“Still not here,” Axis lamented, blue curse purse painting propped to one side. “She must still be at the school. A short drive from here, despite the name. Yet — I think I’ll visit Teebestia first. Something inside me, yes, says to tick that off my list first.”
He stares over at the modified artwork again. “I was such a beautiful little girl before becoming such a handsome man, hehe.”
—–
“Should be just over there.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0607, Maebaleia/Satori, X-City
“They think they are the X, Pitch. But they’re only the western edge: Long Drive. There’s Middle Game left, and there may even be Sink X itself, formerly holding Chip Shot, to complete the game.”
“But the X, the actual crossroads I mean, lies between Long Drive here and Middle Game, which I assume is a destination coming up shortly.”
“But first,” Buster clarified, “The X itself as you put it. Teebestia.”
“Cool.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0606, Maebaleia/Satori, X-City
“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
Buster knew she would be looking in through the secret window. Some called her Blurmaid, half blue, half (mer)maid. She was what Craighead Phillips dreamed about regularly in the aquarium at the center of the X, Maebaleia/Satori’s only true crossroads. And they *were* at one, as we, (the reader) and I, are. This is so top secret that I’m almost inclined to make the remainder of the posts of this current Collagesity novel private. I believe Buster Damm would feel more comfortable if this were so.
—–
“The X is a portal,” he spoke through the bamboo to his old friend Pitch, his best mate for, well, centuries I suppose. This is secret stuff between two old pals, old buddies. “You found the blue rose by the sign — you know that now.”
“Ahh, blue rose. Should’ve known.”
“Novalis, yes. But the blue rose is close yet again.” He peers at the door he cannot see through once more. “We are — being monitored,” he measured in his high pitched voice.
Pitch let this sink in before responding bassly from his reclining position. “Cathy A. I know about her and the blue rose that once was red. Like, er, Marcus Fox Smartville’s. What — happened to them?”
[delete 5 exchanges]
“We will compensate by editing…”
[delete 3 exchanges]
—–
Annaliza appeared from around the corner. “We have had enough of discussions today if you please. Mr. Pitch sir, you will follow me again to the pool room where we will talk more tomorrow. Mr. Dang, if you will excuse us.”
“Sure, sure.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0604, Maebaleia/Satori, X-City
“Alright Mr. Pitch Darkly darling. You have suffered enough on the America’s flag. You are allowed to see Mr. Burster Dang in the bamboo park this morning.”
“*Finally* You hear that down there Mary?”
“I heard,” she gurgled upward.
—–
“So what gives, Burster? I mean, Buster?”
“Just lay there and don’t move. And talk *through* the bamboo as much as possible. The bamboo is sacred, the bamboo is healing.”
Pitch Darkly intuits he wants to add on something like, “All Hail the Wild Green Grass,” even if Buster doesn’t say it out loud. What made him think this? Then something else came in his mind. “Is — this an audition?” he asked.
Buster became even more serious. “Annaliza. Will you kindly leave Pitch and me alone for a moment.”
Annaliza hesitates, but then acquiesces, bowing deeply before departing in silence. Pitch wanted to shout, “Are you all right down there!” to Mary, but knew she couldn’t hear through the floor. She wasn’t allowed (again). This was very, very wrong.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0603, Maebaleia/Satori, X-City
“An agreement was reached, Hucka Doobie. Two realities, but then one reality. And it’s not the one that won.”
—-
“Bluebox…”
“Hills of Bill,” Hucka Doobie elaborated from behind once more, also looking at the map containing the former “Blue” galleries of Maebaleia/Satori on the 2nd floor of the house. “Center.”
“… then Blue Feather.”
“North.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0602, Golden Sink, Maebaleia/Satori
“I will bring you back to life from the fire, Amos Truth. But you must *spread* the Truth after that. Look toward the North this time. Look toward Ong–”
“Ong WHAT?” shouted Amos into the manifested fire. It was *everywhere*.
But after being burned alive again he did indeed emerge from the other side unscathed and unharmed. He gathers up the remaining few seed sacks scattered about here and there in the aftermath and heads across Highway 8 to tell his landmime brother what just happened.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0601, Maebaleia/Satori, Toppsity-
Little Oakley Annie and Big Wanda were foraging for fire kindling in the small forest when they heard the car roar by then suddenly screech to a halt. LOA threw down the sticks she was holding and moved over to the cliff on the edge of the woods. They had prepared for this moment. “The car,” she whispered to Big Wanda, now standing behind her and gazing too. “A *fast* car. We could use a replacement for that old red clunker we’re now using.”
