Category Archives: 04

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.

Leave a comment

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

It’s perch for God’s sake.

Mr. Babyface direly needs to find his nephew in Hana Lei and attempt to talk some sense into him, but he can’t seem to stop studying this Big E provided with the apartment.

“Ahh, what the heck,” he says, prying himself away from the object. “Time to take the plunge…”

—–

“Me Gods, what a mess. A Messiaen Mess.”

He turns around in his tracks, staring into the heart of infantile Hana Lei. “Where *are* the stoneheads?”

He walks down to take a closer look.

The band now known as Lamb were all gathered at Chunkies playing Guess That Fish when Paul heard him grumbling to himself on Swingset Knoll beyond the door. There could be no mistaking.

“Uncle… *Babyface*??”

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0401, HANA LEI, Heterocera, Rubi

Big Reveal

“Omikron City is where I’m from,” a tipsy Teebestia continued for a half listening Danny. “Dancer.”

“Is a full house two sixes?” he asked, staring down.

“David *Bowie* was there. David frick’n Bowie!”

Danny sighs disinterestedly, looks to his right. “Where’d Jackson go? The big blue dude with the gun?”

“Yeah, we were hunting for something for sure,” she slurs, head wobbling. “A *demon*. A demon at the center of it all. Aspertame? Darnit! I can’t remember of the demon we were *all* hunting down there. Over there. Up there.” She points in different directions around the bar. “Hmmm. Why can I not think of… that name??”

Danny turned to her. “Astarte,” he said levelly.

Teebestia’s mouth drops. She even drools a little bit. “What did you say?”

Facing forward, he becomes disjointed again. “Nancy is sooo late.”

2 Comments

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0418, Heterocera, Lapara

flight

No sign of Mary still in Grassland. They stood on its edge now.

“Doesn’t look much like an owl’s head,” Teebestia commented while staring forward. “More like a simple cube.”

“There’s angles to it,” Paul explains. “Things may have been added and subtracted down through the years. It’s a sacred crossover.” He begins to hover in the air. “Like I said, you can fly on this side, but once you cross the line — enter Lapara — everything is suddenly grounded. (Thus) the reason for the balloon (props). I use to sit-in, as they say, but now I’m comfortable with flying. Here, hover up to me and I’ll show you.”

“Soon as I touch ground,” the transmogrified Paul declared.

Teebestia wondered what would happen to her. She panicked.

“I… I’ve decided I have to leave. Another client. Still on the clock, you know. Sorry to rush off. We’ll catch up later. Tata!” She zoomed back into the heart of Grassland and reversed rabbit holed up to Audreys.

“Gin and tonic,” she told Bean. “Make it a double.”

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0417, Heterocera, Lapara

prelude

“Shouldn’t you be telling the police about a missing person case? I’m just a lawyer.”

“I didn’t know who to turn to,” Paul confessed. “Are you sure you don’t want a beer, Teebestia?”

“Teeb, please,” she admonished lightly. “No, not while on the clock, thank you.”

“I don’t know,” Paul continued. “You seemed like an honest person. (With a) good heart.”

“I appreciate that.”

Paul didn’t look over at her while talking. “I’m afraid Mary… went home. Broken heart. It was just after talking about Little One that it happened. Poof… gone.”

“Little One being the last lamb of Grassland.” Teebestia scratched the back of her head. “Tell me more about your Mary if you will.”

“We met in school. Bennington. She was a dancer, I was a stand up comedian. She was into animal rights even then, her and Peter together. That’s how Lamb was created. Broadway.”

“Lamb is the same as Broadway,” Teebestia attempted to clarify.

“Yes,” affirmed Paul.

Teebestia put both hands gently on the counter, just saying what she had to say at this point. “How did *you* get here, then? And how and why do you change *races*?” She thought back to yesterday, when she witnessed the conversion up close and personal. Right as they crossed the line from Astarte into Lapara.

Paul couldn’t reveal what he really wanted to here, the Big One. So he invited her to Owls Head as a substitute. That way they could also look for Mary, if by chance she was still around the underground somewhere. They shot down the newly relocated Rabbit Hole.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0416, Heterocera, Lapara

above below

Tronesisia nurses a jigger of cognac and waits patiently in Audrey’s while the others amble about below and beyond. She speaks to the bartender after glancing over at Curled reading ‘Winesap’. “You know, Bean, they should never have named that boy Paper.”

