Standing on the edge of the ring, Venusian Joey Avatar wonders what she’s gotten herself into.
Category Archives: Wild West
purple mountains
“Shame about the queen being kidnapped and all,” Brend spoke to Alysha one floor below where they learned about the news. “But it’s not of our concern.”
“Except for the Samhain,” she corrected, feet finally getting warm now before the fire.
“And the witches,” he added, also attempting to drive away the cold of the library stone.
“And the Abbot I suppose.” She sighed, resigned to the fact that it is every bit their concern. Except for the queen. Because they knew this was about Marilyn at the bottom of it. The writing could now not be seen.
—–
“Funny how they spelled Dairocha wrong in that newspaper article. It’s like the powers that be are hiding something.”
“Hmph.” Alysha knew she was hiding something as well. Knowledge at the castle core that Brend had “conveniently” forgotten about. The “l” was changed over there.
—–
In Enigma, Marilyn began the national anthem.
“O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain…”
teacher (Zebra?)
Always look for the spaces between things. There lies art.
I am not a painter in this life. I am a collagist. Moving on…
“What does the future hold for me Esmerelda?”
“A cave? A *landscape*?”
Very faint from across the table again: “Enter the cave.”
He paid Ms. Wells handsomely and was on his way again.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0028, 0501, Bogota, collages 2d, Crisp Sea, Ebbert, Falmouth, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Paper Soap+, Soap, Wild West, Yaya Land+
returned (missing no more)
“Honey! I’m home!”
“We lived on that island for, I don’t know, 5 years, me, Jacob I. and the kid.”
“The cat,” I clarified (for the reader). “Broken Heart.”
“Yeah, that one. That was before I met Philip Stymie and moved to another island. Same house, though — I just moved it through space. I could do that by that point.”
“The wisteria… helped?”
“Sure did (!).”
“Tell me about Stymie, then. He was a different species. I mean, he wasn’t like Jacob.”
“No, he was different from me. Had the 2 eyes instead of the one. I was a pure bred. Jacob was half alien half human, with 2 eyes still below the third. Broken Heart was both animal and tiny in a similar way. We were happy. But perhaps… we were too similar in the end. Jacob moved to the peninsula; figuratively fell asleep for years and years, maybe at the castle but maybe all over the peninsula — the peninsula itself. Eyes (species) sometimes have a tendency to do that: drift off for a large amount of time, doing nothing, at least on the outside. Inside we still have a rich and vibrant life. I’ve done the same.”
“You are figuratively dead?”
“Could be. Listen do you want some more lemonade? How about some pear juice?”
—–
“We never did build that castle, Stymie and I. But we had a heck of a moat.”
“Now maybe things have changed.”
“Maybe so.”
—-
“Where were you happier, Eyela? Can I call you Eyela?”
Leila thought it over and decided to say yes.
“Thank you. It’s the same house, the same structure I understand. But different islands, different men. Did you have a cat at Viterbo?”
“No. Broken Heart went with Jacob I. They were more a couple than we were. That was always the case. The weed drew them together. The high grass.” Here Leila/Eyela puffed an imaginary doobie to emphasize her point.
“Yes, I remember hearing about that. So… you were happier with Stymie?”
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0028, 0212, Nautilus, NORTH, Retirement Islands, Rim Isles, Rooster's Peninsula, Wild West
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.
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)
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)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0502, Collagesity Fordham-, Crisp Sea, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Paper, Paper Soap+, Wild West
Sunklands 