Category Archives: 05

March 28, 2021 · 6:25 am

and he had tried so hard

Tessa Doom opened the book before her at random and paper butterflies flew out. She wasn’t surprised. She leaned back, letting them do their thing.

“Think hard,” I implored from the other chair. Whoever I was. Wait, there I am. Not Jeffrey Phillips but someone new. Not Robert Drake Johns, the lime green robot she had restored to be her third best friend which has become the first best friend since the other two, Mabel and Carolin, were either dead or had disappeared, perhaps for good. Not Sandman, since he had left this particular part of Pickleland, the Moon part. Better figure this out, then… to the scene… Let’s just go with Devil Dave tonight, to limit the amount of characters we bring into this here photo-novel, 25 in a series of 1.

David from the well polished palace! Devil Dave and David A.B. are one? He continues: “Is that or is that not your grandpa up there on the balcony?” he reinforced.

The butterflies kept coming. “No,” she said, shutting the book on the lot of ’em.

“Rats”, he exclaimed, settling back as well.

—–

Tessa had long gone before God or God-like David A.B. exited the scene. The church; Sally, he thought, staring straight at it while walking out of the Once Upon a Time bookstore. Maybe he’s over there still.

But: no. He remained in the wrong time. Devil Dave had not been invented yet either.

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March 27, 2021 · 6:16 am

confluence

“Hey Samuel. Remember when we had two feet apiece instead of the 4 between us?”

“Never mind that,” he answered Reggie. “I’ve got more sand in this bag to put them on.”

“Excuse me, guys,” he said, feets still moving. “Just passing through.”

“Sure, sure mister,” they both exclaim, then remember to put a little on their eyes first to keep up the illusion.

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March 27, 2021 · 6:16 am

00250502

“Will you two just *stop* with the arguing,” requested Inky Woman from the Falls, hair getting wetter and wetter. The water should be becoming blacker any time now.

Any time now.

What were the two frog-ish goldfish, Goldie and Grayscale, arguing about or perhaps just discussing in a loud way? Bodies of water, I’m guessing. When does a pond become a lake?; how many acres does it have to be for the name transaction to kick in? 100, Goldie is guessing. “100 *feet* or 100 acres?” responds Grayscale, trying to differentiate 1d from 2d, like any good mathematician. Goldie is a linguist, though, and his experiences with numbers is not good. Instead: letters are his numbers, as Grayscale would understand. If he grasped letters at all. “1 through 10: 100,” he exclaimed to the other in a voice that definitely argued for argument now. “Well, A-Z right back at you!” Yells. Definitely getting louder and louder. “75! 3/4ths!” “A-B-C-D; R!” “125!!” “R. RADAR!!”

“STOOOPPP!!!”

Goldie turned to his left and Grayscale to his right. Inky Woman had played her card, avoiding a crash. Jenny Lind enters Pickleland from above. All are embarrassed they even argued at all as the Great Woman stepped out of the ship and onto the green of the lake (or pond) peninsula. Graceful. Like a butterfly. She told her entourage to wait within while she settled the matter.

She takes 1 step. She takes 10 and is upon them. “Lake,” she responds to Goldie. She turns (changes). “Pond,” she says to the other. Then, hair still not wet, she moves away.

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March 27, 2021 · 5:47 am

00250501

“Hey, which way to the Portal, Lt. Salt? I seemed to have been turned around when exiting David’s highly polished palace, pheh.”

“Thataway,” answers the military man with a point, part of the magical tapestry that is the citizens and denizens of Pickleland.

“Is that a Baby Yodo?” questions Sandman, distracted by creature directly beneath him on the table. “So adorable.”

“I must ask you to move on,” said the lt. politely but firmly. “Jenny Lind’s entourage will be arriving shortly. We must clear the area as much as possible.” Sandman knew he had to move the way Lt. Salt was pointing, or else be pointed at himself.  But he couldn’t help himself.

“What do *you* say, little fellow?” he asked while leaning over, hands on knees. The creature’s ears twitched and moved back and forth, and his mouth along with it, as if he (or she) were searching for a correct response to Sandman’s question. Perhaps he (or she) was trying to make up for Lt. Salt’s rudeness in not answering the same — overcompensation. The answer had to be perfect and… he (or she) couldn’t do it. Neither ended up answering him, Baby Yada or whatever the f-ck it is shrinking back from the twitching and moving that signaled thinking into a state of immobility, perhaps Tennessee but perhaps also Kentucky (Ohio’s a longer shot).

“Outta here,” came the lt.’s next statement. Sandman was out of time. Feets get moving!

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January 30, 2021 · 11:00 am

Strange Isle


thing to fear

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January 30, 2021 · 11:00 am

X-City church 02

“A marriage,” A Mann suddenly said behind her, unseen before and sitting in the front pew. Duplicates again!

“Marriage to who?” Tessa ventured, getting bolder now. She could punch through his face and draw back a brain if she wished. She’d done it before with a coke machine.

