Category Archives: 05

birthplace of TILE (‘nother one)

“Listen to these words,” Preacher Zoidboro commands from his pulpit of power, shuffling the first page back to the top. He’d been reading it all afternoon and then one evening and then another afternoon after a morning break for contemplation. It had been slipped under the door to his parsonage out back at 7:15 on Tuesday by the blackest of hands, as dark as licorice candy. “‘Four’s Company, parentheses, Three’s a Crowd, close parentheses,'” he starts, reading the title first of course. “‘Let’s make this,’ ahem, ‘shit happen.'”

Gasps from the audience, but not from the pronouncement of the word shit, deemed a cuss word in this here neck of the woods. They couldn’t hear that part the preacher said it so low. Instead: the inferred defamation of the Holy Trinity. It was in the name of the church! What in Hell’s Bells was the Preacher thinking, doing this? they thought as one.

“‘Let’s begin with a,’ uherm, ‘joke, quote unquote,'” he continues to read from Sepisexton’s text on the mount. Sweat beads on his forehead. Dare he go through with it? Alvin would be pleased, though. He always liked Alvin. “‘A Spade walks into a bar with a Heart,'” he ventures forward into a brave new world. “‘The audience says nothing.'”

The audience says nothing.

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making shit happen

He was getting sucked down into the 3 sim region. Typical; can’t help himself.

Something about ghosts and busting them. Busts! He recalls now. He’s about to get busted for the drug ring he supposedly runs. But it’s really just wrestling on the side, until the money starts rolling in with the art and all. Sepisexton awaits atop the Monolith of Paper-Soap with more pills for thrills. Let’s go there now.

She stares at the crying lady again, another lone, dark figure in the distance. She begins.

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00300506

He visited an art gallery to see how much he could sell his works for in Our Second Lyfe. He was encouraged(!).

Hmm…

… sensing another pattern.

The owner requested, “no photos,” on a sign at the entrance but I figured that was of individual pieces. A mere boy tries to “fish” paintings illegally through the upstairs ceiling, probably being short on cash or perhaps for black market purposes. Greg Ogden makes a note that things like this can happen but doesn’t report the young fellow. He’s potentially doing something illegal as well snapping these photos. Let hot water stand.

He looked and looked but couldn’t find the art work that a fiend of a friend indicated was here: a copy of Ansel Adams’ famous black and white photograph from the 20’s called “Monolith…”. He knew that people — some people — stupid ones — would think that he was piggybacking on the fame of an established artist, despite the fact that Adams worked in a different discipline. Plus this was another Whippe sim, like the one he’d just left in Section 04 back there with its Black Lake, etc. How’d *that* occur? Must be yet another indicator that he was on the right track to come here, check out prices, capture (on film) the red dressed lady and the fox, see the boy fishing for valuable paintings through the ceiling, and lastly, lastly, Adams. Where was he? The photograph could hold the answers to everything.

(to be continued)

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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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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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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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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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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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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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