=-<CognesTuGradive% Be@m->mail

So there was as much to the Crescent portals as meshed behind my senses. "That's endearing..." I gathered. "Would you tell me where you obtained Hashreika from?"

"You will find the answer... both paltry & perplexing," he responded giddily. "Not compiled or distributed by human hands, & maybe not even fleshly wit. After my soldier days, I was admitted into a NASA program with telescopes so confidential they could view 2 entire galaxies off. One day this nearly pure green fluctuation hovered across roughly one-third of the solar system I had been monitoring on radar for a couple weeks. Assumed it was some kind of icy asteroid belt on the move, but it was registering 3 times as luminous the Trinary-star Squishtem in question. So I dialed up the Scope to meet it with sharper analysis; only to notice it wasn't behaving like mass, or even gas in accordance with gravity. I found it to be about as ethereal as coloRadiation itself." He paused for breath. "It was slowly pinwheeling and tremMooring, like an uprooted Clover dawdling in a breeze - purple & silver were laced at the fringes of the Glow. At moments, it briefly added illusion o' fourth leafish sprig."

The implications struck hard. "Did you ever figure out what it was?"

"No matter what it looked like from the ground, when I probed close enough to its boundary, there was absolutely nothing significant to gauge at all... I realized it was probably some holographic projection between all 3 suns prisMining reflection threw the Lunar tube passing between them."

I pondered this, and turned toward Hashy. "That sprang... from Lunar prismatiClover range? Is that what you meant earlier, by stars singing?"

"It's actually just the dancing part," he chuckled. "Now try to imagine being the first one to try & explain the discovery to Supervision, plus the next week when the telescope melted into a type of gun only Tanks could haul until the invention of rocket turbines. Even all surveillance footage in the room was fried through the microchip roots; I didn't even see the process because i fled the Observatory along with two other guys as the jingling & popping sounds spiked: the room had begun to bake somewhere upwards of 150 F, not relenting until about 300 F."

"Huh," I splashed. "What are the odds the heatwave rose gradually at a rate human skin could temporarily withstand?"

"Theory about that," he held up a gnarly finger. "If the ricochet of enough clash or centrifugal Forces can actually ignite beatific agility of Awareness, then I could have experienced a Beam-mail from an organism that sensed it was being observed & was able to inspect & respect my components more accurately than I could measure it. Three is the minimum start of a crowd, beyond a single mutual focus."

"That sounds disturbingly unfair," I spilled. "But then again, the essence is so many Leagues more Massive, it prolly doesn't have need to pressure us for personal benefit. Probably..." I repeated.

Since my Trip home through the portal, I sensed circumstances that seemed bizarre were plausible, just unacquainted. Sure there was some other Extended (dare I say mesmerizing) astroPhanTune ratios at work, reacting Dimensions to cradle & fuel bodies and pools of life less fragile & more efficient than our own.

But for any taped among the familiar-known scenarios, watching Old dogs occupy elegantly retired abodes, presses pups to strive after the same procedural gains. Our demands cannot be tailed enough; imagination or intellect alone without materials, a failure of comfort. Tactility's island harbors that knowledge: In'genuity, a rugged luxury. Did we ne:Gate ourselves the very day we defined Ultimate destinations as/to "HIGH*AIR" & "DEE;PORE".

There's something to be said from the perspective of children. Approaching circumstances sometimes with naivety, aside from lofty expectations, & despite the environmental conditioning chiding at you it won't work. Somewhere between meshes a wonderful basket.

Were there backstage gizmos lying around concealing fabric to improve the regulation of Body, & harmony of emotional satisfactions? Before I realized, I was speaking aloud: "Well I've seen mountains of stuff today," I blabbered. "Thingggs," shoot, I was scarcely ready to entertain this yet... "Not only in the tunnels. Emblems aannnd, scenarios that make me question if I haven't been running around thinking i'm anything less than the equivalent of a planet in diversity myself."

