“*You* are Taylor,” she exclaimed excitedly across from him, wearing her standard green shirt with the lantern symbol, one from a Golden Age long forgotten by most. But not by Fern.
“And… you are?” Jeffrey Phillips remains confused. He had crossed the line from This Sim 01 into This Sim 02 and found himself here. On this couch. Speaking to this… woman. Stranger. Her eyes were brilliantly alert. She was always thinking, he realized, always spinning around something in her head. He thought back to the rainbow Ferris wheel.
“Orange,” she proclaimed, then seeing his continued blank look, said, “no not the color, the number. You are looking for VI. Ruby,” she furthered. She saw recognition in the eyes. “A… purple car, not blue not red, merges with orange to exit in you: Taylor.”
What was she *on* about? he thought. He briefly contemplated that he had died, had drove his red 57 Chevy into that levy between sims and all this, all that followed, was his dream in the afterlife. Taylor? Was that his new post-death name? And this person: some kind of angel? Or maybe: devil. Half and half. He slapped himself in the face. Didn’t work. He was still dreaming in this reality, wherever he was.
“What do you mean I’m Taylor?” A series of images formed on the couch across from him in place of Fern. He hadn’t yet realized this was his old gal pal Charlene the Punk, come back from the future after her dissertation on Bigfoot had been completed, turned into a book which was turned into a movie which was turned into a franchise, toys, cookbooks, the lot. There was even a brand of kitchen sink named after it. Bigfoot went from backwoods legend to front and center superhero. All the children knew who Gene Fade was and that his birthplace was at Jupiter Rock and that he spent his formative years in Mocksity and that he lived to be over 400 years of age. Children wanted to *be* Bigfoot now. Children wanted to live relatively forever too, where a childhood would last one of our present lifetimes. Fern knew a lot, had seen a lot. Fern had been augmented, just because she could afford it due to the franchise and all. And she had created 2 others just as tag along friends, one a ditzy blonde and the other, the other…
She changed back. “You were in that wagon,” Fern started again, like a well oiled machine, a purring car, a cat pouncing on a bat. Lee Meriwether had nothing on her.
Ruby, he remembered. The witch had said the same thing: that he was Taylor. The spirit she had summoned faded back into the netherworld it had come from. No: there! Outside the wagon now, floating across the landscape, heading toward a bridge of interesting design.
Another sim crossing. There! That’s where he had died. But not Taylor; the other. 2nd in command.
Man About Time woke up. Strangest dream, he though, and picked up his pen and pad beside his bed to jot it down before he forgot most of the details.
