The Last Festival

desert crossing

Found at a travel blog

“…I’m trying to erase you from my mind …you’re my religion and my belief…”

This wasn’t Yunin Obia’s first pilgrimage to the Holy City for the Festival of Qet but it would be her last. Every devotee of the God Slaz was required to travel to the great city of Shilarbor once every year for the Qet when Barkon’s orbit brought the planet closest to its sun. Motorized ground or air transport was allowed but it was considered a greater act of piety to make the journey on foot.

Yunin was healthy and relatively young and so encased in her skinsuit with the required possessions for the festival strapped across her back, she trudged across the soft sand from dusk until several hours after dawn each day stopping when it became too hot to go on. Then she slept in her insulated body tent until the desert permitted her once again move forward.

Occasionally, she would see another pilgrim in the distance. Sometimes they travelled in groups of three or four, but again, the greatly pious made the trip on foot and alone. Yunin had chosen an approach that was distant from aircraft flight paths and vehicle roads to accentuate her solitude. It also made it possible to hear the God Slaz’s voice a little sooner. She wanted to see if He knew what she was planning.

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Revival (Not the Church Kind)

Chocolate Legs

From the YouTube video Project Soul – CHOCOLATE LEGS – Eric Benet (Live Band Cover) Freddi Lubitz

“Your cocoa skin against mine…Is all I need to help revive me…”

I’m dead and it’s all her fault. Oh, she didn’t actually murder me, but she knew it was dangerous. Well, that’s unfair. I was dying anyway. I had nothing to lose and she knew it. She was actually trying to help and I even agreed, but if I’d said no, I might have had a few more weeks or even months.

We met at a “Pagan Pride” event in Oak Park near Chicago. The place was actually pretty impressive compared to what I was used to. I’d just hit “the Windy City” and was staying at a cheap hotel wondering what I was going to do next. Kenadee had a little apartment on the South Side. She normally didn’t hook up with guys the same night she met them, but I have that affect on people.

Neither of us were exactly “pagan” people. They tend to be pretty nice and harmless, Crescent Moonies, Wiccans, and Heathens who pull together for local charities and social causes. I only went because they were having an open house and the food was free, plus they aren’t nearly as judgmental as churches, synagogues, and mosques.

She was there because being a witch, she had no other place to go for a social outlet plus she has a soft spot for puppies and they were having a fund raiser for the animal shelter.

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Beautiful Disaster

interstellar ship

Concept art for the 2014 film “Interstellar.”

“…He’s only happy hysterical …I’m waiting for some kind of miracle…”

“I’m madly, insatiably in love with you, Trin. Don’t you want me to be with you?”

“Of course I do, Nil. I’ve always loved you.”

“Then just let me out and we can be together forever.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Sure you can. You know how to operate the mechanism. For cryin’ out loud, you’ve got degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering. You could probably build one of these things. Just let me out.”

“I can’t Nil. I told you.”

“Why not?”

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Incendiary

empty room

Found at ClickOnDetroit.com

“…I’m living in an empty room, with all the windows smashed…”

The Sixth Chapter in the Undead Life of Sean Becker

It was still an hour before dawn. There would have been a time when he’d already be on his way into work from the East Bay. The population of San Francisco increases by nearly 300,000 people Monday through Friday due to workers commuting into the City. Sean tried for forget that he used to be one of them.

He knew that the two floors of the warehouse above Antonie’s lair were occupied by a highly dubious and most likely illegal population of artists and “undocumented immigrants,” but he had never thought to visit them before. He stood in the doorway. Normally he would take the set of stairs leading downward but he was distracted by a familiar voice.

“Why not see how the other half lives, Sean?”

He looked ahead and he recognized her but couldn’t remember where from.

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Blood and Misery

stock bearded man

Stock photo of a bearded man in a suit

“He looks like a cool drink of water but he’s candy-coated misery…”

Autumn 1977 – Stanford University, California

“As you can see in this EEG readout General, our Receiver subject’s brain waves are changing, beginning to match those of the Sender subject’s patterns we can see here on the remote receiver.”

