Category Archives: Lower Austra

March 25, 2023 · 8:37 am

00370404 (party 04)

Edward split the scene, went back to Shelley in the main house still sitting and gabbing with Sandy and Penny. As soon as he could, he told her what happened, coloring it a bit.

Boatman Zach Black, responsible for moving Sandman’s now almost empty vessel over to this more distant dock to make room for newer and importanter arrivals, offered his opinion on what he couldn’t help overhear in his proximity to the situation. “There’s still presents there,” he said. “Those crosshairs indicate. They’re just… hidden.”

“I know.” Sandman knew this fact. Tell me something I don’t know, he thought about the Boatman. Then he did.

“Edward is one bad mofo. I don’t blame you for not messing with him, not telling him off or even pushing him off that ramp. Bad decision if so.”

Sandman knew this. It was the next thing Zach Black said that he didn’t.

“Wonderful evening we’re having otherwise,” he said. “Not a star in space as I’m eyeballing it.”

Backwards from normal, Sandman noticed. Interesting now. He looked up. Indeed clear. Indeed starless. Bible black.

“Do you know of his new girlfriend, friend?” Zach continued to talk. “The golden girl he’s been calling her. Even though she’s married to another. Did you know that?”

Sandman didn’t know this. Please continue, he thought, peering up again.

(to be continued)

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March 25, 2023 · 7:34 am

00370403 (party 03)

“There’s only one present left, Amos,” he continued. “*The* present.”

“I see.” He didn’t look away from Edward’s eyes. He spotted it in his peripheral vision, which was good enough. Red and green, he viewed. Rectangular. Life itself. Just under the front seat board. Right where he would sit when he got back in. Right between his legs it would be.

“It’s time to open the box, Amos. Everyone else has taken what they needed, which is everything. Leaving you nothing. Open the box.”

Sandman now knew that the lone box in the boat was empty. The Void, then. Could be another empty box inside the first but that would be it.

“You’ve had your fun,” Edward added. No mention of Shelley here because Amos T. Sandman didn’t know Shelley G. Struthers, wouldn’t know her from Eve beside Adam.

“It’s time for me to leave, Eddie.”

“It sure is,” Edward shot back.

“Well… step aside please.”

“I will. On one condition.”

Deep breath. “Okayy…”

“That you take that empty box over there back to your empty shell of a sim and deposit it where you can’t get to it.  Also: put a big red button on it, like you’d find on New Mexican police intercoms. Make it look important even if it isn’t. Can you do this for me? Amos?”

Sandman wanted to tell Eddie to stop calling him that but bit his tongue. He had to see this through as smoothly as possible. Else: sunken boat, he knew, he gathered. No more presents at all. Time erased, even, along with attached-at-the-hip Space. End of existence. Just that important.

(to be continued)

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March 25, 2023 · 7:00 am

00370402 (party 02)

By the time Shelley and Edward had arrived, Sandman, as most called him, was on his 3rd rosé served by Rose. He missed a clear look of Shelley in the dying daylight, although he had an interesting face to face with Eddie, as he called him, later on. Before this, he started confessing to Rose about some of the situation. “Presents,” he began, shaking his head. “They were all in my mind.”

“There, there,” she said, then popped the cork again and hovered the bottle over his nearly empty glass. “Another?” He waved it off. “Better head home soon. Nothing to see here.”

But before he was able to get back to the boat, Edward, having separated from Shelley, stepped in-between. “Amos,” he said, using his first name instead of last, the only one I can think of to do so. Perhaps the only one who even knew what it was.

“Eddie,” he responded. So it had come to this.

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March 23, 2023 · 2:45 pm

00370401 (party 01)

They were preparing food, of course, when the call came in. Raven and Key needed for a catering assignment. Money not an option, because this was for the big bosses, one of them anyway — I’ll get an actual name asap. All activities at the well established Wooboostook pub would have to be halted for a night. March 23rd was the date. The day the music died.

Soon they were prepping food in a different place. Nautilus continent. Near but perhaps not in the Lemon Free State, advertised as the last vestige of the old empire within now Lime (Linden) controlled Our Second Lyfe.

“Edward should be arriving soon,” spoke Sandy Hook to Penny Mart up front, champagne on wait to be served for the occasion. “Said he had a new girl who wasn’t his girl, tee hee.” “Typical,” offered Penny from the chair, wishing he would get the f-ck here so she could have that drink. Also she was starving.

