Blue rose embellished Arthur Kill stands in red ones in Joffy and peers at a picture of three, child carrying blue-ish elephants, with the 3rd also rainbow tinted. That’s the one, he thinks from his thorny position. Better get this back to Marty.
Corsica is an… well, you know the story by now.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0501, Ashenlave^, Corsica, Henrietta^
He was just a kooky old Japanese guy on permanent vacation. But at least he brought his slippers to Rose-, er, this *place*, unlike fellow vacationer Donald Farr before him earlier this winter. He’d heard the robot play the 2 “Gouldberg Variations” in a row, a realm favorite thanks to Merry. Bookends they were, and belonged together as one. Now he was ready for Zoidboro’s sermon at the Church of the Fly Lord behind him here. Perhaps he’d meet Peter today. Parasol said he would like him. Another old dude. And spoke a bit of Japanese, even.
—–
“The world is a windshield,” Zoidboro preached through tentacle covered mouth, “waiting to take you out when you least suspect it. Take Little Timmy Flick last week over on Highway 52 behind the old Tastee Freeze. Take Thomas the Elder this past Tuesday before the last Wednesday after Monday’s Friday at the Yoko Ona Parody Museum, in the parking lot even. Yea, parking lots can be dangerous too. Central parking lots especially. To get to a Square, you must always Times something….”
Ji-San turned to the man sitting next to him and spoke low beneath the sermon. “Are you per chance Peter?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0501, Rose Heaven^^
“Senor Green Jeans is a cousin,” states Gene “Mossman” Fade in that oh so grating voice of his after I told him about Alice Farrowheart and granddaughter Toddles’ recent encounter at the Neptune Pool in NWES. If only it were an octave higher Baker Bloch may be able to tolerate the gutty gravelliness for suitable periods of socializing. But I suppose that would mean he’d have to be *Jean* Fade instead of Gene, a girl instead of a boy. Hmm: I wonder, then, if Senor Green Jeans is a girl? But he must get out of here soon. Very much so.
“What does this mean for the town, this name change back to Collagesity?” Gene continued, wondering how it would affect the business at his small bar on Northside.
“It gives it a center,” Baker spoke, the male one that is (there’s also Baker Blinker, of course, the anima to his animus). “We have a tower now. Have you gotten down to that side of town tonight to see? Everyone is gathering. Looks like an instantaneous party, complete with a bonfire. All our friends will be there.” Time’s up. Baker can’t take any more of the voice. He gets up to leave. “See you there hopefully?” he throws back while walking away, rapider and rapider.
—–
Baker was too late for the party, although the bonfire was still smoldering. Police office Jeffry Tanner (yes, yet another cousin), making his nightly rounds, puts it completely out with a special spray made out of anti-tabasco sauce.
But, in the background, we can see the tower, so high from this angle it’s a little hard to make out the “Collagesity” sign.
And even more has happened in town. A certain, special special deity has bloomed new life. Or visa versa. Details soon!
Welcome back Collagesity!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0016, 0501, Collagesity Fordham, Lower Austra^, Nautilus
“*Now* can I enter Pipersville?”
“*Thank* – *you*.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0501, Maebaleia/Satori, Pipersville/Sink X^
“So they began playing together, even touring together away from Pipersville, the home base. Daughter and father; Jenny and Keith they were called in the days. Well, Keith never changed his name. Jenny, of course, became Your Mama.”
“Of course,” I replied to Detective Biff Carter. Because he was an officer of the law no more. Not since Oakley. But who am I? Just an observer for now. Call me Smart. Like a Fox. Clever, even. Back to Biff…
“I was here when they played their first gig away from home. Sitting right at this bar listening in. Oh that woman, that *girl* at the time, could sing. And Keith. Well, he was adequate on drums. Never guess he’d eventually become a member of a major rock band, let’s say. And, as you can see, he’s still got the star on the drums; hadn’t got rid of that yet.”
I peered over at the illusion on the Cassandra City stage. Keith B., bank employee of Pipersville whose boss recently told him to keep daughter Jenny out of that room at all cost. So he went into the garage, found the drum kit buried under a heap of old moss. Pulled it out, dusted it off. Practiced. Here we are.
Biff Carter stared over at me. “I’m glad I found the Man About Time, even if it didn’t turn out the way I expected.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. I decided to test my new catchphrase. “There’s a Sucka born every half century.”
“Overlap,” he replied, nodding. “Good idea. Train the replacement.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0014, 0501, Cass City^, Maebaleia/Satori
“I think it will be a good day in BoB today, don’t you think sister of mine?”
