Category Archives: 04
00480407
I stumbled out of the Athens restaurant, trying to get away from the doubling and the confusion as fast as possible. The tape wouldn’t work, the tape wouldn’t *work*! And I didn’t know where I was; it was all a maze of streets and jumble of people, people everywhere going in all directions at once. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I felt I was going to scream. I did. I wake up.
—–
He’d heard about a bar up the coast under new management and decided to check it out. “Pirates,” he muttered while pulling in and seeing the treasure map graffiti on the outer wall. But some of them are okay, he remembered. Like Randolph, which started him wondering where in the heck *is* Randolph the Bastard Pirate? He hadn’t seen him in years, it seemed. Anyway, he thought, better head in. Gotta get past that outside pirate first, he he. I’ll bump him real good to make sure he knows who’s the boss. “‘Scuse me fellow.”
Hmm, just passed right through the guy. One of those lifeless flatties, he thought.
And then, inside the bar, more flat, a haircut this time, apparently ongoing judging by the proximate hand with buzzing razor.
“Corona Ultra then, lady,” he ordered after picking his seat and getting the name of the house brand. He needed more alcohol to deal with the strangeness here, but then was greeted with: “We only got Non. No actual booze here, not after the attack by the alcoholic sea monster. Don’t want a return,” she said flatly, as was her overall style and the overall style of the bar as a whole, starting with the flat treasure map, the flat pirate flattie leaning against the front door outside.
“Oh. Okay. A Non, then, I guess. Do I still have to–?”
“Yes,” she said, anticipating the end of his question about paying for the thing he doesn’t desire. She’d heard it before. Several strangers coming here and asking the same. Like Peet Pelican over in Juho. Like Sachie B. from Vortexville, Raymond from Redwoods, Stillman from Stiletto Heels Hills. Drinkers like to drink what they call the real stuff, the real thing. But she’s aiming to change all that with a Non brew that will knock them off their heels, especially Stillman with his stiletto shoes I suppose.
While he was waiting for his drink he didn’t really want to pay anything for, the man simply known as Biker further inspects the place. “What’s with the robot?” he queried.
“Oh, came with the place,” she said while pouring. “I guess that it dropped down from the hillside above sometime during the renovation and just got lodged inside. So I set it upright, let it walk in place again. He’s harmless. I think. Anyway, I haven’t decided if I want to keep him or not. There’s another one, another robot — smaller — still up on the hill about to tumble over the side too. Maybe he’ll join him soon. Dunno, in summary. I call him Clocky but he doesn’t speak, he doesn’t have any soul that I can tell. Maybe he just needs reactivation.”
“I see.” (TBC)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0407, Europe, Greece, Jeogeot, Nawt Vaya+, NVFS, South Lake, Vortexville
00480406
He told me to back up a bit more and I finally saw it, the double vision he spoke about before locking into place like a renegade magic eye. 2 halves of the restaurant directly overlapping each other through a crossing, slots in one seeming to be perfectly filled by the other.
The ears of the mirrored central woman with the flaxen hair is whispered into by the dark hard woman on either side, perhaps the most obvious communication between the now combined spaces. I could even make out the hushed words they shared: “I am instant.” With this, the two instantly became untangled, the special vision was over and the restaurant returned to mundane, like a master magician snapping one out of hypnosis. Albertville Mercury Spaghettiboro was back at his noodle cooking station inside the customer encircled kitchen, unable to be spoken to any longer. He was never here in the first place. But what was said before the transfer knocked me on the floor, kicked me in the shins, insert whatever idiom for shock and awe you wish here. Fortunately I made sure I recorded at least the meaty part of our imaginary conversation. 🙂
Looking around to doublecheck everything remained stable, I went into the men’s bathroom to play, making sure noone else was in it; just couldn’t wait. I killed two birds with one stone (another idiom!) while sitting on the commode. PRESS
ME: Yes, now it’s on. Continue… (pause) You were talking about the origin of the restaurant’s name (I prompted). (longer pause) Albertville?
I cut off the machine along with the pee. Something went wrong! (TBC)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0406, Europe, Greece
00480405 (Athens now)
Well it was absolutely the worse place Lexi and I could have gone. The slurping the slurping! We could only stand it for a second then had to mute the whole location. We’d have to read lips from now on. Luckily lips are like one pink and we had no problem with it. Carrcass+1.
“About the dandelion!” I said if only to others, the words understood as mere vibrations to myself physically and in my head mentally. Lexi couldn’t take any more and exited the scene stage left, not even being able to stand just visual. Those mouths those mouths!
“Yeah, what about the dandelion!?” responded the waitperson closest to me, 2 plates in his hands and one spinning on his nose, just kidding about the nose. But as deftly as he was handling those plates with 3 bowls apiece full of steaming hot noodles he might be able to pull it off. I could tell he could pause only for a second, which was reinforced when he said, “Hurry up, man!”
