Category Archives: 0403

the future is *now*

Grant! she calls, jumping up and down on the grapes (?), pulverizing them. Grant!!!

They heard the yelps all the way over at the Annaberg central plaza. “Decatur Lively” reader Jimmy Dieselengine tried to ignore them so as not to alarm the youth with him, his charge for the day, or at least the morning. If only morning would be quiet around here like it use to be, he lamented in his older age, closing in on 64. Retired over a year back and loving it. More time with the grandkids. Like Pete here. Peter Pistle. But that girl, that *witch*, needs to *shut* the *f-* *up*. He rattles the paper to release his irritation, clears his throat. She’s done finally, he thinks, hearing the end of it, fruit kaput.

She produces purple stained feet to prove where she’d been, what she’d been doing. The same colored glass of wine sat at their tip, ready for consumption. Different dimension; didn’t work. He knew there hadn’t been a proper vineyard in town for a number of months, just some leftover, stray vines surviving here and there, not enough to mask the issue. Rose/Eyela/Leila was accomplishing something else. Like raspberry, something the townspeople wouldn’t swallow.

Mike requested she put the feet away and face the consequences, which had actually already happened. Banishment. Burial even. Like Paul and Ringo and especially John before her. Only the wine was left to prove she ever existed at all.

“Buh bye,” he whispered. “Buh bye now.” And threw it into the earth as well.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0038, 0403, Jeogeot, Sunklands^

00370403 (party 03)

“There’s only one present left, Amos,” he continued. “*The* present.”

“I see.” He didn’t look away from Edward’s eyes. He spotted it in his peripheral vision, which was good enough. Red and green, he viewed. Rectangular. Life itself. Just under the front seat board. Right where he would sit when he got back in. Right between his legs it would be.

“It’s time to open the box, Amos. Everyone else has taken what they needed, which is everything. Leaving you nothing. Open the box.”

Sandman now knew that the lone box in the boat was empty. The Void, then. Could be another empty box inside the first but that would be it.

“You’ve had your fun,” Edward added. No mention of Shelley here because Amos T. Sandman didn’t know Shelley G. Struthers, wouldn’t know her from Eve beside Adam.

“It’s time for me to leave, Eddie.”

“It sure is,” Edward shot back.

“Well… step aside please.”

“I will. On one condition.”

Deep breath. “Okayy…”

“That you take that empty box over there back to your empty shell of a sim and deposit it where you can’t get to it.  Also: put a big red button on it, like you’d find on New Mexican police intercoms. Make it look important even if it isn’t. Can you do this for me? Amos?”

Sandman wanted to tell Eddie to stop calling him that but bit his tongue. He had to see this through as smoothly as possible. Else: sunken boat, he knew, he gathered. No more presents at all. Time erased, even, along with attached-at-the-hip Space. End of existence. Just that important.

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0037, 0403, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Wild West

00360403

2 helpful links I’ve found in the past 2 days.

https://www.byrdie.com/how-to-be-creative-5095410

https://www.loudcoffeepress.com/post/theory-of-obscurity-the-artist-in-relative-isolation

I can look at this playfully. A man (or woman) writes a story about a journey to The Moon that’s pretty much a straightforward success w/ friends, family and public. The second, which involves a journey inside the Earth this time, is also viewed favorably, albeit with less enthusiasm. You’ve done it once, you’ve had your time in the limelight, others might say here. Or they may invoke elements of imposter syndrome — oh you’re just like so-and-so; *love* his or her stuff (i.e., you are a reflection of his or her greatness). The writer reassesses — there were elements of the second that didn’t follow the pattern of success of the first. He (or she) could then isolate these elements as best as possible: and either eliminate them or accentuate them in the next work. 3rd book, fork in the road. One 3rd book, the elimination novel let’s call it, marks a return to the form of the first in the public’s eye. Let’s say we have our protagonist go back to The Moon for it. *Love* The Moon, others might say (friends, family, public) — just like so-and-so’s work, they might echo. Second 3rd book, the accentuation novel, goes down a rabbit hole, knowing approval from others would not be forthcoming (but still maybe putting blinders on and hoping for the best). The writer sticks to the surface of the Earth, deals with *real* issues he or she sees around them, explores them in depth; rips off masks so precious and valued to people of the time. Could be racism, social inequality, sexual issues, rise of the machine age, to name a couple that come to mind. True to form, most, perhaps even everyone, turns away from the work and the writer, urges him (or her) to get a *real* job (you’ll never be so-and-so). The 3rd book may not even be published or publishable (in its age). Yet this person knows it’s their best and moves forward, out of the spotlight now, even if he (or she?) has to shovel coal for a living. The 4th is even better and expands on some of the best bits of the 3rd. The writer is truly learning to write. The 5th expands on the 4th. The 6th expands on the 5th… (if he or she gets this far, poverty perhaps taking its inevitable toll).

People do not want to see the reality inside them. Fear dominates. Preservation of a mask self that is in denial of the Great Inside. And just plain fear of the new — we all have it. Some also fear a return to the old. Fear all around.

Here I’m thinking more 19th Century than 20th or 21st but maybe I still have a point, hmm.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0036, 0403

then and now (waves keep coming)

Recently I moved to Toyger on the Far eastern coast of Gaeta (New Continent) so that I can honour the rising Sun.

“Clarence was wrong about the dance animation studio being there. It was all a setup.”

