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.