“Entrails please.”
“On the house today, boy. *The* Boy. Congrats!” the old service robot creaked and cranked. The look became him.
“Aww. Thanks Slicey!”
“He’s at the (Bumble) Bee, David.” tracking Duncan Avocado spoke over a nearby phone. Indistinguishable talking from the other end, then: “Yeah, his maw’s out of town again. This was an easy one.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0308, The Waste+
He was remembering more. “Pansy. That was your name! Pansy Mouse.”
“Correct.” He points to the planchette on the crate in front of him with the board, another demon device. “We got it from this.”
“And that’s where…”
“Correct.”
He changed. This was the past. Pansy = Pan-Z. Jeffrie Phillips instinctively grasps his glowing red tie, a long held habit. He knew *they* were still in there. So many — well, five.
The now squeaky voice continued. “Audrey was in it all along. She *caused* it.”
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0307, The Waste+
“I don’t know how long I was a mouse but it was a long time. I lived in the richest house in town but we were still dirt poor. Like all the rest. Audrey lived 5 doors down. There were no houses inbetween. Just doors: upright, as if still serving a function. And perhaps they were.”
Jeffrie Phillips was becoming impatient with the doctor’s rambling story. Why was he the doctor now? What happened to the old one? He asked these aloud.
“I’m trying to tell you, Baker Bloch.”
Baker Bloch? Jeffrie Phillips thinks here. But then he realized the (new) doctor was right. That was he. And this was his bakery. Bake’s Bakery, with the demon hot beverage dispenser to complete. It didn’t work without the vending machine. He decides to ask the doctor about it next.
“So tasty,” Doctor Mouse compliments. “I had a, let’s see (he checks his inventory), a Jedi tea. I suppose that’s something from Star Wars.”
“Star *What*?” Jeffrie Phillips had never heard of Star Wars. “Do you mean Star Trek?”
“I do not,” the doctor measured out. He keeps thinking back to the drink, and how it vanished into thin air just before he could take the last swallow. Oh well: delicious still. No need to ask for a prorated discount from Baker Boy here. The Boy.
He first met him when he was this Mouse. He tells Baker Baby Buddy Boy this here. His old nickname. It rang a bell.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0306, Teepot+, The Waste+
Bake’s Bakery has moved in to one of the 2 lower rooms of my more downtown Teepot apartment. The demon hot beverage dispenser remains, ha ha (he he he (ho ho ho ho)).
Just around the corner (hu hu!).
Also: the important bits of the attached apartment remain. Like this now 5 day old pizza in one of the 2 upstairs rooms (hi!).
“We better get down to business, Jeffrie. Let’s talk about Audrey.”
“Okay, um, *doctor*.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0305, Teepot+
“Come on and hurry up with that kid’s puzzle, Duncy. I’m ready to start with the *adult* toys.”
“Alright.”
“Now Duncy. *Separate* your words; don’t compound everything you say just because you are *lazy*.”
“All… right.” He was trying so hard not to be stupid and duncy. He so wanted to earn a new nickname from Bubbles.
And later he would: The Boy or just Boy, derived from DeBoy (derived from D-Boy or Dunce-Boy or one who makes a lot of “D”‘s). Because one day, not too far in the future and maybe even today, The Boy from DeBoy would open Suisan’s eyes to the world around her and the horror it entails. Entrails.
“Maw came back last night,” DeBoy (still DeBoy here and not The Boy — yet) offered while keeping alert for a puzzle piece with a brightly painted clown face on it. “Fresh from Stomach Land.”
“Now, *Duncy*. You *know* there’s no such place.”
“There tis too.” He had a while to go in Suisan’s eyes. She could see the boy now but the cone still dominated the face. Sometimes — often — he became merely a cone again. DeCone.
“There it is!” he exclaims, spotting it with his keen eyes. He inserts another piece. Shouldn’t be long now.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0304, The Waste+
He kissed the cone topped clown head from the back. “I love you,” he cooed. “And I *understand* you.”