“A Womann,” came the response. Kate, or the thing that appeared to be Kate, halted for a moment, hands raised from the keys. Tessa half suspected the singing would begin now, but it never did, the chorus remaining frozen in their spots, blue books still open. She could go check on the name of the composition in it, she realized. Kate’s too — from the score on the organ’s music stand; if there was one.

There wasn’t. The blue choral books proved more fruitful. Handel it truly was! But which part of the “Messiah” was Kate playing? Not the same one as this more familiar bit here. Maybe from the Easter part?

The marriage was beginning. A Mann united with A Womann in holy matrimony. But where was the minister?

“Madam, I’m Adam,” said A Mann.

“A Man, A Plan, A Canal…” said A Womann.

“Panama!” they exclaimed together. Tessa woke up.

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January 30, 2021 · 11:00 am

X-City church 01

“Kate! I thought I’d lost you forever.”

“No. I’m here.” But her voice was weak, far away. She waves half-heartedly. She didn’t appear to be herself to Tessa.

“I *saw* you, though. On the beach.” Tessa thought back to Kate face down in the sand at Elven Mist. And the perpetual atomic blast out over the water in the distance. Kate didn’t have on a mask. There was no way she could make it, which, given the ones who did and their actions, maybe was a good thing. Tessa realizes this wasn’t really Kate. Kate was dead. She turned to the other figure acting as a greeter in this X-City church, new in the last year and a half.

“And what is *your* name, sir?”

“Mann. Just call me A Mann.”

“A. Mann? A. stands for something?”

“No. Just A Mann.”

All 3 stood there for a bit, with awkward gestures from the 2 what Tessa now considered simulacra; forgeries of real people most likely; stand-ins.

Music was coming from the front of the church. Perhaps Bach but maybe Handel — Tessa couldn’t quite get a handle on it. She moved forward down the aisle to investigate more, leaving the two figures who she deemed useless for meaningful interaction behind. “Goodbye Kate,” she whispered to herself, not looking back.

But then in front of her appeared the figure of Kate, playing the organ and the classical tune she couldn’t figure out the composer of. Maybe not even baroque. But Kate again! Perhaps this was the real one this time.

“Kate?”

The tune of baroque or baroque-ish design went on and on as Kate didn’t respond to the outside world, engrossed in her playing, it appeared. And those mute singers with their blue choral books seemed so familiar. What was going on here? Ahh, Tessa realized. A dream!

(to be continued)

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January 29, 2021 · 4:26 pm

good luck?

You’ll have to dip more than your feet in this TILE Pool to get use to the South, Dream Tessa. Rains down hard there! The rain with the pain, ooouuuch.” Ghost Pac-man reminded me of someone. And also someone else yellow; a rivalry, yes.

‘*There*. If you’re submerged you can’t feel the pain. Let it go, let it all go, the tension, the weight of the world.” The pool was just big enough, head to foot. Like a fitted coffin. Let’s hope the analogy stops there.

Tessa wakes up, gasping and grasping her throat in an attempt to breathe. After she regained her wits she looked about the room and noticed the umbrellas. Lisa the Vegetarian had delivered, as promised. Time to go. No more dreams: reality.

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January 29, 2021 · 4:26 pm

leaving Fryburg

“You know more about the blue rose and the blue thorn, child, enough for now — enough for your understanding.”

“I… understand.”

“Now we must move away from this butterfly themed treehouse on this once quartz laden peak in the Mountain Lake District. We have learned all we can from here. Remember to pack your umbrella. It’s rainey season in the South.”

“I… shall.”

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January 29, 2021 · 8:56 am

more men

“There’s Devils around here again, Cpt. Dick. Or Devil; I can smell it or them with my 6th sense.”

“ESP,” acknowledges the captain, drunk at the time (it was noon, after all) and knowing that demons manifested in the area occasionally, like in ’73 with the Buzz and the Bee. He swears he hadn’t touched a drop when he saw them. “How many?” he attempted to clarify, thinking back to that awful day in early May. “One? Three? 50?” He skips over the number 2; too many bad memories. He can still feel the effects of the stingers coming from each side just here, there and there. If only he were inebriated when it happened to curb the pain.

Jake Hardbody thinks harder, ramping up his abilities to the max, like a raging fire. “One. But: powerful,” he concludes, unwrinkling his forehead and reflexively drawing his gun as if the Devil were in the immediate area, which he wasn’t. He was still down at the ice cream parlor asking nonsensical jokes to unsuspecting customers while assigning them ridiculous names. But he was about to leave. Back to the Ultimate Creator in Hell Heaven who was also himself to report on what he’d seen on the other side of X-City, the place they usually try to avoid because of, well, because of well armed and experienced psychics like Jake H. here. UC had it that Jake had retired from the force — the last of his kind — after the windmill accident in Hoover but that was planted propaganda to lure them back. Jake Hardbody also had a hard head, like a Diamond. In truth, he was a type of God himself. He was the secret power behind the police force of Upper Western Middle X-City, and soon to be a hero for a greater cause.

(to be continued)

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