Category Archives: 04

December 26, 2023 · 5:04 pm

00410406

I teleport to what I understood to be a skybox, high above my Cass City apartment somehow. Heaven of sorts, or at least Reality. I almost walk in front of a car which, at the same time, is shooting at me.

“Watch it cork for brains!” the driver barked through the right side window as he passed, face screwed up like a walnut. “Can’t you see I’m trying to work here?!” Street View camera person, I realized later, probably stressed out from navigating all these narrow Santa Cruz streets and alleyways. Also noticed later that the job certainly seemed incomplete, and that the largest and most important Flores island town here was only minimally covered. I wondered how he slept at night in his various hotels across the world. Probably pretty soundly.

His incompetency would make my *own* work that much more difficult. To find a reason for the Cass City Town Council to spare this real and actual Santa Cruz and not replace it with their own alternate history version. For I was married to the Cass City Mayor. And, in an obvious, surface conflict of interest, I was the head of the council too. So I had to convince myself first before Tom, Dick and Harry would go along with the proposal. Two separate worlds. Two separate realities, virtual down there and real up here. Separate but equal. Didn’t work in post-WWII Jim Crow America, but here in 1939 Cass City it might have a chance.


gaining a higher perspective on Flores’ Santa Cruz with neighboring island Corvo in the background

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0406, Cass City+, Europe, Google Street View, Maebaleia/Satori

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December 24, 2023 · 10:48 am

00410405

By Christmas morning he had collected 3 cans in total. The second that soon followed the first through the portal, some kind of product called Mount and Dwu (?), turned out to be pretty nondescript in his estimation outside the queer name — just a “can” if you will. The 3rd, arriving only a handful of minutes ago after a wait of hours, was more interesting; it was now front and center before his eyes. A soda filled aluminum cylinder labelled 12939 — no ambiguity here that the number was the most important element — with a descriptive line underneath: “on reflection, a better cola”. He’s stared and stared but can find no rhyme nor reason to it. If only he’d played an early, open world game from the 1980s called Mercenary he might have the opening he needs by popping the figurative tab off the top.

Newt’s literal creator Dr. Mouse showed up later in the morning with a present of Old Spice Showering Gel. He’d played the open world game Mercenary in the 80s and a bit in the 90s even. While in Spain in the 2010s he’d also seen a commercial playing on the reversing trick.

“*But*,” he said to his “son” Newt after revealing it, “the number translated through this can is not actually 12939.”

“It isn’t?” Newt said, staring at the central one with renewed interest. The overall meaning was starting to dawn on him as well.

“No. It’s 1939. The same year as…”

“… the year coming up,” Newt finished for him, suddenly wondering what he was going to do with his tree after New Year’s.

Mouse pointed his cane at the can. “This is (your predecessor) Pepi. My guess is that he’s indicating, from the Great Beyond let’s say, he wants to come back… in the best way he *can* currently, I’m assuming. Pepi ‘Can’ Kolya.” Here he points to the 3rd again, then the 2nd then the 1st. The order of the words in the person-in-question’s full name.

Newt reflexively stares out the window toward the crossroads he’d envisioned Pepi standing in the middle of just the other day. And then Mouse was about in the same spot last Tuesday’s Wednesday when he was flagging down that streetcar named Desire which goes all over town, uptown downtown sidetown (etc.). Could he have known even then?

Or was it merely another of one of those what you call coincidences? Couldn’t be, he thought on the spot. Couldn’t be.

On cue, they both hear the streetcar rumbling into downtown from midtown. “Gotta run and catch a ride, Newt. You know how scared I am of midtown, Chinaville and all. Merry Christmas and thanks for the slippers!” And with that Mouse was gone, moving quickly out of the apartment building Newt lived in beside Shenanigans and onto the street once more.

“Wait, wait, I want a ride!” he called.

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December 23, 2023 · 5:28 pm

Christmas Eve

He was playing Schubert’s 14th piano sonata he’d bought the score for about a week back when it flew in from his set up portal, the 1st of 3 as it turns out. It clanked and rolled on the floor almost to the opposite wall, freezing his hands mid chord progression with the sound. He knew instantly what it was of course. He’d been here before.

It was minimally damaged in the transition thankfully. He brought it over to his work table, moving his trusty steampunk computer aside for the moment; automatically started to take notes on the thing. “Quasi-vintage Coko Cola can circa 1990s, lid unpopped with pop still inside,” he wrote,  unable to resist a ready pun. “12 fluid ounces; bar code 490690.”

