Category Archives: 0514

March 23, 2020 · 8:48 am

off center

“You don’t even know who I am. You *can’t* stay here forever.”

“I know, I know.” He looked out across the field of flowers — ‘nother one.

“We could dance before you go. I can do that for you. One last dance.”

“Mary Jane–”

“That’s not my name,” she interrupted. “You know my name.”

“June, yes,” he offered. “Like the month.”

“A particular June as well. This June.”

“Okay.”

“Not Jane.”

“Alright, alright.” Perhaps this wasn’t Paradise after all. Like she said, he must return. No short way to the center for certain.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0514, Corsica, Egg Hill Sink

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January 18, 2020 · 9:48 am

not today

I’m very close to the answer, Axis thinks while staring up.

He turns. Very close.

He buys the “white eye” offered on top of the old drum can for a linden dollar, wears, and instantly becomes blinded.

“*Shite*.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0514, Kowloon+

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November 12, 2019 · 7:50 am

Steamboat

Mr. Babyface looked down at the large palm tree The Man About Time was currently referring to. “The Hole is gone,” he had just said about the mysterious object formerly underneath it. “When Mick jumped in, the effect was gone. The great 2-n-1 was over.”

“Takes 2 to know, yeah,” Mr. Babyface says in response now, thinking he needs to phone up Greg Ogden as soon as possible. Or, on the other hand, Gregg Oden, if he’s in that form presently. He’d been romancing a living, breathing Mandela Effect for months and didn’t know it, didn’t know the term for it. The Man About Time is attempting to clear this up.

“Gaston has a lot to do with this,” then offered MAT in his mild voice while scratching the back of his neck on the couch. “Changes people, and sometimes not for the good.” He scratches more. “Sometimes… for the bad.”

“And that’s where Greg said he was going in that letter he wrote me,” completes Mr. Babyface while turning, more eager than ever to pick up the phone.

But which way to go, he thinks, receiver in hand just later. Does he go to Gaston or does Greg come here?

“I’ll come to you,” responds Greg Ogden at his red Gaston house. “They frown on mutanty looking people around here,” he said, referring to Mr. Babyface’s baby faced head.

“Well I *never*.” But he was coming back and that was the most important thing. He was pulling him out of *there*.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0016, 0514, Collagesity Fordham-, Gaston+, Lower Austra, Nautilus

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August 31, 2019 · 8:24 am

Jim is Dead

It was a logical conclusion. Jim A. was the person in The Room when the Chip Shot bomb went off. Afterwards: both A. and B.; options if you will. Outside and in. Red and green. How it *was*.

With a couple clicks of the mouse (*not* moose!) he could reclaim his Jim Club on Main Street and revitalize Creepy Alley in a limited way. Reestablish a 2ndary beating, cultural heart for the community. Up it from human to alien status. Red to green: next level.

But who would be the centerpiece band? Certainly not Jenny and Keith again. Jenny had gone on to much higher things, although she seems on the downswing lately, having been displaced as the entertainment favorite in rival, upscale Starlite by newcomer Lena Horned. Black like him; good for her! You go girl.

It *could* be The Basterds. That could be a way out of his option maze. Keith B. The B.’s, himself included. Keith never was an A.

The sun was coming up. He decides to enter the ol’ underground bunker for further pondering…

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0514, Maebaleia/Satori, Pipersville/Sink X

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June 27, 2019 · 9:01 am

Yoko

It was as if the world turned upside down on her. Witchery in Cassandra City. She knew it had to come from Toppsity slightly north, where the elements were all f-ed up thanks to the battles. *She* was a witch. But what did it all mean? She couldn’t remember that crucial bit yet.

Triangle: the triangle must be signed and sealed. That’s where it all starts. One hand on top of another on top of another on top of another…

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0014, 0514, Cass City+, Maebaleia/Satori, Toppsity-

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April 22, 2019 · 8:53 am

continue

Who am I?

Who was sitting opposite me?

I am here. But not here. There. Better get there.

—–

The grass has changed. Trees. I look to the distance and see…

Unsure.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0013, 0514, Collagesity Fordham-, Jeogeot, Lower Austra, Nascera, Nautilus, Noru

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February 17, 2019 · 8:54 am

Side

“This is *not* the centre of Rosehaven, dear sister.”

“Sshhh,” she implored in a lower tone. “Keep it down. They could be out there… watching.”

“They *who*?”

“Father’s people. Maybe even mother’s.” But she said these almost as questions.

“Both are dead. Both are gone. We must move on. Mother only lived on through the father. We must be in the now and present. Meditate with me, sister. Learn my wise ways. You won’t be so anxious.” His voice was slightly muffled and watery; hers clear and metallic.

“You shouldn’t be so talkative if you’re so relaxed,” she shoots back, then peers through the window again.

“The cave should have been the meeting point. I told you to meet me at the cave. You’d feel safer there. But no, it had to be the peasant’s village. Father’s old hideaway where he went to woo his wenches. Maybe that’s why we’re so different. Two different mothers. Maybe even two different fathers.”

“You *know* why we’re different.” She didn’t have to finish the rest. Both knew that Merry Gouldbusk physically took after the father and he after the mother. But inside, roles were reversed. For the boy (Ingo) was in danger of becoming as cold as the father given time. For the girl: only melancholy futures.

Merry Gouldbusk stared at the sphere encapsulated face of her brother. “Do you ever remove that thing?”

