“Check it out guys. A TILE house, ha. And, let’s see, our place should be directly behind it on the next street over if I remember correctly.”
“Yes, here we are. Home sweet home, at least for this week, maybe longer if the sandstorms don’t move in afterwards as predicted. Can’t survive here in sandstorms, at least while you’re out exploring. And it stirs up a lot of toxins in the air and water too. A week it is,” Billie Jean Kidd decided then and there on the length of their stay in this here Bombay Beach, with virtual Sandy Shores layered on top of it.
She parks the car, which means she parks herself. She gets out of the car but it disappears behind her. A kid once more, her primary shape or one she herself likes to call home. Home for home.
“TILE again, you’ll notice,” she points out to her boys, speaking about the 4 colors, red yellow green blue, on the wall inside. “Nifty — another reason I knew this was the place.”
Philip Stevor and Marion Star Harding had said very little during the short trip from the SW corner of small Bombay Beach to here, more in the center. The heart, if you will. They were still dumbfounded at the turn of events. But Marion offered this while peering inside at the cold hard floor of the ruined shack. “Shotgun.”
“Nonsense, Marion Star Harding,” she said to this. “You’ll stay here in the house with me as I truly am. You too, Philip Strevor, whatever your middle name is. I refuse to turn back into the car just so you can have some cushion to your sleep. You’ll be here… with me.”
What could they do. They laid down on each side of her, determined to get some rest for what she called an even bigger day tomorrow.
“I’ll keep watch,” she volunteered, knowing there were other toxic dangers out there besides air, water, soil. Like Billie, modern art never sleeps.
She watched a tesseract, 2 surfboards in tuxedos, and a shark with a television for a stomach pass by without incident. And in the second minute she saw even more.
