Category Archives: HANA LEI

March 19, 2023 · 6:04 am

00370309

After 36 successful romance novels about Edward and a lot of others, she was rolling in cash; could literally make herself an angel in the floor with it.  But she was no angel. Demon instead — she knew this deep down in her heart, despite what surrogate father Keith B. told her back at the beginning of section 01. She’d sold her soul; ground angel she was in the end. Worthless.

—–

After waking up and reviewing the dream, she decided there was only one thing to do. Tell Arthur about Edward. No, not the *actual* truth. The reality in the novel, 5th in a series. If she did, maybe she could nip what was coming — blooming — in the future in the bud. She had to pull a Barney Fife.

“There’s someone out there in the dunes — do you see it, Arthur?”

“Mirage,” he waved it off. “I’ve seen it too. Then it disappears if you stare at it enough.”

Sure enough, Shelley watches the illusion fade to wavery nothingness. She turns, tired of facing the huge mountains of sand. She’s in the present. Arthur turns with her.

“We haven’t been to that island over there.”

“No. But I sensed you have a point to make. You hardly touched your dinner.”

“You know I don’t like vegetables.”

“Not the point.” He sighs. Sandman, he thinks. Must ask about Sandman.

“I—” Pause.

“Yess?”

“I… write.”

(to be continued)

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March 18, 2023 · 9:28 am

downtown again

“Oh I want *something*.” They’d walked right past the haircut place without speaking. Arthur knew better now. And the tattoo parlor didn’t offer a temptation any longer. That was yesterday’s story — sorry; forgot to record. So today — tonight — was the next store up, but nothing seemed to be for sale; all a jumble.

*This*,” she decided despite the seeming lack of ability to purchase, which Arthur then pointed out again. “This,” she reinforced. “We can find the original creator. Not your bitch,” she read. “Not yet.” The neon cat in the moon seemed to be staring at it too, convincing her. She just had a dream about one.

“How about the fingers making the heart over there,” Arthur tested.

“Nah. Lame. *Gushy*.”

“Hmm.” He’d been uttering that a lot during their, was it a vacation? I guess it had to be. Or a second honeymoon after renewing their wedding vows. Edward might clarify. If we could find him.

“Ahh, got it,” she then said after checking. “All this stuff is by the same creator.”

“Hmm.”

“Just stop it. We’ll have to come back when it’s set up.”

“Just what I was thinking.”

“Next store up?”

He looked at his watch. “Not until tomorrow.”

“Oh *phooey*.”

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March 17, 2023 · 10:35 am

recorder

He watches from afar, noting that she may have Winona Ryder eye. Didn’t she just visit a local hair stylist several days before? He knows she did, although not with the results she wanted. The results *they* wanted? It was a question he had to be asking at this juncture in our story.

—–

Back up to “normalcy”.

—–

“Where you been?”

“Oh just riding around the sand.”

“Hmm.”

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March 15, 2023 · 6:06 pm

but the trees are flaming too

—–

Well I can certainly see why he’s called the Sandman, she thought. Better find Arthur, I mean, ahem, *Lemont*, down at the beach. But first… hair.

—–

“Oh I don’t want it cut,” she spoke upward to the dark, animalistic face hovering over her. “Just washed. I can’t cut my hair. My husband would be so disapproving (!).”

“That’ll be 55 dollars either way,” hissed the stylist. They didn’t click, she knew. Best to cut ties early before more energy drain. She can find another stylist later on. Anyway, Arthur *would* be happy. “Don’t change a thing,” he often speaks about her appearance, always making her cringe inside a bit. He wants stasis; she wants change. Yet he kind of controls her, she admits. She’s aiming to change that. The stylist must be more of his working.

“Credit it to the house,” she said when leaving, which caused even a bit more confusion.

——

“Why don’t you get out of that duck outfit and put on that cute, black bathing suit I bought you a while back.” Or was it purple? he thinks to himself, not being able to clearly picture it in rehearsal for some reason. Dark, anyway, he resolves the issue for now.

“Ohh… you know how easily I burn. I’ll keep these on.” She settles back into her chair, pats her hands on her covered knees to reinforce her staying put point. Eating away at the control. One nibble at a time.

Arthur settles back too, resigned to their current attire. “Soo. Tell me more about this Sandman.”

“Oh he’s rich.”

“Yeah, I gathered.” He looks around. Sand everywhere… at every level. Desert oasis he has here. An oasis from… Second Lyfe.

“We met through Edward. At that party his friends threw. One of those nights you were away. How’s the quest to find the ultimate Shakespearian role going by the by?” She hadn’t asked before on purpose. Arthur trusted Edward, she knew. As much as he trusted Keith with her. They were wedded in his mind. But Edward was certainly different from Keith, despite the friendly neighbor persona. Edward had designs. And she was stringing him along. All for the art mind you, she thought. The newest romance novel. I want to make the 5th different from the 4th which is different from the 3rd, etc., improvements and refinements all along. Edward is my sculpture, my newest muse even. I’m still married to Arthur certainly, she keeps pondering. No change there, whatever happens.

