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Thread: Crazy Talk

  1. #76
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    Somebody!!! Get me a schematic chart!!! A dry erase marker!!

    And a latte! Double whip!!

    Now let's see.

    Hm.


    Boredom.


    Hm. Hm.

    *yawn*


    Hm.


    I think.


    No, that's not right.



    Hm.


    *checks watch*



    Hm.


    Think. think. think.


    Oh!

    No. That's not going to work.


    Hm.


    Um.


    Let me get back to you on that one.

    Agonizing break crumbs make a great party favor

    Stepping stones are painful when passing through the bladder

    Stand by me! Stand by me!!
    Oh wait. I don’t know you!

    Roasted kumquats prevent cavities

    Slowing boiling toaster strudel can be hazardous to your dog’s health

    Itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout
    Down came the hail and flattened the spider out
    Out came his guts all juicy and sublime
    And the itsy bitsy spider’s no longer in my rhyme


    Mary had a little lamb
    With special sauce and a side order of fries

    Cant see over the mountain
    Cant see over the sea
    Cant see over the toothbrush
    And now I have to pee

    You can’t trust pigeons
    Why?
    9 out of 10 dentists say so


    Sticking gumdrops in your ears has the most interesting effects

    Joy to the world
    Geography’s dead

    Maps?? We don’t need no stinkin maps!
    We got string!!

    This just in.
    Blue will now be pink
    Yellow will now be green
    And water buffalo will sing showtunes on Thursdays
    News at 11:00

    Tumbleweeds have feelings too. Hug one today!

    Stationary stations should start stationery statutes. You just can’t have enough matching envelopes.

    Argh!! Said captain catastrophe!! Me parrot swallowed me bandanna

    Watch!

    Wait!!

    See?

    There!

    No! There!!

    There it is again!!

    Air!






    Don't give up to the munchkins!! It's our last hope!! Man the spoon flickers!!!

    stampeding water buffalo make a beautiful pate.



    leprechauns stole my sanity


    fig newtons should be ashamed of themselves



    speaking of telephones why oh why do you never..........uh............hm................ forgot what i was gonna say. nevermind.


    im a cat whisperer.
    i whisper don't pee on my rug
    she pees on my rug and then says "what? speak up. I can't hear you."

    tonth dewpwessthas ma it touth to speth

    jack and jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water
    jack fell down and broke his crown
    and jill laughed her *** off



    open shut them
    open shut them
    give a little clap clap clap

    is that a jingle for an std commercial?


    I thought it was
    then it wasn't
    so i looked it up on Wiki
    Wiki was undecided
    but someone had a nice article about building a retroactive perpetual motion device

    I just wanted a recipe for dumplings.

    Sticks and stones may break my bones.
    Well, actually, yes, that would hurt.

    Seriously,
    Would YOU eat nine day old peas porridge in a pot?

    Hickory dickory dock
    The mouse ran up the clock
    The clock struck one
    The mouse ran down
    Hickory dickory dock

    OOOKKKAAAYYY!!!

    Not much plot
    Hickory dickory dock
    The mouse stir fried in his wok
    The wok burned up
    The mouse threw up
    Hickory dickory dock

    Little Jack Horner
    Sat in the corner,
    Eating a Christmas pie;
    He put in his thumb,
    And pulled out a plum,
    And said 'What a good boy am I!

    Now, let's discuss this.
    His moral identity depends on his ability to stick his thumb in a pie and pull out a piece of fruit. So if he stuck in his index finger and pulled out a watermelon, would he be even better? And what if he stuck in his pinky finger? Does that count on the moral meter? And grapes. Are they also considered moral?
    And what would constitute him being a bad boy? Rhubarb pie? Sticking his foot in?

    Want a hobby? Teach a child that this color
    is blue
    is red
    is yellow
    and is green
    then see what happens

    My favorite book is called Humpty Dumpty Eggsplodes by Kevin O'Malley.
    If you can't traumatize kids with books, then life just isn't worth living.

    Ever watch a kid run into something?
    They bounce.

    My corner is a school bus stop. When the kids board the bus I watch what happens.
    The elementary school kids have their faces plastered against the window mouthing "help!"
    The middle school kids are hugging each other crying
    The high school kids hang their head in resignation.

    Verbally abusing teenagers is ALWAYS fun!

    I'm so tempted to look at a new baby and say "YEAAAAAHHHH! That's an ugly baby!!!"

    All around the mulberry bush
    The monkey chased the weasel. (why? do monkeys hate weasels? do they hunt them? do they eat them?)
    The monkey thought 'twas all in fun. (oh, the monkey is a sadist.........now i get it)
    Pop! goes the weasel. ( egads!! why did the monkey explode??? or did he turn around and punch the monkey??? or did the monkey do something tragic???)
    A penny for a spool of thread, (obviously this is an old rhyme)
    A penny for a needle. (again...........way back when)
    That's the way the money goes. (oh, so now the rhyme is talking about a budget.)
    Pop! goes the weasel. (i see the plot developing. maybe the monkey was chasing the weasel who owed him money and he shot him with a pop gun. its all getting clearer.)
    Up and down the City Road, (so the monkey chased the weasel around town to get his money back)
    In and out of the Eagle, (and in and out of bars)
    That's the way the money goes. (while the weasel ran with the pennies)
    Pop! goes the weasel. (and the monkey shoots at him again)
    Half a pound of tuppenney rice, (here we go with the budget analysis again)
    Half a pound of treacle, (treacle?? is that edible? it sounds like a bridge part)
    Mix it up and make it nice, (so either the monkey killed the weasel and now he's doing a cooking show or hes having an ADD moment and forgot what he was doing.)
    Pop! goes the weasel. (almost seems like a weak after thought at this point)
    why did the old man need to go rolling home?


    Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye,
    Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
    When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,
    Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?
    The king was in his counting house counting out his money,
    The queen was in the parlour eating bread and honey
    The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes,
    When down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose!


    does ANYBODY??!!! see the horror of this rhyme????

    tonight on channel four

    the spca along with the fbi coordinated a sting to catch a mentally ill man who thought he was king. the man caught 24 blackbirds and baked them alive in a pie!! four and twenty bluebirds were rescued and were not harmed.

    in other news a garden maid was severely disfigured when a blackbird swooped down from a tree and bit off her nose. police believe this was a revenge related incident stemming from the four and twenty blackbird murders the same day.

    neighbors have been on the watch, wearing beekeeper masks and scuba equipment, fearing another revenge attack from the blackbird community.

    extra police have been assigned to the neighborhood to watch for any suspicious baking.
    live from channel 6 news....

    three men were spotted rubbing soap on each other in a tub. police identified the exhibitionists as the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. when brought before the judge, they pleaded no contest. the judge shouted TURN THEM OUT KNAVES ALL THREE!

    people in the courtroom had no clue what the judge meant by his charge so they consulted little bo peep who had recently lost all her sheep in a craps game.

    she explained that it all started with humpty dumpty and his equilibrium problem. he also had an addiction to loitering on walls. see humpty had all the horses and cops busy with the glue gun tryna put his head back on. while the kingdom wasnt being watched the three little kittens went on a theft spree, stealing mittens from all the local wally worlds. while they were making a heist, with little kitty masks to hide their identity, the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker decided to form a secret society. they named the secret society RIGHTSIDE IN KNAVES. they wore all their shirts inside out.

    the judge had OCD big time and couldnt stand anybody wearing their clothes inside out. so when he passed sentence on the exhibitionists he was merely screaming FIX YOUR SHIRTS!!

    as for the three little kittens............... they were held up in a cave outside nevada against 30 armed fbi agents. the fbi sent in a battering ram while playing love tunes by janis joplin 48 hours prior to the demolition.

    the kitties were subdued.

    fe fi fo fum i smell the blood of an englishman


    what does the blood of a scotsman smell like?

    I see the moon
    and the moon sees me


    kinda creepy dont ya think? like can he see into the bathroom shower?

    live at the 5 o'clock news

    baby severely injured when he fell out of a tree. even though the parent knew it was a windy day, she put the baby and hi cradle up in the branches of the tree. tragically the bough broke.

    here you can see behind me, the mother being hauled off to jail in handcuffs for child endangerment. the baby who only suffered minor fractures contusions and lacerations was placed in the home of his uncle peter peter pumpkin eater.

    news flash!!!

    peter peter pumpkin eater, the uncle of the child who fell out of a tree last thursday was arrested for unlawful imprisonment. it seems he put his wife in a pumpkin shell and subsequently the baby also. his reason was I COULDNT KEEP HER.

    police are investigating what peter meant by his statement. was his wife trying to run away? did he just not finish his sentence?

    stay tuned for further investigative reports.

    People say “it’s all good.”

    what if its all bad??!!!!

    like what if tiny ninjas with toothpicks are waiting in the walls for me to go to sleep????!!

    and what if cantaloupes are forming armies at this very moment??!!

    and what if snowplows decide to climb mt everest????!!!

    and what if tiny bubbles pop???!!!!

    a lot could happen!!!!!!!!!!!


    no more applesauce

    i dont even like applesauce

    There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
    She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.
    So she gave them some broth, without any bread,
    And whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.


    does anybody see ANYTHING wrong with this picture???!!!!

    mondays child is full of face
    tuesdays child is full of flakes
    wednesdays child is loving and fibbing
    thursdays child hates thanksgiving
    fridays child is kinda lazy
    saturdays child loves too much paisley
    and sundays child gets all the stuff cause their mom loves them better than the other kids

    why do characters who deal with children have to coerce them?

    Barney the Dinosaur: "Won't you say you love me too?" how sad
    Mr Rogers: "Won't you be my neighbor?" again, pathetic


    The Wiggles:
    Where’s Jeff? Is he sleeping outside?
    Where’s Jeff? Has he gone for a ride?
    Where’s Jeff? Is he in the countryside?
    Lookee lookee lookee lookee
    Wy yi yi yi no comment, just creeped out

    I've gotta shake, shake, shake my sillies out,
    Shake, shake, shake my sillies out,
    Shake, shake, shake my sillies out,
    And wiggle my waggles away!

    I've gotta clap, clap, clap my crazies out,
    Clap, clap, clap my crazies out,
    Clap, clap, clap my crazies out,
    And wiggle my waggles away!

    I've gotta jump, jump, jump my jiggles out,
    Jump, jump, jump my jiggles out,
    Jump, jump, jump my jiggles out,
    And wiggle my waggles away!

    I've gotta yawn, yawn, yawn my sleepies out,
    Yawn, yawn, yawn my sleepies out,
    Yawn, yawn, yawn my sleepies out,
    And wiggle my waggles away!

    I've gotta shake, shake, shake my sillies out,
    Shake, shake, shake my sillies out,
    Shake, shake, shake my sillies out,
    And wiggle my waggles away,
    And wiggle my waggles away!



    what does a waggle look like?

    wait..........

    don't answer that

    im gonna ask strangers to wiggle my waggle away

    what if a waggle is a vital body part?
    if you wiggle it away you might die

    and truly...........

    can you really clap a crazy out?

    seems like that would close down the pill industry

    and wouldn't you look crazy standing there clapping like mad??

    kinda defeats the whole clapping the crazy away

    and if you can yawn your sleepies out then you can give up sleeping. just think how much free time you can have.

