“One of us is going to have to speak, twin of mine,” she thought into the other’s head. “Talky films are the way out, Oz be darned.”
“Someone,” the other furthered likewise, “is going to have to return to that three pointed hat bastard of a pirate over there with rising, snoozing chest.” Which is which?
It was quite a walk up that last stretch through the blasted cypresses but he was here. The Castle, but not Valeria as people said. That appellation belonged to the stone cottage where he started from on this baronial island recommended for purchase by none other than The Guy. It was just plain Castle before him, unless you attach Green to it, as some people did because of the forest all around. If only there were a few pines sprayed here and there, he lamented. He can’t change the landscape, he can’t replant the island’s forest. Cypresses in its two kinds, green and brown, it is.
—–
Well if it isn’t the silent film twins again.
He camped at Mexico Flats that night, fronting One Pink acting as a watch bird. “Sqwalk!” she erupted at half past 2. But it was only the Half Moon rising over a local stone hill. “Sqwalk!” she repeated at 5:45. Yes: The Sun this time, touching the tippy top of same hill. One Pink imagined herself burning on the surface, revealing her secret innards. Scorching Sun and Freezing Moon must be balanced, sqwalk for sqwalk. Otherwise: death. In time, Jeffrey Phillips would begin to understand the weird workings of the psychic, alchemical flamingo but not tonight. Instead he grumbled how just as he was about to fall asleep there went that bird again with the sqwalking, so not understanding atall the significance of the utterances. Sun and Moon; within and without us all; the great duality; mother and father; death and life; black and white of course; female/male all around. Silver and gold. Alchemy.
On to the Castle, bleary-eyed or not.
“A cypress forest without eucalyptus is nothing.” Jeffrey Phillips was trying to get a rise out of Randolph the Bastard Pirate and mate Wendy sitting down the table, but useless so far. “Orange is not a fruit,” he said, peering in their direction again for a reaction. Blank. Time to move on from this Valeria stone cottage on the north end of the island. Castle up next.
—–
“Cypresses. So many cypresses,” he grumbled, walking up the rise.
The fog was thick in Collagesity tonight, so much so that the script I had prepared for certain actors there could not be read. We’ll have to look elsewhere for plot…
Maybe it will come from the outer islands of Nautilus, basically half encircling the roughly square archipelago of a continent from Castle Valeria to its nw all the way down to little Dizadare Isle more in the se, just nw of the tip of Yd Island, which in Lemon World speak, is the *origin* of All Second Lyfe itself and the source of the letter change from i to y to protect the youth and innocent and such. The Ratzenburger Rabbit is still around.
Jeffrey Phillips goes there tonight for spiritual renewal and warmth. Because it gets f-ing cold in mountainous Collagesity during foggy season. He can see a new plot line now. Jasper County, but the other (Newton) one. The one not yet used.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0301, Collagesity Fordham-, Iowa, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Rim Isles, Upper Austra, Yd Island
“So I just took the whole kitten caboodle island, bridge and all, and drug it over through the water to the *Easties* side, saying down in my booming voice, ‘You had your turn, you Westerners, Richie Griffith and all. Now it’s their turn.’ I also declared that the island would switch sides of Bartybrat Bay each 700 years but my guess is that they’ll want to do it much sooner. So one of us should plan to return in about, say, 20 to 30 years for the chore. Are you on board with that, Jeffrey Phillips?”
Jeffrey stared at the picture of Brilliant Island’s central bay between the two sides of its twinned village, trying to figure out which direction was which and if the snapshot represents a before or after situation. “Sure, sure,” he finally uttered, knowing he didn’t have anything on the schedule past next Tuesday’s Wednesday. “I’ll even go first. Now that I know they’re on our side.”
“Okay, your turn. Tell me what happened to *you*.”
“Oh, nothing much. Really — nothing. They found me reading that book and they tied me down on the other side of the hill and left me there and finally I managed to get free and I came back home to here and wrote what happened down in my blog.”
