Category Archives: 05

January 9, 2024 · 6:01 am

00410506

Michelle returned to the graffiti on the side of the Hole in the Wall bar, but not with paint. Instead she chose another art form to practice today: collage. John of Arc was left back in his cell. She decided she had to do this on her own — for now.

“What are you doing, Love?” spoke Sparrow in his smooth, pirate voice to her side, always peering down this direction from his perch in front of the bar. “You’ve dissected public property, Dearest.”

“I’ve *confiscated* public property. *Dearest,*” she spoke back harshly. And she almost had it before the interruption. She was mapping out the differences in the two treasure maps she had found this week, one here and one on the body of new prisoner Bermuda, aka Victor Ratt the owner of Parrots for Pirates, as we’ve already reviewed. Charged just yesterday for not charging customers for his/her goods.

“Almost all treasure maps have an “X” (at the end of a dotted line),” offered devil’s advocate Sparrow. “Almost all involve a pirate ship; almost all involve dragons or octopii or some strange watery creature.”

“*No*,” says Michelle to this. “The patterns are just too similar. You have the islands with the 2 palms trees in both. You have compasses in both, although I don’t think it centers on the compasses.”

“Again–” started to counter Sparrow once more.

“I know I know,” interrupted Officer Roundup. She exhaled deeply. She kept staring.

“Well let’s review, then,” Sparrow continued to help from his observing perch. “With — Triangle isn’t it?’

“Bermuda,” said still staring Michelle.

“Bermuda, right. Well, Ms. *Bermuda*’s treasure map began at the palms.”

“Right right,” cited impatient Roundup. If he’d just *shut* *up*, she thought… but still, he may be able to help, being a pirate and all. And what of silent Hook so far? Always peering into that *2d* version of the ending treasure. Nothing to add in the real world.

“And what part of the body, hmm?”

“The… calf. Yes the calf on the back of the leg. Then it winds up” — and here she traced the upper progression with her billy stick — “and passes the pirate ship; *first* in the graffiti, with the palms being second in that case. And then the dragon or whatever.”

“What part of the body are we up to?” spoke Sparrow.

“We’re circling around the rump, yes.”

“And the X at the end?” Sparrow’s eyes became wider in anticipation. Michelle caught the look.

“*Not* where you think, Perv.” Back to the map, back to the X.  “At the ribs, actually,” she realized aloud.

“*Welll*,” said Sparrow to this, looking over at Hook in a knowing way. Hook just kept opening the chest, peering at the treasure, and then shutting it and repeating the action. Over and over. “I think we *both* know what that is.”

Michelle kept silent for a minute, brain wheels spinning. “Adam and Eve?” she finally outputted. “The *rib*.”

(to be continued)

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January 8, 2024 · 8:48 am

stripes

“Yeah, this doesn’t seem to be scrubbing off, Michelle.”

“Don’t call me that, Murderer. Call me Officer Roundup.”

“Sure. But, um…”

“Option 02, I get it. Let’s go back to the station and pick up some white paint and some brushes.” But then, staring at the back of her heavily tattooed prisoner, Policeperson Michelle Roundup had an idea.

“John,” she said, making him pause. She’d always called him by one of his many crimes before, Murderer if pretty to really upset down to Burglar if only mildly so or not atall. Never the actual name. Before this; what did she want? “John,” she repeated, trying to phrase it in the proper way. “Erm, have you seen a tattoo like this by chance? A full body one? One that wraps around the whole body front to back I mean? Another treasure map is what I’m saying.”

Oh Jeez, he thinks here. She knows about them! What will he do?? How will he answer?? “You, um, mean on another person’s body.”

“Yeah. That’ll do.”

“Then: no.” Relief! He didn’t have to bring up the curse attached to the design.

“How about in general?” Michelle Roundup intuitively followed up. “Like a drawing of such a body? Or a painting? Oh — photo,” she then realized. “Have you seen it in a photo or a series of photos?”

