Blue Feather is close, that’s for sure.
Category Archives: West Virginia
note: Collagesity novels (14 now!)
As stated in the previous post, “Collagesity 2019 Middle,” the 14th in the series of Collagesity (Second Lyfe related) photo-books, is done (!). Direct link here for the chronologically correct version in 7 parts:
https://bakerbloch.com/virtual/collagesity-2019-middle/
Just start at part 1 and follow the NEXT (PREVIOUS, HOME) links at the bottom of each page to enjoy the whole.
This one takes place almost exclusively on Satori (also called Maebaleia), one of the largest mainland continents of Second Lyfe. There is also a small side trip into Real Lyfe (Bluefield WV).
All the remaining 13 Collagesity photo-books, dating from late 2015, can be found here:
https://bakerbloch.com/virtual/
Any questions or comments or complaints? Just write me at
edwardston@yahoo.com
Love to hear from you! I anticipate starting a 15th soon.
Thanks!
baker b., owner, Sunklands Inc.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0100, Maebaleia/Satori^^, West Virginia
Blue
It was the more unusual of the buildings at the X marking the center of X-City. Well, what was left of it. Orange it was, and elongated. With circular sides ghosting a circular front in my opinion. For I’ve surmised what this building actually is. We’ve seen the address before.
The X marks the portal between Real and Second Lyves. Sign.
I knew who the mermaid inside was at the bottom of it (bottom writing). But she was something else. Not a whale, although that’s part and parcel of the legend. Not quite a jellyfish, but that was closer. Squid? I haven’t quite connected the dots. Dot dot dot…
If only she could tell us herself.
—–
There was only one other character I could introduce to attempt to put a face on it. We’ve seen *him* before.
It’s a matter of time. Does the face remain (2) full and smiling or does it become (1) smaller and then (3) wink out, leaving us with nothing.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0509, Blue Feather Sea^, Maebaleia/Satori^^, West Virginia, X-City
02 03 03
“What do you think?” the Bishop asked the King in the middle no more. Out of the way.
“Cool. Half and half, right? The store is half mine correct?”
Bishop turned to face the Gno King squarely. “What game do you think we’re playing now?” he replied sharply. “*3* dimensional chess?” He spat on the sidewalk with this.
—–
They took turns eyeing the building down the street. King went first. King also went last. Middle no more.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0503, Maebaleia/Satori^^, West Virginia
two three 02
He’d have to enter the building sometime. But at what time? All of Humanity hinged on (t)his decision.
Mermaid or Jellyfish? He’d soon find out.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0502, Maebaleia/Satori^^, West Virginia
back in Maebaleia…
“Ah ha. Finally found a use for that wearable pipe chair you gave me last Christmas.”
“Thanks for showing up Tracy. Like I said, I can’t find him anywhere. We were just scouting around the center of the continent, looking at places. We came here. I realized I had to go do something with the kid again and told him to just stay put till I got back. Then when I returned — and a long drive it was all the way from Pipersville — he’s not here. We talked about renting this house. Real cheap rent. In fact…”
“… it’s free,” finished his lover-on-the-side Tracy Austin. “I saw the sign outside. But this one is rented.”
“It’s in arrears,” he explains. “Just checking out the furniture.”
“Well I *hope* the real renter doesn’t come back.”
“He won’t. *They* won’t.” Second Life is so empty now, he thinks not for the first nor last time. Middle of continents — basically a wasteland.
“So dark in here,” complained Tracy Austin. “Can we get some light in this place? Will these blinds open?”
“Sure.” Craighead Phillips Option 01 touched the blinds to his side and back, automatically opening them.
Tracy Austin peered out. “What’s all this?”
Craighead Phillips Option 01 looked too. “I don’t know. Earth, I suppose.”
Interested, Tracy Austin moved toward the side window to take a closer look at something.
“2701 Bland Road,” she recited, then turned back toward Craighead. “This place got a computer?”
“No, but there’s one down at the office. I spotted it while trying to get out of this town the first time.”
“Do you have a key?” Both laughed at this.
—–
“Well. Is it there? Did you find it?”
“Just a moment,” Tracy Austin requested while still typing away. Then: “Ahh. *Bingo*.” She indicated the screen. “There it is. The same sign.
That’s where he is!”
Craighead Phillips Option 01 put hand to lip. “Jeepers I guess we’ll have to go in after him, then. I can’t exist, I don’t suppose, without Option 02.”
“*You’re* going in. I’m staying here with Katy. If something happens to you I’ll tell her you went away. To France.”
“Uh, I’m not going without a gun. I’ve heard stories…”
“Alright, Uncle Bob has a gun. We’ll go see him first. Then you’ll say goodbye to Katy. Hopefully not for the last time.”
“I know you’re joking…”
“I am?”
“Things use to be better between us.”
“Listen, Craighead. Craighead Phillips Option *01*. We gave you The Freedom, all you wanted. Blue Feather Sea, patterns. Astrologers around every corner. *Everyone* knows their sign. No chance involved in the playing of dice or cards. Freedom — Katy and I. Yet you still hang around with your other family.”
“My *actual* family,” Craighead Phillips corrected, not helping the situation.
