Category Archives: Estate

October 31, 2020 · 4:46 pm

lessons

“Remember? I asked you to select a pencil to begin. Pull one of the 4 pencils out of the desk, I said to you that day long long ago. 30 years?”

“Maybe.” He recalled the desk of course, the pencils, the *dunce cap*. Always making D’s he was back then, until Suisan got her learned hooks into his hide.

“And low and behold you pulled out the 4th, the hardest to do. I knew you were special then. Do you still have the pencil?”

Barry DeBoy stared at the desk, indicating the 4 pencils. Suisan understood.

“Yes, you had to give it back. You couldn’t take it with you all of your life. Instead you received the *tie*. You traded the pencil for the tie. And so here you are.” She indicated, in turn, Barry’s omnipresent tie, at least in Dream World, La La Land.

—–

“Do you see all the planets, Duncy? *Sorry*: Barry. Old habit.” She turns slightly red here. “But you’re only suppose to see one.

“*There* it is. Appearing from a hidden place. Neptune. The icy planet. I.C.U., hehe. Remember we played that game with Neptune? You learned about the solar system and eventually the milky way and the whole cosmos that way. Nothing was hidden from you any more. Thanks to that pencil.”

“I recall.”

“Mr. Johnson came to call. He’d learned of a special boy in our class who could alter dimensions and make the 3d appear 2d. A special gift indeed. He wanted the boy for himself. And it was Johnston, not Johnson.”

“I remember.”

“We almost made the mistake of sending you away, Barry. We would have never found you again.”

“I’m Neptune.” He points to the now fully exposed blue planet slowly slowly revolving around the sun. Slower than any of the rest, even stinky Uranus, which will eventually catch up with her. Because Neptune is a she. He’d seen her once in the high grass beyond Le Mars. But he didn’t want to think about what she was doing there just then. In the moment.

“One more,” Suisan requested.

“Okay.”

—–

“The bomb, Barry. We never finished our childhood puzzle so we could move to the adult ones. But now you’re…”

“An adult,” Barry surmised. He understood the message. He must awake and get back to work. Zen City was gone, but there was still Meat City, Collagesity. CITY must be purified of all these hanger oners. Suburbia must be cleansed.

—–

Goodbye, er, The Waste. For now.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0609, The Waste+

Tagged as , , ,

October 31, 2020 · 4:46 pm

best

It occurred to him tonight while wandering around the old Same Place that he might be going slightly mad, kind of like Mercury X. Rising toward the end of his shortened life. In real life there is no such thing as a dulciwheel which plays a tune of complex design before him. He’s notice some time slips lately, and duplications. Heck, *he’s* a duplication, since there’s another Barry of similar, complex design in these here novels, art and writing in one. But after thinking about it more, he’s determined this is mostly projection from others. He *appears* mad but he’s not. No ghost variations here. And he’s been studying Robert Schumann, another dude who famously became mad toward the end of his life. Maybe he should stop listening to his music. In fact, that tune…

He quickly exits this portion of La La Land, needing some air. He walked right past Suisan sitting at the door, not noticing her presence. “I heard you were back in town.” Muffled talk through an omnipresent mask. Same old Suisan. The old Same Suisan. Suisan Same. Daughter of the owner of this here place. Makes sense she’d be here, then. Barry turns.

“Suisan! I’m glad to see you. But you scared me in the moment!”

“How come? This is the old Same Place. Makes sense I’m here.”

“Yeah… suppose. It’s just.”

“You’re *not* going insane.”

“But…”

“No buts. I’m here to talk to you. About your mother, heck, anything you want. Even, dare I say the name, Pansy Mouse?”

“Let’s take a walk,” Barry DeBoy urged to his old friend, one of his oldest. She was there even before the beginning. Before the tie.

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0608, The Waste+

Tagged as , , , , ,

October 30, 2020 · 5:14 am

This cat was a little better trained.

Barry was sleeping on a different couch but in the same old place: the old Same Place, a restaurant adjacent to the Pink Motel that had a duplicate or doppleganger in Tinseltown. This is what happened to him as an acne spotted kid when he and his mother had an argument, often about grades and schooling, sometimes about church and religion, occasionally about the status of the world in general. Marsha “Star” Pink was an optimist, Barry a born pessimist. Or was it the opposite? Heck, let’s jettison the whole idea of discussing the world in general. Let’s focus on local. Barry was sleeping on a different but familiar couch. It reminded him of the one in Norm the Cashier’s Flower Shop but that’s a future memory instead of the past.