Drat! Now he’ll have to actually lie. Certainly he can’t admit to stealing Officer Roundup’s camera behind her back. Burglar becomes the worst nickname in that case!

“Iiii…”

In the hesitation, she sensed something else, something new. The camera! Missing for a couple of hours yesterday. She thought she just misplaced. But, upon thinking about it, it was there on her desk, then next minute: not. Then *placed* in almost the exact same place a bit later in the afternoon. He knows about the treasure, he knows about the X! The inability to scrub this one off was a sign, a portent.

—-

She acted really smart. She didn’t accuse him of the theft to his face. After all, he was already in custody for several other, more henious crimes. He can’t go anywhere.

There were a couple of possibilities in play, she thought as they walked back to pick up the paint and brushes to finish the job. First, he’s just a desperate perv wanting to look at some pictures of a naked girl. Two, he was gathering information about, I don’t know, the location of an *actual* treasure. Three: maybe he just stole the camera to take pictures himself and then saw the photos already on it. But indeed he knows about them. People just don’t turn that red for no reason. What’s black and white and red all over has a new answer beyond newspaper and embarrassed zebra. Actually I guess the latter still applies, she finished her joke.

(to be continued)

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January 7, 2024 · 10:37 am

00410504

There’s pirates all over town doing who knows what, she thinks, and yet he’s always here at the pool, staring at the girls. I should probably report him.

—–

Some pirates are here to look for treasure, some pirates just want to hang around bars.

And as we’ve seen, one pirate in town sells parrots and one pirate *is* a parrot wanting to sell parrots. But neither making a good effort at it.

We should probably get back to the former. In her cell. Away from the mob. For now.

Who is this strange woman dressed as a pirate? thinks not-so-easily-fooled-as-the-policemen Michelle Roundup — or so she believes — peering in at the enigmatic expression on her face, blank in a way but also revealing so much. Pretty deep facial scars — checks with being a pirate. Tattoos, some of a lewd variety — also check. One of a treasure map, even, a big one covering most of the body as she personally found out this morning during the prerequisite cavity search — even took some pictures of the complex pattern, writing in her report that it could be related to the crime. Which reminds Michelle: she needs to send the other in-house inmate John of Arc over to scrub off or paint over a curiously similar treasure map on the side of the Hole in the Wall bar. Here:

Does one somehow have something to do with the other? she ponders. She tries to compare and contrast in her mind — X marks the spot in both cases. Did so called *Bermuda* commission both, possibly? The computer lists her as a Victor, owner of Parrots for Pirates pet shop in town but gone missing for quite a while until her return just day before day before yesterday’s tomorrow (yesterday). Obviously this is not Victor. She explained it through a more gradual sex change involving hormones; described it as a Victor-to-Victoria conversion, as if the switch was built in to her birth name. Interesting, hmm. She rubs her chin with her free hand, the one not holding a billy stick. And why did she bring the stick to the cell in the first place? Then Michelle realizes why: she’s as culpable as the men. She stares into those eyes. No one, not male or female, could resist, she understood. The power of being both sexes in one? Yeah, we’ll leave that as a question.

(to be continued?)

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January 6, 2024 · 8:32 pm

00410503

“Hey Newt! I’m over here! Just waiting for *you*. Keep up!”

“Be right there wife of mine!” he called from the table in the center of Amiable, having just finished his wine.

She spots the shadow as he walks over and understands they are still good, still on track to go sideways. She leaps down.