Amos T. Sandman arrived from next door in a party boat loaded down with his many presents, but he was not the one they desired despite of this. The time: 6:05. The night was young, very young.

Darn. Not even noticed, he thought, grand entrance ruined.

“Hello,” he said. No response, even though her extended legs were almost in the way of getting up the stairs in front of him. What gives? he kept pondering as he approached the house. Who is this party *actually* for if not me?

The presents were snapped up right and left as his back was turned to them. He had nothing left to give.

(to be continued)

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March 23, 2023 · 1:52 am

party continuation

“You better get back to your Edward, Shelley, and I should get back to my packing.” Because even at this early stage he knew it was no good for keeping the Nautilus residence. 1st thing to be boxed was his pride, his ego. $499,000 dollars is a lot of money but he figures he’ll need just that to save the downtown area from the military. Because the alarm *will* be sounded, somewhere and sometime soon. His personal Sandsim police force will be usurped. Suspect 102, as they called her/him/it, must be found and interrogated for the cause.

“I only ask one thing, *Jennifer*,” for he already thought of her as a cash cow and not a real person, “is when you find it — press the button. That’s all I ask for free lodging, food, haircuts, pedicures manicures, anything you like from any of the shops and other locations. Look where noone thinks of looking. They’ve made sure I can’t be the one…”

“… to do it, yes,” spoke Shelley. “So you’ve said.”

“I’m warm weather, Shelley — I meant Shelley back there, sorry. Remember that.”

“Hmm.”

She’s weighing her options. She can’t bring Edward — that was made clear. It would have to be Arthur accompanying her (speaking of ‘hmm’). She’d forgotten all about Lemont, the actor behind the character, when making the decision. “Sold.” She extended her hand for a shake. Too bad he didn’t have a vanilla hidden in his back pocket to meet it with. Just for a joke, mind you. But she was too precious for all that. She *was*… the golden one, the one to make the change. He could see it in her eyes, all umbrella-y and such at this particular angle in the night’s light. All the books in the world resided there. No need for a library, although that’s where he’ll meet her later and reveal himself again.

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March 21, 2023 · 1:32 am

00370312

How appropriate, he thinks. A big purple cube-like thingy has manifest just outside my front door since I lasted visited, sign of The Void of course.

Anyway (he turns), this is the last of my stuff, Nautilus continent home cleaned out. Couldn’t afford it, you see, with the upcoming court battle looming and paying for legal fees, etc. But I know who my real foe is now.

It seems like yesterday I was standing on the back porch with Shelley, inviting her to my sand paradise sim. She came to the party with Edward, who was somewhere just below with the rest of the still raucous crowd, even at half past 1. She explained, fairly early on actually, that her husband was away and he didn’t mind Edward taking care of her in his absence — trusted him just as much as he trusted someone named Keith who was a kind of surrogate father to her, I gathered. Also revealed that she was a writer, which interested me greatly. I happened to be a friend of a friend of one of the upper echelon of Lonelyhearts Publishers over on the *Omega* continent — caught her with a lie on that: she claimed Corsica Prime for the location, where her husband was, actually (she then admitted), looking for roles as big as his ambition and ego, she stated. I’d even heard about one or two of her books, although I couldn’t remember her attached nom de plume. “Jennifer,” she said. “Jennifer Lane.”

He turns back from the memory, red handtruck and hauling the final boxes down to the boat in his mind now. 1st pre-hearing at 7:45 tomorrow morning; gotta give about an hour for prep on that as well. He’ll have to do with around 2 hours sleep, he figures. He can catch up with the dreaming this weekend. Information, pure information. When he can interpret it, pheh. Like last night with the avocado.

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March 17, 2023 · 1:43 am

00370306

“What are you guys fretting about? The fire? Did something burn down here?” Then she realized, in her intuitive way, that *they* burned something. Evidence, she gathered. What were these cactus fitted military birds on the edge of Lower Austra on about? Japanese, she understood. If only she’d remembered to bring her translator. Maybe next time, cause there can be. Unlike for Baker Bloch Keith B., who is, for some reason, banned from the premises. He got too close to the truth, she thought. They wanted me to see instead.

“So you *are* her,” she suddenly understood, tuning into the language. Took some time but she’s there. They think I’m someone else, she gathers. But I’m *me* — always.

