Monthly Archives: April 2020

April 24, 2020 · 6:15 am

home

“Officer Ferguson’s just here to ask you a couple of questions, pumpkin.”

“Da-ddy! Don’t call me that.” She indicated her pink outfit. “Wrong color!”

“Oh, this won’t take but a second of your time, me laddie,” interrupted Tank Ferguson, uncomfortable with talking about colored people. “We’re just here to discuss your visit to the old Perch place from the other day. We suspect — an unrendering of volume.”

The Man — playing Pink’s daddy in the current scene — gasped from his corner, but the gesture was a forgery. Fooled Tank, though, which was the important thing in the moment. “You *didn’t*,” he exclaimed to his little pink girl. “So… you saw the Big Inside,” he further rationalized. He turned to Officer Ferguson. “I *promise* Tank, that this will *never* happen again. I’ll — well I’ll never let her out of the house again!”

“Da-ddy,” Marsha “Pink” Krakow offered quieter now. “It was just a one time thing. We didn’t *go* inside… the, you know, Big Inside. We just looked at it, peered in just a bit. Peeked in, ahem.” Marsha “Pink” Krakow knew she had slipped up with the mention of a “peak”. Tank Ferguson, who majored in psychology before switching to criminal justice just before what would have been his senior year, caught the Fraudian slip. Pink’s face started turning beet red. Tank pivoted toward The Man. “I think we know what’s going on now.”

“We *do*?” he sputtered, but also knowing full well what was going on just beneath the surface slippage.

“I’m going to verify it with that SEAN child who lives down on Arnold Lane and then Olive Green, if she’s returned from the monastery.”

“You’ll never find her,” boldly responded Pink to the officer, in full defense mode now. “She’ll always be hiding just outside your grasp.”

“Oh I think I know where I can *find* her,” retorted Officer Tank Ferguson, smug look appearing on his face. He stared at The Man again. “Just so happens *I* have a daddy involved as well.”

“Bazooka?” shot back The Man, truly thinking the old geezer was dead in his grave. He’d been away too long.

(to be continued?)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0019, 0306, Corsica, Storybrook^

Tagged as , , ,

April 22, 2020 · 8:46 am

grays and browns

Still engrossed in the red book after she was relieved of her lunch duties, Pink ran right smack into the rump of Ms. Crumplebottom at the corner of two streets.

“Lordy child!” the elderly schoolteacher exclaimed, then crossed herself and ran home to take a 120 degree shower, then turned the other way and took another. “1 year to retirement,” she complained while sudsing her hair a second time. “And that girl is trying to put me in an early grave!”

But then while drying she remembered the Corona-V wasn’t catching, it was just a catchy drink super popular in town right now. No one could go to church, read the proper, starless black book, and had substituted red for black, like Marty’s most recent hair color. 1975. A good year for Mars, and Venus along with it. Stars in general. Crumplebottom just had a bleed through experience, as if from another dimension (which it was). But at least she was super clean for her date with Bazooka Ferguson tonight, father of the local sheriff Tank Ferguson, the one that would later arrest — well, we jump too far ahead again.

But I think we’ve eliminated Ms. Crumplebottom as the bookstore owner, since she seems to be a local teacher instead. Don’t think you can be two in one, or at least go on dates, since you’d be working all the time. I think it has to be Olive. Maybe another poll is in order, alternate realities at stake and such.

—–

Meanwhile, within the brownstone apartment Pink just ran into Crumplebottom outside of, Bazooka Ferguson lamented the fact that he had to warm up to the school teacher with Olive. “It’s okay,” she comforted after the fact. “You didn’t go all the way through so it isn’t cheating.” She looked in his eyes for understanding. “Is it.”

“Now take off that old uniform and get ready for your date.”

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0019, 0305, Corsica, Storybrook^

Tagged as , , , , ,

April 22, 2020 · 7:35 am

future now

She didn’t want to be a celebrity, at least like this.

The pressed followed her around like a pack of wolves, hounding her ’round every corner.

But that was far in the future. In the here and now of Storybrook (*not* Storybook), she was just a nobody, a local kid with a knack for smack — smacking around drums. People around her saw it as a hobbie not a profession. Sure Led Zeppelin, The Who made some money off gigs. But, looky, people would say, their drummers are both dead! You don’t wanna end up like them — do you?

She thought about giving up drums for the most part and taking up photography, like her new friend Frankie. Not *quite* close enough yet to earn a colorful nickname, but they’d been joking around lately it could be Beige. So it’s around. But what of SEAN “Green” Penn and Olive, the ones that had earned color so far? Completing his transformation, SEAN had moved into the green house over at the beginning of Arnold Lane, now covered up by sand and only known about through maps. Olive, I think, might run the local bookstore. Unless it’s Ms. Crumplebottom. We better go check…

Pink was asked to run the store while the owner went to get some lunch. Who could it be?

