Category Archives: 05

00300505

“I’m as high as you (*wheeze*) now. Let’s trade.” He hands him the chips, he passes him the bong. The cycle begins again.

Having finished chopping the wood for tonight, Greg Ogden plays on his roundabout, also going in circles but in a different way. He’s getting in the mood to paint.

In a darker perspective, rogue clown Sepisexton sits down by the small beach of the same rental unit and ponders a cry, thinking back to when she was just Sepi and Sexton all separated out. She wonders if she should split, depressing party over except for the really serious heads like Even and Steven smushed together over there on the bench behind that painted Martin rock. She decides it should be between sections 6 and 7 of this here photo-novel, 30 in a series of, dare I say it, 31? Because there will be a 7 born from 6 the way things are progressing, fer sure. Just like the last one (but unlike 28, 27, 26 before it).

Let’s see, what else here? There’s Ted, another head, on the swings that won’t swing. He doesn’t care at this point, tripping the light fantastic.

And then of course the Monolith itself towering above it all, which Greg will paint a bit later for the umpteenth time. Call it his new Treasure Hill. He plans to make bookoos of money from the art soon. Very soon, he contemplates. As soon as Agents 23 and 47 phone him back with some figures. But in truth they were just investigating his drug ring, being police and not business agents. They’d have enough evidence for a bust soon. Let’s call them Crack and Whack.

Oh, I forgot about Marilyn back at one of the teepees beside Keith B.’s cabin on the other side of the Monolith from Greg’s rental unit, just across the long and dusty road. ‘Nother one, pheh: currently plucking feathers from a hen for a new batch of arrows while Sylvester the Stallion looks on…

… make that chipping an arrowhead with a chisel and ballhammer. Um…

She turns her back on peeing Keith B. while carving an arrow shaft with a chore knife, the final tableau, wondering why he doesn’t do his business in the woods like all the other animals. The place still stinks but she doesn’t mind — she’s not the neighbor who complained (Suzzy Q, the teepee dweller across the way who up and moved day before yesterday’s tomorrow). Probably infected with the virus as well, wouldn’t you think, perhaps catching it from him. Because they were an item, maybe still are. She reminds him so much of his sister, which is probably not a good thing. She feels safe around him — her Safe Zone here — because she knows he would kill to protect her. He blacks out and another stuffed animal is set up in the woods just over there next to a cave, or perhaps just over here beside a camping tent. Like Mother.

Done (both of them). “Head’s up!” she calls. An arrow whizzes by, just missing his now forward facing abdomen and landing at his feet.

(to be continued?)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0505, Paper, Paper Soap+

Mother.

He read well into the evening with Cubby still by his side, still waiting for his mother to return. Although he didn’t speak any longer — the magic had worn off for the time being — it’s as if the cub’s thoughts were transferred to the pages. Magic was not good here at night, thus the return of the virus symptoms for poor, confused Keith B. over at his cabin just beyond the woods, across the road. He had taken the paper pills but they didn’t seem to do him no good. He sniffed the air. No odor from the outhouse, although he wasn’t able to clean it due to lack of suds. Tamatoa the tamed wolf hound had spilled the product trying to put it into his mouth to obey his master’s command to retrieve it for him from the washing machine just over there. Oh to have an actual human servant around for such chores (!). But he wasn’t suppose to think such thoughts. Not after Alvin [delete name], and the beanstalk they found that went all the way to heaven, some say the Moon, some say Uranus. But it ended up being a compromise: Mars. Halfway between the fuzzy warmth of the full white Moon and the bitter cold of Uranus, only perceptible to the sharpest of eyes if they know exactly where to look in a blackened sky. So one could say the Moon and Uranus were opposites, like Keith B. here. He doesn’t even remember how the preservation started. END

START

Mother.

I’m right over here, son. Just out of sight. I haven’t eaten in several days, but I’m certainly stuffed to the gills. I’d laugh if I wasn’t crying. I’ll be with you, though. Cubby. Dennis. Warren — we never decided on a name, just kept calling you Cubby. My bad. Maybe that new guy you’re with, Biffy or something, can give you a proper name. But stay away from Keith. Keith did bad (as well).

