Barry goes into the Symphony Music Store intending to buy a CD of Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony but ends up running away in a panic after spying Pansy Mouse at the back counter, formerly only seen in dreams. Barry wakes up.
Category Archives: 01
meeting
“Excuse me, sir. I’m looking for the Shanty Club. Francis? You may know him. He’s kind of the owner I suppose.”
“Meat City,” Barry DeBoy metes out. “Just up the highway.”
“Oh,” Baker Bloch exclaimed. “Is this not Meat City? It’s across the highway from NWES.”
“Nope,” Barry reinforced. “Just because it’s across the highway doesn’t mean it’s part of the city, even though this is.” Barry says “city” with some satisfaction. After all, he was there at the vote. His art definitely helped sway the deal. “Go back to the highway. Go up. Look for the stumbling drunks and head right, and then another right past Big Dave’s garage then left. Tell Francis I said hello.”
“A friend?” Baker ventured, trying to remember all the twists and turns to get there.
“Let’s just say I don’t underestimate his *aunts* any more.”
“Oh.” Baker left the small trailer without understanding. Francis explained it to him later at the club.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0105, Apple's Orchard, NWES Island
soon
At the top of Slot Mountain, Phillip’s head becomes bigger, anticipating a screw.
Sorry, but that’s just what he was thinking. The important thing: the mastermind behind Our Second Lyfe is here on the island; the slit acted as an attractor.
“I remember you. That Jeogeot art thing.”
“Yeah,” I replied beside him. “We’re back.” I took a breath and looked down into the slot. It all started here, I remember. On this island.
“I died (!).”
“Yup.”
“Blimey.”
His head got big again. He jumped into the slot, trying it out. Didn’t work. He jumped back up. “I so want to get this *over* with.”
“There’s only one way and you know it,” I spoke. “Begin again.”
He jumped back down. He couldn’t help himself. Longer this time. I realized what he was. Back he comes, head diminished. But the whole process is slowing down up here. “When *does* it start?” he asks at the lip. “I mean: life itself. I’m down there but I’m not down there. I’m up here as well.”
“Art,” I said. “Takes time. Building the proper receptacle.”
“A mountain, a castle,” he ritually pronounced.
He tries again, yet more successful.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0104, NE Hills, NWES Island
no grim
“Daaaanger,” Edwin the ghost moaned in warning. But Halloween Jack had to find out what lie ahead. The cold, the *contrast*, irresistibly drew him in.
Jack hesitated just beyond where the drab ground turned white, making his shoes wet.
What are these particles of light falling from the sky? He lets one alight on his skeletal tongue. Delicious! Frozen water, melting in the mouth almost upon touch. The ground is composed of these, he realizes. No melt this time! He tries to watch it build up around a nearby evergreen tree but doesn’t have the patience. So much to see! He marches forward, moistened feet be damned.
What’s this? A fellow sentient being? Made of the same ice?? “Hellooo!”
“Howdy!” the snowman cheerfully replied, indeed alive during the season. “Welcome to Christmas! Or thereabouts,” he tacks on. Jack smiled broadly. Sally is going to *love* it here, he thinks.
Soon they were together listening to Snowmanster play a selection of her favorite holiday tunes.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0103, HANA LEI, NE Hills, NWES Island
The Inbetweeners
Tickie was getting between good friends Tealy and Tillie. He had to run away. Tenty was the logical choice for a destination, a twin brother from another.
—–
“Ground rules: *don’t* go over to Grimm unless absolutely necessary and, whatever you do, don’t go over to the Slot Mountain Castle. Death within!”
Tickie had heard about a head in a jar named Homer there who use to be a prominent resident of NWES City (*almost* NWES Town, but not quite). He wisely decided to heed the warning of host Tenty.
—–
Tickie naturally looked east for answers instead of the forbidden west (Grimm; Slot Mtn.; Slot Mtn. Castle). They were sitting in identical chairs in back now, but Tickie had gotten up: restless. “Who lives over there?” he asks about the house between the source and the lake of a blue-grey stream beyond the wooden fence.
