Category Archives: Nautilus

tables turned

He was on a tightrope above the city, higher than ever. If he fell this time he may never make it, Yellow Family below absorbed by Black Mouse by this point up in space. Sacrifice. A menace revealed. To the left: death. To the right: death. Only center is safe, and that’s a narrow line indeed to navigate.

All Hidi can think to do to help is jump into the next section, the next book. Alice in Wonderland is done and over with. Time to head through the Looking Glass.

“Don’t worry,” he says below, waiting for her. “I’ll catch you.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0518, Nautilus, New York, Retirement Islands, Wild West, Wonderland

00270517

“Whooo … are … you?”

“Well, I’m *not* Alice if that’s what you’re thinking. I mean, we kind of look the same I guess — and since I’m *here*, in Wonderland…”

“*Whooo* … are … you?” he repeated from his mushroom, exactly three inches tall to perhaps Alice’s two now. Kolya would be a *real* big boy to her in her current size. “I’m just a girl, another girl — but not Alice, like I already said, already stated.”

“**Whooo**…”

“Wendy,” she decided to interrupt him instead of visa versa. “Like the hamburger girl. You know, ‘Where’s the beef?’ That’s (a franchise catchphrase) from the 70’s.” She looked up at the caterpillar, trying to gauge his age. Impossible, she decided, in this land full of paradoxes and riddles. Could be one day. Or one century.

“Whaat … are … you?” He was satisfied with the Whooo part for now. Time to change the question. “Whyyy” could be next, maybe even “howww” to cover all the bases. He takes another inhale from his hookah pipe, ready to emit new (smoke) letters.

“What am I?” she said, half to him and half to herself. She hadn’t thought of it before (!). “I am a…” Witch? she pondered saying next. Mermaid? Or just a clever girl playing hide and seek with damaged goods. “Just a girl. With a schweet secret smile,” she decided to tack on.

“Shooow … me.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0517, Nautilus, Retirement Islands, Wild West, Wonderland

Missing

“Beckett?” she wondered.

“Paul.”

“No. The sim. Missing Beckett.”

“Oh. Correct.”

—–

“Muse is a key word here,” she mused aloud later, perhaps for me but also others listening in, the prescient, the psychic. Like our damaged friend Kolya. There he is. Listening in.

“Hi big boy. I’m over here now.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0516, Europe, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Retirement Islands, Upper Austra, Wild West, Wonderland

Art Box

He wanted to scream but couldn’t open his mouth to do it. Stuck. Just like in life.

Realities were shifting around for him more rapidly than ever, almost at a blur’s pace now. Time to calm the hell down. Where’s that green phone and D Flat ring when you need it?

Lunchtime now. He wondered if any of these other dudes he was sitting with on this beam in the sky had any packets of mustard for his sandwich. He hated bologna without mustard. But with it: best thing ever. “Wanda forgot the mustard again,” he said to Fred beside him, lifting the top slice of bread to show the non-yellowness within.

Yellow yellow yellow. He was remembering something. Tumbling, he fell into a different reality, different universe really.

Wanda was with him, now called Hidi, true face hidden beneath towering blue hair. They had kids between them. Yellow ones, all beaming smiles at the camera. “Cheese!”

He tried to reach for the ringing phone but it remained just out of his grasp. Blue anyway; probably wasn’t for him, and neither was Wanda-now-Hidi and the in-between kids.  And now he’s checking, the key is D, not D Flat. Too far away from Middle C to matter. Oh well. On to the next!

“Let me try!” Hidi exuded, poseball whisked away as she selected the next.

“Get it?!” she shouted down to Kolya far below after assuming the new pose. “I’m a banana!” Kolya didn’t get it, the one within not yet ready to be peeled. “Very appealing!” he shouted up, trying to be funny despite the confusion. The holes in his head began to hurt. He forgot to eat his sandwich before he left that one reality, but there was the problem with the mustard. Then, with the vertigo induced by hunger apparently, he fell off the beam into a family centered by beaming yellow kids. Well, except for the middle one, who was too small to smile and just sucked on her pacifier to indicate being please in the moment. The camera’s eye moved onward…

Kolya selected one but it turned out to be Hidi’s pose again. “Whaddaya think? Giant tigers!” He’d seen this before. But where?

Then he remembered (again). Picturetown. Must – get – back.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0515, Canada/Picturetown, Nautilus, New York, Retirement Islands, Springfeld, Wild West

switchers 02

Randy reads captioned synopses of potential shows to watch while eating his dinner (pizza). “Mystery Theatre, ‘House on the Hill’. Estranged sheriff’s niece summons nervous deputy back from the grave to help solve his own murder, no no no (*click*);  Self Help Channel: ‘Taming the Banana Within’, nope (*click*);  ‘Attack of the 50 Foot Man’: that might be good. Hmm, stars the same guy as the first. Oh well, here goes!” (captions off)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0514, Nautilus, Paper Soap+, Retirement Islands, Soap, Wild West

00270502

Center. Peace.

