Back in Whippersnapper, Baker waited outside for a new Christmas shipment of antique art (and pottery) to the Blue Baron’s.
“Monolith…?” he questioned when it finally arrived from ports unknown. “Let me check,” offered Chuck Wakdins the delivery man, and looked down his inventory list. “Which one,” he finally said, “Ansel Adams or, let me see, Greg Ogden? New guy apparently.”
Suc-cess!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0609, HANA LEI
“Yes, you’ve named a number of the Paper *Kings* and I thank you for that, Elvina.”
“You’re welcome, Buster.”
“Inspector,” he corrected. “By night. Chef by day.”
“Then…” She bit her tongue. He *must* know. “But…” she started again.
“Yes, ‘but’. We’re looking for the kingpin, Elvina, and you know it. They just call themselves the Kings, collective, to honor him. He was secretly elected — as we understand it down at the station — on Thanksgiving Day of last year…”
*This* year, Elvina thought, but kept her mouth shut (again).
—–
Turns out the plural version of the name was just an oversight. The gang working with the actual King would never dare call themselves such. On a tip from Elvina, mistake responsible Lester had to change all the related graffiti in town the next day.
“Okay, one down, Lester,” said Custer, in charge of the clean up, “and who knows how many to go. We’ll just walk around some more, pheh.”
“Yeah yeah, sure. Anything to appease the boss.”
“He ain’t elected yet.” But Custer knew he would be elected. Again. There were powers outside of town that would make sure of it.
Lester pointed toward the motel. “Over there I think.”
“Let’s go,” Custer waved.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0609, Paper Soap+, Soap
“Long ago, the Lemon peoples blocked this peninsula off from the rest of Nautilus for a special role. To provide the Great 4n1 a place to play and romp. Roost Never Sleeps was built on the highest peak. There the Lemon peoples made friends with the Great 4n1.”
“Lemme get this straight. The big 4 prog rock groups became friends with the Beetles. Here.”
“Yes,” replied Hoppy back to Herbert, formerly Windmill Man or in tandem with that name. “There were 3 Beetles, a Great 3n1 if you will. The main Beetles had a doppleganger double in both music and comedy. In most unexpected places!”
“Shame the castle is gone now.”
“We have a new one!” exclaimed Hoppy. “Yours.”
“No,” replied Herbert, trying to let the little floppy eared fellow down easy. “My castle will not stay, Hoppy. Mine is destined to go the way of The Roost.”
Hoppy shed a tear with this. “I guess we’re stuck with just the one.” Both looked up.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0028, 0609, Nautilus, NORTH, Rooster's Peninsula
“You know, young laddie, I was going to be big. I don’t mean psychiatrist big. *Big* big, as in owning my own franchise of Pooping Pigeons. Well, someone decided to drop a big big *poop* on that idea. Came back on me, all my past, all my *medical* doctoring. I had to switch doctors, in that I became a psychiatrist instead of a physician. It was just that dramatic a change.” He pointed his cane in the direction of the tunnel and the train station now, past the statue with the pooping pigeon on its shoulder that triggered this whole soliloquy.
“Gee spot — right over there. Came in the tunnel. The Asylum sits on top of it.”
“Did you know,” young Peter File spoke absentmindedly, not really paying attention to the doctor’s ramblings, “I can balance this little paper hat on my nose?” He blew at it with his mouth; the object didn’t move. He sat up, looked at the doctor as if just waking up. “Paper,” he spoke more seriously, taking in the landscape. “We’re in *Paper*.”
“Been here for a while, yes. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Things *changed*.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0609, Paper Soap+, Soap
“Have you heard, the news, Douglas? ‘Daily Toilet’ says Picturetown is back on the map and humming.”
“Distractions,” offers Douglas Blue Feather, the local sheriff ’round these parts. “Us Angels should stick to what’s good for us. *Dreaming*.”
