Category Archives: 0035

preservation

My Lebettu Castle is still there in all its glory, seen here in a “Phototools — Still Life” environment. The library remains at its center, its core. However since I’ve been retired from same for *8* months now, it may be time to move on. I revisited the co-workers I was probably closest to a couple of weeks back and exchanged pleasantries and caught up with the latest. My old position had shifted into something new which helped the team, but also probably marked the end of a more interactive involvement with the overall campus in the way I fostered, a continuation from past practices. *Writing* is my job now, that and the accompanying art and photography. And also I view daily hiking as an extension of this, a needed opposite and balancing pole to virtual reality. It’s a good life. 🙂 I explore both.

Moving forward, I’m almost 1/2way done with the current Sunklands photo-novel, 35 in a series of “we”ll see”. Characters keep evolving. I am almost as much there as I am here.

I did not maintain contact with others outside my team. I was as much a part of campus as a whole as the library — theoretically. It was a perfect balance for a while, me acting as one man juggler. But it could not go on. I passed into retirement as naturally as about anyone could, thanks in part to the pandemic and the changes it wrought. It certainly contained echoes of actual death. I know better what to expect.

There have been other libraries in other times. Even now, in a virtual setting and obviously on a much smaller scale, I still have one, another echo. A friend died there.

I can still go inside the special part created by new-ish head Miss Ouri and read books, some of which are even my own.

Like this one.

There still exists a dividing point between Ordinary/Mundane and Special. It’s all in the pages.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0315, Nautilus, NORTH, Rooster's Peninsula

00350314

“You stay in the van dear,” Draken requested, heading toward the only structure on Horse Island. “Damn horse piss,” he complained along the way. Pretty rainbow, though.

Yes, this will do nicely. Memories.

Oh dear. Told her to stay in the van and over there she is.

But an ass gets in the way, blocking our view. Must be a Clydesdale.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0314, Hana Lei^^

Franklin was shrunk down to size.

“We have a read on the shack, Control, over.” No answer.

“Repeat, we have a read on the shack, over.” No answer for a while again, then:

“Uh, copy that, Mission, do you see anyone down below? Over.”

Norris pauses himself now, partly out of spite. “Yes, we have green legs, repeat, green legs. Green as frogs, over.”

They could take her out now but it would mean sacrificing the pilot. Stan talked the possibility over with Tom. When will we get a better chance? rationalized the latter.

“Okay, Mission, we’re going to ask you to go straight in on her, repeat, straight – in – on – her. As in kamikaze, over.”

A longer pause. How much did Norris value his artificial life? Enough to break free of Control? He decided to sacrifice himself but go out on his own terms.

“Read that, Control. Going – straight – in.” And he did, except a little to the side, the left one I believe, hitting the boat. Or the right one, pulverizing the rose colored cottage. But not totally straight, thus most likely not wiping out Franklin under the Umbrella.

Roberts of course heard the crash from just over the rocks and came rushing, and Shelley and Lemont heard too from their beach just beyond and did the same. Collision in a different way. Two arcs of a story not yet met.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0313, Nautilus, NORTH

00350312

“Thanks for coming to rescue me, *Lemont*.”

“You’re very welcome dearest. But you can *really* thank your Venus Cage necklace, or at least the photo of it.”

“Right. Didn’t remember anything about the Umbrella Club until I pulled it out of my purse and took a look. Angles aren’t right in the black and white photograph. Can’t figure out where it is taken on the body.”

“It’s not a body.”

“Yeah, I know that now. But just the studying, the trying to figure it out, changed me. I can never go back now. I remain under the Umbrella. Figuratively, of course, because here we’re out in the sun still. Where is our umbrella anyway?”

“Stashed away for a rainy day,” he said.

She turned on her side. “And… I don’t think I desire to wear purple any more. That must go along with (the change). Or when I do it’s *my* choice. She shaked her index finger to reinforce her point. Shelley she was through and through, she thought.

But Lemont knew the situation could change. Good now for them. But George/The Musician was still out there somewhere.