My mentor's head dipped subtly. "I felt dimly scattered as you on first encounter... Until having arranged to blitz blank chambers from Heschita at myself: since the machine accommodates most mineral chunks, whether carved to fit or no." His eyes glowed expansively, as if gazing out over a Ranch or a Theme park.

"I wish we had more time to mess around with technical functions today," I swooned.

"You should sleep on these events before cross-examining them anyhow," his tongue mollified. "When I performed such Radiation meditation, found myself dropped on top of a large Plateau where I had the chance to explore everything from a gnarled forest where two girls were recurring shoved into Gorge by hunters. Tried to intervene, but my sight blurred into double vision, helplessly, & the archers dragged me away. I was informed in a nutshell, the girls were executed for imposing their own wisdom against customary values, and sealed me in some mortar squiDungeon." He shook his head, then continued on. "...It appeared there were some slits embedded, so I decided to check out the interior. When inside peering back out portholes, My vision seemed clearer in comparison. Some kind of corrective Lens in the pane... A fire was sizzling on the horizon like Dawn - and it turned out to be a Phoenix that ripped through my tower like a meteor. When I stepped out I was in a lush tropic region."

"I can resonate with some barren Landscape shit," I appealed. "I went flying over volcano slag - maybe that relates to the environmental Rebirth also. The contrast of super senses inside the glos$ediment-lather Domain, strummed that atmosphere with efficient ease - but I guess the limited lapsing of time is the elusiveness that boggles us. Or maybe the implications are that cultures tend to enforce social stigmas instead of appreciating diversity." What it felt like now was an oxymoron. Here, what motionlessly surrounded me was simply blindfolding me to Magnificent Capacities. It ached to be outside the inner-valves. It slayed to think back upon Unified Properties as if through the dome of a snow globe, and STRAIN for feelings of furious enchantment just once more when my fingers were locked out.

I wasn't in a Realm-warping device when my fall from the catwalk was prevented...I'd left remnants betwixt twin Realms, but if I tried to unleash the Terrain attached on Landlubbers, my buoyancy would only crash against rigid Confines, and I'd have nothing but Humpty Dumpty -- shattered shards. For now, if I left the globe floating in a haze, there was always hope that at some point I'd stumble upon some key-trigger that could solidify the Territories for me in amplified conditions. I seemed to have already forgotten so much of the complexity of what I'd witnessed. "Before we exited, it all felt so comprehensible & orderly."

"Like trying to follow dream logic after waking up?" he suggested.

"Nope. Worse."

Somewhere in my heart, I knew I had been pushed against cutting edges of Flavor & impression. It wasn't a trivial escapade: my mind wasn't collaborating with my repressed core to forge some hollow reality. I was so certain it was more than subconcious -- yet I couldn't prove it. I swam wildly back over flaky bits of profound recollection, obscuring long-distance like blizzard gale, benumbing me. "Like being evicted," I compared. "Or maybe detained..."

"Well you would be far from the first of those types," my elder claimed.

"Sorry, it's preceDental for me," I groused, & something else rubbed at me. "Say, how come although we entered the portal together, we never saw each other 'till after poppin' Out?"

Malibu just shrugged. His eye wrinkles were really showing the age of his patience. I abruptly wondered if enough patience could devise a procedure to undo all gravity's hold... I felt like a fresh tender heart, and an older methodical brain. Wish to trust? He conjured a wry laugh. "You're right we're supposed to float at least in distant view of each other. So many things went haywire - The Taps usually last much longer than that. Now I see something special may be joining together. FirsTime Trippers aren't supposed to be Shimmersed by such depth."

I pretended as if I heard no allegations, since I couldn't bear to get my hopes up for the moment. Switching topics, I pointed at Maggy's broken cybernetics. "I'd like to do some theorizing about that wasted pile of junk too. I didn't think we'd get to take it home," I harked in awe. "What those puffy pyramids did was beyond intriguing."

"Hey now, remember when I played with the Big-Knockular Boyscouts? There wasn't a whole lot of jokinGames going on. Do me a favor son," Gut rebutted in a pleading tone. "Don't get your head caught up in that stuff, unless it's thrust upon you."