“Alright.” Tracy Austin got up from the computer table. “Alright if it’s going to be like this I have a confession. I’ve been seeing someone else. A sailor of the Blue Feather Sea. Older man, admittedly, but I think it’s something real. We may even…”
“Get married?” Craighead was incredulous. “How old?”
“50, 55. Maybe 60. He’s *cool*. He has a good sense of humor. He’s built like a soldier and swears like a pilot. Katy’s met him, but she doesn’t know the circumstances. Yet.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0405, Hills of Bill^, Maebaleia/Satori^^, West Virginia
greener pastures 03
Bland Street now, thinks Craighead Phillips Option 02 while walking past an auto repair shop. Not Bland Road any more. But what’s wrong with that sign? All squiggly and stuff. Melted somehow? Better keep walking and not linger, though. It is what it is. Crazy world over here.
I have no reflection! he suddenly realized. Not real in this realm. But somehow: still real. He keeps moving forward.
He decides to ask someone else to check the first source. “Excuse me, sir? Am I on the right street to get to the center of town?”
“Stay away from me,” the man getting in his car barked. “No cash. No cash!”
Craighead Phillips Option 02 wisely moves on without an answer.
—–
I’m not even going to ask this woman where I am, he thinks. I can tell by the look in her eyes she’s not going to help, pheh. Stupid world.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0404, Maebaleia/Satori^^, West Virginia
greener pastures 02
“Excuse me, sir? Sir?”
The Real Life man on the mower reluctantly halted his chores for a moment. “What is it, son?” he asked gruffly while the machine idled beneath him.
“I just came into town,” Craighead Phillips Option 02 decided to venture. “I’m looking for the center.”
“Center of town?” the man asked rhetorically. “Keep following this road.” He pointed down the street Craighead Phillips used to migrate realities. “Can’t miss it.” He then revved his mower up and commenced his chores. Only 1 hour before supper, he thought while moving away. And this Bozo threatened to make it even later!
—–
HONK HONK. Another mower. HONK. Traffic’s pretty heavy on this road. Better move over to the sidewalk, hmph.
The man said keep on going straight so I’ll keep on going straight.
This could take a while, though.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0403, Maebaleia/Satori^^, West Virginia
greener pastures
I’m tired of waiting, thought Option 02. I found a way out and I’m going to take it. Help out here, he groused. Chip in there. The kid be damned.
He stands up from the bench and starts walking. Inside.
Not as bright and colorful over here, is it Mr. Irresponsibility?
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0402, Hills of Bill^, Maebaleia/Satori^^, West Virginia
sink in
“We have this road running straight here, and then the same road running to the side as well. Wonder what it means Option 01?” Pause. “Option 01?”
Turn. “Now where’d he go?”
—–
“You know, son, these wearable pipe chairs come right here from Pipersville back in the days. Hence the name.”
“Cool, dad. Um, cool, heh, that you’re hanging around more now. I sort of, I don’t know, *missed* ya.”
“That’s great, son. No, I’m back. Or at least more back.” Damn sinkhole, he thinks to himself again while staring down at it. He’s glad now he planted that big Tree Green 02 back in the days as well, since it now helps impede his view of the bottom. Along with that big piece of plywood the neighbors left just sitting down there. Cursed sinkhole. Maybe just start a petition to cover up the thing. We have the Professor Suckaluck death story to get the ball rolling. Rolling, rolling, dead. Doorknob dead.
“Dad?” asked Preston Weston, still clutching his zapper gun. “Are you in thinking mode right now?”
Craighead Phillips Option 01 turns to his only child. “You’re one to speak about thinking modes.” He points to his head. “You have a whole *world* in there, son, heh heh. Your mother can’t wrap her brain around it.”
“Are you asking me to tell you a stor–yyy?” Preston Weston queries expectantly.
Craighead Phillips takes one last drag off his Chesterton cigarette before snuffing it out on the cement porch. “Nah, I’ve got to catch up with my other self, the one who cares less. Just wanted to come visit and see how you’re doing, kid.”
“I’m fine. So — you’re not going to stay the night?”
“Nah. Your mama and I have patched things up pretty well but not to that extent — not… well, let’s not go that far quite yet. Maybe within a month or so.” Maybe within a month or so my other self and I will tire of exploring north east south west on the continent, he thinks. Away from this blasted sinkhole. Anywhere else. But maybe they could *all* go away. At least for a bit. A vacation of some kind. He decides to test the water.
“Son, if you could go anywhere. And I mean anywhere. Where would it be? Where would make you happier in the world? Mars, I’m guessing.”
“Aww dad. You know the answer to this.”
“Not the Pipe Room. Don’t say the Pipe Room.”
“I… I wasn’t going to say that.”
“Because we don’t talk about the Pipe Room,” Craighead Phillips insisted.
“I *wasn’t* going to talk about it.”
“Son. That’s where your mother went off her rocker. When she was just a kid. Only a little more older than you. Did I ever tell you that story?”
And he thinks *I* have an overactive imagination, Preston Weston ponders while wondering how he can get out of a 15 minute soliloquy himself at this point.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0314, Hills of Bill^, Maebaleia/Satori^^, Pipersville/Sink X^, West Virginia
