“*You* get him down Tom. You’re the one who gave him the magnetic shoes in the first place.”
Seriously, we need to talk about Spankey.
—–
They entered the sphere from the south, destined for Delhi, New Delhi, or thereabouts. They appear over Indian Lake Road in a plane, the last time anyone ever saw it.
India declared herself free of the Occident.
[schweet smile image deleted]
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0026, 0114, Google Street View, Illinois
During the night, Harry returns to the spacecraft, is able to enter the sphere, and then returns to the Habitat. The next day, the crew discovers a series of numeric-encoded messages appearing on the computer screens; the crew is able to decipher them and comes to believe they are speaking to “Jerry”, an alien intelligence from the sphere. They find Jerry is able to see and hear everything that happens on the Habitat.
We enter something different. On the western limits of Fieldon IL we find this welcome sign, indicating a rough population figure for the town at 300. Strange and neat thing, though: the church property just beside the sign is *300* W Locust St. (see upper right part of snapshot for property details). The 30 mph speed limit also seems to highlight the doubled 300.
In the same panoramic shot and on the other side of the road, we have another highway sign stating that Route 100 is 3 miles away, 100 x 3 being yet another 300.
This *field* on the very edge of Fieldon is part of the 300 property.
Welcome to the sphere.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0026, 0113, Google Street View, Illinois
She was small but she was no longer a baby, this Alysha, not to be confused with Ayesha also from the last photo-novel. 26, eh. Number of letters. Beyond Missouri and Arkansas. Michigan. We are even again, 13 and 13.
“It is good that you progressed onward.”
“*You* again.”
“Of course. Your opposite. 13 and 13. Call me Michigan,” she then offered, giving me pause. Was she the one?
“Straminsky?” I tried. It was a word the Oracle didn’t know, or you had to back up back to three to get any population hits. Yet this was the 13th of the MASH sims. Did I succeed? She just kept on with that schweet but secret smile, like the end of INLAND EMPIRE. And maybe that was what all this was: the end of a long and dusty trail or something. Fulfillment. A drink of long sought after water from a magical well. “Well well well,” I wanted to utter but stopped myself. STOP
—–
“Get to the temple. The temple attached to the tor.”
“Thanks for allowing me to continue.”
“I waited for you. Alpha. Windyville. Zula. A woman with a child as one. Unity of mother and daughter. An “l” was crossed, forming a “t”. You progressed forward. 6 to 7.”
—–
She was gone. She never made it out of the shadow.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0026, 0102, Lower Austra, Michigan, Nautilus
Jeffrey Phillips stands on the edge of the larger of the two Corton islands, staring across the bridging log at the lesser one. Meeting place, he ruminates. But who with? And where is Wheeler?; she was just behind me.
—–
Alone at the center of the second he morphs into a Mouse again. The Gods look down from above.
“He soo wants to change. For Charlene the Punk. For others perhaps. He wants to be a good ruler (of Collagesity).”
“He understands his roots in Twin Peaks’ Phillip Jeffries and that’s a good jumping off spot or point,” spoke the other, maybe a female this time. Let’s call her Ayesha.
“If he puts on the red Judy shoes that would help.”
“The slippers,” agrees Ayesha. Let’s say the male’s name in this scenario is Walter. Walter Westinghouse. From Homerland.
“All he has to do is click the heels three times and he’s home,” says Walter, who should know. “He doesn’t have to go through all this pain and sorrow. He doesn’t have to pass through Gormania, West Virginia.”
“All that has been taken car of,” spoke Ayesha, thinking about the bike and then the inability of Jeffrey Phillips to fit into the rest of his band of pink punks. He had his “revenge”: Syd to SID. And then, collaterally, TILE to Tyle. Mercury X. Rising at the center of the labyrinth remains in love with his car. Phillip Jeffries as snow white Pansy looks on.
“He’ll get there,” reinforces Walter. But not tonight, both knew, watching him revert to old form. Jeffrey Phillips walks away from the center of the second, intent on finding Wheeler back in the small woods of the first. Maybe I just inadvertently skipped over a post, creating a plot hole (‘nother one).
—–
“Yes, see there, Wheeler?” he said, pointing with his cane. “A hole in the terrain, or the real plot (of ground) showing through the facade.”
“Who are you old man?” spoke a concerned Wheeler just out of camera range again. “And what have you done with Jeffrey Phillips??”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0610, Nautilus, Rim Isles, West Virginia
Premiering on facebook now: “Strange Corner of West Virginia”, part of the Weird Wonderful series. This new work is set in Clay, the county seat of Clay County and made fully redundant around WWII when then name was changed from Clay Court House.
There is much to unpack here; Clay may be featured again. Projected title for future work (and picture it could be based on): “Bail set for Bail: the Great Redundancy Trial of ’53”. We’ll see!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Clay_County_Courthouse_(West_Virginia)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0606, Bogota, collages 2d, Ebbert, West Virginia
She didn’t know how she got here. She remembers being nude on an island and being rescued. The rescuer had said she’d gone “native” and that it was a good thing he stumbled upon her because she was almost sunburned to death. She said to him she thought she was on Mars, on the only pocket of water on the planet, but just big enough that she couldn’t see the edge from her position on an island within. She saw other islands as well, which to the rescuer she described as planets. He pointed out that didn’t make any sense, and that they were in an ocean, the North Sea of Nautilus to be specific, and that he had found her rocket ship surrounded by those dratted featherfloaters just in the bay over there and was looking for survivors. It was only here she remembered the ship, the trip, the interplanetary training she had worked so hard at (so hip). She must have got her head knocked upon landing/crashing. That would explain the the lump-sized bump and some other stuff — the nudity obviously, but also the shower. It never rained on her island, yet she kept exclaiming to the rescuer, the “water’s on,” followed by, “I better go turn it off.” She went off to find a shower to turn off but never did. “How long had *that* been going on?” the rescuer asked, getting more alarmed by the minute. He had found a towel to offer her from a nearby camping spot but she refused it, saying she was still in the shower and that if she put clothes on that they would just get wet and she’d have to put them in the dryer and she didn’t have a dryer on this infernal island in the pocket of water on the surface of Mars. He kept scratching his head.