“Hmm,” says Fern Stalin, thinking, oh, he really *did* mean “nothing much”. Certainly not as exciting and meaningful as her story of the island. She gets up to leave.
“Where’re you off to now, opposite of mine?”
“The rocket ship. Did you forget?”
Jeffrey Phillips had forgot. Sammy the Messenger Featherfloater should have returned by now to let all the others of his kind know. Fearless intrepid leader Spore had a plan. There was not one Fern but two, like Original and Extra Crispy. Now to sort them all out in separate buckets… or something.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0217, Lower Austra, Maebaleia/Satori, Nautilus, Outer Islands, Rim Isles
2 days later — 1 day, 23 hours, 56 minutes later to be precise — the villagers were alerted again to the presence of a giant amongst them. Stan Jackson, Gertie and Brumhilda Johnson, and the Twinkle Toe twins assembled in the “green” in front of their 3 houses. On the other side of the water, Stephen Fire, Alice and Daisy and Little Boo and Poppy Paxton, and Richie Griffith did the same.
“Who this time?” these Westerners cried out across Bartybrat Bay, named for a local ragamuffin killed in a skateboarding accident.
“A fair maiden this time Richie Griffith and others,” replied the Easties, trying to keep their voices down a bit more because of well, the presence. Stan Jackson was especially irritated by Richie Griffith’s big tiny mouth, town crier indeed — and always had to be addressed as their leader according to the new town policy drawn up day before yesterday’s tomorrow. He planned to open a proper newspaper office on Central Isle later this month — that’ll teach the big tiny snitch.
They all assembled on Central Isle, soon to be turned into a shopping strip if Stan Jackson and the Easties had their way. That way they’d have to build a bridge coming from *their* direction; no more monopolizing Central Isle by the Westerners. For prophecy (Big Bob) had said, “And lo if the Easties have their way, the Central Isle will be transformed, ye, into a stripper joint.” Everyone down through the years and now centuries assumed a brothel type establishment but modern developments seemed to have proven them wrong.
Stan Jackson was careful to stand on the exact spot he planned to open his newspaper office and then glared over at Richie Griffith, the louse.
The giant was coming by water this time. Stealthier.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0216, Maebaleia/Satori, Outer Islands
2 days earlier, Jeffrie Phillips knew he had to arrive 1st at the Brilliant fairy village. If it was to survive and even thrive. Take me to your leader, he thought, but without a snicker. This was dead serious stuff. Fern would be arriving two days later and for all he knew, she would strip all the foliage off these protective trees and expose the wee people here to the relentless sun and rain for who knows how long. Years. Jeffrie Phillips had a name. Richie. Richie Griffith. He didn’t know if that was the leader or a representative of him or her. No doubt the village residents had been alerted to his presence on the edge of their compound. Best just to wait here at this rock. He brought a book along for the trip. “Gulliver’s Travels.”
He became so engrossed in the book that he didn’t see them approach with tiny pitchforks and rope.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0215, Maebaleia/Satori, Outer Islands
They said if I went far back enough in time to lose my hair that I would see him. MAN. About to create Mistery from Mystery and Misery; combination of islands and isles. But where was I?
And what’s that island just over there? Oops! Got my hair back just as that tree found foliage. That must be my isle (!).
Fern, who Spore in his jealousy has deemed Substitute Fern, was smart, perhaps too much so. I don’t think she’ll be that easy to eliminate.
MAN was nowhere to be found now.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0214, Maebaleia/Satori, Outer Islands
He often trots over to the south side of the island to stare with Giant Pety across the water at the small isle that signifies nothing to him, wondering what it means. Perhaps the isle use to house an important structure, perhaps a lighthouse, although there are enough of those around in the vicinity now to warn any ship coming in any direction. But in the past, say before Mystery fused with Misery to become Mistery, maybe circumstances were different. A special kind of lighthouse. Another green lantern. I only say this because Giant Pety himself emits a bit of green at nighttime.
Maybe we’ll never know.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0213, Maebaleia/Satori, Outer Islands
Sunklands 