Category Archives: Storybrook-

May 2, 2020 · 6:38 am

Somewhere again…

“I still don’t know why you did it, *Pink*.”

“Well, *Beige* — welcome to the besties club by the way –”

Frankie “Beige” McCracken tittered here. Then, while looking out the side of her eye, “Oh my God, oh my *God*.” Her hand remained in the same place all this time. “*Don’t* turn around.”

Muffled speaking outside. Tom Banks, photography and calligraphy teacher at the local jr. and sr. high schools, was talking to Mr. Fix It about a flat tire. “Ol’ lemon, hehe, broke down right down the street, Jake.”

“Jake,” Frankie whispered over while frozen in place. “I thought you said his name was Gene,” making Marsha “Pink” Krakow weakly shrug. They listened again.

“Well –” Jake was saying. “Let’s just go down and have a look. I’ll bring my tire iron and repair kit.” With this they went into the garage and then down the street.

“*Phew*.” Frankie “Beige” McCracken pretend wiped her brow while looking out the window. “That was a close one. I thought we were goners, what with your hot pink outfit you always sport. You’d be a *horrible* spy with that on all the time.” She titters again; she had a cute way of doing this quite a lot, cute to some that is, and Marsha was a good sport about it. Always – a – sport. She dared to glance down the street herself, but the “lemon” was out of sight.

—–

“Just on the other side here, Jake — I’ll hold that iron for you while you take a look.”

“Okay.”

*WOP*. That was the end of Jake in town for a while. Drug into the wee woods behind the laundromat with a head gash the size of Viagra Falls. He’d surface several days later, but it wasn’t a pretty picture.

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May 1, 2020 · 9:47 am

packing/unpacking

Certain Death was playing on the turntable below the “Big Open”, beckoning them forward, the white twin obscured. Blackness. The End. Starless.

—–

Marsha “Pink” Krakow watched as the moving van gradually filled up with their possessions. “Drane Hill,” she said aloud, testing the name.  A rather ugly one, she thought. Doesn’t roll off the tongue like Storybrook. Bad sign up front.

She’d looked it up. It was a mistake appellation. Drane *Lick* use to run through the area, and perhaps still does. That’s a stream — lick equals stream. But the small knob directly above the village wasn’t Drane Hill, at least originally. It was Pleasant Hill, a descriptive name. Somewhere along the line hill and stream had gotten mixed up. A confusion was created. But from where? she pondered as her father, The Man, waved her toward the now packed truck, black hair queerly flickering on and off from her present perspective, grey revealed in part.

“Time to leave, honey,” he said rather hoarsely, voice weary from commanding the movers all afternoon. “The ugly yellow living room couch your mother loves so much was the last item. Come on — get inside. We’re going for a drive.” He then beckoned The Dogg to jump in the back with rest of the furniture and boxes, now all locked down. Dogg perhaps strangely was reluctant to get up from the pavement. Another meaningful sign for Marsha “Pink” Krakow, if she was paying attention. Which she was.

She too could stand her ground and not allow the van to escape. She didn’t have speak down and say goodbye to the Big Inside, trading a closed hill for an open one and a known commodity for the unknown. There was still time to talk. She had an ace in the hole. She and SEAN had been watching her mother’s comings and goings for a while now.

“Daddy?” she said, not budging an inch. “Do — do you know that fellow Charlie Banana in town?”

“Bandana?” he queried back, getting hard of hearing with his advancing age.

“No — Ba*nan*a. Yellow. Um, like that ugly yellow couch you just loaded in the back.” And here comes the zinger…

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April 29, 2020 · 5:57 am

manimals

“We’re going to have to leave, Rocky. Like the Hendersons before us. Perch — his mansion has been empty for a while, maybe 3 months. We’ll have to take Dogg of course. The Mann loves that animal.”

“I see,” the anthropomorphic raccoon says from his laying stump.

“I don’t know what we’ll do about a dog park in the new place, the new town. I’m sure we won’t have anything like this.”

