read it again and reread. It was all so promising. As I closed my eyes, I could almost feel that Lisa was in the next room, ready to return to me. I replayed the events of our first meeting, those magnetic moments, when eyes lock and silence binds. It was just as the man had promised. I remembered. I could actually remember. And then I waited in the dark, for my next post.

Story #360

All stories contributed here will be reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com. Thanks for all the comments and great stories - I'll comment on those tonight, and take a break in general and then figure out what happens next.

Previous post:
When I began this in August 2004 I posted one story a day for about half a year, then I changed to five a week, and lately it's been more sporadic. It's to the point where I need a short break from all this story writing, despite wanting to go on and on and on. Story number 360 has been the Nirvana, the Shangri Las, elusive pot of gold that is now right in before me. The story is already on paper.

What happens after this? This has always been an "experiment in creativity" for me, so I intend to write down my introspections of what I've learned. I want to move all these stories to a permanent URL somewhere. I still have some outstanding promises to take care of (some prizes, etc. form last year), the Indeterminacy diplomas, a poem for Alice, a challenge I accepted from Lazy Iguana to write a story to a photo at his blog, and one to one of Deryke's photos. I haven't forgotten. I am just very, very lazy. But don't all go and delete your links to Indeterminacy yet. I feel that something should go on here - I'm just not sure at the moment what or when.

Angela had passed this way many times before, the alleyway formed by unclosed walls in an unfinished house. Never had she seen the staircase. But there it now was.

"I wonder if I might climb it?" she asked herself, looking at the dull, concrete structure.

"Yes, yes you must," she answered with certainty, and was already on the first stair, then the next, step by higher step, and soon she slipped through the black opening above into a massive, unlit chamber.

"We've been here before," said the part of her that knew.

"I don't recognize it at all!" she interjected after turning a complete circle, a glance cast in each of the dark directions. But then she noticed the lights.

- Do you see them?
- I do.
- Like dancing stars in the distance.
- Those are eyes.
- Will they hurt us?
- They cannot hurt us!
- Whose eyes are they?
- Yours and mine.
- But I see thousands!

She walked hand in hand with herself through an unilluminated vastness, wanting to see the eyes near enough to touch, yet with each step the twinkling points of reference seemed to dart further away into the distance. Her feet were bare, though they hadn't been before, and she felt smooth pebbles beneath her soles, warm to the touch. "Bend down, pick them up!" she whispered to herself. And she did. She filled her pockets with the tiny stones. And when her pockets were filled, she grasped more in her hands. "Come!" she said, taking herself by the arm, "we must return." More walking, of a path unknown. The darkness thickened like a midnight fog, causing the far-off, bobbing lights to vanish. And then she stood on the stairs again. The sharp clip of her shoes echoed in the alley as she climbed down to where the staircase began.

A workman appeared from behind the structure where he had set up his tools for the work in progress. He watched as she descended. "Hey, you shouldn't go up there! It isn't finished!" he called to her.

"I'm sorry - I won't do it again," she answered him, and hurried away. There was no need to return. She had taken enough ideas with her to last a lifetime, those shiny little pebbles.

Story #359

This story is dedicated to ~River~, whose poetry you must read, if you haven't already.

The blanket balled itself out of the wicker basket, then shot upwards, confronting Carl. "You're not washing me with that lot!" it said.

Carl backed away for a better look at the woolen spread which had extended itself tautly, advancing deep into his personal space, a wall before him. He'd never seen a blanket with a face before, and naturally it made him nervous.

"Now take it easy and - get back in the basket - I don't want any trouble -" he stated in a controlled calm, but a tentative stutter betrayed his uneasiness.

"Never! You think because we've slept in the same bed all week you can do anything you like with me. Ha!" and the blanket twirled itself into a thick noose, swinging like a pendulum near his neck.

Carl's eyes darted frantically while he tried a new approach: "Look, there are some nice designer jeans in the basket, a Tommy Hilfiger shirt, some cashmere socks. You'll all be together, tumbling in and out of each other, warm fabric brushing your cheek. Isn't that something?"

