“We have something, Hucka, er, W. Something not from the Oracle but directly from the land. BAT overlaps a southern wall of BATfield (sim) just beyond.”
(no answer)
“Here’s a link to this Bat d’ Af which I knew nothing about before. Probably, most likely, just an accidental overlap or conjunction, highlighted here through my photo.”
(no answer)
“Anyway:”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battalions_of_Light_Infantry_of_Africa
I wondered about Marilyn being involved too. Breezy.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0106, Nautilus, Upper Austra
“This *arm* of the lake,” he spoke to me, well aware that his own arm represented the other at the moment, “is private, say, from the elbow down. But the shoulder to the elbow, where it’s glued to the rest of the body?: well, that’s something else. That’s where *I* fit in. And a good deal of others like me.” He looks to the water with this, and others of his kind dotted here and there. Like these fishermen, good men all, except for the one they call Blackbart staring in a different direction from the rest.
“Any of you boys got any… coke?”
“L-leave us alone, Blackbart,” spoke the stockier fisherman on the pier. Trying to ignore the just arrived renegade seaman, an ex special op naval medic discharged for mechanical reasons some say wrongly, didn’t work for the pair and now they would have to interact. “We’re just simple fisherpeople. We don’t deal with *cans*.”
“Or bottles,” spoke the other fisherman in a thinner voice to his counterpart. “It comes in bottles in this part of the country still. Bottles too,” he doubled down.
“Okay, okay,” exasperated Gemini Roadhouse McCutcheon Sullivan O’Reily. Most just call him Al, as will we. He was eager to keep the story moving, going past the whole bottle vs. can war of the 50’s and perhaps the 70’s as well, hard to tell because time was slipperier back then and had more variant arms to it. Like this particular arm of Starfish Lake, which some call the Starfish Sea because it is a pretty big lake, and could logically be bumped up on the scale of water body names. Up here, say, it’s the 70’s still, and cans are all the rage. Go past the elbow and suddenly you’re in the 50’s and the only Elvis singing on the radio is the white one. Bottles everywhere; they just threw them on the ground when done with their sodey pop back then. Littering was okay back in the day. Heck, they even made posters touting the benefits of such. Don’t have to hire garbagemen, a whole arm of the city workforce deemed unnecessary. An arm for an arm they said back in the day, which is still today past the elbow again mind you. Luther, the other fisherman was from up near the head hand of the arm (Hand o’ Arm), what they call Fingerboro, another fantasyland, then, I suppose. His mother father’s house was actually made from bottles, discarded waste put to use. The farsighted fisherman had glasses made out of bottle bottoms; his first hat was bottle caps stitched together to make a whole. Basketball? Try bottleball: it was a heck of a sport to try to keep up with with all the cracking and cutting. You’re lucky if your star kid came back from such a war with both his arms intact. But of course they could just grow another one if so.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0105, Nautilus, Upper Austra
“Thanks for serving me bottles, guys. I don’t care much for cans, because of the name and all. Pepi “Can” Kolya at your service. I say that so you can see me for who I am, like friends.” It was here they noticed the holes in the head, and why this dude probably just missed his flight out of here to a fantasyland of his choosing. The Lake will do that to you; lull you to sleep. This Starfish.
“‘Nother one, bud?” asked one or the other, take your pick.
“Nah, better amscray. Gotta catch a 5:15 outta here.”
“6:15, now,” said the one that didn’t talk before, the other bartender. They may have been twin brothers but they may not be as well: picks again.
“Whattt??” exclaimed Koyla. He’d been following the wrong time zone, which was the right time zone before crossing the Centalia Line. He liked to be conveniently late but 1+ hours won’t hack it. He’d have to reschedule.
—–
“Another one bites the dust,” says Marion “Star” Harding to his Project Humboldt v1.4 CM plane, use to it. “Fantasy people, pheh.”