    John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
    His name is my name too
    When ever we go out
    The people always shout
    There goes
    John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt


    shouldn't that be there goes john jacob jingleheimer schmidts?


    i always wanted to have a name with a string of consonants like schlwthfsls.

    hi my name is ms schlwthfsls.

    i bet you couldnt say that without spitting.

    or with a mouth full of sunflower seeds

    mr wlkejrofsdi, pronounced 'Smith your table is ready

    mr jrlwskygy pronounced jones your table has been given away to some guy who cant pronounce phonic sounds correctly

    its HOWDY DOODIE TIME!!!

    is that how its spelled?


    because if thats how its spelled



    well we call you know what doodie



    so is the show saying hi (you know what)

    is the show about potty training?????!!!!!


    Day - o! Day a a- o! Daylight come and me wanna go home. Come Mr. Taliman tally me banana. Daylight come and me wanna go home.



    huh?

    Oh wait!! I get it! It's Mr. Tally Man!! And the dude with the accent needs to know how much the banana costs. And after he finds out how much the banana costs, he can go home.



    It only took me 30 years to figure that one out.
    You know............I would've just drowned Gilligan.

    Then I would've made a boat out of two radio receiver coconuts and sailed back to Hawaii.

    Seriously! Was it truly THAT difficult????



    Politics
    I vote for the maybe party.
    This U.S. President vetoed a law giving full parental rights to chicken farmers over their livestock.
    Beep!!
    Yes, Ted.
    Who is Count Chocula?
    Correct!


    Religion
    Holy Peeps - An online discussion forum for canaries and songbirds who want to discuss God

    Literature
    To be or not to be– that is the question:
    Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
    The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
    Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
    And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep
    No more – and by a sleep to say we end
    The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
    That flesh is heir to – ‘tis a consummation
    Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep
    To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
    For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
    When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
    Must give us pause.
    Translation please.
    I have issues. I want to die. But I also want to dream. So I guess if I die I won't be dreaming. So maybe I could sleep really soundly. Or die for a little while but can be resuscitated, you know like have an out of body experience and then I could tell everyone about that dream I had. But I have to put myself on pause now (possibly to go to the bathroom?)








    i aint therefore i isn’t


    Random questions and answers

    the answer is c bob.

    correct!!

    live walruses do not text

    a) asparagus
    b) the statue of liberty
    c) johannesburg south africa
    d) turtle wax
    b) d

    do they just put the turtles in a blender and wait till a paste forms??


    live on channel 8

    dead pigeons



    wouldnt that be dead on channel 8?


    a a and a penguin went into a bar.........

    love shack baby!!

    huh?



    the sasquatch are coming!! the sasquatch are coming!!!



    its the thought that counts


    Dust bunnies are procreating their species every 12 seconds.

    fireworks rock!


    i can sleep with my eyes open...........



    watch..........

    here come the reindeer!!


    i found out

    cant for the life of me think of it

    cant for the death of me forget it
    cant for the unconscious of me maybe it
    cant for the drunk of me not slur it
    too bad i aint drunk
    so if you drank alchohol your drunk



    if you eat food are you ate?
    bananas are our friends
    people just do not see the humor in mailboxes
    i killed a mailbox once
    it angered me
    tazers are our friends
    tazers should be used on anyone who asks a stupid question
    can you tell me where

    what was i saying
    i talk to crawfish


    they talk back
    pillows cry
    sheeps snort water!!
    why dont we sleep with our hands and feet up in the air?
    sheep dont eat shrimp
    sheep dont eat shrimp
    sheep dont eat shrimp




    no more waffles
    people talk to cantalopes because they listen
    pickles for everyone!!

    jalapenos for no one!
    my tableware left on vacation
    the letter q feels lonely
    do sheep count sheep to sleep?
    do sheep sleep with their feet in the air to sleep?

    elephants told me they voted last year
    little bo peep lost her sheep

    did she go looking for them like god?
    god likes details
    if you throw a ball way up in the air and it never comes down does god intercept it?
    i bet god plays a mean game of basketball. he probably scores every time
    does god were sneakers?

    why did the basketball cross the road?
    the answer is c, bob


    correct!! for 600 points
    road warrior??


    why are you fighting the road??

    did it do something to you?
    i can see him

    sword in hand

    dodging the semis


    saying


    take THAT!!

    and THAT!!

    beating it to a pile of gravel


    ok what was i talking about??

    just kidding


    dont beat me!!!!


    my cat texted your cat
    im sending you a bill

    contrary to popular belief it is NOT further to new york or by boat


    there will be a short news break on the hour for the president of the united states to apologize for stating such a way out there statement


    thank you


    Hah!!!! Somebody's been reading law!!

    Or watching Judge Judy.

    are cows holy cause people are always yelling HOLY COW!!

    and what about HOLY CHICKEN!!

    or HOLY PENGUIN!

    there was a sign at the door!!!!

    didnt anybody read the sign??????
    the sign said no eggplant with sticks


    its clearly marked


    its under the sign that says mens bathroom
    dont TOUCH me!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ha!!!!



    dogs fart
    pigeons fly
    birds do bookkeeping

    do you own a llama??
    you seriously need to get that leak fixed
    Warning: this is a thread take over. Pleas do not panic.
    from which orafice is the leak coming from??????????????????????
    RED alert!! READ alert!!! hostile takeover in progress!!!!!


    somebody call the mafia!!!!!

    kiwis eat llamas!!!!
    You don't want to know.... This leak is a bad one....
    kiwis make coats out of llamas!!!!!
    Eeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww


    Yeah, but only nose coats



    lets analyze this sentence


    what is the kiwi talking about????

    does he wear coats on his nose????


    did you ask him what his coat is made out of?????


    LLAMAS I TELL YOU!!! LLAMAS!!!!

    its all quite disturbing

    i have superior toes
    theres a cat eating my fingers!!!!!
    just the crunchy parts
    ow!! back off cat@@@

    that last ones was the cat
    yes i have bisquit parts


    people dont live in trees
    i cant believe its not butter
    why are you telling me this captain

    im a doctor not a
    chicken
    dinosaur
    telescope
    first grade teacher
    watermelon
    grapefruit
    asparagus


    people treat cantaloupe like their special
    i say let them eat with the peasants!!

    just in time for the shopping season

    exploding balls!

    fun to watch the little faces of the little innocent children who totally don't expect that to happen.

    Not a big explosion. Just enough to make them wet themselves.

    I may be crazy, but I have my limits.

    just in time for the shopping season

    exploding balls!

    fun to watch the little faces of the little innocent children who totally don't expect that to happen.

    Not a big explosion. Just enough to make them wet themselves.

    I may be crazy, but I have my limits.

    In the interest of mankind, mankind will elevated to the term "beingthathappenstoliveontheplanetkind."

    Those of you who do not live on the planet, need to come up with your own term.

    Thank you.

    Is it ok to eat jello for dinner?

    I mean. Just jello.

    the green kind.
    The Hokey Pokey IS what it's all about

  2. #77
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    Do you like green eggs and ham? I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them Sam I am.

    What about in a box?


    Um. Wouldn't that be kinda messy?

    STOP!!!!


    In the name of love
    Before you break ..............uh,...............something.

    Break my dove?
    Break my leg?

    Hm.


    Break my bone?

    Watch my lips move........................

    Yes!


    Uh............no!



    I mean............yes!


    uh............maybe..................uh........... .......


    What was the question?



    Oh yea!


    What is watermelon?


    Correct! for 200 points!


    What? The curtains?

    Just in time for the stamp licking.

    Spiffy is as spiffy does.

    It's just not fun unless the seagulls eat the chickens.

    I am losing my presence of mind.

    Or maybe I lost it.

    Do you think I can get a new one from Craigslist?


    Pigeons rarely discuss bowling alleys.

    At least I believe that to be the case.

    Ok.

    So I was reading the four pack of toilet tissue today (don't ask). I'm curious about a few things. One, was that the small print said to have a toilet roll handy when you call them. I discovered that each roll has a number. I'll bet you didn't know that.

    Also, the package said "Made from USA and foreign material. Kinda elusive there don't ya think? What kinds of material??!!

    Then it said "May be under patent 265749." What if it isn't under that patent? Is there another patent??!! I'm a tad concerned that they're not sure if it's under a patent. As a librarian, those things are easy to find out. So why is the Scott company in the dark about their product? And do they even know what material is in the tissue and where it comes from??

    Geesh!

    You think you're safe and then you find out that even the toilet tissue companies are confused and elusive.

    I just can't seem to understand the problem.

    Is it margarine or butter?


    Some nights I stay awake just thinking about it.


    And don't get me started about the ingredients in soap.


    Oh the humanity!!!
    The Hokey Pokey IS what it's all about

  3. #78
    Daniel C's Avatar
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    Well, okay then. I very much doubt whether anyone will have the energy to read it, but here you go:

    The epic and unbelievable story that is yet to have a name

    Part 1
    I walk through the centre of Seoul. Not that I've ever been in Seoul, but this is a fictional story, so it doesn't matter. Left of me the skyscrapers arise like shipwrecks. Right of me there are also skyscrapers, but they don't look like shipwrecks. I'm thinking of transforming myself into magpie (which is possible since this is a fictional story), when suddenly a flock of thylacines comes busting around the corner. I step out of my fictional story for a moment to google what thylacines are and find out the thylacine was thought to be extinct since 1936. So I take out my fictional iPhone and phone CNN to report my discovery that the thylacine is very much alive and residing in the centre of Seoul. However, at that exact moment, a shower that consists entirely of Kellogg's cornflakes breaks out. In a desperate attempt to save myself from the fate of being buried alive in Kellogg's cornflages, which even fictionally would be a very silly way to die, I head into the closest building I see. Inside this building I see a strange flash of light, but unfortunately I have to step out of my fictional story because it's bedtime.

    Part 2
    I head back into my fictional story in order to discover the source of the mysterious light. It turns out the flash is emitted by a crystal orb located in the centre of a round table. Around the table I see several famous people, the most notable of which are Michael Phelps, Lady Gaga, Rupert Murdoch, Stephen Fry and Kim Jong-un. I walk over to Kim Jong-un to ask him for his signature, but he doesn't seem to notice me and stares blindly at the luminous sphere on the table. In this orb I see the face of Mark Zuckenberg giving unintelligible orders to the fascinated spectators. This shines an interesting new light on the world's power structures and I decide to step outside and report my findings to CNN, who anyway I still have to inform about my discovery of the thylacines. My eyes have to adjust one moment to the busy light of the city, which turns out to have magically transformed into Barcelona. I find this an auspicious turn in the story, since I have visited Barcelona before which enablese me to enrich the story with some realistic details to give it more credebility. Unfortunately at that moment an orange turtle falls out of the air, crushing the skull of a living statue before me and ruthlessly obliterating any chances of making this story into a realistic narration. (Secretly Pretentious, if this story wouldn't be fictional I would pick up the turtle and send it to your address so you could practice your hobby on it, but alas in this situation I could only send a fictional turtle to your fictional address which probably wouldn't be of much use to you). I forget all about my intention to phone CNN and decide to walk down the Ramblas towards the statue of Columbus. At this point I decide to use my powers as almighty narrator of this story to remove the Columbus image and replace it by an enormous representation of myself. Content, I walk directly into the sea and disappear out of sight.