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January 6, 2024 · 7:42 pm

00410502

“Now stand back you dangerous lot, especially *you* Jittery Joe. NOW. I let Steady Susan and her twin Steadier Suzanna go because they were just up there trying to find a private spot to phone breakup with their boyfriends Bob and Roberto the Thompson Twins. But the REST of you are just as culpable as Joe in my police rulesbook. Jittery here is already on record saying he’s up to about 10 coffees a day, so its more understandable he loses control sometime in the afternoon. But the REST of you are somewhere between 3 and 8 cups a day I’m guessing.” General murmurs of agreement all around, even Jerky Jack in back who was actually up to 9. He didn’t want to highlight himself in the crime any more than the nickname already indicated. “So there wasn’t NO NEED for a mob scene… and a killing. No one knew that the late Officer Howard had the Jesus power to make many drinks out of one drink beforehand. And it was WRONG to assume he had that second and final Jesus miracle power to resuscitate himself after a snuffing to follow the first. WHO among you lousy lot thought that he was going to resurrect himself, hmm?” Hands went up one by one until all were raised. They’d read their Bible good. Only 2 miracles recorded and verified in all 4 Gospels. And the second logically followed the first they all assumed. They’d get the satisfaction of killing Howard, they felt, without the dire consequences normally associated with such actions.

“OKAY, then. Now here’s what we’re going to do. Tomorrow I’m going to temporarily let you out of this temporary pen,” and here Officer Brendan shook his head at the number of ’em, way too many to hold in their regular 2 cells which were occupied anyways. They had to be moved to the vacant house next door, guards at the front and back, guards to the sides. “Yes, you’re going home, then, and put on your Sunday best and we’re all going to march, together, down to the cemetery and honor the man whose life you took in the prime of his, well, life. Jittery Joe, you’re going to say some nice words in parting and I want each and every one of you to shake his widow’s hand and apologize for your dastardly wrong. Am I rigghhht?”

“Yes, Officer Brendan,” they collectively muttered almost in sync with each other. But also each and every one was thinking: when did Howard get married??

That morning is when. To Bermuda herself. She reached across the table to pick up a magazine to read while he kept processing her record and he stopping typing and reached with his hand to grab it. 5 fingers interlocked with another accepting 5 fingers. Since Howard was a Justice of the Peace alongside being an Officer of the Law, they could tie the knot then and there, before the mob took action on one of ’em, maybe both of ’em. Another logical progression, but one that turned out to be very right instead of very wrong. Bermuda was set to inherit everything, including the patents.

(to be continued)

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January 6, 2024 · 3:20 pm

00410501

“We’re only rescuing you from yourself, ma’am,” spoke Officer Howard earnestly, responsible for the check in. “What if, say, I ran up to Starbuccaneers just above us and Barista Wanda — or whatever her name is; I just made that up — Wanda, say, gave me a free coffee this morning, on the house just for being a cop. And then let’s say I take a couple of sips and then give it over to Officer Brendan, and Officer Brendan gives it to Officer Ferguson, and Officer Ferg — well I think you get the point. Pretty soon there’s free coffee all over town and Starbuccaneer’s is not making a dime off of it, business closed. So you see it’s dangerous, really dangerous, to offer stuff for free in a capitalist economy. Say, if we were in China or Cuba it would be different.”

“But we’re not anywhere,” Bermuda (Atlantis High Priestess) countered. “We’re right here. In Aisle of Palms on the Jeogeot continent. Neither here nor there.” Kind of like the Azores, she thought to herself.

“Well,” said Officer Howard back, taken aback a bit, “I don’t know about *your* user but *my* user comes from the good ol’ red white and blue US of A up there in the Americas, no communism in sight. Er, except for Cuba as I think I mentioned before. Anyway–”

“*Anyway*,” interrupted Bermuda, eager to get this over with and be locked inside her cell, safe from what she senses might be a growing mob. “I believe I get a phone call?”

“Indeed, ahem, indeed you do,” said Officer Ferguson, suddenly tired of lecturing the virtues of trickle down economies. He indeed got his coffee free from Starbuccaneer’s this morning from someone named Wanda, indeed shared it with Brendan who shared it with Ferguson and on down the line, everyone in town with their required caffeine high and no one else visiting Wanda this morning. Like the Loaves of Bread story from the Bible, Howard being a modern day agogo Jesus. Yet he still didn’t know he had that power. Too bad he didn’t also have the Savior’s power to resurrect himself because, after the decaffeinated 3PM afternoon break mob led by Jittery Joe was finished with him, he’d need it to continue.

