She stood there for 5 full minutes before The Musician looked up from the computer screen and spotted her. Nonplussed, he resumed researching the Muff-Bermingham planet while muttering through the window: “Very funny Painter. Now come in here.”
—–
The Painter soon realized she was not alone in this town, this world. There was also a Prenter Printer.
—–
She waits for Bowie to come back but instead got Björk.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0004, 0104, Heterocera, VHC City
Back in Collagesity, The Musician persuades Wheeler (a.k.a. The Painter) to watch a longer Youtube film by SL resident Zarrakan about the LEA 11 “Glass Jars” installation. To Wheeler’s mild irritation, he then creates a running dialog with the film, stating how the two examinations of the sim differ and how he did things better overall. Afterwards, Wheeler wishes to watch another suggested Zarrakan film about wrestling, one of her numerous physical passions, right up there with dance and exercise. The Musician waves this off, however, saying at one and 1/2 hours that particular video is too long, and states they should instead view a short animation that acted as partial inspiration for “Glass Jars” entitled “The House of Small Cubes”. Wheeler relents (my how she’s softened because of the most recent Assimilation!). She understands that continued development of The Musician is very important. Besides… well, never mind that right now.
—–
Back in VHC Town, The Musician gives “The Painter” back her time.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0004, 0103, Heterocera, LEA sims, Rubi, VHC City
—–
And that is most definitely Wheeler.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0004, 0102, Heterocera, Rubi, VHC City
—–
“You really missed quite a lot at LEA11, Musician. Blackout Poetry… *music/sound*. You and your aural sensitivity. Such an odd condition for one who *makes* sound all the time.”
“I found a lot. I found enough. I had to get back to my music.”
Wheeler thought of the Harrison cutout but didn’t query about progress. “Where’s Art?” she asks instead. “Will she be joining us?”
“No, it’s not Art. Just an artist. Painter.” The Musician pauses. “Like you.”
Wheeler scratches her head. “Where’s our coffee? Service here is as bad as over at Perch.”
The Musician checks his watch, taps his fingers nervously on the round table. “Should be any moment.”
—–
“I hate to say it, but I’m just not a big fan of Second Life images in virtual art. People especially for some reason. Landscape’s better.”
“You just don’t like people period, Wheeler.”
“Suppose not.”
—–
“Should we go back?”
“Nah, she’s not going to show up.”
“Can I be The Painter instead?” Wheeler looked over at the slanted Musician.
He breathes out, relenting. “Oh all right.”
She sat silent for a moment, then: “What was her name?”
“Chuckey,” came the reply. “Yeller feller.”
“Hmm. So she’s you too.”
“Seems that way Wheeler.”
“It’s you trapped in that Ear Canyon. Camping at the top. Assimilation — full swing. I’m not who I thought I was.”
Well… we’re in this together and that’s a trap. Fact, I mean.”
—–
“I made it. So this is the spot.”
“97, 97,” says The Musician. “The poisonous violet-black building in plain sight. Towering over us at this point if I remember correctly. Yes, this is the point. And now… this picture. I don’t remember it before from this gallery, which has expanded into the territory formerly its back yard. What’s the name?”
“Um, ‘A Precarious Geisha’.”
“No,” replies The Musician. “The name of the gallery, not the picture. Hold on…”
“‘Finely Torn Id’, Wheeler,” The Musician says after remotely finding and then taking a snapshot of the gallery’s entrance.
“2015 for the painting’s date. This must be The Painter.”
“No,” says The Musician. “It was suppose to be someone else. Chuckey. Yellow. Head like Charlie Brown. Assimilation. Pineal. Pine cone. Fred Cone. Pineapple.”
“Hmm,” states Wheeler. “This (picture) must contain a code. I like the colors. It’s close to a picture of the other side of the wall. Where I landed when you tried to teleport me directly into this spot. We were on opposite sides of the wall.”
“Are you a geisha, Wheeler?”
“Why is it precarious?” asks Wheeler back, dodging The Musician’s question.
—–
“Look, Musician. A piano over there. Why don’t you disengage yourself from the wall and play us a tune. You said you had hundreds of thousands.”
“Hundreds,” came a muffled voice from inside the wall behind her. “Or maybe thousands.”
“Well play me something, then. How about that ‘Fire Ants’ you go on about when you’ve had a few too many. The one that literally blew the roof off Barney Rubleboro in West Virginia that summer. Coal *everywhere*.”
“Hold on…,” the muffled voice said once again.
—–
“Hmm. Wall again. And I had just turned yellow.”
The piano would have to wait.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0004, 0101, Heterocera, LEA sims, VHC City
“We are at Purden Center, Snowmanster. But where are Core and Alena?”
