The moon broke from the ebony sky and free fell down to Earth. People were too occupied with their night-time rushing to notice, but Meana and her friend saw. It passed clean through the plate glass window of the restaurant they sat in, merging atoms briefly with the pane but without cracking a splinter of glass or making the merest of sounds. It hovered then, that glowing orb, near the ceiling of the room, contained to the size of a beach ball, but not everyone realized that the heavenly miracle had occurred. The waiter passed by and did not look up. The other guests did not turn their heads to see. Only Meana and her friend noticed the attention of the celestial body as it paid its tribute. Meana saw a face in the moon, serene, beatific, and a smile forming on the countenance, casting its illumination over her. She returned her own smile, casting it upwards. Her friend began to dream with eyes unsleeping - her bed was on the wrong side of the house, and she never saw the moon in the black sky outside her window, only wished she could. Meana did not have to dream - she'd been in love with the moon since the first time its rays shone into her bed.

Story #381

And now I would like to introduce a new Weblog to you, called Creations of Another Nature. I think you will find there a wonderous merging of images and thoughts. The topmost post at the moment is entitled "Simplicity" - the first word that came to mind when I read through the week's postings. Beauty and elegance in simplicity. If you are feeling disharmonic with the world right now, I think you can cure that by taking some time at Creations...

P.S. Thanks to everyone who shared a story last week!

The lamp crashed to the floor. Jon's stream of consciousness ceased its usual flow. No longer did one word cede to the next in an ongoing sequence of thoughts carried in long, perpetual sentences. Images and smells began to dominate his awareness, and desires were his reactions. The cake. The icing. Salivary glands in full activation. Mmmmm. Eat. Jon began eating. Each bite was a sweet discovery. One bite. Another. Again and again and again. The cake diminished swiftly and was gone.

He scanned the room and saw a multitude of highchairs, each holding the same baby - identical to him, each eating cake, or waiting idly before a plate of crumbs. It was never long before a wave of attendants placed a new cake before each baby, which then responded with a smile and a laugh that came straight from the belly. And then the faces would harden in the concentration of transforming that cake into another plate of crumbs. On and on this would go, through all eternity, with endless indentical blends of flour, eggs, milk and icing. Jon had rubbed the lamp and told the genie: "I want to be young again, live a thousand lives, and have all the cake I can eat."

Story #380

Original Post:

If you have any use for something like Pansi, stop by Pansifiles and offer her a job, something like librarian, or that person at a publishing house that has to read all the manuscripts.

An interesting new (non-partisan) blog project is discussing ways to achieve peace, so check it out and cast your vote on a number of issues.

Constance Kreisel, unsung expert on the science of circles, stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her. Those years of consuming textbook upon textbook of geometry, modern retellings of the ancient Greek hypotheses, had made him aware of more nuances of the curvature than any mathematician alive. And these took form in her.

"Forgive me if I am somewhat forward," he spoke to her as he approached, "but I wish to pay you a compliment." She turned her oval eyes to him and formed her lips into a crescentine smile.

"You remind me distinctly of Pi," he said.

"Thank you. Some boys say I remind them of cherry pie. Which flavor do you like best?"

"I wished to imply it in the mathematical sense - you see, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, as a value, has no precise expression. But it is known as Pi. For my part, I find no words sufficient to fully express your impressions on me. Hence my reference to Pi."

"I'm not used to such intellectual conversations with the boys I meet. What's your name?"

Constance was too enamored to answer. "I like apple pie best," he told her instead, his gaze swimming in the circular symmetry of her face.

"So do I!" she winked, "But please tell me more about Pi."

The invitation ignited a blaze within him. His eyes strayed over her bodily contour as he struggled to retain control of his concentration. He expounded the theory of calculus, with theorems read from her curves. Back and forth he paced like a lecturer in slow and erratic half-orbit around her. She stood enthralled as he delved past differentials and into integrals. As he spoke he scanned the subtle convexity of her hindmost region. From there his gaze slid upwards along the concave arc of her nether back, to linger on the slight cove beneath her shoulders. He explained the theories of volume, her attention entirely his. The rising slopes familiar on the upper torso of females glowed through the twofold coverings she bore - one of her pink blouse and subsequently of her amply long hair dangling like loose strands of an ellipsoid. This he saw, and more. Inspired he was now, to define her form as an equation of irrational numbers: with divisions by zero, and square roots of negative values - a coup in numeric expression! He longed to hear her voice again but realized he must stop talking first.

"That was beautiful what you shared with me. I'm actually quite interested in math, especially in the application of vector algebra to spatial displacement!" she said, looking straight into his eyes - "Would you like to get into that?"

He glanced briefly heavenward, perhaps on an impulse of gratitude towards the God of Mathematics. It was then that he spotted the balloons fixed to the wall near the ceiling. They were perfect. One a deep blue. The other lavender. Twins of mismatched color and size.

