Monthly Archives: March 2024

Walsh County (Pitch Darkly)

“Look dear, I caught another one (!).”

“Hold on, Mary. Hold on. It’s Baker calling.”

“Baker? Hi!”

(reply)

“Yeah, we’re getting along great. A little cold of course but it is North–”

(reply)

“What was that? Hold on, let me take this darn Russian cap off with the ear flaps and all.”

—–

“Okay go ahead, sir.”

(reply)

“Yeah, I heard that now.” He covers the phone with his hand and whispers over to fishing Mary. “Baker says he needs to talk to us as soon as we get back to town.” He listens again…

(reply)

“Mary Ball, eh? Well that’s *one* of her names.”

(reply)

“George, right.” He removes the phone from his ear but doesn’t cover the face up this time while saying over to his wife in a louder voice: “He wants to know how you acquired the Killing Shack, you know, the one over in Epping Woods.”

“Why does he want to know that?” She was happy fishing right now. She didn’t want to be reminded of that horrendous past on her well deserved vacation. Calm, she said to herself. Caalllmm.

“I’ll ask him.” Phone to bare ear again. “Baker, what’s going on?”

(reply)

“Virginia neck country again, eh? Just like with—”

(reply)

“Dead ball era, huh? That’s *my* era, where I came from. Where the *ERA* was real low, he he. Get it? My era. My ER–”

(reply)

“Okay, thanks. See you when we get back.”

(reply)

“We will. Thanks.” And Baker Bloch hangs up on the other side.

—–

“Did you mention the antipoison?”

“No,” Baker responds to Hucka. “I thought he’d had enough to chew on today.”

“Agreed I suppose. So we’re on for next Tuesday?”

“8 o’clock sharp.”

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0303, Big Woods, Hana Lei^^, Jeogeot, North Dakota

00420302

“I found this in the same county as White Stone, Hucka. Merry and Mary, just like in St. Merry’s (?) Church.”

“Follow up on that,” she requests. So I did. I talked to Pastor Ziegler about the weird conjunction.

—–

“That’s interesting it’s Mary Ball there as well.”

“As well?” I prompted.

“Yes. Mary Ball is the mother of George Washington. And it happens that it’s Pitch Darkly’s Mary’s maiden name too. Can’t be coincidence.”

“Again,” I replied.

“Especially since they also have a kid named George, come to think of it. Not sure how old the boy would be now. Maybe even a teenager?”

“He was growing up fast the last time I checked,” I agreed

“Anyway (*sigh*), this is certainly a mystery indeed. Another Virginia neck mystery.”

“First Susan and Shadow. Now this. Lively… variant names of both Pitch Penny and Catch Penny, inferring a battery in baseball. Balls are more lively than they use to be back in the dead ball era, before the death of Indian Ray Chapman via beaning and the cleaning up of (the ball and) the game, giving hitters the upper hand over pitchers (and catchers) from that day forward. Martyr, some say because of it.”

“I’m glad you are confiding all this to me,” spoke Pastor Stephan Ziegler of the 1st Church of St. Merry’s — yes, that’s the name — who seemed just happy to be part of the town story again. Aisle of Palms… stated he loves it in all its interesting twists and turns. I thought to myself that he’s probably just glad I didn’t instead go to Rev. Amos T. Sandman across the street at the rival Fries with Cheese Church with my insights — gives him the upper hand there as well. But of course Amos is rarely in the building because of the smell. Allergic to cheese of all things. And they built the church out of the material, as traditional states. No one can really stay there that long without wearing clothes pins on their noses, and so that became part of their traditional as well, part of ecclesiastical lore.

Fries with Cheese office manager Martha Lamb takes note of Baker’s exit from her second floor office window while getting ready to go home herself. She can free up the nostrils at last. Worst part of the job — everything else she loves, just like Stephan, who she perceives as a direct arch-rival, assuming that role for the mainly absent Reverend, she feels

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00420301 (another VA neck)

Unable to write today he watched her from afar, wondering what she was waiting for. Hope she doesn’t abstract today, he thinks. Sometimes just doing nothing can set it in. Maybe I better go over there, talk to her, interact with her, check on her. Make sure she’s okay. Keep her mind occupied. Maybe talk about the past. And the future. But not the present. Never the present.