The rescuer left (the scene). She wasn’t sure when, or why. Maybe she killed him, she ruminated now, with senses returned. I *was* hungry. Would I do such a thing? Perhaps he mentioned the shower one too many times.
She remembers Carrcassonnee. Big C, as she called her, was on the island as well, but in spirit form. Mainly. An Olive head appeared once with a Big I within it, poking out a little bit, even, on one side. Disabled Astronaut AB pointed out the flaw. Carrcassonnee never returned in true form but she remained an advisor in the wind, the dust, the water, the sand. She could appear in a tree, a clump of grass, a stump. She came as a burning bush, saying that Astronaut AB had to make a choice and there was a Queen and a King to answer to over in a place called Corton, described by Big C as a similar island to this. AB logically asked if they were still Mars. Big C always affirmed that AB was on Mars, even though the rescuer had clearly denied this reality. “Yes, it was good I killed him,” she decided, a wry smile appearing on her lips.
—–
“Spread them apart,” commanded one resident to another, separating Duck from Glen. “Wider, wider!” But even as far apart as they got they were still in the same county and that was the trick. The Queen and King retired happy.
“Don’t talk to her, dearest. She’ll come around eventually.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0605, HANA LEI, Nautilus, Rim Isles, West Virginia
“Yes that *is* a pretty penny to pay for a hanging, but I guess I should move on, er, Brunhilde is it?”
“Yes sir.” Massively muscled Brunhilde looked beyond Sandman at the now empty couch in the distance and understood that his master had finished his nap. Sandman indeed could move on. But he didn’t say this. A little more stalling couldn’t hurt. Plus he kind of enjoyed the company and chatting. They don’t get a lot of visitors these days to this sector — most have just started calling it The Sector, because of the missing N and especially R thing involving returned Dany Rada and his time plunger that we mentioned in the previous post, another West Virginia connection like Gormania here before it and perhaps directly relatable to that spooky building filled dot on the map. If only this Sandman would have brought his bike to this realm, Brunhilde thought, suddenly feeling sorry for the pitiful man-person before him. He looked again at the empty couch. He decided to take a chance. “I assume… you can ride a bicycle.”
—–
Quicker than most, then, he was upon the red door leading to the castle. But most people didn’t go there immediately, having hesitation about such a radical change in such a new land. Red is a sign of warning, danger. This was, of course, the plan all along for its designer and creator: to put the obvious end of the journey right up front and center at the beginning and then taunt them at the end about the missed opportunity to jump all the trouble they went through. Think Dorothy of Kansas on the Yellow Brick Road at the beginning of her Oz journey. As the stupid Good Witch of the North told her much later, she could have just clicked her ruby slippered heels three times right then and there and be whisked back to home, safe and sound. No need to kill an even more deadly witch, no need to deal with an obvious incompetent wizard who was probably sending her and her accumulated mates into a death trap. No all she had to do — then and there — was click those stupid heels 3x and — gone. It’s a fatal flaw in the 1948 Oz movie that the Rainbow Sphere perfectly predicts, and actually resolves in the big picture. And so it is here, and with another red object. There is no accident in this. Sandman can ride his bike safely here to the right and to the left but not straight on, else *crash* (another one). In short, what we are dealing with is more *witchery*.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0508, Pickleland, West Virginia
I just didn’t seem to fit in here with my bike and all. It was a hell of a bike, though. Got me through Gormania. Mystery Shack.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0415, Google Street View, HANA LEI, Nautilus, West Virginia, Yd Island
I hadn’t heard Dinksy Dix and his Wee Wonders Jazz Band in a while, so I fired them up when I had finished with Charlene. I thought about our conversation which took a strange twist and turn at the end while listening to what I believe was a Scott Joplin rag — unsure, though — must study up more on jazz soon. Anyway, the tune ended right as I came to the conclusion that she was just leading me on… perhaps she was even channeling that witch Fern in the moment — yes, I thought, that must be it. Just to throw me off. Makes sense: Fern could always do that with her surprise spells and notwhat. I decided I better move forward and tip the wee, dinky ones. Dinksy would never speak to me again in that squeaky, cartoon voice if I didn’t. I figured a ten-er would be enough. Not too much. Don’t want them going on the road again to Mississippi and Alabama and who knows where else. Teepot needs music and laughter too much in these days of dark times. Keep their income steady but low and they can’t fuel up that gigantic magic bus of theirs and fly off to… God it could be Mexico if we weren’t careful and they’d never make it back over the border, what with their size. They’d be branded foreign contraband for sure. But… enough. “Thanks Dinksy,” I offered to the drummer who was also the leader of the small band, and personally handed him the bill, knowing the others might just drink it away. I winked at Dinksy and he stared back, obviously expecting more for such fine playing. They’d been rehearsing for weeks, eager for Master Phillips’ return, as they called me, cute as a pie. I’m no more Master than the Doctor formerly serving drinks up at the Castle and now probably vacationing in the Alps or Cambodia or some other God forsaken place in the world at large. Somewhere either extremely cold or warm for certain, alchemy dictating the contrast.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0311, Mexico, Teepot+
