Corsica the elephant continent is chocked full of stories, and I’ll try to get to as many as possible.
I’m not worried about the land failing me — indeed, no. I’m worried about the *people*.
Because when one peak goes out of sight…
… another seems to appear.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0610, Corsica, Northwest^
Leaday, who has mysteriously replaced Goldie in the meantime, whispers through the disconnected line of pipes toward Peter/ Dr. Diper. “End of tiimmmme,” the part fish, part frog creature hissed.
“We’re running out of time,” stated Parasol across from Guy Benjamin while staring over at the Residents Union Back hourglass and its shifting sand.
But these were the “human” forms of cat beings Rebl and Guyd respectively, out of the End of Time caves and in Kowloon for a reason. Guy has human relatives: Grandmama and Grandpapa. Well, only Grandmama now, since the latter was done in by Axis the other day. With his Lost Cane in heaven, he still directs the good guys down below, however. Including grandson Guy. Parasol has other reasons for being here. She’s still looking for someone. Herbert Gold back in Rosehaven didn’t produce the needed results.
Across the alleyway, in the apartment directly behind Leaday, a phone rings. Satan Santa, taking his third bath of the day, cusses a hellish word, then exclaims to Frosty beside him, “You know who that is.” It wasn’t a question; no one calls here but her. Satan Santa stands up out of the tub and prepares to waddle toward the living room to answer it. Five rings, six rings… he knows she won’t let up.
Frosty is gleeful. He hopes this is the last time he has to see this ugly, hairy ass moving away from him. Too many times!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0610, Kowloon^^
“Why am I here, Axis? I can’t stand it any more!”
“Keep it down, dearest. You know why you’re here.”
“I know I know. The *Hiding*.”
“Did your skin change over today? How long this time if so?”
“Always with the percentages. *Yes*, it changed over.” She looked up from her backwards position, straining to see his face above her knees. “Sit down in the sand beside me. Hard to talk with you this way.”
Axis didn’t like sand. Actress Alice Frame knew this. And she’d purposefully rezzed only one chair on the tiny beach here. Fate, she thought. I stare straight out, but no one can look in. She lowered her head back toward the sand. Backwards she remained.
“I got a letter from Jack Toadswallow today.”
“Um, Jack who?” He was still standing. His legs were getting weary, his neck beginning to hurt. He couldn’t pull her off this peninsula effectively isolated from the rest of prying NWES. And he couldn’t stay.
“You know. *Ingo*.”
“Oh, Jack Toadswallow, right.” Axis had forgotten the name of the actor playing Alice Frame’s brother in the current production. And her real life lover, at least until the end of section 3. “How’s he doing?” Axis had taken pictures of the Rosehaven Yarn Shop but sensed he wouldn’t be sharing these with Alice Frame today. The princess has forgotten who she is.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0016, 0610, Canada, Canada/Picturetown, Jeogeot, Neptune, NWES Island^
Hmph. I suddenly can’t remember why I’m here at the X. Something about finding something. But what?
He breathes deeply; massive, blood stained chest heaving.
Better get back to Buster over in Long Drive, Pitch thinks. Back to the dance — last thing I recall.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0610, Maebaleia/Satori, X-City^
“Well here it is. Little Jimmy. The bastard.”
“Over here,” beckoned Keith B. “Wrong car again.”
“Oh.”
“Let’s take a spin!”
“Where to?”
“You know where.”
“The end,” Jim B. mutters to himself while walking toward it, resigned to his fate.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0014, 0610, Cass City^, Maebaleia/Satori
Geez, what a pathetic prop. Grey intestines look *nothing* like that.
On to the interesting subjects… just around the corner.
Ahh so. An actual living, breathing vein and artery person. Thanks to *us*. And then her sister, but without the internal circulating system. Sorry, Girl 01. The sister — Girl 02 — will have to remain on the ship. But *you*…
—–
“I was a girl with long, spindly legs,” spoke Misty Felton to her new bestest friend Sep Felton back at the latter’s apartment (125 Wall Lane, Wallytown). They hadn’t determined a blood relation, if there was one to be found. To Sep, that left the door wide open to… experimentation.
“Interesting,” Sep replied. “I always imagine horses. It affects people different ways. So I take it you like the dance… oh, silly question; you were gyrating just as hard as I was during the heated moments. But not as hard as Molly, tee hee. A better question would be, what didn’t you like about the dance? Personally, I was a little disappointed that Molly was glitter-free by the end. But it’s a small criticism. How about you?”