I wonder where this Shelley girl is, she ponders from the balcony like Juliet to his Romeo. She had an antipoison on hand just in case she made the same mistake as in the past. White Stone — check on it.

She smells the red roses and that makes her feel better. Arrive by sea and I’ll be waiting and watching, she ordered the girl who was actually a woman indeed. The Woman. Unless that’s Parasol.

Ah yes, that must be her pulling in there at the marina, she observes from her castle up on the hill. Better tell Amos I’ll be indisposed for a couple of hours.

(to be continued)

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00420216 (original shock)

And this is where we came in.

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gone bye bye

In this “Amazing Digital Circus” teaser, ringmaster Caine directly references Kane (Pixels) and his famed Back Room bacteria creature. Knew it.

And then there’s the abstracted Kaufmo clown character from the pilot, who some spell as Cofmo. Including me here. Poor Cofmo. But good guy (?) Caine takes care of the immediate danger for himself and his still intact circus employees by banishing the poor transmogrified creature to an underworld, underwater realm.

“Honey? Honey? Snap out of it again. Look at me look at me. Honey?”

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00420214

Okama Majo rests comfortably on Fuzzy Wuzzy, his devious plan fulfilled. Heat back up to normal in his house — no need for exercise to generate warmth now. Cat litter cleaned and deodorized — no urine smell about the place. Wendy: gone. His similarly red topped store in the center of Kangerootown safe, phew!

And all because he switched around some of the language in his report to mayor Golden Jim, who passed it on to town council chair Newt for a final decision. Just a bit, and all from one sentence. It wasn’t that hot dogs from reporting companies in the referenced study contained 5 percent human DNA but instead that 5 percent of these reported *some* human DNA in their product, probably from workers’ hair or skin cells and so on. The words stayed exactly the same. He was just passing it along. If he gets caught he has what he feels is an air tight alibi of that it was someone *else’s* responsibility to proofread the document and make sure the words were in the right order.

Original sentence:

“5 percent of all reporting companies found human DNA in their hot dogs.”

Altered sentence:

“All reporting companies found 5 percent of human DNA in their hot dogs.”

Back to sleep after reviewing his alibi once more. Beloved warmth again. Makes him feel so lazy. Like a cat, he realizes. A sly, conniving cat. “Night night, Fuzzy.”

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00420213

“King Rodney,” the Shadow spoke. He turned, confronted it.

“Me? I’m no king. I’m just a ruler of a country, democratic in nature. Now, anyways.”

“The Country of Morrow. Otherwise: Cofmo.”

“Well, yeah. That’s it. A country, not a kingdom.”

“But you train ants. I mean, you have ant warriors. In your fort — make that: forts.”

“Use to. When I was a kid I suppose. Now I’m they’re grown up. I have adult games to play.”

“So I’ve heard,” the Shadow spoke. A pause, then: “What year is it, ruler of Cofmo? I mean, can you sit in a diner with a white girl or even an Asian girl and get away with it? Can you listen to the Everly Brothers blaring from a jukebox? Or do you have to settle for Fats Domino?”

“I… don’t know. 1984 I guess. Last I checked. What time do *you* think it is? Shadow. My Shadow I’m supposing.”

“Correct. You are just confronting yourself. Because this is a dream. I know something that you need to know. About the abstracting.”

“The what?” And he woke up.

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cyan dress, black hair: seems oh so familiar

“I’m afraid this is still 1961 guys. The little lady is going to have to sit elsewhere, hmm?”

“There. That’s better. What can I do you for today? Burgers?”

“No, nothing right now. We’ll order later when you have vegetables in salads,” commanded Wendy, appearing as if behind a shadow of a person instead of a real one.

“Suit yourself. My shift is over,” spoke Sarah. “Wanda will be over shortly to check on you. But I wouldn’t hold my breath on the vegetables. Have a nice day.” As she left with her tray of little burgers still untouched, Sarah glanced over at the space that would be a salad bar, currently occupied by a soda fountain and an ice cream counter. Sugar and especially meat would rule the day for a while, she knew. She’d worked in this here city long enough to understand that.

An Everly Brothers hit blared from the jukebox on the far side of the diner, perhaps “Cathy’s Clown”, their latest, as Wendy got down to business. “Soo… you said you know the whereabouts of the black man called Francis. Last seen here in Meat City.”