“Let’s GET HIM!”

“YEAAHHHHH!!”

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November 1, 2023 · 1:32 am

00400516

“One more haunted house and we’ll be done with Millbank for another year, troupe,” spoke their obvious leader, front and center and gazing inward to begin gauging the spookiness of the place. Toddles. Ready to explain to them what’s actually going on with their now intertwined relationships. Just after this — she’s curious about the final twist here, which she knows is coming but hides the details from her higher, psychic self in order to be surprised. What’s the point of existing if you know *everything*, she reasons with it.

“Doesn’t look too scary,” offered Vain and Artery Boyy beside her. “Not like some of the others.”

“The mortuary, yeah,” said Rock on her other side, and stifled an urge to barf again at the mere thought of the gruesome scenes and things found within. The others knew it was a mistake to take him in but there were no distractions outside like a sandbox or something. He could wander off and get lost if left by himself in that way. But still: the damage was done to the 46 year old man from Nantucket, the opposite of Toddles in many ways since he has a child’s brain inside a grownup’s body.

Toddles looked around the yard: no distractions again. “Are you going to be okay, Rock? We don’t have to go in. We can end our tour here, go back to Big Sandy with the satisfaction that we visited everything except this last building, the most central one still but, like VA Boyy said, not that impressive on the outside. We can basically say we saw it all, we finished it all off.”

“I — want to be complete,” he said, wiping sweat from this forehead. “I  — want to go in.”

“Okay,” said Toddles. “If you’re *sure*.”

And here comes the twist. When they all went inside, seats seem to be arranged for them as if in a play, include Rock’s at an old upright piano. It was here he discovered a middle name: Roll. Rockabilly star R.R. Ramby was born. After brushing away the cobwebs he played beautifully, even though he only took a few lessons in childhood before being written off by his parents as useless and not worth throwing money away on. With this different form of music he automatically found himself banging away at to alleviate the fear aspect, he would have the last say.

All this was set up by the rock star that came before him, shrine remaining upstairs. Roll over Beethoven. Here comes a new one.

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October 31, 2023 · 6:34 am

00400515

The weight of the past…

… finally collapses the present into a hellscape sinkhole of no return.

Over and over…

… and over.

—–

“As you can clearly see, Dr. Mouse, the darts weren’t the cause of the death.”

“As I suspected,” he said in his superior, haughty way. “What did the extracted bodily fluids reveal?”

“Dr. Rabbid over at the lab is still working on the results,” answered Dr. Brown. Dr. Mouse was thinking he’d have the results already, would *cane* them out of a subordinate if needed for such an important case. All Millbank is depending on a correct diagnosis. For its own survival.

Sensing the tension, Dr. Brown put forth another option, since he didn’t have much faith in science to figure it out by this point. He acted as if it was his own idea instead of Dr. Rabbid’s but would quickly point the blame finger at the non-present doctor if Mouse didn’t like the proposal.

“Seance?!” Dr. Mouse responded to it, initially seeing only the negative of the thing. “Here? In Millbank?? Are you mad??”

Well, a little, Dr. Brown thought, but then answered: “It could be elsewhere. The other doctors wouldn’t have to know about it. You could be a hero, sir, swooping in from the outside to save the day.”

“All Hallows Day,” he specified. “All this,” and he looks around the room that represents the entire sim in the moment, “wouldn’t have to go back into storage. It could be perpetual, a permanent fixture. *If*…”

“… we could just figure out how to affix the past to the present; make it stable and unfluctuating,” finished Brown for the higher up doctor.

The phone in Dr. Brown’s pocket rings in an ancient way. He answers; he acknowledges; he hangs up. “Dr. Rabbid’s results indicate formaldehyde, 37 percent.”

“Formaldehyde?!” shouted the superior doctor even slightly louder. “Then this *is* about preservation.” The seance was a go, at least in the eyes of Brown.

