Waiting for more change in Spornimore. Sporminore.
Everybody has them, some more than others (apples, oranges, bananas).
After so much effort he’d finally caught one. Himself.
Gathering of clones (Umbrella Club inductees).
Category Archives: NORTH
on the old docks (continuation)
Girl of his dreams: blown to smithereens by the Triggerfish atomics, making them so so happy if no one else. And he’d only been gone three minutes days! He never bought her that beautiful red rose — flower stand also vaporized in the bombing. He never told her he loved her, or at least liked her a whole whole lot. She never got to travel with him to the Wild West of Nautilus, where the best fishing is, where he constantly visits and leaves her with other companions, the butchers, bakers and candlestick makers of the world, opportunists all. The void will likely never be filled, he feels. Not fills.
Still twirling, Bob Jr. Jr. thinks from his snapping position again, but it’s just a helicopter now and not Shelley, part of the town’s recovery efforts. We were saved by the graces of the Gods! Wonder where the whirling girl of his dreams went after she left me that awful awful morning after that wonderful wonderful night? Must keep in contact with her. Despite the trauma.
“Will you look at him over there, still snapping away like nothing had happened, like the town was the same as before, all picturesque and stuff.”
“Hey, how did *we* escape the blast?” But then Al remembered going back to Luther’s place that night which was just out of the fallout range. Like Bob Jr. Jr. and Shelley, they were saved by love or at least a whole whole lot of like.
“Another 3 eyed one,” states Luther, reeling in his bite.
“Get use to it,” responds Al.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0206, Nautilus, NORTH
00350205
They’ve rebuilt the destroyed Moray Docks Town but as a Halloween tableau, appropriate for the season.
I sense the spiders had a strong involvement in the decision, mutated after the blast and obviously more threatening than ever.
Radiation didn’t do anyone no good.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0205, Nautilus, NORTH
Cloz again
“Is that white stick mellowing you out a bit?”
“A bit,” Shelley admitted, but still so anxious. Big wedding coming up. And she’d just escaped being blown to pieces over in the Moray Docks Town! If it wasn’t for George and Debbie over there being so booring…
“Good, good,” returned Wheeler, taking a toke of her own. “You know (pause) he thinks you’re me. Deep down, I mean. Remove the goofy hair –”
“Hey!”
“Sorry. You know what I mean. You need to grow up more yourself to match Liz’s advancing age. She’s 17 the last time I checked, almost legal to be married herself. You’re, what, 23?” Wheeler looked over on the brown couch they both sat upon. The umbrella eyes would come soon. Then she’d be out of her control, automatically know more than herself. To impart wisdom before it happened was important, the locking in. Shelley *was* her. But she didn’t need to know that yet.
“How’s Newt holding up?” Shelley decides to ask. “I heard — he’s also trying to change The Musician to meet the times, get rid of his punk look and all.” Did Shelley approve? She didn’t know yet. That would also come with the locking in.
“Newt’s fine. Listen, daughter of mine, daughter I didn’t know I actually had until that last photo-novel.”
“33 isn’t it?”
“34.”
“Jeez.” Shelley takes another toke, considers the length of the process. Her own story is quite complicated and that’s only one of a multitude, heck, one of a multitude involving Wheeler alone (!).
“Anyway, we need to review. Just like Newt did for The Musician.”
“Crap.” Shelley extinguishes the last of her white stick, preparing to get serious.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0204, Nautilus, NORTH
five
“Tell me 5 things you love about Shelley, George.”
“She has a castle.”
“Good, that’s one.”
She’s rich… apparently.”
“Two.”
She’s… pretty.”
“Pretty or beautiful?” the doctor tried to clarify.
“Beautiful, let’s say.”
“‘Beautiful, let’s say’? Or just ‘beautiful’?”
“Beautiful,” he then amends per this suggestion. She was! He knew Wheeler was underneath all that innocent exterior stuff, the goofy hair and all. He’ll dig it out soon enough.
“We have two more. That’s three.”
“Sheeee’s… intelligent.”
“Nice.” He waits for the last.
“Sheeeeees’s… smart.”
“I think that’s the same as intelligent.”
“Okayy. Sheeeeeeeeeee’s… ummmmmm…”
“Resourceful?” tries Dr. Baumbeer hopefully. Always a good one to plug in when a client is stumped here.
“Resourceful, yes.”
Dr. Baumbeer then hands him a card over the counter. “This is my meeting group. The Rabbid Rabbits. I’d like you — and your fiance hopefully, if she wishes — to join us this Saturday. Or the Saturday after that if you want. Some Saturday, let’s say. Sunday is right out, having merged with Monday to create Munday. No one does anything on Munday. And Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday I’m here.”