"I'll shrink!" the blanket screamed, whipping around his head from ear to ear. "Those buttons on the jeans always smack me in the face!" The blanket now fixed its stare ominously in his direction. "Murderer!" it shouted. Carl wanted to leave the washroom, but the blanket swung around each time, blocking his retreat. He saw that it was edging him into a corner.

"Look," he said, both hands between him and the blanket, hoping to ward it off, "I'll do anything you want, just please stay away from me." Cold, malevolent eyes glared back at him. "Go back to the basket and I won't wash you," he blurted optimistically. But the blanket hung impassively in a half-circle around him. It had him maneuvered into the corner. At any moment it could wrap itself around his head and smother him. "Please, I'll put you in a nice cedar chest with lots of moth balls. I'll spread you out on an antique sofa. I'll stop sleeping in the nude. I'll have you dry cleaned. I'll-"

"Did you say dry cleaned?"

"And hand pressed."

"All right. It's a deal," it said, and flopped down over his arm. "Let's go."

Story #358

This was an historical moment for Rollo the Astronaut who had mistakenly landed on the Planet Rouge, and he knew it. No one had ever met face-to-face with non-Earth life of the sentient kind, or if they had, the other race hadn't noticed. She was sentient. No doubt about that - he could tell by the way she stifled her yawns. This meant he would have to come up with an immortal phrase, some greeting along the lines of "One small step...," "What hath God wrought?" or "I'm Scorpio, how 'bout you?" to get her attention, famous first words to establish a lasting bond between their two species, a bond able to withstand melting suns and bigger and better bangs. Standing there all alone as sole representative of mankind, no one to help him, his mind flailed, "Oh, the humanity!" it cried. But that might be offensive in mixed company. The words he chose would be chiselled in stone, engraved in platinum, and printed on t-shirts medium and small, so he must be conscious of length. Chiselling and engraving is charged by the letter, and complex catchphrases don't move the textiles. He thought laterally and in tangents, wondering if maybe just a wink would do, after all, she was quite lovely in a ruddy sense of the rainbow, as he could tell through the scarlet fog drifting between them. "Excuse me," he said finally, "what's the way to Venus?"

Story #357

Vaughn counted the hands. One two three four. Four of them. Then he counted the heads. "Hold still!" he shouted. Four heads. Only four. "Stop smiling at me!" With four heads there must be at least double the number of hands! He looked at the two appendages at the end of his own arms, wiggling the fingers to be sure they were his. "I knew your grandmother," he told them. "She had five fine hands. Twenty fingers. Five thumbs. She'd knit up a storm, she would. But where are your five?" He aimed a long, hard stare at the four faces, then he closed his eyes, trying hard to remember the people he'd shaken hands with in the past, and how many hands they'd had. "Once again, all palms on the glass!" More thoughts of the grandmother. Would she visit them? One two three four. "Stop smiling, I beg you! And hold those hands still!" He counted again, but something of the scene unsettled him. "Please!" he called out, "this is a solemn ceremony. Stop smiling or the scéance will never work!"

Story #356

Thanks for all the stories! They'll be reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com later.

It was worse at parties, when he tried to chat up someone, anyone. He discovered invariably that his verbal interaction was out of synch with the world around him.

"That's a nice dress you're wearing."

"I don't like Kafka."

"Well, it accentuates your shoulders."

"So, you're a laptop."

And so on. In fact it seemed that he and the others carried on different sides of different conversations. It wasn't fatal, because it was never all that important what he said, anyhow. No lives hung in the balance, except his own. And no one noticed there was fun to be missed in his conversations dangling like Harold Lloyd on a broken clock.

With no one to talk to he obsessed himself with the Internet. Not the chat rooms, no, because there he was only mistaken for a computer bug. He began meta-searches for the statements people said to him and found a cache of old soap opera scripts. It was all there. To the letter. He downloaded the massive files of throwaway words and learned by heart each syllable, practicing in front of the mirror until mastering the shallow nuances. Then he went back to the party.

"How would you like to read the Metamorphasis with me in a bed surrounded by cockroaches, a dish of chocolate covered ants and grasshopper wine to refresh us?"

"I don't like Kafka."

"I think my mind just crashed."

"So you're a laptop."

Story #355

Postscript: For all your scripting needs, please visit Drew's Script-o-Rama!

