I had my assignment, I had my links. Time to leave the magical Outer Maebaleia isle of Meaux where I learned all about quartz rock and the advantages and disadvantages of letting it be the center from Fern, who is Charlene the Punk in the future. Or in the past if you look the other direction from center. Time to visit other, similar if smaller outer isles, armed with my similar if smaller stash of spells and perhaps curses now. Time to begin to grow up. Magic is real.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0025, 0203, Maebaleia/Satori^^, Outer Islands
He had a good look at the back of the bartender from his seat but she wasn’t his type, a bold bodied Jessica Rabbit sort from the Roger Rabbit movie franchise, a mixture of cartoon and caricature. The person actually sitting at the bar nearer him was more interesting, but not necessarily in a sexual way. More like she had information he needed to know — he didn’t know how he knew this but he knew. He *knew* he knew. He was becoming aware of who he was. And this dame — woman — was going to help him over the edge. Back to Canada and Picturetown and the alley with the 102 signature and Charlene the Bigfoot punk and all the other stuff. She was reading — he liked to read, at least the red book. He asked what it was; this was her cue. She turned to face him, scars and all.
“Axis,” she requested. “It’s time to give up the gig.”
Axis? Wendell “Biff” Carter thought. Was this role play? Okay, he could go along. “I’ll give up the gig, then, if you tell me what you’re reading.”
“I’m reading the book you have read. I’m reading the book you have *written*.” She showed him the cover, emblazoned with an inky black swastika as big as an alternate 3rd Reich that actually won WWII. Still didn’t mean anything to him. This was 1939 after all. The big switch hadn’t happened yet.
“Okayyy.” He calculates how to further advance this strange conversation. It had been a strange day. First he was awoken at 5 in the morning and asked to fill in for Philburg down at the station, who was sick on pill. Then during his beat (back on the beat!) he encountered a highly dangerous criminal named Orkley Andy — so close to Oakley Annie! — but turned out to be a sweet guy who had lost his dog Hunter who was just hiding under the couch because of all the gunshots. Never mind the cat stench and the almost cleaned up blood stains. Never mind Phyllis down at the Red Dress diner. Orkley Andy had him phone her up on his phone. She’s okay! Orkley Andy wasn’t a bad sort, just a gun sort. Biff had to ask. “Are you related to the famous gunslinger Oakley Annie?” “Never heard of her,” Orkley lied through his gold capped teeth.
How blind could Biff be? He refocused out of his thoughts and onto the stranger’s face again. So familiar. “Don’t I know you?” — making her huff and leave the place. She’d have to try another time.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0024, 0203, Green Yarn, Hana Lei^^, New Eden^^
For instance, maybe this moss covered rock is suppose to be next to the blue-yellow-green-*orange* Mmmmmm’s and also next to the church. The monkeys (Ding and Dong) know. One perches on top of the rock, the other on the roof of the chapel. The Veer is the same in each, although the new Herman Park location for the model rr track contains 11 pieces instead of Chesterton’s 12. This is The River of the game Carcassonne that all is built around. The Earth is built around The River, usually identified as The Amazon because of its size but, really, any large world river would do. Mississippi is also commonly used because of its inherent mightiness.
But we must get back to characters and away from just dry, didactic text. Nice to know that Hucka Doobie and Baker Bloch are getting along better now. Orange helps. The search is over.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0023, 0203, Bigfoot, Blue Mountain
“I was hoping the picture would help me get a new house.”
“Not if *I* can help it.” Saffie was a rival renter. She wanted the best for her and her family of 5 children, 3 dogs, 2 ferrets, and 1 husband. For now.
Marty checked his watch. “Where *is* he?”
“*She*,” Saffie helped for the moment at least. “Snowmanster is a *she*, jees. Do you want to get a better house or not, blimey?”
“Blimey?” He stared over. “You’re British?”
“No.” But Saffie turned red here. She knew she’d slipped up. She also looked at her watch, hoping that Snowmanster would show up asap. Before too much was revealed.
“Do you know Liverpool by chance?”
“I don’t eat meat,” she returned dumbly.
“Ahh. A Vegetarian. Then you must know *Linda*.”
“Lisa?” Didn’t work.
“*Yes*. Her too.”
Where was this going? At least we escaped the pitchfork guy, blimey.
A car can be both red and green at once. Like this object beyond The Straight (Reality) leading to The Straight (Virtual).
It’s just a symbol, a sign. But one of many.
It’s time to wake up Morris again. We have time now.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0021, 0203, Omega^^, The Cross^, The Straight^, Utah
“It really is a nice location, Baker Blinker. Sorry about the (missing) Mission.”
“‘Tis okay. Perhaps there’s another portal on this Isle of Heartsdale. Maybe Zero somehow? Connected to all the figures (numbers)?”
