February 23, 2016 · 5:47 am

Goodbyes

The next morning Tony bade Jack, Bendy and Molly farewell as he continued his (to them) sideways journey around the moon, soon to be over, he claimed, as he circled back to the portal to his home world located in the next section called Farside. After watching him disappear into the drift that makes up the edges of any particular moon side, they moved toward the Cardinal Tree again and stood in front of it at an angle perpendicular to that of Tony’s exit. Both knew the time for dawdling was over.

Snapshot7152_001

Molly the parrot spoke up. “You will contact me, Jack, after you reach the next side. Tell me how Bart is. Tell me if Lily’s eucalyptuses are still visible just over the next edge at the South Pole. Tell me what is found on Minoan Radio. Yell and I will hear you. We may not be quite able to see each other but we will hear each other. If we speak loudly enough.”

“I will,” promised Jack. Molly had become what is called a “fixture” element, unable or unwilling to move beyond the side they had settled upon. Molly and Cardinal Tree: perhaps united forever now on the North Pole of the moon as an animal-plant composite. On the opposite side of this pole, across the divide of Big Crease, Jack was and still is in danger of becoming the same with his work shed, his celestial globe, his skynoculars. Animal elements attach to inertial plant and mineral elements through imprinting archetypes. Jack’s particular Achilles heel is the passionate pursuit of star mapping above all else. He cannot see a small part of the sky situated above the south pole on the opposite side of the moon and that is his saving grace. This would be directly above Lily’s residence; this drives him on. Once in motion around the sides of the moon you cannot stop until you circle back to the beginning, as in the Ouroboros. And Jack must always move in one direction and one direction only. North to east to south to west. Going against the grain of the moon’s built in physics leads to inevitable danger and extinction. Nectar, Ginger and others had learned that the hard way.

Jack and Bendy nod at each other and then walk forward in tandem. Molly watches them as their legs, torsos and finally heads disappear below the ground before they reach Cardinal Tree. “Goodbye Jack,” she says as tears drop from her eyes into the sand below. “Circle back as soon as possible.”

1821353471_904b6aa3a3

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi

Tagged as , , , , ,

February 22, 2016 · 10:16 am

Tony

The next day brought a visit from their good friend Tony Tiger, who travels the moon from side to side instead of up and down, like Jack and Bendy. These so-called “Sidewinders” have numbered only 3 as far as Jack could determine. There’s Tony, Jim The Eel, and, um, Nectar, who no one likes to talk about because of that terrible day they all had to watch him float off into space, never to be heard from again. Trampolines were never seen on the moon after that day as well, as Jack ripped apart the only known one piece by piece with his bare hands.

Among the two groups of moon travelers — horizontal and vertical — Bendy and Tony were especially close. Both were pets, for one thing, although Tony liked his master while Bendy did not (if you count both John Lockfry and Dr. Mulholland as one master, as Bendy started doing a while back when speaking to Tony and others). Tony talked endlessly about Lisa, and Bendy listened in rapt amazement. “She’s offered to send me to to college next year since my grades were so high among my class,” said Tony to Bendy this time in a new wrinkle. “Ringling Brothers school in the Earth state of Florida. But I had to turn her down. I’d miss *you guys* too much. And Lily. All the things I love about the moon.” Despite the differences in treatment, Tony, like Bendy, craved freedom in his heart, and escaped from his own master-pet existence back to the moon when possible. He entered through a portal and not a leap, however.

The below snapshot finds Tony and Bendy playing chase while number crunching Jack keeps a watchful eye on them from his shed to make sure things don’t get too roughhouse.

Snapshot7149_009

Afterwards, Tony gives Bendy more tips on his golf swing while Molly and Jack look on. Bendy dreams about turning the whole moon into a 6 hole golf course. Now all they need are some clubs, and a ball that won’t fly off the low gravity world when you hit it any sort of distance.

Snapshot7149_010

Snapshot7151_001
Jack gives it a swing.