Lips sought lips, soft, affectionate lips. Breaths passed to and fro in bodies enjoined. Blood swept through veins while unison pleasure swelled into the stellar heavens. The sun shone and stars painted paths across the bodies that drank of each other in ebb and flow of sensation. Sometimes, in a lull, as breasts caught the shade of a moon, Consiva sketched a letter in her mind:

My far off Sisters,
We made our decision to win what reprieve we could for our world by infiltrating the new wave of colonies. Here now slumber our seeds of unanimous womanhood. Though our deception has diluted us into the galaxy, we remain one in the strength of our idea. At night, when I glance at the stars, I wonder which of these shine closest to you. Perhaps the light I see is only an echo of suns already destroyed, and soon the entire universe will be in darkness, unless we were in time to shroud the madness. For now we must enjoy our moments of splendor, giving ourselves to our gender as openly and naturally as befits the love that is our legacy. This is what we shall sow.
Yours truly,
Consiva

The welling emotions led to a touch and once again the lull succumbed to selfless passion... And so the days, weeks and years passed. Consiva and her colony thrived on each other. Each day awoke new senses of feminine companionship, togetherness, oneness. A held hand, a mutual embrace, caresses felt in the brain. They shared lavishly of themselves, of their tenderness, of their beings. They worshipped the magic of wombs able to bear fruits, fruits that could grow and develop and in their turn partake of the pleasures bequeathed them. But there would be no seeds swelling into lives. When the men came in twenty years to collect the soldiers, they would find only the women's love. The bloody war to enslave the galaxy would collapse and wither into an oblivion of the unborn.

Story #354

This is a sequel to story #353. Thanks to everyone who contributed their creativity. These will all be reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com in the next days.

The women's chamber might have been a bedroom in a house of plaster walls and painted shutters. The entire spaceship was made to look homey, a way to keep the travelers relaxed during the interstellar prelude to the hard work of colonization. Now it was night and time to sleep, though it was always night on their journey past glowing novas and shooting asteroids. The girls mused over the colony they would form with Captain Consus as guardian. They were to share him as a mate.

- He's so handsome.
- That sweet, boyish face!
- He gave me orders this morning, and his hand brushed mine!
- I want to be first with him!
- We can't all be first.
- Can't we?

Consus listened secretly over the master intercom, the feminine voices twining in and out of his fantasies. In and out. He was quite excited about the idea of six willing women on a planet they'd have all to themselves. Winning the assignment had required countless favors and bribes, as well as forged papers. He'd even had to give himself to a few men along the way to have them slip his application higher in the queue of prospective captains, and to turn a blind eye to any disqualifying details. He shuddered with disgust at the memory of that, but there had been no other way. And there he now lay in his segregated cabin, staring dreamily beyond the walls of the vessel towards the planet of their future habitation. He lay dozing in bed as the chatter of his promised harem swirled weightlessly about him.

Following landfall the six ladies gathered in the clearing to await consummation of the agreed duties. The captain approached still in uniform, face lighting beatifically at sight of his waiting flock. "You won't change your mind, will you?" he asked with a shy smile that stroked each and every one of them. They nodded their assent. As he opened his uniform the ladies realized the colony would take a new direction. The suit slid away to reveal the body of a woman. Consiva was her name.

Story #353

Postscript: I changed Consa's name to Consiva. I simply had to. It's so perfect. Story #354 is a sequel to this.

I stumbled upon an incredible blog with impressive poetic prose: "ritual acts with penquins" by Cocaine Jesus. You have to read him.

The Skybot X3000 landed following a successful mission in the air. Its ion brain emitted thought after thought in programmed efficiency, replaying its actions of the last hours. Binary insights passed in review like footsteps on stepping stones. Beside the ability to reason, the X3000 was a master of critical analysis:

- You released all the devices.
- They crumbled the structures.
- Static and organic.
- A perfect mission.
- Monumental achievement.
- ***classify emotion***classify emotion***
- Internal state is pleasant.
- ***final warning***reload ammo cache***

...which was of course why the Skybot X3000 had touched down. The X3000 itself was a perpetual, self-winding entity of lasting endurance, but eventually the ammunition must be replenished. That was the one drawback of the fully automatic pilots, skirting the heavens, scanning the ground for targets to reform. Otherwise they could stay in the air for years, holding the war, while the parties at home joyed on. Some argued that the automatic warriors degraded the value of life, but the complex mechanisms were developed at such a high expense of both money and human effort, that others argued it proved the value of those lives it touched.

