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basement dwellers
Wrong side of the road.
—–
We watched from afar (right side of road). “This is where I got my butterflies,” she spoke over, hovering beside me. “You can have some too!” I didn’t need that kind of thing. I needed answers.
“Why are we here?” I cut to the chase. “Jeogeot, I mean. I thought Nautilus (continent) was our focus now. But as soon as we abandoned Collagesity it seems the energy drained away from it. So that would be novels 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 focused on that continent. But now…”
“You need to tell *this* tale because no one else will or can. Else… everything lost.”
Middletown, I assumed.
—–
I looked across the small Linden pool of water at the significant amount of land I could rent. I knew it was coming: the unleashing of MOA again. But not yet. Nautilus remains the one, the tentacled sphere locked away down in the castle’s dungeon. If head librarian Miss Ouri hadn’t already destroyed it. Will check as soon as I get back.
—–
No. Still there.
Oh. Hi me.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0034, 0105, Jeogeot, Midlands, Nautilus, NORTH, Rooster's Peninsula
middle
Half the audience will be red, the other half blue. But in her purple sock hop outfit singing the right songs she thinks she can make it work. First off: the national anthem. “America the Beautiful”. No one can argue with that choice.
She decides to augment the “purple” in mountain through synthesizer manipulation. Lampton will be more than willing to help, she realizes. He knows the importance of all this too. The manipulation of the people of our great US of A.
Come on back Lemont Sanford (!). Turns out you weren’t killed off after all. Wheeler has that power.
But Duncan Avocado was another story and thus we cut off at the drums. Acapella I presume. Get ready for that augmentation Arthur “Kill van Kull” Lampton!
“Oh beautiful for spacious skies…” Beautiful singing voice. Just beautiful. Get ready.
“For ℘ùℜ℘Îē …”
She keeps singing but she scans the audience for change.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0034, 0104, Jeogeot, Towerboro
Top gal
Building numbers the same: too coincidental. This is the neighborhood where I grew up — highlighted in the Oracle as well (Alabama, other states). And *Edward*. Poor Eddy Daigle, Wheeler thinks, purposefully getting his name wrong in honor of cousin Tessie (our Tessa). She “defeated” the pyramid being; sent him out the door without his dunce cap into the world of reality. Although he made a lot of D’s (hence the corner standing), she’s confident that he could work things out; join the land of the living.
She’s got on her retro sock hop outfit to better blend in. Now to see what else is here in this rainbow powered burg.
She checked building after building. The place seems empty. For now.
—–
The next town up and kattycorner: more success.
But can she fit in here?
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0034, 0103, Jeogeot, Towerboro
WTF
The woods speak once more. A gnome appears high on a local mountain in a place I generically term County Park, a more eastward counterbalance (or countybalance, ha) to our City Park and its Aloha village of toy avatars tucked under a thought-to-be sheltering rock on Mt. Tom. This is a taller mountain by about 500 feet: 4038 to around 3525. Name? Um, let’s leave that for now. Okay, let’s say The Knob. Anyway, the gnome appears off a trail quite a ways up it. Someone would have had to make a pretty good effort to get it there — the figure is a foot tall or close to it. A backpack would have been needed.
Salazar Jack or Jacob Gnome; Harry or Harold the Gnome; another child gnome who we know grows up to be Barry DeBoy; and now this, in a way the most miraculous of all. Is it an indication I should move all my toys from Mt. Tom over to this nearby location? Especially given the presence of a bee hole right on the edge of Aloha, and also mud dauber wasps threatening from above? Something to think about.
If only I could figure out a way to talk to the newly discovered toy avatar. Maybe through Barry? So many questions (as usual).
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0034, 0102, Blue Mountain, City Park, Country Park, County Park
00340101
“I *know* this person,” thinks Wheeler at the door of the investigator/psychic’s interior office. She’s playing around with forms again, and this one is an extension of her recent consumption of fries with cheese at the nearby Twin Peaks bar and grill. File it under: you are what you eat. She thought she had 30 days before the skin turned green on this freebie avatar she’s attached to the outfit. Not as advertised; no wonder it was a budget item. She’s trying to become — but never mind. It’s not turning out. But that figure on the door (!).
“What was that Mrs. Corn?” Corn? she thinks. A last name? What’s the first? But she knows what it is.
