Category Archives: 0306

July 25, 2023 · 5:52 pm

00390306

She’d lost her landmark so she just teleported into the center of the sim. She knew her mother would be nearby.

“Lost again?” she said upon seeing Alice materialize about 15 feet away: 128/128 she knew; wasn’t uncommon for someone to beam in there. “Well come over and sit beside me and be found again, saved even. I want to tell you about–”

“Don’t start Mother. I’m not here for religion.”

Pause. “Then what are you here for? You know I’m working. Joe Smo due any moment. There.” She nods toward the horizon, pretending to see someone. “Office Johnston coming this way, along with Preacher Ben and Farmer Louis. All out for a good time, all sinners underneath holy cloth and whatnot — I don’t know, maybe the caffeine talking, child. So what gives? Money?”

“*No*. It’s not always about money.”

Maw takes a drag off her cigarette, still staring into the distance. “Where you staying now, girl? You haven’t been home–”

“6 weeks, I know.”

Maw takes a final drag, drops the half smoked cig to the leaf strewn cement and steps on it. “Don’t guess you’re going to tell me where you’ve been, hmm. Ashamed of your Maw, huh. Ashamed of what she’s become. Well, I have *dreams*.”

“I know, Maw. Lavern and Shirley. Just thinking about that this morning.” Alice tries to look where her mother is looking. Still nothing — no one there.”

“Rumors of a beer factory (being built) up in Barrow County, I’ve heard. Could be moving again soon, child. But what do you care? You don’t have any friends here. Not any more. Who did they lock up last week, the psychic children and all. Wanda? Gloria? Wait — they’ve been gone a while from me. Beach combers. Well — at least *you* stayed.” She thought about Alice’s recent absence from her side again. “Kind of I suppose. Soo…”

“I’m glad of the factory, if it’s true.” Alice really was. She wanted her mother to fulfill her dream. And business had been slow here lately, she knew, what with the law enforcement crack down. Crack came first, along with the rest of the hard drugs. Then it moved to prostitution and liquor, perhaps in that order. The officers were still loosey-goosey on the whoring but it had already scared most of the men away, her regular clientele and such. Bob the Baker — hadn’t been by in a week. Joe the Smo — wait, I made him up. Dennis the, not Menace — no, a farmer. Wait…

“I came here because of Robert,” Alice uttered while I was still spacing out about nonsense, making up names, making up games the made up names play. Tennis for Dennis, golf for Rolph, archery for Yvette Archer (Archer, Y.). “Robert, huh?” Maw finally responded, thinking about lighting another one. “Robert Johnston I suppose.”

“*No*. Not *him*. Robert Leferber.”

“Is that how you spell that? I mean…” her Maw quickly backtracked, “… pronounce that?”

“Robert Lefarber,” Alice tested. “Robert Lafoger, Lafager, Lafageux. Damn those French names.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about, honey.” Another cig from the carton, quick in the mouth, quick for a light.

“*Anyway*, the guy who owned the swamp.”

Maw almost swallowed her just lit cig. “*Matthew*??”

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0306, Paper Soap+, Soap

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May 12, 2023 · 7:34 am

Junkyd again

“How I got here? It was dark. I couldn’t see the road. No street lights in this place. I ended up in this there tree, one of my tires dangling beneath like an eyeball loosed from a socket. Ghouls below — dancing. Carcass roasting in the middle but it wasn’t an ordinary animal. A *human* animal. They said it was a sparkly pink cowboy, formerly. They talked backwards a lot.”

“Like Doug over there?” John the Mind Reader pointed in the direction of Doug over there.

“No, not like a German (Doug was German: Douglas Hinterbocher the 3rd or 4th, I never can remember). Like a mutant.”

“Fine Young Cannibals?”

“Kind of,” I answered to this. “Anyway, I eventually came to the attention of Thomas, short, at least at one point, for Thomasina I gathered.”

“Yeah, the Big Boss. I know her.”

“Of course you do, John. We all do. Pyramid.”

“Right. Dunes.”

“We all come from there.”

“I recall.” But John the Mind Reader *didn’t* recall that part of their shared herstory, all of ’em. It was a big ol’ blind spot, as he put it, mostly in his mind and not to others and where they couldn’t get to it easily, he figured, being the only Mind Reader in the village, or at least he believed. Not until Brunhilde Sarah Jennifer Lane, another sparkly one in fact. Shared presents. The Answer? Maybe.

“Gorman was one of the ghouls.”

