<< BACK TO RS001 LOG ._________________________._________________________. / /^\ \ / /^^\ ^^\ \^^\ \^^ \_/ /\ \ / /____\ ____\ \__\ \___ / \\/ /_/ /^^\ / \ /^^\ /^^\ /^^ .___ \___ \___/ \ ___\ \__/\ / \ \__/ \__/ \ / \__/ \__ .___/ \ _________________________________________________________________/ Wake up, turn over and spoon for a bit. Realise it isn't her, warm cuddly alien, the little green man I made to slip between my legs when my back was aching. Grey, really, big almond-shaped eyes. Where is she then? Blur open my eyes, see a fluffy white tail disappear behind the door. All white, wasn't it? She's feeling playful then, frisky. I decide to turn Tether on right then... Tethered. Tethird. The Third. +) The old man is in his nightgown. Brushed cotton thing, like a long Grandad's shirt. Stepping through the portal from the sleeper, into living space. A glass of orange juice on the table, he looks out through the awning onto the Bounds, some way away, turning in space, flanked by two of the other living quarters: the sleeper & the feeder. The sleepery and the eaterie, he mumbles, and here I be: the room with a view. Someone has left the beaureau open. He walks over to investigate, she's been looking back to 24, left it open at another of those yesterdays: lost and never to be lost. He reads: I am catching birds & boxing them up Pheasants & Pigeons, even an Owl or two~~~ they don't struggle, though occasionally I have to tuck a wing back in as I'm folding shut the lid. I don't want to eat animals anymore. I'm not sure I ever did. Do you ? Do you really want~~~ _want_ to eat animals ? I know it is standard behaviour but I think there must be something wrong with you Perhaps it is me ... It goes on. Gives him some idea of what she might be up to, what she is likely getting at, whether she knows it or not. It'll be one of those days then - a clatter in the kitchen, some sort of commotion in the eaterie - he steps through the portal. A jar of seeds has fallen off a shelf and they've scattered all over the floor. What seeds are they? Inedibles. Black, saddle-shaped, covered in little hooks. He starts to worry now. His big bushy eyebrows take on an aspect of storm cloud. A bit of the blue drains out of his irises and they flash silver for a second. Beyond the Bounds, out on the starless side, a great wash drifts across the void and tints it sky-like. Another haunting. Looking grave, he enters the Vesica and pops up in Utilities, he grabs his staff from the umbrella stand by the bathroom door but his hat isn't on the peg. He sees the lightshow coming from the other side of the screen, is she showering? Love? He asks, peeking around the screen. The cubicle is empty, a Birdonk is feeding its little ones in the twisteerier, and through that he can see the lawn, catches another glimpse of bunny tail rounding the mound of the reed bed. He turns off the lights and when he turns around sees his hat on the back of the toilet. She's fucking with him. He can see himself sat there where he's not. On his throne, feet on the silly black & white warp rug - geeky bit of trompe l'oeil kitsch he got from Ehrlich - dropping the kids off at Sagittarius A* The desert is in his mouth, foul with the morning breath of yore th, forests of giant funghi in his one remaining eye, howling & hacking, purging into the purest of porcelin bowls, refreshing himself from the tear in the corner of the eye of information technology, twirling teacup ride of the real devil's circus - sender and receiver merged in the solo starling's murmuring down the gurning corridors between booms, between doof doof doofs, beyond the transatomic tinnitus of klein's crazy hammock turning the great bag of the old hag outside in again to kiss the maidenhead of eternal bliss, the Source, the fountain - He sits alone on the lover's bench, still beneath the brim of the old one's hat, staff against his knee, wee red-breasted Birdonk sat on the top of it. The blue is back in his eyes and the fox is crossing the arena. He had to keep this little strand back, has to keep his little thread spinning, until she and her sisters are ready to end it. Or ready for it to really begin, whatever it is & is not. But she is better off leaving him to her foxiness, until the princess is strong enough to lift the finger from his lips and give it her own kiss. There she is! Beautiful hare stood proud in the tree's own light on the farthest side of the arena - just out of Bounds! Stops to preen for a moment, takes those ears like eagle's feathers in her gold-skinned shadow woman's crown - then she's off again leaping across the sky inside his mind, leaving strange phorms, little knots in his mane by which he can remember. Remember for her, whenever she thinks it is she has to forget. Keep her safe, Amulet. (There are spiders in my fishing net!)