I had to face the tiger head on.
Wheeler is Charlene is Her Majesty the Bigfoot!
One remained on the jigsaw pieces to our left, because there was only one left. Waiting for the snowman to turn orange again (it always did).
There (Wheeler joins the game).
Harrison just kept on dancing like a fool with his new mates behind the theatre. He was free!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0604, Bogota, Canada/Picturetown, collages 2d, Google Street View, Marwood, NWES Island, Picturetown
“Thanks for helping out, Charlene Brown.”
“I’m busy: but I’m here.”
“Okay, so there’s the two girls who must have seen Bart, yacking in front of the Giant Tiger painting. This would be catty-corner to you standing at the intersection of, let’s see, Main and Elizabeth. Bart should be skateboarding by you right this instant.”
“I see nothing.”
“So let’s just swing the camera around and… Charlene? Where’re you going? Come back!”
I finally spot the pink dress wearing punk again just beyond the Rosehaven Yarn Shop, about to walk under the Regent Theatre marquee. But she’s way ahead of where she should be. Where’s she going?
“I see him Baker Bloch!” she suddenly exclaimed as I pull back beside her at Main and York.
Three Beatles were crossing the road in front of me and I knew this was a special, sacred spot.
“And that’s how Bart Smipson travels between Picturetown and NWES City,” I write in a letter later to Hucka Doobie. “Through that alley with the 102 graffiti. He’s indicating how he does it!” I sign my name with love and stick it in an envelope addressed to the White Palace.
“This is the scene in Picturetown right when Bart Smipson should have been skating across main street on his way, as it turned out, to the game arcade where he does the big switcheroo and comes out in NWES City, Hucka D. Perhaps he is in front of the white truck here. Dangerous!
“But wait! Looky over there to the left (beyond the chatting girls at the corner who must have seen him skate by). A *single* tiger now where we had two staring before, or at least one eye apiece of two tigers. I know because this is in a collage composed for the last photo-novel. Behold!
“And here’s the full tiger, now whole, of the current scene. I’m not even sure I should be showing this, I don’t know, *time-skip* in the blog.
Hucka?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0602, Canada/Picturetown, Google Street View
He dared to skate right across main street in broad daylight coming back from the Giant Tiger when he spotted it to his right.
“Whoa ho ho. A new arcade! How could I have *missed* this before??” Naturally he pulled in and started checking out the games.
“Pac-Man. Laaame, pheh.”
“But *Doom*, he he. Yeah, this is what we’re talking about. Wait till I tell… wait, what’s the name of my best friend? Millgate. Yeah, that’s it. Wait till I tell Millgate.”
He plays Doom for several hours and becomes so immersed that when he finishes he is in a different world.
“Whooooa. What happened to *Picturetown*??”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0601, Black Ice, Canada/Picturetown, Google Street View, NWES Island
“Peppins, Pippins, Pippens… the name shifted all around down through the months, now almost years. It all had to do with that Peppi machine: that was the center it all revolved around, The Diamond some call it. David A.B. put his heart and his brain into designing that machine; literally for the brain. He knew what was just around the corner. A beat up old station wagon with an Illinois license plate reading BDR529, intent on harm. He didn’t have much time.”
“But what does this *mean*?” ask Poetry Dancer, with Jeffrie Phillips for the moment. Until Charlene Brown the punk woke up about 11 o’clock. Morning walk he could say, building up a sweat by running in place for a couple of minutes. Poor Charlene — so involved in her cryptozoology dissertation writing late into the night that she was oblivious to the transgressions. Jeffrie was taking full advantage of that. The bastard. But a smart bastard, perhaps the worst kind.
“It *means*, my dear, that the death was planned; on purpose. We must track down this Sammie Parr, who is in the collages after all. She is an amalgamation of 5, just like me. That means…”
“Pot-D. *Sorry*. I mean Pan-Z of course.”
“Yes. A rival member, perhaps rogue. *Obviously* rogue because of the murder and all. David A.B.’s brain must have been in there all right.”
“But what will they do with it *now*?” queries Poetry Dancer further, no ugly in her face for the moment.
“They got him to the hospital through trickery, just like before. The brain I mean, and not the host.”
“Of course.”
“It’s Mid Hazel,” he suddenly intuited, putting collage pieces together in his own brain. “She’s up to something.”
“Oh dear.”
“More… *cake*?” he said after a weighted pause.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0510, Black Ice, Heartsdale+, Missouri, NWES Island
Sandy knew this was the dream to end it. She had a breathing helmet and so did the person before her. In the past.
“Hilllllsdale County,” she said to herself in that Texas drawl while studying the screen. Haven’t thought about that place since 18-86!”
A snake completing the task and swallowing its own tail appeared beside her. She remembered.
(*pop*)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0417, Bellisaria, Continent 02, Michigan
Mission failed, The Man separates from the Ant again, probably becoming The Mann with that extra “n” in the process. He finds himself on the east coast of Pickle 02, the green one, staring out at the sea. He wonders why he’s here, then spots it. Humpback whale sighting.
“This must be New York,” he says about the Pickle he’s on, but also probably the other one too, since they are opposite sides of the same thing most likely.
