Category Archives: 04

March 25, 2023 · 8:37 am

00370404 (party 04)

Edward split the scene, went back to Shelley in the main house still sitting and gabbing with Sandy and Penny. As soon as he could, he told her what happened, coloring it a bit.

Boatman Zach Black, responsible for moving Sandman’s now almost empty vessel over to this more distant dock to make room for newer and importanter arrivals, offered his opinion on what he couldn’t help overhear in his proximity to the situation. “There’s still presents there,” he said. “Those crosshairs indicate. They’re just… hidden.”

“I know.” Sandman knew this fact. Tell me something I don’t know, he thought about the Boatman. Then he did.

“Edward is one bad mofo. I don’t blame you for not messing with him, not telling him off or even pushing him off that ramp. Bad decision if so.”

Sandman knew this. It was the next thing Zach Black said that he didn’t.

“Wonderful evening we’re having otherwise,” he said. “Not a star in space as I’m eyeballing it.”

Backwards from normal, Sandman noticed. Interesting now. He looked up. Indeed clear. Indeed starless. Bible black.

“Do you know of his new girlfriend, friend?” Zach continued to talk. “The golden girl he’s been calling her. Even though she’s married to another. Did you know that?”

Sandman didn’t know this. Please continue, he thought, peering up again.

(to be continued)

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March 25, 2023 · 7:34 am

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)

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March 25, 2023 · 7:00 am

00370402 (party 02)

By the time Shelley and Edward had arrived, Sandman, as most called him, was on his 3rd rosé served by Rose. He missed a clear look of Shelley in the dying daylight, although he had an interesting face to face with Eddie, as he called him, later on. Before this, he started confessing to Rose about some of the situation. “Presents,” he began, shaking his head. “They were all in my mind.”

“There, there,” she said, then popped the cork again and hovered the bottle over his nearly empty glass. “Another?” He waved it off. “Better head home soon. Nothing to see here.”

But before he was able to get back to the boat, Edward, having separated from Shelley, stepped in-between. “Amos,” he said, using his first name instead of last, the only one I can think of to do so. Perhaps the only one who even knew what it was.

“Eddie,” he responded. So it had come to this.

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March 23, 2023 · 2:45 pm

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)

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January 12, 2023 · 10:54 am

00360417

On the outskirts of Mortons Gap lies Tintown, or use to until it became another one of those pandemic casualties. There you could dig for Gold, which means you could find Self, alchemically speaking.

All of ’em.

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January 11, 2023 · 5:46 pm

dream 00360416 (“traces”)

A mysterious red being directly beneath a towering redwood tree, extending all the way into space and a bit beyond.

Another appears in the center of a circle of pink albuca flowers (see: shoulders of Dr. Back before). Both are completely invisible to the naked eye, like outer planets.

This one is without a head, in contrast to the first. Dr. Back indeed.

Looking directly into the face of already decapitated Man About Time, Shelley struggles in vain to get away. Trapped.

Only one other blue around to help her, but she’s on a different level. She heard the screams for help, though.

Too late (OWWWW!). Although the now soul-less body still twitches.

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January 11, 2023 · 4:54 pm

Demon (Dr. Back)

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January 11, 2023 · 10:36 am

00360414

Geez that gray woman has been out there quite a while, Shelley thinks, having woken up in a strange camper in the sim above Mortons Gap but then recalling the story.  She could hear the crashing of the waves when she stirred, a reassuring sound. Arthur must be around. They were just too tired to walk all the way back to the hotel after visiting the Ant Castle up on the mountain, quite a climb to get to. So they just bunked down here as the sun set into the ocean, just to do something different, they agreed. “No one around,” spoke her newlywed husband. “Why not,” she replied. But that gray person… actual owner? Telling me I’m intruding on her property? Could just ask, she thought as she took another sip of coffee and continued reading the article she started, it seemed, a 1/2 hour ago. Ooo, she thought. Just there. The woman took on appearance; just for a second. Yes, staring right at me, it seems (!). Better gather up Arthur and head back to the hotel. Probably down on the beach.

—–

He comes here often and just sits and listens. “Getz/Gilberto” always seems to be spinning on the turntable, the record that started it all for bossa nova, as he learned. Steely eyed Luther stirs the patriotic soup slowly and deliberately, like an automaton instead of an actual person. ‘Nother “gray” being. And what has Clifton Mahoney got on the docket today? Well — beach. Just like Shelley and Arthur. Coming up is a collision course of information that would change everyone’s world. The Ant Castle was not what it seemed (!).