Snapshot7151_003
Tony, who has the ability to turn anthropomorphic when needed, shows them how it’s done.

Snapshot7151_004

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi

Tagged as , , ,

February 21, 2016 · 2:58 pm

Wait

Snapshot7147_002

“We’re going to have to move off this tree sometime. Might as well be now.” He was examining the bends of his legs.

“Now is when it might as well be.” said Jack in reply to Bendy’s suggestion. It was a game they liked playing. Rearranging the words of what the other says to mean the same thing. They had quite a number of such games.

“Wait until daylight,” Molly the parrot wisely advised. And so they did.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi

Tagged as , ,

February 21, 2016 · 8:53 am

Molly

Snapshot7145_001

It was well into the next day before Jack and Bendy caught up with each others’ stories. They ran out of gas at about this point where both were sitting on Cardinal Tree at the eastern edge of Jack’s north pole domain. The two were trying to delay the compulsory next step as long as possible, savor the moment. It was always unsettling to shift to different sides of the moon. They’d have to completely lose contact with the ground to reorient themselves; already to reach this tree Bendy was neck high in the drifts. Jack contemplated the four fold nature of the moon, the square like design.

“It was this way since time began. The moon of Second Life is actually older than Second Life itself.”

“Older than this tree?” asked Bendy, who was now climbing to the top of same.

“Older than this tree,” Jack reinforced. “Older than life itself.”

“I can’t see anything over there yet,” Bendy proclaimed, looking east and down from the tree’s highest point now.

Snapshot7147_001

“Careful up there,” said Jack looking up. “You may fall completely off the moon itself. Remember Nectar!”

“Oh right. Must be careful about that, yeah.” He quickly scrambled back down to the lowest limb again. “But have you seen anything?”

“You can clearly view Lily’s eucalyptus trees from the east pole. And I can look down at this tree from there too. But being bulkier I dare not climb up to where you were, although I am taller. Theoretically, I suppose I could see maybe the pointed top of the east pole. The short answer is that I don’t know, Bendy.”

“Good enough,” Bendy responded simply.

“Being lighter, I can fly completely around the moon,” chipped in Molly the Parrot, perched on the end of the lowest limb to Bendy’s right. Cardinal Tree was her home. “But I have to stay low to the surface. It’s not worth the risk any more.” She thought back to how her mate Ginger the Budgie didn’t come back from just such a trip around the world. She had lost someone in a similar way to Jack and Bendy.

“Yes, and you’re the only other living thing on this pole with me. Without you — and Bendy — to keep me company, I would be completely lost in my scientific thoughts. And that would be a bad thing.”

The three sat silent for a moment. Jack realized he was getting low on energy. It was time to think food into his stomach, a trick Molly taught him as well. He didn’t mention this to Bendy of course. Jack thought this thought to Molly, who thought back that she’d distract Bendy during the process.

“So… Bendy. I heard you saying that the love birds over at the fake moon have a cafe now.” Jack cleared his throat loudly. “Er, what I mean is that things are appearing over there from Collagesity. What will be next on top of the vegetable garden? A prominent collage gallery of baker b.’s? It’s interesting to chew over the possibilities.”

“I know what you’re doing,” said Bendy. “Jack’s thinking food into his stomach and you’re trying to distract me. And doing a *horrible* job of it, Molly.”

“Yes,” agreed Jack. “And I’m finished.”

Bendy crosses his arms. “I know you have a cracker or three always squirreled away in a hole on this tree. Because I bring them to you. Time to cough one up.”

Molly looks at Jack and Jack looks at Molly. “Din din time,” he says to the parrot. “Start thinking!”

Snapshot7145_003b

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi

Tagged as , ,

February 19, 2016 · 7:35 am

Jack

Snapshot7141_002

It was impossible to confuse the approach of Bendy with anything else. It sounded like a bunch of jostled kitchen drawers combined with a broken, pulsing blender. But he was so close to calibrating the distance between the double stars Adelphia and Freedom. One more run through the computations might do it. So he pretended for several minutes to not be there when Bendy started calling. “Hellooo! Jack!?”

