Category Archives: Wild West

00330202

In a place run by cats, there were always a lot of naptimes to get the information he needed. Like the actual scoop on the Poop Pool, as it was called locally, at least behind closed doors, often in the middle of the night when a faint whiff of the former smell could be caught by those who’re perceptive. Deputy here had been out since about 8 now, hugging her little froggie toy until the wee hours of the morning. Eddy Daigle, cousin to our Edward Daigle already met in part one and originally sharing the same name, sniffed the air. Faint but perceptible. He hit delete on the sheriff’s computer and the file about it was permanently gone, as if the problem never existed. Much like Edward from his name, revised and revamped to the more colloquial Eddy after 5th grade when he also switched first and last names to hide the connection even more. “Daigle, Eddy” he liked to be called after that, 2 steps or functions away. And he was from Montana, not Louisiana or Maine or, especially, Illinois. Unlike that John L. Brown we’ve yet to come across in the current novel but who played a part in the last one, small but effective, like a rat silently and stealthily tearing away at the insulation in your walls, leaving you eventually laid bare to the elements. John L. Brown was a bad one, and deserved to be behind the bars of this here law enforcement establishment.

Uh oh. Deputy’s rolled over and lost her grip on her little, favorite toy. Sheriff’s snores on the couch over there are getting a little shallower and further apart, REMs decreased. Soon dreaming will be over for the fellows, Eddy knew. But he still couldn’t find the second file he wanted. Best to pack it up, come back tomorrow. Or after, actually, the next town animal banquet when the ferocious gazelles would bring more fresh kill from the beaches and the water. Snorklers this week. Could even be some deep sea divers mixed in next. That would put them even more under for his clandestine night operations; would allow him to get more work done, dig deeper.

“Daigle, Eddy” knew he wasn’t kosher and that saved him many times from being on the wrong side of one of these feasts. 9 times he had been saved in fact, making him part cat himself. Thank you great great grandma on my father’s side! He licked his hand softly as he does instinctively every now and then and shuts the laptop off and heads home.

No one in the cell right now except a member of the Bad Katz Gang, who was turning her back to the illegal nature of his visit. He hoped to change that soon.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0202, ENIGMA, Illinois, Nautilus, NORTH, Wild West

00330201

“”What’s wrong, honey? (no answer) Oh dear, are you channeling again? (no answer) Is it… the triangles?”

She sat there all glassy eyed for a while like 2 marbles were planted in her head in place of eyes. Then…

—–

“What you cooking today Eddy?!” shouted the runny man, passing by.

“Hot dogs!” he called back. “But made with veggie stew!”

“Cool! Catch you later, then!” Tom shouted, his voice receding in the distance as he headed toward the far corner of the strange, rectangular green pool that centered the apartment complex they both lived in, this Paradise Town as it liked to call itself. The pool begs to differ, because it also has a name, usually unspoken. Tried to be forgotten.

—–

Common denominator: umbrellas.

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00330111

“It was the only place I felt really safe in all of Dodgey City: Charlotte’s dust filled attic with the telescope that she often pointed to the Moon, Mars and other heavenly bodies to also escape the stardust glitter all around.”

“Stardust,” said the doctor, now a therapist. “Interesting term. Can you elaborate further?”

—–

“They made… *cartoons* out of me. It was awful.” The sobbing began again. The doctor-therapist offered her another kleenex from the second box used today. “They thought it was *funny* (sob sob sob, blow nose, sob sob, sniff).”

“There there,” said the dr.-therapist. “Take your time.”

“I — (sniff sniff) don’t *want* to go back.”

“No one’s sending you back, Jem. Take your time,” she or he emphasized again. Probably a she… because of the nature of the events that took place there.

“Those cartoons you spoke about,” she started carefully once more. “Did you…”

“*NO*,” stated Jem firmly, guessing what the doctor-therapist was going to ask, an almost prescient moment. And perhaps it was.

The doctor-therapist decided not to bring John L. Brown of the Browns into the picture today. She looks up at the clock, pretends the session is over even though it is 12 till the hour. “That better be it for today. You can take that box home with you.”

“Thank you,” BLOOWWW.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0111, Jeogeot, Nautilus, Towerboro, Wild West

319

Venus had finished her song. Wasn’t her worst but wasn’t her best. Lorster… Lester, I recall. Must get back to the purple door, another door to open if we now have the key. And we might.