She’d started reading the red book that everyone in town was talking about, especially since the Corona-V beer became such a popular take-out order at the local bar. “6 feet, 6 feet!” everyone ordered about the distance between themselves and others, because no one wanted anyone else to know how much they’d been drinking. You could smell the Corona-V for 3, 4, 5 feet. But 6 seemed like a naturally agreed upon distance where the smell dissipated and everyone became the same again, subtract other obvious physical characteristics of a drunk. But that was the thing. You couldn’t *tell* just by looking at people if they’d been imbibing the toxic drink. “Oh Sam over there in the grocery store has been chugging them down,” Ms. Snippet, one of the town’s many gossips, might say. But really the only way that you could tell is by smelling their breath, if you didn’t see them down the brewskies personally.

Still waiting for the owner to show back up…

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0019, 0304, Corsica, Storybrook^

Tagged as , , ,

April 21, 2020 · 9:55 am

stranger

She finally turned away from the photos. “I know how you feel,” she spoke to acquaintance Marsha “Pink” Krakow, working on a friend. She called her Marsha instead of Pink for now. “This feeling of — someone watching you. Hoooverrring above you even.”

“Is that how it was with *you*?” Marsha spoke over, curious about the resonance with this strange girl who also frequented the Wired and Wireless upstairs bank of laptops. Usually searching for crime stories this girl was, though, not rock bands.

“Shhhhh. There he *is*” she whispered over as Tom Banks entered the store from below.

—–

He admired his work before looking over and spotting Frankie.

“Hi!” he exclaimed to his star photography pupil. “And helllooo,” he said creepily to Pink. He immediately recognized another star.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0019, 0303, Corsica, Storybrook^

Tagged as , ,

April 21, 2020 · 8:43 am

Hoooverrring

Always down there looking for that extra “R”, Fanny Mae Palm Branch thought about her boyfriend/fiancee Robert Dee Generic, an Ordinary originating from Pasttown.

Ain’t gonna find it. This is *Reality*.

“And stop trying to perv on that pink girl!” she wanted to shout over as well.

Marsha “Pink” Krakow tries to decide what she wants to search for on the internet today at the nearby Wired and Wireless coffee shop.

Led Zeppelin or The Who is always a good start.

1 Comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0019, 0302, Corsica, Storybrook^

Tagged as , , ,

April 20, 2020 · 7:40 am

03 01

Using his shield as a camouflaging device, David A.B. sometimes liked to mingle with the commoners, the ones far far below him on a scale of 1-10, he being a 10 or a 9.5 at the least. Nothing to see here, he says in his mind about himself while looking around. Certainly no *God*, your creator, amongst you. No, just an ordinary Joe waiting on his train. Just like the lot of you. Joe was a good name, he then thinks. I believe I’ll keep it for this part of my journey. He turns to the Ordinary reading the paper to his left. “Joe’s the name,” he spoke in as ungodly a tone as he could muster. “How about you?”

“Ted,” came the fainter answer. “Ted Johnson.”

“Just waiting on the train, hmph,” Joe states the obvious. Ted returns to his funnies. ‘Hatfield’ — so humorous.

“Oop, there ’tis!”

Gazing Eric Gordon beside Ted exclaimed, “It’s like it just appeared — out of *nowhere*.”

Ted looked up from his cartoons. “Wow, that was super fast today. Usually I sit here for over an hour.”

Not on my watch, David A.B. says inwardly.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0019, 0301, Abbey^^, Corsica

Tagged as , ,

April 20, 2020 · 1:14 am

matched

Kind Of Messed Up 02 stared at the picture, knowing this had all happened before. A negotiation.

He turned…

“$50,000 for the lot of it,” Messed Up offered for her cafe, her house on the water, heck the whole kitten caboodle, along with her not quite as messed up kitty kat who Prof. Young Harris had nicknamed Leo for some reason. Perhaps the effect of the 4 Corona-V brewskies he downed before leaving Joan/Astrid back at the New York university sim-island to the northwest, another in the cluster of Weird-o Islands as history will call them. Like Stranger Creek here. Like Abbey up in the air where David A.B. lives, who seems to be the same as God in our current story or a close approximate. And then the NY isle to finish, upper state style. No Arthur Kill involved here, nor his Staten Island. He has been eliminated from this region by another local named Illuminatus, who we’ll revisit with later. Because, yes, Prof. Young Harris was charged with buying the island for upwards of 50,000 linden dollars, which Messed Up just offered. He couldn’t talk her down for some reason despite his savvy salesmanship — perhaps, he reasons, she was secretly in on the deal all along as well, and had forewarning of his visit. Or maybe they were just in total sync with each other. Because they also found themselves married 5 years down the road, after Messed Up had been basically cured of her confused look status and come into proper focus. Kind of Messed Up 02, renamed Leo from this point on, was with them until the last. A Happy Ending.