Chatty again, Misty thought. But with that nice, pleasant tone. Still probably makes up for it. Yes, it turns out that Molly’s routine involves *one*, count ’em, one dance throughout, but with many variations of themes tried. On and on the music went, a combination of Pink Floyd’s “On the Run” and Judy Garland’s theme song “Over the Rainbow,” as Sep explained. Being from 1920, Misty wasn’t familiar with either. Combined title: “OTR” of course. Born to be mashed up, as Sep also said.
“I can’t think of anything,” Misty offered to Sep’s question, hoping to switch the subject back to the spindly legged girl. And the sister. What *were* their names? It was right on the tip of her tongue.
Just when she was thinking this, Sep leaned over the counter separating them and pecked a kiss on the lips fronting said tongue. It took her breath away. But it wasn’t unpleasant. On the contrary… “You know I may be your great grandmother or something,” she said to put some distance between them again.
“Nope,” spoke Sep. “We ruled all that out. We called Mom… we traced our ancestry back 4 generations. Thanks to Uncle Bert as well. (The name) Sep’s just a coincidence.”
Hmm, pondered Misty. She decided to reintroduce the subject bothering her more than anything. She was a little irritated that Sep had skipped over it so quickly. It seemed super important to her. Horses… why did the music invoke horses for her? She decided to say this aloud, then work back to the girl. Sex, or whatever’s coming up, could wait. “Why horses?”
“I’ve always liked them. In a past life I imagine myself being a horse. Tricksy. And with Capricorn my stud lover. We’d gallop the fields to the Misty Mountain, where the lighted ones are found, the beings who lead us down to the big head Brainard in the valley beyond. Altona.”
“That quite a fantasy you have going there,” opined Misty with a slight laugh and shake of the head. Misty Mountain? she then thought. Why *my* name? Again she decided to vocalize her internalizations. “Coincidence about the Misty Mountain?”
“Oh… didn’t think about that. Yes: coincidence. Chance — again.” But suddenly Sep knew that Misty and herself couldn’t be a couple. Because something *had* happened beyond that mountain; down in the valley. She was remembering this now — lingering effects of The Dance. They had both been *absorbed.* Assimilated… yes, that was the word she was looking for.
Misty was thinking the same word at the same time. And realizing the same thing about the couple part. Their minds were synchronized now. Because, actually, they had one mind.
That of Brainard.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0013, 0610, Wallytown/Fishers Island^
The company put Jackson Bloch up in a shack over in Hambone, just across the sim line from Nevermore. Handy for work, but he had to live with rental furniture and decorations, which he usually hated. However, this place was different. All the decor that should have remained alien to him began becoming more familiar instead. Slowly, surely, he felt like this was home, not only the shack, but, perhaps even moreso, Hambone itself.
He’d heard of a local man named Pat who disappeared in the past that some say looked and acted like him. They didn’t say “slow” or “ugly” or “unkempt” to his face, but that’s the essence of what they meant. Maxine Cornbread, Howard Johnstone, and the rest. The Gossipers, they called themselves, and met at The Last Drop every Wednesday afternoon, sand storm or shine. Jackson Bloch was now part of their outer, extended circle. So was a new dude named Walt: Walter Westinghouse. Philip Tongue as well. The Tongue — fits right in with that nickname. Anyway, the similarity between Jackson and Pat — our Patrick Starr of course — has been brought up several times now by that group. Slowly, surely, the story of the Nevermore abductions will intertwined with those of Pat and Jackson. 1 plus 1 begins to add up to 3. As in an unexpected baby. If he hadn’t died in that killer shark attack 15 years back, imagine the relief Zoidboro would have experienced learning who the true father was. Aliens! “Should have known,” I can hear him say from the grave.
With his mind, Jackson removes several posters from the wall he suddenly finds unwanted and unnecessary.
He’s been doing such things all his life. That’s how he became involved in the ruin construction business. No one puts up ruins faster than him. Or tears them down if the reverse is needed. No one.
Jackson is indeed very blessed and very special.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0012, 0610, The Waste^^
“Okay, I’m just going to start with the red and work from there. Hold *still*, please.”
