“I want to change further, Axis. I am not happy being me any longer. Look at the women Rhode photographed here. Beautiful.”
“You have changed, Young Ruby,” Axis advised. “You are now Fairy Ruby, a natural extension. And certainly quite beautiful. Natural beauty. Not like these more fake examples in my opinion.”
“Look at what I found on the marketplace,” Ruby declared, and then rezzed a new top. “Another natural extension?”
“No, Ruby. Put that foolish thing away. Fairy Ruby is quite satisfactory to me, and besides, we get to be married to each other as Mr. and Mrs. Claus. At least for a while.”
“Until the end of the season, yes.” Ruby persisted. “But how about this with the top.”
“No Ruby,” insisted Axis, staring at the manifested hair. “You are trying too hard. Let’s go to the upper floors, to the more abstract art. That will cheer you up and inspire you more. Leave these so-called realistic photos behind. They’re affecting your confidence.”
“Alright. But I’m going to test out my new look a little longer.”
“That’s fine.”
—–
“See Ruby? You passed this accident right by. Intermixed red and green again. Back of a Rhode work instead of a front. Sometimes looking at what’s happening behind the stage, for example, gives more information than the play itself.”
Ruby runs ahead, ganders at the front…
… then looks all around the floor. “Huh. I guess you’re right, Axis. Everything is separated out neat and tidy in front. Green in this one. Red over there. Then green with a bit of red but only in one distinct streak, then another two reds and then back to green over here. ‘Green Monster’. The one we talked about before.
—–
“I’m not a monster, you know,” stated synchronized Gregg, sitting at the table opposite Mr. Babyface in their unfinished Middletown penthouse apartment. “I got’s real, true feelings. I like… Bailey’s in a shoe. I like watercolors. Watercolors of Bailey’s.” He pauses thoughtfully in his ranting. “I like you.”
“Oil me up, then.” Accompanied by a small buzzing sound, green Gregg Oden changes over to red Greg Ogden. Mr. Normal.
“Ah so.” But Mr. Babyface had been thinking lately that “normal” Greg(g) could do with a little more monster inside him. Might help their sex life. He dare not try all that out with the monster itself yet; not quite yet. Must keep using oil. No, he must think of other things now.
Sunklands 