Kick-ass Boos said to sit at the table with the Bigfoot book, so here he is. He picks up another book laying nearby by John Shaw Billings, which he quickly gathers from his reading was a librarian for New York city in the US of A, Earth.
Kick-ass Bogota, Boos’ brother, strolls into the bar. His brother said he’d “mark him” to make sure Axis-Windmill knew who it was.
Yup. That’s him!
“Grasshopper please, Bertha. Extra mint.”
“Coming right up, Ted.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0409, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori, New York
“Awfully nice for you to come over and cook me dinner again, Alysha.”
Alysha, she thinks. *That’s* how he sees me now? “Sure, honey,” she says. “Anything for my number 1 man.” Number 10 at best she calculates to herself. She’s just that deep into it. Horns of Hatton, pheh. Manga, huh. She sprinkles spice on the meatloaf and asks him what he’s up to today, hoping the heck she wouldn’t be involved. But she does feel sorry about the hands. The Abyss will have its price, she thinks. And the Abyss is very close here. Very close indeed. About as close as that big whale circling around this treehouse.
“Business down South,” he answers from his rocking hammock. “Have to take Pricky.”
Thanks Gods, she ponders. “Oh? Big haul, then?”
“More marine life, yeah. Squid, I think. Or octopus — can’t recall right now. Anyway have to go to Cass City to pick it up; haul it up North somewhere. Meat Town I think it’s called. I’ll have to look it up on my map.”
*Neat* Town, Alysha thinks from the sink, pondering whether to add poison to the recipe to stop the whole thing. She knows why she’s here now. But not to kill him, she realizes. Instead: kiss; use her magical powers.
By the time they’d finished, Alysha had had a chance to alter the map. The whale ended up going the wrong way and never reached its intended destination. Roth wasn’t fired, but he never saw his precious, red headed Alysha again. Blonde Wanda filled the void, but Wanda couldn’t cook worth shite and had to be disposed of herself. Fed to the sharks, some say, although she actually just went back to Bombtown and eventually married a man with 3 eyes. Then came Sally. Or was it Shelley? No: Sally.
“Do you want some meatloaf on your spice tonight?” she called from the kitchen, preparing for the worse.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0211, Cass City^, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori, Neat Town
“Axis-Windmill. You have blood on your hands that you must atone for.”
“I know.”
—–
“What happened to your hands, mister?”
Roth Voomer looked down, not even thinking about that day any more. He’s basically healed. Except for the extremities of course.
“It happens, kid. The Abyss will have its price.”
“The Abyss,” the almost submerged kid says while nodding, having learned about such things in prison school.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0210, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori
—–
He was getting valuable information out of this Cornfeld fellow, Natha Neil I believe. Green Acres he comes from (he claims). Farm living. Delight — for him. I tried to keep him on track about the city. “Neat Town?” he replied. “Never a city. More a *Hooterville*, in that…” I stopped him. The guy would have been right at home in Horns and with the old religious man. Dig a little beneath the surface and it’s always Hooterville for these lot — Fraud had it right in many ways. “But Red started it,” I furthered. “Unloaded her shacks out of a giant, mossy green shoe with the help of an octopus.” “Squid,” he replied, but didn’t elaborate. So he knew about that event too (!). “So it is true,” I said to him. He looked away with this, more toward the center of town. “You’ll find more information in the diner, *her* diner.” I took my leave. “Ask for Green!” he shouted as I left the grounds.
—–
Out back:
“Henry, I told you not to drive this thing when you’re drunk. It’s been in the woods for 50 years (!). You’ll explode (again).”
Too late.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0208, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori, Neat Town
We took Rael McCoy, straightened him out. Trouble was, this created two stars where before there were one. Which is Real. Which is Rael?
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0207, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori
“I don’t want to forget you, mini-me. Even though I am the Controller now and have acquired red hair. You are two steps away now. I cannot leave you… behind.”
“Tattoo,” is what she said back. I thought about this. Arm? Back? Other place? “Where?” I ventured. She just stared with those almond eyes, same as mine. We looked into each other.
“We will have this spot where we can talk to each other,” I decided aloud for both me and her. As one.
Who are we with? I thought next. Axis-Windmill seems the logical choice, default even. I thought I saw little Alysha shaking her head back at me but I might have imagined it. One mind…
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0206, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori
“I recall now. I am your hairy… neighbor. To the North. Remember? Like Canada. Some called us friends. Like me. Remember? Not Arthur but me. We were sent here (to Mythos) together.”
I recalled. There was lots of pain in his direction, more than mine. The US of our A had it easier. A single child (functionally). A loving *father*. “You didn’t know,” he wanted to say to me now. “You were involved… in your own world.” I couldn’t argue. At least he didn’t declare war on me, like Cofmo. Ants, mechanical ants. My grasshoppers never had a chance. June bugs bombed but all were underground.
I know why my artist friend from Our Second Lyfe was named that. For this.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0205, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori
Accompanied by the music of Certain Death playing on the turntable, an old, religious man reads slightly pornographic manga well into the night. Did it in Kowloon where he came from, doing it here. Nothing wrong.
In another part of Horns, Jacob’s I awakes from the dead, as it were, and rolls his stiffened neck. “Ugggh. Where *am* I?”
Kick-ass Bogota’s long vigil is over. He can rejoin his brother Boos, wherever he is at the moment, probably Red’s Diner.
Yes: Red’s.
Bigfoot is a hot topic tonight. A giant spool has now been rolled onto an artist’s location and made into a firepit. Staring into the flames one last time, Kick-ass takes his leave before Jacob I. realizes who he is.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0204, Canada, Canada/Tungaska, collages 2d, Horns of Hatton^, Lower Austra^, Maebaleia/Satori, Nautilus
“You know, she really is the complete package, brother Jer, this Lena Horned.”
“I hear you brother Ben. I hear *her*.”
They listen to the completion of “The Ballad of Stormy Daniels,” preparing for their pitch. Come with us, they’ll tell her. Come back to the capital of all of the South, not just the Deep South. Help us make the South great again, that’s what they’ll say.
“Thank you (applause whistles applause). Thank you very much (applause applause applause).”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0110, Cass City^, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori
“Ice cream for you today, my ruler?”
“Not today, Jer,” Grey Scale Kimball replied while walking by. “Maybe tomorrow. You just stay there in that here ice cream truck till we’re ready, tehe.”
“Will do, mum.”
—–
“Let’s take another shortcut,” the Horns of Hatton ruler expressed while staring beyond the end of the path, where the stones run out.
“Let’s go through the front door instead,” replied Chesteria A. Arthur. “She’s had enough of being sneaked up on lately, don’t you think?”
“Wonderful.” Grey Scale is turning out to be a wise and thoughtful ruler, ready to bend her will through sound feedback if needed. But Chesteria also knew when to get back in line. They were soulmates through and through.
—-
“You’re *right*, Chesteria my love. Look: my statues emitting both colored and non-colored waters. She *has* acquiesced. We can move forward together to defeat the North.”
—–
“We can move forward together to defeat the North,” the Heart Queen finished her 2nd surrender speech (as it will be later called). “I look forward to fighting side by side in many battle victories.”
One after another, they pricked the symbolic white fish on the hearth to make sure it was dead. And it was, through and through this time.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0316, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori
Sunklands 