“But reality beckons!” Douglas hated when Yellow Purse Kimball shouted during a game. And this is the first hole (!). What will the 8th, the 11th, the 16th bring? A noisy snack of Big 60 cookies in assorted vanilla, chocolate, strawberry packed away deep in his golf bag? Gum chewing; finger snapping; whistling; singing, even: “Singin’ in the Rain”? Weatherman Fox Stet, a professor of biology over at Camden Yards, forecasts a good chance of storms this afternoon. Per usual in early May or June or whenever the f-ck it is now. Along with the wind of course, the constant evening billowing.
“Better finish by 2,” Douglas says, looking up in the skies. Clear sailing so far. He glances over at his golfing partner already swatting away. “Maybe, Yellow, we should save the putting for the actual green and not the tee.”
“Hey, I’m just practicing!” The shouting again. Oh looky, there goes the first piece of gum into his mouth. It was going to be a long round of golf. The only reason he’s doing this in the first place is get the scoop on Picturetown, because Yellow Purse Kimball has inside stuff. But he mustn’t be too obvious about the prying, the digging, the scooping. “Vanilla and chocolate,” he imagines saying to Don the ice cream vendor between front and back nines. “And top it off with, let’s see…”
“Strawberry?” guesses Don, still 9 holes away in dream-reality but already scooping away at the brown and and then white filled buckets below him in his imagination.
“Let’s go with lime.”
——
“This is absolutely the longest f-cking round of golf I’ve ever played, Douglas thinks after 2 pieces of gum, 5 whistles, and 15 hums by his count. And we’re only 1/3 the way through! Don and his delicious, home made ice cream, sorbet and sherbet is still 3 holes away. Can he hold out for his just reward? But he’s already got some scoops, so to speak. Information, that is. White Palace, Toddles the precious precocious child stuck exactly halfway between 23 22 and 22 23. Male and female. This information definitely didn’t come from the “Daily Toilet”. Inside stuff indeed. He looks over: at least Yellow Purse is on the green while putting now. Can you take any longer to make a shot? Oh, there’s goes the humming again, the stalling. He’s recalculating his line. Might as well dream about ice cream again, pheh.
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0026, 0609, Angel's Rest, Canada, Canada/Picturetown
She kept perusing the Oracle while waiting. The blue of her dressed matched the blue of the distant sea. Alpha… Windy, she studied. Wait… stop. Protection, she determined. She is Windy. Or Wendy.
Baker was waiting outside. She had to make a decision about an outfit. Wendy wouldn’t do — that’s kind of the base one for her now in its two twinned forms, one to build upon, like the old Wheeler-Bowie costume. Blurmaid at the last island down, she recalled. Should be something to do with Queen and King, since Corton is involved. But she and Baker weren’t Queen and King. The marriage witnessed by Speck and Crazy over on Grandpa Cliffs turned out to be a sham, a lie even. It was all too British, with true bridesmaids Fern Stalin and Lichen Roosevelt nowhere to be found. She had been on her own and didn’t even stand a chance.
Look at the bastard out there, still in his wedding tux. The audacity! He probably thinks I’ll do it again, be tricked once more. But he doesn’t know me deep down. I don’t put up with such shite.
Sure hope Wheeler picks a better outfit than Blurmaid this time, he thinks while staring up and trying to spot her through one of the house’s many windows.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0609, Nautilus, Rim Isles
In teleporting around Thornwood tonight, I realized that the foxes Muff and Birmingham, last seen in a NWES City wishing store, were getting along better, which means everything was more in balance in Our Second Lyfe and beyond.
The Diagonal was okay now, but I had no place there. Or did I? No, no, if I open up that can of worms, then karma will come into play again and I’ll have to dig deeper into Rose Heaven history — make it up, in essence, which I’m not sure if the locals, as a whole, would enjoy. The Mist represents a barrier. I have to have cooperation to continue. And I’ve decided the cooperation should come to me instead of visa versa. It’s something I’ve learned. Don’t draw attention to yourself.
23, 23, 23
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0024, 0609, Rose Heaven-
“I’m telling you Hucka Doobie. The House of Joy was *right* here just yesterday. And I saw a Brendan for the first time.”