Understanding the fractal nature of his universe, Newt brought the computer front and center again, googling the number. Through it he learned the product was manufactured in New York with a can manufacturer called Crown. Approx. date of creation: 1983.

https://www.cokecollection.com/index.php?lang=en&pageid=50&canID=11453

Those are the mundane facts. In digging deeper with the number, he soon found another New York connection here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_90_in_New_York

Within New York, I-90 has a complete set of auxiliary Interstates, which means that there are Interstates numbered I-190 through I-990 in the state, with no gaps in between.

Splitting 490690 in two and averaging the 2 resulting numbers gives us 590, which is exactly between 190 and 990 or exactly in the symbolic center of New York somewhere moving west to east, he determined.

Right about… here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_of_Worms_(interchange)

Can front and center once more, he figures the fizz inside has settled down enough to safely pop the top. But dare he?

Another can comes flying through the portal. Saved by the bell, er, *clank*.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0404, Cass City+, Maebaleia/Satori, New York

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December 22, 2023 · 9:55 am

Raccoonsity

“Billie’s filling in for me at the bar while I make this call. She’s a doll, really.”

(reply)

“No. I mean she’s really a doll — mechanical.”

(reply)

“Yeah, they make them in this world too. This *Humansville.*”

(reply)

“Of course not.”

(reply (reiteration))

“I’m pretty much fully disguised now. I have a job. I have new, human clothes.”

(reply)

“Oh it’s what they decided to call an iron and red number, a retro dress.”

(reply)

“Oh I’m blending in.”

(reply)

“Eddie? He’s taking it in stride. He says, get this, it’s better than the cow outfit, haha.”

(reply (laugh as well))

“Listen I gotta run. Billie’s glancing over at me. Don’t want to make her suspicious. You know mechanoids. Takes them a while to get the scent but once they do they sniff and sniff–”

(reply)

“No, I have enough money, thanks. I’ll call you later.”

And with this she hangs up the retro phone into its retro receiver and moves toward the bar again, ready to resume her shift.

Just in the nick of time, phew! Suddenly busy.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0403, Harbourtown, Jeogeot, NWES Island

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December 19, 2023 · 8:57 am

Black Ice

Just not rezzing in. Instead: a white spirit. Probable reality not realized. Dr. White.

“Not showing up tonight, not rabbit, not rab-bat,” spoke High Atlantis Priestess to Mouse over in the corner of the room, still not transfigured to a younger form of himself despite his best efforts. “We’ll just have to do without him.”

And I have a name for her. Bermuda. A triangle of utter non-coloredness, no TILE hues involved. Let’s make this shit *not* happen, I suppose.

“Fine,” he finally said in response. “I’ll begin.” And he followed with mundane statements aplenty, making her yawn and, I believe, fall asleep. She dreamed about past glories.

(to be continued)

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December 18, 2023 · 3:50 pm

00410401

“Who’s your house singer these days? Stacey.”

“Oh, some Irish lass named Rew…, um, Reem… oh I can’t remember her name. Anyway she’s from Cork. Plays some kind of cork instrument as a novelty act. A trom… a trum… oh I can’t remember the name of the thing. Anyway, she’s from Cork.”

“Right right.” Bots, Newt thinks here. Seems like she can pour beer well enough at least. “Cork, huh,” he says to egg her on again.

“She’s from Cork, right. Plays…”

“Never mind,” he waves her off. “I’m just going to take my beer over there. I’ll be back.” He didn’t plan to come back. No real information to be found here.

—–

From his new vantage point in Shenanigan’s, he looks over at the place in the street he watched her fall last night. And then vanish — after the message had been delivered.

Biff sitting along the side wall of the establishment was thinking along the same lines. Stood up on an arranged third date. Marsha “Pink” Krakow nowhere to be found in town apparently in any shape or form, Pinkie Brainerd or Berta Brainard or otherwise. Vanished.

Being the author of this whole mess, Newt understood he had to go over and explain the situation to him as much as possible. Best he knows he’s losing a secretary as well as a girlfriend so he can set the hiring process in motion (etc.).

(to be continued)

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October 20, 2023 · 8:29 pm

another try/revisions

“Senseless war, Speck. Redshirts a plenty.”

“Our past, Cpt.” He arches one of his non-spiraling eyebrows ever higher while checking the tricorder he holds in his hand. “Aand. Our future I’m detecting.”

“How– can… that be, Speck. I… mean…”

“I know what you mean, Cpt.” says Speck, the person playing him thinking that Don is overdoing it again. Shakespearian actors, pheh. He: a Marlowe fan. “Time… doesn’t seem to factor into the equation. Nor space.”