“Oh… nothing. Just staring at the big eye on your door. It reminds me of someone.”
Psychic-detective Roberts pivots toward Mabel (Mabel!). “We’ve been through this.”
The situation changes.
—–
Jack barges in with his recently cleaned shovel. “Ma’am, the corpse is now bur — oh. Sorry. Didn’t know you were with someone.” Why would he? Miss Roberts never has any clients. Except dead ones. But this one appears to be alive. And green! Must be — but it couldn’t. Martian?
“Hi Harry,” he speaks over to the shorter figure standing beside her, also a gnome, also working for the firm.
“Hello Jacob,” as Harold calls Jack, which he doesn’t like but puts up with. Harry’s a nice guy. And a great carpenter. He did a fine job with this coffin. Extra long, but he made it fit.
“Just looking for the case, Mrs. Corn,” Roberts excuses herself to Mabel, now considerably smaller but just as green. Moreso, since she’s now wearing a Hannah Montana lime toned outfit, fresh from a concert at the Rooftop Inn over in mid-town. Where are we, then? The land description mentions an asylum. Is everyone here nuts? Could explain the outfit.
And the book! Just like the one at the newly established Table Room on Rooster’s Peninsula, where I live as a castle dweller, library in the center still. For now. A sprite was looking in it for information about her type, where she comes from, what are her weaknesses. This is Greenleaf, who also shows up in Towerboro standing on a big rock behind Dove, formerly Ivory, but still a sister to Ebony on the giant tree trunk dead in front of her: Deadwood. And the alphabit spread out on the forest floor below them, which they eat with a spoon one by one by one until they reach M, when *they’re* dead. Mmmmmm dead. Thirteenville.
But I feel like I’m needlessly complicating things again. Let’s back up more.
—–
“Okay, Mrs. Daigle. Let me just begin to look for that case we were just talking about. Oh — and Barry? You can take off your pyramid and go home now. I think you’ve learned your lesson well enough, young gnome.”
The striped dunce cap he was wearing! One and the same.
We must follow this figure and see what happens next.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0034, 0101, Cable Isle, HANA LEI
00330617
It wasn’t much of a cemetery, but then Arthur Kill wasn’t much of a man. “Where’s Tessie?” Wheeler exclaimed, hardly making an effort to honor the deceased via her casual pose. “She should be here.”
“Tessa’s at the town psychic,” Baker Bloch said, assuming a more deferent stance over the grave. He truly liked the actor playing the character and hated him to be killed off, as it were. Though perhaps Lemont Sanford can come back later as someone named Kill van Kull, he pondered, a brother or maybe another one of those twins, cousin or not. Anyway, it wasn’t fair. It was suppose to be a Mexican standoff in Ontario or at least Lake Ontario, above New Jersey above New York and not visa versa. One shot from the shooters went north to the head, the other south to the heart. Yet Tessa survived. That damn third eye just took in Arthur’s bullet and… absorbed it! Then the pyramid appeared. Then another pyramid appeared here. Tessa had to go. Soon Wheeler Wilson and Baker Bloch would learn what actually happened, eye for eye.
Time to bury the dead. Tessa missed her chance.
Wheeler decided to throw in her purse as well on top of the lowering coffin. Fire should be getting pretty hot already.
“Any money in there?” queried Baker, waiting for the inevitable.
“$1500,” she replied. “I figured he might need it for some air conditioning, ha. Final gesture. Fat chance though, right? Am I righht?”
Baker couldn’t help but emit a small smile.
“Just kidding (of course). I wouldn’t give that sorry slimeball any of my hard earned cash. Actually it was just his cursed pistol — good riddance (like him). And some food for his arrival.”
Soon enough, the burger inside began to sizzle again, blood continuing to withdraw and pistol rendered even more useless. Tessa’s duplicate, on the other hand, still worked perfectly. She was using it right now to defend herself again, this time from a fellow 3rd eye being posing as a psychic posing as a detective. But that’s another story for another photo-novel, it seems.
END OF “SUNKLANDS 2022 MIDDLE”!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0617, Cable Isle, HANA LEI, New York
00330616
“Nice hair. Is that your natural color?”
“You can get your food to go, you know,” she shot back. She’d had enough of this stranger in town, who showed up at 7. 7:15 now. 10 minutes to order, 10 minutes to look over the menu that had only 3 items. Bar owner made it sweet and simple to save time.
