The universe wants to play with you (part 33)

My dearest Hawthorn, I offer you my humblest apologies for my disappearance for the last 15 months. Time has treated me badly and I often had no idea when I was. One of the reasons for not writing is I was travelling around the parts of Europe that were previously part of the Soviet Empire, looking for something or someone, I wasn't sure. Still not sure now.

The universe wants to play with you (32)

Pointless action. Useless words. Voodoo death. Or something else.

Stood in the rain, waiting for Aaron and Merl. Pissed off by the briefing in the hotel; pissed off by having to talk to a supposed expert pathologist at tea who could only say, "Well, the head was definietely severed by something blunt; pissed off by the lack of organisation, a reason for being here and the need to have another meeting at 8am. Where's the Chinese woman?

The universe wants to play with you (part 31)

As promised, here's my report on the last few days:

About ten days ago, there was vague talk of a heightened security risk, a coming event. It wasn't transmitted in a memo or email but casually, almost imperceptibly, from person to person. It seems to have gone round everyone, from the top (operational rather than  figurehead) to me. No one could say what it was about but it hung in the air. I took it as a sign of something that was going to happen.

The universe wants to play with you - Full version

The complete text (so far...), unencumbered by photos. Print it out and read it in the bath. Don't let your servants read it though...

 

 

The universe wants to play with you Retro 2014 Spectacular! Parts 11-20

 THE UNIVERSE WANTS TO PLAY WITH YOU 11-20

 

The universe wants to play with you Retro 2014 Spectacular! Parts 1-10

 THE UNIVERSE WANTS TO PLAY WITH YOU 1-10

 

The universe wants to play with you (part 30)

For fuck's sake, Roland, what was the point of this?
                                                                                 

Look, it wasn't meant to happen like this. They were playing three-way chess in the car and it was only when they hear the woman on her cell that they realised they'd missed someone. They were just a bit, er, over enthusiastic.

Trying to drag someone into a car isn't overenthusiastic, it's stupid and dangerous. I thought you'd learned your lesson after last week's fiasco.
                                                                        Come on, that was a genuine misunderstanding.

The universe wants to play with you (part 29)

From Fernanda to Anya, from a puzzle piece to the puzzle solver, from the... I'm sure you get the idea by now.

Anya, half Hungarian, half New Zealander, all crazy, with a mind that works quite differently to everyone else.

I know exactly when I first met her, I was 20 and pregnant, she was 16 with an attitude like a diamond, I was queuing up in the toilets at a gig in London, sporting an impressive bump which appeared to be invisible to everyone else who was waiting. Anya, wearing pink leggings and a kilt around her neck like a shawl marched to the front and clapped her hands and howled like a lone wolf with toothache. Despite the hubbub, they all stopped talking while she growled slowly in her strange accent of kiwi mixed with Hungarian, "There's a pregnant woman waiting here, why don't you let her go first, you self centred bitches," it even felt as if the music went quieter.

The universe wants to play with you (part 28)

Driving away from the bus stop with Corrado in the back, it struck me how odd this all was, not so much someone falling through space, seen that and done it but the fact it should have been him who turned up. Now that's weird synchronicity.

But it was the dwarves that was most weird - what was that about? How were they waiting there? And why dwarves? There's something we don't know and I don't like that.

With one bound...

My last blog post evidently came across as quite negative, judging by some of the feedback I got. This was unintentional and was probably because it was going to be a long involved piece but I ran out of time and lost patience with it and just shoved it up.

And that is the beauty and, perhaps, the point of blogs...as if there needs to be one.

The universe wants to play with you (part 27)

TRANSCRIPT

 

Location: A suite of rooms underground in Wellington.

Attendance: Sir Ray Bergquist, chair, New Zealand Intelligence and Security Forum;

Roland Auger, Human Liaison representative for the New Zealand  National Dwarf Association;

Olwen Rees, Secretary, Dwarf Liberation Movement.

 

Distractions

The Distractions - Time goes by so slow

Not that kind of distraction, good though it is.

The universe wants to play with you (part 26)

Text Epistles

 

Aaron, I'm going to be in dunedin tonight

and tomorrow. doing some secret government

work. I'll need some help from u n merl. I'll ring.

G

 

The universe wants to play with you (part 25)

We've found the head.

Quigg felt as if it was him who'd gone into another dimension. The 'investigation' was so strange, like a circus, dozens just milling around in a supposed top secret national security case, a mixture of people who seemed unlikely investigators and some straight out of central cop/agent casting. The American wasn't an American; he was an Australian, Ray Bergquist, the replacement for the unfortunate Dame Gunnarson.

The universe wants to play with you (part 24)

What does weirdness smell like? Sanders asked me yesterday. I had to think about it, ignoring the woman on TV demonstrating a revolutionary new vacuum cleaner, 'Well. I think it's like this, everything strange that has happened to me has had an associated smell, more than a smell I suppose, a taste, a sound, an odd visual feeling but there's more, something intangibly tangible'.

He burst out laughing but it's true. It's just hard to explain. I was thinking of this after I'd got home from work, sitting on the sofa, drinking hot chocolate, cat on my lap, just staring into space (and time) waiting for them to stare back at me.

The universe wants to play with you (part 23)

Walking back into his house, Corrado Fenn was in a good mood, the lecture went well, he'd sold 15 copies of his books at ten pounds each and he'd smooth talked one of his admirers to drive him home so he could avoid the tube.
Sometimes, talking in public was a chore that couldn't be avoided, leaving him flat, other times like tonight, he felt inspired; even now a couple of hours later, after midnight, he was ready to do some writing when normally he'd be asleep.

The universe wants to play with you (part 22)

The Babble-on working
8.15 am Dunedin

A man in his early 60s walking two dogs through the park, heading toward the road, passed by young woman carrying gym bag, in shorts, running vest and trainers, turns to admire her rear and carries on. Lots of school children on both sides of road. Beginning to cross the road, the dogs, Azmud and Dumi, pulling on their harnesses, growling, drooling, baring their teeth, straining to get at a package wrapped in black bin bags on the other side, their owner tugging back hard. Police car driving towards them, pulling up on the left, Senior Sargent Pat Marker and Constable Dwayne Fraenkel get out.

The universe wants to play with you (21)

The darkness, tiredness, soullessness and accumulated crap of all the years of lies and deceit had lifted away from Gillespie, like an old coat thrown in the corner of the room.

 

It didn't even matter that he had hardly slept,

energy fired inside him, sparking off a host of plans, including some clever sabotage ideas; none of this was a way to make amends, as the past was done and over but wherever he might end up had to be an improvement.

As he showered, ate and dressed, he had music blasting out loud through the house, not something he'd done for years, part of the process of draining the poison out of himself. By 8.30, he spoken to both Aaron and Merlin about different things he needed them to do but mainly to slough off any possible backlash from what he'd said to them the day before.

 

The universe wants to play with you (20)

After Hawthorn left, Sanders decided it was time for sleep as he was working at 10.

He woke up at 8 and, first things first, went outside on the front deck for a smoke. Luckily, it was hidden by trees from the neighbours so no-one could see his spunk stained boxers or his rather neat Zappa t-shirt.
Sitting down, he thought he head a faint voice; he listened, couldn't hear anything but then heard something like a croaky whisper, 'Oi fuckface, are you ignoring me?'

The universe wants to play with you (19)

Hawthorn and Sander's big (half) day (in and) out.