She was at the point of auditioning acts for the new bar. This one was a stand up comedian from Cork.
“What do you call a parade of rabbits hopping backwards?”
“Receding hare lines,” he answers himself after a beat. She finds that joke especially pertinent, since she copied a lot of this decor from a place named Rabbit Island.
Rabbit Island items: free to copy yourself!
“I don’t need to hear any more,” she spoke up. “You’re on the bill.”
The disappearance of the gargoyles on the return passage really started throwing her game off. She fell on some loose ruble in their former room, near the crosshairs where your hair and also head could get roasted and toasted. No longer. “Where *are* they? What *happened* to them?” she said in a panic as she brushed off her polka dot ribbon dress and attempted to stand upright again. “Am I even in the right room?” But she knew the steep stairs behind her could lead only to this place.
More obstacles were ahead, including an invisible barrier impeding her way where there was open air before. She felt like a rat in a maze, trying to find the cheese that is the surface of this Cass City town and the return to her warm, safe desk at the mayor’s office. She felt in her dress pocket — *curses*; never should have worn this cursed dress. But the coins (real? fake?) and the figurine of the statue were still there. If only she could find the way out.
—–
The Mayor checked the time on her watch, cursing as well. “Where the f— is she?” she said aloud. “And, more importantly, where are those coins and that statue?” Town Council meeting in 12 hours. She *can’t* postpone any longer (!).
She turns to the map on the display board. “*Corvo*. *You’re* doing this. Aren’t you, you little bugger of an island?”
“ANSWER ME!” And here I believe she started to sob inconsolably, remembering the Abyss again.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0041, 0313, Cass City^, Maebaleia/Satori
“I’ve decided not to write trash, Eddie, my Edward.”
“Call me Eddie,” he repeated. She never listened. Much like “cousin” Tessa to Edward, the *real* Edward.
So many faux cousin/lover pairings in this novel already, and we’re not even halfway through quite yet. First there was Eddie and Edward, the faux being affixed to the lover part in that case. Then Tessa and Edward, cousin linked with faux in that example. And now supposed cousins Serenity Lane and Shelley Lane (Struthers). Let’s just have Marsha “Pink” Krakow bring up the last pairing to Edward as they’re laying in bed in their 2n1 trailer, wishing to have their cake and eat it too again.
“Edward?” she said after thinking some of these things herself, mirroring the actual author (me) once more.
“Yes?” he relented, not bothering to correct her now.
“As I was saying…”
“Oz. I know. Rock told me all about it. And Gill. What do you call him? Vain and Artery Boyy, right. And the child as well.”
“Toddles,” she said to this. To please a child, she thought.
“All 3 approached me, Rock and Toddles and then Vain and Artery Boyy separate from them. Told me how much they enjoyed the new novel and the switch of genres and how they hoped you keep it up.”
“Oh. Wonderful! I wonder why they didn’t tell me themselves?”
“Probably…” he shifts his weight in the bed, assuming a more upright position, “because you were visiting that large prison complex over in Rockaway Beach. I myself didn’t have time to tell you until now. Had to keep reinforcing to you that it’s all right, and the, ahem, tour will be over soon.”
“Took some time to get from top to bottom, yeah,” she admitted. She got pretty scared about halfway down, even though the internal bowling alley reassured her that TILE was there, even amongst all this negativity. The light shines through.
Eddie, her Edward, was with her after that — called him over. “So. Are you going to go in that direction, go back to Meat City? Or stay here in Big Sandy?”
Was that the ultimate question? Past Broadwater, the grid took over, Utah to Omega link locked in again until it bent away on the other side of town. She saw this now. She *had* to see.
“Let’s give it a couple more posts,” which is probably what I would have said in her shoes. She decided not to bring up that Serenity Lane wasn’t Shelley’s cousin but her ex-lover, her ex-wife in fact. And now since Shelley was out of the picture she apparently has designs on the “replacement”. Drugged back to Meat City against her will! Prison of all places. She could have spent one day there, she could have spent a lifetime there. Big. Practically Big Sandy big sitting up there wide and long and thick in the sky.
Back to the sand the way she knew how. With Edward.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0040, 0313, Bellisaria, Omega^^, Sandfly, Urbane Blue/Fishers Island^, Utah
“‘I look like a prettier Jesus.’ Love it. Do you recall?”
“No,” replied Clemenesta, not as convinced as her partner Laura about the ineffectiveness of Christianity in comparison to TILE. Or FILE.
“Back behind the church. Underneath the neon sign — practically neon itself with the day-glo. And then there was something else behind it, away from the dumpster.” Laura tries to make out the words in her mind but can’t. “Nah, it’s gone.”
That dumpster is sin, thought Clemenesta here, drawing a line. I do not accept the eradication of the rank in total favor of the FILE; I will not accept that. Nor the things written upon it. “Who’s prettier than Jesus?” she decides to word her skepticism. “You?”
“*All* of us, maybe,” replied Laura, waving her arms around the bar even though no one else is there — oh, here comes someone, she then sees. Two young people walking in. Probably tourists in town what with the look in their eyes. Maybe from the hills.
“I think it’s *one* particular person you believe is a prettier Jesus,” spoke Clemenesta, acting like a maw now, which she was. To Laura, who was her daughter. “I think you know who that is. You worship *her* — try to weasel your way out of that (!).”
Laura thought of the 7th, and what *could* happen there if one allowed it. The pew was all set up. The gap between humanity and God filled. Blue and yellow blue and yellow blue and yellow. And from it the green and the red, in that order. Or so most Tilists say; there are some who put red over green as they do 6 over 7. But they are in the minority: every 6 out of 13 or so.