    Part 3
    I walk through the endless sea that spreads around me in a thousand shades of aquamarine. The fish, the plants and the bubbles seeping out of my nostrils all propel tranquilly as if they try hard to fossilise in their paths. The few tentative sunbeams that can reach me eddy around, having lost all connection with the golden discus that sent them. Just a few more steps and I'll have forgotten where I came from, where I'm heading to and what my name sounds like above the surface. However, at that moment my blissfulness is sadly interrupted by an anchor crashing down like a missile and causing a sandstorm that subducts my sight for a second or eight. I decide to follow the rusty chain upwards to see who is responsible for this preposterous interference. It turns out the malefactor is a shiny fishing boat manned only by a girl that could have been a mermaid, except that her smooth legs are nothing like a fish tail. I decide that it is time for the story to feature some romance, so I put my hand in her dark soggy hair (which I can only do after reassuring myself this story is really fictional) and ask her if she is lost. She nods, during the process of which I notice her right eye is turquoise whereas her left one is azure. I ask her: "Did you ever notice your right eye is turquoise whereas your left one is azure?" She nods again. I ask her how she ended up in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea (which, I remember, is where you end up when you walk straightly off the beach in Barcelona). She says in a waxen voice that she was living in a port town in Southern France in her father's tiny restaurant, serving haddock and mackerel to the rich Russian tourists, when suddenly the village was overtaken by a swarm of flying fish that haunted the residents far into the hills. She tells me she was the only one figuring that the only way to escape the fish's jagged molars was to head in the opposite direction, that she took her father's fishing boat and was blown away by a gust of wind sent by Saint Antonius. While she speaks something's glistering on her right cheak below the turquoise eye. I take it on my left ring finger and bring it to the tip of my tongue. It tastes salt. I want to say something but my tongue is made of thistle. Around us everything is blue.

    Part 4
    "Listen," I say, suffering the little pricks my thistle tongue makes in my canopy, "I'm going to ask you something. Think well before you answer, because it could change your life to the Point of No Return, like a leaf on the edge of a waterfall. Are you willing to join me in the most crazy adventure you have ever known, ever will know and ever will think off?" She looks at me with her turquoise and her azure eye that seam to compete for the most attention. "Why?" she wispers, quelling her face so that her dark brown hairs cover the shoulders of the beige dress she wears, a dress that's stained with the grease of haddock and mackerell. I realise it would not be very helpful to tell her the truth, which is that she is part of a fictional story that needs a lot more craziness because it is posted on a thread entirely dedicated to craziness on a website that I have come to cherish because of my inability to talk to people face-to-face. Instead I tell her: "Who doesn't value the crazy is not a human being but a greenhouse plant sunken into an oasis of self-delusion." I have no idea what that means, but it sounds interesting. "Alors on va," she says, suddenly lapsing to her native language at this critical moment, while her azure eye now clearly shines more brightly than her turquoise one. At that moment an enormous wooden laddle crushes through the surface next to our fishing boat. I jump into the hollow head, then look back at the red fishing boat where she still stands at the rail with a skeptical look in both of her eyes, but especially in her turquoise one. "You can't go back now," I say with a smile that transfer false determination (because really, I too have no idea how a giant spoon could bring this story any further). But she jumps in, I cry: "To the horizon and beyond!" and seven dolphins appear at the sides of the spoon and push it forward so that the winds plays in our hairs, to the horizon where at that moment the sun sets and changes the heaven to a palette of gold and orange.

    Part 5
    Later, Mark Zuckerberg couldn't remember the exact moment he was first visited by the extraterrestial. It was in the period long before his mondial renown, when he had just come to accept he would probably be a loser for the rest of his life, a smart loser perhaps, but a loser anyway. He had just returned from a failed date and when he opened the door to his cramped student room there was this shining creature sitting on the sofa he had inherited from his grandmother, though he appeared not to be there entirely, as a phantom, or a hologram. Or a hallucination. Mark swallowed.
    The extraterrestial had, without any introduction, told him an incomprehensible story about seven crystal orbs that apparently contained the art of telepacy and had been gifted to the city of Atlantis, but later had been confiscated because the Atlantan autorities had misused their powers. At this point Mark was positive he was suffering a mental breakdown and begged the extraterrestial to leave. "If you're not ready for your task, I'll give you some more time," the creature had spoken. "I'll send you a sign of my existence. Call me when you're ready," and then he had evaporated like a fog veil. The next day Mark had received seven independent love declerations from the most attractive girls of his university. Convinced the extraterrestial was indeed existent and probably also almighty, he had waited for him that evening, while a rain shower scourged the Harvard campus. The creature had appeared again and continued his disquisition.
    "After the destruction of Atlantis, the Ministery of Intercosmial Affairs, for which I then was only a humble servant, granted the orbs to seven of the wisest civilisations in the world. Egypt, China, the Mayas. Because of an administrative error no less then two of the orbs ended up in modern Germany. They were both confiscated in 1941. After that, all of the spheres have been lost to humankind. Only we know where to find them. And we've decided that it is time to this time grand them to one person."
    "You don't mean to say..."
    "Indeed. Are you willing to take up the task, Mark?"
    Mark gazed at the half-transparent eyes of the extraterrestial in utter amazement. "Why me?" he wispered.
    "The outcome of the Commission for Telepatic Inquiry shows that you are the most intelligent individual of your kind. So we're convinced you could use the powers that will be granted to you with discretion," the extraterrestial said in his murmorous voice. He vaguely resembled a human being, though Mark could not determine whether he was male or female. Maybe those terms didn't exist whereever this creature came from.
    "I'm thirsty. Can you give me some of ... whatever you consume here when you are thirsty." Mark disappeared into his moisty kitchen and returned with a cup of tea. The extraterrestial lubricated it with extraordinary precision. When he was done a beatifical smile appeared on his face and his eyes appeared to shine with the light of seven billion lightyears away. "I'd like you to suppy us with considerable amounts of this divine liquid when you are in power. That's an additional condition for our agreement." Mark nodded. He felt absolutely powerless.

    Part 6
    Our dolphins are riding the waves, and in the middle our spoon is propelled like a catamaran. We sit side by side; sometimes, when the wind plays in a peculiar way, her hair touches my right jowl, tickles my cheekbones. When I look to the right I can only see her azure eye. It makes her look younger, more playful, less brooding. There are myriad things I want to say but they all slip past my tongue like the seawater around us. So I start to think about what I saw in Seoul and Barcelona, about the thylacines, the corn flakes, and the secret conspiracy that was apparently led by Mark Zuckerberg. That didn't surprise me, I never trusted Zuckerberg. Maybe he's got more power than people can imagine, maybe the world itself is a product of his digital system. Just like in the Matrix.
    I turn my head and ask: "Did you ever watch the Matrix?"
    "No," she says, "but I did watch 'Il y a longtemps que je t'aime'." I nod. I have never heard of that movie.
    My almost-mermaid companion turns her head and her pupils dilate. "What happened to your hair?" she asks.
    "My hair?"
    "One minute ago it was quite long, for a boy at least, and now it is very short."
    I search for words to explain that this is because in that minute I slipped back into reality, visited the hairdresser, and returned to my fictional story. But I don't want to confuse her so instead I say: "Didn't I tell you this was going to be the most crazy adventure you'll ever encounter?" She nods, but suspiciously, as if she's already regretting her decision of some minutes ago. I open my mouth, taste the salt wind, then close it again. I remember I still have my fictional iPhone so I can look up to where the dolphins are heading. Amazingly, my connection turns out to be still intact in the middle of the Mediterranean. It turns out the dolphins have dodged Italy and are now somewhere between Greece and Egypt. At that moment, however, I hear the roar of splitting water, I feel the ladle sink beneath me, I feel the sting of liquid in my nose, and the next moment I can see the dolphins have taken us underwater, dragging us towards the faraway bottom. I clamp to the spoon and close my eyes. Are the dolphins trying to drag us down to the reefs of oblivion? Are they taking a shortcut? The water beeches in my face and between my lungs, I feel a strange germ of panic somewhere between my heart and my stomach, I hold my eyes closed and clamp, I hear nothing but a muted roar, I can't even see whether the French castaway is still on my side, I can't hold on much longer, the current is getting too strong, I clamp with all power. And then suddenly silence. I open my eyes and see nothing but black. I remember this is because my eyes are pressed to the spoon and I look up. For twenty four full seconds I can't breath even though I'm already breathless. Before stretch turquoise houses, sand streets and boulevards, spiral towers and opal palaces. I feel the panting of my companion in my neck but I can't look backwards. The city appears to be locked inside an enormous bubble made out of transparent crystal, like a giant snow globe. Before us in the bank of the moisty road stands a wooden sign, overgrown with seaweed but still well readable. It shows a painting of a man and a woman playing like children in the sand, like those advertisements for the Costa Brava, and above in black letters we read: "Welcome to Atlantis, the city where it never rains."
    "Your were right," her chappy voice gasps behind me, "you were right."

    Part 7
    The light in Atlantis appears to be made out of a different substance. Whereas in any other place it appears to fall down without hesitation, here it flutters in spiral paths. Whereas anywhere else it only shows itself when touching the surface of something, here it appears to shine along its entire route. It is a pure, cyan essence that you cannot touch but that you sense between all your pores, clear and turbid at the same time, filling the entire orb with a magical fog that is no fog, like a gaseous syrup.
    We enter the city through a marble gate of which the right pillar has collapsed but of which the top still magically floats above our heads. On both sides figures can be seen, but they have been digested by algae and mussels (on dry ground? strange). We scuff along the cracked pavement from which ferny plants come taste the air.
    "Where is everyone?" my French semi-mermaid asks. I love how she can't pronounce the 'w'.
    "I don't know," I say.
    She looks at me and a confounded frown plows her forehead. "Where did you get those gloves?"
    "These gloves..." I repeat. "Uhm... someone advised me to wear them."
    "He advised you to wear gloves whenever you visited Atlantis?"
    "It was a she. But yeah, that's right. She said: 'You don't know where those Atlanteans have been.'"
    In her dissonant eyes I can read her trust in me is rapidly declining. To distract the situation I point at a weatherworn sign board and say: "Lo, a hotel! Let's see if we can get a room to spend the night."
    Reluctantly, she follows me inside the dusky metalled lobby. "'Ello? Is there somebody?" the voice of my ally in bizarreness echoes between the walls. Somewhere deep in the building a nervous rumble starts to call out, gradually coming closer, until after two full minutes the door behind the counter opens. A man appears who consists entirely of greenish hair and wrinkles. His voice creaks with the wastage of years' inactivity.
    "Visitors?" he mumbles in a strange accent, "Visitors? Ha! I knew they would come. Always clean the beds in the morning, always serve breakfast and tea, even when there is nobody to drink it. I knew somebody would finally come to feel my duvets, to taste my croissants. Did you know I serve mackerell in the morning?"
    I can see the girl is scared, even though she faintly reacted at the words 'croissants' and 'mackerell'. Even though I have no reason to be scared myself (this is my story, remember? the man came out of my own imagination) I still am.
    "Please write your names in the visitors' book," he squeaks, pulling out a chestnut brown book. "It's been so long since I had vistors. I can't remember."
    I open the giant book and turn to the first free page, afraid the parchment will moulder between my fingertops. The last visitor entry turns out to date from 'July 14, 5470 BC'.
    "Do you have a pen?" I ask.
    "A what, young man?"
    "A ... a quill?"
    "Ah! Of course, how could I forget?"
    The mastodon positions a quill and ink bottle on the table. In purple letters I write:
    Daniel C and companion, September 10, 2012 AD.
    The man eagerly pulls the book away when I'm finished, so that an ink stain forms at the bottom of the page. It is hard to see because of the hair, but his face seems to deform with excitement.
    "Are you really Daniel C?"
    "I am, why?"
    "We've been waiting for you, young man. And for you too, young lady. You're expected."