“No.” Then Rocky Racco, who’d been living in Storybrook 3 months himself and had no desire to leave atall, asked this question which had been on his mind for awhile. “Do you believe in sea monsters, Mrs. Mann?”

“Please. Call me Parasol. We’ve been talking together on this bench and stump for a while now, *Mr.* Racco. I call you Rocky, see. You call me Parasol.”

“Mrs. Parasol–”

“*Parasol,” interjected Parasol Mann. “Just: Parasol. The light skinned one,” she added. “Not the dark one. Things are different here in Storybrook. You have to adapt to the time, to the place. A story in a brook. Current.”

“Right…” But he couldn’t say her name aloud yet. He was overly formal like that.

An odor was in the air. The Dogg must have dumped a big one over there with The Mann, Parasol thinks, watching the end of it. Great Danes are like that. Then she remembered she hadn’t answered Rocky’s question from a while back. “Oh. To the sea monster thing: no.”

“Why not?” Rocky returned hurriedly, almost urgently. “Say, green ones. Wearing pink tutus with seaweed for hair. How about something like that?”

Not wanting to answer Rocky twice about the same subject she was firm about, The Mann approached her with The Dogg. “We’re all done.”

“I would hope,” Parasol answered, looking at the happy animal in front of her and still sniffing a bit.

“Did you have a good chat with your old pal Rocky while I was walking Dogg?” It was here that Parasol realized she hadn’t talked to Rocky about the most important thing. Her infidelity to The Mann. Her affair with Charlie Banana on those islands out in Southside Bay (Southside?). The breaking of her heart by same. Charlie Banana definitely had a way with yellow but red and blue were beyond his scope to comprehend, she’d learned. It was wrong.

But it would happen again. She got up to leave. “Goodbye Rocky. I’ll see you around.”

“Goodbye.” He still couldn’t do it, despite the circumstances.

“Ro rong,” Dogg said in parting, knowing this might be the last time he’d see his park buddy.

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April 28, 2020 · 7:08 am

the problem with 3 and 4

“You don’t understand,” pleaded Olive to SEAN “Green” Penn. “Beige — I mean, Frankie *can’t* join our ranks. We must remain three colors and three colors alone. The contracts–”

“I don’t want to hear another *word* about those f-cking contracts!” shouted SEAN over the drumming, on his 5th Corona-V of the night. “And lean back and stay 6 feet the f-ck away from me, ho.”

Olive leaned back, but pressed him on the ho part. “When did you start calling *women* that?”

“That’s what you *are*,” he replied, defiance in his voice and washing another french fry down with a swig of beer. “With, erm, that *policeman*. The older one, not the younger one. Jeep or something.”

She laid down all the cards on the table. “Listen, *SEAN*. I’m here to help.”

—–

Pink was sitting too close to Olive but Olive didn’t mind. She knew it was all a ruse.

“Weelll? Whatdaya think? Pretty good tonight. I was feeling it.”

But SEAN “Green” Penn had other things on his mind. “Listen, erm, Pink. We have to leave this town. We gotta get away.” He glanced over at Olive, understanding the truth now. He didn’t want to look too long.

“Leave?” replied Marsha “Pink” Krakow. “But we just — just *got* here again. What about Beige, I mean, Frankie?”

“We’ll just have to take her along,” responded SEAN rapidly, sobering up real quick. “*And* the creepy photography teacher. We’ll just have to drag out the story elsewhere.”

“2 weeks,” reinforced Olive to her left. “That’s all we have.” She looked down at SEAN’s big feet tapping anxiously against his bar stool, as if they were on fire.

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April 25, 2020 · 7:50 am

switch

“I’ve got to figure out where I *am* in this story, Inspector-Chef Petty. Am I in Storybrook? Or — here?” The answer was obvious. He was here. He draws back out of the media feed in his adopted house in Greater Urqhart.

The butler came to him from behind with an offer of tea, which would have been his 6th drink of the day to add to 2 iced expresso beverages, 2 hot coffees, and 1 other tea, a blend of caffeinated and decaffeinated Earl Grey, mix in some Orange and Spice for pizzazz. Just like the one being offered.

