Frog Applause by Teresa Burritt for August 07, 2013

Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.

As long as the obscurity is warm and doesn’t sting, I’ll happily continue to flounder in it.

Today’s rerun: on the nose.

The doll with Slynderfell eyes

Sarcasm on a String! Just like Soap on a Rope, except that is doesn’t leave you feeling refreshed.

I am sorry for being so obscure?

Sarcasm’s funny? Yeah, right. Oh – wait a minute – it IS!

Pull your own string….we’ve all heard that “joke” before.

Behold the glory of my pneumatic lettuce

I’ve been seeking obscurity all my life. It’s so hard to find.

No, no…pull my finger!

THAT’LL keep you focused on what’s real. For those of us in the know, obscurity is a grand thing.

Always operate in the shadows and behind the curtain. .They can’t get a clean shot at you.

I like my flounder less obscure … I prefer it broiled with lemon butter and chives.

Wow, a Purify Bros. reference. I’m impressed.

Looks like I need a new invite to get to the blog. Anyone know the new email address?

Sad, but at least Theresa is back…

I’ve tried to join the blog group.It won’t let me.It’s probably my fault.I’ll try again later, when I’m not so stupid.

I can live with that.

Having made our camp and secured a source of fresh water, we set out to more closely examine the Fabled Lost City of Lame. At some point, the guardian had returned to the gates and left us alone. Nobody saw it go, of course. It just was suddenly not there. It has been four months now since Teresa disappeared. There are signs of her here, but no clear indication of how long ago, or if she is still here. We continue our search.

Events in the camp have settled into a routine. We have commenced mapping the Lost City of Lame. This will seem unlikely, but it has been found that if we return to an area already mapped, we cannot be certain that it will match what we have already observed on our previous visit. Entire structures become altered with no signs of recent demolition or construction. I have added it to my long list of grievances against a reality which refuses to conform to expectations.

Things have settled into a routine, as much as they are able to do so. We have mapped the entire Lost City of Lame, for all the good it does us. It all changes again after only a few days. We seem to be in a temporal rift zone, where many realities meet and only those realities with a harmonic resonance at the present moment are represented at all. Now I have to wonder if we can leave here and return to the real world, or if we will be exiting to an alternate reality. I begin to fear that this is what became of Teresa. The reality we took for granted is not the one in which she may be found. We have no idea of the number of realities here in this nexus, and she may be in any one of them, or a Sliders episode for that matter.

Things have become quiet, nearly routine in the camp. Following the river upstream leads to a rock outcropping at the base of a mountainous divide. The water comes from the rock. It appears to run through an old groundwater cave channel, and that this area has experience massive uplift in the near geological past, probably within the past 50,000 years. Following the river downstream leads to a massive marshland. What lies across the marsh is unknown. It extends beyond the range of our vision, even when we employ a tethered hot air balloon. It is too wide and too treacherous to cross. We have christened it F.A.O. Swamp, after the huge crowd of chorus frogs raising voice in its impenetrable and ancient sea of rushes. F.A.O. stands for Frog Applause Overdrive, of course. No sign yet of Teresa, nor any indication of what path she may have taken from this place, if any.

Our explorations of the Lost City of Lame are producing no actual results. Just as we learn the layout of a section, it changes. People are beginning to disappear. I presume that they have abandoned the project and have headed back to civilization. I can only hope they survive the trek. I also hope that there is no darker force at work here. What if they were in a portion of Lame that changed or disappeared? Would they disappear also? Is this what happened to Teresa? Will any of us be able to return to the normal world? Will we be forever lost in an unstable pocket of space-time where there is nothing but this abandoned pile of stones? Is there any return for us? Is there a normal world out there any more?

Time moves oddly here in the City of Lame. Our party has begun to break up and take on individual projects. It is like they are being assimilated by the city. One group has begun to quarry limestone from upstream and to build new structures. They have grown so far apart that they speak a different language. I begin to see the Lost City of Lame as a Mobius strip of temporal recursion. I would flee back to reality, but the monsoons will be upon us too quickly. Without proper provisions and a clear path to travel, it would be death to attempt a return to reality at this time. We barely made it to here, fully provisioned as we were at our outset. The return journey seems impossible.

The monsoons have begun. We haven’t seen much rain yet, but the river is rising from the weather upstream and the fog has begun to cling to the city and the swamp until long after the sun climbs the sky. I have taken to frog hunting. They are quite large, and there are so many of them that I doubt that I could ever deplete them even marginally. Their nightly chorus no longer keeps me awake, now that my pillow is marsh grass stuffed into a tubular case made of cured frog skins. We see less of the sun now, and soon we may not see it for months. The clouds are growing heavier and covering more of the sky every day.

Day 14: I’m only assuming it is day fourteen. It may be several hundred or only two. People have begun to disappear. The Lost City of Lame is becoming empty, even while we occupy it still. Ancient structures flicker in and out of existence, there one day and never having been there the next, or the previous. It is difficult to tell if one day precedes or follows another, or if they are recurring. I begin to question if there ever was a Frog Applause, or if it was only a legend. Still, it must have existed, or I would not be here. Or would I?

Today I got up in an empty city. Everybody seems to be gone. I have wandered about a bit but there is nothing familiar to be seen. I was unable to locate the camp upon returning, though I am certain I have returned to the very same spot as that in which I came awake this morning. But there is fruit in the trees and edible roots and various food animals nearby, as well as the river full of fish and drinkable water, not to mention the three wells in the city. Still, to lose touch with outside reality so completely is disturbing.

Day 743: I think it is day 743. There is no time here. It’s like a Samuel R. Delaney novel. “I come to wound the autumnal city”.I saw one of the original party earlier today, as I was drinking from the stream, berating me for my actions. I looked up, and he was gone, though. There was only a stone wall, and a bas relief of some harvest god or something. I don’t remember there being any bas relief sculptures before. At least, I don’t think I do. But, if the walls can move, I suppose they can redecorate as well. It’s actually cheaper than moving, and it improves your resale value in the bargain!

Day 3,279, I think. I had started to mark a wall, but the wall refuses to stay marked. On some days, there are neat little hash marks extending halfway along, and some days there are not. I suppose now that I have given up on keeping track of time, I encounter all those other realities in which I have also done so, at differing levels of failed perseverance. Tiring of going to the river for water, I dug a well. The next day, it was ancient and lined with stone work beyond any skill I might possess. If I leave by the west gate, whence we arrived, I re-emerge from that sequestered bit of jungle between the city and the cliffs, hemmed by the river. I cannot say what became of the others, though I presume it must be similar for them. The frogs sing on, and I barely notice them now. Every now and then, a particularly large one, easily fifteen pounds or more, will find its way into the city and refuse to leave, though there is no means for them to survive. They are tasty, however.