“I understand.”
“Number’s right there beneath the logo of the rabbit eating his, I mean, its foot. Please join us,” he emphasizes, then gets up. George — The Musician — follows suit. Their session in what some call the Triggerfish War Room has ended.
This is how it began.
“5 cents please.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0203, Nautilus, NORTH
a number of characters in a number of sims
“So nice here beside the fire. So, whaddaya think, Wheeler? Is Claude on to something?”
“I want to be independent right now.”
—–
So Baker shared some links and let her go. Cloz they were in here, Sporminore and its Roberts and Franklin (and Albert?) just north. Claude to the (Wild) West again, where’s he still under employment at the Umbrella Club where we first ran into Darla and Lois and those other girls, the purple clad one and the other one we haven’t revisited under the umbrella itself. Moray and the now bombed and destroyed Docks Town 2 sims to the east of us. Apples and Etherea — and now Darla and Lois again — about 400 meters southwest in Darter (Ohio parcel). Let’s see, Shelley, yes. Also in Cloz, having escaped the explosion by returning to the Triggerfish Motel. Ah yes, Triggerfish.
But first, Zander. Sorry: Codlet.
But that’s not Shelley on the beach behind the island shack. Liz instead, and we’re not quite ready for her story. Back to Triggerfish…
There. We start again. Apologies. Still no Shelley. That’s The Musician, her fiance, her soon-to-be husband if all goes well for him. Wonder what he’s doing here? Hold on, I’ll have to log Baker back in for this.
Looks like he’s getting at least semi-professional advice about his marriage, his life in general from Dr. Rabbid Baumbeer, who we haven’t seen in a while in these here photo-novels, 35 in a series of… well, we’ll see. Let’s listen in.
00350201 (2 Bakers and 2 Wheelers)
“IGNITE.”
“Now I’ve brought you all here to tell you, first of all, I’m not *better* than you. Just, um, higher.”
“Wacky, man,” says Roberts primarily for grinning partner Franklin beside her. They’d been partaking of the sacred bush just before. Now: here. Fire brought them together.
“True, Albert is lower in contrast, but we all work as a team, a TILE if you will. Blue (he points to himself), green or red, take your pick (he points to Roberts and then Franklin), and, finally, you (he points to Albert).”
“Me? I ain’t lower than anyone. I’m a prevert and I’ve accepted my role in life. It’s you guys who are in the wrong. Trying to kill me!”
Silence from the still guilty feeling women, as Claude says: “Now now, Albert. No one is in the wrong. Each has their challenges, *including* me. That’s what I’m trying to say to you.”
They look each other over with this, one by one, realizing the truth of it all, if only subconsciously. A TILE, back and forth and across balance. Blue should have been opposite yellow and green opposite red, but Claude wasn’t in charge of setting up the chairs. Probably an intern, he thinks.
“I’ll begin,” he then says.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0201, Hana Lei^^, Nautilus, NORTH
00350117
I’ve given up. Wanda: gone. Punctured and then dumped in the bay, along with the couch which *didn’t* harbor any secret writing devices. Worthless, signal free TV: gone; same place. Fishing pole: dumped in the water as well. Swimming with the fishes instead of catching them. All I have is the roar of the waterfall and the occasional, added tinkle; funny how I can hear that much smaller sound through it all. I don’t even look out any more. Claude: nowhere in sight. I still live but I don’t know how. I haven’t had food for days and days. Life force… draining.
—–
“Aren’t you going to the waterfall today to do your thing? 1/2 past 6 already.”
“Nah, I think he’s had enough. Either he’s fully capitulated or he’s dead in there, hard to tell. I don’t even really care. But he’s broken either way.”
“We should contact Claude, then,” suggests Roberts to her lover and perhaps wife Franklin with this. “He owes us the rest of the 5 grand we signed up for, task completed it seems, as much as we could do perhaps.”
“Money, pheh,” exudes Franklin, picturing Albert’s limp, maybe lifeless body on the floor of the small shack hemmed in by rocks. “Fully green now,” she laments about receiving the paper bills, all Claude had conveniently enough. No metal. Not even red bills, which Franklin made up anyway to embellish a story.
“*Purest* green,” states Roberts while looking over, also experiencing remorse. “Just like you always dreaded.”
“Yes, we made a choice, Albert made a choice. I’m not sure who’s worse in the moment.”
“Us, obviously. Because we have an actual conscience.”
“He *might* come around. He could just be lying there, pitiful and useless life flashing before his eyes.”