“Which you stole off that farmer before you shot his head off,” whispered back Big Wanda.
“Well — he *sneezed* in front of me. How dare him.”
Despite wanting to protest again for the needlessness of the violence, Big Wanda remained silent. But, like Keith B. in front of her here, she too had a choice to make soon. Sooner than Keith, even.
Little Oakley Annie aimed her ever-present gun at Keith’s head. “I’ll make sure I get a clean hit so we won’t damage the Porsche. The other dude will then run and we can mow him down too. Like grasssss.” She pulled the…
Big Wanda karate chopped Little Oakley Annie’s arm down, making her almost shoot her own foot. “What the…!”, and then she turned toward her partner in crime, gun still in hand. The weapon pointed to the face, the mouth, the nose, while the holder glared. “I should have done this a looong time ago, ” she then threatens, moving toward Big Wanda while the latter retreats, now perched on the edge of the cliff. “You almost disappointed me at the Your Mama concert. 12 years in the future, 12 years in the future, 12 years in the future…”
“Hey up there!” Keith shouts from the road, quickly moving toward the cliff from the car. Jim A. Brown, however, remains frozen in place in the passenger seat. He would always remain frozen in place from now on. Because he was stuck in time.
And there was noone at the cliff any longer. Little Oakley Annie and Big Wanda’s journey through time had also ended, the Big Loop broken.
Keith looked back at the car and frozen Jim B., then back toward the empty cliff. “The Room,” he muttered. “The Room did this.” He dropped to the roads and gave thanks.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0014, 0617, Horns of Hatton+, Maebaleia/Satori
“Why are we stopping here, Keith?” asked Jim, concerned with time as usual.
“I don’t know I don’t know,” answered his riding mate, his maths buddy. “I just feel… a choice needs to be made here. Juncture.” He indicates the map of Satori to their left.
“No,” returns Jim A. Brown emphatically. “We *need* to keep going up Route 8 to Golden City so that you can get back to your daughter in time for at least a late breakfast. It’s already almost light. Wasn’t my idea to go on this joy ride.” But it was totally his idea. His and the Unholy Trinity as a whole. The Scarlet Triangle — the A.Team. Keith B. needed to be thrown under a bus. But since none ran this route, a sports car would have to do. A cursed car.
Still Keith didn’t budge. “Listen,” urged Jim B., intuitively sensing some sort of outside energy influencing current affairs. “We’re about halfway there. Let me drive the rest of the way. You just take a rest. Think of some more maths while you’re relaxing.” Like the theorems connecting Golden City to Golden Sink, dufus, Jim B. thought to himself. We need your brains one last time!
“You don’t drive fast enough,” replies Keith. “Your hair won’t be all spiked up like mine if you bothered to take off your cap.”
We will notice here a similar thing happened to another character’s hair earlier in our story, and for the same reason : a screeching and spinning car. Perhaps a type of Porsche as well, but probably not the same one since the earlier vehicle was painted red. We’re talking about one Craighead Phillips, who just happens to be Keith’s future son-in-law. If he lives long enough to get any further into the future than this weekend. I’d give it 1/2 and 1/2 at this point. Jenny may not even have a father when she meets Craighead a number of years down the road and then elopes to Nautilus for a quickie wedding after an unplanned pregnancy. Preston Weston, the first of three children for her. Jenny becomes Your Mama for real. But we must get back to the Fork of Bill. For that is what it’ll be known as for future generations, whatever happens next.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0014, 0616, Horns of Hatton+, Maebaleia/Satori
“So as you can see from the screen behind me…” — Woody Woodmanson points to it with his precious golden key for the rest of the group sitting around The Table —
“…it was always suppose to end with the Horns of Hatton. The Crown (Capital) is there,” he continues in his squeaky, shrill voice. So irritating to Wheeler, but she couldn’t make it tonight because of the flu. Perhaps not a coincidence when I think about it. “And that’s my Pitch,” he concludes.
“Richfield is the place we can divert them, where the fork is,” Tealy summarizes some earlier talk from his suave chair behind Woody.
“Horns of Hatton, where they could end up instead of Golden Sink,” exclaims Tillie beside him, similarly facing the screen close up from her partnered suave chair. “The B.’s could be saved.”
“*Fork*” Woody spouts suddenly, making everyone jump because of the, you know, voice. So irritating, I’m sure Wheeler would think at this point — if she were here. He was channeling the key again. When he channels the key, his voice tends to become *really* irritating (in Wheeler-speak), with all the “negative” aspects magnified. The key has power that way.
“Yes this could work.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0014, 0615, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Maebaleia/Satori, Nautilus
Sunklands 