    Part 8
    On the sixth morning of the infinite Atlantean night I wake up inside my seaweed bed. My head is still filled with the remnants of hazy dreams full of thylacines, dolphins and other mirages. Looking around along the wreck-wooden paneling, I realise there has never been a dream. Perhaps Atlantis is a dreamless place. I must ask the all but fossilised proprietor about that.
    The wooden planks on which I prudently place my twinkling feet feels sodden with the liquid of five thousand years gone. Shivering, I shuffle towards the bathroom to take a shower. Upon seeing my face in the mirror I convulse. My hair appears to have taken on a grizzled glimmer, and my face appears to be covered with algae, as if it were a patch of wood. Quickly I open the copper shower faucet. The water feels warm like and old friend's hug, but its colour is greenish and remembers me of hotel owner's skin. Or, indeed, my own. I'm not sure if I like this place.
    I towel with a sponge-like rag and quickly put on my cloths before sitting down on the edge of my bed (did I really sleep in there?). I ponder a bit while letting the cyan morning light creep over the moisty planking. I remember six days ago (they feel like six years, or even six thousand years) the fossil told me there was someone waiting for me. I'd better request to install the meeting as swiftly as possible. Precariously, I put my hands (are those really wrinkles?) inside my pockets and remember I have an iPhone with me. Amazingly, it turns out to have survived my underwater adventures and, in fact, appears to be the only object in the room to be unimpaired by the algae's corruption. I log in on facebook to see one of my friends just failed for his theoretical statistics exam. Once, I read someone claim facebook brought people closer together, but I cannot remember having ever felt so alone as now in my soggy hotel room, reading about my friend's theoretical statistics exam. I decide to take a picture of the turquoise city outside the window and upload it on my profile, adding the text: "Sight from my hotel room @Atlantis". Whilst doing so, I notice there is a gnawing hunger inside my intestines and I hurry outside the door, through the dusky corridor, off the stairs padded in scarlet, through a door reading 'Breakfast'. There are about ten tables for four persons each, and on the other side of the room there is an old woman gobbling a red lobster. I shakily shamble towards her, then utter a timid cough when I'm standing right behind her. Two eyes anxiously scan my face, one turquoise, the other azure. How could I have forgotten her? Just like mine, her hair has been subject to a rapid ageing-process, her skin has become bumpy like putrid parchment, but her eyes shine with the same determination, still contesting each other for the most attention.
    "It's me," I wisper, "Daniel C. Your recognise me?"
    "Take me away from here," she hisses.
    "We can't, remember? The hotel owner told us we were expected by someone."
    "That's right! Are you ready to come?" clanks a rusty voice behind me. I turn around. The proprietor is the only one of us three not having withered during the night. Probably he's already reached the pinnacle of withered-ness.
    "Please, I want to eat something. I'm hungry," I mourn. It sounds like a child's supplication. What's happening to me?
    After having devoured a quiche made of seaweed, and having convinced myself never to set one foot in Atlantis again once I'm gone, the proprietor guides us to the street. "May I have your hand?" he asks with an ominous smile on his face.
    "Why?" I ask nervously.
    "Why, to draw a map of the route you've got to follow. You don't want to get lost in this city, trust me."
    "Can't you just use pap... parchment?"
    "What's the difference?"
    That's a good point. Reluctantly, I protrude my right hand. The quill tickles while the purple ink sucks itself into my skin cells. I quiver.
    "Done!" he says. "Good luck!"
    "Why aren't you coming with us?" the French girl (girl? woman?) asks.
    "Ha! You're a stranger. You wouldn't understand even if I told you. This city is no longer home to its inhabitants. Have a good trip!" and the door sinks into its hinges with a tremulous tumult.
    "Right?" she say. "And now? Let me see your hand." I raise it to eye's hight, and to my horror I see the ink has already commenced disintegrating. I prepare to knock on the door again, but the girl pulls back my arm. "Wait! Your gloves. You had transparant doctor's gloves with you, right?"
    She's right. I stretch into my back pocket and pull out a creasy set of gloves, quickly shuffling them over my hands. It works: the inks stops blurring. We're just in time, the lines are just barely visible. "That way," I mumble, pointing in the direction of some tower that closely resembles the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona (ah, Barcelona. Why did I ever decide to walk into the sea?). Our route resembles a labyrinth, but thanks to my nonpareil sense of direction I manage to guide us through the avenues, lanes, alleys, all flanked by crumbled or collapsed buildings and bathing in ultramarine shadows. We do not meet a single human being. Sometimes one or both of us think to hear a controlled howling in one of the side-alleys, but neither of us is brave enough to examine its origins.
    "I'm scared," her voice swims through the syrup air.
    I want to say "me too," but I don't. Instead I say: "We're almost there."
    And I'm right. We turn around a final aisle and stand opposite a swingeing palace, comprising spiraling steeples, meandering arcades, gardens filled with surreal plants and balconies made of unblended gold. Around stretches a fence made of cast iron, the gate being decorated with a bronze bell and an ivory sign saying: "Visitors, please ring."
    I ring.
    A Tantarean sounds vibrates out of the bell, right through our bones, and further, in a perfect, expanding sphere around us, until it reaches the elfin castle. What follows is silence.

    Part 9
    Mark was sipping his tea in one of the fourty-six rooms of his residence in Palo Alto, California. His shoeless feet rested carelessly on the mahogany desk covered in sheets, telephones, and an exclusive Apple computer. He looked hushfully towards the Picasso painting on the other side of his office. It depicted a bare-breasted woman torn in some gruesome position, most of her limbs scattered all over the canvas's perifery. Mark had never fully understood what people saw in Picasso, but he had been unable to resist the temptation at the auction in London town, if only for the flabbergasted expressions that had appeared on the fat men's puffy faces when he'd cried out 'Thirty million!' And now he was stuck with an unsightly Picasso painting staring to him from the other side of his office. He thought of donating it to the Gugenheim to reinforce his image of generous benefactor.
    One of his phones ran. It was his mother. Mark anwered obediently.
    "Mark! Why didn't you call me yesterday? It's been a full week now!"
    "I'm sorry mom," Mark defended himself nervously, "it's been a difficult week for me."
    That was true. His man in Asia had phoned him repeatedly, mostly in the middle of the night, to report some serious deviations in everyday processes. For instance, a flock of thylacines had been spotted in the centre of Seoul. Mark was currently investigating if his crystal orb - telepacy could have some unexpected side-effects.
    "Nuts! Don't talk about petty excuses. I'm your mother! I hope you'll remeber to call me on Sisi's birthday, otherwise you'll be in great trouble!"
    She hung up. Mark couldn't remember who Sisi was - it was either the cat or the chihuahua. He'd phone his sister for more information.
    Mark lived in the constant realisation that he had more power than any human being before him. Soon enough he had discovered that the extraterrestrial's crystal orbs could not only be used to read other people's thoughts, but also to implement his own thoughts into other people's brains - in other words, to give telepatic orders. He had submitted the entire world elite - politicians, world leaders, public figures - and now he held weekly meetings were he could update the brains of the chosen people with his recent plans.. These meetings had place in six of Mark's favourite cities, one in each continent, among which he had divided six of the crystal orbs, the seventh one of course always being close to Mark himself.
    Soon he had realised that to have a really thight grip on mankind would require him to know the thoughts, amibitions and opinions of common people as well. This was too much to handel telepatically - he didn't have time to listen to seven billion people independently. That was why he had set up facebook, and it had been a tremendous success. The program gathered all relevant information, arranged it, and presented it to him so that he knew what was going on in the mind of the Common Man. It was an infallible system. He had the world in the palm of his hand, he provided order and prosperity for those who deserved it, he kept the extraterrestrial content with huge amounts of tea imported from China - it worked, it all worked. Except the strange events in Seoul last week, they didn't fit into his system. It was not enough to make him panic, but it did plant a slumbering sense of anxiety inside him, on a place he didn't know existed.
    Mark was also a bit pissed off this week because his three hundred and thirty second girlfriend had just broken up. It was only the seventh time this had happened - usually he was the one to decide the relationship had lasted long enough. She had said that he was a 'snob', a 'parvenu' and an 'arrogant, stinking *******'. He could have called her back, of course, but there were others, many others.
    He decided to log on to his computer and see what would be the most popular posts of today. While the computer took seconds to check his password, he lifted his eyes to the green-framed window, through which the fierce Californian light seeped inside.
    The computer was ready. Mark logged on to his Facebook Control Centre - a program codenamed 'blue zebra' - and waited for the results to upload. For one moment he closed his eyes and listened to the faraway shouts, klaxons, and bird chirping, that sounded muted as if it came from underwater. Mark noticed a strange feeling of happinness.
    When he opened his eyes again he thought, for some seconds, he was in a dream. Then he realised he was still alive and a deep sense of panic - a feeling he had not experienced for at least four years - rose from his pancreas to squeeze his trachea and fill his brain. On the screen, irrefutably, there was a post of a certain 'Daniel C', reading 'Sight from my hotel room @Atlantis'. Above there was a picture that, if anything, was definitely not photoshopped - Mark had enough digital experience to ascertain that.
    In the many evaluations he had had with the extraterrestrial, the possibility that someone would ever discover Atlantis had never passed the table, and not a moment had he considered that possibility. He had no idea whatsoever what the consequences could be, but he had nothing to gain and everything to lose. He stood up, walked over to the Picasso and sank to his knees. He had the feeling somewhere, someone, was inaudibly laughing at him.