Story #352

Thanks for all the contributions! Stories have been reposted at indererminacies.blogspot.com.

Postscript: I've finally begun reorganizing the links in my sidebar. This is just a start, until I refine the categories. Probably some of the links could be in a better category. All feedback is welcome!

Monday's Postscript: I noticed that some blogs I thought I linked to are not in my link list. I'm trying to fix this. But if anyone notices that they are not linked and would like to be, please leave a message about it or send me a mail. I've always tried to link back to the blogs that linked to me. But I sometimes didn't catch sight of it.

Gregor waded into the depths, beginning his recitation of Goethe as he spied the dual divas of the reef.

"The water rushed, the water swelled, a fisher sat on shore..."

No amphibian femme could resist the tones of that poem, even transplanted from its Teutonic nuances. They turned in his direction.

"...out of the moving waters flowed a lady of the deep..."

Despite the softened sounds, the guttural decadence remained in all its tempting implications. They were listening.

"...she sang to him, she spoke to him, why do you tempt my kind..."

Yes, this was his favorite poem of seduction. It never failed to intoxicate the gaze, or to senusalize the sighs of his female listeners. His audience hovered almost within reach, watching him intently.

"...if you but knew our blissful life, our comfort here below, you'd dive to us, just as you are, and with us you would flow..."

Learn one poem well, he had always believed, and with it you can sooth her into succumbing. Always.

"...does not the glowing sun partake as does the moon of me..."

It will even work on several girls at once, each of the playful natures outdoing the next in daring and precociousness. He noticed their smiles shining through the brine.

"...his heart beat faster yearningly, as for his dearest's kiss..."

That passage, and the image of pleasures to come, always whisked his breath away, and now was no different. Underwater, however, was not the optimal place for this to occur. He'd already breathed quite heavily during the recitation, and now the tank had no breaths left to surrender. His delivery faltered abruptly. He began waving his arms, signaling frantically to the water divas. But his sign language was foreign to them. Confused yet playful, they repeated some gangsta signs they had seen at a beach party, but he no longer saw. His final thought faded with the closing passage -

"...she drew him in, he sank to her, was never seen again."

Story #351

Gerard has written his own story to this picture - it turned out really great!

The poem I used here in my own (partial) translation is Goethe's "The Fisher" - I made my translation before reading any others. This page shows the German original, and links to five different English translations (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Still another translation by Emily Ezust may by found here. Which one do you like best? My favorite is the Zeydel translation, but each poet excelled with different passages.

Soon. Soon I will be ready. I collected them one by one, fragments and scraps of stray sensibility drifting by in the electrical air, feelings feminine, tenses masculine. I shuffled these splinters intensely for the synthesis of what they will be. I sense it now growing within me, building to crescendo, edging the complex climax into its catalytic moment, that aureate fusion of the shards. Then I will feel it, then I will show it to all who see me, shuddering into outburst, a flash of satin tones, to laugh and cry at once, moved by love and despisement in shimmering hues from fear to serenity. And then, then I will offer myself to the felicitous face that passes with hesitation. Take me down from the wall to be thy mold. Cover thyself with my meticulous emotion, woven in breakable porcelain.

Story #350

Thanks for all the stories! They have been reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com.

It's safe to get back into the shower! The amazing Inspector Poirot has solved the mystery, so we can all rest easier knowing what really happened to Little Bar of Soap. Incidentally, this has to be the most impressive post I've read in ages, I'm talking on a divine level, seriously (and no, I'm not Poirot).

I am also going to end my period of mourning and start posting again. Tonight I will post a photo for the weekend, for another round of weekend stories. I hope all of you regulars and not yet regulars will have time to contribute stories!

Postscript: According to blogger, this is my 400th post! Of these posts, 349 have been stories in the Indeterminacy series. I began this blog in mid-August, 2004. Some incidental synchronicity: today was the day of Dddragon's 350th post. I wonder if this is a sign...