“The *negro* known as Francis,” rudely corrects Mathew, of a different color skin himself from the “norm”; obviously should have been more understanding of the situation. And why was he here with Susan in the first place?

Susan. Yes, that was her name.

(to be continued)

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00420211

When I awoke, I was encased in sand except for my head. Took a minute to figure out what happened. “Okay, *veeery* funny,” I said to anyone within earshot, hoping someone would fess up to the crime. “Veery funny indeed.” I moved around a bit and my left “sand tit” partially collapsed in the effort. Soon it was all gone, the fake body with no alpha indeed, as I worked my way free. I brushed myself off — Wendy’s dress, exposed arms and legs — of the remaining sand as best I could, looked around. Difficult to tell from facial expressions who the guilty one (or guilty ones) was (or were)… since everyone around me had what appeared to be *bowling balls* for heads. What gives? I asked myself. I walked up to the nearest one. “You there, er, sir. Did you see what someone did to me over there?” I didn’t want to indict the person just because he was closest to the scene. I checked his arms and legs — any sign of digging? None that I could tell. But of course he could have just washed them off in the water.

“Ask Okema,” spoke a muffled voice from the dark ball head of the man. He pointed in the distance to a crowd of ’em playing volleyball. Sumo wrestlers on a break from their regular sport?

It was time to find out who Okema was. Or did he say Omega? I decided to slur the name when I said it to be safe.

“Okay, chumps, who of you lot is named Okemga?” Jeez, one of these f-cks isn’t even wearing a cloth or whatever they call the undergarment, I thought. No one spoke up, just kept silently playing volleyball, with the only distinct sound coming from the ball itself contacting either hand or sand.

“Behind you, young Wendy,” finally said the true “Okemga”, which actually turned out to be his name. I’d morphed Okema and Omega into the correct word. What are the odds?

As he spoke, I remembered earlier. I was putting suntan lotion on my pale pink legs while Okemga looked over, no bowling ball in sight. Regular head — just staring. He admitted he was disappointed that I was wearing that masking dress in the water so he decided to create a pretend body with sand while I later (soundly) dozed on the beach. “Did you like it?” he said with amusement, ball gone now in the present too. “Enhancements — you should think about it, ha.”

I met him again 2 days later in town while walking around the red topped building one last time, big dreams for it shattered. I might have asked him out then and there (I can admire bodies too!) if it weren’t for Newt and the information about human DNA in the dogs. “5 percent?!” I shouted when he laid down the bad news at the Pink Hippo the night of March 1st. In like a lion indeed. I’d have to leave town with my tail between my legs. Back to Old Hen to shut down the original Wendy’s too. I’d have to start over… somewhere. I thought about vegetables and salads for the first time in a long while.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0211, Kangerootown, Omega^^, The Cross^

1 day even earlier…

I found they’d arranged for me to stay with a prominent town businessman: none other than the owner of the red topped building that I’d had my eyes on ever since I arrived by boat from Wallytown earlier that day. Mayor Golden Jim escorted me over to his house on the western edge of town for introductions. We found him rocking in front of an unlit fireplace, apologizing for how cold it was and that he’d run out of “burny sticks” weeks ago.

Golden Jim immediately scolded him for this. “I told you Wendy would be arriving today; I told you to get your house in order; I could have gotten you all the firewood you could fit into this place of yours, pheh.” He looked around at the numerous cats roaming around here and there while sniffing the air. “And you could have done something with these *animals* as well. Place smells like urine.”

He stood up and turned toward us. An okama! A man who was basically half woman, although I’d never seen one up close and personal like this. He said his name was Majo, and then he leapt on a nearby cube stool face first and proceeded to do some kind of yoga exercise on it, another type of rocking.

“Feel free to use Fuzzy Wuzzy over there to jump in place a while and get your body temperature up. I do 30 jumps 30 times a day now, but I’m always doing this, cold or not. That’s why I keep the house cold because I’m so warm from all the exercise. My apologizes again, fair Wendy.” He stood up once more, approached us, looked me over head to frick’n foot. “Wendy of Alpha I believe,” he said with a kind of disapproving smirk on his face. He was staring right through me.

“No takers for Fuzzy Wuzzy? Very well…”

“… 28 (jump), 29 (jump), *30*,” and he leapt down on the other side now, approaching me until his face was only about 6 inches from mine. “I’ve heard you’re here for my *store*.”

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