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Hey Dok, Mike from upstairs at IBM here. I tried sending this via an e-mail and couldn't find the server? So, here is something I started to write under the influence a few years back - you probably got not time to read it, especially in this unergonomic fashion, but, hey, it made me laugh when I found it last night - Fairytale Jack Introduction Jack Spritely, clad in black, had made off with the jewellery box belonging to Princess Beatrice of Northumbria. This course of events did not disturb the waves of cosmic energy which flowed through time to manifest materiality in conjunctions of joining and splitting, but it did put the nose of one soothsayer, called Doug, out of joint. He had mapped the chaotic splurge of disparate energies in recent times as they unravelled in history, and saw that a unique opportunity was about to occur. A cliched character such as Spritely ruining the act by doing what he always did, steal, disturbed Doug more by his failure to predict it than the inevitable consequences to come. Such a blind spot revealed that his own involvement was less than amorally pure, his judgement unsound and his own location in relation to chaos uncertain. Doug pondered again the possibility of fate, as he twirled the intestines of the small monkey he held under his splayed left hand in his right hand and squeezed the bubbles of goo. "If I could squeeze out my own source I would!" Doug smirked at the grimacing monkey in response to his own pun. The monkey knew humour but was experiencing only intensely bright flashes in its cognition. "But at least if I know someone else's I can devise an antidote ... " His wiry body turned like a mannequin on wheels within his sewn leather cloak as he dropped the animal's innards and turned to his bench. The bench was hard knotted wood, and beyond the animate knowledge of Doug knew its own history. On it now stood glass, metal and ceramic trinkets, some containing liquids, others with powders. They related to each other like the jewellery on the fat neck of a trader's wife. Some of it was real toxic and burning stuff though, as the bench knew, and could also create a stink or smoke. "To act without acting; yet I heard through a man and must act through a man. To be again, by bringing another back to what I know, but by using their power and not my own. A hypocritical sleight of hand that in power politics means that what I thought was far is near and what would not be will come after me. This language suits cutting", said Doug raising shears from a pile of sheets of paper at the back of the desk, "because it needs cutting through." He showed the fingertips of his left hand to his face, peered with his eyes, and gripped tighter as he opened the shears and brought the tip of the blade to his hand. His mind filled with the garbled language of hysteria and panicked emotion as he programmed his body to adjust the paper on the bench, after he dropped the shears, and held the pouring drops on his left index finger steady as he lowered his hand. With a sharp intake of oxygen through his nostrils, Doug scrawled slowly in scratching daubs as he held the paper steady with his firm arm. He had never been good with pain, but he enjoyed the exercise in concentration. His point of focus was coming out of a confusion of mind, however. A mind too garbled to recognise that the energy which stirred through his presently stiff bowels was not the one he had named earlier through the monkey's pupils, nor the ones he had drawn in symbols on and through various mediums in the past. Nor was it the energy which directed his hand now while his eyes watched in gleeful agreement. The blood he had drawn, his own blood with which he had drawn, was laced and directed toward an end not deemed in the words which held it in form. But the sparkle in Doug's eye was genuine. The physical stirring of forces which accompanied and carried such acts was why he did it. An overcoming of frustration exactly like masturbation. Meanwhile, according to the cliche, Jack Spritely was away with the jewels that belonged to the Princess and off into the forest. The King's Guard, of course, are in pursuit, lead by a hero, by the name of Garwin. The Princess jokingly calls him 'Darling' with a south eastern accent. It sounds patronisingly like his own name, but in a derogatively gender specific form from the backward land of shipyards, lumberjacks and pixies to the south of Northumbria. Funnily enough, Garwin's mother is from the south, from Jukpet, a region full of animal loving witches and artists. It is just in from the coast, and makes up most of the beginning of the highlands and the lower highlands at the base of a mountain range which creates rain for the east and south east coast. The mountain range extends north and inland to the western edge of Northumbria. Wetlands, rivers and patches of forests and syndicalist freehold farmlands make up the region between the Kingdom of the monarchy to the north and the southern continent, known by its regions. Jack Spritely was heading for a southern coastal region where he thought he could trade the jewels for a ship. Such cities and fortress industrial cities could be found on the lower south east coast. The law did exist, but so did paperwork, translators and treaties. It was possible to find someone who had come into a lot of wood, already owned a shipyard, and knew a couple of families who would work for food and build ships until the ships could be sold and they would receive a share of the profits. Such a person would prefer coins, as anyone would, but would probably be flexible in trading labour as goods for goods without cash. Crews for a small ship would also be available in such a city. There was lots of good wood and plenty of wide ocean, with lots of known islands beyond the coastline. People with other languages and other knowledge and technologies beyond the horizon. Spritely knew some smattering of more than common language, but was better with his hands. And amongst the jewel box that had once belonged to Princess Beatrice, when it was to join her on her wedded way to the southern region of Magneum, was a platinum fan of thin eyeglasses that could translate the twelve languages he had heard of and thirty two others. Simply by waving and holding the appropriate leaf of the fan over an inscription, with the common language eyeglass-leaf held parallel and above the appropriate leaf, the word or phrase or sound meant by the inscription could be read by peering through the two eyeglass leaves. Handy in foreign places. Three of the eyeglasses magnified. When the fan was fully extended the thin platinum frame and paper thin glass could catch the light with a smatter of sparkling glitter. Jack Spritely had not felt his heart race with such a fast flutter as when he first held it to the sky since he was fourteen. Then he had stolen a golden ring from a fat troll. Now he had a priceless and useful possession with a fair chance of escape to an unknown beyond. And he knew a few people and creatures on the way. Patterns are finities - cut - broken-crossed wires: flow Book One: Spells The cheeks on the face of the poor princess simply reddened with rage, and puffed and swelled, as she stomped about her thinking chamber. Her shaman, the kind old Herbert was there, as was her father, the King, with his long beard resting in knots on his barrel chested armour. The King stood beside the solemn shaman, hands clasped behind his back, feet apart, occasionally swaying back towards the quilted lounge behind him. His nature could not understand why he could not sit while watching his spoilt daughter rage at him for inviting a thief to perform at her wedding party. The shaman had not known of the surprise, and while in the employ of the King had to defend him. He would rather have stabbed the fool between the ribs on the spot. Beatrice must have somehow sensed this, as she turned to Herbert as an ally in calling on her father to extend his powers in seeking redress. "Tell him it's worth the money, Herbert," she managed to yell sternly, with just a hint of a squeal, "the idiot must understand that." "Your father understands the economics of gold quite well dear Beatrice, but we must love him for his ignorance in pride of dignity as a commodity." Herbert stated, as he turned with his rabbit eyes and a waving hand to meet the raised eyebrows of the old man, who had instinctively reached for his sword hilt. All three were jittery. The King tapped his leather bound hilt and lowered his brow, thinking of the smell of stale death and lost trust. Herbert flashed his serious face back towards the pacing Beatrice; "The matter of calling the Riven is not for him just an economic one, but one of a promise to the people, the peasants, your servants." "Thank you for pleading for him Herbert.

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BABE!!! loooooooooove the bit on ur office!!(bty....between u and me.... when can i get my ass on ur photocopier?????) George

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Well. Well Well what have we here?? You'll hear from my laywers in the morning ]:<

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Hey Dok, The page is expanding in gloriousness!! Very impressed - have spent over an hour in it on this surf: I was excited to hear of your upcoming festivities; party or some such - if you could send me details, great, otherwise I'll be harrassing you in the halls of the work enclave. All the best.

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hello chicky, i'm amazed that with your past you'd think it wouldn't come back to haunt you.