“BoB willing. Let me check my hand mein sister.”
“The veins indicate good fortune and good weather. The arteries I feel inside the veins dictate strength within weakness.” She put her ivory hand back in her lap. “It is time to venture out into the No Sayers Land. It is time to say Yes to No.”
“Last time…” Esther ventured.
“I know, I know. We will take Terrible Tarantula this time for ease of negotiation. Bring forth the Cage of Time!”
Significant pause. “I don’t know where that is sister of mine. We might have left it at Jim’s. How about the Fence of Space?”
“Very well,” Esther relents. “The Fence… of Space!”
“There he is, mein sister,” quivered Esther, turning around to behold the manifested demon dog corralled by an invisible barrier. “The terrible, horrible Tarantula. More Terrible than Horrible, hence the name.
“That one day when he ate friend Jim Buffet was pretty horrible,” offered sister Mamie.
“Indeed. But also terrible. And Terrible is what we need today to protect. What else do we got?”
“Erm, Plaid the Imploder? That’s all I got.”
“Bring forth! Wait… we need a safe container… forgot. Always forgetting that. Let’s see Fence of Space — Terrible Tarantula’s occupying that right now. Can’t let *him* loose like before. “How about the Box of Chocolates. Box of Chocolates!” she summons.
“Oh no! Left open!” they screamed in terrible, horrible unison.
Jim had just killed his two bestest friends he ever had in the world. He observes from heaven. “Oh no! Left open!” he cries in turn. But with sarcasm.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0013, 0501, Lower Austra^, Nautilus
He was totally lost. “Vortexville,” he repeated to the zombie looking bartender named Reginald (Reggie).
“Hmm,” Reggie exclaimed. “Lots of places named something like that around here. Vortex, Chaos, Waste this and that. Junk this or another. Toxic, Destitute, Unsavory Lane… Black Hole Village down yonder in the Big Canyon. You’ll have to elaborate more. Who’s in this place? What are some of the residents’ names?”
“I was hired by a Grannie of some kind,” replies the about equally confused builder named Jackson. Jackson Bloch, but no kin to our Baker Bloch. “Or Grannis. Maybe it was Grannis. Or Grannie.”
“*Whose* Granny, then? Don’t know anyone by the name of Granny. Don’t know Vortextra…”
“Vortexville,” Jackson corrected. His left earring glinted. It always did when he felt he was brighter than the person being spoken to at the moment. A character giveaway.
“Maybe Mary will know. Mary’s been around longer than about anyone around these here parts. Lives over in Hambone. I’ll give her a ring. If the telephones are back up.” Reggie retreats behind the bar. Jackson Bloch can hear him speaking to someone. They talk for about 15 minutes. Reggie returns.
“Sorry about that.” We haven’t caught up in a while. Have to be nice to the vampires, you know. They’ll eat you in the middle of the night if not. Mary’s okay, though. And she knows everything.” He pauses, looks at the ceiling.
“Well?” Jackson implored after a minute. “Does she know, er, Grannis? Grannie?” he revolved around again, then held firm with the second. “Grannie… pretty sure.”
“Yeah. I think she does.” Again the pause. Jackson caught on. He visualized how many linden dollars he brought with him on the trip. Just enough to get by. Ruin construction doesn’t bring in the big bucks it use to. He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet, and slipped Reggie a fiver, hoping that would be enough. It was. Reggie knew about the downturn of the ruin construction business as well.
“Yeah, it’s Jethro and Bauer’s place down on the southwest corner of The Fracture. But it’s a fur piece from here. Did you bring any weapons? A lot of people around here frown on outside weapons. They’ll shoot you good and dead just for that. Best to buy from the local traders. You might as well just give me any weapons you brought with you, then. I’ll make sure they get put in the right hands… er, destroyed. Destroyed I meant there.”
His boss didn’t supply him with any weapons. Budget cuts again. But he didn’t want to expose this weakness. Reggie seemed decent enough for a zombie, but this was a tough place with obviously a lot of back stabbing going on. “Just my red belt in karate, ha ha.” He faked a judo stance on the bartender, who didn’t know the difference. “Oh,” he said. “I see. Oh… I hear the phone again. Better go see who it is.”
Jackson Bloch didn’t hear anything. No ringing. Maybe it was all the bling in his ears. The left one blinged for vanity, the right for gluttony. Right now he was getting hungry. His ear told him. No food here, though, unless you like human flesh. And he wasn’t ready to go there yet. Not quite yet. Stay in The Waste long enough and its something you have to contemplate hard and long about. Most succumb. It’s an acquired taste.