“I hear ya,” he imagined the plane saying back to him through his or her propeller.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0104, Nautilus, Upper Austra
“Picturetown, huh?” He glanced back at his prospective new customer, unable to see the holes in his head from this angle. Well, he *does* take the flights that no one else will cover, including flying to imaginary countries, counties, and cities if needed. Last week it was Oz. Week before: Wonderland. One of the Alices wanted to go home to visit a sick aunt who might or might not be on her deathbed, hard to tell. But she had to find out. Then before that: he couldn’t recall. Maybe Texarkana. “Sure, I’ll do it,” he said, not wanting to delay his reply any longer, wanting to exude confidence that he could get the job done. He’s checked all the maps in the meantime. No Picturetown in Canada or anywhere else in the world. But he’ll get him there. All he needs is the coordinates, and he can get them from Chuck and his special computer tapped into the Lemon World, the one no one is suppose to know about. Chuck connects him to the fantasy lands, and for that he gets a hefty wage in *real* money, not that fake green crap they peddle at, say, Oz. Rubles, someone tried to hand him the other day after a flight to Borneo. “No rubles,” he said in return. “*Real* money,” and he kept his hand out until actual, metal coins were laid in it, signifying a completed sales transaction. Paper money doesn’t hack it for our Marion “Star” Harding, former ace pilot in the World Wide Web War, version 2.0. Since then they’d come out with 3.0 and he was back at his desk, back to being a private pilot specializing in the weird and even profane, like sneaking the elf hookers out of Santaland and back to Easter Isle where they belong. Bunnies, he thought here. Nothing but bunnies. “5:15 tomorrow okay for you?” he asked the prospective customer, working with numbers on his computer at the same time he thought all this other stuff.
“Sure.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0103, Nautilus, Upper Austra
He was waiting on his brother, who was coming up from the south.
Yeah, yeah, he thinks, I could *talk* to that white lady over there about my brother and also who she’s waiting on, if anyone. I’m a social guy, you know. But — look at that look — I can tell she doesn’t like black people, or is at least scared of them. Why if I moved over one chair closer to her she’d probably call the cops on me, even though I may have a perfectly good reason to do so. What if I just found out that cokey cola was spilled under my chair, and my shoes were getting all sticky as a result. Yeah, yeah, that could be a *legitimate* reason for moving one chair down. And, let me see (he glances over out of the side of his eye), that would still leave one chair between us. But, no, that darn white woman would probably call the cops on me, or at least airport security.
He simmers down, but then starts again when he catches her eye once more, just trying to look at the plane outside. Southern Cross, he thinks. I mean, the name was *right* behind her. What was I suppose to do? Get out of my seat, go to the window — *not* getting too close to her or walking too close to her in the process — and *then* check out the (plane and the) name? No, no, all this what they call *systemic* racism isn’t for me. As soon as my brother arrives we’re going to go back to my island resort and *stay* there. No more wandering around in public. I’m *through* with white people. Had it.
—–
Oh: an announcement.
Southern Cross representative: “We’re sorry to inform you that Flight 215 that was suppose to arrive at 3:15 with 415 passengers aboard…” He stops, putting his hand to his head, rubbing his eyes as if crying (he wasn’t).
Lance A. Lott gasps in the gap. Crashed? he thinks. All aboard — dead? Representative Johnson Protocol rustled his papers nervously here, starting to sweat. The droplets then make their way over his eyebrows down onto his cheeks, eventually dribbling down to the floor. To an outside observer, and knowing this was his first day on the job (thanks Uncle Stan!), it would be understood that he just lost his place and is searching for the right page that continues the announcement. But to L.A. (as his friends call him), the pause and apparent crying seemed to be a harbinger of bad bad news. Smokey dead! And that’s about all the family I have left.
“… is 515.” the representative finally continued, restarting at the top of page 2 which contained only these 2 words. Anxiously stacking his papers against the podium, he takes his leave with this.
515? he thinks. Wtf??? He looks over at the white woman, who doesn’t seem to be very concerned. Does she know what this means? Does she even care? Is she waiting on someone from this flight? Maybe she’s just happy *she* wasn’t on that plane. Maybe she knew someone was going to die today here and is just relieved it isn’t her. Strange thoughts. Must be from that horror movie he watched the night before. “Losst”, it was called, with an extra “s” to emphasis that all the people in the show, yes, were really, truly lost. “We get it,” he said at 1/2 past 6, stuffing more buttered popcorn between his lips and thinking he should get to sleep early this night so that he can rise at the crack of dawn and go wait for his brother over at the regional airport. My long lost brother, he thinks. Another lost angel. Peter from the show falls down into a camouflaged cannibal trap in the middle of the jungle, giving him a chuckle. But enough: *switch*. TV off.
The white lady looks at him now, even leans toward him. She’d heard the gasp, seen the confused look on his face. “515” she measured out. “It means delayed.”