He looks and looks but only the one sighting. And a brief, happy song.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0407, Bellisaria, New York, Pickle 02
She was walking past the Rosehaven Yarn Shop when she had an epiphany. She goes inside. This is *my* shop, I mean, *queendom*. But someone else would disagree. A brother! He would say *kingdom*. So much like… who? *Mother*! And I take after… the father, pheh. Tully. It’s all coming back like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist (thanks Peet!).
Winter. Just like when: Baker!
She stands on her Castle and thinks about Sanctuary.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0305, Black Ice, Canada/Picturetown, NWES Island, Rose Heaven-, Texas
She went into the yarn shop and clicked on Tigertail to teleport. Soon she was with Archer, Peet.
“Aries is not the only one involved,” he reinforced to the psychic, precious toddler, soon not to be a toddler as he urges her to change before returning to Canada or thereabouts. Picturetown he thinks it is called, Pictown for short. Close enough. Maybe he’s not as involved, okay, but he’s a busy man, er, spirit… man. I remember it all ended with Oz, big loop completed. I asked him through the child.
“Return?” He drew back, took me in better. Smiling, he returned to his former position. He looked at his hands. I realized I saw him more for who he really was than a cartoon-ish shooter of arrows. “Okay, okay, I admit I controlled *some* things. The Stripe joint over in Post I think it’s called. That was for the other Peet. And you of course.” He spoke rapidly. I knew he was super intelligent, just like the partner. It would be difficult to keep up. Much like with the records. “Soooo, what are your plans *now*? Are you just going to move to Canada?” He got more into character, changed the accent to represent something more ridiculous and surreal. “Leave your old mawmaw to rot in her virtual grave? No no no no,” he said while shaking his head. “No go, no good. We have to keep you and your granny together. So she’ll have to go too.”
“Canada?” I ventured in my wee voice, just as cute as my looks.
“Listen, we’re going to have to reorganize this whole trip. It’s 3000 miles from Tugas- tugask…”
“Tungaske,” I finished for him.”
“Tungaske, sure, yeah… anyway to get to this Pictown or Picturetown or whatever, you’ll have to have a car. And, um, *you* can’t drive.”
I hadn’t thought of that.
“Anyway, forget all that forget all that,” he waved off the line of thought. He looked over at the pool table behind us and its triangle of spheres. “Soooo, this Homer, er, *Smipson* is the one ball, the round yellow fellow.”
“No,” I corrected, misunderstanding what he meant. “It *use* to be Homer in the jar but now it’s Hucka Doobie the bee-person, or at least the head of the original bee body — more bee. She took his place; more spher-oid.” As a toddler that was a considerable amount to say at once and with some odd words so I had to rest my tiny mouth a moment before talking again. Luckily Peet Archer had a lot to utter in the meantime. Here it is:
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0303, Canada, Canada/Picturetown, Canada/Tungaska, Rose Heaven-
“Things are breaking down here at Slot Mtn. my precious precocious child. You will not be able to hold me much longer in your net.”
Toddles thought of Canada, of the weakening of Our Second Lyfe. When was a breaking point? Perhaps *now*.
She decides to take action. The grandma will have to be drugged again, pheh. Always the bad headache in the morning for her when this happens. She never suspects. Her precious precocious Toddles! But the grammy also doesn’t understand the Boos collages and their inherent Canadian-ness and will always favor the earlier Red Umbrella works and not understand that if things change in them it is because of the future which is the now. *102* is trying to communicate with her. But Casey One Hole, the a-hole of a man sitting before her and stating he is about ready to be let loose upon this virtual world with no checks in place, wants or is seeking the same thing. The Dirty Little Wet Seed is Adam: Atom-man. This produces the Green Tree. And inside the tree is Lemmy. And Lemmy is the one that can end the 102 and the salvific effect if he stays pat, protection (safety net) withdrawn.
But whose head is in the jar now? That must be the next question before we proceed further. I can’t quite get the right match. It’s not Homer. Not any longer. I don’t think.
Casey One Hole, formerly Taum Sauk of Bigfoot, Blue Mountain Urban Landscape (or thereabouts), US of Our A, continues: “If you place the right head in the jar, child, then maybe, *maybe* Your Second Lyfe can remain intact. I’ll allow that at least. Whose head did I hit with my mighty club to dislodge it from the body? Is it Homer still? The name certainly fits because they found it, bruised and battered, far over some left field fence. Think about that, child, while you stare at your Canadian images in your Canadian gallery with the 102 sister firmly set in place at a certain point.” Casey One Hole stops. He’s said too much. Must be all the caffeine for supper.
Sister? thought Toddles. Sister!
—–
She knew this was the one. “I’m going in, Grammy. Wish me luck!”
“Hi Toddles! I’m Hucka Doobie! Grab a shovel and let’s start *digging*. We’ve got to get me away from that club!”
Oh dear, she thinks while shoveling and staring into the resulting hole at the corner of this western Canadian yard. What have I gotten myself *into*??
“Faster, faster!” the bug eyed, yellow headed bee-being who cannot dig himself commands from the side.
The ball comes. The hole is dug. Just in time.
—–
“Interesting choice.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0302, animation, Boos, Canada/Tungaska, collages 2d, Google Street View, Marwood, NE Hills, NWES Island
Sunklands 