"Excuse me," he told the girl. "But I just recalled a prior engagement." He nodded a quick farewell, then brushed past her, straight to the balloons, which he dismounted from their position to take with him as he left the room. He returned home and slipped into bed, embracing the bulbous forms as if they were teddy bears. He slept that night content in his warm bed, dreaming of inflatable spheres.

Story #379

Thanks Cheesemeister for your story! Anyone else with a spontaneous idea: more are welcome!

P.S. Go over to Pansifiles. The Pansi dolls are trying to find jobs or something.

Badgered, bothered and belittled by those around him, not to mention the mugging and maltreatment, Harvey had had enough! The worst of them was Bill, that proverbial bully and sand-kicker, that brute who had dogged his path through high school, and now even worked in the same office with him. That day at work was especially rude - Bill had ridiculed him behind his back, and even the boss had laughed. Now Harvey wanted satisfaction. He paged through the telephone book, hoping to find something that could hurt Bill, when his glance fell upon the ad for Dial-a-Witch. "Love trouble? Want riches? Enemies to deal with? Dial-a-Witch is the magic for you. Full-service conjuring! Curses removed and reinstated! Homeopathic spells. All services affordable! Open Halloween only!"

"This is what I need!" - he told himself - "This is exactly what I need!" Visions of supernatural torture with Bill as the recipient danced jigs around his head as he rang up the number. "Trick or treat?" came a sultry female voice at the other end.

"Yes, please!" Harvey answered.

A moment later a puff of sweet-smelling smoke billowed out of nowhere and when it cleared, he saw the witch, sultry as her voice on the phone, standing before him. Harvey eyed her from the tip of her black hat, all the way down her black satin robe to her pointy black shoes and back up the broomstick. She lowered the broom, showing a face he'd have sold his soul for - to the lowest bidder, even!

"What can I do for you?" she asked, looking Harvey square in the face, an action that always made him stutter.

"I-I have an enemy I'd like dealt with. His name is B-B-Bill. Can you t-turn him into s-something awful?"

"Like a toad, perhaps?" Harvey liked the way she said it. Decisive. She knew exactly what to do, then again, she was a professional witch.

"Yes, a toad, with leprosy," he said, regaining some composure.

"And crooked legs?"

"And warts and shingles and dysentery and allergic to lily-pads!" His imagination was on a roll.

"My, you certainly are vindictive," she commented, laughing from behind the broom.

Harvey blushed. "He's my worst enemy!"

Again her laugh, hidden by the broom. "Why are you hiding your face?" Harvey asked her.

"It's so sensual when I laugh," she giggled, "I don't want to give you any ideas."

She waved a hand in the air, spoke an incantation, then snapped her fingers, studying Harvey after she'd finished.

"So it's done now?" he asked, somewhat confused. He had expected something more spectacular, like a sudden explosion and Bill the Decrepit Toad appearing at his feet.

"It's done," she said and smiled without laughing - which, by the way, looked very nice to Harvey.

"Will I be able to afford this?"

"Some Halloween candy is all I want."

Harvey grabbed a handful of goodies from the Halloween bowl and let them fall into her open palm: chocolates, jelly beans and assorted bonbons. "And there's no catch?" he asked

"Oh, that. I'm afraid there is..." At this Harvey's jaw dropped. She went on: "These days, we witches have to be psychologists, too. Your worst enemy is not Bill, it's you. You see Harvey, you're too timid, and people walk all over you. But I've solved your problem. Each day you must do one bold thing, or you yourself will turn into the toad we talked about."

"Oh no! Please! I can't! I couldn't! Turn Bill into the toad. Not me!" - but somehow he knew it was over, and that nothing he could say would sway her.

"Oh, incidentally, it's almost midnight, so you better start right away!" she added, and purred her magic giggle, face veiled by the broom.

Harvey wasn't sure himself what came over him then. He brushed the broom aside, grabbed the witch by both shoulders, pulled her near and kissed her open lips. Just as he felt that pleasant tingling of a kiss returned, her firmness dissolved into smoke, lips and all.

"I'm a very good witch," he heard her laugh from someplace distant, fading into the midnight silence of Halloween.

Story #378

Happy Halloween! Also: last year's Halloween story, and the year before.

It's been quite an intensive month for me life-wise, which has left me in the last couple of weeks with very little mind for writing stories. Already I am two stories in debt, the story for the previous photo (#376) and the story for #370. November should be back to abnormal, so please bear with me. A warm thank you to everyone who took the time to click by here, and especially for enriching this domain of 24 letters with your comments and stories! (Really, I counted them "indeterminacy.blogspot.com" has 24 letters. Who would have thought?)

Last but not least: a salute to the prolific blogger with a wry sense of humor who is Tom & Icy, Lammy, Lula, the Alien Guy, the Dog-Faced Alien Girl, Dusty Doggy, the Devil, and really more people, creatures and beings than I can keep track of, but it's so much fun to try - thank you for sharing your awe-inspiring creativity with us! There are more worlds in Ohio than one might imagine. Enjoy your well-deserved break, and don't be a stranger, and know that we will all be right back there to see you, at whatever time, space or domain you appear.

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?

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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.