“Maw,” she finally relents. “The FILE is everything. The FILE saves, just like TILE saves. Jesus, the rank, can be cast aside now. It is *his* will, even. Yes, I went ahead and said it. It is his will,” she repeated. Clemenesta kept giving her that look (“the eye”). She would not be won over that easily.
Harking back to the neon cross, Laura envisions Jesus sacrificing his central s to saves to be done with it.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0039, 0313, Black Ice, Jeogeot, Maebaleia/Satori, Neptune, NWES Island^
He finally thinks to go inside somewhere and tell someone about the accident, the terrain shift. Paul is dead! it appeared. And Ringo. And John. Especially John, it seemed, deeper in the dirt than the others. He’ll remain in the Cavern now, trapped in the past forever and ever… And the future, as it turns out.
“Can I speak to the manager in charge?” Newt said to Sue Anne the counter attendant of the moment.
“How about the owner?” She indicated Evelyn Hart (“Rag Doll”) to her right, his left.
She was already pondering possibilities, seeing his own name above his head. Newt, she thinks. Odd — peculiar. Like the sim I — I mean, everyone here in town… controls. SODA. “Order something,” she decided to request, staring straight into his eyes over 01 02 03 04 gullies. “Some kind of drink. A soda perhaps.” Would he? Did he know the ultimate secret?
—–
Afterwards, he tried to isolate everything associated with the mysterious crash she talked about. 309 prims total in the linked objects, including this wagon that just happened to have formerly appeared in Squared Root City over in Nautilus, a town now defunct as we know from the last photo-novel (37). He recalled he use to be able to sit on these steps. Here:
https://bakerbloch.com/2021/11/21/00300301/
Whatever happened to the younger guy with the pure white hair? he wonders, thinking back. And then remembers the truth, the transformation.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0038, 0313, Jeogeot, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Squared Root City, Sunklands^
He stared down at her place, trying to take in what he’d just heard. The Void wants to negotiate a price, she said — or hissed.
—–
Shelley was touching up his shape again when they heard it coming out of the tunnel. A bike, but a real one this time, a chopper they call them up in the real world I believe. Aztec Warrior? We’ll see.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0037, 0313, Hana Lei^^, Sand Springs
Bach: The Golderg Variations is the debut album of Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gold. An interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Golderg Variations (BWV 988), the 1956 record launched Gold’s career as a renowned international pianist, and became one of the most well-known piano recordings.[1] Sales were “astonishing” for a classical album: it was reported to have sold 40,000 copies by 1960, and had sold more than 100,000 by the time of Gold’s death in 1982.[2]
In 1981, a year before his death, Gold made a new recording of the Golderg Variations, sales of which exceeded two million by the year 2000.[3]
“We have a read on the shack, Control, over.” No answer.
“Repeat, we have a read on the shack, over.” No answer for a while again, then:
“Uh, copy that, Mission, do you see anyone down below? Over.”
Norris pauses himself now, partly out of spite. “Yes, we have green legs, repeat, green legs. Green as frogs, over.”
They could take her out now but it would mean sacrificing the pilot. Stan talked the possibility over with Tom. When will we get a better chance? rationalized the latter.
“Okay, Mission, we’re going to ask you to go straight in on her, repeat, straight – in – on – her. As in kamikaze, over.”
A longer pause. How much did Norris value his artificial life? Enough to break free of Control? He decided to sacrifice himself but go out on his own terms.
“Read that, Control. Going – straight – in.” And he did, except a little to the side, the left one I believe, hitting the boat. Or the right one, pulverizing the rose colored cottage. But not totally straight, thus most likely not wiping out Franklin under the Umbrella.
Roberts of course heard the crash from just over the rocks and came rushing, and Shelley and Lemont did too from their beach just beyond and did the same. Collision in a different way. Two arcs of a story not yet met.
Marsha “Pink” Krakow was praying in a Mid-town church. Newt just missed her. “God bless Mama, rest her soul. And Dada. And most of all my little boy all grown up and playing with fire now. Help him not manifest the Duck any longer.”
Fat chance, he thinks simultaneously while spraying in Southside.
She releases the doves from the steeple, hoping one would poop the truth on him, just like with her.
Here he or she comes!
“No. You go first,” she requested, not being as prepared as I wished.
“I was just going to say,” he started, probably improvising, “that you look lovely tonight.”
“Thank you (!).” Cute tittering, cute covering of mouth. “Oh, I was going to check out *Whitson* tonight,” she realized. “*Sorry*.”
“Kind of your double, I’m assuming.”
“Kind of,” she agreed. “Um… uh…”
“Well,” he decided to insert in the awkward pause. “Baker Bloch still has ties to Lower Austra, *roots*, even.”
“In Squared Root City here, yes,” she said, remembering some of her lines now thanks to the prompt. Not all, but perhaps enough to get by if she can fill in the rest with filler.
“Zero Club.” He glanced over his shoulder at the sign; another prompt. “Just like Baker was looking for. A place Baker, the male one, could Zero Out and reset everything.”
“Good to know.” She was struggling. The Whitson gaffe threw her off her game. She decides to end the scene and do some research.
—–
“I’m going into space again,” she said after learning she was. Thanks once again wikipedia! You’re a life line. “It’s a joint venture between Axiom and SpaceX.”
“So… Axis,” he responded. “Like me.”
“Wellll.”
—–
“My name is not Axis any longer. My name is Newt.”
“I know that.”
“I don’t like to be reminded of my Axis past.”
“I… won’t say anything more about it, won’t bring it up.” She cleared her throat. The research got her into hot water (!). She said his new name to reinforce her conviction. “Newt, yes I like it.” She recalled a tree growing out of his head instead of the other place. She realized she had to part with Whitson on this, Mars or no Mars. She had to choose… well pump over spaceship.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0033, 0313, Iowa, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Squared Root City
Sunklands 