Rocky closes up the market and bar tonight and steps outside to look in the direction of the Wanderlust Art Truck. It’s received quite good press in various blogs and other social media outlets,* and the raccoon is certainly glad of the extra business his store has gotten as a result.
Thanks Levi!
He’s saving up quite the nest egg. But as the old saying goes, winter is coming, and the tourists will trickle down and eventually go away as the snow lays thick on the streets of Olde Lapara Towne. He’s frankly tired of cold winters. Peter, Paul and Mary — I mean, Lamb — were smart to retreat down into the much more temperature regulated underground and create Malone Central, he thinks. But that’s disappeared too apparently, as everyone has gone through the sand dunes/sand castle portal into this mythical land of Hana Lei. He thinks here of a particular collage in Baker Bloch’s small art gallery upstairs featuring David Bowie.
“Twisted”
Rocky decides to go back into the store to check again, just to make sure. He passes through the phantom red door into Audrey’s and takes the old timey teleporter to Grasslands. He always seems to bring his gun with him when comes down here lately.
Yes, he remembers now. The last remaining, actual grass of Grasslands, along with the sand dunes portal, had to go away to make prim room for the upstairs art gallery. And local punk band Story Room lost their remaining OLT venue since the theatre space formerly there was also eradicated, and this just after they were banned from playing at Clownski’s after a new noise ordinance was passed by the town council. Our two local bands, lost in a single stroke, he ponders. Rocky thinks of another old saying: Lamb dies with Ram. Baker Bloch tried to prevent it from happening by moving the future focus back into the here and now of the present. Yes, Rocky has his market, has a bar, has a small gallery even. Things are good in October. But even November can get snowy, and the anthropomorphic animal longs to see Santa Claus without Jack Frost always tagging along and nipping at his nose.
He’s not even going to think about how his new novel is coming, and the lack of sales for the old one. Because it’s target practice time once again!
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* See, for example, several of my friend Veyot’s recent posts from her “Veyot’s Views” tumblr site (tag = Lapara):
http://veyot.tumblr.com/tagged/Lapara
Sunklands 