I hesitated again and he was gone. Waitress I’d had my eye on next. “Miss, oh miss!?” She presently had 3 drinks in her two hands and one arm, that 3rd tucked behind one of the ones in the hands, reader’s choice. Not a nose once more but pretty impressive still. “Hurry it up, bud!” she said, kind of mimicking the man. “The dandelion… what is the signif—!” But she was gone with the “…”. I had to learn from past mistakes! We’ll… 2 of them. Dammit!
Next: the ramen cooker. Albertville Mercury Spaghettiboro I learned, an Italian by way of Stockholm and Lima. I had to lean in real hard from my stool at the crowded counter to get his attention back in back. “About the dandelion!” I pointed almost straight up now to the most significant card picture (to me) attached to the metal partition encircling the kitchen at the center of it all instead of forward like before. “Significance?!” I uttered as simply as possible but still with perhaps too many syllables. Caught him right at the start of his break. And, big break, he was a big fan of restaurant lore. *My* big break.
15 minutes and 15 seconds later, we got to the mention of “tartar mosquito” in that badly translated Tripadvisor review which led me here in the first place. Success! (TBC)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0405, Europe, Greece
00480404
And so we begin at the end, 561 steps from. Walking down, we’ve returned to the ONE but with nowhere to go but back up.
“NEXT!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0404, Heterocera, Jeogeot, NWES Island, Rubi
00480403 (where do *we* end?)
And so the real world smacks us in the face, the ear, turning it blue. I said it’s a lobe cyst and the doctor said I could have it drained or just — his recommendation — leave as is. It still itches. The man before me doing the metaphorical slapping seemed a nice enough fellow otherwise in an odd way, but maybe an odd good way? Intelligent for sure, but does he having a beating heart, a true conscience? He *couldn’t see the pond*. I’ve been studying his choice of profession this morning a bit, what I can understand of it. Works to streamline the health care billing system which drives down payments on both patient and provider sides. What a mess this country is in. Would his business suffer if we, as a whole, moved into some kind of universal health care model following all other 1st world, high income countries, simplifying the process? Probably — unless this potential change is baked into its plan. I try to put myself in his shoes, see affordable health care for all while keeping the business side solvent as an attainable goal and not a pipe dream some make it out to be. Socialism — worse: communism. Do the majority of people in his business see it this way? Or is this just a pure capitalist, profit making affair? I don’t know. Again: the mess. Nothing is pure capitalism, nothing is pure socialism. Neither can work alone. That’s why we have government bailouts at the inevitable recessions, and so on. But I’m not a businessman. I think it starts at the top and works downward. If businesses are to be treated like individuals then they, too, must find their heart, the conscience — the caring for the others and, turning to actual individuals again running the businesses, not just some immediate family situation; preserving the bloodline. Taking care of those who are like you and have chosen similar paths in life and are doing well in the current, top bloated economic situation. Trickle Down doesn’t work without checks and balances to power-grabbing. You can’t keep giving people at the pyramid peak all the breaks, the piled-up advantages.
My whole way of life has been upended — NOT. I’m in excellent health for my age. I can walk up and down and sideways on hills with no problems now, unlike this past winter with the hip issue. I can go go go and I’m taking advantage of it. But… has it finally caught up with me, this boundary stretching lifestyle of mine? I have problems with them. That’s why this blog has been labeled purely educational and out of the profit loop. We have pensions and other retirement incomes, especially when we’re both past 66 and ss fully kicks in, which will happen soon. We’ll be okay. I’m thinking more of others. I pity the younger folk of not only this country but of the world. I’m bouncing around, I know.
Boundaries — I want a world where ALL generated societal information is free and open to use. Creativity ultimately lies in the psyche of the collective and not the individual working within it utilizing smaller goals. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants. We build up from the past, coral-like, to make our future to be continued. We are never alone and never have been. We are all ONE.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0403
00480402 (Gerald in The Pool of Waters)
He was finished with Little and was ready for Big. What a fine specimen of a man, Dr. Alexis thinks while he passes and disrobes again at the larger of the 2 pools in this area of the temple, a tag-along colleague of Dr. Tom and also somewhere where she wasn’t suppose to be. Studying bodies in the wrong way, non-scientific that is.
“Ladies, mind if I join you?” he asked while dipping in, eliciting girly titters all around.
She didn’t even know the name of some of the body parts where his scars were located. Perhaps a quack as well? (TBC?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0402, Little Hell+, Omega, Southern, Witcher
00480401
She was at 90 degrees again but at least she was in the right time this place and not 3 years in the past. She’d caught up with him: Dr. Tom.
He was watching one of his patients dance, inappropriately enough, ‘nuf said about that. We’ve visited this location before. The land of the purple cubes, purple in general. Couches and all. ‘Nother one. This is the touristy part; we probably don’t want to know what goes on in other areas. A captured pawn (one (Alpha)) falls off the table between chess playing Fisher and Rigg. Oregon.
And we have a name, thanks to Delaware: Little Hell. Yes, Dr. Tom fits right in. (TBC)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0401, Little Hell+, Maryland, Omega, Oregon, Southern
00470417
“Dimmy, I am the mama you answer to from now on. Understand?”