“You said Clarence,” Arthur tested into the receiver. “Did you mean Claude?”

“I…. don’t know (!).”

“Check on that please. Before I head over.”

Later she went back to the theatre and checked again. No screen. This is all real; Clarence is real. She is in the film being filmed as we speak. Perhaps that would explain all the close ups. She is looking for the camera, ha (!).

A well dressed black man enters the picture.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0035, 0403, Gaeta V^^, Mountain Lake^, Omega^^

tiger 05 (The Whites look down disapprovingly on their colored neighbors and their doings.)

She halted at the corner of 33rd and Masonic, a stop sign beside her, a stop sign beside it.

“Marsha *Pink* Krakow,” she managed to utter, recognizing her portrait. And then she wasn’t.

—–

Armed with much more knowledge than he had before, Barry De Boy enters the mysterious, run down house.

Deal made. McLain, rival to Gibson, now owns the rights to the 112 (as well?). STOP

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0034, 0403, Gold City, Jeogeot

ponytail (greentree (zeroed out))

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0033, 0403, Hana Lei^^

00320403

“Live around here?”

“Nooope. Pietmond,” he said. But Sunklands’ Pietmond had been destroyed long long ago. Something was up.

“Live around here?” she tried again just around the corner in a “secret” nook.

“Naah. Just here to study,” the long haired man across the loaded down table said hoarsely, as if he’d just sang a rock n’ roll concert for a 100,000 people.

The other sitting there even turned her back on the child, not wanting discourse and hoping her Goth father was about ready to split this boring town. So that takes care of Pietmond Boy, Osborne Well, and Lou…

… moving us into the opposite corner of the new Collagesity library containing an estimated 100,000 books, a book for each person at one of Osborne’s concerts to put it another way. Here: Tronesisia.

“Live around here?” she tried once more to the former pleasure bot turned tame, this child named Shelley who had given up her castle to construct this building, be with these people. But blue eyed Tronesisia was having a vision and couldn’t answer immediately.

Where had she heard this before? Blue *and* green. It didn’t compute: something was ill fitting; broken even.

“Arkansaw,” she said softly, starting to figure it out. “Arkansaw,” she said again, one blue eye changing, seeing beyond the other, seeing North beyond South.

In the center, Missouri appeared — Miss Ouri. The new librarian.

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0032, 0403, Arkansas, Collagesity Fordham, Lower Austra^, Missouri, Nautilus

00310403

“I’m going to relieve you of your duties here, Valerie. We actually bought the purple car in a different place. Not Bluefield.”

“Mount Airy — yes, I’ve heard.”

Close! thinks Jeffrey Phillips as Baker Bloch, surprised rumor has traveled so far. But Iowa instead of North Carolina. And it’s Air. Ayr. But he let the mistake stand and didn’t correct.

“Last day will be the end of next month. You’ll begin collecting your retirement pension come March 1. We thank you for your service to the state!” North Carolina again, but we’ll stick with Iowa.

“Schweeeet,” she exclaimed, and crouched down on the floor, a familiar and comforting gesture. She couldn’t help it — her eyes were trained too well. She kept looking for that car to appear. Maybe it will, she thought. The owner of this here blog isn’t correct on all things. Maybe the purple car will come out *here*. It’s a blue rose case, after all. And this is Baker Bloch as Jeffrey Phillips. Backwards but obvious.

The owner of the land has it up for sale at a reasonable price. This portal in the very epicenter of Maebaleia could vanish any day now, any moment. I’m going to say goodbye to it now. Mad Valerie can be reassigned for that final month if needed.

Farewell 2701 Bland Rd. I place a blue rose in your lawn.

—–

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” hidden Fern said down below, switching South with North.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0031, 0403, Hills of Bill^, Iowa, Maebaleia/Satori, North Carolina, West Virginia

purple mountains 02

“Long night again, Joey?”

“Ahh yes, I *need* this.” The kangaroo has spoken.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0030, 0403, ENIGMA, Nautilus, Wild West

Hooktip again 02

“Let’s go play with The Diagonal,” she requests, getting up.

—–

“36, 35: 100 less in each case than the ottoman at the center where Shelley seduced Tommy (Tailgate). Do you recall who else was seduced on a tailgate?”

“Sid?” I said, suddenly having omniscient author powers. Sid worked for Buster Damm in the Pot-D organization, unless it was visa versa. I also realized that the omniscient author of this here photo-novel, 29 in a series of nothing, had left a lot of choices open-ended. In one fork… well I guess Pot-D is the stable thing, the whole idea of protecting The Diagonal, which only numbers one now, at least on this continent (Heterocera). And this is where it all began — in the Rubi Woods extended to VHC City. The first 5 photo-novels were all about the continent before we — our extended family of core avatars — moved away from it starting in 6. And now we’re in a whole different hemisphere, East instead of West. I looked at the witch, wondering what direction *she* would choose. Does she live in a backwards world, a mirror to our own? Strange thought.

“You have everything you need here — on this spot. You can spot Shelley’s clock tower up toward the center of the sim. You can see my cabin in the woods over there. And over there (she turns): the Good Neighbors pylon marking where The Diagonal enters the sim in the first place. What more do you need? The Sun?”

Indeed it was beginning to rain. I realized my neck ached more because of the coming of such.

East or West? I guess I would go with West, then. She seemed to like it here.

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0029, 0403, Heterocera, VHC City^