    Part 10
    At the occassion of one of their first meetings, the extraterrestrial had given Mark a phone number he could use, 'but only in case of emergency'. Mark judged that this fell under the category 'emergency' and rushed over to the secret vault located at the other side of his mansion. Halfway he almost tripped over the maid that had been taking care of his fourty-six rooms for four years now with an extraordinary efficiency. He also generally enjoyed the way her hips moved under that blue uniform. But he had no time to pay attention to that now and just wished her a pleasant day, which she replayed with her signature shy smile.
    The vault was located behind an early Renoir painting (bought in Paris) showing a well-rounded young lady. He typed in the six-digit code -which he had modelled after his mother's birthday, so that he would be sure to never forget it- and peered into the dark steel box containing nothing but the orb and a scrap of paper taken out of what had then been his college noteblock.
    Mark's telephonic interlocution with the extraterrestrial was slightly delayed by the fact the telephone number happened to consist of three hundred and fourty six numbers, and by the unpleasant interruption of his mother, who phoned him when he was somewhere near the 250th digit with the message that Susie's (whose?) dog had been taken to hospital because of an ingrown toenail. But finally the extraterrestrial's serene yet magisterial voice sounded into his ear.
    "I hope this is urgent. I'm currently in the middle of a meeting with the board of the Committee for Ecological Spacial Garbage Management."
    "Oh," Mark humbly replied, "I'm sorry. I didn't wish to disturb you. To be honest, I'm not sure exactly how urgent this is, but..."
    "Just tell me, man."
    Funnily, the extraterrestrial and Mark couldn't communicate telepathically whenever the distance was more than 300 lightyears - the extraterrestrial's planet reputedly being 3420 lightyears away.
    "Well... The case is as follows. Apparently, someone... I don't know him, he calls himself 'Daniel'... Anyway, some human being has apparently, don't ask me how he did it, but apparently he discovered the whereabouts of the sunken city of Atlantis."
    A long silence followed - it wasn't actually that long, but because Mark was used the extraterrestrial always immediately replied, it looked -sounded- like eternity. Even though he couldn't read them, Mark was positive the extraterrestrial's thoughts were something like 'What the hell'.
    Finally, the reply sounded. "Okay, stay where you are. This is serious. I'm coming to you. I'll break off this meeting as quickly as possible and then I'll teleport. Hang on for a second."
    (Note: Isn't this story getting exciting? If not, you're very mean. I'm honestly trying to make it exciting. Of course, exciting in a crazy way. Which is probably not the same as exciting. Okay, it's just crazy. Anyway.)
    Three seconds later, the air around the armchair in the middle of the room started to solidify into what finally became the contours of the extraterrestrial. He looked tired, it was the first time he actually showed some sign of weakness. "Give me some... what was it called again?"
    "Tea," Mark completed intuitively.
    "Tea. Give me some tea please."
    While Mark pushed the command button for the waitress to bring a teapot, the extraterrestrial started speaking - much faster than Mark was used of him.
    "Listen," he said, "I -everyone- thought at the time Atlantis was probably destroyed, that it was buried under the salt water and nobody would ever be able to recover it. Are you sure... Yeah, right" -that was the advantage of being telepathical, you didn't have to interrupt your monologues to wait for an answer- "Right, well, it doesn't matter how this could happen, we need to act swiftly. If Atlantis still exists, there is a considerable -if not probable- chance the secret of the crystal orbs will still be known to the survivors. Which would mean this -what was his name again?- this Daniel C -whose name is Daniel anyway?- that this Daniel C is at the brink of unraveling the greatest mystery of all time. Which would lead him back to you. And with him the entire population of this planet. In other words, if we don't do anything everyone will soon know that you have been manipulating their lives for years. What do you think would happen?"
    "Uhm... I don't know, really," Mark stuttered. "I think they would be... not amused. People on this planet generally don't like to be rule by one person, you know. They're all mad about this idea called 'democracy'".
    The extraterrestrial gestured as if he needed to get rid of an irritating bug. "Ah, don't tell me about it. On our planet, we had this 'democracy' experiment... well, I don't want to be remembered to that period. Anyway, the situation is as follows: we need to do something, otherwise the human race will... eliminate you."
    "We don't do that usually. I think I'd be imprisoned for life."
    "Anyway. We need to stop this 'Daniel C'. And there's no way we could do that from here. You need to travel to Atlantis yourself. I cannot follow you there. Now is the chance to prove your aptitude for your position. Is everything clear?"
    "Wait. When you say 'stop him', do you actually mean..." Though Mark already knew the answer.
    "You've got carte blanche, dear fellow. This is a matter of terrestrial importance. Right? Off you go then."
    And the extraterrestrial vaporised like a raindrop. At the same moment the door opened, the waitress bringing in the teapot. Mark snatched it from her hands and drank three cups in a row. He felt terrified, exhilarated and anxious at the same time. Above all he felt the ache of his tea-burnt canopy.

    Part 11
    After two full minutes of silence, during which not even our breath dares disturb the moisty air, the cast iron gate creaks open with a tremulous roar, as if moved by an invisible gatekeeper. "Come," I wisper, taking my companion's wrinkled hand inside my own, the rubber glove crackling against her skin. We shuffle along the winding lane, between solidified fountains and purple plants and statues without a head, towards a pair of doors that are supposedly made out of ebony that hides beneath a layer of soft seaweed.
    "I better just knock, right?"
    The sound of my knuckles echoes between walls extracted from our sight. This time we only have to wait half a minute before the ebony doors open with equal tumult, showing the silhouette of a hunchbacked figure lined out against the golden light of a prodigious entrance filled with stairs, paintings and chandeliers.
    "We've been waiting for you, please come further. I'm the butler," the figure says in a courteous voice. As soon as we pass the gate, a warm and refreshing feeling comes over me, and in me, and looking down I see the skin behind my gloves has reverted to its normal form. Next to me, the French girl has also regained her youthful mermaid-like appearance.
    "What in heaven's name just..."
    "Please have some patience, dear visitor. I'm only the butler. Please follow me."
    The French girl (perhaps I should ask her name, I think, but no, that would divest her veil of mystery) pulls my arm as if it is a safety break. "I don't trust this," she whispers, while the old butler waddles up the ivory stairs, "he's only guiding us deeper into this realm of nightmare. I want to go..." She doesn't finish her sentence, but I can think the word she wanted to utter.
    "Listen," I whisper back (I've never been a good whisperer, it always sounds either creepy or ridiculous and in this moment it sounds both), "listen, we can't go away, remember? We're stuck here. If we'd try to leave this place we'd drown before reaching the surface. Perhaps whoever lives here can help us escape."
    She falls still, but I can hear her thinking "Why did I ever come with you?", which is strange, because normally I am rather pathetic at guessing other people's thoughts.
    We join the butler, who has patiently waited for the conclusion of our silent conversation, up the stairs. He opens two glass doors and leads us to a long corridor decorated with paintings of bearded men and a few women, all wearing the same scallop crown over their long, vegetal hairs. The butler moves in front of us without hesitating, like a vehicle. It gets colder and colder, I feel my skin bend beneath my sweater. No one talks, the corridor is seemingly endless, it bends off to the left, then bends back again, now and then we pass a door but the butler walks past them without even moving his neck musles. Sometimes we pass a painting that I think I've seen before, but all the men have similar beards and all the women have the same aura of remoteness. I start to wonder if my companion was right, if we are indeed guided towards a point from where no return is possible, where we will be fed to the damp putrefaction of Atlantis that will devour our fingers first, then our skin, our organs, our heart, and then, at the very last, our brains. At that point, however, we turn around a sudden corner and before us the corridor ends in two dark brown doors with inlaid pearls in them.
    "Please enter," the butler says. I put my hand to the doorknob and feel it's made of ice.

    Part 12
    And I feel it is made of ice. Through the thin layer of rubber the cold takes hold of my trebling hand; quickly I push open the door, it moves without a sound. The unreal light that crashes through the dooway blinds us for a moment, but as soon as our eyes are accustomed to this brighter shade of light, the situation unfolds for us in all its imposture. Everything ice, from the reflective floor to the lofty ceiling to the semi-transparent walls that, at an unfathomable distance, appear to contain the frozen bodies of garble figures. But our eyes are irrevocably drawn by the centrepiece of this bizarre scene, to a trone made of bright blue block of frazil, upon which is seated a lady surrounded by seventeen spheres of infrangible beauty that fill the entire room. She wears the scallop crown I have seen in the paintings, together with a sapphire dress that droops all the way to the floor. At here feet lies a unicorn, white as a seagull with gold foil manes, gently chewing a lump of seewead. I am flabbergasted in all parts of my soul.
    "Welcome, you both," she says with a smile that indorses centuries of solitude and makes me feel naked and vulnerable, "I owe you an explanation. It was me who sent you the dolphins, it was me who instructed the old hotelier and the dear butler at the other side of the door. I need your help."
    I am struck by a strong sense of forgetfulness regarding the art of speaking. The only thing that leaves my mouth is an animal-like squeak.
    "Don't worry," the Atlantean queen smiles, "you don't have to say anything. I can read you, and I see you're both anxious. I understand, you've been through a lot. You couldn't even have imagined the existence of our city. And now you're in the midst of the craziest adventure you've ever gone through."
    She speaks with a strong British accent that fills my limbs with an ardour that's stronger than the breath of the ice blocks. Before I can react she continues:
    "Listen, I'm going to explain it all. But please take a sit first. It's going to be a long story."
    I look around and see there are two satin chairs I could have sweared weren't there when we entered. I sit down, the French semi-mermaid (she doesn't look so shiny after all) follows my example. The queen opens her mouth (her teeth are like ivory) and commences her story.

    Part 14 (the number 13 has been skipped out of superstitious motives. Questions about this can be asked on working days between 9 AM and 5 PM but will not be taken into account)

    "My name is HRM Azalia VII, daughter of Neptune XLIV, son of Tristan XVII, descendant of the great Neptune I; by the grace of the gods, Atlantis, and all living creatures below sea level; countes of Crete; duchess of Santorini; defender of wealth, prosperity and all maritime matters; et cetera, et cetera. You've had the chance to behold what's left of all that: a crumbling city inhabited by ghosts and greybeards. And that is why you are here, in my castle, at this very moment. You are the only ones that could, that might help us. Now don't ask anything - I will explain everything to you.
    From my history lessons in the royal archive I have learnt the story of this city. You know, Atlantis was founded by Greek colonists on an isle West of Crete. Their leader, the later Neptune I, had, well, slightly discredited himself for reasons I will not tire you with."
    "Excuse me? What kind of reasons?" I had almost forgotten the presence of the French girl on the chair next to me, and for the first time I find her voice to be slightly disruptive.
    "Well, he had uhm... he had caused some commotion in Athens for entering the Parthenon temple dressed in... uhm... well... not dressed at all, really."
    "Your city was founded by an exiled exhibitionist?"
    "Please don't speak like that about or great founder. His mind had been tempted by demons, well, by wine, which is the drink of demons. So when he founded this city he decided all wine, and any alcoholic consumption for that matter, to be strictly prohibited. Even though, for a long time, this minimalised the influx of new citizens to our city, it proved to be very beneficial for our prosperity. Within decades we had grown to the most important factor in the Meditarranean sea trade."
    "You just called us here to inform us about the history of your city?"
    A part of me wants to call 'Shut up!' but the rest of me figures that would make a slightly gross impression. Also, it wouldn't be in accordance to my social anxiety.
    "Have patience, please. This is of great importance. In those first centuries our wisdom grew to immense heights. We were a city of scholars, and many of them came up with theories that were unprecedented. One of them, for instance, developed the theory of democracy, but after a long conclave our Council of Sages decided the scheme was unsuitable. Later those bloody Athenians stole the idea from us, but that's another story."
    "Wait - what has any of that to do with our presence here?"
    "You're right - I'm wandering. In the fourty-seventh year of the ninth era, they came. They had been observing us, and told us that our wisdom had risen to such heights they deemed it right to bestow us with the Powers of the Galaxy, so that we could spread our wisdom over all Seven Seas, and beyond."
    For the first time I manage to open my mouth. "Excuse me, Miss. Who came exactly?"
    She looks at me with a disturbed aura that makes me want to drown in the eyes below my feet. "Why, the extraterrestrials of course."
    "Oh please!" my French companion calls out in a voice I have not before heard leave her throat and that makes the ice walls resonate like autumn leaves. "Now you're going to tell us about aliens? Were they green? Did they have three eyes?"
    "They prefer to be called extraterrestrials, really, and they're blue usually, if I may trust the archives. Not that I've ever met one, but then, our honourable archivists can't be wrong, can they? But I thought you knew everything about them."
    "Why should we? We were just minding our own business until you sent us your dolphin taxi. Thanks for the comfort, by the way, it was a really enjoyable ride."
    Looking to the left, I can only see her turquoise eye, but it flickers in an unfamiliar way.
    "I'm sorry to hear that. We also had a covered spoon, but unfortunately it was lost in a maelstrom in the 362nd year of the nineteenth era. But about the extraterrestrials, are you sure you don't know them? I would have sweared... I wonder... Maybe you're the wrong persons."
    "That would explain a lot."
    "Tell me, Daniel, where were you on the second of September?"
    Squeazing my brain in hitherto unfamiliar positions, I finally conlude that must have been the day I was in Seoul, witnessing the Thylacine attack.
    "I must have been in Seoul, a city that lies far in the East. It was a strange day."
    The queen Azalia spontaneously invents a new kind of silence, in which her face shows tiny wrinkles in her pensive face, like little dunes in a snow field.
    "Then you are indeed the one I am looking for. But I must have made a mistake. No - please let me finish my story first. The extraterrestrials gave us seven crystal orbs, with which we were to control the thoughts all over the planet and guide them with our immeasurable wisdome of which I spoke before. They wanted us to bring harmony to the planet, they sad, because their duty was to spread harmony over the galaxy as much as they could. We believed them - it was the only mistake we've only made, but it was a terrible mistakes. For four thousand years we -my ancestors- devoted themselves to their task, bringing order in chaos, unity in discord. Never did we know the extraterrestrials were really using us as puppets, tightening their grip on the planet with every decision we made, finally intending to take over out beautiful Earth and make all human beings to slaves in their all-consuming tea industry."
    "How did you discover that, then?" I ask.
    It was the great scholar Theodosius of Santorini, the gods bless him, who once had a maintenance with one of the extraterrestrial's agents. The extraterrestrial was young and unexperienced - he left his briefcase when he left. The honourable Theodosius opened it - mind you, he was not endeavouring to peep, he just needed the information to be able to return it. But what he discovered - well I just told you."
    "So what did you do?"
    "We -with that I mean my great ancestress, queen Julia XXII- confronted the extraterrestrials. Said we didn't want to support them in their infernal scheme, that we would graciously lay down our duty and advise them to never show themselves on this planet again. First they tried to convince us with abject lies, but of course we didn't fall for them. Then their wrath was atrocious. They sent an army to recapture the crystal orbs, slayed half of the city, and let tidal wave take care of the rest. You see what has become of this metropol that once shone so brightly with ivory and gold."
    "But wait - how were you able to survive this apocalypse?"
    "Well, the extraterrestrials were cruel, but not very intelligent. We managed to hide one of the orbs in the best possible hiding place and hand them over a fake orb instead. That way, we managed to retain a small part of our former powers - and with that mental strength, the survivors managed to build a shield that could stop even the most destructive hatred. Did you see the transparent dome that surrounds our ruins? - you must have. It is made of thoughts. It is maintained every day by the thoughts of all our remaining citizens. It consumes all our time and power, we live, day in, day out, under the gargantuan weight of our duty to maintain our only protection from definite oblivion.
    Not only does it serve as a shield against water, but also thoughts cannot pass. That's why the extraterrestrials haven't been able to detect us with their thelepatical powers. So as long as no one sends out a signal, we are safe here."
    "I see... but what is our role in this entire story?"
    "That's the point here - we can intercept thoughts from the outside world - but only when they're extremely powerful. On the mentioned 2nd of September, we sensed a vast disturbance in the everyday equilibrium, originative from the city of Seoul, and we also sensed the person that was closest connected to these disturbances. It was you, Daniel. We assumed you had finally discovered our secret, and had, somehow, gained access to the extraterrestrial's mental powers. But apparently I was wrong - I'm sorry, I called you here for nothing. I can't see how you can help us."
    "Right!" my mermaid companion exclaims, "couldn't you have told us rightaway? I'm going to leave here - I'm going to leave this damned place and forget all about it and live my life like I had planned to do. This is all one large accumulation of craziness. Good luck with your aliens," and she stands up, turns around and disappears through the folding doors, behind which the butler can still be seen in the same position.
    "I'm sorry, Daniel," the queen Azalia says, "I'm so sorry. I thought you were..."
    She doesn't complete her sentence but I know she wanted to say "I thought you were more helpful." I have felt miserable before, and guilty as well, but I have never felt so miserable and so guilty at the same moment. At the same time, however, an alarming signal starts emitting from the back of my head. "Wait a moment," I mumble.

