“This Lena Horned is good, admittedly.” Older Keith B. looks over at the singer currently crooning “The Ballad of Stormy Daniel.” He then leans closer to Kate McCoy sitting beside him. “But she’s not as good as my little girl.”
A noncommittal Kate turns toward the dance floor. “Well… Zach and The Mann seem to be enjoying it enough.”
“And The Dogg too,” Keith B. laughingly adds.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0503, Maebaleia/Satori, Pipersville/Sink X
“What’s back here, then?”
“Oh, nothing. Just an alley,” answered Domino, showing the tall, swarthy man around the gas station his uncle owned.
The stranger peers out. “Oh, I think it’s much more than an alley.”
“In its day, maybe. The Dark Days.” Satan Days, Domino thinks to himself, not wanting to say the word aloud.
The stranger knocks on the door, testing its solidity. “No eyes on this one as far as you can tell?”
“Nope,” clipped Domino, thinking how lucky they could limit themselves to one door for such a profitable establishment. Karma indeed.
“Listen, er, stranger.” Domino was trying to prompt for a name again. And failing again. “Um, my uncle won’t be back today. Like I said, *he’s* the owner. He’s the one you should be talking to. Not me.”
“That’s fine,” replied the dark man plainly, implying that he was okay with just talking to Domino now. Was Domino being played? Was he *in play*?
Marion Harding shuts the door, turns around, crosses his arms. “Tell your uncle that I’m interesting in buying this joint. Tell him — money is not an option.”
“Er… do you mean that money is not an issue? That’s great, er, but Uncle Zach, I’m sure, isn’t selling.” Then Domino realized he might be wrong. Why was the stranger here in the first place?
“I said what I said,” reinforced Marion. “Tell your Uncle Zach exactly what I just told you. Understand?”
“Sure, sure.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0502, Maebaleia/Satori, Pipersville/Sink X
“*Now* can I enter Pipersville?”
“*Thank* – *you*.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0501, Maebaleia/Satori, Pipersville/Sink X
“Who will sit here in this chair, Eraserhead Man. Mr. Producer, teehee. The Queen?”
“Yes, Ruby D. The Heart Queen. Coming all the way from Horns of Hatton to visit this God forsaken *Yankee*town. Not the far, far North, but North enough. Chickens frowned upon here, etc.”
“Then what? *prrr*.”
“The South takes over. Like yin into yang. The balls revolve, like the Moon. Dark into light (EM positions his glowing yellow hands as if holding a ball), and light into dark (EM switches the hands’ position with each other while still holding the ‘ball’).”
“And the, ahem, little devils are waiting for this. Red Devil’s spawn. These are, er, Benny and Jer’s *brothers*, then?”
“There’s a couple of sisters involved as well. But: yes.” He peers over at Ruby D. A *different* Ruby, yes. More *ditzy* than the rest. But still Ruby. He can feel her essence. It calmed him. He could *hear*. He could think better as well. Yes, he could still *marry* this girl standing beside him. “And it should happen the day before the last Tuesday after the first Saturday of a month,” he speaks my thoughts aloud. “Pick a month — any will do.”
“August,” emitted Ruby D. automatically.
“August it is.”
Main Street, Gregson.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0417, Gregson, Maebaleia/Satori
Fast forward to 8 months later…
“Bogart and Bergman again? Aww, Ruby Dharmaraksa. What are we doing here in this sim?”
“*You agreed to the situation as well,” she snapped back.
“Oh yeah, what — what are you going to do? Throw another *pot* at my head. The last one didn’t draw enough blood?”
Ruby D. begins to cry. Marcus Fox Smartville caves and calms down. Little footsteps could be heard running around upstairs, directly above where they were sitting. “You better, *sniff*, go check on them again. If (she wipes her face with her hand)… you don’t mind. I don’t want them to see me this way, all red eyed and runny nosed.”
“Okay, sure. Just don’t get this way.”
“It didn’t, *sniff*, use to be like this.”
“I know. Things change.” He reaches over and pats her hand now. “Circumstances change. We have so much more responsibility now. The roses aren’t the only thing we have to take care of these days.” Marcus Fox Smartville thought back to the day when her rose changed. They weren’t the perfect match any longer. Ahh, the halcyon days. The XOXO times. When is there time for that now? Hardly ever.
—–
“How are they doing, Gus?”
“Oh, you know. Little demons as usual.”
“2 hours until lunch. Just try to keep them *slightly* under control till then. As long as they don’t burn down the house again, or set the neighbor’s on fire.”
“Again,” Gus the caretaker tacked on. He looked over at Marcus with this. They couldn’t help share a mischievous smile; both loved these little devils. More than Ruby D. More than the neighbors, obviously. More than, well, the town as a whole. But everyone knew they had to put up with them in the meantime. Jer Left Horn and his brother Benny Right Horn were scouting for a place to put them and selected Gregson, according to their father’s wishes. His *spawn*.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0416, Gregson, Maebaleia/Satori
“‘666 Satan’, it’s called, Cathy A. One of my team researchers Scotty found it on a search for Dharmaraksa images, Google style — almost gave up for the night then checked one more time and found this. And, get this, turns out the main character of the series is named *Ruby*. *You’re* the 666th character of these Collagesity novels. Red Devil was here in this town as late as last week with his unknown establishment of Southern bias. Left a *sign* there: 66, which translates into the same (666).
