“See what we did, Keith B.? I *told* you we couldn’t avoid Horns.”
Category Archives: Horns of Hatton^
Stan Gunderson
He came in on a tulip plane from Maebaleia (continent), vowing never to return. “Black and white tv’s,” he complained to the airline reservation agent whose name he didn’t catch and then regretted it later. Raspberry colored, she was, at least in dress — complete with seeds, ha. An idea is planted. A secret revealed. “Greyscale, even — that’s the name of the *leader* for Christs sake.” He’d received a free ticket to the capital city of the South from his cousin Vinnie. He should call him — right here and now at the airport — give him a piece of his mind about the recommended vacation spot. No *wonder* the lout gave up his ticket, he thought. Nothing there but chickens. And worse!
Only much later would he learn that Maebaleia is the same as Satori, and that he’d neglected to visit the much nicer North in his travel. Vinnie provided him with another free ticket — even went with him this time to make sure he didn’t stray too far south. They stood on the edge of the Guy Linden owned Gangkhar Rabbit Hole and marveled at its unicorn nature. Once there were two such things, on either side of X-City, King city of the north. For the king had risen again to compliment his southern queen. The black menace with two protruding round ears still hung in the sky but they’d learned to make peace with it by eliminating capitalism. Communism or at least Marxism has its advantages.
“Mae Baleia. My name is Mae,” she said more distinctly through her thick (Russian?) accent when he returned this time. *That’s* where the confusion all started. This gall darn agent (!).
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0029, 0617, 0701, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori, Nautilus, Southwestern, X-City^
00290512
He was not far behind them, in Ross. He stared at the 3 primary colors under the red and white umbrella that represented candy. Cotton candy in this case, doubly meaningful. Because he’d also learned of Peter Cotton, inventor of the world famous cottonpicker from Kick-ass Bogota, as well as about Marion, a fellow pilot of WWWWI. “Flew a mission with me the day I went down,” he said at the bar drinking a tall grasshopper, as green as his outfit. Greener, Axis-Windmill realized. “Came to get me — only reason I’m standing here with this metal plate in my head. *Borneo*. Get that: Borneo. And all the maps said it didn’t exist, said there was nothing beyond the Elephant of Celebes or the Giant Rat of Sumatra. Rose knew all along where the cube-box was hidden. In one of the deepest corners of space. Marion took me there one night. We were up drinking and drinking and he said he knew of a place where we could get the best whiskey in the solar system, nay, the *universe*. Mind you, we were really drunk. He would have never told me otherwise — said so the next day. We climbed this low granite hill near his new airport over at… I think it’s Enchiladas. Anyway, something that starts with an ‘E’. Some wooden box type thingie was at the top. We reached it. He pointed west, I believe. A particular star, he said. Just rising… over there.”
“Alpha Centari?” I offered, just saying the brightest one I knew.
“That’s how you *find* it,” he replied, and then pointed me west to the famous cross of somewhat fainter stars, the crux of the matter as things turned out. His buddy studies it, he said, which I later learned referred to Philip Strevor, a professional pill popper over in Heaven Town.
“Dead?” I guessed about him after learning his job title and the name of his town.
“Might as well be,” came the answer from the green guy, almost as green as his drink he was still sipping, still nursing. “‘To death do us part,’ he said one night on the same low granite hill actually. He was staring at the star and said that, like the star was going to kill him or something.”
“Or marry him,” I added to the story. I was, of course, channeling in the moment. I’d gotten very good at that, in fact.
“We better get to Bartholomew,” he then said, turning toward me, or perhaps looking behind me for someone. I turned as well. Who were we looking at? 102? Something that can’t be edited because it goes in a perpetual circle, editing itself in the process as it revolves around and around and around? Could be.
We were both psychic is all I knew for sure.
He turned away from the cotton candy dispensers and headed toward town.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0029, 0512, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori, Purden/Snowlands^, Sansara
Hook Tender (Southern delusion)
The surrounding white trees should have been a clue about the situation. Conquests, she called them at another time, another place (Horns). The mannequin in the yard (Roxanne) doesn’t want to hear anything about the making of babies; she wants to remain innocent and pure and white (as the driven snow). She doesn’t want to fall into the Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way, a dreamer lost to reality. Reality is *here*. There is no black behind the white for her, being, you know, a dummie and all. Simple, perhaps. A meat and potatoes kind of (wooden) girl.
Fireworks trees, some call them, but that would be more on the opposite side.
We’ve seen the mannequin before. Scarlet some called her, a person ruled by Terra: Earth. Grounded in the soil. She’ll never be tired or poor or hungry again. She thus becomes a mannequin, seeing no other recourse. Stuck in the yard, she is, with a UFO above trying to beam her back up into the sky but not succeeding. Pineapple down the road shoots a cherry red laser beam and mows down a pair of blue-not-green A_Team traitors, influencing the rocket. Frosty turns away, still cold from the grave. Homer sits on the porch. *Homer* *sits* on the *porch*.
Face it.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0029, 0501, Bellisaria, collages 2d, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori, Middletown^
base (cont.)
“We can do it too. Go ahead and sit down, honey. Let’s talk.”