Snapshot7143_001

Jack gave up. He had to remember the value of true friendship over scientific pursuits. He would set that passion aside for now. He actually had a lot of free time, he reminded himself. No more 9 to 5 for him. He opened the door.

Snapshot7141_003

“Bendy! My good friend. Come in to my very humble abode. I had my earphones on. I’ll just put them away… come in! How are things going on the fake moon over there. Did you have any problems with the leap this time?”

“Three point landing, Jack,” Bendy replied, squeezing himself into the blue Na’vi’s cramped quarters. He noticed the overturned celestial globe and the red pins sticking in it. “Still working on southern hemisphere, I see.”

Snapshot7141_004

“I’ve completed almost all I can for now. I’ll have to go over to Lily’s to finish it off — my globe complete. As you know, only from her position at the south pole can I observe the remainder. But I’m not sure how that’s going to work out.”

“Yeah, we need to talk about that, but first things first: I brought you a present. Another Collagesity relic. It’s a magic disc called a quarter. You use it to audio-communicate between distant points without the need for direct teleportation.”

“Well thank you very much, Bendy. That’s wonder. And sparkly! Did you steal it from Jan and Dean again?”

“Who? Oh, you mean the Mulholland twins. Yes, I did, actually. Oh, and we have a *visitor*. Karoz Blogger is his name. He’s from Collagesity.”

“Well *that’s* very interesting. How did he get to the fake moon?”

“Rocketship. Crashed into the middle. Can’t get off. Stuck with the banana splits. That’s something else we must talk about.”

“Of course. There any many things we must talk about and we must catch up. We will begin now and continue into the night and day and night if needed. Then we will go see Lily. She will be super pleased that you are back. You are her precious tin can of fish. We, her and I, get along better when you’re there with me.”

“Oh I can’t wait to see Lily. I hope she is doing well.”

“She’s finishing up “Spellbook 2.0”. And she’s working on contacting the moon’s dead of course, an ongoing project. She conjured up the ghost of Peter Frampton the other day. He was “in” her, hehe. Next up in her alphabetical list: Peter Gabriel.”

“Nifty,” replied Bendy. “I always liked the Rolling Stones. Even through their Maharishi period.”

“And we’ll pack a David Lunch,” quipped Jack. Both laughed. There was no food on this satellite, a critical flaw for Bendy. He must return soon enough. If only they could grow something on this rock!

Snapshot7141_005
Later, Bendy checks out Jack’s souped up skynoculars while Jack gazes toward what he knows is another double star, a very special pair he named Jack and Lily.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi

Tagged as , , ,

February 18, 2016 · 1:57 pm

Groundside

(joined in progress)

Snapshot3028_003

Baker Blinker:

I feel like it’s all my fault. Because I wanted those smaller eyes. To become more human.

Carr.:

They look very nice, Baker Blinker. And now you have changed your skin color back to pink as partial compromise. It’s all developing as expected.

BBlinker:

Not quite as pink as before.

Baker Bloch:

It looks the same to me.

Carr.:

That’s because we have gone back in time to create the backdrop of this meeting. It’s not as pink as it seems, Baker Bloch.

BBlinker:

Karoz was all set to change a bit too. He told me the night before he left that he was going to defy Old Kent and his gifts and make an effort[ in that direction].

Carr.:

Well, you see, that’s probably part of the problem, then. You two had to be separated, at least for a bit. The whole thing was staged, really. That’s actually not the moon of Second Life. The surface is as flat as a pancake subtract the craters. You have an interior, true, full of 14 monsters that is now one bad ass [delete name]. He likes to be known as Sask. Remember we devoted about a week’s time to the discussion of it back in January, Baker Blinker?

BBlinker:

No.