“Well I’ll be,” he said, withdrawing it from sudsy purple. Not poop after all! Thanks Dovie!

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0613, Nautilus, Retirement Islands, Wild West, Yd Island

the bird beats the bug

We follow him down to the door of — where he lived? We open the door. Not a chained prisoner as we suspected a bit. Not sentient Christmas excrement Mr. Hankey from South Park, another logical candidate. But Casey One Hole. Casey One Hole, yikes!

“A Blue Bird?!” he exclaimed, truly surprised himself. “I was expecting a Cardinal or perhaps a Rooster at worst, ha ha. This should be easy.”

“He swiftly moves toward me,” Blue Bird who opened the door to the outhouse — or tramp shack or whatever it actually was — kept on explaining to the others, “towering over me, cornering me, as the toys had tried before but didn’t succeed with. Then I looked down at his ‘weapon’ and started snickering.

“‘W-what?’ he managed between snarls, and followed the direction of my eyes.

“A mop instead of a golf club. He *had* no weapon. He swatted at my head with it anyway in the subsequent intensification of anger but it just kind of tickled my cheeks. Soft as downy wings — charmed obviously. Something had happened. Casey One Hole had been neutralized through the outhouse — I knew now this was an outhouse, a bathroom set to be cleaned, perhaps in perpetuity.

“‘Better get back to it,’ I joked while pointing in its direction as he jumped up and down in frustration, then swung the mop round and round, aiming at nothing now; crazy as a beetle. I left free as a bird. Appropriate.”

“Poe fellow,” said Mistress, seeming to miss the point but actually not. She unclasped her wing-like hands and settled back in the rocking chair again. Venus on the 1/2 bed decided to sing a song.

(to be continued)

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boulder scene/Little Tramp

“So I went to the middle of The Cross, the middle of Lineside (which is the same), just to see what was there. The well was gone, you know, the one Lou and Morris declared was the center of the world or something.”

“*Well*,” she exclaimed back. “I never.” Because she knew the center of the world was in Arkansaw, some say Miss Ouri. But it was probably Arkansaw. Or not. Debate for another time and place.

“Yeah, I had a hard time getting there with the ban lines and all but I finally found it. A rock, you see — ‘nother one. And a grassy little hill attached to it with water sprinkling all over the place.”

“Your mouth is getting lazy again,” the other with the first complained, probably Venus since she was more sharp mouthed, perhaps part bird herself with the beak and all. But that was just (in) a dream.

“Knoll,” the first defined more clearly. “Toys.”

“Yeah, those too,” admitted Blue Bird, looking to her right and left as they approached, threatening to close her in on this very spot in the center. Or as close as she could get. “I touched the green star near me. I began to dance. I seemed to worship the rock, become one with it even. That seemed to drive them away. I was alone again, but I kept wanting to dance and worship. I realized I was someone else in the moment.”

“Inky Man?” asked Mistress, the first more clearly defined as well. “I recall: Inky Man.” STOP

In her mind, she saw the black figure approach and then recede. Just like a toy.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0611, Nautilus, Omega, Retirement Islands, The Cross, Wild West

00320610

She tried to find where the 2 lovebirds, Snowwhite Well and one (or both or neither) of her cousins, were married, Aunt Emerald becoming Maw in any case except 1. No luck; *had* to move or derezz some of the trees here. It all centered around a streetlight, and 2 of those were still in the area. But neither framed by trees as before, symbolizing or standing in for the bride and groom themselves. The groom: one of the 2 Dixons — Dixon One and Dixon Too — brothers to each other and 2 potential husbands to Snowwhite, their cousin. Tradition dictated it had to be one or the other.

But then she also recalled that one or both (or neither) of the Dixons were *killed* seeking the treasure that Snowwhite Well claimed was actually herself, the snow white peak representing her diamond-like brilliance and beauty and loveliness. Aunt Emerald (Maw) probably knew. She was attracted to Snowwhite like a man and she wasn’t that type. She thought her sons daft for running off into the hills, the mountains, to look for gold and diamonds and rubies when they had Snowwhite right here, the most valuable thing either one could have found in their miserable, schizophrenic lives. But, no, they had to look exterior to the city for the meaning of life, go on a silly and perhaps deadly quest. And it turned out it was. The Cross knows the story. The Cross, centered by Lineside, remembers up and down, right and left. The Cross remembers similarly killed Duncan Avocado where it intersects with The Straight on the west edge of the continent. *That* was in the Oracle; the reason for Colonel Flagstaff to be there. And I *just* had a dream about him, it seems.