“I hear the Toasty O’s are very good here in the morning.”
“Talk,” she requested, not wanting to dilly dally around. “Spill.”
“Cube. We found the cube. In Hook Tender.”
Her mouth became an O. “My… *home*?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0029, 0418, Bellisaria, Horns of Hatton^, Horsa^, Maebaleia/Satori, New Mexico
base
It’s time to bring a new character into the picture: Jennifer Lane, twin cousin to our Shelley Lane, right down to the all seeing umbrella eyes. She remembers the bombing, the underground, the… flight.
“Another one, sweetie?” Lichen Roosevelt asked from behind the counter, presently cleaning a glass, perhaps the one she would pour a new drink in for Jenny.
Grasshopper? she thought. No: too obvious.
“Just another stack of potatoes.”
“Coming up!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0029, 0417, Horns of Hatton^, Horsa^, Maebaleia/Satori
North Horns (Dollyhood)
“Hmmm.”
—–
“Nothing here,” he muttered. “Might as well be another Messed Up 05 for all it’s worth.”
—–
I got a strong feeling that this is the night, Axis-Windmill.”
“Bigfeet,” he guessed, looking over at the tittering squirrels. They too knew more than him.
“Bigfoot yeah. Samsquanch.”
Axis-Windmill didn’t bother to correct him this time. There would be no Bigfeet or Mossmen or whatever they call them colloquially. Because he saw the giant green shoe fly away last night with all the little houses and even the umbrella centered windmill. They had succeeded in loading up and moving.
empty hole
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0029, 0416, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori
Dream Book
Kick-ass Bogota gets valuable information from an ur-parent and relays later to Axis-Windmill in Horns of Hatton.
—–
“I’m trying to reclaim the messed up 5th. You know Messed Up, don’t you Kick-ass?”
“My *brother* does. A different Kick-ass…”
“… for a different season, yes. You are… unformed… yourself.”
Kick-ass Bogota thought about this for a minute, then said: “You have been uninformed about this. I am instead *uniformed*, as in decorated, as in ace pilot of the 1st World Wide Web War.” He knocks on his forehead with this, pure metal revealed by the clunks.
“Faulkner, then.”
“Maybe,” he shot back quickly, then looked out the window at the surrounding chaos. Unformed, uninformed, uniformed. Brother Kick-ass would switch signs with him later in the night so he could talk more with Axis-Windmill at the Horns bar where they now meet regularly. Lichen Roosevelt is usually there, serving up drinks behind the bar. The Mann is *always* there. Taking notes, most likely. And who is that he spies (at the time) in the back. Green like him, at least in the shirt. And those apples…
—–
“It’s time you got away don’t you think. You’re only *Kind of* Messed Up.”
Kind Of Messed Up takes a sip of his drink and mulls this over. Junbug does the same with her Bombs Away.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0029, 0415, Abbey^^, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori, Yaya Land
BonBon
Kick-ass Boos said to sit at the table with the Bigfoot book, so here he is. He picks up another book laying nearby by John Shaw Billings, which he quickly gathers from his reading was a librarian for New York city in the US of A, Earth.
Kick-ass Bogota, Boos’ brother, strolls into the bar. His brother said he’d “mark him” to make sure Axis-Windmill knew who it was.
Yup. That’s him!
“Grasshopper please, Bertha. Extra mint.”
“Coming right up, Ted.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0029, 0409, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori, New York
controlled
“Awfully nice for you to come over and cook me dinner again, Alysha.”
Alysha, she thinks. *That’s* how he sees me now? “Sure, honey,” she says. “Anything for my number 1 man.” Number 10 at best she calculates to herself. She’s just that deep into it. Horns of Hatton, pheh. Manga, huh. She sprinkles spice on the meatloaf and asks him what he’s up to today, hoping the heck she wouldn’t be involved. But she does feel sorry about the hands. The Abyss will have its price, she thinks. And the Abyss is very close here. Very close indeed. About as close as that big whale circling around this treehouse.
“Business down South,” he answers from his rocking hammock. “Have to take Pricky.”
Thanks Gods, she ponders. “Oh? Big haul, then?”
“More marine life, yeah. Squid, I think. Or octopus — can’t recall right now. Anyway have to go to Cass City to pick it up; haul it up North somewhere. Meat Town I think it’s called. I’ll have to look it up on my map.”
*Neat* Town, Alysha thinks from the sink, pondering whether to add poison to the recipe to stop the whole thing. She knows why she’s here now. But not to kill him, she realizes. Instead: kiss; use her magical powers.
By the time they’d finished, Alysha had had a chance to alter the map. The whale ended up going the wrong way and never reached its intended destination. Roth wasn’t fired, but he never saw his precious, red headed Alysha again. Blonde Wanda filled the void, but Wanda couldn’t cook worth shite and had to be disposed of herself. Fed to the sharks, some say, although she actually just went back to Bombtown and eventually married a man with 3 eyes. Then came Sally. Or was it Shelley? No: Sally.
“Do you want some meatloaf on your spice tonight?” she called from the kitchen, preparing for the worse.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0029, 0211, Cassandra City^, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori, Neat Town
Sunklands 