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0504, Paper, Paper Soap+

preservation

He decided to test this reality. He pulled out some wadded up and hardened little pieces of paper from his pocket and dropped it into Keith B.’s hand, saying they were for the virus. “Thanks!” the older man from his childhood said, saving them for later that night when the headaches started. Oh the power of suggestion, Biff marveled, and returned to his book. He was at the end of Paper. He turned the page…

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0503, Paper, Paper Soap+, Pennsylvania

Paper-Soap National Park

Biff Carter looked up from the red book he was always reading, wondering where they were. Keith B. was to his right, talking to Cubby the bear cub about his lost mother. “She’ll show up soon,” he tried to reassure, but Cubby had seen her wander off into the Hunting Zone, confused in the twilight’s last gleaming. Many of her kind don’t come out of there, she said earlier to the young bear, her third in a litter of two, although she didn’t know that fact at the time. A magical bear he was; able to talk and converse with the humans — like Keith B. here. “In the meantime, you just stay put here with… sorry, what was your name stranger?” he asked over to Biff, sucking on a piece of lettuce between his teeth left over from supper at Rusty’s. He couldn’t handle the beef stew what with the state of that kitchen in back — he’d seen the health inspector’s rating writing on the wall. Better stick with salad, he decided. No meat.

You know my name, Biff wanted to say back, but instead just said it for him. He looked over. Did it ring a bell? Dirty diner? Always redding the read book? He could tell by Keith’s expression that it didn’t. He felt abandoned by the older guy from his childhood ever since the death of his grandmama, who was practically like his mother, raising him up after the death of his dad Dirk, who had already lost his wife, his mother, to another kind of virus long ago, not long after he was born actually. Dirk thought that the birth may have done her in, or at least weakened her to the effects of the virus, but this wasn’t really true. Or was it? Anyway, Dirk kind of blamed the boy for her death. Her name was… right on the tip of my tongue….

Elizabeth, he decided, thinking back to the book. He raised it to his eyes again and continued. Paper now. Rock earlier. Scissors coming up soon. His mother had some and she contemplated doing his father in once more. Because of the boy.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0502, Paper, Paper Soap+

003005-One

He lamented the Smuggler’s Bay portal being cut off on the other side of the Soap sim from Paper and then realized for the first time that the tunnel looks like a slice of bread. He’d *thought* that before, hmm. Anyway, Phyllis could not be reached. *Pills* could not be reached. Shit happens, but he doesn’t know where now. He must return to his lonely cabin to do his needed chores…

… like cleaning the outhouse today; had to be done; neighbor’s complaining about the smell which wasn’t bothering him as much but must have been that bout with the virus affecting his nose. He can’t tell when Rusty’s fixing breakfast over at the Tombstone Diner any more — could always smell that early in the morning before.

“Tamatoa,” he joked to his tamed wolf hound. “Go fetch me the cleaning suds over on the washing machine over there.” Tamatoa, of course, didn’t respond the way he requested. Or did he?

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0501, Paper, Paper Soap+

hues

“Okay, we’re definitely going to have to agree on a favorite colored tea before we get married. Here, let’s switch (*switch*).”

(*sip*) “Yuuuuck!”

“Okay, we’re definitely going to have to rethink this relationship.”

(*huff*) “Fine with me (!).”

—–

“I think you definitely said 301 East Meeting.”

“I definitely did *not*. 103 I said. I wish I would have recorded it now. I need to record everything.”

“*Anyway*, we’re here. We found each other.”

“3 hours later!”

“Aren’t… aren’t you going to drink your tea?”

“I’m not drinking that stuff.”

—–

“Annny-wayyy. The low down on the plot so far. Spill it.”

Axis-Windmill then “accidentally” sloshed some tea out while raising his own glass to his mouth. “Oooops.”

“Funny,” Percy said while watching it penetrate his duster coat sleeve, turning himself slightly green. Percy’s lone color remained red like her own untouched tea, as in controlling heart red. At least it’s not in (or on) her head. she often thinks. Speaking of which…

“You’re a funny boy,” she reinforced. “A funny funny boy.”

The green kept coming. “More than I expected!”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0516, Blue Feather Sea+, Cass City+, Maebaleia/Satori

not quite picture perfect

I’m going to get that promotion today. I can feel it deep down in my bones.

Maybe if I stare into those psychedelic curtains long enough, someone will show up and feed me.

“Hi Angie! Ready for dinner?”

“Sure am, Miller!”

4:15. Where *is* Percy?

4:25. Where *is* he?

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0515, Cass City+, Maebaleia/Satori

killings

“Leave?” He was incredulous. “But we just *got* here; I just settled into this place, this house. It’ll work out. Just because Clovis–”

“This is not about Clovis,” Axis-Windmill reinforced. “This is about tying up things in this here photo-novel–”

“Let me guess,” Keith B. interrupted in turn. “29 in a series of nothing.”

“Close. But we want to try anyhow… anyhoot.”

“*Alysha*” he called into the kitchen to his red headed wife making soup with a fork and spoon. “Are you hearing this?”