“Martian,” Wheeler continued the absurdity. “Greentown — should’ve known.”
Jamie hadn’t read any Bradbury so she didn’t get the reference, and probably wouldn’t want to if she did. The dinger dinged on the stove. Wheeler’s fries, extra cheese were ready, burger extra blood still cooking. She wanted to make sure it had as little blood as possible now.
“In town for a funeral, thanks for asking,” Wheeler then said, rummaging around in her purse. “Man named Arthur, Arthur Kill. Strange thing I know. Because he was actually killed — murdered. Mexican standoff.” She pulled out a pistol. “Killed by something much like this.” She plopped it on the counter with a loud clunk beside the just delivered fries, barrel facing forward. Jamie turned back around, saw the gun, stared at Wheeler.
“You can’t bring that thing in here,” she started to say but then changed her mind. She could take the gun from Wheeler, she calculated — confiscate it in effect, since a town ordinance forbids firearms inside the city limits. Would be close, though. Then, hehe, she could *back* Wheeler out of the bar with it and tell her to not come around here any more and to get her ass out of town, funeral or no. But as she was thinking this Wheeler picked the weapon back up. She’d missed her chance.
She looked it over a bit. “Yesss. I think it is exactly this type of gun that did our poor Arthur in.” She pointed the gun in the direction of the far wall to her left. “Ping ping… *ping*,” she produced with corresponding, fake recoils, then blew pretend smoke from the end before reinserting it back into her purse.
“Out!” Jamie wanted to issue. “Done!” she shouted instead, turning around as Wheeler stared into her more-dairy-than-vegetable fries, devising a plot on the spot. The burger was off the grill and into a day old bun faster than a Wyatt Earp burp (local expression?), then plate on the counter as loud as the pistol was earlier, clunk for clunk. Wheeler took the plate and deftly dumped the contents into her purse as well, making a bloody mess (but not as bloody as Wheeler wished). “Thanks!” she said pretend sweetly and made her way out of the bar to Jamie’s exasperation, leaving the dirty, empty plate spinning at a booth near the door. It spun and spun and finally settled down on the formica table top after Wheeler walked up the street, down another, and into the town cemetery to meet a waiting (or awaiting) Baker Bloch.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0616, Cable Isle, HANA LEI
head and heart
IMPORTANCE OF CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS
I asked the patient’s mom about the skincare regimen they were using, including their choice of soap. The parent said they were using Ivory soap. She said the previous doctor said to use either Dove or Ivory.
Now that would be an odd thing to suggest. Typically, one might recommend a less drying cleansing product to an atopic, but Ivory wouldn’t normally be at the top of that list. Almost undoubtedly, the doctor said to use “Dove, not Ivory.” But it is quite understandable how a patient could misinterpret what was said.
Port Ivory is a coastal area in the northwestern corner of Staten Island, New York City, New York, United States. It is located on Newark Bay near the entrances the Kill van Kull in the east and Arthur Kill in the west….
The area bore the name of Milliken originally, and became locally known as Port Ivory after Ivory Soap, one of the best-known products from Procter & Gamble, which operated a factory at the site from 1907 until 1991 when the soap making operation was moved to Mexico.[1][2]
“I knew you’d be back. *Boyfriend*.” Mexican standoff.
“You know what I’m here for.” SHOOT SHOOT POP POP.
Red at the waist.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0615, Mexico, New Jersey, New York, Wendy-Ontario-
Tom
He came down in a beam of white light from the sky.
Mr. Bean, but not that one. That’s just a stand-in, basically a cardboard cutout of a 3D person.
The real one had blue eyes. At birth. Now…
But who’s that over there sitting at the visiting scholars table?
—–
The dead man in the teepee-tent doesn’t bother me any more.
I pick up my blue feather pen again and begin to write.
Dearest Greenleaf,
I know it was you in the woods today, sending me a message. Thank you. With the rolling orange mushroom head you were telling me about the path and the correct way to go through your precious ferns (kind of). You are protective! Very.
I will attempt to construct a Circle of Peace at Aloha. I know now that you would want that (yes). Guide me in choosing the rocks I need.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0614, Blue Mountain, City Park, Jeogeot, Nautilus, NORTH, Rooster's Peninsula, Towerboro
Sunklands 