He was traveling down the Elephant’s Trunk, like Ant before him. Axis kept track of his progress with red pins, bigger and brighter than ever. Next stop if his dastardly design goes according to plan: Ephant. At the base of the trunk and marking it as truly an elephant’s. Axis knew his furloughed boss would land there. He always did.
The trap is set.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0605, Corsica, Northwest^
A door shut.
Then a few feet later: open.
He *is* the door.
We must ask the shiny white mower man behind the Lakeland sign: what next?
Or perhaps Mr. Cooley who lives on Copley will do.
https://rehold.com/Akron+OH/COPLEY+RD/1907
He was playing a white piano in Black Dragon, waiting for Axis. Well he was *pecking* at the thing, since Baker Bloch is quite the non-musician. “I can’t even play John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ on this,” Baker lamented aloud, non-talented hands finally lifted from the keyboards. “Better get over to Spunky’s”.
—–
“Have we met before?” Baker Bloch asks after sitting down with Axis at Spunky’s. The wine had just arrived. Merlot for both.
“Sure we have, Baker Bloch. You played the piano for me.”
Baker Bloch stared at him, knowing he was confusing him with someone else. But he was too embarrased to talk about his lack of musical abilities right now, especially after the white piano fiasco. He *dreams* he can play the piano quite well. Why not in reality? he’s asked himself more than once. Not even “Imagine”.
“Y-you must be confusing me with someone else,” he offered after a pause. *Pitch* can play the piano. Has Axis met Pitch?
“As you wish,” the black clad man with the red crossed chess returned, allowing the matter to drop. In his reality, black moves first in chest. Baker has indeed met Axis (novel 15; toward the end) but doesn’t recall. What he *did* note here is that their voices are strangely synchronized — same tone, same mannerisms. He also doesn’t recall that Axis is already married in that reality. To Teebestia, the open heart woman from, let’s see, novel 5 I believe. Yes, the one set almost exclusively in Olde Lapara Towne, also mentioned recently in this here blog, um, this here photo-novel (16).
“Well anyway, congrats on the marriage old chap!” Baker raises his glass, and Axis reciprocates. They don’t clink because that could end the dream. “Good that we’ve met and discussed things. I’ve grown quite fond of Wheeler down through the years now. We had a rocky start, being competitors for the ownership of Collagesity originally, but now we’ve learned to share. Part for me, see, and part for her. And, I suppose, now part for you as her partner. Will you be living in Collagesity? Maybe at the Julia House? My friend Karoz Blogger will not be returning it doesn’t seem. He was slated to live there.”
“That could happen,” Axis matched Baker, almost at mate. Black opening first makes all the difference. He can add the “N” at the end to finish.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0016, 0605, Jeogeot, NWES Island^
“So can anyone tell me where this word comes from?” Kyao Suki tried not to look down at his chalk dusted hands, wanting to wash them. Instead he projected forward, toward his audience, his pupils. All except Kevin A. (Kevin Orchardsity), who was asleep in the front row, slightly snoring even.
Vaulter Valerie Kempbill would have raised her hand if she had any. Instead she spoke up. “Piedmont,” she uttered proudly from her headless head. She had read all of 2 hours the night before. Such interesting material!
“Very close, Valerie. It’s *Pietmond*. Like the artist Piet Mondrian.” Kyao could tell this flew over everyone’s head so he let the resonance drop. He briefly thought about the 3 chalk disaster that was suppose to be a rendition of his “Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow” and decided not to go down that path as well. Leave art for the artists, he decided. Like Peggy Bartholomew up on the 5th floor. Ahh: Peggy. But enough of that. Back to teaching!
“Do you know why *Pietmond* was the source of Sinkology, Valerie… anyone?”
Garfield Hatfield looked around the room, thinking they were all a bunch of losers; castoffs. Well, *he* was. Seeing no one else speak up, he offered: “Because it existed in a sinkhole?” He almost said *stinking* sinkhole but backed off at the last second. What was this thing he had about biting remarks? He wasn’t like this as a kitten.
“Correct, Hatfield. Very good. Pietmond existed in one of the 6 legitimate sinks of the continent of Jeogeot, which we covered yesterday. As you recall, this is also the Southern Continent or the 3rd created by our makers. Does anyone remember the other continent we spoke about yesterday, hmm?” No immediate answer. “The one with the 2 other sinks that all Sinkologists agree are legitimate — real? 7 and 8?”
Valierie Kempbill was thinking something like “Concrete” but decided to keep quiet, already embarassed about the presence of one mispronunciation.