He turned and finally saw her. In the flesh! She was scratching her head, but not from something she didn’t understand this time. Lice. Must have got in during the middle of the night. No more sleeping in clown barns!
She hadn’t notice him yet because of all the scratching. Itching and scratching. He could run away — again. But where? Back to his maw? Nah, that wasn’t really an option, although he needed food every once in a while. Tripe: better than entrails at times. It described his life perfectly.
Bubbles, he thought. That’s what I’ll call her. The name just floated into his head like an enclosed air pocket. And once he had a name then talking could commence. “Little girl, little girl,” he began softly, out of earshot again. He knew just how to pitch it to remain unheard. Then: “I’m here, I’m here, I’m — *here*.” The last “here” got through, as he planned. Despite the name (DeBoy, derived from D-Boy or Dunce Boy or one who makes a lot of “D”s and just gets by) this diminutive fellow is quite nuanced and different from us more learned folks. And now he possibly has a friend.
Suisan turned again toward the voice but again saw nothing but a cone. The boy remained invisible to her.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0303, The Waste+
“I don’t understand what I’m suppose to be *learning* here!”
A noise from the back of the room. She had awoken someone. “I’m here. I’m here. I’m here,” the boyish male voice sleepily repeated, as if waking up from a dream. “I’m here.”
But when she got up and turned in surprised response no one was there.
“I’m here, I’m here,” it said, just out of earshot now on the other side of the veil. Only a dunce cap remains. “I’m here.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0302, The Waste+
It fits, but I don’t think it *fit* fits. That is, it slots — barely — into this side of the 640 square metere parcel I just rented in NWES City, but stylistically there’s something left to be desired seemingly. Back to the drawing board… the positioning still appears “meaningful”, hmm.
Maybe it does fit in there.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0301, Black Ice, Jeogeot, NWES Island
Teddy had seen it all coming and had tried to warn his master Baker Bloch about the impending event. With his hoof he had counted to five this day before the bay but purposefully stopped at six. Marty was not who he seemed to be. *No one* was who they seemed to be, not Marty, not The Mann, not Peter Oesso, nobody. Here they were all variants. The numbers one through five represent the time before the peak, when Penny Lane was a memory and not a song, when Strawberry Fields was a place as well. After the release of the double single — and accompanying album — something happened to The Beetles, indeed the world as a whole. Arnold Lane, another place that became not a place, played a role in this as well. I’m here to tell you: something happened.
Storybrook’s deserted Arnold Lane
Marty’s nearby, red-topped, bible-less church
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0020, 0316, Heartsdale+, Storybrook-
“Are you going to open that can of worms *now*? You can’t fish properly without them, you know.”
In the boat before Baker Bloch, Yoko Ona seethed. “Who are you to tell *me* how to run my business? They agreed upon McCartney-Len –, I mean, Lennon-McCartney, *years* and years ago. I am honoring my late husband’s wishes. Marty just wants to rock the boat. He’s a trouble maker. In fact –.”
“He’s not even Paul,” Baker Bloch guesses. “A switch occurred. Arkansas,” he followed, thinking of how five progresses into six. Not quite all the numbers but getting there. Didn’t matter, though. *Here* he was Marty. All the signs were that he was Mozart instead of the other way around. And Lennon Lemon was, well, the other one, the *Jealous Guy*. He told this to Yoko Ona, standing her right side up so he could see directly into her eyes, into her soul, tell her what went wrong — and perhaps right as well but wrong especially. At this moment, in this instant.
Something happened to make Baker Bloch rethink his strategy. Yoko Ona returned to her boat, putting away the worms for good. There would be no fishing today in the Heartsdale Bay. Mid-Hazel had her tied around her little finger. It was the more powerful witch Baker had to deal with from now on. He had met his match. Time to send in the female (again).
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0020, 0315, Heartsdale+