Meanwhile…

Paul finally made it out of that cave.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0415, Heterocera, Lapara

Silence

It took them a while to find the teleporter up to Audrey’s in the tall grass, the remaining bit of vegetation in Grassland created by magical seeds.

“We need to get The Lawnmower back down here pronto,” Paul demands.

“I’ll see what I can do about,” a smiling Peter replies, thinking he can find him sleeping at the Prog Rock Museum over in Kazzkark.

Paul looks around. “Where’s Mary?”

It’s as if she just disappeared into the weed itself.

—–

Later…

“Wake up Rip Van Winkle. Time to go back to work.”

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0414, Heterocera, Jeogeot, Lapara

group photo 02

“Lambs,” states Paul. “As far as you could see.” He reconsiders. “Well, that’s an exaggeration. How many would you say there was, Mary?”

“20, 25. Then whittled down to 16, then 8, then 4, then 2, then only one. My precious Little One.”

“Little One yeah,” Paul says, thinking back. “That was before the VHC City days.”

“Yes,” Mary answers with a lump now in her throat.

“VHC City?” Peter questions.

“Oh let’s not go back to that right now. Let’s stick to the far past. See, Peter, this is why we should rename our group The Lambs.”

“Or Lamb,” Paul adds.

“That way dazed and confused fans won’t be calling out for that dreaded ‘Huff the Magic Dragon'”.

“Huff, Puff, whatever,” chimes in Paul.

Peter taps his cane on Grassland’s barren ground, producing a hollow sound. If it wasn’t tinted green it might as well be a sandy dune. “And the darters did all this?” he asks. Tacit agreement through silence here. Mary keeps holding back a big cry.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0413, Heterocera, Lapara

group photo

Backpack slightly heavier, Paul enters The Void…

“Honey! You’re back. Look… Green Acres is on! Supper’s Ready.”

No one else would know what Mary was on about except Paul. That was destined to change. Musical partner Peter SoSo was also in Malone Central, but standing off from the others to the left.

“Come over here, Paul,” he said to the just arrived black man. “Cross over this line… dividing the town and lets talk… about Lambs. Did you get the book?”

“Liquor!” clowned Wheeler interrupted to his right. “I hope you’ve returned with some because we’re out. And: meat!”

Peter, Paul and Mary as one stared at her.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0412, Heterocera, Lapara

Lambs

Teebestia kindly and graciously led him to the correct entrance for The Underground in the Lapara part of town, not Astarte. In the process of crossing from the latter sim to the former, Paul became a black man again much to the astonishment of the lawyer lady, but definitely still American. “Water,” he states, standing before the portal. “I wonder why they decided to drown The Underground. Did they want to drowned out *us*? Our voices?” He was considerably more lucid now because of the changeover. It is easier getting away with being high when you’re white than black. Prison awaits for many of his present hue. “Is this a prison as well?” Paul ponders, thinking along the same lines. He lets the dark waters take him once more.

A faster moving train trolley soon comes up from behind and then passes through him.

He watches as it continues rattling down the tracks. When he reaches the main underground station the stopped trolley is still there, but, as usual, with no passengers getting on or off. Yes, in the main this is a ghost train, like Second Lyfe has been ghosted overall. Including Collagesity. Only the Linden wood saves that similarly aged berg from complete extinction, a life support. Here it seems to be something else.

Paul decides to hop on board the train to take a look inside but quickly stands up and exits after it begins moving again. He had been warned by his faith long ago not to ride the fun fun trolley into The Void looming directly ahead — or anywhere else for that matter. “Walking is the light, the way,” the holey book says. “Worship not the road nor the rail but the path itself, always expanding always contracting. This is the path of the heart.”

He thinks back to Teebestia with the exposed heart in The Above now, already far north of here in his mind. *She* led me to the correct path this time. She is a manifestation of spirit.

And then he found another gift on the people-less platform as he walked back to rest his heart a bit. Another tale.

“Grassland,” he said, looking at the cover. “The story of Grassland!”

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0411, Bogota, Bogota Proper, collages 2d, Heterocera, Lapara