It was here she remembers she was married to Lemont. Not Arthur. He stares over at her, waiting for her next lines. Control.

(to be continued)

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February 18, 2023 · 4:31 pm

Heads and Foote

“Baker Bloch said there was some kind of bookstore here with the 2 page letter. No bookstore. No letter. Just some kind of clothing boutique without any clothes, right 88’s? Oh,” she continues speaking, just to herself she realizes as she looks around. “Not in this scene.”

Oh well,  she thinks silently now.  Might as well primp while I’m here. Shocking pink should do.


Stick in hand she tries to pucker up for the mirror but ends up just emitting a yawn. High up here, she realizes. Mountain air.

A little later:

“Laundry?” A beep sounds. Arthur Kill realizes his clothes are done. Now maybe he can find out who he actually is.

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February 16, 2023 · 11:56 pm

Wooboostoock (Baltimore)

The 2 parts of the letter appeared before him, as if by magic. “Abra-” ended the first page and “-cadabra” began the next. Baker has much to ponder.

—–

He landed just out of sight with his out-of-place swimming trunks and beachy attitude. Arthur Kill, still confused over his role, still confused over who he *is*. Arthur? Kill van Kull, a much tamer cousin? Or, dare he speak the name, Lemont. Lemont Sanford. The overseer, the one who controls. Not him, though. Not yet. But he has to choose a cousin in the meantime. Else: this keeps happening.

—–

“*Not* here. Not on my watch,” speaks bartender Zane Tar, holding out a stop hand. “We know about the castle.”

“You *do*?” But Arthur knew he had to move on. These were military people at the bottom of it, good at digging out information. This was, in essence, an extension of Rose Heaven, where his user had gotten in so much trouble looking for the fabled Murdochh Castle of Loch Ness. “It was all a misunderstanding,” he’d said in his head to them, the collective, so many times now, a defense set on repeat.

“Actually,” he decided to say, “I’m just looking for a child named Archie,” and then took his leave. He would keep them hanging this way. Because Archie would lead them right back to “East Lynne” and confuse the heck out of them, for at least a while, until they could get their bearings. He’d check back later to see what they’d come up with in the meantime.

—–

“See you later, Clyde.”

“Good day, sir.” The policeman made a note about the HUD being missing this time. Cousin? he pondered, probably also reading his mind. Military people, pheh. But he’d try to use all that to his advantage… we’ll see.

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December 31, 2022 · 8:38 am

3 scenes

He opened all the doors he could and peered inside before entering. Seemed safe. Here he goes!

—–

He sat in the corner of the couch that was missing a bit of one of its other corners (GH), waiting to enter the story again. It will come to him, he knows.

Meanwhile, there’s always stuff to read.

—–

The portrait of grown up Marsha “Pink” Krakow from novel 34 appears in a most unexpected place. Just noting to remember.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0307, Corsica, HANA LEI, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Northwest

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December 26, 2022 · 10:50 am

place of honor

“You are heart, I am spade, I get it.”

“Balancing point,” replied Shelley.

“Liz,” said Arthur, making her nod. “Both polarities in one.”

“Decision time,” spoke Shelley. “Heterocera or Nautilus or even somewhere else.”

“Looks like Heterocera made a move.” He looked at the painting again, the signature. Selen. Like the sim Selenia they had been investigating before stumbling upon this gallery and this exhibit (“Junction Points”) through Minnow.

“And the Heart Line Jem has been inspecting,” reminded Shelley to Arthur, her former boyfriend, her current husband. In the vast majority of Our Second Life, if not Morgan. But the town of Morgan (Orient PO) was dead. Probably all for the best.

“Baker said he missed Rubi, the woods. This is kind of a way to go back.”

“Nautilus is it,” Shelley stood firm, not ready to give up her castle. She had invested a lot by now. Plus the link to Iowa. She said this to Arthur.

“No option for the rebirth of Collagesity in Fordham, I’m afraid,” Arthur continued as Devil’s advocate.

“No, Arthur. That probably won’t happen. Even though *I’m* still there.”

“You and Franklin.”

Shelley paused before replying. A package had come yesterday for her thought-to-be assimilated tall, green friend. Roberts — Christmas present. She reached for it across the tracks. It contain (as Franklin described it afterwards) the Gang of Willard that blog owner Baker had taken away from her, like a misguided surgeon. Roberts bought it back. And brought it back.

“Franklin is gone,” she said, making Arthur arch his eyebrow.

“Baker won’t be happy,” he said.