He wakes up remembering something awful happened. Bullfrog, a friend of the family, had been killed over in NWES City, known then as New WES City before the shortening and way before the CITY decided to remake itself as a town to counter all the copycat but obviously inferior “cities” spring all inside and around it. Like Meat City, like Zen City before (destroyed by an atomic blast much like the one pictured on that vending machine in the above photo). Like Collagesity, with sity equaling city. You know. These are not Collagesity photo-novels any longer, but something else. Sunklands for the moment because that’s where *my* home is. Not Rubi as in the past. Not Fordham, or Urqhart over on the Corsica continent.

Pink knew Bullfrog from her mother who was green Green. An EEL of a man is often how her mother described him, but she was conservative leaning. Bullfrog was progressive and that’s a fact, and that fact which got him killed by a red headed and red hatted evil entity known as Lu Ellen Hutchison (or Hutchinson) played by actress Alice Frame in Act II. And now she’s back as similarly red topped Wendy. Barry DeBoy knows nothing of Wendy now, or that he is directly sleeping with a mortal enemy back in Black Ice in the present. He is ensconced in the past, in the dream. Bullfrog has just died by gunfire and his mother Marsha “Pink” Krakow, not yet a Star — neither Trek nor Wars — remains in shock, and Barry along with her. This was Uncle Bully to him, a friendly not hostile moniker. How could this happen?

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0606, The Waste+

Tagged as , , ,

October 30, 2020 · 5:14 am

Pink lives?

Aah, the old sign remains.

And the cats! So many cats. Now to dare try the manager’s door. Hell’s Here!, though. He attempts to ignore the warning and return to his childhood. Hello There! instead (!).

“Hello there!” he finds himself automatically uttering as he passes from outer to inner.

To his great disappointment, he just then wakes up for real, the presence of his mother unresolved.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0605, The Waste+

Tagged as ,

October 30, 2020 · 5:14 am

Barry 02 02

He awoke again a little later on in the day, not having moved from his spot in front of the Raccoon typewriter. Nappy the cat stared directly into the camera, aware of its presence. Eraserhead Man even dared to wave at it, thinking the noticing was funny. Barry DeBoy was not aware of it. Barry DeBoy was in character. He had awoken again, in the same spot as before. Someone, perhaps himself, had turned off the lamp.  More clarity all around this time. Wadded up papers on the floor — was this something *he* wrote, perhaps a future or past version again? He picked one up, unwadded it.  Something about a place named Gaston. Later he found parrot droppings on the floor of the shed and put two and two together to make four or five. A pirate with a parrot had been here, and he thought he knew which one. The dream controller. The one who brought the virus in his pirate ship for communities that didn’t heed the warnings. Like Maw’s Storybrook. Like this place. DeBoy tries to remember the name, the most obvious thing he should recall. But all he could come up with was The Waste, which he knew wasn’t quite right. Something about a number. Or numbers.

He unwadded more; tried to piece together the story being written. Gaston had appeared in something called a photo-novel in versions 6, 11, 16, 21. Through this, the bastard pirate had concluded that it was related to something called a Magic Square of Jupiter, a 4×4 glyph that appeared, perhaps most famously, in Albrect Durer’s print “Melancholia” from back in the 15th Century or something — this from the pirate text again.

He finished unfolding the papers, shooed the conscious cat from the table, and tried to align them in correct order. 70 pages total, he understood from the numeration. But only 4 present here: bits about the magic square and the overall theories but no meat, no details. He would have to shift his attention elsewhere for more answers.

He turned to the stool and the easel holding a canvas on the other side of the screened in shed. Painting. Barry DeBoy realized he had two functions in life now. He was a writer. He was an artist, if not a painter then the equivalent. But in this moment: painter. He had work to do… he remembered that too. The CITY design. Black Diamond. He must get to work soon.

He wasn’t a writer in this incarnation. He was an artist. He wadded the papers back up and threw them in the trashcan underneath the desk. The true story of Gaston would have to wait until another day, another dreamer in another day perhaps, or one who dreams he is real even though he is just another character, one in a long long line now. Maybe he will share a first name with another of his kind — quite likely, given the sheer number. But before DeBoy gets to work — this is *his* work station now, not the pirate’s, not anyone else named Barry — he must explore the neighborhood. Find Suisan if possible and get the story about his mother. Maybe even — Maw? He had to look. He had to know. Suisan would know. If she was available.

