It was still there, the chest that had caused so much trouble. A drifter had drifted in, seeing no one home, no one around (green dots). “Get a role in Our Second Lyfe!” her Maw implored. She: a ho. Well defined, worked 9-5 — PM to AM instead of the normal visa versa — came home and slept till 12, made lunch, watched some soaps in the afternoon (Soap!), then some game shows after that, then the news, then supper, another game show and 2 reruns of classic sitcoms, “Happy Days” and “Lavern and Shirley” I believe. She really identified with the character of Shirley, if so. Working gal with a *slight* drinking problem. She wanted to work in a beer factory like these 2 lower middle class Milwaukee gals; that was her goal. Ho-ing in Soap was just leading to that, like her soaps were just a lead in to the nighttime shows featuring, at the end, Shirley. Then it was off to work, usually after toasting her on-screen hero with her own favorite beer, Duff being the current fad, the famous Springfeld product of course. But, ironically, her Maw didn’t know anything about the Smipsons, reality getting mixed up and confused with fantasy, dreams with physical. Then one day, on her way to work at her most common post at the downtown motel, she found a book, marble on the front…
Her Maw always trailed off when telling that story. “I found you in a hole in the wall,” she always said about her 2nd child, 3rd by Mouse if you count Wanda. And where were all her sisters and brothers and half siblings? Some had perished in the Great War — who didn’t lose family members to that awful awful conflict? Last she heard Gloria was working at some beach. Maybe Wanda is there too, she pondered. Maybe *I* should be there too, then. The great threesome together again, the Trinity we called each other back in the day. Marsha and Bill and John and Peter and Isabella and Jason Foxchild the Third were always outsiders staring into this holy triad of siblings. They protected and consoled each other during the war. And, Alice felt, another type of war was coming. She needed to settle down.
So back to the chest. Borneo, she knew. One of the 4 sacred corners of… something. A hypercube, she’d heard, maybe from her Maw who learned about it through a client, a well positioned Soap resident with the money to uncover such secrets in whatever God forsaken land they hide, Iowa and its vast, empty cornfields necessarily included.
Borneo, she thought, trying to get a grasp on the thing, the planes, the edges, the corners. Yes, she’d heard about it through her Maw who learned about it through Robert (well positioned Soap resident) when she showed him the book. A photo lies within — one of her Maw. Robert kept it there. And now it’s here. And so is she. Soo sleepy…
Sunklands 