Category Archives: 0033

July 14, 2022 · 9:00 am

00330607

The waterfall was relaxing. That’s why I decided to choose this cabin over the others, including the one where I could chop wood. Oil heated but that’s okay — I could use (cleaner) kerosene. Jem should be home soon. Out pretending she lives in the big treehouse I suppose; answering old phones, playing with someone else’s computer, overlapping screens on top of theirs. It’s all good fun, though. There’s no no trespassing signs around here. Eveything is open, all the way from Towerboro to these neighboring woods. And no dummies to worry about either here — that’s a big advantage over town. I can focus on Jem and Jem alone. Especially after Tessie (our Tessa) left for the castle to find that book. I wish her luck!

Water sounds; I can get sleep for a change.

—–

“Minus 125,” he cussed mildly downstairs after a nap. “Out of ice cream.” Oh well, he thinks. I can make some later out back with the cream and the strawberries here. Prefer chocolate, though, or vanilla at the least. Maybe run into town and get some. But the dummies…

—–

“Tired of your book?”

“No. It’s just I’m a little depressed.”

“Depressed? Why?”

“Because… didn’t you wonder where I was today?”

“I figured you were at the treehouse. Pretending we’re better off than we are.”

“I was in *town*.” How blind could this bastard boy be? she thought.

“Town, eh? Oh yeah. I think you mentioned that.”

“I *did* mention that. Do you remember where I was?”

“You said ‘town’.”

“No. Where I *was* in town.”

“No I don’t think you did. *Oh*”, he realized. “The *hair*.”

“Yes, Bob cut a lot of it off.” Finally! she thought. “Wellll?”

He wanted to go into town to get some proper ice cream and Jem came back with a doo that looked like a big scoop of vanilla was dropped on her head. What could he say? “The bob looks great on you, honey.” He tried to reach over and stroke it for reinforcement but Jem knocked his hand away.

—–

Later we find him chopping wood at that nearby cabin. At least he has himself tonight. How was I to know that Bob was the hairdresser instead of the style, he thinks. I need to pay attention better.

—–

The next night he tried to make up but she wouldn’t have any of it. “I’m going to go see John tomorrow,” she said, her mind set. She needed to find out about that duck. Finally!

At least I can move back into this cabin and listen to the waterfall and stop chopping wood, he thinks. Wait… *whaat*? “John??” he parroted. But maybe it was another hairstylist or a hairstyle at the least.

No. It was John.

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July 13, 2022 · 4:46 am

a series of Daffy Duck films

He’d finished reading the paper (finally!). The phone rang. It was so old fashioned he didn’t know how to answer it. “Jem!?” he called. “A little help here, Jem!”

Afterwards, Jem returned to the computer. No progress on the Miss Ouri front yet, with Tessa failing to turn into the appropriate form outside the library according to her call. She forgot to bring the needed cactus doll! What an oversight, pheh. Back to square one almost. They’d have to erase her presence there from everyone’s mind and basically start over. Would take a couple of days, days she didn’t have much of, she knew, sand running out fast in her beautifully figured hourglass of life. If only… NO. She can’t go there. The cartoons were *lurid*… *nasty*. John L. Brown couldn’t save her and she knew it, despite the promises, despite the plotline of the comics.

And yet… she had Dafney, who may have been named after a duck. Ducks were her salvation according to John’s stoopid, lurid *junk*. Yellow, just like her friend. She decided she needs to phone her up, see what she’s up to after the wedding to George. George, ha. So funny. Always misplacing his clothes. Dafney never seemed to catch on that he was doing it on purpose, just biding his time until the end of the war when his uninjured comrades would come home to roost. They took out a knee but at least they were able to grow his finger back. Good ol’ Dr. Diper. Diapers, she then thought, free associating. *That’s* what the guardian needed.

The phone rang in her pocketbook. She pulled out the banana, put it to her mouth. “Hello? (pause) Hello??” She remembered to put the other end to her ear and then heard this:

(to be continued)

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July 13, 2022 · 3:27 am

dedication

“So you guard this thing day and night?”

“Yup,” said back the Guardian of the Water Tart, a full time job indeed. Else everyone would have a sword in Our Second Lyfe and chaos would ensue. GotWT makes sure that doesn’t happen; swords aren’t freely distributed hither and thither. He feels it is a very worthwhile occupation. Better than being a dung gatherer in Hoagietown. Like his brother.

“What about the little pixies here. Can’t they give you at least a bathroom break every now and then?” Must go in his pants, Jem thinks here. Like a spaceman, yuck!

(So I guess he’s also a dung gatherer in that disgusting way. I don’t see much difference in the brothers’ jobs, then.)