“How far away is the Sender, Dr. Targ?” Brigadier General Nathaniel J. Stuart had been briefed on the technology involved in Targ’s and Puthoff’s experiments and he felt that the extraordinarily sensitive nature of their work required he view the preliminary evidence without being accompanied by his aides.

“Approximately half a mile, General.”

“And there’s no way they could possibly be in communication through conventional means. What about the EEG devices? Could they be connected in some way to produce this effect?”

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Dangerous Woman

dangerous woman

From the cover of the Deluxe Edition of the Ariana Grande album “Dangerous Woman.”

“Somethin’ ’bout you makes me feel like a dangerous woman…”

Writers Max Martin, Ross Golan, Johan Jens Erik Carlsson
from Dangerous Woman performed by Ariana Grande.

The latex bunny rabbit suit complete with matching mask and ears made her at once seem totally ridiculous and incredibly sexy. Anybody who had ever wanted to fuck Babs Bunny definitely wanted to screw this Ariana wannabe…that is until she pulled the 12mm Uzi from behind her back and started firing into the crowd of fellow cosplayers, celebrities, and comic book fans.

The instant she depressed the trigger, the chorus to “Dangerous Woman” started blaring over the loudspeakers throughout the main floor of the Boise Centre on the Grove convention center, providing musical accompaniment to murder.

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Ghost Dance

keystone leak

This aerial photo shows spills from TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone pipeline, Friday, Nov. 17, 2017, that leaked an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil onto agricultural land in northeastern South Dakota – Credit: AP.

“You gotta get up off that grey line…I’ll guarantee they’ll fall in line…”

A federal agency says a leak in TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone oil pipeline in South Dakota likely was caused by damage during construction in 2008.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issued a corrective action report Tuesday on the estimated 5,000 barrels (795,000 litres) of oil that spilled. The report says a weight installed on the pipeline nearly a decade ago may have damaged the pipeline and coating.

According to the report, weights are placed on the pipeline in areas “where water could potentially result in buoyancy concerns.”

Keystone pipeline leak in South Dakota likely caused by 2008 damage: report
28 November 2017 - The Associated Press

A Native American tribe in South Dakota is on edge following a large oil leak from TransCanada's Keystone pipeline.

TransCanada said in a statement Thursday 795,000 litres of oil leaked from an underground section of its Keystone pipeline near Amherst, S.D., about 64 kilometres west from the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation.

Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate tribal chairman David Flute said his community is concerned the leak, the largest by the Keystone pipeline in South Dakota to date, could pollute the area's aquifer and waterways.

"We are keeping a watchful eye and an open ear," said Flute.

"The concern is at a high level, but there is really nothing we can do."

Native American tribe bracing for Keystone pipeline leak impact
16 November 2017 - by Jorge Barrera, CBC News

Wovoka called them together, the great spirits of his people, of all those who had lived in this land before the white men came. Only a few answered his plea at first. They were hesitant. The last time any of them had been among the living, they had been dying, by disease, by gunshot, by alcoholism, their women raped and murdered, their children starved, all brought about by the European invaders, their children, and their children’s children.

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What I’ve Always Dreamed Of

venus airships

Artist’s concept of a Venus cloud city — a possible future outcome of the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept (HAVOC) plan.
Credit: Advanced Concepts Lab at NASA Langley Research Center

“Don’t look for what you don’t want to find…”

“So this is it; this is what I wished for; just isn’t how I envisioned it…”
— Eminem, from “Careful What You Wish For.”

Genaro tried to remember what happened. He’d been sleeping a lot lately but it wasn’t a natural sleep. They were trying to keep him quiet so he wouldn’t be a bother. Why couldn’t he see? Why were his arms and legs so heavy?

He tried to stand but although he could find the floor, he couldn’t find his feet. Something at the end of his leg was touching something below and to the side of him, but it wasn’t a foot. It was…was… What was it? What had happened? He realized now he couldn’t move his fingers. What was at the end of his arms? Why was it so hard to breathe?

He opened his mouth but couldn’t scream. He felt like he was suffocating. His head, yes he still had a head, was aching. The pain spiked and then there was nothingness.

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