He sat in that hard-to-find, tucked away cafe in Ontario, sipping his coffee and waiting for the morning fog to clear so he can safely explore more of the city. Perhaps it never will this time, story finished for now (again).
Meanwhile, over in Jeogeot…
… clear as a bell.
Let’s begin with the manor.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0034, 0206, Big Woods, Jeogeot, Wendy-Ontario-
As reported earlier, found this little 8″ or so f-er 4/5ths the way up a local 750 foot mountain about a week and a 1/2 back and thought: someone made quite the effort to get this gnome here and perch it for all to see on this rock visible from a primarily biking trail. Went back today specifically for a revisit and, after quite a search, found him instead peering at me from behind a tree across the trail from the rock. Funny thing: that mote or speck of dirt in his eye formerly seen…
… was now gone. I could almost hear him laughing.
Gnomes, pheh; bastards know too much.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0034, 0205, Blue Mountain, County Park
“What are we looking for here, *partner*?”
“You’ll see,” standing Wheeler responded to sitting Baker Blinker. Or should I say, Flip responded to Magika. Because both were Beans in the moment, thanks to their “matching” hair. Wheeler/Flip kept hiding her bad eye to the camera behind a wooden pole of the ruins they were in, what some erroneously deemed brown to pair with a mismatched blue in a classic case of heterochromia. Actually the affliction she suffered from was anisocoria, or an enlarged pupil, making one eye appear darker than the other.
The graveyard across the rushing stream showed no signs of activity. “W-who are we looking for?” asked Baker Blinker again, rephrasing the question from What. “Zappa? I’ve heard that Zappa is around.”
“Maybe,” responded Wheeler. “We’ll see.” She knew the woods were labyrinthine and cryptic for a reason. Labyrinth, eh? That was the first real clue she belonged here, back in Jeogeot and away from Ontario for a spell. Baker Bloch remained asleep and unable to participate. Thus the presence of the Other Baker, perhaps, the female one.
“I want you to think long and hard about the red and the green, Baker Blinker,” said Wheeler Wilson to her side as she shifted her weight from one leg to the other, which also switched observing eyes. Time to see in the dark now.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0034, 0204, Art 10x10, Big Woods, collages 2d, Hidalgo, Jeogeot
“So here we are again, Wheeler. Took us a while.”
“The tic tac toe board.” She looks over at it, notices her missing X now. The game remains unfinished.
“Let’s talk about what’s happened so far. Kind of ironic that way back in photo-novel 03 you chose to discuss ‘Billfork’ over ‘Pumpkintwisters’ at the second Table meeting. Now the latter becomes the key to (understanding) the duck. This is the first 2-n-1 — I’m saying this for the reader or readers more than you, of course — but the movie ‘Wavetwisters’ has a weak point in the middle *perfectly* filled in by the ‘200 Motels’ animation sequence called ‘Dental Hygiene’, featuring, in part, a duck. *The* duck.”
“I agree. I wish I could go back in time to change things.”
“Mabel really enjoyed (the second Table meeting),” countered Newt, formerly Axis-Windmill. “This is obviously the same duck or same kind of duck in ‘The Point (of the Wall).'”
“Agreed.”
“And then in ‘Down and Dirty Duck.’ All three are made by the same animation company. Let’s see (checks…): Murakami-Wolf. We don’t need to go into details. The reader or readers can double-check all this for himself or herself or themselves.
“Then we have something else enter the picture. ‘Duckman’, an ahead-of-its-time animation series from the mid 1990s. The three we mentioned before are from the early to mid 1970s. What has changed? Zappa was in his prime in 1971 when (his movie) ‘200 Motels’ was released, when ‘The Point’ was shown on TV to a rather massive audience, thanks in part to participant Ringo Starr, who also, ahem, starred in ‘200 Motels’ koinkidinkally enough. ‘Down and Dirty Duck’ features a comedy musical duo named Flo and Eddie who played for Zappa during “200 Motels” (and also acted in the movie), and were most famous for being a part of rock group The Turtles before this, ‘Happy Together’ as their signature song. Anyway, Flo was the duck, the Dirty Duck of the title, who remained unnamed otherwise. Flo is Mark Volman and Eddie is Howard Kaylan. A huge Zappa head rises over the horizon behind the duck at one point in the movie.”
“Drugs,” added Wheeler. “All 3 ducks — who are the same duck, agreed — are reached through drugs. And now (our) Paul Duck: the same.”
“Correct. And ‘Duckman’ *has* to figure in here. Erik Duckman is a private dick who is basically incapable of solving cases without the help of his Joe Friday-like assistant Cornfed, a pig. And here we go: Zappa was quite involved, musically and maybe conceptually, in season one but died of cancer before the series’ first episode aired, which was dedicated to him. Zappa’s son Dweezil is the voice of one of the sons of Duckman. We must extend Dirty Duck now into this new duck through Zappa. This is his *wish*; how he can survive death itself. Incarnate into the duck.”
“Don’t forget Paul Drake, the private dick detective of ‘Perry Mason’. Most direct line to at least the name Paul Duck.”