Carr.:

Well, we did. John Lockfry 01 did steal the lemon of a space capsule. It both exploded in midair with him and didn’t. He reached the moon, but through a time jump into the future. About 2 years for him… them, but only 2 days for Karoz. Benji tells me these thing.

BBloch:

The dog?

Carr.:

No. (recalibrating) I mean: yes. But at a price. He was split in two, like anima and animus. One was crippled like the monster-free moon itself. One remained standing. Both are as crazy as cats; Benji reinforces this to no end.

BBlinker:

What about Karoz?

Carr.:

Karoz redesigned the ship to make it safer. He legitimately made it to this so-called moon in the correct time period. No jump needed. He encountered future John Lockfry there, who had already split… in two I mean. He didn’t leave the moon. But, an update by Benji just now in real time: Karoz at least knows about the *real* moon, the smaller one to him but which will become the same size as the fake one in no time atall. How about that? Real time updating taking place during our meeting.

BBloch:

Cool. Where do I fit into all this?

Carr.:

You are the town custodian. Not just for the collage but for all of Collegesity. You clean up. [You are] okay with that?

BBloch:

Sure. But what if I had made the trip with Karoz? What would have become of me?

Carr.:

It was all staged, as stated. Karoz would go alone. Baker Blinker and he needed a gap between them. But now he can bridge the gap by making a leap not of doom but of faith. Will he do it? becomes the next door in our journey.

BBlinker:

I can’t help but worry. I’m going to change my eyes back until he returns.

Carr.:

Might not hurt.

Snapshot2179_007b
Memories.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi

Tagged as , ,

February 18, 2016 · 8:35 am

10 minutes earlier…

Snapshot7139_007

… Bendy once again takes the big leap to reach Sane Moon, as he likes to call it. Thank goodness he’s been doing regular exercising when he can get away from those wackies on the other moon, the *wrong* moon. He’s home again.

Snapshot7139_008
Three point landing.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi

Tagged as

February 18, 2016 · 5:50 am

Pet

Karoz thought, what the heck, and went outside, inserted the quarter, and dialed Baker Blinker’s cell phone number from the payphone beside the door. But it did nothing except ring itself, as in a perpetual loop. After throwing the receiver down in renewed frustration and starting to head back through the door to complain to Dr. Mulholland, Karoz saw colored shapes in the distance beyond the passageway leading into the moon’s interior.

Snapshot7135_003

It turned out to be a vegetable garden that had magically appeared in the span of a couple hours tops. No way he could have missed this before.

Snapshot7135_004

“You have your peppers, your beets, your tomatoes… lettuce. All the ingredients necessary for a delicious salad to complement your fish din dins.” It was wheelchair bound John Lockfry again, approaching from behind. “Magically sprung from the suddenly fertile soil of our little moon. A miracle. All because of a simple desire, a simple wish: “I wish I had a nice salad to complement this sushi. Then it would be perfect.” You remember saying that? And now it is so. That, my friend, is the power of this moon. A demonstration. You give and it gives in return, like a positive master.”

Karoz remained unimpressed. “It didn’t let me ring up Baker Blinker. It’s not letting me *off of itself*.”

Snapshot7137_002

“That is more difficult, my friend. You and Baker Blinker need to be separate presently. And Dr. Mulholland didn’t know about the phone. She upstairs right now sobbing into the bed sheets because of it. She dislikes true love being dampened. She is such a softie underneath that hard, exterior shell. You should see her at weddings. And we stopped going to funerals long ago. Luckily nothing dies here on the moon. It’s all recycled over and over. That’s another advantage[ of being here].”

Karoz was looking around him, distracted. “Why is it so bright all of a sudden?”

“Solar flare,” explained John Lockfry. “Enjoy the light while it’s here.”

“And where’s your *Bendy*?”

“Darnit!” said John Lockfry, examining his now Bendy-less shoulder. “We got too close. He must have made a jump for it again. Oh well, let’s go look. It’s just beyond that rock over there.” He cussed again.

