GO BACK IN TIME with Ringo11: story of the century!!
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Bump
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This is what I should be doing right now...
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BUMP!
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AHH! THIS THREAD IS TOWARDS THE BOTTOM!!!!! EMERGENCY BUMP!
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Bumpity bump
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busy busy busy busy busy... okay, here's what I think I should do: I'm going (or coming, depending on your perspective) to Europe in about 10 days. This means that I may not be able to do any writing for some time. What I think I should do, and I would like your opinion, is just post everything I've written so far, unedited, and then if I need to go back and change things once I start writing again I'll just edit my post and you can all re-read it. This is organic writing - the reader gets to read the story as it progresses. Do you all want me to do that, or should I carry on as I am and not post any more till I've written a whole lot more to get ahead again? Something that might sway your opinion: the story gets pretty hot in the second last chapter I've written so far.
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I'm for you posting what ya got!
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yes yes!!! please post whatever you got so far and ......welcome to europe in 10 days I hope you will have a great time...and who knows...maybe you'll run into Paul
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HoneyPie59:
yes yes!!! please post whatever you got so far and ......welcome to europe in 10 days I hope you will have a great time...and who knows...maybe you'll run into Paul
Thank you. I hope I do. Right then, here it comes...
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SIXTY-SEVENTH INSTALMENT You reach the bus in the nick of time and Paul pays the driver while you go upstairs and find a seat near the back. You wait for Paul to catch up and let him sit by the window, settling down beside him as the bus pulls off onto the street. He looks at you and smiles, then gazes out at all the rows of little houses going by. You watch him looking out the window, hand on his chin, elbow on the sill. He?s so nice. You feel your shoulders tense and find your spine start to go rigid. Uh oh, Maccatack. You turn away from him and sit up straight in your seat as your chin lifts of its own accord. Shutting your eyes you bunch your hands into fists and, with a deep breath, the attack has passed and you relax. He doesn?t say much during the bus ride, occasionally pointing out some interesting scenic feature as usual, and for the most part you gaze at him as he gazes out at the world. You?re both so busy gazing that when the bus reaches your stop you almost forget to get off. Paul gives a start when he realises. ?Quick,? he says, pushing you towards the stairs, ?I must have been half asleep.? You make it down in time to stop the driver closing the door on you, and jump off the bus with relief. Now the rush is over, you amble down the city street, much more relaxed again. Everything seems so old to you, and strange, like you?ve been landed in some old photograph. But something isn?t right with that scenario, and for a while you can?t work out what it is. Then you realise. Everything is in vivid colour. Well, maybe not vivid, but the shades of grey include brown-grey and green-grey, and even the occasional navy blue. This isn?t a photograph of a time gone by, this is reality and you?re living in it. You follow Paul past shops selling things like hats, which in itself is not something that you really get in the future. Advertisements in windows offer bright new products to the discerning housewife. You come to a big intersection with grand buildings on the corners and as you near the end of the street you see for the first time the mountain of steps leading to huge classical pillars on the front of a huge building that could only be one thing. ?You said we weren?t going to the museum,? you say. ?I said you?d have to wait and see,? he grins. You follow him across the intersection and over to the huge steps, where you pause to take in the view before your ascent. You gaze above you at the magnificent stone work as you pass between the pillars and into the building. The entrance hall is itself filled with artefacts. You turn your head this way and that, trying to take in as much as you can of both the architecture of the building and the collections of assorted old things that it houses. You stare up at the high ceilings and down at the echoing floor. You amble into another huge room filled with glass cases. You follow Paul slowly past displays, staring in at the objects on display. This isn?t at all like a modern museum. There is no interactive material, no bright, fun educational things to play with, no ambient sounds, no crazy lighting. It?s just dim, silent except for your echoing footsteps, and full of glass cases which are laden with pottery and things. The next room has more glass cases and even dimmer lighting. Enclosed behind the panes this time are rows of Egyptian figurines and bits of stone with scratches on them. A big case houses a larger bit of stone with pictures and hieroglyphs, and in the centre of the display lies a coffin with an ornate head of gold and black, the sarcophagus of a mummy Pharaoh. Next, you follow