“And I can *talk* to you without those blasted *hearing aids.* Everything points to you being Ruby yourself. Well, not *that* Ruby necessarily but *our* Ruby, the one that blew up *our* New Island at the age of exactly 15 1/2. Now keep that in mind when I read some notes Scotty sent me along with the (‘666 Satan’ texture).” Eraserhead Man pulls out a small notebook from his pocket. “Let’s see. Okay, this is from a combination of several sources. Alright: ‘Set in the near future, it tells the story of a teenage girl named Ruby Crescent who wants to become a treasure hunter.’ And then he goes on, um, ‘(She’s) a teenage girl of *15*’ — *our* Ruby’s 15 and a 1/2. Can’t get any more 15 than that.” Eraserhead Man flips a couple of pages in his notebook, then: “So there’s mention of a 4 year *timeskip*, just like New Island went though. Again: *our* New Island, not the one out in the middle of the Indian Ocean. This is Our Second Lyfe we’re talking about here. But — this is important too — *that* Ruby, the ‘666 Satan’ one, aged. Turned all voluptuous during those years. *Our* Ruby never changed. She remains, well,” and here Eraserhead Man cups his yellow cartoon hands underneath his breast region. “No real *b’s*. Apples in Preston Weston speak.”
“Hey, thanks a lot. I’ve got b’s.”
“Well I know you do, sweetie. But you’re naturally…”
“Petite,” Cathy A. finishes for Eraserhead Man. “Dainty? *Stunted*?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0415, Gregson, Maebaleia/Satori, New Island
“I think that’s the worst part of leaving the South for me, Jer my bro.” He stares at Bogart and Bergman on the screen. “No colored TV.”
“I hear ya.”
—–
“I *love* black and white TV,” Cathy A. squeals downstairs at basically the same instant in time. “Reminds me of my childhood in…” She tails off here.
“In where, pumpkin spice? You mean…?”
“Yeah.”
Marcus Fox Smartville studies her sad face, so filled with joy just a moment before. Then he notices the rose.
Not the same hand, not the same color. Just with the insinuation of Crabwoo everything had changed.
“I’m remembering things,” she said.
—–
“Anorexia?” he responds just a minute later. “What kind of name is *that*?”
“She goes by Annie.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0414, Gregson, Maebaleia/Satori
Blue Feather is close, that’s for sure.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0413, Google Street View, Hills of Bill, Maebaleia/Satori, West Virginia
It was a busier night at the Gregson Motel in Dharmaraksa. The well established establishment was about to get 2/3rds full. Brothers Jer Left Horn and Benny Right Horn were the first to arrive, coming from Horns of Hatton by Royal (Magic) Bus. They were followed quickly by Marcus Fox Smartville and new gal pal Cathy A., with last name to be determined. The vehicle this time? None other than Little Jimmy, the complete bastard of a car also recently owned by Keith B., Kevin A., and perhaps some others I’m not recalling right this instant. $70,000 lindens was the price this time. The bastardliness just keeps on building upon itself like some kind of warped lego concoction.
“You allow chickens, I’m assuming,” said Jer Left Horn to the hotel receptionist, unseen to his left here. “She’s house trained.” Bethulia was current playing hide and seek with Willard (receptionist) from behind his computer monitor, but he didn’t find this cute at all. Blame Southerners, he instead thought swearingly. I guess they’ll start coming in droves to this place after it’s all said and done.
Marcus and Cathy picked up whispered words from the horned brothers like, “Red Devil”, “father”, and “honor”. But there was no need for secrecy. History had shifted in and then turned out upon itself, like some kind of warped twister game. All was there to expose thanks to scrying, reality flipping black holes. Marcus recalls something about a jug, or, better, like a glove turned inside out, true nature revealed. Both left and right at once — in a warped way again. Red Devil.
“Alright that was GREAT guys! FanTAStic! That’s a WRAP for today! Good WORK!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0412, Gregson, Maebaleia/Satori
“Ooo. I *love* it,” actress Cathy A. coos. “So you’re Gabby Truth as well. Splendid!”
“Thanks. But let’s see what we see inside my crystal ball. Here. Let me turn it on first.”
“Ahhh. The *Moon*. Didn’t recognize it in the dark.”
“The New Moon is a false Moon,” Gabby Truth (Greg) states cryptically while beginning to stare deep into its glowing, cratered surface.
—–
“Interesting. We will remain Marcus Fox Smartville and Cathy A. instead of Greg and Dharma. Pencil Man wishes it that way and says we already have a Greg (with two “g”‘s) and also Gregg (with three “g”‘s) in the production. *His* production, because Phil has yielded to a stronger, *living* entity now.”
“Phil Austin?”
But Marcus Fox Smartville currently playing the role of Gabby Hayes Truth doesn’t answer Cathy A. and instead begins speaking of Gregson or whatever name the small Northern town will ultimately acquire. “The 66(6) sign was just that — a sign. Owner: the Red Devil indeed. Here’s a quote I’m seeing about the him… or her: ‘Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth — and taste. I’ve been around for a long, long year….'”
“‘Long, long year?” Cathy A. quotes, snapping Gabby out of his trance. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. Now let me *concentrate* again — don’t interrupt unless absolutely necessary.” Gabby (Marcus) stares into the lighted Moon again. After a moment: “Devil… yes, I’m seeing it again. An establishment was there (on that parcel). Southern, not Northern, although within the North.” He pulls back, still staring into space. “Red Devil was a Northerner.”
“We *all* know that,” replies Cathy A., new memories suddenly snapping into place via The Magic. “It was a hidden fact, but now the townspeople want to embrace this noble past. It’s in all the local papers, duh.”
“It is?” Marcus behind Gabby then realized this was truth. New memories had snapped in for him as well. “Ahh, yes. His *establishment* there. Southern — but a disguise.” He had no need for the Moon now. Scrying information had become real information for all to see and remember.
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0411, Hills of Bill, Maebaleia/Satori
Sunklands 