He has found Home. Paperweight. Paperville but different. Root word: Paper. And Soap.

And then there he was. Soap National Park. In Paper.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0502, Collagesity Fordham-, Crisp Sea, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Paper, Paper Soap+, Wild West

calm

There were all kinds of environments he could paint in. This one was just regular Midday, a default setting, actually one of his favorites and always easy to “reach”. Time was controllable in this land of two, initially in a fourfold way (Sunrise, Midday, Sunset, Midnight), and, with some additional quick adjustments, any time atall could be produced. Then, going beyond defaults, there were the customized environments, many in number. I’m sure all seasoned Second Lyfers have a set of their favorites that they regularly use. Mine include Fairy dark blue, Cornfield, Cromac, and Lo Gun Light. But Midday is certainly handy for initially brightening up any scene. So here we are.

He knows this is not Black Lake, where the monster came from or identified with at least. So a positive situation. He must paint this body of water before him over and over again for healing, for purification. He must drink the water — boil it first, of course. Take it into his body. Eventually he must — become this body (of water). 2n1. 4n1 to 2n1 to 1n1. There. He is TILE.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0501, Crisp Sea, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Wild West

00270416

Kolya also claimed the larger bamboo house at the very center of the sim owned by the same rental company. 128/128, he thought, standing upon it. This will be *my* center as well. I can finally find myself, see who I am. He looks around.

“Shells? No no no no no. I’m through with shells.” Alysha manifested in the chair below the indicated art, helping him out again.

“You need to focus on the *monster*, Kolya. *Can* — you do this?”

Kolya remembers the name friends call him: Can. This was a friend. They, together, were looking for not necessarily a foe but indeed a fiend, removing one important letter from the equation. He(-she) had been here a long long time; Kolya was picking up on that as well. Black Lake. Circle of 4. He knew that the lakes would attract him, tiny to not so tiny. He must make a map.

“You must make a map,” Alysha spoke back, in his head as well but also with her mouth.

—–

He soon determined that this was the Black Lake in question, not the other more rounded water body just to the west. And it was more symbolic than anything. But he was not in his actual form any longer. He had turned into a painter. Oil me up, I suppose.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0416, Crisp Sea, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Wild West

00270415

He placed a call himself: for help. “SOS,” he exclaimed to the girl who was not a girl on the other end, a friend this time instead of a fiend. “I’ll be there at 7 past 11.” She was currently resting against a rock wall, reading a red book and eating a red heart tart for health and good being. She was balanced. Actually it could be either of two girls, Alysha or Billie Jean Kidd. Let’s go with Alysha Billie Jean Kidd Alysha. She packs up her book and heads down to the police station to steal a bike. She tries to put Ruby the green Grey alien out of her head, the matter being out of her hands. “She’ll be fine,” she calms herself. “I can do this one thing without worrying about her. Kolya is important too!” By the time she arrives at the station through the shortcut tunnels a cooler head prevailed and she just takes a rented boat over to the other side of the continent from the 765 Village. Paperweight was the destination, which had strong resonance with Paperville from a couple of photo-novels ago, perhaps 3, maybe 5 back (it was 7).

Kolya was in his thinking chair under the Wasteland sign when she arrived.

“I’m – so – *wasted*, Alysha.”

“No you’re not.”

“You’re so kind.”

“Yes I am. *Now*. Let’s go take a peek inside that Monster Book over there and see what we’re potentially dealing with.”

“Okay.” Kolya had moved away from Saturn and more toward Jupiter. Wendy had been right about cheering effects of the girl.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0415, Crisp Sea, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Wild West

Paperweight

He sat at the table outside the bamboo hut he’d rented several days back and thought about All Orange and what he’d lost. The phone rang (D Flat). The phone never rang.

“Hallo?” He was expecting someone jovial, not saturnine. He was surprised. He stared at the missing blue eye on the Book of Monsters before him as she continued to chatter. He dare not crack the cover lest the other one roll off. Especially now. Would he get a word in edgewise?

—–

She hung up the phone. “We’ve got to keep an eye out on him,” spoke Jeffrie Phillips, glancing over at his bamboo hut across the water. “He may even try to off himself, say.”

“No he won’t.”

Her hair was now the green of seaweed but she was no monster, or at least Jeffrey thought. Was she?

“What next?” he queried about her appearance. “Your skin turns green?”

“Maybe,” she shot back quickly. Both knew that if this happened she was lost for good to him. Maybe even the mohawk would reappear.

Something was happening on this sim. A painter paints. A complainer complains. ART appears. A perfect circle. Pooh with his honey pot moves away from the scene with little to no impact now.

A perfect circle, eh? I thought, yellow included. I knew what this meant.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0414, Bogota, collages 2d, Crisp Sea, Ebbert, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Wild West