The Rrose Sélavy Tea Room and Gin Parlour for not so distinguished ladies.....

[Mssr Delaney]

*Snuggles down in chair, and starts snoring ever so quietly*

Could someone get a wetted blanket for him? We'd hate for him to set fire to your new tea room...

[Delirium Datura]

*takes Helio's cigar and smokes it for herself*... waste not, want not...

[Dr. Hastings]

*Crawls out from under table*
I have to say, it was quite comfy under there.
I don't know why.

[Delirium Datura]

S'okay Hastings... I often wake up in odd, but comfortable places.  Coffee, or tea dear?

[von Corax]

This is the, erm, new Tea Room.  The old one has been condemned or something.

New Tea Room!

* von Corax consults the map again

Ah – that explains why I can't find myself...

I say! Is that a bar?

[Delirium Datura]

Yes, Corax... and fully stocked!  We're not SO distinguished here anymore.   

[Dr. Hastings]

S'okay Hastings... I often wake up in odd, but comfortable places.  Coffee, or tea dear?

I'll have to say neither, I'm allergic to caffeine.
Terribly sorry about that.
If I could get some hot cocoa instead?
And yes I know it has caffeine as well, but at much more tolerable levels.
I can only have a cup or two.


Now! I call story time!
Does anyone have some grand escapades to tell?

[Delirium Datura]

*Hands Hastings Belgian cocoa... extra marshmallows?*  Oh, I have stories, but they are at the level of improbability that would label me a liar and a teller of tall tales... so why don't you start?

[von Corax]

Splendid. I wonder if I could get a half Black Bush and half water. With plenty of water, please.

[Dr. Hastings]

Ah but a tall tale is always the most exciting  

*accepting the cocoa with extra marshmellows*
Thank you very much my good lady.

Hokay. I mightn't have many stories, but I'll keep them interesting.

This one is about a game of chess, the newspaper, and love. Sorry if it's a tad long...

Spoiler: ShowHide

I spent my mornings for a month, playing chess against an unknown opponent through encrypted messages in the personal ads like we were Victorian lovers. It started with a simple monoalphabetic cipher, an opening chess move, repeated day after day until I stumbled upon it. I have no idea how long that message had been repeating, but I found it and I answered in kind, with a move of my own. Then it was "hello," and the second move. We played for a week, and at first I treated it as just another cryptoquote, just another daily puzzle. I'd heard that Cryptoquotes and crossword puzzles help to prevent Alzheimer's disease, and so I couldn't open the newspaper without finishing the puzzles. Alzheimer's disease is death before death, and I'm terrified of it. But this wasn't just a cryptoquote. I soon found that it was magic, this secret correspondence, that I was falling in love with this unknown player. It was like writing letters to dead relatives, and having them answered. I came home from work on Friday night, and I felt like I was really coming home, for the first time since my wife passed on. I fell asleep without feeling as though my bed were half empty. I felt alive, solving those private puzzles. The following Monday the cipher changed. There were homophones, now, and nulls. Frequency analysis wasn't enough. I worked harder to solve the puzzle, and once unearthed it was still chess moves, and little private messages. Fragments of messages, the thought never completed, each day the beginning of a new fragment. Monday was "I am pleased", Tuesday "I was hoping you would", Wednesday "there is so much to," and Thursday "under my clothes I" The Monday after that, the move came in a more complicated form, modelled after a military code from World War Two. I could still solve it, ("your lips are so") but it was harder. Already I could see where things were going. Already I could see the end of the line. And so on Tuesday I placed an ad in the paper, in the latest cipher. Not my next move, but "Please," and "There's only one end to this." My life had been empty, and now I had this game. I was paralysed with the fear that it was going to advance beyond my means. What cipher would come next? If it was DES encryption, I could crack it with the help of a computer and some time. But then? After that I would be lost. I found I couldn't sleep again, worrying. I knew that I should just enjoy the time I had left with this game, that I was ruining everything. The response came Wednesday, in monoalphabetic cipher. It was an opening move. An invitation to another player.

[Delirium Datura]

All yours dearest Corax *hands you your drink*... *settles ethereally into a chaise* please, do tell Hastings!  It can't be any more abstract than my life, and I admit, I'm Alice down the rabbit hole... far too curious1

[Dr. Hastings]

Check the spoiler m'lady. T'was a tad long, and not everyone appreciates that.

[Delirium Datura]

Ah, Hastings... how so very romantic!  Just be careful! My tale is one of woe, distress, harm, and things I'm just not comfortable speaking of... the butterflies in my head caution me not to... 

[Dr. Hastings]

If you do not wish to speak of it, then do not. I, for one, am not for prying into what business is mine not.
I have a few other scripts from comics I did that I can post in place of.

[Delirium Datura]

Thank you Hastings, you are a TRUE gentleman!  Like I said, it's just too unbelieveable... maybe I'll write about it all someday, but not while the wound is so fresh. *Makes herself a stiff martini*... Do tell your other stories!

[Dr. Hastings]

I aim to keep my friends happy.
And thank you! I do try to keep as gentlemanly as possible.
Take your time with that though, I know how wounds are likely to open up again if you are to hard on them.

This one is called the little garden

Spoiler: ShowHide

 Once, long ago, there was a child.

He lived in a great big city, with little trees and shrubs to see

One day, While walking home, the child had tripped on the curb

upon falling, the child glanced up and saw a tiny little gap in the wall.

So, dusting himself off, he adventured deep into the alleyway.

The path had many twists and turns, but soon,

He entered a beautiful little garden. There were trees and flowers abounding

and a little pond with a bench nearby.