David A.B. reads Young Harris’ report up in Abbey and sees it is good. He can rest for a while.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0019, 0217, Abbey^^, Corsica, Stranger Creek^

Tagged as , , ,

April 19, 2020 · 9:39 am

names

Professor Young Harris, son of Elder Harris, also a professor at the university, hated when his prize pupil turned her back on him, no matter how cute she looked laying over there. He continued his urgings.

“You’ll get on with your studies, dear. What is it? Astrophysics?”

“Astro*mystics*,” she corrected. “It’s *your* major. That’s the only reason I *came* to this crappy school, hmph.” She pawed at the floor below her.

“Oh. Right.” He couldn’t even remember what he taught at this upper central virtual New York university. *Mystics* not physics. How could he have forgotten — that? Yet another sign it was time to go. Aries probably, or a fire sign anyway.

“I must leave, Astrid. For Stranger Island. The sim skipper that will whisk me there from this location is due to arrive at dusk.” He looked out the window at the ever-calm bay, even though dusk was several hours away still. They had time for one more “study session,” he calculated. “I think we should go over that final chapter before I leave. ‘Departure’.”

Joan rolled over and faced him, a good sign (Sagittarius). “Only if you call me by my right name.” He had only one shot at it.

He was reaching a peak. He remembered. “Joooooaaann!” And then he was done — outta here. Leo had arrived.

“Goodbye Astrid!” he waved from behind.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0019, 0216, Corsica, Stranger Creek^

Tagged as , ,

April 18, 2020 · 9:35 am

Youngs’ town

Axis felt it should be *him* sitting there, talking to Kind Of. Not this Prof. *Young* Harris. Young, indeed. Gone around the South Bend if you ask him, far far from the North, pheh. But it is what it is at this point. Let’s focus in on the conversation.

“I haven’t been to Strange Creek in a long long time, Mr. Messed Up 02.”

“*Kind Of* Messed Up 02,” Kind Of corrects, knowing he wasn’t — yet — on the nutty level of his master actually named Messed Up. He kind of explains this to Prof. Young Harris, then, who nods in semi-understanding.

“I had a mother once, who was kind and then messed up. I think I understand.”

Kind Of moved on. He said things were even weirder in Strange Creek these days, thus the furthering of the name. “It’s *Stranger*,” he punctuates.

Prof. Young Harris then has an idea, and points up in a Eureka moment. “Cyan!” he exclaims quite loudly, pricking Axis’ ears even more.

He imagines his wife standing before him. “What have I done?” he asks. “*I* had to be Young Kane instead. The transgressions.” He shakes his head while she stares steady. He thinks he should probably get back to her…

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0019, 0215, Corsica, Stranger Creek^

Tagged as , , , , , ,

April 18, 2020 · 8:12 am

trip

Kind Of Messed Up 02 often went further up into New York to hear Prof. Young Harris speak. His arch-rival Dr. Young Kane was not in attendance today in Oswego Hall, much to the professor’s relief. He knew Dr. Kane, quite old now and not young atall anymore, much like himself (they’ve been rivals since The Beginning) would interrupt the lecture at various points to call out what *he* felt were fallacies. “There’s no such thing as Certain Death,” he might scold, for example. “Young Harris (no ‘Professor’ at the beginning, you’ll notice), me thinks you doth not understand what you speaketh of,” knowing his broken Shakespeare would always get a laugh from the audience, and perhaps make Young Harris turn bright beet red again, like that time in the summer of 1919. The Summer of Red they called it after that. Anyway, today he was talking about Certain Death again, and contagions luring in the shadows, perhaps whitewashed by what he called not pseudo-science but *non*-science or even *anti*-science. “There’s a difference between the two,” he explains. “Pseudo-science *strives* to be science, and perhaps it will one day. Take crop circles –” and here he has a handy paragraph or two to deliver about the “supernatural” reality of what most think are man-made phenomenon, very scientific in scope. He might also invoke here telekinesis, mind reading, tarot cards, dice, I Ching, phrenology, as fields that are not viewed as kosher amongst the scientific elite — those in power to make important decisions and then package and disseminate them to the common public as they wish — but what could be found out to have actual value down the road somewhere. Then he brings up contagions and the blinders we, as a society and also as an elite lurking within, put on in regards to being “in the dark” soon. “The lights,” — and here in his lecture he instructs one of his Young assistants to actually turn off the lights in the auditorium — “*will* go out, and we will *all* — be blinded.” The lights come back on. He takes his bows. No one here today — not that one dissenter in the crowd — to take the spotlight off his success. One even throws a rose at him but it turns out to be blue.

As the crowd dissipates, Kind Of moves down to the lower level to attempt to make contact.

“Professor? Professor, could I have a word?”

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0019, 0214, Corsica, Stranger Creek^

Tagged as , ,