The guard didn’t know what pixies were so he kept silent. Oh… the *fairies*, he realized. The worthless things. Probably attached to the sword tart, he thinks, a long held theory. Their flight seems to be confined to the immediate region of the manifesting pool.

“Oops. There it goes again. She’s flung the sword back into the water and given us the piss off sign.”

GotWT knew it wasn’t flung anywhere. It merely disappears from her hands. But he thought that at the beginning as well. Until he studied the hand motions more, the path of the sword. He doesn’t correct her on this. Along with the piss off sign, as she put it, actually being a peace sign. Piss… peace, he then turns around in his head, free associating but for a reason. Can’t… wait.

Jem turns toward him. “You’re not saying much guardian. “Oh dear,” she realized, standing back and studying the strained look on his face. “You’re not… going.”

“As I said,” he managed.

“Not what I meant.”

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July 12, 2022 · 11:04 am

00330604

“Black Swan Lake, Ringgold,” spoke Edward D’Aigle to the white hooty bird next to him who is also sometimes a hisser. Revelation! “And just beyond: the red-orange mahogany. We’ll know soon.”

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July 12, 2022 · 9:41 am

telescope

“I need you to go somewhere I can’t go. Not quite yet. Another 2 or 3 months is all now.”

“Where?”

“Oh. Dear.”

“You’ll need to change into Miss Ouri (again). Disguise. (pause) I need you to tell someone they’re dead.”

“To you,” she attempted to clarify.

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Okay.” She planned out the strategy. She knew who would approach her. She found herself becoming nervous. Okay okay, she calmed herself. You’re the head librarian of a mid sized University — (a library) trapped in a castle; that’s the twist. You were instrumental in bringing a special collections room there, red-orange mahogany in outer appearance. Inside: the Arkansaw monster book. Along with a lot of other books and manuscripts obviously. But the Arkansaw one is particularly attached to *you*, being Miss Ouri and all. One or the other had to go in your estimation. Wheeler, presently in the form of his 3rd cousin Tessa — or Tessie to him — said all this aloud.

“Good good,” he expressed after hearing. “I’m going to stay here and wait out the rest of my sentence. Chop wood at the cottage I’ve picked out, etc.”

Turns out chopping wood meant just that and not a euphemism. Good for Eddy (our Edward)!

“And stay away from that pot shop!” she said while walking away. But he didn’t.

—–

“Thanks for meeting with me, Jem.”

“It’s been a long time.”

“For the weed, you mean.” Because they’d been seeing each other lately, rendezvousing in clandestine places all over the grid. Like this.

“Yeah.” They’d only taken one hit apiece but they were out of it. Far corners of space kind of out. Jem could see Muff-Birmingham looming in front of her, the sphere that is also a cube. Light side and dark side; jungle and desert or at least plains. Plain to see, she couldn’t help add. “Where are you now?” she said, focusing on him instead of the inside. Trying, anyway. Best to communicate to the other when getting too deep. And where is there some wine around this place, the red to counterbalance the blue?

“Home,” he replied as simply as possible in order to communicate at all. 3D. 26 1/2 years it had been. He cried more when he gave it up than when he sold his childhood home, one replacing the other in a way, in a manner.

He looked over at Jem, held her hand, held it tighter. Because he realized she’d probably be dead before he went back. He’d make the most of these 2-3 months.

(to be continued)

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July 11, 2022 · 11:29 am

hill house

Darling Pixley Pixy,

I tried to leave you but when I went out the front door it just became a door. I looked back. I realized all the answers I wanted were here — there — after all, kind of like Dorothy and her Kansas. So I gave up Oz; went back through the door. Laid down and went to sleep for a bit. Woke up and came downstairs to eat breakfast-dinner with the stern but still kindly aunt and the kind of stern but kind of not uncle — old fashioned they were. Asked them how I got here (eventually). They said:

“You landed here.”

I said, “Whaat?”

“In a beam of white light,” they further confessed. “You are not…”

“… from this world,” the other completed for the first, gams for gams (as we say).

I sat there, stunned obviously.

“Your eyes,” they continued. “That was the giveaway. That led to the others.”

“The… *others*?”

“The other… phenomena,” spoke the uncle, differentiating himself from my aunt in tone and volume. He spoke quite a bit after that. The skin tone pink was brought up early (and loudly) in the spiel. Then the tattoo, which he wrongly called “demon”. It was “demo”. They assumed I had scrubbed off the N somehow to cover this up and then flipped my hair down over the space along with the damaged eye. This also made me a heathen in their eyes. But somehow they still managed to love me. Deeply. Alien influence, I gathered from them, some kind of et sorcery.

“The cards,” Aunt Mina then prompted Uncle Taum.