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0604, Gaston+, The Waste+

Tagged as , , , , , ,

October 30, 2020 · 5:13 am

Barry 02 01

He woke up somewhere very different than before. Twilight. The lamp had not been turned off from the night. The cat Nappy purred beside him, half aware that his master had awoken. 1/2 and 1/2 once more, but I’m suppose to limit (that expression) to one per photo-novel section at the most, as prescribed by my word therapist Bob the Knob who I don’t really like that much so I may insert it more. Or less. Damn Bob. Recommended by Richard, who I haven’t talked to since session 3. Or was it section 3? NO, there was no Richard in the story.

I’m admittedly getting a little confused about all the names (finally! the reader might utter here). Barry DeBoy who just woke up here in a strange but then very familiar land shares a first name with Barry X. Vampire who arrived in our text in photo-novel 18 — and also *writing*, at least partially, said photo-novel. He was a creator like me within the pages posts of his own creation. Mirror within mirror, etc. But the mirrorings seem to be increasing lately. It’s time, for example, to face the fact and the music that the two Barry’s in our novels — let me check (checks) — yes still only *2* Barry’s. Anyway, they are probably the same, and my rationale — well, I won’t go into it in detail but let it just play out in the text. Returning to the awakening DeBoy version, then…

Took him a minute to realize where he was after gaining consciousness but as he looked around at the tall, brown grass, the dilapidated buildings and signs, it dawned on him, as the sun, let’s say, gained height over a yonder horizon. Home. Maw may even be here, even older than before. Some called her Pink, some just called her Star, but her actual name was Marsha. Marsha “Star” Pink.  All three were correct, I suppose. But what am I doing here thinking about names? I must think about *action*. Barry tried to recall where this shed was in relation to his house where he grew up as DeBoy, who started as simple D-Boy (one who makes a lot of D’s, etc.) but then changed in stature within the community as he received the tie from… who? He recalls something about another Barry. Himself? he realizes. From the future or from the past?

Suisan might know. If she’s still around — or still alive for that matter. Always wearing that mask while growing up, always afraid of the germs and viruses swarming, she put it, in the air all around us. And now her fears have come to fruition. The Jasper virus, the mother, is here. He peers in the direction he remembers that his mother lives in. Home. She could still be there.

But then another whole series of memories locked into place. His mother had died! Along with Suisan, along with a friend named Brown. Along with another friend named Green. Maybe someone named Olive, even. This was a land of… he looked down at his hands. He attempted to swat one with the other but it only passed through. Yet another dream. His mother was dead but then she was alive, at least during *parts* of his childhood. How could this be?

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0603, The Waste+

Tagged as , , , ,

October 30, 2020 · 5:13 am

Snowmanster

He was dreaming again, hence the tie. “This is a little f-ed up,” he said to the woman nearby, who didn’t reply. No, he didn’t like this place. He had found a limit. Wendy would not be his daughter or something. He’d leave all that to Toothpick and Elberta and their Deep South ways (!). He’d have to talk to Eraserhead Man about this shoot, compare it to DaBob in that other production he worked in, the one less famous. Or was it more famous. Snap out of it, snap out of it! he cried inside while snapping his fingers, which, of course, passed through each other. Tarboo Bay, DaBob, The Twins… they were all together; all in on this. What does it mean? He better get Wendy to safety and out of the shiny light of revealing film while she’s still wearing that dress. He knows a guy who knows a guy in Snowlands who has a remote-ish cabin kind of tucked away in some small woods, getting smaller by the month but Barry DeBoy doesn’t know that in the present. He’d only find out about the deforestation of Purden in the future through a rogue Snowman gone good instead of the usual bad but still with a bad Santa, one called Satan, an obvious anagram (too obvious). The Snowman’s name is… well, let’s just wait. Regular readers of this here blog and derivative photo-novels probably already know the name. Let’s just make it the title of this here post.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0602, HANA LEI, Washington

Tagged as , , , , , ,

October 21, 2020 · 5:31 pm

Breezy

Turns out it was all just a dream. The pink plastic couch Andy Warhole sat upon while fellow artist Barry DeBoy dreamed lying down on the same is gone, and the 2 rooms of the apartment have indeed merged, just like Andy wished. Dreams and reality are certainly getting mixed up in ol’ NWES City, soon to be changed to NWES Town if certain members of the city council had their way, in reaction to all the “cities” springing up around it, like arrogant, belligerent suburbs. First there was Zen City, then Meat City. The list goes on. And then there’s Collagesity, which had the audacity to neatly and tightly integrate itself into the very fabric of NWES City and become one with it almost, another insult to the term. How could something call itself a city (or sity in this case) and be so much smaller than NWES City, lost in the coattails like a small child to a towering mother. No, these *satellites* must not be termed cities. It is wrong. And in comic reaction the mother who has the only real claim to the name (it feels) might instead abort it.

