Category Archives: 0402

It’s official.

Roger Pine Ridge is back in town, and in his old apartment next to SoSo Mall formerly shared with old girlfriend Cyberpaperdoll, who, you might recall, ran off with a younger, hipper dude named Bandit Boy during his stint in Iris in the heart of the Heterocera continent. Roger says he’s tired of toying around, as he put it, with our user Baker B. up in the real world, and was itching to get back to playing a “less pressurized, less constrained” part in the still evolving “Collagesity mythos” — again his words. Here he poses with the cutout of another, directly related Roger at the town’s Blue Feather Club: Roger “Syd” Barrett, his fellow bandmember during the early days of psychedelic mega-group Pink Floyd and its original driving force. The mantle of band leader passed from Roger (Syd) to Roger (Roger) in early ’68, as Syd’s mind gradually turned to mush. But you see his fingerprints all over later (and more commercially successful) Floyd in such albums as “Wish You Were Here”, “The Wall,” and, of course, the masterpiece of them all, 1973’s “Dark Side of the Moon”, whose main theme is elements of the world (constraints of “Time”, pressures of “Money”, etc.) that lead one to go mad (“Brain Damage”).

Roger Pine Ridge had his way paid out of the Iris “swamp village” by newly crowned continental queen Bill — The Bill. He chose to enter the real world first, but now leaves behind the old, old disagreement of Missouri vs. Arkansas as the heart of our US of A to focus on “virtual frivolities”.

Again, his phrasings. Welcome back Roger!

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0009, 0402, Rubi

!

“I think we may have found our variant, Catvas II,” Bill (Wheeler) spoke to the fishtailed feline reading beneath her chair after the record had finished playing. “*The* Variant.”

“That’s nice. Anything to help you paint and take your mind off that chess match.”

“I’m trying to pick out Roger’s song on this harp,” offered a plucking Grassy from the opposite side of the small porch. “It’s more complicated than expected. The bridge is interesting.”

“I timed it,” said Bill. “(The bridge) starts at 3:33. The whole song is 6:66. Oh, I’m sorry! I meant 7:06.” But Bill wondered about that time slip more and more as time went on.

“‘Time,'” proclaimed Grassy simply while continuing to pluck and strum. “Don’t care too much for the flip side of ‘Beach,’ though.”

“No, not as powerful and catchy,” followed Bill quickly.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0008, 0402, Iris

nestings

Philip paused in reading his red book to stare over at the child. “What’re you building, sugar?” He’d become more open in his affections for Heidi Hunt Ives recently; he’d been dreaming about her almost every night. She was fast transforming into his own flesh and blood offspring.

“A portal,” she said mysteriously, still not looking up. “You *do* like to get high… don’t you?”

“High?” Philip coughed. “Nah. That’s more Marion’s bag. Nickle bag, hehe.”

“But…,” she continued while making her sand castle, “… you *do* want to keep him calm and happy. Because he then calms you down. Remember how it was *before*? You were not the nice person that you are now.”

Philip considers again that Marion should have never told the kid about their backgrounds. But she insisted if she was to be part of the group, the *gang*. He remembered his own briefing about the girl. “Shapeshifter,” Marion reinforced. “Can turn old, middle aged, young. She’s even got a dog transmutation… poodle, she claims, although I haven’t seen it up close and in person. Then there’s another one she’s working on, Philip, and this will take the cake. Bug,” Marion says, making him laugh. And now that’s what he keeps calling her in these dreams. My little bug, etc.

Philip decides to walk over to the sand box and take a closer look. It seemed quite detailed from his perspective. She was just finishing up the northeast turret.

“Hana Lei is where it will take us,” she began again. “We thought she was dead but now it’s been found again.”

“What — or who is this Hana Lei?”

“Island,” she speaks, halting her work and looking up at Philip now. *Is* this his child? he wonders, staring into her green eyes.

“Pitch,” she then utters.

“Pitch?”