“No thank you, Alberta, not right now.” Then Barry spoke again to the butler over his shoulder. “Say, you’re from Corsica originally, aren’t you Alberta?”

“Yes sir. The western part, or, more correctly, the southwestern part. I originate from a place called Butler as well. I am a butler and my place of origin is Butler but it is all coincidence.” He spoke methodically, something like a robot but not quite. There was still warmth in his voice. And the overtone trill of an insect.

Wannabe famous novelist Barry X. Vampire knew there were no coincidences, at least not in His Second Lyfe, by experience. He began to query more. It was thus here that he learned of his alternate existence on the border between Golen Hill and Golen Bay, with the same butler, with the same media feed, with Inspector-Chef Petty still by his side reading “Floydadada” or the “Necronomicon” or whatever the current book rage was, red one be damned. He will *not* pick up the red one and read, no sir-rie. But then he did — just found the book in his hands all of a sudden. Inspector-Chef Petty begins to red. A red door appears behind him — her, a portal…

“It is known for its great belts,” continued the butler, as if nothing had happened, no movement or teleportation occurred. “Black Diamond style. The word Belt is incorporated into the word Butler, after all. Think about it sir. Think long and hard about it. I will leave the great belt with you to decide.

Decide *what*? Barry X. Vampire ruminated as the butler left the object on the table before retreating back downstairs somewhere. “*Somewhere*, he then realizes, seeing the portal for what it is. Amazon — Basin. *Comet.*

The door opens.

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April 24, 2020 · 7:11 am

Afterwards…

… Pink had a frank (Frankie?) talk about the red book with her parents, so secret that I wasn’t involved (sorry). We must move on from Storybrook again…

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April 24, 2020 · 6:15 am

home

“Officer Ferguson’s just here to ask you a couple of questions, pumpkin.”

“Da-ddy! Don’t call me that.” She indicated her pink outfit. “Wrong color!”

“Oh, this won’t take but a second of your time, me laddie,” interrupted Tank Ferguson, uncomfortable with talking about colored people. “We’re just here to discuss your visit to the old Perch place from the other day. We suspect — an unrendering of volume.”

The Man — playing Pink’s daddy in the current scene — gasped from his corner, but the gesture was a forgery. Fooled Tank, though, which was the important thing in the moment. “You *didn’t*,” he exclaimed to his little pink girl. “So… you saw the Big Inside,” he further rationalized. He turned to Officer Ferguson. “I *promise* Tank, that this will *never* happen again. I’ll — well I’ll never let her out of the house again!”

“Da-ddy,” Marsha “Pink” Krakow offered quieter now. “It was just a one time thing. We didn’t *go* inside… the, you know, Big Inside. We just looked at it, peered in just a bit. Peeked in, ahem.” Marsha “Pink” Krakow knew she had slipped up with the mention of a “peak”. Tank Ferguson, who majored in psychology before switching to criminal justice just before what would have been his senior year, caught the Fraudian slip. Pink’s face started turning beet red. Tank pivoted toward The Man. “I think we know what’s going on now.”

“We *do*?” he sputtered, but also knowing full well what was going on just beneath the surface slippage.

“I’m going to verify it with that SEAN child who lives down on Arnold Lane and then Olive Green, if she’s returned from the monastery.”

“You’ll never find her,” boldly responded Pink to the officer, in full defense mode now. “She’ll always be hiding just outside your grasp.”

“Oh I think I know where I can *find* her,” retorted Officer Tank Ferguson, smug look appearing on his face. He stared at The Man again. “Just so happens *I* have a daddy involved as well.”

“Bazooka?” shot back The Man, truly thinking the old geezer was dead in his grave. He’d been away too long.

(to be continued?)

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April 22, 2020 · 8:46 am

grays and browns

Still engrossed in the red book after she was relieved of her lunch duties, Pink ran right smack into the rump of Ms. Crumplebottom at the corner of two streets.