“Somehow… I think our own lives hang in the same balance.” Both stare at the fire, realizing their actions were pure and good in that Albert *deserved* to be pissed on, and then reminded of it on a daily basis — but money never should have been involved. They didn’t pass angelic “receiver” Claude’s litmus test. But, like with Albert, there’s still a chance for redemption.
Franklin sat up. “We have to save him.”
“I’ll get my coat.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0117, Nautilus, NORTH
00350116
From his shack embedded in rocks all around, he’d watch her — seems about mid-afternoon every day — walk up to the top of the waterfall and mix a thin but unbroken line of gold in with the roar of white. Then she’d walked back down and go the other direction, not to be seen until the next time. This was obviously for show. Don’t mess with us prevert, he imagines her saying. We’re always one step ahead of you, thinking as both man *and* woman.
There. He could always see it hit the bottom. He always *felt* it (again). Must be part of the place’s black voodoo.
Wish Claude would come back he thinks after today’s particular show was over, starting even higher than usual. Might be in a better mood now to talk about Apples. Besides, Wanda has another one of those headaches she’s prone to lately. And the Green Acres channel has mysteriously turned to snow. Not much else going on, then. He’ll pencil in a meeting, let’s say, mid-afternoon tomorrow, ha. Because he wants to make sure it’s not all hallucination by this point — everything. He needs a tether back to reality. Maybe even write or at least start an apology letter to Apples, if he could find an actual pencil hidden around here, maybe under the couch cushions. He’ll check as soon as he finishes another nap on Wanda’s unyielding lap.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0116, Nautilus, NORTH
00350115
Afterwards he was too despondent to even fish off the back porch, his favorite past-time here after Wanda and watching TV, which always seemed to feature reruns of that old 60’s sitcom “Green Acres”. “Since you’re so *interested*, would you like to see?” Franklin said, and he said, “*sure*. Why not.” He hadn’t seen one in a while, except Wanda’s. And she really didn’t count. “Sorry about that, Wanda,” he imagines himself saying into the shack to his companion in the moment, his companion for a while apparently, however rubber and fake she is. He didn’t realize it was a mixed up jumble of stuff down there for Franklin. How could he? And then to top it off, the yellow came. Right in the face! He didn’t think he’d ever get over it. They cackled like hyenas, they left, back on their boat to the hell in which they came. Just around the corner, they said. Come see us if you want more, sweetie. So now he was scared to move in any direction — even if he could right now, being without a boat himself as he was still — for fear of facing them again, fear of facing *it*. He felt them all around. “Aim free guidance,” she also said while the, er, *flow* was happening. “Right down the toilet, ha ha ha!” And then that song or whatever while they were gliding away, having done all the damage they wanted or needed — for the time being, they said. Eels. Just the word repeated over and over, in a certain pitch. He didn’t have the gift of perfect pitch, else he’d know it was D Flat, the most cursed key of all, directly resonant with The Abyss itself some say. A green woman — or *something* — a “song” or sea ditty about eels… what did it add up to?
Albert was never good at maths, so the next day, taking pity on him a bit, Claude came back to visit, finding him still in about the same position as that photo at the top of this post. Back porch. No fishing pole in hand.
“You knew something like this would happen?” he begin in earnest to the black man sitting beside him now, both staring out at the waterfall in the distance during the exchange.
“Yup.” Silence between them. Albert then realized that he never really, properly made an apology to the boy, because he called him [delete name] in the process, as in, “I apologize, [delete name].” Thus: here. The Abyss. He knew the term from his parents, devout Tilists both while he was growing up, having been drilled about the static filled hell ever since he was big enough to pick up a book as heavy as the TILE Bible, all 1036 pages of it (518 x 2). “You’re going to the *Abyss* if you don’t eat your cereal,” says Jasperia, the mother. “You’ll go to the *Abyss* if you don’t do your homework then say your prayers before bed,” she might start again after supper. Always the cereal at supper and not breakfast, all because a certain passage from the damn thing that said morning and evening are interchangeable (pgs. 518-519). What else did the cursed thing say? he tried to recall.
“Albert,” Claude said over, tired of my inner monologue apparently. “You don’t have to face them again, you don’t have to face *me* again. No dykes or [delete names]. All you have to do is go back to your family — Ohio is it?”
This [delete name] knows it’s Ohio, Albert thinks here.
“And apologize. Not to Darla directly, but to the parents, your sister and her husband. Tulipia and Pinky isn’t it?”
Albert turns toward Claude, tries to tone down the hate showing in his face. “She goes by *Apples*.”
“Apples, right right.” More silence. Albert realizes Claude is waiting for a response. Out of his control, he finds himself blowing a raspberry.
He’s going to be here a while longer.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0115, Nautilus, NORTH
Sunklands 