"But!" I protested. Then I validated the credit due my partner. "But that would be a dangerous thing to do..."

"You can't just drop knowledge once you've tasted," my friend corroborated, all too nostalgically. "Unless you trade portions of life to forget it."

"That's alright," I brushed off. "Forgetting doesn't give my extravagant progress," I proclaimed. However, there was yet another repercussion showering. "Besides, having dropped a friend's heirloom back in the Facility. So i could use some drugs, Village viking, or a few visits to the pharmacy at least." I made it sound believable, like I was really considering deliberately altering my body chemicals. (of course if I so desired, and nothing went wrong with the Black merchants… such contents were going to be available at the party at week's end).

Gutt folded, rubbing at his temple. "Oh, sorry. I won't get mixed up between you and that stuff. Just keep in mind, if you enter wide Haul-low spaces, you splice the simple places behind, and if you ever get back, the places you knew will have altered; if not only in the way you perceive it with new cravings and sensation."

That literally almost made me cry. I could scarcely swallow the previous hour. We all inevitably are ripped from the Island of our original sustainment by a Hurricane of growing panes. The Climate around us morphs into new material, things emerge beyond your control, are overwhelming to understand, become hard to accept...

Fading memories. We are walking warehouses of them.

And we're part of someone else's files, on a page they can't quite keep organized, occupying a space in their story but only so long as they are nearby to recall it (the parts of which we'll only manage to summarize). Even the famed are ghostly hiccups; verses short-changed down to Highlights. Few onlookers, if any can really appreciate their life, their peculiar little grinds and screwy distinguishers that filTone them as sePeeRespective.

"Okay, dial back the advice from every previous comment," I warned. "Or I'll hurl Sack-handed compliments at you even the Scar-spout won't be able to heal."

"Consider it done; brain surgery is delicate, & the healing is slow," he remarked.

"Proverbs are all too close to advice," I basked in the sour Warzone around us: "Sucks you won't be able to clean up for a while, man. But how do we get back out of this cellar?" I peeked along the nearby corner. "We gotta climb back up that pole."

"Course not, I can't expect my customers to be nimble as myself," He laughed. "Gutt stepped over debris to middle of a wall between Maggy & the pole, where masquerading beneath a portion of black shelf, a gray scanning device idly waited for its purpose. A thin probe structure flipped out, as he tapped the Staff on the ground before it with a decree: "Agents ought never tread back the way they troddled in."

A panel of cinder block peeled away to the side, and jammed partially as it flexed against the Mag-netty. I guess it was a voice-recognition code. "You've got style. Rarely do I hear real-life peeps shroud the concept of 'stealthy' in such poetic verse," I raked.

"We're both just ripe with surprises," he rattled, and disappeared through the doorway.

Fanciful of relief, I bowed to Maggy for the rescue, & also turned to to target a salute roughly where we'd left Hashy cloaked by invisible standards. "Thanks for the sacrifices."

That's when my lungs seized, as drapes billowed up around the Gatling edges like the hem of a Dress raised for curt'sea. 4-leafed clovers were brushing the ground like broomsticks, attached like some kind of webbed feet. As they passed over the floor, 3 glisteninG*old fish flaps wavered along the cement: the air suddenly filled to the brim with the scents of fresh sea salt. One by one, arrows, mittens, & leeches ap*Pierced through them, emitting candles of stinging flame, swelling with their tatters, until the bulbous & elongation became tangled like a melted wad of netting. It contorted into strange expressions, while rotating across the earth closer to my feet, turning silver, turning intelligent & gaunt.

The mercurial fountain moved stiffly, as though conjured by an artisan with palsy or Parkinson's. The bottom half of curving feminine body spilled around spaghetti. With some sort of fishing hook & lantern, it searched under several noodle flaps, until managing to latch onto a tugboat, lifting it inside the lantern where it erupted with a peachy syrup*(!