“Ah yes,” he started again, but found his mouth was tired from talking. “You tell, dear.” He worked his jaw up and down, trying to get the soreness out for the next round of words. Aunt Mina saw this. Started talking kind of for him but also kind of not. She had her own mind these days. Read up on the suffragettes thanks to Marty. Realized Muff was just a portmanteau for Mutt and Jeff, with Jett jettisoned in the process — in the name. Band on the run.

“Do you recall being on the run?” she then asked, “OTR as we like to call it?”

“Tell her about the bluebird,” spoke the uncle, able to insert that much at least.

“Cards first. Cardinals,” the aunt clarified.

(to be continued)

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July 11, 2022 · 10:11 am

00330601

There are other things to see hear on this continent of Jeogeot.

“Yes.”

“We will return.”

“But…”

“… first…”

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July 9, 2022 · 9:25 am

Towerboro > ???

“How much for it, then?”

“I keep telling you Miss.”

“Ms., actually.”

“Ms. That the artwork over there you’re asking about is not for sale. That one right over there.” He points for emphasis, but she doesn’t look. She’d seen enough. She *wanted* it. “Orders of the owner,” he says again.

“How about… I tell you that I created ‘Heathen’? How ’bout that?”

Benny looked Wheeler over better, noticed the forehead especially. “But… you’re a *demo*.”

“Precisely,” she shot back. She smiled that secret smile which told him she knew more than him, and that she was on top now. They set them up and she bowls them over per usual. He had no other choice; couldn’t take a chance that she was actually *the one*. He sighed.

“Very well. Follow me.”

She was ready to flip the hair back to reveal the other eye if needed. But it wasn’t.

“Just down the walk,” he said heading out the door.

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July 8, 2022 · 5:33 am

00330516

“What’s in your pocketbook, lady?” she asked innocently of course, being a child and all. No malice or subterfuge involved.

“Oh. Just grown up stuff, darling. You’ll know soon enough.”

“12? I’m 12 now. Will I know (*sniff*) this year?” She wiped her nose of a little bit of snot produced in a sneeze several minutes back now. Must be the flowers, Dafney thought, but in actuality it was her perfume, grown up stuff intruding on more delicate nostrils.

“Oh, maybe not.” Dafney then took in her companion in the moment better. She sat up on her tiny pretend vehicle a little straighter to seem taller, older. She wanted to hear that she would know this year. Dafney obviously relented, seeing that sweet face, those saucer eyes.

“Yes, yes I see it now.” She rubbed the top of her head playfully. “Maturity. Yes I think you’ll know this year.”

“Hurrah!” the kid cried and, happy with the exchange, moved herself and her little piggy car or whatever down to the next available person, interacting with them about what *they* were doing in the moment. It was Sunday and Sandy was at the park. This is what she did. Her mother was just over there, observing. But otherwise letting Sandy do her thing. She had a break and that’s what was important for her. Sundays, blessed Sundays, when she could temporarily pass her loquacious kid onto others.

Dafney pulled out her phone, dialed the numbers that would get her in contact with Redbird, her current flame. Unless it was Bluebird. Heck, she’ll give them both a call/text. But first — a banana. Yellow before red and blue she always said. She hardly ever thinks of green and how that fits into the overall picture. The 4th. She’s not a true Tilist… and she’s grown up, which might mean she’ll never be.

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July 8, 2022 · 3:52 am

00330515

“TILE, baby. Look! You were *right*. At the marketplace… just like you said.”

“Yeah, me *big* now. 12.” She kept her grin while opening her hands to display 10 fingers and then not flashing the additional, needed 2 to complete. Psychic, if not the brightest.

“You sure are, Pumpkin,” Cloris Bleachman said, trying to overlook the miscounting; scrub it from her mind. Perhaps 12 is sometimes 10 in this new math they teach at school these days, she rationalized. But not far underneath the fake shiny surface she knew this was a lie. Poor Betty. Good thing she has this psychic ability or else her life would be ruined. And maybe she’ll turn out to be a looker later on, able to use her body for material gain if not her mind. Attract the right kind of husband, Cloris meant here of course. One with green in his pockets.

“See here?” she called to gain her child’s attention again. “Red, blue, yellow… just like you said,” she tested.

Betty stuck out her arms and twirled around in place, reciting back, “red… yellow… *blue*,” with the “blue” making her come to a stop again, arms all wrapped up around her before dropping by her side once more.

“And…?” Cloris encouraged. “Come on, Betty. You said it before. Look here.” She resorted to pointing. “What’s this in this here, er, dish? The last one.”

Getting on her tippy toes and taking a gander, Betty heard a hissy “Am I nothing?” in her head and decided not to answer, also seeing the face. She knew not to cross it unless to mark out of existence. And she wasn’t ready for that. She enjoyed her powers and didn’t want to relinquish them… to him.

(to be continued)

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