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October 30, 2023 · 4:56 pm

interpreter

“Let’s recreate the crime scene, Grandmama,” she recalls him saying in the dream she just woke up from, relayed to her psychic granddaughter Toddles a little later to complete the loop. “We have Bart jiggling on his skateboard in the southeast corner again, waiting to be freed so he can go back to Oz and the lucrative Butterfingers business he’d set up there. Roadrunner is running circles around him, representing constraint of freedom. He is stuck for now. Then Twitty Bird darts right by him in the picture, chased by Sylvester the Cat per usual.

“Conway Twitty threw *darts* at a map of the United States to come up with his stage name, one hitting Conway, Arkansas and the other Twitty, Texas near Magic City, Abra, and perhaps some other meaningful names. Kellersville next to Heald obviously, referring to the water healing of deaf blind mute Helen over in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Bart’s sister Lisa just ran into this same Sylvester in NWES City — which we need to get back to by the way.”

“The two darts represent drugs,” Toddles interrupted her grandmother’s dream review with an insight.

SHADOW: (says something)
PEANUT: Ah, what? I don’t understand… a thing you’re saying, man. Do you have any idea what you sound like? Bluh, bluh, bluh, bluh. That’s what you sound like in my head.
SHADOW: (says something)

https://12ozmouse.fandom.com/wiki/The_Shadowy_Figure

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October 30, 2023 · 6:24 am

00400513

Turns out it was all a misunderstanding mostly created by Toddles herself. Vain and Artery Boyy and, especially, Rock didn’t have the sense to think that a legal guardian must be found for Toddles, due to the fact that she acted so *independent* around them, we’ll say. Toddles insisted they celebrate the reunion and work out the kinks of the intertwined connections later on after visiting the Millgate Halloween Festival — located to the north and west of Big Sandy on the old Bellissaria continent — before it was too late and her 2nd favorite holiday after Arbor Day was done and over with.

—–

They’d left Rock to play in a haunted sandbox outside with an object provided plastic zombie pail and ghost shovel. He would be happy for hours if needed. And Alice F., wore out from the tour already, was upstairs taking a power nap, as she described it. The bad dreams began almost instantly, like back in the Belt Days.

Which left Toddles and Vain and Artery Boyy (aka Gill) downstairs, trying to figure out a mystery. “The thing that interests me most,” spoke the precocious child, obviously precious as well, “is *not* the 2 darts through the eyes — that’s more a distraction I’m thinking. It’s the presence of that blue ball at the foot of the body. Blue, Vain and Artery Boyy. Like your better half.”

He thought of Blue Berry Girl here and the life that could have been. But too late now. She was off to the Pleiades or Andromeda or some other starry paradise high in the nighttime sky. Seeing herself seeing herself seeing herself…

“What do you mean?” he prompted, staring at it now as well.

“Well, I mean, it just doesn’t *fit*. Let’s continue thinking out loud together — why did the Lindens, or Moles whoever, put it there?”

After V&AB didn’t answer for a spell, Toddles went on. “Blue ball begets yellow ball begets red green begets green red. We’ve already been through that. The prison bowling alley. Exactly 2 sections back.”

“I–” Vain started, then stopped. He had nothing really to say. He just decided to listen to genius unfurled in front of him. Yes, he’d try to stick with the child. He’d fight for her, even, at this point. Grandmas are challengeable legal guardians he figured. Not like a mama and a papa, which apparently Toddles didn’t have. He wondered why — he’d ask the grandma as soon as she finished her nap. He’d battle on the grounds that she had a 37 year old brain inside a 3 year old’s body, ready to be released on the world.

Alice woke up in a different bed, but the shadow figure was still there, go figure. And then someone else. Not a leprechaun but similarly sized. Maybe it is some kind of leprechaun given what comes afterwards. “Hell-o!” he or she or it says innocently in a child-like voice. “Hell-ooo!”

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