Category Archives: Hana Lei^^

00390210

Shelley finally got the rescue rope off the tree branch and moved closer to the edge of the thing. She was suddenly in a position of power and was taking advantage of it. “I *should* let you drown in there.”

“Me?” she struggled. “Why??”

“Because you were obviously meant to replace me. Now I’m expendable.”

“You tricked me!” The pepper on her shirt was gone. Next up the shirt itself, then the identical doodle-bug haired head blub blub blub. They were on a walk after playing basketball a while, Jennifer winning in a close match. Shelley spotted the sign which was closer to her, but didn’t mention it to Jennifer, her double, her doppelganger. Slippery on the far edge, thus: this. “Help!” she started. “Hellllp!”

—–

“And pull your shirt up over your shoulder like I do,” Shelley continued with the conditions after the mouth had submerged. “Just NOd if you understand.” This was the final one, the choice of destiny. The tank must be under the shirt, she decided quite a while back, actually. Viewing the exposed thing cost her a point or two in the basketball game, a seemingly small but important difference. The most obvious and distracting in the moment anyway.

Jennifer’s half submerged head managed a NOd. The rope came — just in time.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0210, Hana Lei^^

00390209

Shelley 02 does indeed find something at the location of the red pin. A portal. 1st two offered locations through it seem to cancel each other out in importance: child vs. adult (Too Young vs. Too Old). 3rd location called Wake seems more central. TILE is here for one.

10:01 AM. Time to ball.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0209, Bellisaria, Hana Lei^^, Pickle 01

the bed is a couch

She kicked off her leafy shoes and stayed a while in this place wrong for others but not herself. Alvin arrived with the rest of the greens just before the crack of dawn. Just what I need, she thought, staring out at it through unwinterized windows. A warm truck. Soon to be getting even warmer!

But where was the baby she use to clutch?

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0308, Hana Lei^^, Jeogeot, Newtown, The Waste^^

couched terms

“Hello, Tom? I’ve arrived. And there’s a sprite already here, just like you said there would be.”

(reply)

“Hold on.” He removes the phone from his ear, looks over. “Honey, what’s your name?”

“Morgan,” she said in an ordinary enough voice for a part plant person. He raises the phone again.

“Morgan, she said.”

(reply)

“Wrong place??”

—–

“And that’s what brought me here, to the tree, to the *mutants*,” he said to John the Mind Reader still sitting opposite him in the present, drinking his coffee, still enjoying the beans. “Spill some more,” he requested, leaning back, carefully sipping at this tilted angle. Sometimes just the mention of the word triggers the event, he knew. The others finally arrived, the lot of ’em, crammed altogether in a lime green truck with Dude on the side and Chevy Dodge on the back. Joker and Jester, Jethro and Bauer, Doug and Clyde (formerly Tin Tin and Clubby). Paired troublemakers all. Liars to the hilt. They say caffeine makes you so if unchecked by alcohol. And there hasn’t been a (wal)drop of beer wine liquor in this levee type of place since January. And then: Jackson Bloch riding tailgate, the strangest of them all.

But where was Ted? all began to murmur as they took their usual seats in the establishment set up near the lip of the Great Fissure or Fracture, your pick. “Right here,” micronized Ted said unseen in the center of it all, tightly clutched by his new master.

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0307, Hana Lei^^, The Waste^^

Mike and Pat

“We have arrived too late.”

“Too late,” said the other, just as frustrated with him as he with her.  One AM and one PM. But they couldn’t remember who said what. Thus the mutual blame game, which would spill over with the toys before bedtime. Because there was nothing left to do but sleep.

“Twelve hours you.”

“Twelve hours *you*”

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0210, Hana Lei^^, Nightsity, Oooo

shallow water

It was so cold in here you could see your breath. But people didn’t mind. Celebrities in the audience!

“Good morning afternoon evening everybody!” Her standard opening line. “Welcome to the klub that’s going to put Kedas back on the map!” And then the requisite plug. “Brought to you by Sprite lemon-lime drink. The drink soo clean…” and here she paused to pull one of their sodas from her dress somewhere and chug. She retreats the can from her mouth, aaahs loudly, then: “…Grant *Hill* recommends it!” Cheers from the audience. Grant Hill is in attendance. He makes eye contact with me from where he’s sitting across the reflected green floor. Just briefly, enough to make me know he’s aware of what’s going on, if only in an unconscious way right now. Two Hills, PHEH, he may be saying internally. If he could only turn over the blueprint to his life he could see.

—–

“Dreaming again on that plank, Ted.”

“Just leave her this time. No need to tell Al.”

“I agree.”

“Got us into a lot of trouble before.”

“I remember.”

“Lot of paperwork.”

“I recall.”

“Anyway. Why don’t you enter her mind and see what’s going on.” So John the Mind Reader did. After a pause:

“Soo, what’s happening?”

“Apparently,” John surmised, “the past. Or a version thereof.”

“In-teresting.” They both had changed their minds about Al. The uppity higher up needed to be informed of this. New development!

(to be continued)

—–

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0207, Hana Lei^^, Nightsity, The Waste^^

00380206

She barely made eye contact with him to acknowledge his presence. Cyberpunks, hmph, he thought. “Business good tonight, Lexi? Selling many sodas on top of the regular alcohol?”