    Part 15
    The beat of my heart resonates through all of my limbs, into my kidneys, my eyes and my brains. I try to stop it, but it only gets more powerful, as a fire that spreads without consideration.
    "Miss? There's something I... About the shield."
    "Ah, the shield. As I said, it can stop both water and thoughts. From both directions. That's also why we don't dream in Atlantis. Surely you must have noticed that? The thoughts of the surrounding world that constitute our dreams cannot pass. So we remain in silent oblivion when we sleep."
    "Uh-huh. But there's something else. Something that..."
    "Yes, I'm sorry, there are a lot of things that need explaining. You must also have noticed that time -or what's left of it- behaves in an other way inside this dome than it does elsewhere. You know, when you live in an isolated, crumbling city for milennia, forgotten and forgetting about everything outside, time itself starts to grow older. In this city, everything is affected by this terrible, moisty detoriation process - even with our mind powers we can't stop it. The only thing we can do is dedicate a small portion of our mental labour to save certain places, certain objects from the all-consuming putrefaction, this palace being the most momentous. We need to keep the centre of our governance - the remains of it - clean, or we will be finally doomed. Did you notice the change when you stepped inside our hallway?"
    I nod, trying to discern her floating voice from the all-consuming heartbeat that is taking over my eardrums. "There's something else I must confess. It's about..."
    She frowns, I know she already knows what I'm going to say. I want to turn into fog, or ice, or any substance except my body, but I know I can't, even though I'm the almighty narrator of this story I can't remove myself from that satin chair, punctured by the angel eyes of the queen Azalia. So I speak.
    "About your hiding. You said they were still looking - the aliens. The extraterrestrials. Still watching out. Now apparently our thoughts cannot pass the shield, but... I wonder... it's a bit silly really..."
    "Just speak it out, my boy."
    Her calling me 'my boy' makes my intestines shrink even more than they already have. "It's like this. This morning, when I woke up, I took out my iPhone and... uhm... well, I posted something on facebook about this place. I'm not sure if it matters, but... do you have any idea if digital signals are intercepted by the shield as well?"
    "I don't understand. What is this face book you are talking about?"
    "I'm sorry. We... I mean, in the... the overworld, people have found a way to talk to eachother without actually seeing eachother's faces. A bit like telepacy really, except... well, whatever, we call it 'the internet'. And it works on digital signals. Now this morning, I added a photograph and some text about this city to this internet system. I wonder - could that possibly mean?"
    The queen invents yet another kind of silence, this one even more burdensome than the last one. In this silence, the unicorn, whose presence had entirely slipped my mind, moves its silver head in a way as if to say: you fool, you have just spoiled everything. Finally, the queen opens her mouth, her eyes flicker with an unknown form of uneasiness.
    "I'm not sure if I understand what you're talking about. I mean... I'm afraid... well, you couldn't know of course. Listen, Daniel. You are not the one I have been looking for. But that doesn't mean you couldn't be the one I need at the moment. Why is it that everywhere you come, the world seems to flicker into absurdity for one moment?"
    "I'm not sure... Well... The thing is... All of this is really... it's not real."
    She opens her mouth but I don't want to hear her voice at this point, so I continue: "It's like... it's like a story. All of this is nothing but a story I wrote. I know it sounds absurd, but..."
    "A story? What story?"
    "Uhm, it's a story I'm writing for uhm... a magazine. Yeah, I'm writing this story as feuilleton for a magazin. It's very popular really, lots of readers."
    If she really has telepatical powers she can read, at this very moment, that the story is actually posted inside the 'crazy talk' section of a website for socially anxious persons and has exactly one reader. Turning into haze wouldn't seem sufficient any longer.
    She causes a silence, of the first kind, and finally speaks in a soft and penetrating voice.
    "But if this - if you're really a story... I don't understand. This city has existed for milennia - how can all of that be part of your story? I mean, something has to be real, right?"
    "I don't know. Maybe... maybe it's that I wrote myself into a world that was already present. That I switched from one dimension to another. Oh boy, what kind of nonsense am I promulgating..."
    "No, no... It's no nonsense. What you're saying makes a lot of sense. It makes shokingly much sense really... But that would mean that, as a writer, you would have some kind of... I don't know... powers? As the author of this story?"
    "It would seem like that. But I don't know... it seems my powers are... diminishing... evaporating into the reality of this dimension..."
    Silence (kind two).
    "Listen," she says. "I don't know who you are and how you ended up here. But I do know this: your message may have alarmed the extraterrestrials' attention. And you do have certain powers that could surpass the reality of this dimension. That means you the only person that could handle the results of your own action. As I said, you aren't exactly the person I was looking for... but you are the person I found. That makes you... needed. I need you to go outside. To wait for them. To stop them. With the powers of your authorship, the help of your companion, and the goodness of your heart... Stop them. I ask you. I beg you. You are... you are our only hope."
    I nod. Strangely enough, my heart seems to calm down at this crucial hour.
    "I will do what I can, noble queen. I only hope that will be enough."
    And I turn around, through the folding doors, along the petrified butler, through the endless corridor, with inside me a strange sense of determination. Or insanity. One of the two.

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    Part 16
    Of course, it had hardly cost Mark's technical team any effort to determine the exact coordinates from where the facebook update had been emitted. Indeed, it turned out to be a deserted spot in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, somewhere between Egypt and Crete. Mark Zuckerberg had immediately set off with his private jet to Iraklion airport, and consequently was transported by limousine to the yacht club in Chania, where his administrative team had already chartered a boat. From his car window, he could just take a look at the Cretian hills, stretching out like dinosaurs' backs, in the South, and the infinite opal waves in the North. The thought that beneath those waves a sunken city resided seemed absurd and appealing at the same time.
    He had never been on Crete before, but what he could see from the black limousine's windows made him hungry for exploring the island. Maybe he could do so when he'd return, after he had solved the whole Atlantis issue. If he were ever to solve the Atlantis issue. Inside he felt like he had become a puppet in an intricate game that had outpassed his endless potency.
    The yacht club was located a few miles off the historical centre, at which Mark could only take a volatile look. The piers were puddling in the crystal water, the harbour was all empty except for a slightly overweight man with a huge moustache.
    "Mister Zuckenberg?" he said with what Mark assumed to be a typical Greek accent.
    "Your boat is waiting. Please follow me."
    Mark shuffled behind the harbour master over the slippery wooden planks, onto a modest motor boat where three young men with shiny torsos were already doing intricate preparations.
    "Thank you," Mark mumbled.
    The boat set off as soon as Mark had landed in the cabin. Through the porthole, he waved the moustached man -a sympathetic guy, judging by the twenty seconds he had known him- goodbye. One of the adonises sat down besides him.
    "You know diving, sir?"
    "Yes, yes, I know," Mark replied. He had followed a diving course on one of his holidays at the French Riviera. The instructress had had hairs like a blonde goddess, as well as a voice that was sweet and authoritive at the same time, and that Mark had been able to resist less than four minutes. Unfortunately, the relationship had collapsed after he had ran away with a cute waitress in an equally cute restaurant, but by then he had already come tired of her conversations that had always debouched into the subject of diving in one way or the other.
    The Greek bodies hoisted him into a hypermodern diving suit. "We reached coordinates. Dive here," the most overweening of them said. Mark waddled to the edge of the boat, sat down and let himself plonge into the shiny Mediterannean in the familiar backwards somersault. He stretched his webbed legs and before he knew the environment had changed to a dark-blue pool of timelessness. The sense of incertitude -one Mark had not been feeling since the extraterrestrial had handed over the orbs- was now multiplying itself. He passed shrimps, fish, and even a dolphin, and all creatures seemed to look at him in a pitying way, as if they already foresaw a part of his fate that remained obscured for his own myopic eyes.
    Then, out of the blue underwater haze, it loomed. An orb, a giant orb, shiny and bright blue, like a dream, like a mirage, like an afterlife. Mark started to patter faster, more details emerged: palaces and cathedrals and crumbling avenues. He felt unreal, maybe all of this was unreal, but no, it couldn't be, the extraterrestrials had been real, the diving suit which he felt pinch his legs was real, so the dome had to be as well.
    Mark landed on the yellow soil, some grains of sand whirled under his feet. As an underwater penguin, he walked the last miles to the edge of the orb, with every step his heart speeded up. What if this was a trap? What if those plasma walls were dangerous, if they would moulder him when he would try to pass? But there was no going back. Cautiously, timidly, he sticked his diving flipper inside. It passed through without any resistance. Mark inhaled like he had never inhaled before, closed his eyes, and took the final step forward. When he opened his eyes again, everything had changed: the light, the perspective, the temperature. He had made it. While he disposed of the diving suit, he looked around at the spiralling minarets, the garble statues, the otherworldly plants. Right before him there was a sign, half overgrown by algae but still readable:
    "Welcome to Atlantis, the city where it never rains."