“Oh. *That* explains a lot.”

“Sure does.” He shut up for a while after that, figured he’d revealed enough for now. He could still see the fire, the carcass, the smiles and grins all around, only a few with a full set of teeth, thanks to the rotten dentists around here, mostly old and displaced Tilists. Including Gorman. Knew about the evils of Sprite all along, as it turned out. Grant Hill, PHEH. What was up on that hill anyway? Another mountain?

—–

“When did she first become visible to you. This… *woman*?”

—-

“She said she came from a library.”

“Ahh. More *origin* stories,” said John to this.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0306, The Waste+

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March 17, 2023 · 1:43 am

00370306

“What are you guys fretting about? The fire? Did something burn down here?” Then she realized, in her intuitive way, that *they* burned something. Evidence, she gathered. What were these cactus fitted military birds on the edge of Lower Austra on about? Japanese, she understood. If only she’d remembered to bring her translator. Maybe next time, cause there can be. Unlike for Baker Bloch Keith B., who is, for some reason, banned from the premises. He got too close to the truth, she thought. They wanted me to see instead.

“So you *are* her,” she suddenly understood, tuning into the language. Took some time but she’s there. They think I’m someone else, she gathers. But I’m *me* — always.

I don’t think I like this pose but it’s all about balance, I then additionally gather. Someone else was good at that. “We welcome you (back),” she also translated. But it was only this bird; what about the others?

They’re burning something else now; a ritual.

A golden girl arrives, one that will lead them into the next millennium of great change and turmoil and, ultimately, complete harmony of opposites through love.

“That golden girl,” says the one, ” is you.”

Shelley wakes up.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0037, 0306, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Wild West

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December 30, 2022 · 12:32 pm

00360306 (New)

He approached cautiously from below.

—–

He’d been saving up presents for some time, preparing for the worst. Flood! they warned. Global warming gone rogue! they cried. Thus the ark.

Or so the story goes.

After a return trip to the box, they ate Christmas dinner up top. “Shelley, you seem depressed,” he spoke. Probably just leftover effects once more, he rationalized.

“Oh. Just thinking about The Moon again. Where are we on it?”

George/Musician didn’t bother to correct this time. “Tranquility, love,” he said instead. “Remember? We landed there, all of us Americans through two specific Americans. All in the Family.”

Shelley Struthers buried her suddenly aching head in her folded arms, trying to forget everything. The nearby lemons and drink bottle were reminding her of something she didn’t want to see.

“Would you like to open a present?” offered George/Musician. Maybe that would help her mood.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0306, Corsica, New Island, Northwest, Omega

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October 25, 2022 · 6:04 am

two to see

“Is that the guy from ‘Twin Peaks’?”

“Yeah I think so. You know… we’re not going to be able to stay here, you and I.”

“Oh yeah. Why not? Am I suddenly not good enough for you, Shelley?” He huffs a bit. He was expecting this sometime but hoped to delay it until after football season. He enjoyed watching 2 games in one through this dual TV setup. He wouldn’t be able to afford 2 on his own.

What could Shelley say? That the sex eventually didn’t make up for the looks? Surely he knows about the hands by now, and the hiding of the face. And it’s getting uglier, she admitted, in the bright light of day. In the dark it’s easier to pretend. She hoped she could get use to it. Not working.

That night she dreamed she was trapped inside the stomach or innards of that big stuffed purple bear in the living room, ready for birth that never came. In the dark herself. Satisfied with the lot of her life.

But she woke up, ate her Toastie Oats cereal, choco chip dodecahedron style, and, staring out through the iron grid window at the magic bus from whence they came — parked down by the water still — understood anew that she needed to be on her own for a while. She looks over at Johnny’s mug. Jeez it’s worse than ever this morning. It’s like he was made to be disgusting. And, she then realized, perhaps he was… perhaps this is all… some kind of ruse. A test. She’d had flashes about who gave her the bus, who sent her here. A woman named Wilson who was also friends with a Fox. A person who — was much like herself, yes. A *mother*, she discerned, turning her table around to stare at the bear.

Birth is what you make of it. Cradle to grave, but in the middle, always The Cross. Which she’s on. She’d been absorbed in the Omega continent’s north to south arm! Somehow that made it both more real and more irreal at the same time. Birth, she realized. It is coming. Or: not.

“Dear, sorry, you’re kind of in the way of the TV.” That grating man-child voice too(!).