“Oh, just one of those TILE fanatics, hence the *river*.” Tenty didn’t really like the Tilists, and thought there were too many in the area and on the island as a whole. He stated this to Tickie. He told him about the river of the world as the Before and After, or the Zero and the Nine.
“Like Zero Hero?” exclaimed Tickie, getting excited despite himself. He was a hero worshipper by nature, and Zero Hero was one of his favorites. He’d never heard of a hero called Nine, though.
“That’s Jasper,” spoke Tenty through his tentacled mouth, but in a pretty ordinary man-voice despite this, more than Tickie’s which was kind of squeaky; mouse-like. “That’s the Land of the Dead. The Egg.”
Tickie didn’t know these terms. He felt like he was getting in over his head with Tenty, who use to be a professor of religion/philosophy/games at Northwest NWES but which wasn’t there any more, a victim of the Tar Wars as they called it in scholarly-land. He turned toward Tenty. A realization occurred. They had been here before!
“Tell me about core avatars, Tenty,” he asked, knowing his friend would know a lot. His very close friend.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0102, NE Hills, NWES Island
grim
Should Toothpick move west to Grimm instead of east to Marwood from his starting point at the Pinemont temple owned by Master Berry? This would cause an alternate path for photo-novel 22, which I guess means the correct path for photo-novel 23. The candle tells him this.
But I don’t think this path should involve Toothpick again. Nor Master Berry, who seems to be the same as MAT (Man About Time). Hmm. Working on it…
—–
“I am alone again, Certain Death.”
“Deaths,” he corrected, staring out at his dancing brethren.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0101, NE Hills, NWES Island
Chef-de…
“You are the station master, sir. You must know something.”
“I am… The Devil.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0117, Iris
the source and the lake 02
“We must keep testing games, Chef-inspector *Petty*. Carcassonne is good, but–”
“Carcassonne is the one,” Petty emphasized rapid fire, refusing to play this new one. It was too far along in the year.
Hindsight (Golden) kept waiting for collage elements to show up as repercussions. And there they are.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0116, Iris
the source and the lake
I can see the Rainbow Sphere but I can’t get to it. Banned. Roger Pine Ridge still could, though. And therein lies the problem.
We must return to Iris.
“Some year we’re having, eh Spore?”
“Iiiim LOVING it!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0115, Iris
Piera
https://bakerbloch.com/2017/02/11/48909/
“So what is ‘Billfork’ you might be asking?” then said Baker Bloch. “Well, on the audio side it’s primarily ‘Boom Dot Bust’ by Firesign Theatre. On the video side it’s the movie ‘Northfork’ by the Polish twins, Michael and Mark. As Tin S. Man alluded to, both feature towns that have to be moved in order to be saved. The town of Northfork is being flooded by a new lake. Billville is threatened by tornadoes, and also, strangely and syncily, a flood at the end, where the mayor has to turn into a fish and ‘swim, swim, swim’ to stay alive.”
Baker Bloch positioned 8 oranges around The Table instead of handing them to people in chairs like before. He was about to fill in the spaces between the oranges with lemons and limes as prescribed by the Billfork Core Diagram when chef-inspector Keat Owens stopped him. “Stand back and look what you have,” he rather commanded. “But –” Baker protested, “I haven’t finis–.” Owens interrupts him by reciting all the numbers that count: “1 – 4 – 7 – 10 – 13 – 16 – 19 – 22. And who is 22?” Baker counted clockwise as well from his south-southwest position, all the clockwork oranges, just to double check. He stared at Owens. He points at him with one of his now orange free hands.
“Correct. Here’s what we’re going to actually do next. Sit down beside me at ‘1’ and we’ll start.” With this, he had light bulb headed Curled Paper go in back and bring out the game that everyone was raving about lately over in The City.
—-
“Do I still need my orange?”
“No.”
“‘Cause I’m hungry.”
“Go ahead. You can have mine too.”
“Bravo. So what’s this game called again?”
They then built The River from certain pieces inside the box and named it Amazon.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0114, Carrcass+08, Iris
Sunklands 