    Part 17
    I rush through the endless winding corridor, the paintigs rush along like faded stains, the only thing I see is the next turn behind which the French girl might or might not be in sight. After a countless amount of turns my breath can no longer keep up, and I have to slow my pace. However, at that point, a galloping ascends behind me, and while I turn my head I see the queen's unicorn corner the last turn, its long manes and moonlight hairs fluttering like flags in the breeze, its massive body just barely fitting within the vaulted hallway. Just a few feet before me it holds still, I can see its thighs vibrate softly under its profound breath. Slowly and nobly, it lowers its legs. I know what its intention is, and carefully mounts its back, which feels like a bed of down feathers. It rises up again, and resumes its fleeting trot, I have to squeeze my arms around its neck, I see the walls shoot past, I close my eyes. This hellbent ride continues for about two minutes, then I feel the hunting rhythm of the creature's hoofs delay. I open my eyes again, and before me I see the glass doors that lead to the main hall, and before those my French mermaid looks up to me with utter bewilderment in her contrasting eyes.
    "I wonder... is it necessary? Just... couldn't you just have walked, like me?"
    "It was the only way to catch you up," I say, while jumping off the unicorn's back in an overwhelmingly athletic way. "You left before the queen was done speaking."
    "Ah, sure. And what did you two debate together. Have you been talking about those aliens some more? Do they turn out to have X-ray eyes as well?"
    "No, no, we talked about... uhm..."
    "Yes?"
    I cannot escape telling her anymore. Her eyes pin me down like a marionette.
    "Listen... There is something I need to tell you. It's..."
    "Do you want me to join you on a heroic quest towards Venus as well?"
    "No, no. It's about... about this all. You know, what I should have told you from the beginning, really, is... all of this is not real."
    She falls silent, I search for words that are hidden deep within my intestines.
    "You see... all of this is really... a story. We're all characters in a story."
    "What do you mean?"
    "Uhm... it's quite silly, really... but this whole plot, it's just... a story I wrote."
    "What kind of story. In a book?"
    "You could say so, yes. Wel... more of a website, actually. But it's a very high-pitched website, mind you. Lots of readers. Boy, are we getting famous."
    "Wait... you're telling me the only reason I've been going through all this nonsense is to figure in some crazy story you posted on some crazy website?"
    "Well, if you put it that way."
    "Wait a moment... that fish attack on my village... was it you? Did you deliberately drive me into the Mediterranean in order to add me to this weird story of yours? People died in that disaster. I don't know... I still don't know what happened to my father. All because of... What kind of monster are you, Daniel?"
    "No, no, you don't understand. I didn't do that. I was just writing about my trip through the Mediterranean when suddenly you popped up... like a turtle falling from the sky, as it were. Only later I learnt about your village's fate. It must have been..."
    "You can tell me more. I don't want to be a part of your sick fantasies any longer. You can fight off aliens without me, I'm leaving foregood. I'm going back to France and forget about all of this lunacy."
    She turns around and, like a windstorm, bursts through the glass doors, across the golden hall.
    "That didn't go very well, right?" I turn around as well. It's the butler, petting the unicorn over its back.
    "Did I ask you for any advise? Please go back to your queen and don't creep up behind people minding their own problems anymore. And take that upstart girls toy with you."
    Without hesitating, I follow the French girl through the glass doors, into the hall. She's already beneath. "Wait, please! I can explain!"
    "Explain what? How you tricked me into this doomed city only to perk up this story of yours? No thanks." She crosses the front door, into the otherworldy garden. I descend the stairs, taking three steps a time, and bash trough the ebony gate as well. But in the yard I hold still. Amidst the crumbled statues and purple ferns, a figure stands. He looks familiar, but I can't immediately give him a place. However, he seems just as surprised himself. Before me, the angry semi-mermaid, even though I can only see her back, seems to linger in equal bemusement.
    The silence oppresses us like an electric haze. Finally, the man opens his mouth.
    "You? What are you doing here?"
    For one moment I think he's talking to me, but the girl replies before I can even think of a word, let alone an answer.
    "I could ask you the same thing, Mark."
    And now I recognise him, of course I recognise him, I've seen his face multiple times before, on tv, on the internet... It is Mark Zuckerberg.

    Part 18
    The three of us are captured inside yet another orb, this one not visible but all the more sensible, consisting of a strange magnetic tension that connects us like atomic particles. Nobody dares to disturb the tension by speaking a word, and thus the mysterious forces work on, pulling our hearts in an unfamiliar direction. As if we are puppets. But as the minutes part, I feel something strange. It is a sense of detachment. As if the bond between Mark Zuckerberg and my French companion is too strong for me to partake, as if I'm being excluded. But exactly this feeling gives me the strength to open my mouth.
    "Aren't you Mark Zuckerberg? The founder of facebook? I'd like to ask you something. I've been given the request to delete the account of someone's sister-in-law. She uses it for the forces of evil rather than good. Her name - the person who requested it, not the sister in law - calls herself 'Chantellabella', lives in Texas and likes kayaking. Is that enough information?"
    Zuckerberg looks at me as if I am a yellow diving beetle. I realise that might not have been the most clever opening line. I shake my head and say: "I'm sorry, what was I thinking? I haven't even introduced myself. My name is Daniel C." I wonder if I should walk over to him to shake his hand, but for some reason I stay standing where I am, some metres behind the French girl.
    Zuckerberg nods so slowly you could hardly recognise the gesture as nodding. Then his glance shoves back to my mermaidish companion.
    "What do are you doing here?" I had imagined Zuckerberg's voice to be entirely different. In reality it is soft and discrete, like cotton.
    "I could ask you the same question."
    "Why did you leave me? You could have become the richest woman of the world... well, of France in any case."
    "Why did you lie to me?"
    I've got the feeling I'm missing something, but for some reason I feel it would be most prudent to keep my mouth shut right now.
    "How do you mean, lied to you?"
    The French girl sniffs in a way that is filled of uncompromising disdain. "I'm not stupid, Mark. We were a close community. She told me."
    "Who are you talking about?"
    "The diving girl. She told me all about you. We concluded you were not worth it. Why else would you tell me that I was the only one?"
    "Listen, I can explain."
    "No need to explain, Mark. J'ai compris tout."
    At this point I can no longer constrain myself. "Could someone please inform me what is going on?"
    "Mark here," the French girl says, without turning around, "is a player. I told you about my father's restaurant, didn't I? There were a lot of tourists - mainly Russian, but also Dutch, German... and American."
    "You don't possibly mean?"
    "I do. Mark and I first made love in the barn where the mackerel was stored. After that, he visited me every evening after work. I should have known better. When I learned he was cheating on me, I left him. I didn't show up on the night he wanted to take me on this cruise. Did you enjoy the cruise, Mark? How many young women did you score on the way?"
    Zuckerberg fiercely shakes his head. "Listen, I'm sorry. I should have been honest with you. But it's done now. We can't change it anymore. So remains the question: what are you doing here?"
    "You know, some days after you left on your cruise, our village was ravaged. By flying fish. I could do nothing but flee onto the ocean. And this chap behind me was kind enough to pick me up. How about that?"
    The blue eyes of Mark Zuckerberg are muddled by a stain of contemplation. "Flying fish, you say? You're joking. Please tell me you're joking."
    "Oh yeah, of course I am. My village destroyed by flying fish, the inhabitants slaughtered, what a joke, hahaha." That last word sounds a bit strange due to her incapacity to pronounce the letter 'h'.
    "But that can't... I mean... I thought I could only command humans."
    Another silence occurs, in which everyone expects everyone else to say something. I decide to break the deadlock. "What do you mean, mister Zuckerberg? Only command humans?"
    "Uhm... Nothing, really. Just uhm... thinking by myself. So, Daniel. I have been looking for you. But first, tell me how you have managed to find this place."
    "It's a long story, sir. I could explain, but it would take eons of time. You know, it has cost me 17 seperate parts to describe it to this point, so that should give you an impression of how long it would take."
    "What the hell are you talking about?"
    Mark Zuckerberg ex-girlfriend, also functioning as my companion, says sneeringly: "Yeah, that's a hobby of him. Letting innocent people figure in some weird internet blog or something. Don't pay attention to that, he's just a weirdo."
    "Uhm... right." Zuckerberg looks confused. "I'm not sure what all of this is about, but it doesn't really matter. Let's just precede to the action part." And out of his back pocket, he pulls out a gun. "Water proof. 2 mm bullet. I'm sorry, Daniel, but you just were present at the wrong time, at the wrong place. Consider yourself to be a sacrifice for the greater good. Do you have any last words?"
    In the movies this part always looks more spectacular. Maybe that is because when watching movies I am not overtaken by a wave of panic, that puts all panic I've ever felt before in the shade. My mind rattles like a machine. Finally, what will presumably be my last words run out onto my tongue.

    Part 19
    I open my mouth in order to speak what are hopefully not my last words. "You know, Mr. Zuckerberg, that I am Dutch?"
    "No, I didn't. But I don't see what that's got to do with anything."
    "Well, without the Dutch, facebook would never have existed."
    "What kind of nonsense is that. I would have been perfectly able to found facebook without your puny country. Where are you anyway? Somewhere between France and Germany, right?"
    "It is true, though. Just watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7ZizDguxJA It explains everything. So you should be very grateful towards the Dutch. Not killing me is the least you could do."
    The wrinkles in Zuckerberg's forehead indicate he is about to lose his temper. "Jesus, I may be hyperintelligent but I don't have a photographic memory. You really expect me to remember that entire URL link?"
    "Oh yeah, I'm sorry, I can write it out if you like."
    "Save yourself the effort. This crazy talk has lasted more than long enough. If you don't have anything more interesting to say, it is time you meet your maker."
    I start to see my escape effort is probably not working. I see the metal gun, around which Zuckerberg's slightly trembling hand is pinched like a constrictor. I see the surreal, cyan light spiral down all around me. I see the dismay that shines out of both eyes of the French girl. After a while, I can see nothing but that dismay.
    "Wait!" I squeak. "I want to know one thing. Are you going to kill her too?"
    Zuckerberg is silent for a moment. Then a sardonic smile traverses his face.
    "Ah, love; a dreadful bond, and yet, so easily severed. Tell me..."
    "Davy Jones."
    "What?"
    "You're quoting Davy Jones from the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Please keep the dialogues in this story original, or we'll all get sued for copyright infringement."
    For the first time, Zuckerberg's face seems to show some disarray. "Uhm, yeah, you're right. I'm sorry. I meant..."
    "And I'm not in love. She's just a character while I'm the writer, it would never work up between us. I only feel... responsible."
    "Right! Well, then it will please you that I am not going to shoot her. But of course, she can't wonder freely over the planet any longer, she knows too much. But I think I might have a nice occupation for her at my private estate back in Palo Alto. Don't worry about her, lad. So, enough idle gossip. I think we have reached the climax of this episode. Close your eyes, if you like. I'll count to three."
    I look at my companion; her dismay has been replaced by fear. For some strange reason, my own mind seems to ease down, as if my anguish as sipped into her body.
    "One."
    I close my eyes because the last thing I want to see before I die are the cloudy lowlands of the Netherlands, that, at this strange moment, I miss more than I'd ever thought possible.
    "Two."
    It rains in the Netherlands, with a certitude I have never felt before I know that it rains in the Netherlands at this very moment. And the only thing I'd want is to feel the rain on my face one more time, but all I can do is wait for the three to pierce my heart, or my head. And then, I realise something, something important, something crucial. But I have no time to finish my thought, because I hear the sound of a soft 'Pang'. For one moment I think I am dead. Then I open my eyes and see I am not. Mar Zuckerberg is lying in the sand with his arms clasped at the backside of his head, behind stands the fossilised hotelier with a broken bottleneck in his hand.
    "The Queen, May She Live Eternally, contacted me to say you were in danger. She shouldn't have waited one more moment, I see."
    He picks up the gun and looks at it with fascination. "What is this?" he asks.
    "No time to explain. You've saved my life, sir - well, my fictional life, but still - and I owe you eternal gratitude. But I need to go now. I have a mission to fulfill. Please take care of this scoundrel. Will you come with me?"
    The French girl nods, she still looks terrified, like she can't believe what just happened. "You're still alive," she whispers. "I had my eyes closed, and when the bottle came down I thought..."
    "Of course not," I taunt, "I am the writer and protagonist of this story. We still have some episodes to go. How could they ever been fulfilled without me? It's time to go."
    "Go again? To where this time?"
    "To Barcelona, lady. The city of angels."

