Head

5 til 3! she thought while looking out at the big Hooktip clock tower with her red and white umbrella peepers. I’ve got to get going!

I put on the garb of a white mage tonight, trying to act like I knew what I was doing. I was able to sit down on a diamond shaped plot of good ol’ actual Linden grass in a mainly artificial terrain constructed by the land owner of this little forest here, one Clare Nova. Remember her? Anyway I was smack dab on the Diagonal, at, let’s see, 36, 35. Close enough, as they say. One off of any of the two (or three) numbers is okay — difficult to tell any difference in the, um, energy, quote unquote. “It’s often not what’s right on The Diagonal,” I say to myself almost religiously, “it’s what you *see* from it.” Like that clock in the background Shelley Struthers up in the middle of the sim might be looking at at the same time. Actually, nope, in checking she’s put on that long Pepper shirt she likes now and is starting to brush her luxurious blonde hair (to her) in front of the vanity mirror. One stroke, she counts, two… three. Always 30 and she’s perfectly beautiful, almost as much as Ginger Granite down the lane. She can never get her bearings in this sim for some reason. What was its name?

30.

She splashes water on her face and prepares to face the world.

Today is the day she’s going to get up the nerve to speak to Tommy Tailgate, maybe goad him into asking her out. Goad? How about “guide”? She wants to get better at doing such things. Like Ginger again.

*Shelley*. That was the name of the lane. Like her!

There. Picture perfect.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0213, Heterocera, VHC City

00290212

“The Neat Town moss people never received that big squid or octopus and so the red and white lighthouse remained on the green, no one else able to move it, not even jointly,” Kick-ass Boos recites from the top bunker again, joint still in hand, although almost small enough to require pliers. “Dwarfed, they were,” he finished.

Well that’s a nice story, thought Axis-Windmill from the lower bunk bed opposite him. But it doesn’t explain my dream where I lost my hands!

—–

Claude looked over at Paul, realizing if he bent his will there might be no leaving this place, ever. The 20000 lb. lighthouse could not be budged; time to call in reinforcements.

“Sorry I’m late.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0212, Maebaleia/Satori, Neat Town, Pennsylvania

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.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0211, Cass City+, Horns of Hatton+, Maebaleia/Satori, Neat Town

thief

“Axis-Windmill. You have blood on your hands that you must atone for.”

“I know.”

—–

“What happened to your hands, mister?”

Roth Voomer looked down, not even thinking about that day any more. He’s basically healed. Except for the extremities of course.

“It happens, kid. The Abyss will have its price.”

“The Abyss,” the almost submerged kid says while nodding, having learned about such things in prison school.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0210, Horns of Hatton+, Maebaleia/Satori

wanted: large, many armed marine creature able to lift 20000 lbs.

Martha Fish Stew Boos finally installed an invisible fence on the other side of the road to keep her shopping carts from disappearing. Now they couldn’t take them through the hidden portal in the small hillock to do whatever they do with metal objects like that. Maybe build primitive spaceships for all she knows, trying to rocket off to whatever God hell awful planet they originate from. Truth was, they were trying to make another one of those giant shoes. They had enough metal. All they needed now was a large quantity of moss and an even larger octopus (or squid) and off they go. They’d get the moss after molting season. Shouldn’t be long. Martha went to all the trouble for nothing.


“Just leave it,” Claude commanded from within.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0209, Maebaleia/Satori, Neat Town

each having their fun

—–

He was getting valuable information out of this Cornfeld fellow, Natha Neil I believe. Green Acres he comes from (he claims). Farm living. Delight — for him. I tried to keep him on track about the city. “Neat Town?” he replied. “Never a city. More a *Hooterville*, in that…” I stopped him. The guy would have been right at home in Horns and with the old religious man. Dig a little beneath the surface and it’s always Hooterville for these lot — Fraud had it right in many ways. “But Red started it,” I furthered. “Unloaded her shacks out of a giant, mossy green shoe with the help of an octopus.” “Squid,” he replied, but didn’t elaborate. So he knew about that event too (!). “So it is true,” I said to him. He looked away with this, more toward the center of town. “You’ll find more information in the diner, *her* diner.” I took my leave. “Ask for Green!” he shouted as I left the grounds.

—–

Out back:

“Henry, I told you not to drive this thing when you’re drunk. It’s been in the woods for 50 years (!). You’ll explode (again).”

Too late.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0208, Horns of Hatton+, Maebaleia/Satori, Neat Town

set

We took Rael McCoy, straightened him out. Trouble was, this created two stars where before there were one. Which is Real. Which is Rael?

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0207, Horns of Hatton+, Maebaleia/Satori

Alyshas


“I don’t want to forget you, mini-me. Even though I am the Controller now and have acquired red hair. You are two steps away now. I cannot leave you… behind.”

“Tattoo,” is what she said back. I thought about this. Arm? Back? Other place? “Where?” I ventured. She just stared with those almond eyes, same as mine. We looked into each other.

“We will have this spot where we can talk to each other,” I decided aloud for both me and her. As one.

Who are we with? I thought next. Axis-Windmill seems the logical choice, default even. I thought I saw little Alysha shaking her head back at me but I might have imagined it. One mind…

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0206, Horns of Hatton+, Maebaleia/Satori

the planet’s 3rd eye

“I recall now. I am your hairy… neighbor. To the North. Remember? Like Canada. Some called us friends. Like me. Remember? Not Arthur but me. We were sent here (to Mythos) together.”

I recalled. There was lots of pain in his direction, more than mine. The US of our A had it easier. A single child (functionally). A loving *father*. “You didn’t know,” he wanted to say to me now. “You were involved… in your own world.” I couldn’t argue. At least he didn’t declare war on me, like Cofmo. Ants, mechanical ants. My grasshoppers never had a chance. June bugs bombed but all were underground.

I know why my artist friend from Our Second Lyfe was named that. For this.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0205, Horns of Hatton+, Maebaleia/Satori

fused

Accompanied by the music of Certain Death playing on the turntable, an old, religious man reads slightly pornographic manga well into the night. Did it in Kowloon where he came from, doing it here. Nothing wrong.

In another part of Horns, Jacob’s I awakes from the dead, as it were, and rolls his stiffened neck. “Ugggh. Where *am* I?”

Kick-ass Bogota’s long vigil is over. He can rejoin his brother Boos, wherever he is at the moment, probably Red’s Diner.

Yes: Red’s.

Bigfoot is a hot topic tonight. A giant spool has now been rolled onto an artist’s location and made into a firepit. Staring into the flames one last time, Kick-ass takes his leave before Jacob I. realizes who he is.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0204, Boos, Canada, Canada/Tungaska, collages 2d, Google Street View, Horns of Hatton+, Lower Austra, Maebaleia/Satori, Nautilus