“Yeah, right, I forgot about that too,” Snowmanster acknowledges. “I’ll have to leave you once more, just for a moment.” He puts his hand on the wooden man’s shoulder. “Woody, you’ve been a fantastical friend down through the years for me. You’ve endured great hardships and still have managed to make a place for yourself in this world. I am here to help now. Wheeler and I. And the children who aren’t children, now rescued from being X-ed out. We’re all in this together. You can ask your questions.” On the spot, Snowmanster changes into Core-Alena.
“Kneel down, Woody,” Core-Alena requests. “So I can speak with you… fellow wooden being. Here, let me turn just a little to the right so you can see me better. And I, you.”
Woody kneels. “Snowmanster? Is that you in there?”
“Yes. This is a core being as well but more than myself. *All* of us. Everyone in the Snowlands. Rich and poor. Good and evil. Male and female. We are them. They are us. As Snowmanster, I just had to commit to being here. With you and the others.” Owlie the 3rd eyed owl sitting on one of their branches hoots in agreement.
“So is this… the end?”
“Yes,” states Core-Alena. “We will go forward, obviously, but in a different setting, a different light. Mid-Hazel and her entrapping X’s, etc., have been defeated. We are one.
Woody gets on the ground and stares directly into the male-female eyes. He asks the final question. “Am I in there too?”
“Woody,” Core-Alena playfully smirks. “You are the key!”
END OF “COLLAGESITY 2016-2017 WINTER”.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0618, Purden/Snowlands, Sansara
From a frozen pond in Virrat, Baker Bloch admires the vast expanse of Poorvoo’s North Pole. But he doesn’t have time right now to revisit that place. He must get to Woody’s before the toy avatar awakes and spring the surprise.
—–
“Well?” he says while showing Woody the interior view. “What do you think?” He knew he’d be pleased.
“Fantastical,” Woody replies. “But who are you?”
“Oh, sorry. I forgot to change.”
“Snowmanster!” Woody cried. “So you have a secret identity.”
“Not secret,” admitted Baker Bloch/Snowmanster. “Core,” he explained. “That is (more) my real self.”
“What *is* you?”
“My father was a superhero and then a talk show host. My mother was, well… diffcult to explain.” He obviously thought of Wheeler’s recent appearances as Old Grey.
“Well I never,” exclaimed Woody. “Do *I* have a secret identity? A *core*?”
“Maybe,” says Snowmanster. “Why don’t we try to ask the *tree* this morning. I have a hunch they might be free to speak now.”
“Core-Alena?” asks Woody. He stares out the window toward the center of the woods.
“Of course.”
“But a spell was put on them.”
“I think Mid Hazel’s control is breaking down, Woody, thanks to Wheeler. She’s up next to Livigno now. She’s adopted two children who aren’t children at all but soon-to-be lovers. They will look into the room. They will free us.”
“Fantastical,” Woody repeats. “Let’s go see the tree.”
“Bert’s not invited.” Snowmanster and Woody share a laugh with that.
—–
Walking toward Purden Center from Snowmanster’s new home next to Woody’s.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0618, Purden/Snowlands, Sansara
The children rock inside while Uncle Jack approaches the window, telling them the deed is done. The fake Uncle Jack has been buried out in the backyard along with the fake children that showed up yesterday. Blue has switched with pink. No pink clad twins in this storyline! But perhaps their ghosts will haunt the oversized trailer later on.
After supper, the children sit on the porch while Uncle Jack stays back in the kitchen. He always seems to be cooking or cleaning there.
“I’ve seen inside their room,” says Buurb, sitting on the wooden flooring opposite Old Mabel.
She makes a shocked face. “But *how*? The door is always locked.”
“Remote viewing. You don’t know that trick yet?”
Old Mabel’s shoulders ease back a little. “Of course. But I don’t like to pry. What’s behind closed doors should stay behind closed doors.”
“Not how it works around here,” answers Buurb, who was naturally nosier than his counterpart. “Anyway, they’re dead now. What do they care if we peek around inside. I could even lay in their beds if I wished. You could too.”
“Don’t you *dare*,” reprimands Old Mabel. “This Livigno sim will serve us well as long as we obey the rules set up by Uncle Jack. Do I need to tell them again to you? There are only three.” Buurb was about protest that she doesn’t need to do this again when she stands up anyway and begins.
“One…”
“…if the fake people show up, they will be killed and disposed of in the backyard.”
“Two…”
“… don’t leave the Livigno sim because all answers are here.”
“Three…”
“… *never* enter the Story Room.” She sits back down in the executive chair. “Any questions Buurb? Buuuuurb?” Old Mabel knew Buurb hated it when the double vowels in his name were stretched out like that.
“Um, yeah actually.” He puts his index finger to his chin smugly. “I’ve been thinking about this. If all the answers are here, in this sim (he points down), and Story Room is part of this sim — *if* it’s part; perhaps its beating heart as Jack once put it — then maybe the answers are in that room.”