—–

Barry down at the pier would be involved too. Because after 8 straight days of angling it was about time to head home. Art studio. Just below the castle. Barry’d seen and heard things there he didn’t want to dwell upon, didn’t want to be in such close proximity to. Thus the trip into town, to the beach, to the pier. Sanity in contrast. Warm sense of people around. F-ing cold in the gray granite mountains above Mortons Gap this time of year, but not necessarily that kind of cold. Remote kind of cold, the worst type. Barry liked privacy when he painted but enough was enough. But, also, he couldn’t stay away forever, had to face the devil sometime.

(to be continued)

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January 10, 2023 · 1:14 pm

trunks

Shelley loves hanging around the beach. Arthur and she have such a great time night after night, day after day here… in Mortons Gap overall. She could see living here, staying here. A bit laggy, but they’re working on it, reducing shaders, draw distance, etc. Even minimizing screens, their view on the world, if needed. It wasn’t ideal. But — so pretty.


If she could just erase that full moon faux pas from her memory. What did Arthur do that night? she wondered for certainly not the first time. Because she’d found lipstick on his coat which wasn’t hers — she rarely uses it except when they hit the town. And the smell of lobsters. Or was it crabs? — she’d have to check the difference between the 2 later on when they walk down to the fisheries. Do it nice and subtle.

Nearby Arthur was building another one of his patented sand castles, complete with ants that he’d found on the vegetated dunes in back. He was trying to recreate the past. In truth, someone had put a spell on him. George/Musician most likely, if only from his dreams. He wanted to walk up to the real Ant Castle later that day, thus Shelley’s excuse to visit the fisheries kind of on the way. Ah heck, she’ll just ask him. Why does she care if he stayed with another woman that night. *She* was with a woman that night. Served her right. Painful, very painful, but… what was the right expression for it? Tit for tat, she decided. Or tit for tit — something.

She swung down from the palm tree, walked over. “About ready to go?”

He was about to coronate the new king and queen of the ants after building their thrones. “5 more minutes,” he requested, herding the crowd in the right direction.

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January 9, 2023 · 6:41 pm

Redrüm again

Let’s see, I’ve done a blue dress and a red dress. How about a purple one this time.

A purple cube manifests in the room as sewing Wheeler Wilson thought this. The door opened. Showtime.

—–

“This cat’s ears are soo soft (!).”

“Ma’am — or sir — I hate to rush you but the show’s about to start. Do you want to check in your overcoat or not?” She indicated the indicated sign with the hand and all, warning that the establishment would not be responsible for hats and coats unless checked in at the front.

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” She could feel his eyes bore into her back and side. Her *real* son. At long long last. She was actually frozen with indecision. And because she was a chaos object, everything else in the place froze along with her — oops, there goes Doris, not asking questions any longer, not pattering her fingers impatiently on the counter. 7:21PM. Son Cory’s shoulders also move for the last time in the recognition. Mother.

Spade tattooed bartender Sarah escaped with her gum *just* in the nick of time, but heart tattooed assistant Rosalyn didn’t make it. A bit too red herself, I suppose.

—–

Alright Jackie. Explain to me *one* more time about how you escaped the crematorium? And where’s Don?”

“Burt. His name was Burt.”

“*Was*? So… he’s dead. He did his duty.”

“Yes. I guess.” She started crying. “I don’t know.”

“And the rooooocckks??” They were the most important thing for Officer Davis Jefferson, the most complete bastard of a guy on the town’s force, ever in pursuit of the notorious Black Lake Gang and his one-to-one ultimate archrival Brutus, who also goes by Ted. Curious: So close to Burt; just rearrange the beginning letters a tad, a pinch, after dropping off the US. And where were we? Back on Nautilus? It might be so, although the map says Maebaelia. We’ll coordinate and synchronize asap.

Better stop questioning the dangerous bitch and handcuff her, Jefferson thinks here. Haul her unfried ass back to hq.

It wasn’t Brutus but it was a pretty satisfying arrest nonetheless. Might get him a promotion to sgt., even, which would be bad for everybody, the law, law abiding citizens, and crinimals all.

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