Dimmy nods, suddenly not remembering how his mother actually looks. Maybe this *is* his mother. Yes, only several seconds later, he’s convinced. “I *will* find your toys, Mama!” he exclaims aloud.
“Good, good,” Rag Doll says to this. “At least you got the string. And *you* Newt,” she turns her attention to the other male sitting in the front row. “Newt of Newtown. What are you doing flirting with a woman 5 years older than you looking 15 years older? Does *Wheeler* know about this?”
“Well…” Newt glances over at second row Wheeler, who doesn’t glare back as might be expected but seems kind of indifferent to the situation. She’s seen worse. She *is* worse.
“Never mind. You met her in the mall today by the way. Do you think he was really there?”
“I–”
“Moving on,” Rag Doll quickly said. “To Osborne. Osborne, look up from your book and pay attention.”
Daughter Lou beside him nudges his ribs with her elbow. “Da-ddy. She’s talking to *you* now.”
“Oh, ahem. Um. What?”
“The town owner,” Lou tries to whisper but everyone in the room hears anyway. “Up there… on the stage. The dancers are gone. The main show is on.”
“Oh, erm, yes. Yes!” he speaks up, a little too loud he realizes. “I’m here, town ruler,” he softens a bit.
“And you’ve found MOA?” this ruler asks.
“Why yes, I believe I have. It’s in the basement…” Osborne looks around as if seeing the sewer room for the first time. Suddenly he doesn’t know where the library is, its basement, anything. He recalls… walking through a soda machine.
“Good enough,” says Rag Doll. “We’ll talk more soon in private about that. Let’s see, that leaves Eight and Eighty and then Pietmond and Norris. Let’s start with the girls. Eight, we’ve talk a lot down at the ratskeller together while Eighty was away, shared a lot of town gossip and rumors in our giggly, girlish ways. I wonder if you’ve thought about the note.”
“Eighty looks at Eight as if also betrayed, more than Wheeler perhaps surprisingly. Eight seeing Rag Doll behind Eighty’s back? When did her position in town change?
“I took the note from you 2 years ago and yet you didn’t protest. I called it worthless and you didn’t question my questionable assessment. Of course it’s not worthless. I’ve manifested it in your pocket — just look! EINSTEIN; ‘To; Tu/E.”
Pulling the note out and unfolding it, Eight saw, Eighty next to her too. More to talk about later.
“And then the boys, Norris and Pietmond. Clearly Nazis are bad and deserved to be mowed down, ancient headgear or not. So by, let’s say, moral default you have won the contest. Now think carefully: What do you wish your dream island to be?”
After high-fiving each other about the victory, the boys talked amongst themselves and then spoke up. They jointly described a post-Nazi (is)land full of decent Germans in a more modern setting, adding central yellow to an already present red and black in the national flag for increased light and illumination. Given enough time if not space, these people may even be able to make light/find levity in a dark dark past, they theorized. “Our ancestors, PHEH,” said one or the other. “What *were* they thinking about, and so on.” This would obviously take a while, though, the boys furthered. In the meantime, they could go about their daily business in the light of God-day without accumulated sin from their country’s history weighing them down. They’d be free. “This is what we wish,” they finished.
And so it came to be. The burg of Newtown with the sim of Newt at its core was born retroactively from that moment, hurrah! END OF SECTION.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0417, Jeogeot, Newtown+
00470416
Newtown policepeople Michelle Roundup and Bill Mustardgas also formed a legitimate and formidable team but they were currently investigating the Blue Moon static murders over on the old continent of Our Second Lyfe and thus unavailable.
Nor were Ted and Cruise of the potential When Push Comes to Shovel team, still on the clock down at the motor shop and unable to get off.
Which left the following, assembled in the sewer room underneath the entrance to also absent Alfred’s grocer store (sick with pill), the heart of the matter. Starting back row to the right, we have Norris and Pietmond, 2 gypsies (don’t call them hippies!) who rammed and bammed into town from the South Gate in a most dramatic fashion back at the beginning of this here section, killing a number of Germans but defending their actions by saying they were zombies and not real people. Were they right? Let’s move on down the row and we might see.
Next are Eight and Eighty last seen in the ratskeller beneath town hall, waiting for Alessandra who is the same as a white-clad Wheeler. Wheeler mistakened one of them for town *owner* Rag Doll, but she got her position wrong in town. The owner herself will be arriving shortly to correct all that.
Moving on to the second row from the back — and also the front — we have Osborne Well and, next to him, his daughter Lou, taking the place of Ruby and Bookie who also couldn’t make it for various reasons. Next is Wheeler likewise subbing for Alessandra, but, unlike the others, not directly sitting with her partner, who would be next up in our review front row right: Newt. Then to finish our teams off we have Dimmy and Marilyn M. from the cloth shop scene a couple of posts ago.
Time for dancing around the main subject matter is over. Red clad Shelley and now black clad mate Eddy unclasp themselves from each other and leave the stage. Rag Doll takes control….
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0416, Jeogeot, Newtown+
Sunklands 