“Space and time, Speck,” gruffly cussed Doc just offcamera here. “Is that all your Vulcan mind can comprehend? There’s such things as *feelings*.”

He turns toward Doc and thus offcamera as well. “I understand feelings too, Doctor. I’m half–”

“Just… stop it– guys.” Cpt. again of course. “This is just– what the Daruvians want us to do. Bicker… amongst ourselves.” He turns halfway toward the camera, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He’s hatching a plot in his mind, a play within a play. “What if… *we* become the actors they *want* us… to be.”

“Or not to be,” Speck chipped in with a rare kind of joke.

Doc — offcamera still — huffed. “You *act*, Cpt. — like the Daruvians are also anything but barbarians. They’re not, dammit. I’ve seen what they did to Jed. Right in the head in bed until he was dead.” He stares intensely at the Cpt. and then Speck. Or so I’ve been told.

“Jed was… an anomaly, Doc.”

“He was a *person*,” counters still fuming Doc. Always angry. Grumpy. “Just because he had 8 arms and a head the size of Nebraska–”

“I’m picking up on something else,” interrupts Speck, always checking for logical developments. “The situation inside the arch has slightly altered to make it a bit more interesting. The primitive weapons known as muskets… are now hoisted over their right shoulders. Not their left.”

All watched as the guns were then lowered and turned. At them.

“RUNNN!!”

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October 20, 2023 · 9:12 am

00400415

Ketchup Tom knew this day would come. End of gig; time to go. But what is time here? It was as if he’d just arrived.

He stared at what he remembered was a sim-skipper outside the window in the harbour. “Should’ve come in on that instead of Marsha’s VW,” he muttered to himself. Marsha was in the shower. *No*: Marsha insisted on renting the place next door instead of staying in the same apartment with Ketchup. She certainly hadn’t given up on Eddie, her Edward, back in Big Sandy — which we’ll be returning to soon.

Ketchup Tom knew he was The Musician. He knew he could come in but, once here, couldn’t leave, unlike so many before him. Because he was different. He and the town were like two cut out pieces of paper stuck together. Like fused leaves of an old waterlogged book found floating in the harbour. “*No*,” he insisted just as vehemently back to Marsha in the rental place next door when he came to tell her. “You have your place and I have mine. Here.”

Yellow House, he knew. He wasn’t going anywhere. Marsha would have leave Gaston by herself.

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October 20, 2023 · 8:34 am

time doesn’t exist

His attached mohawk was more pink than red before but obviously the same otherwise. Ketchup Tom = The Musician fer sure.

“I *lived* here.” Yes, Musician. You were Duncan Avocado as well, breaking the cycle of 10 to 13 to 10 to 13 over and over and over. You glimpsed sunnier 18 and you ran with it. All the way down the street to the car and outta here. But now you’re back. “But now I’m back,” the character said in the present to reinforce this idea.

Mokum, he also thinks in the present, reading the writing on the wall. He remembers that too. Red again.

“My mohawk!” he cries, also realizing the small but still significant color shift.

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October 18, 2023 · 1:43 am

a punk is born (zooming in on yellow (1st thing in the morning))

Many famous musicians have walked the roads of Gaston, and many famous musicians have left from such roads. Not George, though: he remained glued to the town through his car as it were, white in the daylight here but silver at night, as silver as Maxwell’s Hammer.

And now his soul has returned as the strumming punk known as Ketchup Tom because of his red mohawk if not visa versa, Marsha “Pink” Krakow his new drummer in tow, owner of her own VW Bug and one she perhaps is glued to as well, and even perhaps the *same* bug. Paired silver and gold as we’ve mentioned before — or white and yellow in the daytime. The Portal. Mimosa. Probably dusk and dawn as I’m writing and thinking this out.

George also existed here as Duncan Avocado, a character very important to the blog and attached photo-novels up until and including 31. 3-1 (March 1). His birthday which was also kind of his death day, at least in my eyes. He lay in a blue-yellow tent on the floor of the Collagesity library after that, a virtual structure last seen in Constantynople which has recently been destroyed/derezzed, with a final friend in the library *still* a friend — but simply too busy with a young kid to have much time for anything else, including our promised hikes. Important thing: I don’t hold it against him. And I should probably get over my disappointment with Duncan too. Put it in the rear view window. Thing is, we’re *doppelgangers*.

Red blue yellow houses in a row to begin. Again.

“Ugh, my head. W-where am I? And *who* am I?”

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