And Roberts remained just around the corner.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0312, Nautilus, NORTH

00350311

She came from The Void — above. And judging by this introductory picture she may have been formed by The Void, or be a manifestation of The Void itself, sent here to straighten out a pair of misbehaving whippersnappers far below, pheh (she gets into character). BEH.

Her name… give us a second; we’re working on it. Mourning Glory is what I got now. MG.

Here on Holding Level 02, or what some call the Gold Room, our grandmother looking type person decompresses by soaking in a hot tub for 2 weeks a while, its stairs borrowed by Burt to check on a malfunctioning heat vent in hall 4 1/2 a couple of days beforehand. Budget is low for these sorts of places today; MG had to climb in, difficult with her frame and developing arthritis, lengthening the process. No one really comes down from The Void to Our Second Lyfe any more. Back in the golden, olden days it was different. Hence the choice of color here: to remind one of past glory. And I suppose the name Mourning Glory could be a reflection of this too. What did this MG know about such? I’m eager, and I hope you, the reader or readers, are also eager to find out. She keeps the red phone close in case orders change from above.

She’s finally out of the cleansing, relaxing hot tub, ready to get down to business. She checks her face in a handy mirror first. Not there still — she’ll work on it. Only a placeholder version of The Void behind her, which, of course, if she turned around she wouldn’t see.

To the file room.

Filed chronologically instead of alphabetically according to the labels, good.

But — shock — no files within the cabinets! She even checked the dumpster around the corner, *oof*, her back!

She needs to call the boss about the apparent theft but first things first: another go in the hot tub.

Calm, MG, callmmm.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0311, Back Rooms, Omega^^, Southern, The Cross^

gloryous night 02

“Something happened in Belliseria, Johnny, I mean *Arthur* — DAMN: **Lemont**.”

“Yes??” Much like Mr. Ubermodel at the time, he was all ears. Where has she been???

“Anyway, it was undone. The Orient, Johnny Arthur Lemont. Thing like that can happen there.”

“So… something *happened* in Belliseria and… *unhappened* in Omega?” He began thinking the obvious.

“Yes. I went a little — crazy.”

We’ll have to start over, he thought here. We’ll just have to move on and start over.

“Where are you *now*??” he said into the receiver in his house in Nautilus. *Their* house. If he can find her and bring her back and she’s okay after that.

She looked around. “Bus,” she managed. “Heading… um, don’t know what direction.”

“Can you see the Sun?” Lemont tried.

“No. Dark.” Void, she thought. Was she *there*? Had she been cursed through being so mean to Johnny?”

“Anyone with you now?”

She had to keep driving, but she glanced around the bus real quick. She wasn’t sure otherwise. “No,” she said after checking, returning her eyes to the road.

“Do you have another tracker on you besides the phone? Doesn’t seem to be working as such now — may be too far away. Maybe from that Umbrella Club you were at?”

Umbrella Club, she thought. She doesn’t recall an Umbrella Club. Then she remembered legs — removing them from the sun back into the shade. The torch-like sun. So hot. Did she have another tracker about her? She recalled… a photograph.

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0310, Bellisaria, Continent 03, Nautilus, NORTH, Omega^^, Southern, The Cross^

Big Boy

When I was a boy, I use to have dreams about The Void, but I remember them as a TV show.

Always the face, always the eyes. The girl reached out but could never find me. She remained trapped.

I can’t recall her name. Shirley?

“Shirley?” I called in the past. No answer.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0309, Hana Lei^^

00350308

I was wondering when you were going to show up.

The duck, not the screamer, although they obviously could be related, especially since there’s a hand pointing from the former to the latter. Now to back up…

—–

“I’m going into The Void, Shelley. If my face is worthless then I want to do away with it. My rocket launches Thursday after next.”

“After next what?” she replied calmly, taking this new development in stride. She was expecting something drastic — just didn’t know what. Tension had been too high lately.

