“Thank you guys for joining us tonight on… ‘Nascera Today’. We’re always very curious about the various manifestations of core avatars.”
“Good to be here,” Annie replies smoothly.
“Likewise,” adds Karl coarsely. He coughs.
“So… to begin. Annie, you’re playing the role of a bad girl who wants to turn into a good artist, but is having trouble with the conversion. As the core being Wheeler, a number of your characters in ‘Collagesity 2018 Early’ are trying to jumpstart an art career. Can you elaborate on that?”
“Sure, Mr. Corea.”
“Just Sidechick will do.”
“All right Sidechick. Let’s begin with Annie, the body of which I have now. Annie is a bad girl, yes, but comes from a broken home. Her parents, as well as a good chunk of the remainder of her relatives, were sucked up in the Great Rift between 2010 and 2013. I was 13 in 2013, a Y2K baby, then. But the year 00 didn’t cause any large scale anomalies like anticipated.”
“Thankfully.”
“Yes, thankfully Sidechick.” She turns to her boyfriend. “Karl, you suffered a mental breakdown that year, didn’t you?”
“A giant robot rabbit crushed my car!” He huffs and coughs again, but doesn’t elaborate.
“‘Nuff said, I suppose.” Annie eyes him a little longer before pivoting back to Sidechick. “What was the question again?”
“Sidechick looks through his notes, then: “Just to talk about your various characters in the present Collagesity novel and their artistic aspirations.”
“Well…” Karl sneezes here. “Okay, you’re not coming down with a cold are you Karl? Because you’re sleeping down in the Rabbit Hole if so. I’m not catching what you have.”
Karl shakes his head. “No, not the Rabbit Hole, no. I’d rather sleep on the open beach.”
“But that will make your cold worse. No, the Rabbit Hole will have to do. I’ll build a fire down there when we get home.”
Karl huffs some more, sneezes, but then nods his head in resignation.
“Can we continue now? Get it all out — the sneezing and the coughing — and be done with it. Sidechick’s come a long ways to conduct this interview. I for one can’t concentrate with all these pre-cold antics going on.”
Karl takes a minute to cough and sneeze some more. He really gets into it. They both watch him in shock and awe. He then nods again to indicate it’s all over and he’s ready to continue, noise free hopefully.
Annie stares blankly at Sidechick Corea. “I’m so sorry. What was the topic again?”
Sunklands 