“Raymond Burr, the actor who famously played Perry Mason, ‘wakes up’ as another character (murderer Lars Thorwald) in ‘Waits for No One,’ I mean in the movie ‘Rear Window’. He looks directly at the camera which is the same as Jimmy Stewart across the courtyard. ‘The sleeper has awoken’ — another Paul. (Frank) Herbert’s Paul (from ‘Dune’).”
“The first episode of ‘Duckman’ is key,” says Wheeler. “Can I place my X back in the corner?”
“Not until we talk to Mabel.”
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“There’s nothing in the church birth registry about a Paul Duck, Snowbob. Or any kind of duck atall. Looks like we’ve wasted our time here.”
But Snowbob thinks otherwise. He’s figured out who his *real* parents are.
They’re the same as his children.
(to be continued of course)
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“Here it is, Wheeler. Another portal of some sort.”
“Looks like butterflies. Rainbow colored!”
“It’s not rainbow colored, I mean, butterflies. I checked (the description). Wisps instead. Wisp spirits to be precise.”
“Hmmm,” replied Wheeler. “I’m going to call them butterflies anyway.”
“As you wish,” conceded Newt, knowing Wheeler’s ways and her stubbornness. Besides, he’s bound to serve what with the new name and the recently revived Table at the Lebettu Castle and all. “Go ahead. Go through it.”
“*You* go through it. I’ll watch. You know I like to watch.”
Newt shakes his head slightly. Poor Wheeler. She won’t realize she’s being controlled from the other side until it’s too late. Thinks she has ultimate power now.
“Sure.” And then he walks into the multi-colored swarm, emerging on the other side about 10 meters west. Wheeler then follows him.
She turns in her purple sock hop dress. “Fascinating. I feel revived, reinvigorated.” Then she realized the secret of the Other Side. Her brain is not the boss!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0034, 0201, Blue Mountain, City Park, Wendy-Ontario-
He was back again. He looked down at his hands: fully white now. Return to his old self.
“How about you?” she said.
“W-what?” He looked around, remembered the sweepers. Witches. Witches did this to him. Now he’s returned. Fisher Rig, the dimwitted bottom half to his top, was gone. He was out of his cell, 7 day sentence over; free at last. That Poop file was deleted, if not the other. He still had work to do.
“You’re name, silly,” she said, grinning and shifting her feet around, suddenly shy, as if embarrassed about what she’d revealed. An act, I say.
“Oh. Edward. Edward Daigle.”
And he was. He looked up and recognized his cousin, the third person that was playing the fated Alphabet Soup game with him back in the 5th grade.
“Tessie?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0216, Nautilus, NORTH
“It’s a beautiful land, this Dairocha. But ultimately it does us no good if the library still isn’t there. Central! Right Wheeler?”
Wheeler, having determined this some hours back, had already left the scene. She was ready to complete this here photo-novel section about the Nautilus North elsewhere. She was Alysha now, aka Helen aka a lot of other names. But especially Helen, she felt. The antique village of Lips or One Pink called.
Under the big cross at the top of it all, he too changed. Sheriff R.V. Trailer it is to end. Wait!…
Just below. Sweeping. Lots of it; multiple brooms obviously involved. It reminded him of another place he needed to go first.
Multiple sweepers don’t remain any longer at this southeast corner bar of Odie just off Route 12, to his disappointment. Then he met grown-up Tessa and things changed even once again. He was immediately attracted to her waist high tattoo of 2 six shooters. How clever, he thought. Pointer. She leaned over and said her new name in a low voice, obscuring the ink.
He automatically leaned in too (*kiss*), One Pink or Lips transformed.
“I don’t understand, Wheeler. The library simply… *disappeared*.” Mainly. A couple of books left, but –”
“Quiet,” Wheeler demanded, who had turned into Alysha in anticipation of the event. Crestfallen! Yet she was determined to try. She thought the air felt a little different just over… there.
There!
“Am I holding anything, Baker B.?” she queried expectantly, palms getting sweaty even.
“Not a thing.”
“Rats!”
“Wait. Lemme try a little brighter light just to be sure.
“Still nothing.”
“F-ck.”
Baker Bloch trying to love his new, temporary home and forget that his Collagesity rent is now 1 day overdue, pheh. PHEH.
He hasn’t quite got the lighting in here, he thinks. Trying out “Fairy dark blue (Paulina)” currently.
View of the place from the west. Complicated. Potentially many stories to tell within with the many dummies present. Just like Towerboro before it. Wonder how Towerboro is progressing — still a work in progress after all, according to the land description. But Baker shouldn’t be focused on the past. Instead: current. *Dairochia* — yes, that’s the name I concocted several novels ago now. Because we’ve been here before. Library. Looking for a particular book about monsters. Then: stolen.
And it has a secret core, Baker also remembers. Where the letter “l” was exchanged for an “i’.
Time to bring in Wheeler.
—–
“Morgan, eh? Just like Alysha.”
“Yeah,” Baker answered Wheeler. “I’m positive she’s still here.”
“She stole the book, she stole the letter. She won’t be welcomed in this here kingdom of several powers that be.”
“No,” agreed Baker.
Sunklands 