Paul into a room with cases full of creatures, great and small, and all still and staring out at you with glass eyes. ?I wouldn?t like to be in here at night,? Paul quips. ?No, I can see why.? He looks at you for a moment. ?What?? you ask. ?Oh. Nothing,? he smiles a little smile. ?No, what? Really!? ?You?ve got a?? he sort of gestures at your hair. ?Got a what?? ?There?s a thing?? ?Huh?? ?Here,? he says, and carefully picks something out of your hair. ?You had flour in your hair,? he says, grinning. ?Why didn?t you just say so?? ?I did.? ?You could have said it earlier.? ?Sorry, I didn?t really notice,? he raises his eyebrows in a cheeky way. You pull a face at him, he blinks at you. You lead him around the animal hall, moving past all the stuffed figures, wrinkling your nose. At the end of the hall you come to some stairs, which you go up. The whole place echoes with your presence, as though you?re the first people to have been there for centuries, making the archaeological discovery yourself of this huge sanctuary for lost and displaced objects. The stairs lead to a landing, and you choose a door that leads to a smaller room crammed full of what seems like junk. It has a sort of chaotic order to it. Glass boxes cover model boats, some of them backed with mirrors so the model maker only had to make half a boat. In the centre of the room, and taking up the vast majority of the space, is the huge grinning skeleton of a whale, suspended just off the floor. The ribs form a cage so huge you could live in it. Around the whale is a banister, with more models both inside and out. You walk around the whale past displays of knots and old beacons. Dusty photographs show the history of the port in fits and bursts. You don?t bother to read the lengthy explanations that accompany them. Having made a full circuit of the whale skeleton and taken in most of the strange and dusty maritime exhibits, you exit the room through the same door by which you entered. Down the hall is a room full of old oil paintings, mostly portraits of blokes in wigs, which you glance at quickly before moving on. Paul imitates their facial expressions and gets a laugh from you. You move on to another flight of stairs going back down, and after descending them, through another series of rooms containing equally lost and dusty items. You find yourself examining Royal regalia, flags, crockery, various worn out weapons, moth eaten uniforms? there?s even a gallery of hats. Paul does a few excellent imitations of the sorts of people whose heads they may once have kept warm before you find yourselves back in the entrance hall. You exit back through past the magnificent pillars supporting the grand entrance, and are glad to find yourself back in the fresh air. It takes your eyes a moment to adjust to the bright sunlight. You stand and stare out at the city from the top of the stairs. ?Hungry yet?? Paul asks. ?Not till you mentioned it,? you reply. ?I?m starving!? He digs around in his bag and pulls out the now slightly squashed scones. ?Are we just going to stand here and eat them?? ?Oh, er? no. We can go and?? Paul hadn?t thought of that. ?Why don?t? we just go for a wander?? you suggest. ?Okay.? You descend the grand steps. At the bottom, you pause and look both ways, unsure of where to wander to. Paul catches up and hands you a scone. ?This way,? he says, moving off to the right. ?Hang on!? you say through a mouthful of scone. You chase after him
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That was where we were up to wasn't it? There's actually more here than I thought, so I'll feed it through in instalments like usual and see what happens. I'll still post them more often than I have been though.
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Thank you I needed that! Julie PS Are you really on your travels so soon? Where are you going to be first? Let me know! I'm not sure you will find yourself in rural Gloucestershire but you never know! Meanwhile post all you have...please!
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Thanks for another great installment, Rings!!!!
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Awesome, thanks!
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Chica Loca:
Thank you I needed that! Julie PS Are you really on your travels so soon? Where are you going to be first? Let me know! I'm not sure you will find yourself in rural Gloucestershire but you never know! Meanwhile post all you have...please!
I leave here in a week tomorrow! First I'll be spending a week in Singapore, then off to London for a few days, then I'm staying with people in the South. After that I'll be travelling around England for a while with a mate before heading for the continent. It's all so exciting!
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Ringo11:
Chica Loca:
Thank you I needed that! Julie PS Are you really on your travels so soon? Where are you going to be first? Let me know! I'm not sure you will find yourself in rural Gloucestershire but you never know! Meanwhile post all you have...please!
I leave here in a week tomorrow! First I'll be spending a week in Singapore, then off to London for a few days, then I'm staying with people in the South. After that I'll be travelling around England for a while with a mate before heading for the continent. It's all so exciting!
Ooh! Have fun!!!
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Wonderful! Thanks Ringo
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bumpity BUMP!