“Baker can go to f-ing *hell*.”

“Hmmm.” Arthur looked over. The Retro Backless Dress below the steaming face seemed to fit. *She* was a throwback, non-mesh to name one aspect of that. She was closer to the Lemony Past than most people would suspect if they took her in surfacely. This box has depth, this box has a top and a bottom. Okay, she said Nautilus — stay on Nautilus. Must get back to that.

—–

Yellowmoon, Corsica continent:

“Here, Arthur. This is about Nautilus and its lemony past. Just that easy.”

—–

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November 17, 2022 · 2:22 am

00350517

She’d always been a Trekkie/Star Trek fan, as far back as she can remember. She primarily identified with Ouhuru from the first series, was obsessed with her, wanted to know what she did when she was away from the bridge, out of sight of the cameras, etc. So she found out the only way she could: fiction, fan-style of course. Later she started switching the characters around. Sooloo became the captain, and even merged with Captain Crunch of breakfast cereal fame to become Cpt. Munch, with the bravado or macho posturing of the original cpt., Kirklin let’s call him, becoming even more intense and more insane. He treated his crew more like children, child laborers, and he their master at the top of it all, straddling the hill with his two powerful limbs for legs.  Pickard, the captain after Kirklin in the next series, became a “mere” redshirt, fit to be exterminated in any beam down party. Sooloo, also from the original series and who had replaced Kirklin in *form* in her imagination, developed into a love interest for Ouhuru, a way for her to gain favors from him in part. This led to the inevitable end when she got over her head in 1000 City, which the U.S.S. Ararat (taking over from the retired U.S.S. Cuthand — earlier novels I’m talking about here) was assigned to investigate because of a troubling black hole style anomaly (blurred with black horse and black ho concepts in the text) originating from that small but intense cyberpunk city in the sim of Gemini. The beam down party, sans Pickard who had been mowed down by an abominable snowman or snow tiger riding a snowmobile at its top level, its ceiling if you will, eventually discovered the time/space disturbance behind a bar tucked in the southwest corner of town. And here we are. Stuck still, black hole and black horse and black ho aspects inseparable now.

“Be careful out there Carb. And watch out for spiders!”

“Aww Maw!” he called back walking through the door under the purple marquee, beside the blank purple circle that stood in for a wall sign, behind the square, similarly blank purple standing or pavement sign below them. Bar Purple is another obvious name for the joint, but that was just more relics from the past. The new owner (The Void, we assume) had changed the name to the more innocent seeming and generic 1000 Bar, after the city. Ouhuru, due to the powers of the anomaly that might be behind the bar, but might be *where she’s standing*, forgot her Star Trek Team origin, became absorbed into it, much like actual black holes of our universe absorb light and matter; time itself.

She checked her watch and tried to think positive thought bubbles. The letter from the publisher is due today, any minute now. But she already felt she knew the answer, could feel it in her bones. Rejection.

“Another one, Ted?”

“Nah, thanks Liz. I gotta get back to the ship.” He vanished along with her hopes. In reality, the mailman arrived.

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November 16, 2022 · 3:32 pm

Fern’s figurings

“Oh, on a more minor note I think I figured out the tiger angle, Marilyn slash Lichen. I found another picture (of one) bumming around the property, coupled with an Auburn logo on the front of a dartboard cabinet. Auburn — Tigers. The owner must be an alum.

“Cool (pause). Anything else?” Subtext: Are you ready to go to France now?

“Nah. Guess that’s it.”

“We better line our ducks up in a row then.”

“Nice.”

—–

earlier:

“Oh yeah, you know I told you I showed up in Gemini (sim) on the beach, in that capsule. But, get this, it was a *Mercury* capsule, not the 2 man Gemini one. 1 man capsule. Here’s the thing. When Major Nelson comes back to Earth in his capsule and washes up on the beach with Jeannie also in that capsule.”

“Her bottle,” clarified Marilyn

“Yeah.”

“And you set her free.”

“Yeah, but my point is that Mercury was a solo act, for one astronaut. Major Nelson arrived alone on the beach, so it also must have been a one man capsule. He must have been a part of the Mercury Project. But here’s the thing. Later on, Major *Healy* said he also was there on the beach when Jeannie’s bottle was uncorked. So that makes it Gemini instead of Mercury — two man capsule instead of one — no other way. This is the retconned aspect, as I’ve studied up on. The beginning of the show was changed, modified. Whose memories are right, Nelson or Healy?”

“That’s a major memory problem, ha.”

“Good one. So… what you think? Mercury? Gemini? Which one would *you* choose?”

“Maybe we don’t have to,” Marilyn says cryptically, thinking of another location she’d learned through her comedy act (That’s why the French don’t wash, etc.) where the 2 are effectively merged, major problem solved.

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