“Corsica,” Kyao Suki pronounced clearly. “Corsica,” he repeated. “And *today*, we’re going to discuss the one we’re on now to complete the survey of our sinks.” *Surely* they know the continent they live on currently, he though to himself, but decided to ask anyway.
Half said Satori, half said Maebaleia after Kevin A. woke up enough to chip in. Even split between Northerners and Southerners we have here, Kyao Suki realized, taking a better look at his assembled class.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0605, Maebaleia/Satori, X-City^
“If only there were smiles in my Kingdom, Bishop.”
“You just sit there and look pretty. Don’t think about the Lemon and Lime.”
“I *wasn’t* thinking about…”
“Nor the Room.”
“I…”
“Nor this place we’re in. Where it all ends.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0014, 0605, Golden Sink^, Maebaleia/Satori
How could you have Dark *Lemon* Eyes. What’s *happening*?
“I’ll tell you soon enough,” replied Sep Felton, finally ready for her transfer over to Wallytown.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0013, 0605, Lower Austra^, Nautilus
“It’s perfect Patrick. We can raise our child here on retro Pineapple Island. We don’t need Eotia Village any longer. It’s just me and you, babe. I got you and all that.”
“What about the Oracle?” spoke Patrick, wiser than ever. The baby was coming!
“Oh, that thing. Discard it. Let it go. Tigers can be found anywhere. In the jungle. In the snow. Even in the desert or wasteland. We have our baby to think about now.”
—–
“Something’s not right, Zoidboro. There shouldn’t be a lake here. And the trees should be taller.”
“Nothing to worry about. Everything will adjust. Dog Island, the new one, is right over there.” Zoidboro indicates behind them, through the feed store and across the bay. “This is the new Murdock’s Island. Pineapple. The highway ends here.”
—–
“I think the trees *are* getting taller now.”
“And the water is beginning to evaporate. See? Everything will be fine.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0012, 0605, End of Time^^
“It’s not that one, Dixon Too. Too low, you see. No snowy peak.”
“Stop calling me ‘Too.’ *You’re* the ‘Too'”
“How about just Dixon again,” he compromised. “We call each other Dixon from now on. We’ll deal with the One and Too when other people are around.”
“Agreed, er, Dixon. But… we’ve already done this. Our entire lives.”
“Agreed,” the other repeats.
—–
“She says she’ll sleep with you. You have that to look forward to.”
“Maybe I don’t want to sleep with her,” the other countered, making his doppleganger laugh. The other then laughed with him.
“Good one, *’Too’*.”
—–
Alone again, he surveys the world he comes from.
“What a load of crap.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0011, 0605, Mountain Lake^, The Cross^
“So you see, Chloe. It’s all about the interior to that game. This game within a game you are on about. The Basin. We must get beyond Dead Lake — both of them — and enter the place of the burning dog.”
“I don’t like that idea,” returned a worried, slumped over, arm crossed Chloe. “I just want to stay in the trailer park, shoot up some people, and then *leave*. I don’t want to find this door into a hidden place. Just leave me out of it.”
Sandy breathes out. “Okay, okay. I’ll try the other Chloe, then.”
“It won’t be any different.”
“It might.”
—–
“Soo Chloe. Whadda you knoow?”
“Get away. Playing on phone.”
“Just a couple…”
“GO AWAY, JEEZ.”
—–
“I suppose I owe you an apology.”
“Just leave me in the trailer park,” she reinforced.
—–
So he returned to EM at the blue painted coffee shop of Fishers Island, mission seemingly a failure. But EM thought otherwise.
“You got them thinking! They’ll come around. A seed has been *planted*.”
—–
The next time Chloe Price approached the end of the pavement representing the limit of the Gunn Mobile Trailer Park game…
… she suddenly recalled that thing about a glitch which allowed one to go further down this road — into the dirt part — all the way to a place called Dead Man’s Lake. No: just Dead Lake. Dead Sea, something. But it had to be done a certain way. Today, unlike yesterday or the day before or the day before that, etc., she decided it might be worth the risk. Checking back into the heart of the trailer park to make sure none of her enemies were following her (or were left alive, period)…
… she walks over and shoots her oh-so-familiar weapon at what looks like a weirdly shaped grey rock in front of her (the “glitch”). Not once, not twice, but three times.
She then sticks her gun into a suddenly opening black vortex, never to be held or used again.
The dirt road opens up before her. “Dead Sea — whatever — here we come!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0010, 0605, Alabama, Urbane Blue/Fishers Island^
“Who are you?”
Tessa suddenly understood. “Um. This is not good, Grandpa.”
“Don’t get up sir.”
Too late.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0009, 0605, New Island^, The Waste^^
Sunklands 