Uncle Jack’s ears prick up in the kitchen. He thinks about the still bloodied axe against the wall around the corner.
“We can just march in and get them,” Buurb continues. “That’s the, er, paradox of all this, where the head eats the tail. We stay in the sim, but must never look into the *heart* of the sim? Ever thought about that Old Mabel?”
“This is not the Garden of Adam and Eve.”
“Isn’t it?”
—–
At the same time and 100 yards to the northwest, Wheeler tries to teleport back into her adopted Ayas cabin after buying a stack of books, a Lisa Simpson cutout, and some ice cream down the hill at Inferialist, but instead finds herself in a hidden space underneath.
On the other side of the wall she discovers more.
Buurb was looking in the wrong place.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0617, Purden/Snowlands, Sansara
“*Wilson*. Should’ve known. I received this landmark in my inventory tonight and used it to pop over here, and find you.”
“Hi Baker Bloch,” is all Wilson said. She changed positions on her bench from Pout to Puzzled. That way she could stare out into the landscape.
“Why are you me again?”
“Why not.”
“Where are we?”
“Change into Snowmanster,” she requested. “You’re not suppose to be Baker Bloch when you show up.”
“Oh, that may explain it. Hold on.”
“Well that didn’t work,” they said in one voice.
—–
They finally sorted out their roles tonight. Wilson changed into Wheeler, switched places with Baker Bloch on the bench, who remained Snowmanster. Annnnd… Action!
—–
“*Wheeler*, I knew I’d find you up here at this Way Station.”
“Well good. Anything else?” She checked the pink script under her bench. “And it may not be a way station, as defined as, quote unquote, ‘intermediate stopping point’. I might be staying here.”
Snowmanster thought he had his lines memorized better. “It could be a way station as in a station set between principal stations on a line of travel,” he said confidently. “Look around.” He waved his left arm to indicate the area. “Livigno. The up and happening plateau place where it all goes down.”
“Check your script, Snowmanster, if you have one. Because we’re in Ayas. Right on the edge of Livigno where, as you said, it all goes down. But just beyond.”
“Oh.” Snowmanster shuffled his feet. “Must be working from an earlier script. Is this the one where you set up The Table in the Firefly related building over there?” Both look southward.
“Jesus, you’re at least two colors behind,” reprimanded Wheeler, standing up. “Look inside.”
Snowmanster turns around. White Wolf the guard dog tilts his head at him innocently. “Nice mutt.”
“What did you say?” queries Wheeler behind him.
“I said, you have a nice dog.”
“Oh… right. Well go ahead. Look inside.”
To Snowmanster, a door stood between him and the inside of the cabin.
To Wheeler, the door didn’t exist.
“I can’t get the door open,” Snowmanster says back to Wheeler.
—–
“Well, get out of here, then,” she said back. “Be gone. I just received the newest script in my inventory and you’re not even in this scene. Pink has switched with blue. See ya!”
—–
Wheeler sits alone on the Way Station bench, thinking she could stay here for a spell. Table meeting tomorrow night at 7pm! Invitations already sent. This place is where it all goes down.
—–
MEANWHILE…
In his oversize Livigno trailer just to the west, Uncle Jack prepares breakfast for the children. Uncle Jack shows up.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0616, Purden/Snowlands, Sansara
“You’ve gone a bit queer haven’t you Woody? Maybe you should lay off the smokes. Just until you stop doing things like talking to Bert over there. Your man mannekin, hehe.”
“I love him,” Woody states frankly. “My key loves him too.”
“Well that’s good Woody.” Snowmanster uncrosses his legs. “So tell me about *these* guys.”
—–
It was always going to be this way, Wheeler realizes. This path…
… this village.
Not lacking for energy, she begins the steep ascent.
—–
“This should work. Right Uncle Jack?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0615, Purden/Snowlands, Sansara
6:00am:
Bert the Semi-Nudist beat on the windows of Woody’s A-frame house next to the Purden Forest. “Wake up in there Woody,” he called. “Things a do’n out here this morning. Get up and see.” Groggilly, Woody rolled over on his cat mattress… and fell asleep again. Five minutes later, Bert was back beating. Woody’s actual cat Vampire Boy was now out of his kitty coffin and staring over at muscular man. “If you don’t get up now, Woody, you’ll miss it. Come on!”
—–
6:10am:
“Bert, why don’t you put on some clothes for Santa’s sake before you rush over here,” beseeched Woody while moving to the coffee pot. He wasn’t going to go out there in the cold without some caffeine in hand. He told Bert the same through the window, then invited him in.
—–
6:15am:
“Woody, you gotta get out here! You’ve got to come now! Now now now!”
—–
6:20am:
“Oh my Santa, Bert. What *is* those?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0614, Purden/Snowlands, Sansara
Sunklands 