I recall smelling faint perfume with hint of pear, before the surface of the room perforated & peeled into bulbous translucent tunnels: I crumpled to the ground, dumbstruck & claustrophobic. It seemed a part of that labyrinth itself, was overlapping space. Then some tapestry skittered into a square, divested of most human features, but only the barest outline of eyelashes and lips. There was a sparkle in each corner like jade, which took turns blinking at me, diagonally– The whole thing was more surreal than all I'd witnessed previously. A rather plain sundial in appearance - except four lumpy appendages coiled like wheels near the entity, while the entire structure rocked & sounded as if it was being thrust at below froMultiple, transparent drills.

Flashing windows peeled back within the eyes, displaying masks of beak and tusk & dripping maces. My clothes seemed to evaporate in a blast of slime, & all of a sudden I was swept down aboard the deck, strapped among veins like hammock, shriveled, naked as a leaf in the sun, being gazed at from peepers embedded in the Mast. Peachy toothpicks wreathed around my collar, like a long fluttering gown of infantile grasp, bedding me as raspy corn husks. I could feel my hair drift to the side - then noodles from below slipped between ribs & lodged around my lungs, guiding rhythmic squeezes. I felt swallowed like a sudsy sponge bath, alcaHoly sprays zinged 'gainst me like bounding piano keys & androgynous voices sailed into my head: "Wider passion, more covering, to stretch out one's core: every chief strikes a Lim-bit, distant associaTending rim. Two overlaPollution filTraits, we segreGateDot`Fars return in flavor of morALEs: twin huMORgue unassuming sufficiency, gagged on confoaMitt-steam offered as pleasuRabble cream."

"Polluted Chief What??" I raged without moving a muscle. "Return from where!"

There was a pause, as if deciding whether to account for my confusion. "Why did you mislead us before, papa so polite?" They slanted on either side of me, one swan, one bluish beetle. "You launched us to venoMoons, where tears must collect, absorbed arid like a liaRansackeDestitute. Although you behaved paranoid & unfaithful, wounDid the realm a favor. We forgive your cargo, we forgive your fear; Every four generations: compartmentalizing, disruPreserves, retraConcussions, advent inviting. A cycle for each Century..."

"Sounds like you're accusing me of something?!" I struggled. "Except - we've never met!"

They continued, "All Origin burst forth of rigid fear - irrefutable initial path of every Mate*Trixi'$ pin'prick; but familiarity roughly settles skittishness. Intonation becomes a beacon of scent; the reek of insecurity will Propel behind lightning & crickeTenThrong: 'til gainsays of personal gravy blank'Rept inquiRain hunchbaClothing." My vision went whitExpandeDrown inside sum berry Enormous Feathery Tent. (Curtly, i pondered if it hadn't been fashioned all from a single bird).

Until a ropy, tawny member among tribal leaders was discussing a matter that disgusted him nearly as much as all the other decorated captains there; allegations over his two daughters upending the balance of Safety with mental feats never elsewhere known. He agreed both his adolescent daughters must be poisoned before they greWiSEer (like their not-so human mother). Next dinner, as they choked & succumbed, begging their father's help from prostrate from throw-rugs, he was already staggering to the doorflap, gnawing the wooden vial of fatal substance in his own jaw. The bygone era flickered out of sight...

"Caprice was your price, this cLApeTide; to souReverse the dishonor of haughtiness. Each dust-governor must taste stone eyes of mistrust. But the rest of ordained crimes, will fortify your fountaiNest Gardens like a welder's torch - lest you prefer to run for a council seat again; but we've planted Levers more accessible, solely to decrease the strain required of communal striving."

My hearThrashed wildly as the Boat receded, dwindling over horizon like rejection, lingering with empty shudders of offers not taken. Tears sloshed between the creases around my cheeks.

The Gutter tottered back into the cellar beside me like a mournful dog. His eyes were wide with concern. "I'm sorry, you must have acknowledged them, which most folks never do. They exist in a lonesome reservoir, so I bet it's not personal son."

"Bullshit it wasn't personal," I fumed with phlegm. "They mentioned my EX. I swallowed their forsaken lake of acid tears!"

He suffocated my hand warmly, & patted my shoulder "I didn't imagine you'd be that quick to believe."