By the time they reached the vantage point pictured below, the sky was darkening again, giving them a clear view of the bright object formerly hidden behind a wide rock on the edge of the moon.

Snapshot7135_007

“What is it?” Karoz asked, truly dazzled by the sight of the rapidly spinning asteriod.

“It’s the moon of the moon, the moon’s pet, as it were. Like Bendy is my pet. This is his original homeland.”

“The moon of the moon,” Karoz echoed as he turned around in his tracks to take another gander at the blue cube of Second Life.

Snapshot7135_008

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi

Tagged as ,

February 17, 2016 · 10:49 am

Monster

“Stuck here?!” He was incredulous.

“I’m afraid so,” replied Dr. Mulholland, now on her 3rd glass of wine. This didn’t count the stuff her double John Lockfry 02 knocked down earlier. Karoz wondered if the alcoholic effects accumulated between the two of them or if it was wiped clean after a transformation. By the looks of her state, he’d guess the former.

Snapshot7131_008

“Tea, madam or sir?” It was the Selenite butler Karoz was introduced to earlier, seeming to sense a need to maintain a certain level of sobriety. The last of the true monsters, Dr. Mulholland claimed. Tamed and harmless as a little kitty now, she explained, and then even purred like a cat to reinforce the idea. “No thanks, Alberta,” he said. “Nahh,” slurred Dr. Mulholland in turn. He dutifully retreated back into his hidden corner of the diner.

Snapshot7131_009

“Don’t you think it’s cruel just to keep him tucked away over there until you need him?”

“Nahh,” she said again, and made the wine in her glass more turbulent. “So what do you think? What’s the arrangement going to be?”

“Arrangement?” Karoz querried.

“I mean, right now it’s me and the hubbie, Alberta over there, and then Bendy. H-how do you fit it?”

Karoz was firm. “Hey, I’m not staying. I’m going to get off this rock somehow.” He was starting to talk more like the locals.

“How? It’s all unlinked. We had to do it because of the monsters, like Alberta. Hey Alberta?” she shouted toward his hidden corner. He immediately came forth.

“Yes, madam? Tea madam?”

“No, I was just wondering if you could tell our guest Karoz about your kind, the Sele–nites. And how we tamed you and took out all those wild, murderous bits.” She snarled at him this time and clawed the air.

“Yes, madam. My people are Selenite warriors that come from the inside world. We numbered 7. We battled the Selenite isopods, who also numbered 7. We killed each other off many times over, but always came back to life at the Bright Lites. Until you and Mr. John Lockfry deactivated the Bright Lites and set me free. I am the seven who are one.”

“He means the rezzing crystals,” explains Dr. Mulholland, “the ones that are brighter. I’ll show you sometime. Heck, let’s go now. I’m tired of sitting around this place night and day. Well, night. The hubbie never wants to go down there. He’s crippled. Oh, what I mean his mind is crippled as well as his body. Come here, come here.” Dr. Mulholland waved Karoz closer to her. He leans over the table toward her, careful not to spill his wine. “He *is* the moon now. How about that?”

“I don’t understand.”

“The moon became crippled when we unlinked it and extracted all the monster codes. My husband became crippled at the same time. It was an arrangement. One of us had to go back in that chair. It wasn’t going to be me.” She looked at him with fire in her eyes.

“Going back to Collagesity, you said you woke up in the woods and found your way to Baker Blinker’s house.”

“Gloomy Gus, um huh.” She swigged another gulp of wine.

“You had a pocketbook.”

“Unch, right. The key.”

“Baker Blinker said it had money in it. And a note from Old Kent, the shark you know.”

“I know. The shark told us to give it to you. The shark said you were the most important person in Collagesity now, but you can’t change. So we brought you here. You’re *trapped*. We didn’t die in a firey explosion. That was just staged.”