Reggie returned to the counter once more. “I had Mary call off her attack on you. Have to be honest and up front with you. No one knows judo or karate around here, or can tell them apart.”
Obviously, thought Jackson. His left ear glinted again.
“You wouldn’t be worth the trouble.” He leaned forward, his putrid breath against Jackson’s neck. “Here’s the deal.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0012, 0501, The Waste^^
“Original form, eh?”
“*Ghost form, yeah,” spoke Bracket. “I died quite a long time ago now.”
Treelor contemplated this. “I can barely remember my original form. Lost — but I remember where I was born. A place called Outlander.” She paused. “Outlander? Something Outside. Outlands? Anyway, it was very green and quite pretty. A valley in the middle of it all. That’s where I came from.”
“Corsica for me. Bracket Islands. Named after me. I was king.”
Treelor continued rocking. “Did you have a queen?”
Bracket Ghost recalled something about a hill. Fivepenny. “I believe so,” he answered after the memory. “But she was underwater.” He remembered something else. “Green. Half woman half fish. Merwoman I suppose. That’s who I was married to. And she… could play a mean game of crocket.”
“Cricket?” Treelor attempted to clarify. “Do you mean the game of cricket?”
“Croquet,” Bracket then corrected himself.” More memories. “Had a mansion.”
“Hmph.”
They rocked for about a half minute in silence, which Treelor then broke. “I suppose we should get somewhere tonight. Gaston is a logical choice. VW and all. Abbey Road and such.”
“Suppose. Awfully laggy there. We may not make it out, hehe.”
“We’ll have to take that chance.”
Bracket checked his landmarks. “Blue house okay?”
“Sure.”
—–
“Maybe we should start here by washing some dishes.”
“Right. Clean up. You better change over. No aliens. Remember?”
—–
“Where’d she go?”
“Crappy damn place.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0011, 0501, Gaston^^, Hana Lei^^
2:55:
“No, there’s no plans for a prison in these schematics, Mr. Man.”
“EM! Call me EM! Everybody does!”
“Um, EM.”
“How ’bout Smithy’s place?! Is it finished?!”
Rob Reeder and Ted Totter just stared at each other, unable to decipher what Eraserhead Man was on about now.
“Um… Smithy?”
“Yeah. And Ghostwood! Ghostwood Estates Mental Hospital! Audrey’s there!”
Rob Reeder and Ted Totter exchanged looks. “Do you want us… to *add* these things, Mr. Man… EM?”
EM paused dramatically, then: “YES!”
—–
“Where *is* he?” groused Chloe Price, sitting in the blue chair . “Where’s our famous director?”
“He said 3 o’clock,” returned Jill MacGill from the red one. “Be patient.”
Chloe checked her watch, then nodded. “All right, all right.”
“Only 3:05 now.”
“O-*kay*.”
—–
3:15:
“I’m tired of looking at this poster and water fountain. I’m going to roam about the place. Freely.”
“NO,” commanded Jill. “EM said to *stay put* this time. He’ll be here shortly. Sometimes he goes on… tangents. As you well know. He said 3 so it will probably be 3:30. Just give him time. Don’t leave me in this spooky place *alone*.”
“Spooky?” questioned Chloe to Jill.
“I meant just: place. I suppose it’s not that spooky.” But Jill was shaking within. She’d seen a ghost here and another one could come.
—–
—–
3:35:
Jill relented out of boredom and strategy. “All right, tell me about this game you found near the Horne Inn. The one EM left you.”
Suddenly alert, Chloe’s head bounced up off her raised knee. “I’ll do better than that.”
—–
3:45:
“Wrong building!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0010, 0501, Coast Town Sims^, Sansara, Urbane Blue/Fishers Island^
The next morning, Bill couldn’t stop playing a role.
“I mean I get the whore part but why did she have to add ‘trash’?” she complained to the hammerhead shark circling above. “Trash is just, well, trashy.”
“Whisk me away from this New Island to another land, Blow Boy. I command it.”
But Mid Hazel soon tracked down her former pupil and locked her in an underwater cage near the manor house for a tough love lesson. Wasn’t hard: she could literally smell the treason. “If you like the sea so much, you can stay down here for a while,” she cackled before leaving. And of course Mid Hazel couldn’t resist mixing the phrase “whore trash” into the conversation a couple of times.
Seven days she stayed down there. And when Mid Hazel released her on Saturday, Bill was indeed ready to hammer out a deal. Blow Boy was walking on another continent by now.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0009, 0501, New Island^
Sunklands 