—–

Pitch Darkly rouses himself. By his side, Mary was staring at him, wide awake already. “You had another dream didn’t you?”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0007, 0402, Capitol City-, Gaeta V, HANA LEI

I. see

After hitting his head against the outside wall of the Bodega Market — hat tossed aside in the action — Jacob I. managed to wander, dazed and confused, into Audrey’s Bar just around the corner. The Bakers later reckon that if the big 420 sign they’d just deleted from that very wall was still present when he exited the portal, the impact could have killed him, what with the many sharp, hard edges of its three involved numerals. Or at the very least, put out his eye, which would have been just as disastrous. Jacob I. was lucky. Fate brought him here.

A familiar face awaited him in the bar. Furry Karl had returned.

They both stared at each other for a minute, trying to gauge the situation. Karl had just “woke up” himself; it would take several days before he was back to his old, jabbering self. He couldn’t remember what beer was on tap or just in bottles. Never mind the liquor, although the license went through yesterday (thanks for the speedy work, town council!).

Finally Karl had gathered himself enough to get the obvious question out of the way. “What’s with the giant peeper, bud?”

—–

It also took several days, but the Wall of Jasper representing foggy perspective would fade away as well.

Collagesity has turned over a new leaf.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0402, Heterocera, Rubi

“Duncanfollower”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0402, Bogota, Bogota Proper, collages 2d, Heterocera, VHC City

there and here

“The sky looks like Mars,” Wheeler opined. “I think this is Mars.”

“No,” countered Morris, who had been explaining what his home was for about half an hour now. “This is truly the legendary Muff-Bermingham planet you’ve heard so much about. Muff-Bermingham may have been a *conduit* to Mars, I’ll admit. I don’t have your experience in that realm. I only showed up day before yesterday. I’m a newbie, as they say down here. Or up here.”

“What’s that was over there?” The Musician asked, indicating with a head tilt the projecting spires of a structure beyond the rimming brown rock cliffs of this habitat.

“That’s something in the works, let’s say. Things are a bit plasticine here still — melting plastic.” Morris took a deep, satisfying breath through his nostrils. Wheeler and The Musician had suspected nothing in that direction; just thought it was a different planet smell of some sort. “I have few land resources to work with,” he continued, staring into the fire. “Already, the SoSo gallery had to be stolen from Collagesity below us to create an effect I desired. *We* desired.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Wheeler asked.

“I think his name is Lou.” Morris paused, uncrossing his legs. “Or her. Anyway, we’re still working on that as well. I do know that one is red and one is green. Stop and go. Like Muff and Bermingham. I’m sorry Osborne Well couldn’t show up in person to greet you as well but… land resources again. Collagesity may have to make additional sacrifices. But at least your Spongeberg the Destroyer has been put to bay. Is that the expression I’m looking for?”

“If you mean that Spongeberg didn’t effect the destruction of Collagesity between (the two halves of this novel) you seem to be correct,” Wheeler offers. “Instead of VHC City we are here, in Collagesity but not in Collagesity. Like the legendary Moon and its own (Moon of) Moon.”

“Like Mars,” The Musician says to Wheeler. “You’ve told me quite a lot about it. Sounds fascinating.”

“I’m projecting you’ll learn to love Muff-Bermingham just as much,” Morris pipes up. “This is just a foothold, a start. In several hours spotless day will return into splochy night. I will leave you to your own devices now to explore, gather, prepare.”

With this he simply fades from view in front of them.

—–

Back in VHC City, Mary/Chuckles ungrasps Pitch’s cold white hand extended across the table and stares into the dark corner of the room behind him.

“Um, your Timmy Osborne Well is fading out again, my love,” she states with only mild surprise. “It’s as if he’s trying to reach somewhere else, maybe a place he can become lively again. Wonder where?”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0004, 0402, Heterocera, Muff-Bermingham-, Rubi, VHC City

Fell a Victim

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“But I don’t understand,” says Keat Owens The Librarian. “David Bowie seems like a good and decent guy. You are just *evil*.”

“David Bowie played with demons and you are what you eat,” explained Wheeler. “If you are a lemon and consume sugar cubes you turn into lemonade. It was inevitable. This is one path split in two. Just like you.”

“Curious. Do you have a copy of “Valis” in your library here? Or in the other library?”

“Why are you asking *me*?…”

“… Librarian,” they both said together. They even shared a smile for split second.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0402, Heterocera, Rubi