“I’m hearing,” she said. “But the soup is boiling… may be missing some things. Something about the electricity not working properly in this house?”

“*No*,” he stated, blowing out some air. “They want to *pull the plug* on the operations here.”

More boiling. “Ventriloquists? I told you we shouldn’t move to a town with those. Trouble, always trouble.”

Keith B. gives up until Alysha finishes her soup. He shakes his head about the matter for Axis-Windmill, who was curious. “When did you acquire a wife, old Keith B.?”

“Alysha? Met her at a fair. She’d just won a beauty contest, being the loveliest girl in all of Hooktip.”

“Hooktip?”

“Yeah, where she’s from. Where *I’m* from. She’s a childhood sweetheart as they say.” Keith B. decides to turn the tables. “And where are *you* from… German boy?” He’d heard rumors of a war, in fact 2 of ’em. Germans on one side, his side on the other. But was he American? Or…”

—–

“Papa,” Jenny called from the kitchen, making soup. Axis-Windmill was gone, having been called out. Alysha exited with him, *his* wife. Not Keith B.’s. Keith remained a bachelor because of, well, The Room and what goes on in there. Jennifer thinks it is self sex, but actually it’s (see title).

“What is it dear?”

“I have an idea about the logo on the drums. I’ve been mulling it over all day. Instead of a star, like in Cpt. America, how about a circle. A circle within a circle, like in that British air force poster up at the Seraph.”

They were back in Cass City and it was 20 years ago and their star was about to rise because of this. Ironic. Star erased, star gained. Trouble is, there were 2 of ’em and there was only Room for one.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0514, Cass City+, Maebaleia/Satori, Purden/Snowlands, Sansara

00290513

Axis-Windmill found great promise in what I’m calling the city of Clarksey spread out across part of 3 sims on the northern border of Sansara’s Snowlands. But for now — he’ll tell director Percy Pierce later — he’s recommending our family of core avatars move on while the less than year old place continues to develop — only a handful of buildings populated with people or even furniture still. There’s even a fledgling underground connected by several tunnels scattered here and there throughout the streets, always a plus for a community we explore (i.e., VHC City, Lapara, Eveningwood, Paper-Soap, so on). We will keep an eye on it.

And an encircling, elevated trolley train track! Nifty.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0513, Purden/Snowlands, Sansara

00290512

He was not far behind them, in Ross. He stared at the 3 primary colors under the red and white umbrella that represented candy. Cotton candy in this case, doubly meaningful. Because he’d also learned of Peter Cotton, inventor of the world famous cottonpicker from Kick-ass Bogota, as well as about Marion, a fellow pilot of WWWWI. “Flew a mission with me the day I went down,” he said at the bar drinking a tall grasshopper, as green as his outfit. Greener, Axis-Windmill realized. “Came to get me — only reason I’m standing here with this metal plate in my head. *Borneo*. Get that: Borneo. And all the maps said it didn’t exist, said there was nothing beyond the Elephant of Celebes or the Giant Rat of Sumatra. Rose knew all along where the cube-box was hidden. In one of the deepest corners of space. Marion took me there one night. We were up drinking and drinking and he said he knew of a place where we could get the best whiskey in the solar system, nay, the *universe*. Mind you, we were really drunk. He would have never told me otherwise — said so the next day. We climbed this low granite hill near his new airport over at… I think it’s Enchiladas. Anyway, something that starts with an ‘E’. Some wooden box type thingie was at the top. We reached it. He pointed west, I believe. A particular star, he said. Just rising… over there.”

“Alpha Centauri?” I offered, just saying the brightest one I knew.

“That’s how you *find* it,” he replied, and then pointed me west to the famous cross of somewhat fainter stars, the crux of the matter as things turned out. His buddy studies it, he said, which I later learned referred to Philip Strevor, a professional pill popper over in Heaven Town.

“Dead?” I guessed about him after learning his job title and the name of his town.

“Might as well be,” came the answer from the green guy, almost as green as his drink he was still sipping, still nursing. “‘To death do us part,’ he said one night on the same low granite hill actually. He was staring at the star and said that, like the star was going to kill him or something.”

“Or marry him,” I added to the story. I was, of course, channeling in the moment. I’d gotten very good at that, in fact.

“We better get to Bartholomew,” he then said, turning toward me, or perhaps looking behind me for someone. I turned as well. Who were we looking at? 102? Something that can’t be edited because it goes in a perpetual circle, editing itself in the process as it revolves around and around and around? Could be.

We were both psychic is all I knew for sure.

He turned away from the cotton candy dispensers and headed toward town.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0512, Horns of Hatton+, Maebaleia/Satori, Purden/Snowlands, Sansara