“Oh.” Lance A. Lott wipes sweat from his own brow with this, trying to act like he at least *thought* that’s what it meant. She returns to her start position, which means systemic racist position. Don’t come any closer, the posture and attitude warned. Or I’ll call the cops or at least airport security. I’ve given you the information you need, you dirty [blank]. Now we are done.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0102, Nautilus, Upper Austra
We begin where the last one ended. On a map of Nautilus continent in my Collagesity skybox, the full view this time. Because this go ’round we’re going to tackle the whole thing. We’re not at one of of those nodal photo-novels yet but we’re closing in. Preparations must be made. Alysha jumps off the pin representing NO Tor and proceeds northward, intending to find Ruby the tall, green alien, perhaps Martian but also perhaps not. The qualified doctors would know, but Dr. Mouse the unqualified as it turned out, doesn’t have access to that information, that file. Ruby Alien remains, thus, a…
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0101, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Rim Isles, Upper Austra, Yd Island
The lime colored jogger man was running fast past the collapsed garage, as he should. I checked streetview history. The structure was intact as of 3 years ago. Was it a sign from the missing plane? Looking at the turned around car, there seemed to be a message about coming and going, and the past which is the future, Janus faced again. Disaster and recovery.
I moved past the jogger who was rapidly going backwards. I decided to shoot him a bird (like Superman), just to see his reaction. Then I realized his open mouthed response happened before the raised finger. I would get no real answers from anyone along this highway all the way up to India. I instead had to find a side road, a place of reset. Reset? I meant rest. Or did I?
To flip the cards a bit, when I arrived in India, New Delhi first, I realized all the side roads were named after Indian tribes, American confused with Asian (or something), and all off *Indian* Lake Road. And for the life of me I couldn’t find any lake of that name on streetview, the map, a gazetteer — anywhere. Still looking for res(e)t, I passed Comanche, Shawnee, Cherokee, Pawnee without any possibility of a pull over. Peering down at the end of Cherokee I may have seen a spirit but I wasn’t sure — no way to check. And where was my body? Delhi was still waiting ahead of me but my hopes for a resolution to this mystery were quickly dimming. Or diminishing.
When I crossed the train tracks on the other side of Delhi I knew I was done with this leg of my journey. Onward to Section 2!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0026, 0117, Google Street View, Illinois
I figure out which one was Indian Lake Rd. and head up it, bound for, well, India, the secret Petty also wanted. I knew I had to incarnate in a body soon but put it off until I reached my destination. I seem to have memories of a before time, but not of a bug or a bird or anything like that. A flesh and blood person, just like myself. We had crossed into the Sphere which is God in a way, the all knowing and all seeing, like a big eye in the sky. “My unicorn” I observed on the back of a warning sign about a sharp right turn ahead, which I’d just passed through after crossing a bridge. But the “i” was blocked out by the sign post. I suddenly couldn’t see again.
I backed up and started observing again. Yes, I had located Indian Lake Road thank you very much. And “boo” yourself!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0026, 0116, Google Street View, Illinois
I went ground-side to look for the site of the crash, if it was a crash. Jen Saunders insisted that it *wasn’t* a crash, and that all passengers arrived at Delhi, New Delhi and thereabouts intact and with wits still in place. I knew *something* had occurred, some anomaly. I thought back to the movie “Sphere” and the anomaly there, which was a black hole, perhaps an X 1/9 variety. Used car salesman Jonathan Piper insisted it had to be lime colored and not lemon in his early mid-life crisis (according to his wife the esteemed Mrs. Jonathan Studebaker Piper). “Pipe down, son,” he exclaimed while on the phone about it to still yelling Cory, sometimes known as Peter because of the last name and all. It was a mystery, a conundrum, and chef-inspector Petty was here to help solve it. But he seemed more interested to know the whereabouts of the girl with the schweet secret smile than the passenger ship. He wanted to move, in other words, from Lower to Upper Austra, beyond bridging green valley into the beige highland again. In other words, away from Collagesity and its personal sphere of influence (as centered between Highways 13 and 14). Anyway, back to the place indicated by the road. Sign confusion! Indian Lake Road straight ahead and to the right and Airport Road to the right and the left. We appear to be in all places at once without being anywhere atall. Sounds about right.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0026, 0115, Illinois
“*You* get him down Tom. You’re the one who gave him the magnetic shoes in the first place.”
Seriously, we need to talk about Spankey.
—–
They entered the sphere from the south, destined for Delhi, New Delhi, or thereabouts. They appear over Indian Lake Road in a plane, the last time anyone ever saw it.
India declared herself free of the Occident.
[schweet smile image deleted]
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0026, 0114, Google Street View, Illinois
Sunklands 