She stared at it now. “It’s some kind of *test pattern*, Johnny. Get over it.” Just like this life she’s living here, she also thought.

“Oh. I thought it was a show.”

“So did I, Johnny. So did I.”

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0306, Omega, Southern, The Cross

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August 13, 2022 · 8:17 am

X. Vampire

“Who the f– are you now?”

“I am the writer.”

(pause) “I thought Mistress and Venus were the writers of this tale. On-the-Mattress Mistress and her sister. Mistress’ sister.”

“No. I write them.” Smoke gets in his eyes but he doesn’t love himself. He loves the other. “And I have help. The artist. Just downstairs. You know him too. Another Barry. just like we now have 2 Lucys. He sleeps while I write. I write while he sleeps. It’s a win win situation.” He exhales more smoke, readies his hands on the keyboards. “2 hours till sunrise and the other Barry takes over. Better get back to it (type type type bell/carriage return).”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0034, 0306, Big Woods, Jeogeot

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June 6, 2022 · 2:40 pm

00330306

Actor Lemont Sanford demonstrates how perfectly he fits the role of Blackbart in the current production of Sunklands photo-novels by laying in this pool of water exactly his length, head against stone and feet brushing wood. “Like a glove,” he speaks up to the director in charge of casting, mixing idioms of sorts.

“Well, this is where you’ll die so that’s nice.” He tries to frame the shot with his hands. “Yes, yes. Nice fit for sure, hmm. Now, how are you with claustrophobia?” he says down, knowing a coffin scene would also be involved.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0306, Nautilus, Retirement Islands, Wild West

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March 30, 2022 · 8:04 am

colors

“This board must be broken Debbie. I can’t get black to move first.”

It was over in 13. White (Dickie (Archibald)) had no more to say. Sister Debbie retreated back up the cave tunnel from the meeting in the underground game room to her Hobbit Hill rental, pondering what just happened and the true nature of reality. *Why* can’t black start? Who goes first, what goes second? She doesn’t know; can’t figure it out currently. There must be a game of chesskers where the rules are reversed, she ascertains later, but only after the mission is done.

—–

“We’ve just got the one piece left,” Rescue John responded to Rescue Joe’s question about the face. “But it’s a crucial one. Looks like, let’s see, we’ve got a green eye instead of a blue to match the other. Asymmetry: can’t have it.”

“Boss wouldn’t be please,” Joe said back weakly, and looked into the distance from the top of the Gap toward the Hobbit Hill rental, toward Jer and Jem’s Ragged Rocks abode, toward Tar and Jey’s watermill home, and toward the cottage on the perch currently housing interns (Devil) Dave and Karoz straight from fabled academic mecca Crabwoo after their final exams were done and over with. He knows the answer lies out there somewhere. But here… they can only insert the wrong piece for now; no other way. He says this to John, who agrees to “finish” the process with a big sigh. “Green it is,” and crams it in despite the ill fitting nature of the thing.

Wheeler can see again.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0306, Wendy-Ontario-

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January 23, 2022 · 9:35 am

Elvira

Her flying craft landed with a soft crash on the beach, barely avoiding a dancing Grey.

Well, I’m finally home, she thought, and unbuckled her red seatbelt holding her still naked body secure within.

No need to put clothes on for the extended visit, she figured. Since she was seeing her “mountain man” again, ha. She’d just be out of them in a jiffy.

Scorpios, pheh.

—–

These Greys weren’t as lucky.

Jenny.

No naked.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0031, 0306, Lands End, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Omega, Wallytown/Fishers Island, Wild West

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November 25, 2021 · 8:23 am

fairy blue

He kept waiting for the red book to right itself as he read it in the sand down at the beach. Someone approached: an opposite. “I will take over now,” he said confidently, as if his black and blue color demanded it.

—–

A new crop of students arrived at the Princess Castle School for Design and Wealth. You’d think they would have learned their lesson after what happened to Dimmy and Marilyn last semester down at the end of Route 12 but, no. The VW Beetles of the world would still in all likelihood have their backs turned toward them while the glitzier ones demanded all the attention. And the car loaner agents laughed all the way to the bank (by the cliffs (by the sea)).

“Rev it up and see what you think,” agent Scott Johnson said to Tommy Twostep within, fresh from the Outer Rim where fast and furious cars like this were few and far between. He was dazzled by the array here. Daddy would understand the extra cost, he rationalized while crossing 6K rpms heading toward 7.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0306, Nautilus, NORTH, Rooster's Peninsula

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