“Lordy child!” the elderly schoolteacher exclaimed, then crossed herself and ran home to take a 120 degree shower, then turned the other way and took another. “1 year to retirement,” she complained while sudsing her hair a second time. “And that girl is trying to put me in an early grave!”

But then while drying she remembered the Corona-V wasn’t catching, it was just a catchy drink super popular in town right now. No one could go to church, read the proper, starless black book, and had substituted red for black, like Marty’s most recent hair color. 1975. A good year for Mars, and Venus along with it. Stars in general. Crumplebottom just had a bleed through experience, as if from another dimension (which it was). But at least she was super clean for her date with Bazooka Ferguson tonight, father of the local sheriff Tank Ferguson, the one that would later arrest — well, we jump too far ahead again.

But I think we’ve eliminated Ms. Crumplebottom as the bookstore owner, since she seems to be a local teacher instead. Don’t think you can be two in one, or at least go on dates, since you’d be working all the time. I think it has to be Olive. Maybe another poll is in order, alternate realities at stake and such.

—–

Meanwhile, within the brownstone apartment Pink just ran into Crumplebottom outside of, Bazooka Ferguson lamented the fact that he had to warm up to the school teacher with Olive. “It’s okay,” she comforted after the fact. “You didn’t go all the way through so it isn’t cheating.” She looked in his eyes for understanding. “Is it.”

“Now take off that old uniform and get ready for your date.”

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April 22, 2020 · 7:35 am

future now

She didn’t want to be a celebrity, at least like this.

The pressed followed her around like a pack of wolves, hounding her ’round every corner.

But that was far in the future. In the here and now of Storybrook (*not* Storybook), she was just a nobody, a local kid with a knack for smack — smacking around drums. People around her saw it as a hobbie not a profession. Sure Led Zeppelin, The Who made some money off gigs. But, looky, people would say, their drummers are both dead! You don’t wanna end up like them — do you?

She thought about giving up drums for the most part and taking up photography, like her new friend Frankie. Not *quite* close enough yet to earn a colorful nickname, but they’d been joking around lately it could be Beige. So it’s around. But what of SEAN “Green” Penn and Olive, the ones that had earned color so far? Completing his transformation, SEAN had moved into the green house over at the beginning of Arnold Lane, now covered up by sand and only known about through maps. Olive, I think, might run the local bookstore. Unless it’s Ms. Crumplebottom. We better go check…

Pink was asked to run the store while the owner went to get some lunch. Who could it be?

She’d started reading the red book that everyone in town was talking about, especially since the Corona-V beer became such a popular take-out order at the local bar. “6 feet, 6 feet!” everyone ordered about the distance between themselves and others, because no one wanted anyone else to know how much they’d been drinking. You could smell the Corona-V for 3, 4, 5 feet. But 6 seemed like a naturally agreed upon distance where the smell dissipated and everyone became the same again, subtract other obvious physical characteristics of a drunk. But that was the thing. You couldn’t *tell* just by looking at people if they’d been imbibing the toxic drink. “Oh Sam over there in the grocery store has been chugging them down,” Ms. Snippet, one of the town’s many gossips, might say. But really the only way that you could tell is by smelling their breath, if you didn’t see them down the brewskies personally.

Still waiting for the owner to show back up…

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April 21, 2020 · 9:55 am

stranger

She finally turned away from the photos. “I know how you feel,” she spoke to acquaintance Marsha “Pink” Krakow, working on a friend. She called her Marsha instead of Pink for now. “This feeling of — someone watching you. Hoooverrring above you even.”

“Is that how it was with *you*?” Marsha spoke over, curious about the resonance with this strange girl who also frequented the Wired and Wireless upstairs bank of laptops. Usually searching for crime stories this girl was, though, not rock bands.

“Shhhhh. There he *is*” she whispered over as Tom Banks entered the store from below.

—–

He admired his work before looking over and spotting Frankie.

“Hi!” he exclaimed to his star photography pupil. “And helllooo,” he said creepily to Pink. He immediately recognized another star.

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