“Whoa whoa there daddy blow. One question at a time. Try again.” She kept dancing to the beat that hadn’t started yet. DJ was still relaxing and chilling and drinking before the gig. While she had the time.

He skipped to the most important one. “Have — you — sold — many — *sodas*? On top of the alcohol which I know will do good,” he sped up.

“Two Hills,” she instead said.

“W-what?”

“Two Hills.” And she pointed to the left, the opposite way of the horn.

“Oh yeah. It’s a promotion.” He breathed a sigh of relief, knowing it could have been something else. Too early! “Now back–”

“Why does there have to be two?”

“*You* have two,” he wanted to answer, but then thought better of it. Maybe she didn’t. Was she a girl or boy? He never figured it out. I guessed she’d have them either way — doesn’t matter.

His lemon-lime drink awaited at the table. He looked around, seeing a lot of soda imbibing with his own two peepers. One over in the far corner had a Dr. Peeper. He resisted the urge to rush over there and swat it outta his hands, causing a scene. No scenes, his brother Benny Right Horn warned. “Tonight must go nothing wrong.” His words, not mine, Jer thought. That’s why he’s not here. Too drunk and coked up to make a proper showing of himself instead of a proper spectacle of himself. Typical. Cokeheads not allowed.

“Anyway,” he finally answered Lexi the bartender, still dancing to an imaginary beat or a beat from the future perhaps that only she can hear with her futuristic head and ears, “it kind of goes along with the idea of doubling the fun or doubling the pleasure.” He locked briefly with her sci-fi black within green within blue eyes. She was finished with him, he knew.

—–

He sat down beside her. The Hills came square to the camera, a horn curled against one of their cheeks.

“How is the wine?”

“Pretty tasty!” She downed another guzzle.

“Load up while you can. But not — too much. Take a swig of soda every now and then. People are watching.” He indicated the ads beside them. “Can’t let down the Hills.”

“Oh no.”

“Mike should be showing up soon.”

“And Pat,” she said. “I also invited Pat.”

“Oh boy.”

“Maybe. We don’t know!”

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0206, Hana Lei^^, Nightsity, Oooo

what is…

“Look! The Moon has come out from behind some clouds. We’re saved!”

“That’s just old Xianity superstition,” replied wannabe lover Johnny Blank to this, hoping she wouldn’t go down that road again, the Jesus Saves one. He’s Muslim and he’s going to stay that way! And Cylinder is Jewish so that’s that. Found God a while back but a different one from mine, and a different one from Gloria’s. But we still seem to be getting along. For now, he thinks.

Gloria stares and stares. With hate. Just like long long ago when she first got this role. The Moon grew a mustache and beard, peered down at her in ultimate superiority and changed birds into bees, flowers into trees. Not God. Something better, she realized. A Dark Lord. She’d been thinking about it for years, but hadn’t said anything about her insights. A good Christian woman she was to others still. Until the Big Reveal. She’d been pondering it for months. She’ll act on it in days. Xianity, as my *friend* Johnny Blank puts it, doesn’t *have* any superstition like that. She made it up. But, being Muslim, he wouldn’t know the difference. Maybe a perfect match after all, a perfect foil. I set them up he knocks them down.

“Johnny,” she says seductively, moving her pointing finger over to his shoulder, making an “X” on it to mark him as a target. “Tell me about your family again, your overbearing father, your loving but absent mother.”

“She *died*. She wasn’t absent.”

“Oh right right.” She sat up with this, looked up to the still visible Moon for strength. “I… forgot.” The Moon went behind clouds and she suddenly became sad, spell over.

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0115, Hana Lei^^, Michigan

00370401 (party 01)

They were preparing food, of course, when the call came in. Raven and Key needed for a catering assignment. Money not an option, because this was for the big bosses, one of them anyway — I’ll get an actual name asap. All activities at the well established Wooboostook pub would have to be halted for a night. March 23rd was the date. The day the music died.

Soon they were prepping food in a different place. Nautilus continent. Near but perhaps not in the Lemon Free State, advertised as the last vestige of the old empire within now Lime (Linden) controlled Our Second Lyfe.

“Edward should be arriving soon,” spoke Sandy Hook to Penny Mart up front, champagne on wait to be served for the occasion. “Said he had a new girl who wasn’t his girl, tee hee.” “Typical,” offered Penny from the chair, wishing he would get the f-ck here so she could have that drink. Also she was starving.

Amos T. Sandman arrived from next door in a party boat loaded down with his many presents, but he was not the one they desired despite of this. The time: 6:05. The night was young, very young.

Darn. Not even noticed, he thought, grand entrance ruined.

“Hello,” he said. No response, even though her extended legs were almost in the way of getting up the stairs in front of him. What gives? he kept pondering as he approached the house. Who is this party *actually* for if not me?

The presents were snapped up right and left as his back was turned to them. He had nothing left to give.

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0037, 0401, Hana Lei^^, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Wild West

00370317

They had opened the book, they were reading the script. Their brains had become like one, minds fused. They read together, one with the left eye and the other the right. Coordination. Military people at the top of it this time. Eastwesterners.

They read about Archie…

Biff Carter withdrew the book from the camera, stared into it, smiled.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0037, 0317, Hana Lei^^, Jeogeot, Middleton^, Midlands, Sand Springs, Towerboro