Point is (here), they left the city and The Cross and got in trouble because of it. “So predictable,” Aunt Emerald summarized when finding out about their ultimate fates, whatever they actually were.

Yes, she remembers now. 128/128: right in the center of the sim. *This* is where they got married — this is the right streetlamp. The preacher between them must have stood right on this very spot while accepting their I Do’s. If it even happened.

These other birds could have told me all along.

(to be continued)

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dream 009 (one after 909)

“Aww *raspberries*!” he cussed after running me over in his little purple car, him with his curly purple hair and dark, tall attitude and altitude. *Finally*. I’d been asking for it since John F. Kennedy City when Jeffrey Phillips almost did it with red. He prodded me with his foot to make sure, but I was sure dead all right, raspberry beret crushed and mixed into a bigger mess that was formerly my somewhat dense but pretty enough head. Maw was right. You can’t be in two places at once when… can’t remember the rest.

He could never have me.

He withdraws foot from leg, knowing it was The End.

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00320607

“I worry about Blue Rose Thorn, Mistress. I know he has become our friend Blue Bird but how does he change back?”

“Simple, my lovely Venus,” purred The Mistress, her great length folded into the rocking chair on the porch of their retirement home. “He has to find a plane that isn’t crashed and jump out of it, danger abated. That way he won’t need the wings any more. That way our friend Blue Bird can be returned to us, and Blue Rose Thorn to himself. That way…”

“… he can find his way back to being Jeffrey Phillips,” guessed Venus on the 1/2 Bed.

“Perhaps,” she answered, and unclasped her wing-like hands while settling back. The pink parrot behind her squawked softly; the first to hear. “That is not of our jurisdiction. We must first get to the Town on the Mount in the Air and see what happens.”

They sat quiet for a while, pondering all of this. Then: small rustlings in the jungle to their left. “Over there,” Mistress proclaimed, the first to see. “The future is now(!).”

“How?” Slack jawed Venus saw too. A familiar shape had emerged from the tropical leaves and bushes and walked toward a chair marking the edge of their land.

“We will let her answer that. Blue Bird!” she called over. “Come out of the shadows. Explain your presence!”

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Queen

He continues to talk to his boss even though he isn’t with him any more.

“That boat over there in that bay, Jeffrey,” speaks Man About Time mildly. “Lower Austra. But just beyond, just beyond the bay: Wild West. That’s how they slipped away from Miss Ouri, Jeffrey. They outsmarted her, which is difficult to do. Someone must know the whole map to do this. It’s like they have the entire knowledge of Nautilus itself.”

“Think,” he could hear Jeffrey Phillips in his head now, which he often does.

“That’s right, Jeffrey. (The) Thinktank (sim) is just beyond the bay. The Wild West.”

“No. *Think*.” Jeffrey often emphasized words for Man About Time in his head because he misunderstands what he’s actually trying to convey. Because Jeffrey Phillips is still around, just not physically.

“Oh okay. Think, huh?”

“Think,” he finished.

—–

“We went out on the same date. March 1, 2022. Yet he was a King and I was a Bishop at best, a Knight.”

“9 to 5, yes,” stated Wheeler Wilson to Baker Bloch at The Table, which had moved from the Blue Feather up to the Castle in De Skies, although not out of Collagesity itself. It was a conundrum because (the castle) sat in 2 completely different places on the continent at once: Lower Austra’s Collagesity and North’s Rooster’s Peninsula, with the ultimate link being glowing MOA down in the basement of each. *They* sat in these 2 positions. “I think you underestimate *your* position, though,” she continued. “Rook… you were a rook; a minor rook but a rook still. And people around you didn’t like it because you had no ambition to further your place in life. You were happy as is, just riding everything out until The End. You were stuck on a 5 which was much closer to 5 than 6 and you were satisfied. That was the basic issue. That caused the distancing.”

“I started out as a Pawn.”

“We all do,” explained Wheeler. “We all do.”

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