Such serenity had never been seen before in the hustling city,

and the child, forgetting his rush, settled down on the bench.

and he lay there, hearing the babble of the pond beside him,

the wind between the tall buildings, and the chirp of birds.

And there he sat, for hours, feeling the sun upon his face.

later, he arose, to walk about the garden, and remembered the time

and ran home as fast he could.

The child wished to tell someone about his garden, but,

all the serenity, it was blessed to him, and him alone.

and he told no one.

every day the child went to that garden, just enjoying the sun.

but as that child grew older, he had to visit less and less, but he still went once a week

And that child grew into a teenager, and still no one else knew.

That garden in the hole in the wall was always there, but no one saw it.

well, one day, when that child had all grown up, he decided to tell one person.

He brought his girlfriend to that garden, to show her the calm ways of it.

and she too, as the child once was, amazed by it.

now, he never made her promise to keep it secret.

and she brought her friends there, who brought their friends

and eventually, the whole city was trying to get to the small garden.

and all the people walking through trampled the grass and flowers,

crushed the shrubs and trees, and eventually wore it down to the dirt.

Now, the Child was quite upset, as it had never changed, through his whole life

and now it was gone.

The child, an old man by now, had grown terribly ill, and spent most his time sitting

on that bench, next to the small pond.

And soon, he had died.

but no one remembers the old man, or the man, or the teenager, or the child

and had removed the small pond to make room for pedestrians.

and removed the bench, to make the alley bigger

and made the hole bigger, to make a road.

but, on those still summer days, drivers can hear the babble of that small pond

and see an old man on a bench.

[Delirium Datura]

Hastings... that was beautiful!  I wish I could find that place, I'd never tell.  I'm good at keeping secrets!  I have plenty, but none so wistfully beautiful.

[Dr. Hastings]

Thank you very much!
There is a comic form a la aether web, but the pictures do nigh but scotch to the true beauty of words.

And it's based on a real place near in where I live. It's in the downtown core and if you ever wind up out here, I will show you it.

[Delirium Datura]

I'd love that, Hastings... I gotta go, big storm, gonna lose power any sec.  -- night!  Thank you for the stories! 

[Dr. Hastings]

No problem for the stories, I like telling them.
Have a good night, and enjoy the storm. 

[helios]

Hastings! You must tell more! Please!

[Violet Rose]

Ah but a tall tale is always the most exciting  

*accepting the cocoa with extra marshmellows*
Thank you very much my good lady.

Hokay. I mightn't have many stories, but I'll keep them interesting.

This one is about a game of chess, the newspaper, and love. Sorry if it's a tad long...

Spoiler: ShowHide

I spent my mornings for a month, playing chess against an unknown opponent through encrypted messages in the personal ads like we were Victorian lovers. It started with a simple monoalphabetic cipher, an opening chess move, repeated day after day until I stumbled upon it. I have no idea how long that message had been repeating, but I found it and I answered in kind, with a move of my own. Then it was "hello," and the second move. We played for a week, and at first I treated it as just another cryptoquote, just another daily puzzle. I'd heard that Cryptoquotes and crossword puzzles help to prevent Alzheimer's disease, and so I couldn't open the newspaper without finishing the puzzles. Alzheimer's disease is death before death, and I'm terrified of it. But this wasn't just a cryptoquote. I soon found that it was magic, this secret correspondence, that I was falling in love with this unknown player. It was like writing letters to dead relatives, and having them answered. I came home from work on Friday night, and I felt like I was really coming home, for the first time since my wife passed on. I fell asleep without feeling as though my bed were half empty. I felt alive, solving those private puzzles. The following Monday the cipher changed. There were homophones, now, and nulls. Frequency analysis wasn't enough. I worked harder to solve the puzzle, and once unearthed it was still chess moves, and little private messages. Fragments of messages, the thought never completed, each day the beginning of a new fragment. Monday was "I am pleased", Tuesday "I was hoping you would", Wednesday "there is so much to," and Thursday "under my clothes I" The Monday after that, the move came in a more complicated form, modelled after a military code from World War Two. I could still solve it, ("your lips are so") but it was harder. Already I could see where things were going. Already I could see the end of the line. And so on Tuesday I placed an ad in the paper, in the latest cipher. Not my next move, but "Please," and "There's only one end to this." My life had been empty, and now I had this game. I was paralysed with the fear that it was going to advance beyond my means. What cipher would come next? If it was DES encryption, I could crack it with the help of a computer and some time. But then? After that I would be lost. I found I couldn't sleep again, worrying. I knew that I should just enjoy the time I had left with this game, that I was ruining everything. The response came Wednesday, in monoalphabetic cipher. It was an opening move. An invitation to another player.

*applause*

[Delirium Datura]

Hastings, I must say, once again... Thank you for the stories last night!  And most of luck with the beautiful romance!

[Dr. Hastings]

/quote]
*takes a bow* thank you, thank you

Hastings, I must say, once again... Thank you for the stories last night!  And most of luck with the beautiful romance!

Again, you're welcome.
May I ask, how was the storm?


And I will tell more of the stories, I have written a small children's book called old city stories, I'm hoping to publish someday...

I shall tell more stories tonight, I promise, ok?
11 o'clock is story hour. (well, 11 o'clock where I'm at, I don't know the times where you are)

and I suppose I should type more if I want to keep up the demand! I've been meaning to anyways.

[Delirium Datura]

I'll definately do my best to be here!  I'll try to have one of my own... or at least something to share... Looking forward to it Hastings!  Ps.  Do you like ghost stories?