“Sorry. I was just trying to unstick my arm from this skirt.”
“Let it go. It’s fine. Your skirt’s just poofing out too much for the animation. I’ve already worked it into the picture. Just calm down.”
“I should be telling *you* that.” She let him paint in peace for a while. She watched him exchange red for yellow, then yellow for blue. The tube of Winsor and Newton Permanent Green had been left behind in Middletown. This wasn’t an oil painting.
“How… how long are we going to stay here with your hick family, ex of mine?” she finally said to break the silence. Blue was done. She stared at his quickly drying brush. “I suppose Mr. Babyface is long overdue for being oiled up, haha.”
“Aunt Emerald asked me here for the wedding. She said it shouldn’t be long before we know which Dixon was involved. I thought it would be a good excuse to get away from you-know-who.”
“Mr. Green,” Supergal Flo said, nodding, thinking of the monster.
“Yeah. And reconnect with you for a bit. Aunt Emerald insisted. She said, be sure to bring that red, yellow, and blue gal of yours. So we’re throwing her off, along with the others. Best they don’t know about Gregg with the extra ‘g’, see. The rogue relation.”
“Good idea. So… we’re trapped here.”
“Until the wedding, yeah. Snowwhite will choose soon enough, though.”
Interesting he’s never painted his sister, Supergal Flo realized about her ex as he cleaned his brush. All gleaming white with no color atall. What’s the point, I suppose.
“Let me see.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0011, 0610, Mountain Lake^, The Cross^
“Is it a place of good…
… or a force for evil, this new New Island?
Fishers Island. Eraserhead Man might know, but he’s already done with this particular Collagesity novel, taking his strange troupe of actors along with him. Loaded onto the Isle of the Top Dog, they are; destinations: unknown. ‘Out there’, as Captain Spocari Nemoy might say. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Bill/Wheeler paused in her story, took a good look at Baker/Pitch sitting opposite her.
Still wearing his Russian hat (she must look up the name of that thing). Still fretting over when Mary gets home, what she’d like to eat on any given night, what wine to buy her, will her several different changes of clothing with different fabrics have to be washed separately or can it be done altogether. Small problems, nothing that can’t be solved with a little more experience and know-how. Yes, he is knitted together with his woman. And as such, he can never really go back to being plain ol’ Baker Bloch any longer. That’s the takeaway about *him* from this novel she’s receiving.
But herself? It’s a more complicated story, involving Philip Strevor, Marion Harding, True Opp (Tropp — *not* Troop). Maybe we can revisit the third one for more answers. Last we checked, he’s still up in New Eden, hanging around with Madam Mexico and Mr. Peanuts.
“But what did Ruby see there?” Pitch then asked (yes, she’s just going to think of him as Pitch from now on). “What is the ending to her Democratic Empire story?”
“Nothing,” answered Bill confidently. “There was no one in the lab. Just a stack of cheese in its center. And… a moth.”
She hesitated slightly, then: “Wait! There *was* someone there. Is!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0010, 0610, Mexico, Ruby's Empire/Fishers Island^
Adelaide crawled around and crawled around, but still was unable to find New Island under this bed. Maybe the others would know more, she realized happily. I haven’t *thought* about asking them yet (!).
But in truth she had asked the other patients at Baumbeer Mental Hospital in the Tethia sim of Heterocera’s Pond District over and over this same line of questioning: Where is New Island? What happened to my art colony? Where are my *paintings*? She couldn’t face the fact that it was all gone, as if in a poof. Mid Hazel was the culprit. She grew tired of watching energy grow in that direction and put a quick halt to it. The catastrophe. Radiation in a lime green kiln. BOOM! But strangely, no harm to the involved buildings, and, outwardly at least, to the people either. Until they started dropping to the ground 4, 5, 6 days later. Not the people, the *art*. On display no more, and soon to derezz away into nothingness as creative energy continued to be drained.
Ground Zero?: the chair that the Tronesisia robot sculpture currently occupies at the Artist Point Interactive gallery, former location of the kiln where sculptress Tennessee Nuffin Butler fired her male parts in. It was a particular Red bit that Mid Hazel had chosen for the nascent seed. And it came from the future and had something to do directly with Bill and cheese.
Adelaide waves her hands in the air, trying to decide, once more, which way the wind blows.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0009, 0610, New Island^, Pond District^
Sunklands 