“Not even to eat,” he replied quickly. “I… get insights. I want to share some of them with you. About the dividing.”

“All ears,” she said, folding her ears toward him with her golden fingers. It was an old game they played. Ingo still smiled at this, which was comforting.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0012, 0514, Rose Heaven-

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December 7, 2018 · 5:53 am

Lineside

—–

“They’ll really and truly send you up the river for this one if you don’t cooperate, Duncan. Pin the murders on you one by one. Go down the list, create justifications. Is that what you really want?”

“Of course not. I didn’t kill Ruby!”

“Keep it down, keep it down,” he implored in his cool, grunge voice. “That one we can remake through the leg. Legs are like 11, but, taken apart, 1 apiece. Cloning abilities. But the 12th? Gone.”

“Indigo. Again…!”

“I know — pipe it down. You didn’t do it. Well… that’s the price you pay for being a member of that silly Pot-D. People can use you against your will. You wake up in jail, you wake up in a mortuary, you wake up on a beach, you wake up inside a whale’s mouth. No rhyme nor reason for it. But now there’s a reason. And that’s what *we’re* here for. Pan-Z. Horizontal and vertical are the only directions that will counter diagonal. The Straight is a subsection of The Cross. This is where they meet: this tree lined lane and then the island just beyond. It’s the Mason-Dixon Line all over again. Are you ready to cross into Dixie?”

Duncan glanced over through the cracked rear window of the bus stop. “I do like tree lined roads, granted.”

“Good. Then it’s settled. When you see me again, I won’t look like this.” Then he was gone; winked out.

Duncan thought back to the terrible, horrible revelations Colonel Flagstaff just spoke about on the border of Harrietsville and Arkendale — where The Straight and The Cross supposedly link energies with each other. He could be the 13th. He could be pinned for it all. He could be in the pen forever and ever. He must sign the new contract with a blood filled pen or else: pencil him gone as well.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0011, 0514, Ruby's Empire/Fishers Island, The Cross, The Straight

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September 20, 2018 · 6:16 am

golden lies

“Hmmph. Boxes.”

—–

“You have to pay attention to everything around you. But it all must reference back to The Diagonal somehow.” He stared at Golden Jim in front of him, standing on said line just like himself. “How does it feel?”

“No different than anywhere else,” confessed his current boarder, a fellow shapeshifter like Angus (Sid Viscous — present in the scene), and his daughters Indigo (Vanille Mills) and, now — as of the end of the last Collagesity novel — Ragdoll (Shirley Boot). Just passing through, he said. But Angus/Sid knew differently. “No different than back in the trailer, for example.”

“You’ll get the hang of it,” encouraged Sid, knowing the strange yellow dude was lying. He turned to his right. “Now let’s go see what we have with Ms. Snowwhite Well.”

“Ah ha!”

“See? This image has recently been seen in The Bakers’ blog as an element of Fisher’s dream nightmare over in Braynard’s Place.” Sid quotes the ending line here: “‘Whom Bee Thee?’ See how *well* this works, Golden?”

“I’ll have to check when we get back to Collagesity.” But Golden Jim knows how The Diagonal functions, and, indeed, it works very very well.

“Time to go on some tangents. Hope you brought your walking shoes.”

Golden Jim looks down. “I must confess that I did not.” But that was also a lie.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0010, 0514, Braynard's Place-, Heterocera, Iris, Wallytown/Fishers Island

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July 9, 2018 · 9:12 am

big over trashy

Blue Jay Wade was still kinda noticing (and imagining/remembering) the thing before the thing while Big Red washed his hands prior to serving their evening meal. Carrot and cucumber enchiladas it was tonight, yum. Big Red could cook with the best of ’em. Something to reassure himself after this afternoon’s humiliation, Wade speculated. But I guess he got his revenge at least on Trashy. Certainly did. Thinking it best not to re-imagine *that* right now, the blue bird-man turned his attention instead to the left.

“We gotta pay to get these windows unfrosted sometime, Big Red… Mr. Butler.”

“*Why*?” Big Red was still in quite the pissy mood.

“Because, you know… of The Monster. Sneaking up on us all the time. We don’t even have time to react most times.”

“I *like* The Monster visiting us,” Big Red measured out acidly while putting their enchiladas on plates and lumbered toward the table. “I *like* being abducted. It’s like a mini-holiday. Away from *you*.”

“I’m just saying…” Blue Jay Wade tried to defend himself.

Big Red hovered to the side. “If you’d spend more time at your *boathouse* then you wouldn’t notice these windows so much.”

Blue Jay Wade tested the frosted panel with his finger to see if dirt or grime could be adding to its translucent quality, so little could be actually seen.

“Stand up,” Big Red barked while roughly plopping down their plates on the wooden table and sliding one over to Blue Jay Wade. “You know I don’t like eating with my back to the wall. Get up; you can have this plate.” That image of the thing after the thing flashing in his head, Blue Jay Wade quickly complied and slunk over to the center seat while Big Red glowered above and behind him a minute — breathing rather heavily and menacingly, a suddenly sweating Wade felt — before moving to the vacated chair.

—–

Ruby found Trashy’s red, white and blue severed head the next day bobbing around Yd Bay on the other side of the island. “What have I done??” she cried, worrying more about what suddenly pill denied Aunt Annie was going to do to *her* than anything.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0009, 0514, New Island

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