I don’t think I like this pose but it’s all about balance, I then additionally gather. Someone else was good at that. “We welcome you (back),” she also translated. But it was only this bird; what about the others?

They’re burning something else now; a ritual.

A golden girl arrives, one that will lead them into the next millennium of great change and turmoil and, ultimately, complete harmony of opposites through love.

“That golden girl,” says the one, ” is you.”

Shelley wakes up.

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March 14, 2023 · 3:40 pm

alchemical research

Keith let me borrow his beach bungalow while he was out traveling (he said). I caught up with my reading more than my TV watching, since his set was shite — something out of the 50s, or 60s at best. Black and white, even. I could watch reruns of “I Luv Lucifer” or “Gulliver’s Island” (at best), or finish off my stack of romance novels with Satan sometimes at the center of the plotline. Here I am seen choosing the latter; self portrait of course, because I came alone, Lemont still looking for roles on the Omega continent Shakespearian in scope and depth. Good luck! I’ve even started my own novel, or I should say, my 5th novel, the other 4 already published under a pen name by Lonelyhearts Press up in Corsica Prime. I haven’t quite got up the nerve to tell my rather straight laced hubbie about those; kind of r rated and with lots of lovers on the side. This one is projected to start with an innocent enough letter from an imaginary boyfriend and perhaps wannabe husband. ‘Nother one. What is this attraction to the opposite sex I have? Or, better, their attraction to me? I have a Venus in Cancer and a Mars in Leo but that only answers part of it. I must protect myself — that’s what Keith said just before he handed over the keys to the place. “Find yourself here,” he said, boat already warming up at the dock. “Get away from all influences. I’ll give you some spending money.”

“I don’t *need* any spending money,” I protested. “It’s not like Lemont and I have gotten a divorce or anything.”

“Sure you haven’t,” Keith said, and patted my knee, making me wonder. When *is* Lemont coming back? “Edward is right next door if you need anything,” he added while walking off and leaving a couple of hundreds on the table up front. And that’s how we met. He really liked the letter; said it sounded exactly like something he’d penned. I was so pleased that… well, I’ll save it for later in the novel.

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March 14, 2023 · 1:37 am

00370303

I’m going to do things a little differently this go ’round. The focus groundside will be Sunklands Institute, pictured here. Up in the air is where I’m going to be doing some experimenting. Point is, I’m back on Nautilus, and maybe even a better place than Fordham, than Rooster’s Peninsula. I won’t give out the location because it’s all still being set up — may take longer to solidify this time, or at least that’s what’s in my mind right now. It all pivots around Sunklands. Another Table meeting could be happening very soon.

The big Nautilus map back in skybox 02 is lighting up again: location of Lemont Sanford and Shelley Struthers renewing their wedding vows upper center (Uberto); Burro Alley and attached Slaashides community where Johnny Cage came from just up there in the left hand corner. And more in the middle… not Collagesity. Pretty sure of that. It’s all an alchemical roller coaster of a ride I’m still enjoying, even after a decade an a 1/2’s worth of involvement in Our Second Lyfe. I have more to mine here.

Nautilus is a way station.

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March 5, 2023 · 11:14 pm

00370209

He pulled up to the station even though he didn’t need gas, just to look like the rest of the crowd. Despite being unmotorized, he’d outraced half of the choppers here he blended into around Los Lunas. Rowdy crowd — didn’t take to his showoffiness. Tried to shoot his tires out a couple of times but he just weaved and bobbed his way to safety. At one point he had to ride through the desert for a couple of miles to avoid bullets. Finally around Silver City enough of the real troublemakers had dropped out so that he could feel at ease with the rest — attached to one bar or brothel or another along the way — siren calls. He’d actually made a friend, he felt. More on that later: an escape hatch from a lifetime of crime and corruption otherwise. Penny might be her name. Wanda?

—–

*Meanwhile*, on Nautilus…

Shelley Struthers got her wish. We, the Baker family as a whole, have returned to the Nautilus continent, which she’s decided should remain an Our Second Lyfe focus. Now the big Nautilus map in my skybox becomes very relevant again. I bought waterfront property quite cheaply, so I can, in all likelihood, recoup my money and then some from the purchase. Not far from the old Collagesity location in Fordham. More details soon!

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