“More details later,” the ironically named Johnny Ubermodel responded. He was just making all this up. He simply wanted a reaction. Would she come? But (he though while staring at her) — why would she? Her face was *perfect*. Child-like and innocent but old and full of wisdom at the same time. “I bought The Void Machine on the marketplace. You can check if you wish.”

“I believe you.” She didn’t believe him. This was all about that comment with the TV. And, of course, the attached threat to leave this place, this lake with its forest in the sun and set out for — sanity?

“We could live at 7000, 100000, heck 1000000. Sky’s the limit as they say,” and he couldn’t help a small smile here on his goofy mouth too close to his nose and eyes. And that nose!

“Johnny. Johnny Supermodel.”

“Ubermodel,” he correct.

“Yes…” She’d heard about eels but couldn’t fit it in here. Irrelevant in the big picture.

“You’re not going. I know. You’re going to the bus instead, despite the lack of animations for what we need to do to make us happy.” Make *me* happy, he thinks here. Her: obviously not so much. “You can drive away into the sunset.”

“Johnny,” she tried to placate. “I know I made that comment earlier about your face, and how are you going to be a porn star and make money to redo it when you have it in the first place. I mean…”

“I know what you mean. I’m too ugly to get my foot inside the door of the business, even though I have talents — enhancement — elsewhere.”

“Yeah.”

“So you think I chose The Void over reality.”

“Umm.”

“Shelley.”

(pause) “Yes?”

“I’m going into The Void.”

—-

But he didn’t. He eventually got another job that paid even better than the porn one and got that face and went on to live a successful and happy life. But not with Shelley.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0308, Hana Lei^^, Omega^^, Southern, The Cross^

00350307

Did you know a faceless, objectless Void begins at 4000 meters elevation in Our Second Life?

And physics starts to get a little wonky even as you approach. Eels can appear, for example, but not the kind you might expect.

Someone is pregnant. Someone shouldn’t be here. The bus down there is the way out. Take it.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0307, Omega^^, Southern, The Cross^

two to see

“Is that the guy from ‘Twin Peaks’?”

“Yeah I think so. You know… we’re not going to be able to stay here, you and I.”

“Oh yeah. Why not? Am I suddenly not good enough for you, Shelley?” He huffs a bit. He was expecting this sometime but hoped to delay it until after football season. He enjoyed watching 2 games in one through this dual TV setup. He wouldn’t be able to afford 2 on his own.

What could Shelley say? That the sex eventually didn’t make up for the looks? Surely he knows about the hands by now, and the hiding of the face. And it’s getting uglier, she admitted, in the bright light of day. In the dark it’s easier to pretend. She hoped she could get use to it. Not working.

That night she dreamed she was trapped inside the stomach or innards of that big stuffed purple bear in the living room, ready for birth that never came. In the dark herself. Satisfied with the lot of her life.

But she woke up, ate her Toastie Oats cereal, choco chip dodecahedron style, and, staring out through the iron grid window at the magic bus from whence they came — parked down by the water still — understood anew that she needed to be on her own for a while. She looks over at Johnny’s mug. Jeez it’s worse than ever this morning. It’s like he was made to be disgusting. And, she then realized, perhaps he was… perhaps this is all… some kind of ruse. A test. She’d had flashes about who gave her the bus, who sent her here. A woman named Wilson who was also friends with a Fox. A person who — was much like herself, yes. A *mother*, she discerned, turning her table around to stare at the bear.

Birth is what you make of it. Cradle to grave, but in the middle, always The Cross. Which she’s on. She’d been absorbed in the Omega continent’s north to south arm! Somehow that made it both more real and more irreal at the same time. Birth, she realized. It is coming. Or: not.

“Dear, sorry, you’re kind of in the way of the TV.” That grating man-child voice too(!).

She stared at it now. “It’s some kind of *test pattern*, Johnny. Get over it.” Just like this life she’s living here, she also thought.

“Oh. I thought it was a show.”

“So did I, Johnny. So did I.”

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0306, Omega^^, Southern, The Cross^