Heading back inside.
Category Archives: 0401
00370401 (party 01)
They were preparing food, of course, when the call came in. Raven and Key needed for a catering assignment. Money not an option, because this was for the big bosses, one of them anyway — I’ll get an actual name asap. All activities at the well established Wooboostook pub would have to be halted for a night. March 23rd was the date. The day the music died.
Soon they were prepping food in a different place. Nautilus continent. Near but perhaps not in the Lemon Free State, advertised as the last vestige of the old empire within now Lime (Linden) controlled Our Second Lyfe.
“Edward should be arriving soon,” spoke Sandy Hook to Penny Mart up front, champagne on wait to be served for the occasion. “Said he had a new girl who wasn’t his girl, tee hee.” “Typical,” offered Penny from the chair, wishing he would get the f-ck here so she could have that drink. Also she was starving.
Amos T. Sandman arrived from next door in a party boat loaded down with his many presents, but he was not the one they desired despite of this. The time: 6:05. The night was young, very young.
Darn. Not even noticed, he thought, grand entrance ruined.
“Hello,” he said. No response, even though her extended legs were almost in the way of getting up the stairs in front of him. What gives? he kept pondering as he approached the house. Who is this party *actually* for if not me?
The presents were snapped up right and left as his back was turned to them. He had nothing left to give.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0037, 0401, Hana Lei^^, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Wild West
3 clicks to the east
Sissy Bird Cage felt like she was in the right place (red shoes), even though she didn’t know how she got here. She remembered dying. Or some part of her dying. A business, yes. Heavily identified with, so much so that she felt it was an extension of her body, her mind, her soul. It shared her same name. Her blood coursed through its veins.
Over in Mortons Gap. I believe they made it into a Saki Bar after she left but she hadn’t been back to check. Too painful.
She remained on Corsica. In fact, on the same peninsula that they called The Trunk in olden days, when the original Ant Castle was still around. Eleph Trunk, some called it. Not Elephant. Not after the Ant was extracted from the end, set up in his (or her) own castle right at the very tip of the nose of the thing.
She’s looking for a place to apply for a job. She’d heard in Flamerider here there were secret jobs, up in the air above the green and granite landscape. Ted had told her about it — said she might fit in well there. She recalled all this now. After the shock of transitioning wore off.
“Anyone hiring ’round here?” she asked the broken doll tending a bar inside the red shoe place.
The doll suddenly fell to pieces. Looks like she’s found her new position, quick and easy (home). Slowly but surely, this becomes reality and the other a dream.
—–
“When I first showed up, Ted, she was standing right on this spot. Right here. I had to clean up all the mess and parts but it was worth it, problem solved.” She turned.
“Fascinating, Sissy,” said her current customer, use to the story. Maybe even kind of sick of the story. “Just a beer today.” He extended bills across the counter.
“Your money is no good here Ted and you know it.” It was the least she could do.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0036, 0401, Corsica, Northwest^
new angle
“So you see, babydoll. You *can’t* leave The Cross right now. Right there in the contract you signed. You’re part of the club now.”
Shelley studied and studied the thing but couldn’t find a way out. Biff Carter was the same age as her or older than her by 2 decades. If the former, then *they* may be destined to be married — Biff — Mr. Carter — must know this too. If the latter, Mr. Carter — Biff — could be her father.
But she has a father. Newt, yes. And a mother: Wheeler. She tells Biff/Mr. Carter this, along with being engaged to George already, who, turns out, he knows by another name.
“Oh I know about Arthur,” he says in response to all this. “I don’t think you’re really engaged to this… *Musician*.”
“Am too,” Shelley tried to defend, but knew it was hopeless. Says right here: Shelley Struthers will be stuck on The Cross until the end of novel 35, where she’ll make a choice between 3 lovers. She knows two. Here could be the 3rd — has to be, I suppose.
Biff knew she couldn’t weasel out of this. The Umbrella Club has spoken. “Satisfied?” he ended.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0035, 0401, Omega^^, The Cross^
morning
“Man I can’t even look in your eyes today, you’re so small man. What’ll it be today Mickey Rooney? Duck?”
“Yes please.”
“You better return that cap to the St. Louie Cardinals, bro. Bro man. They’re need’n it for their shortstop, you know what I’m saying, yo?”
“Good… one.”
Gibson reaches into his pocket, pulls a bill out. The special kind belonging to Duck.
“Alright here you go Peewee,” he says while exchanging his own with Barry’s, knowing he always gets a head in a deal.
He moves on. He has no real fear of the larger man-boy similarly wearing a red cap, in his case dipped in the blood of a particularly hated and wounded-if-not-killed rival. He’s been here every day since Munday, that special new day of the week where you simultaneously go to work and go to church at once. Work-church. (S)pray. Barry was a kind of professional graffiti artist, the ones who have an unpronounceable name. Like Spock. He’d head to a particular wall-surface as soon as he made the purchase. 300, he thinks this morning. 300 Triangle. A number anyway. Maybe 112. He’s going to meet up with [delete name] afterwards, a mathematician, to decide. Slice.