But we digress. We need to find out the whereabouts of Barry DeBoy. Poor thing: he’s lost his original home in the city to fire (Norm the Cashier’s Flower Shop), and then the apartment with the pink couch, as we’ve mentioned, is all just a dream. We must find out where he’s *really* dreaming, physically that is. He *must* have a location in town, er, the city — let’s not move too fast on that.

—–

He is dreaming again of his beach, searching for the one who also gave up red but with no physical presence yet found.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0511, Black Ice, HANA LEI, NWES Island

Tagged as , , ,

October 18, 2020 · 10:42 am

zzz www

Later they all ate sushi with oversized toothpicks at Black Diamond’s. Big Wanda with “deflated horns”, as I’ve called her floppy pigtails, was in charge, Spore’s plan in action. Master judo samurai Black Diamond (background) gave Little Oakley Annie the honorable name Green River during a pre-meal tea ceremony and her mama the name Kummer, which was short (he explained) for, “coming mother”. Or so that’s what they thought he meant. We were working with places in Washington again, switched from Illinois switched from Mississippi. Faulkner had no hold here, the Rule of the 100 and the way of fame and fortune conveniently forgotten. Zzz was not about Faulkner, nope. This was the mother, this was the father, but not the son, the fruity one.

Big Wanda spoke. “Little Annie Oakley, *sorry*, Green River, has fallen asleep again, cutting zzz’s instead of being in the moment. Too much fighting in life will do that, drain you of the oh-so-precious life force because you have done so with others.” She turns. “But you’re holding up well, Old Grey. How’s that floating device going?”

“Pretty good,” Old Grey admitted, knowing indeed what is holding her up and propelling her forward. Snowmanster and she will be at the tree again soon. In fact: they’re there.

“Interesting,” Core-Alena says to begin in his-her feminine/masculine voice and staring toward Old Grey’s way.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0506, HANA LEI, Heterocera, Iris, Washington

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

October 18, 2020 · 10:42 am

zzz aaa

“Now. Isn’t that a lot better than that nasty old gun, eh? Corona-V. Won’t let you down, hehe. 9 out of 10 pirates — *recommend*.”

“Who *are* you?” she said to the tiny green creature on the pool’s edge beside her with the projecting, announcer-like voice. She was getting use to honing in on the frequency, like a small radio that blends into background noise at first.

“Why I’m a *friend*, a guiding spirit if you will, yes.” Spore rubs his miniature hands together in diabolic glee. Plan Z was working perfectly. Except he’s decided to trim the name down to Pan-Z to separate it from that other guy with a plan about the canal that didn’t work so well. NWES City remains in pieces. “Now just rellaaxx and forget *all* about that awful black swamp, eh? Settle back. You remain a star, don’t worry. I’ll be back shortly.” He patters off, still rubbing his hands and snickering underneath his breath. Oakley Annie floats and sips for a while, thinking of the past.

“You use to be *my* friend,” Big Wanda with new doo spoke, sitting up for emphasis.

“Well things change, what can I say.” She looked over. “What happened to your horns, the thing that gave away your sign?”

“Aww, got tired of them.” She patted her hornless head, indicating her pigtailed hair she replaced them with; kind of floppy horns if you will; deflated almost. “Looked much better on the other version of Elberta I have,” she opined about it, “the one that was going to marry–”

“Don’t tell me,” Oakley Annie beams with new psychic insight because of the brew; in the dark no more. “Toothpick.” She cackles. “*That’s* what Spore was going on about with the guy with the failed plan, ha.”

“You’re not the only one who’s dead here, Oakley Annie. I am too.”

“I know.” She almost reaches back into the box to produce a beer for Big Wanda but then remembers this is all imaginary; in her head. Big Wanda was not dead, not yet. She hasn’t tasted cool happiness at the end of a long, dusty trail.

Another sip (*ahhhh*). Spore says she can stay in his land for as long as she wants, and she has nowhere to go. Could be a while (*sip*).”Who can I speak to next? Who will fill that vacant hole of a zero doughnut this time?”

She trembles despite the good vibrations. “Mom?”

Truly dead this time.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0505, HANA LEI

Tagged as , , , , , ,