    Part 20
    "Where are we heading to?" she gasps, her endurance noticably put to the test by my spectacular fictional condition.
    "I told you! Barcelona!"
    "How do you ever want to get there?"
    We hurry through the crumbling streets that look exactly the same as six days ago, and at the same moment, totally different. The direction we're heading in is totally random, but as long as we keep moving we must reach the edge of the orb sooner or later.
    "How? With dolphins of course! I'll send out my thoughts to the queen. She managed to sendus those dolphins when we were in the middle of the Mediterranean, so this should be no problem for her."
    We turn around a corner but what awaits is just another cluster of half perished alleys. Still, we just keep running.
    "Daniel..."
    "Yeah?"
    "Uhm... when he was about to shot you I realised... uhm... I realised that I shouldn't have called you a weirdo. You're an eccentric, but not a weirdo. I'm uhm..."
    "Sorry?"
    "Well, not all the way to sorry. I just thought, uhm... I should let you know my formulation could have been slightly more appropriate."
    "Thank you. But maybe it's not the right moment for exchanging apologies."
    "I didn't say I was making you an apology."
    "Whatever."
    I can now clearly see one of the sides of the orb coming closer. We descend a long stairway, wriggle our way through some more alleys, and then, suddenly, feel our feet sink away in a deep layer of soft sand that stretches all the way to the edge of the shield. "Atlantis Beach," a musseled sign says, "please do not swim when the red flag is hoisted." To my relief, there is no red flag to be seen. In fact, the entire beach makes a slightly unattended impression. The only parasol that is still standing does so because it is encapsulated by a cocoon of extinct shellfish.
    "I see no dolphins, Daniel."
    "Let's give her some time. Maybe the dolphins are currently collecting a passenger on the other side of the Mediterranean."
    We sit down in the sand, since the beach chairs look like sitting in them would be equal to signing your death penalty. A tense silence follows, in which I am remembered that, despite everything, I still have social anxiety. After some time I gather the courage to defy the cyan repose that surrounds us.
    "You know, you're not the only one to apo... uhm, I mean, apply corrections in their previous behaviour. You know, I should have been honest with you eons ago. I mean... this entire story and all..."
    The silence is stronger than my words. I break off.
    "You know, Daniel. When they shot you - I mean, when I thought they shot you, I had my eyes closed. And then, when I opened them again and I saw Mark lying in the dirt with that old man behind him... just to say... that sight was totally worth it. Worth everything we've gone through so far."
    "You know, it's almost over. When we're in Barcelona you can just take the train to... uhm... well..."
    The cyan air takes on a painful semblance.
    "I have nowhere to go, Daniel. So I'll stick with you. Out of necessity. Daniel, when Mark was talking about me, and the fish, what do you think..."
    "I've been thinking about that as well. While we were running, I mean. Obviously Mark works for the aliens. The extraterrestrials, I mean. He got the mission to shoot me so that no one would learn about the extraterrestrials' scheme. Which means... You know, maybe he took over the role of the Atlanteans. The orbs... they grant Infinite Powers to all that possess them. Maybe he... I don't says he did it on purpose, but maybe his anger for you found its way to the fish that were... you know..."
    "So it wasn't your fault after all. But then, what are we to do? The extraterrestrials will sure find another way."
    I look right in front of me and in my eyes flickers a light of absolute determination. With a deep, echoing voice, I say: "We must stop them. We shall stop them."
    "But in what way?"
    "Well... at the moment that I was all but shot I remembered something. I was in Barcelona before, six days ago. I actually just came from Barcelona when I met you. Anyway, when I was there, I accidently ended up in a building somewhere along the Ramblas. And in that building I saw things... terrible things... the leaders of the world, reduced to puppets by the power of an infernal object."
    "An orb? You think one of the orbs is in Barcelona?"
    "I don't remember exactly. But I don't... it must have been an orb, yes. And I thought, if we can get our hands on it, then we might, I don't know..."
    "That's your plan? Let the dolphins take us to Barcelona, take the Orb of Doom, and hope some metaphysical wonder appears? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be... it just seems there isn't a lot of hope for us."
    "Hope? There never was much hope. Only a fool's hope." I am not concerned with copyright anymore. I survived an assassination attempt, I will be able to survive a charge for author's rights' infringement.
    At that moment, however, my thoughts are stopped at the sight of some streamlined creatures looming from the distance. "The dolphins," I say, and I rise up from the sand. But as I walk towards the edge, I suddenly stop. The creatures that are coming closer are no dolphins.

    To be continued

  5. #80
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    Yay! you brought it!! Your story is amazing.
    The Hokey Pokey IS what it's all about

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    sanspants's Avatar
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    I fear meth chefs and Mexican midgets with plastic asses D:

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    Quote sanspants View Post
    I fear meth chefs and Mexican midgets with plastic asses D:

    I'm sorry, but you didn't put that in the form of a question.

    But we have some lovely parting gifts.
    The Hokey Pokey IS what it's all about

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    Daniel C's Avatar
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    Part 21

    Out of the hazy stains I see arms solidify, and fingers, and eventually hairs, dark brown like the night. Before I can adapt to this revelation one of them sticks her haid through the plasmatic shield.
    "Any particular reason why you're looking at me as if I'm a three-headed bulldog? Never seen a mermaid before?"
    She speaks with a Jamaican accent, in a voice that is so deep it seems to lift off right from the centre of the earth. I search for an answer. (I'm sorry for the stylistic monotony of this story, it seems to me I've been using that phrase some ten times by now. Next time I'll see if I can express myself in a slightly more original way.)
    "No... I mean, yes, but only in books, and in films..."
    "A, don't start about them. In those, all mermaids are sluts. We aren't sluts, I can tell you."
    That's quite a reassurement. Now my first wave of stupefaction has ebbed away, I take a closer eye on the two creatures, and conclude they are indeed nothing like the well-known pictures. Instead of being bare-breasted or wearing only shell bras, they wear T-shirts over their upper bodies, the one of the mermaid who spoke to us saying "My mom went to New York and all I got was this lousy T-shirt." The other mermaid also wears a piercing in her tail fin, as well as having dreadlocks. I only now of the existence of mermaids for a few seconds, and my view of them already has to be revised.
    "Uhm, yeah..." I say. "I'm sorry, I haven't introduced myself yet. My name is..."
    "Daniel, yeah, we know. My name is Jessica and this gal here is Rachel. Nice to meet you bwoys. (The online dictionary told me 'bwoy' is a Jamaican word, so I thought it would fit here. I'm sorry if I'm misusing it.) The fancy queen sent us."
    "Uhm, right. Please excuse my confusion, I was expecting dolphins."
    Now the mermaid just identified as Rachel puts her head through the shield as well.
    "Yeah, those doondoos (idem dito) don't work on Mondays. So Zalia sent us to do the job instead. She always asks us to do the dirty work, like we're her slaves or something. 'Oh please, I so depend on you, could you please please please do this for me? I promise this is the last thing I'll ask of you.' Not."
    "Oh, I'm sorry, we didn't want..."
    "No, sure, it's nothing. The faster this is sorted out the better. Barcelona, ey? Fancy place, what yo gonna do there?"
    "Hmm, it's kind of complicated. You know, it all started in September when..."
    "I'm afraid there's no time for explaining." I turn, around the French girl (who, on second thougts, looks nothing like a mermaid, even when you only take into account her upper body) rconfirms that she's still present. I nod. "She's right, we can't wait too long. It's a matter of life and death, you know. The world's wellbeing rests in the palm of our hands."
    Jessica whistles in a quasi-impressed way. "Well then, we'd better take off. Uhm... we've been thinking about how to do this, ya see, it's the first time for us as well that we have to transport humans. We thought we'd better both swim at the sides and then you're in the middle, and then we all hold each other's hands like we're doing Voodoo. So I guess ya take my hand and the one of ye gal, and then she takes Rachel's hand. That should work out."
    We all align horizontally at the edge of the shield and do as instructed. Jessica's hand feels like sandpaper; that of the French girl feels like satin.
    "Okay bwoys. Please inhale deeply and enjoy your ride. Thank you for flying with us."
    And we set off. The speed with which the mermaids accelerate is incredible, I feel the salt water beech along me and have to squeeze the two hands with all power in order to not let go. The story has been pretty bizarre already, but I figure gushing forward between two nonchalant mermaids surpasses everything I've gone through so far. But I have to quit my fictional story because I only have three minutes left to get to my lecture.

  9. #84
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    I hadn't realized how far along you had gotten in your story. It's been fun reading it all over again. Like a favorite book.
    The Hokey Pokey IS what it's all about

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    Creamed kumquat puffs taste like chicken.
    The Hokey Pokey IS what it's all about

  11. #86
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    Pigeons really don't like to vote. So it's probably better if you don't approach them with a flyer.
    The Hokey Pokey IS what it's all about

  12. #87
    Secretly Pretentious's Avatar
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    Quote Daniel C View Post
    "Where are we heading to?" she gasps, her endurance noticably put to the test by my spectacular fictional condition.
    "I told you! Barcelona!"...

  13. #88
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    Quote Secretly Pretentious View Post
    Ok. That is the creepiest picture I think I've ever seen. Reminds me of when you fight with your siblings and your parents say, "Now kiss and make up."
    The Hokey Pokey IS what it's all about

  14. #89
    Sagan's Avatar Carl Sagan
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    Pickled Twinkies dipped in Habanero sauce. mmmm hmmmm!
    http://youtu.be/zSgiXGELjbc

    "A still more glorious dawn awaits
    Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise
    A morning filled with 400 billion suns
    The rising of the milky way"

    "The sky calls to us
    If we do not destroy ourselves
    We will one day venture to the stars" -Carl Sagan

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    Your pickled Twinkies inspired me to write a poem.

    Oh Pickled Twinkles in my plate
    Why do you taste so good?

    should?
    wood?
    brood?


    Ok. Nevermind.
    The Hokey Pokey IS what it's all about

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