“Possibly. I plan to ride Teddy down to the bay soon. Maybe we’ll find more there. Remember, *laugh*, remember how you ran into Buurb down there with Precious Snowflake? Boy you had to amscray quick! Don’t want to confuse the young boy-girl any more than he/she already is/was/will be.”
“Yes, I am both Baker Blinker and Precious Snowflake at once,” speaks Baker Blinker, staring over at herself as the crows gather in the church spires once more. “But I’d like to add to my repertoire.”
“You had Tillie,” replied the male Baker quickly.
“Yeah, but a gaseous, dumpy clown doesn’t really count in the long run.”
“Karoz,” guessed Baker Bloch about the dismissal.
“I want to be — attractive.” No one brought up Wheeler but it was on their mind.
After a pause, Baker Bloch asked: “Will you be coming back to the *new* Collagesity over in Urqhart or thereabouts?” Baker didn’t ask if Karoz would be joining her; it was implied.
“I suppose the Temple of TILE remains an attractor (for Karoz primarily).”
“And the Julia House — still at the top of the waterfall. Might be a Julia*n* House now.” He smiles. He imagines Karoz smiling with him across the sea.
Julia(n) House
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0020, 0203, Heartsdale^^
Linda Halsey finds a mirror in the Garden of the Goddess across the street from the bar, about equidistant from both her new and old Urqhart abodes. “Oh I look *hideous*,” she exclaims, not having seen her reflection in several weeks — since the move from old to new. “No *wonder* Marty doesn’t want to live with me any more. *I* don’t want to live with me.”
“Rhiannon!” she calls into the sky, hoping the Great White Witch would come down and save her from this condition. Like she did once before. “Rhiannon. I need you more than ever!”
A golden figure descended from the sky. Rhiannon.
Kate McCoy tries to find the unicorn where she saw it in the bushes.
A sudden call from the house in that scary, shrill voice, so familiar. “Katy! Katy Kidd! Come help your mother get out of bed and take her shower!”
“What about the king?” I asked a little later, remembering that he is still groundside.
“Don’t touch the king.”
Petunia then suggested I talk a walk to calm my mind.
“Don’t worry,” he said while seeing me off toward the ferry. “Goodbye!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0017, 0203, Rose Heaven^^
“This will be the time that does him in. He will have to go there *physically* after that. Only way to really explore the place, this Necksity. He has gone too far, found too many things. He can now…”
“Don’t say it.”
“Anyway. (pause) This is the place.”
—–
“Nah. It’s not *that* kind of neck pain. It’s a bit of an infection, yes, but…”
“Don’t say it.”
“*Anyway*. This is still the place. But it’s not Necksity. *That* Necksity.”
“Then *what*?”
—–
“A limit, yes. A limit, true. We are not even baker b. and Hucka D. any longer. New WES is WES but not WES. Something new.”
Quickly: “I gathered that.”
“Two shacks in the center of town.”
“Yup.”
(pause) “We can’t be just nowhere spirits, talking in the void. Take us to at least the White Palace.”
“Yes, *somewhere*,” requests the other. But who were they? I guess that’s the point. So I brought him back.
—–
“What are you *doing* here. We have a whole *kingdom* to run over there.”
“Queendom,” she partially corrected her brother. He was drinking through his rainbow sphere covered head again. She thought nothing of it, seeing the act for years. Eating, drinking, even, well, other things. Smoking. A lot of smoking. This was another Joint Joint and that’s a fact. Beside the Rhino Club, even. “It *has* to be Gaston reborn as well,” she spoke on the subject. Dare they go into the other room? Will *he* be there? They kept delaying, chatting about other things. Catching up in general. It had been months since the two siblings had seen each other. All was not well in Rosehaven. Winter is coming.
“You go running off here and there,” the brother kept complaining. “To Sunklands… to *here*. Why Jeogeot? Why return back to that particular continent? Is it Pietmond?” he then queried. “Sunklands as a whole?” But he said it as if all the letters were capitalized. SUNKLANDS, then.
“SUNKLANDS, yes,” his sister then realized. That’s why she’d redonned the golden map mask. Bach… Goldberg Variations. Is this a *gold* town, then? Or some other metal. One way to find out…
—–
“Ok, he’s not here,” says a mainly relieved Ingo, King of Rosehaven. But a shared kingdom. Half queendom. They joked about the name all the time. Before she started her travels at least.
“No,” she stated plainly, not as relieved, and looked around the back room of the joint. A place to buy drugs, yes. Better get her brother out of here asap.
But someone *was* here.
*But*. Could they see him? Could *we* see him? (yes)
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0016, 0203, Apple's Orchard, Jeogeot^^, NWES Island^