“Connected,” she im’ed back from the White Palace, too busy right now to show up in person, so she said. But was that a “lazy” word from her? I knew something was happening in this particular location of the Bellisaria continent. Hucka Doobie did too. Yet… she’s holding back.
And another game place behind it. *Right* here, he complains about the vacant lot to noone now.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0609, Bellisaria, Four Corners
“Remember? I asked you to select a pencil to begin. Pull one of the 4 pencils out of the desk, I said to you that day long long ago. 30 years?”
“Maybe.” He recalled the desk of course, the pencils, the *dunce cap*. Always making D’s he was back then, until Suisan got her learned hooks into his hide.
“And low and behold you pulled out the 4th, the hardest to do. I knew you were special then. Do you still have the pencil?”
Barry DeBoy stared at the desk, indicating the 4 pencils. Suisan understood.
“Yes, you had to give it back. You couldn’t take it with you all of your life. Instead you received the *tie*. You traded the pencil for the tie. And so here you are.” She indicated, in turn, Barry’s omnipresent tie, at least in Dream World, La La Land.
—–
“Do you see all the planets, Duncy? *Sorry*: Barry. Old habit.” She turns slightly red here. “But you’re only suppose to see one.
“*There* it is. Appearing from a hidden place. Neptune. The icy planet. I.C.U., hehe. Remember we played that game with Neptune? You learned about the solar system and eventually the milky way and the whole cosmos that way. Nothing was hidden from you any more. Thanks to that pencil.”
“I recall.”
“Mr. Johnson came to call. He’d learned of a special boy in our class who could alter dimensions and make the 3d appear 2d. A special gift indeed. He wanted the boy for himself. And it was Johnston, not Johnson.”
“I remember.”
“We almost made the mistake of sending you away, Barry. We would have never found you again.”
“I’m Neptune.” He points to the now fully exposed blue planet slowly slowly revolving around the sun. Slower than any of the rest, even stinky Uranus, which will eventually catch up with her. Because Neptune is a she. He’d seen her once in the high grass beyond Le Mars. But he didn’t want to think about what she was doing there just then. In the moment.
“One more,” Suisan requested.
“Okay.”
—–
“The bomb, Barry. We never finished our childhood puzzle so we could move to the adult ones. But now you’re…”
“An adult,” Barry surmised. He understood the message. He must awake and get back to work. Zen City was gone, but there was still Meat City, Collagesity. CITY must be purified of all these hanger oners. Suburbia must be cleansed.
—–
Goodbye, er, The Waste. For now.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0609, The Waste+
Wheeler was called in to move some 88’s and decided to have a chat with Barry while she was at his studio. “How’d the meeting go with Warhole?” she asked to begin. “I heard Ant and Harrison Jett were also there. Something about murder?”
“No,” defended Barry, not worried about his blood stained hands in the moment, although he reflexively crossed his arms to hide them.
“No, everything was lovely,” he continued. “Warhole and I were bickering a bit when Ant and Harry showed up.”
“Harry?”
“Yeah, that’s what Ant called him all the time. Anyway, *they* started bickering with each other and then we started looking around, all four of us, and begin laughing. First a ha, then a ho ho, then a hu hu hu, then a full out he he he he for all. Graham then served some kind of regional soup for us and then everyone said ‘hi’ to end, kind of like aloha.”
“Graham? Who’s that?” continued Wheeler with the questions. She didn’t plan on delivering so many but here we are. She looks over at the slanted picture of the Eiffel Tower and thinks we need to get back over to Marwood and the bots for more storytelling on the Jeogeot continent. Speaking of which…
“Graham owns the cafe. Rothko fan through and through, along with collecting covid ravens and practicing anti-fascist remote viewing.”
“She?” Barry didn’t say ‘she’ — didn’t identify a sex for Graham, which is more a boy’s name I’m assuming. Where did Wheeler get…? Oh, maybe *she’s* indicating I should go in that direction. *She* wants to be Graham. So I decided to ask her. Wait, I’m not in this shot.
Barry didn’t pick up on the anomaly and simply replied, “*she*, yeah.” Wheeler was already checking her outfits.
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0609, Corsica, Northwest
Sunklands 