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Category Archives: **VIRTUAL OT
00480109 (Edward Perriot again?)
“When… did you get a big tattoo of a tree, Alice?”
Alice? she thinks. Who’s Alice? “Oh, it’s just something I got on a whim the other day. I’m (she keeps walking briskly) surprised you haven’t noticed yet.”
“I’m not the most noticing type,” he admits. “But… this big?” He’s going to have to stare at this sometimes. Like during those moments. How easily would it be to get it removed, he can’t help but think. Will she *honor* his wishes if he demands it? Is she *obedient*? But for now he keeps walking with her, even brisker. So he’ll be up front and won’t have to stare at the thing. Those colors. So bright! So — indicating. But of what?
Filed under **VIRTUAL OT, 0048, 0109, New York, Qbrick, Stanley
00470605 (Central Park/ Stuck like Fly)
Dark Peak. The Power.
Blue Boy knows.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, Gaston+, HANA LEI, 0605, Back Rooms, 0047
00470601 (The Hmm)
“I live in a very white house starting with a white roof you can clearly see from the air — why I made it that way.
“Um, white ceiling fans…
“… white power outlets.
“White paint all around. Every room, every piece of furniture, every piece of art even. I like white. And, hopefully, my family likes it *too*. They haven’t complained *so* far (laugh).”
“Soo, ahem, back to The Hmm.”
“Oh yeah (laugh). The Hmm. Well, we logically suspected the new gas compressor station across the rails — really white buildings over there and I respect that but, you know (laugh), I had to get to the bottom of this thing (!). So I went over there one day, complained that we were hearing that dad blasted hmm in my house over 400 yards away, and it seemed, well, it seemed to be affecting our health (!). And, you know, could they DO something about it? I was sure they were the culprit, the source of it all. And you know what they said, they blamed everything else. Electrical lines, the railroad, water pumps in a nearby pond, Interstate 84. Could be any of these… and more. But not *gas lines*. And they laughed right in my face! (laugh). And me a retired mechanical engineer. Heck, I probably knew how their operations worked better than 80% of them over there. Not as much difference between machines and chemicals as you’d think.”
“Understandable that you were irritated,” I tried to empathize. “Is that when you decided to move away? To someplace new?”
“Well, the wife and I thought, maybe we should try out a new town to get away from the sound. ‘New town’ we kept saying to each other when discussing it — over and over. And then it hit us: Newtown. The town right next door to us. We could start new; fresh. It seemed *fate*. I told her, honey, our house is just off the Newtown topo map, which I knew from my hmm research in the local area. But shortly I realized the gas compressor station was actually just *on* the Newtown map, which seemed to be a bad sign. No, the hoped for sanctuary turned out to be *much* much further away, not one but *several* oceans away. It all started that very next day, when I found the drawing of the woman running on the beach at a Newtown flea market while we were checking out the place. Giselle, ha, was actually a bit jealous of my obsession with the drawing, with *her*. It was the whiteness, you see.”
“We’re talking about New *Island* here, right?” I suppressed a joke about him skipping right over New York.
“Yeah. Our brief dream of living in Newtown only pointed to this actual new place where we could truly escape the problems with The Hmm. By being immersed in it!”
“You found the source.”
“Indeed we did (!!).”
“Not gas lines?”
“(Laugh) No, but that’s part of it too. It all came from that novel. By the girl.”
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0601, Connecticut, Google Street View, New Island
00470516
We had the silliest argument when we returned her apartment, with Lexi insisting that the Allgoods robot factory I had worked at for, let’s see, *2* weeks now was in the Darksity sub-district of Kabusie, like her apartment here, like Crooked. I countered with the sub-district of North Side to its north, because that was the address of the factory on all the letterhead they sent out. We fought and fought and then I just pulled up a map on her computer to demonstrate my point, because I was sure I was right. Well… turns out we were *both* right. The factory exists 1/2 in Kabusie and 1/2 in North Side, with the line right down the middle. Which gets us also to the line that represents the end of this section.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0516, C2077, Kabusie
00470515
We finally made time in our busy schedules, ha, to visit Crooked, or what Lexi deemed as Crooked. But the only thing askew about it, really, was that telephone poll just outside the building. Nevertheless, she said, the structure is indeed Crooked, as in a name from another time, another dimension. “Now we just have to get the correct furniture to fit inside,” she said, which got me wondering. “Purple,” she said about the color. “It has to be purple.”
It still wasn’t clear to me if she intended to actually purchase or rent the building set apart from the rest in this Kabusie ghetto, so deep into Darksity that straightness and reason forgot to follow (I think is the way she put it). Or did she just intend to squat there for a time while the processes she also described worked their way through? This is the place she finishes Ralph — I did have that much. End of August. The ditches open themselves up to her like a bitch in heat. Strange way to put it I know, but that’s her phrasing again. We’ll see how it pans out. I guess I’m along for the ride too.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0515, C2077, Kabusie
00470514
My sister positioned her (stolen?) golden auto as close as she could next to the front doors of the small, out of the way eating establishment. “Follow my lead,” she said, then got out of the car and glitched inside. I moved over to the now vacated driver’s seat and did the same.
“There,” she spoke as I stood beside her now, taking in the quiet. Free at last to eat in peace instead of pieces. Why she brought me to this hidden eatery in the first place. “We can pull up those two green seats around that table.” I looked around. No one here except us. And counter person Bob, who Lexi explained didn’t count.
“Say you come here all the time?” I asked.
“Sometimes. Just when I want to eat out. *Ever*.” She smiled, maybe even laughed a bit. It was good to hear. She’d been so serious lately what with the finishing of Ralph, her dog robot which she called a “pseudo-flathead.” Having worked at the robot factory for a week, I kind of knew what that was now. Not Arasaka quality — glossiness, she called it — but compensations in other directions. She could rig it in her own, special way. “End of August,” she said earlier about a deadline for completing the thing. “End of August or I might have missed my chance.” I doubted it. Who would even think of sending a robot into those channels? And now here, another Kabusie secret revealed.
What else did she know? I needed to stick closely to my sister. She’s here to help. We *share* a condition. There’s a reason for that.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0514, C2077, Kabusie
00470511 (Big Apples)
We’re in the original Amsterdam this time, not the New one over in America also known or more commonly known as New York (, New York). Famed Red Light District: not quite what I was expecting (!). Where are the XXX signs, the scantily dressed prostitutes lining the streets, distracting all our thoughts and motions? And, most importantly and more broadly, where was that gall darn golden auto that was suppose to be here waiting for me?
I’ve searched everywhere, every street, alleyway and side path. I’m beginning to think it was STOLEN, Grand Theft Auto style. One gap replaces the other?
Abruptly switching back from day to night, I reinsert the entrance to the library into the gap in an attempt to make things right again. Was I wrong to press the button? Did that cause all *this*? And did I really even press it in the first place? These questions haunt me to this day.
Or not…. Whatever: goodbye Red, Yellow, Green, Blue. I’m certain I’ll meet one or two or three or all 4 of you in another day in another light. See ya then. Be safe. And… thank you. For being my friend in that time.
Ahh, *there* you are. It worked!
00470507
*SPLAAAT* “Ahhhhh!”
—–
“Dear! Dear! What’s wrong dear!”
“Oh, ah. Nothing, dear. A dream.” I look around the bedroom, reorient myself. “Just one of those dreams again.”
“Superhero?” she guessed correctly, hand still on my shoulder.
“Yeah.”
—–
In another dream, his face appeared before me like a menacing red leaf… something.
“Island,” it hissed. “We have to go back to… the island.”
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0507, Goikyland, New York
Sunklands 