—–
“What’ll it be today, Mrs. Gold? Duck?”
“Chicken, I think.” STOP
00330401
“This man and his phone calls,” she speaks through clenched teeth, smile all a sham, “is going to *kill* me.”
“… no it’s me, dude. (pause) *Me*.”
Spencer pretends to take a long long sip of his coffee, masking his reply. “Any way we can exit gracefully?” he says into his cup.
“… I’m sitting right here, he he… where are…”
“How about if I do this.” She flips her hand and hits Spencer’s cup, making the contents splatter all over his white jacket. *White*, he thinks, getting up out of his seat and looking down at the mess. What was she *doing*?
“… hold on, dude… somethings happening here…”
“Oh *dear* oh *dear*,” she exclaims, putting hands to mouth even to reinforce the spectacle.
“It’s all right,” Spencer says back, making a face that Jennifer understands is sending a message to her and her alone that she went too far. She gives a smirk back expressing that maybe she did (yikes, what a stain; he’ll never get that out!) but at least it will get them out of here and away from Julius.
“We better get you to that bathroom over there; wash you up,” she says. They jointly move away from Julius, who simply picks up where he left off without making a remark about the accident.
“Anyway, dude, where are *you*?”
—–
“Ooo. So *close*,” she says as he rather pins her to the tiled wall near the door, having flung the obviously ruined white jacket aside and also the unsoiled tank top underneath. Betty reciprocates. Julius would still be talking to himself when they exit the bathroom 30 minutes later, hardly noticing they were gone. Does he not have a home he can go to?
30 more minutes and this: “Well dude and dudette; packing it in.” He pulls the phone away from his ear, puts it in his pocket. He disappears. Betty and Spencer both wonder if that last part was for them or if there was a third party involved in the conversation with himself, his double. Another double, like 3 identical cousins. Soon they would find out.
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0033, 0401, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Squared Root City
bon appétit
“Thanks for coming over from Wendy to meet with me, Wheeler. I know you’re mighty busy over there.”
“I am (!).”
“Anyway, I see you brought your bodyguards.”
Wheeler looks at one Eighty-eight at the table in front of her, and then glances over her shoulder at the second one sitting at the table behind. “They’re still needed,” she summarizes. “176,” she totals up.
“Fascinating,” says Baker Bloch, still in sarcasm mode. They have important business to discuss tonight and better get down to it. Baker has been waiting for over 30 minutes now while Wheeler lounges about the castle library. I thought we were done with all that. He condenses these observations and says them aloud for her.
“Yeah, not quite (about the library). We have more issues to work through.” She looks around again, quicker this time. “But good we are in Ontario. I sent Dickie Doom over. He is my (original) burger.”
“You… as Wendy.”
“Yeah.”
Baker looks down at his hands through the grated table. “Center Point,” he blurts out.
“Yeah?” Wheeler waits for more, hands still in lap. Her food and drink are getting cold.
“It doesn’t come up in the Oracle. The one in Kentucky, probably the most important one. It brings to question…”
“… the Oracle itself, its veracity,” she finishes for Baker Bloch. Because they are one beneath it all as well. Just like Baker Blinker and Baker Bloch. Just like *all* the cores. There is no real separation from The One. In the end.
He produces the tic tac toe board from his inventory; is kind of irritated that Wheeler doesn’t move her dinner tray so it can be positioned more in the center of the table itself.
“So this is the game, Wheeler. Who moves first, what moves second? We don’t know. But *whoever* it is, they win.”
Wheeler takes a sip of her coffee, takes a bite of her plumeria sandwich, getting under Baker’s skin again. He doesn’t like people eating when he’s explaining something and Wheeler knows it. “This is,” she says with mouth full and muffled speech, “Collagesity.”
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0032, 0401, Collagesity Fordham, Kentucky, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Wendy-Ontario
00310401
It could have worked between Alysha — Redd — and myself, Jeffrey thinks afterwards, nursing his remorse with a gin and tonic from the bar atop the filthy yacht.
Alysha in the clean one had moved on too. Inspired by the art in the neighboring galley over in Terriergate, she’s decided to get a tattoo, a tree one, on the back. Red green blue yellow, she recites in her head, reviewing the thing. No orange, no purple. Let’s make this shit happen.
O’Neill
Standing on the edge of the ring, Venusian Joey Avatar wonders what she’s gotten herself into.
red and blue
“There’s no one there, honey.”
“Oh, but there *is*.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0029, 0401, Maebaleia/Satori, Pipersville/Sink X^
Sunklands 