“Staged,” repeated Bendy in a smaller voice from her shoulder.

Karoz Blogger just shook his head at this. He didn’t believe a lot of what she’s saying. He was eager for another transformation to take place so that he could talk to the male side, get another slant on events.

Dr. Mulholland wiggled a finger at Karoz. “We had to keep you away from her. The evil Baker. We can’t even allow you to have a quarter to call her. Oh, what the heck, here’s a quarter. Give her a call; tell her you’re okay. That shark is probably crazy, after all. Tell her you’re on the moon, we’re here, and everything will be okay.” Then she says this in a lower tone, more to herself: “Except it won’t be okay.”

Snapshot7133_001

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi

Tagged as , , ,

February 16, 2016 · 7:39 am

Eat

After watching a ravenous Karoz eat sushi especially prepared for him by his wife (his favorite food), John Lockfry then prodded the moss being for questions as both sipped wine. “You must have many about our situation here,” he said.

Snapshot7125_008

Avoiding the obvious one, the elephant in the room as it were, Karoz asked why the Collagesity diner appears intact here, seemingly unchanged. He kept waiting for John Lockfry to spring out of his chair again, turn into a woman, and then pour himself another glass of wine. That was cool.

“It’s not completely the same. One picture is unstable compared to back in your Collagesity. It’s the one behind you on the wall there, the Warhol print.” He indicated it with his free hand. “Another Warhol print keeps forming behind it, and then receding. What do you think?”

Karoz Blogger got up and studied the work, swirling the wine around in his glass while contemplating. “It’s both a picture of a gun and a car,” he said plainly, and waited for more explanation.

“Yes, but the car is a *lemon*, you see. Backwards lemon. Like the word “redrum” in that famous movie whose name always escapes me.”

“Shiny Hare?” offered Karoz.

“Yes, that’s the one. The one with the soundtrack by Story Room. How is Story Room anyway, Karoz? You’re best buds with the lot of ’em aren’t you?”

“Kind of,” came the answer. He sat back down at the table. “I was just thinking about them, actually, on the flight up here.” Karoz started to explain how he plans to go into a particular baker b. collage set in Stonethrow, England to attempt to recruit the 3 members of Story Room again as teachers for his new school, but decided it would be too drawn out.

“And the movie begins with the same vehicle, colored yellow. Like a lemon. It’s traveling through high mountains while a high Tom Petty sings about driving toward a mystery leading him on.”

“You seem to know quite a lot about “Shiny Hare”.” Karoz eyed him suspiciously.

“It’s a famous movie by a famous director, after all. We have a large screen tv upstairs in our bedroom. There’s not a lot else to do.”

“*Their* bedroom?” Karoz thinks, and then speaks aloud. “I must ask about your situation here. Um, with your wife and your… what do you call that, er, object on your shoulder?”

“That’s my pet Bendy, not to be confused with another pet called Benjy. He’s different. Isn’t he Bendy?”

“No,” came the tinny answer.

“How improper of me. I’ve been attending our honored guest and forgot about your needs. Do you want a cracker to gnaw on. Obviously we can’t give you wine. You know what happened the last time.”

“Yeah,” the robot answered. “Sick.”

“But you’ll be polite with the cracker and not spill *too* many crumbs.”

“Okay, whatever.”

“Let me finish talking to Karoz and then we’ll go upstairs and I’ll feed you and let the wife take over.”

“Yup,” the robot responded.

John Lockfry turns his attention back to Karoz. “So… more questions now.”

“We’ll, I was asking about your situation…”

The robot loudly belched. “Pardon *me*,” it said, and covered its mouth with its small metallic hand.

“You’ll have to excuse me, Karoz Blogger,” John Lockfry then said. “It seems that Bendy can’t wait for his din din.”

“Nope,” the robot answered.

“We’ll have to let Dr. Mulholland take over early and then I’ll return.” John Lockfry sprang up from the chair and again transformed into a woman. She sat down at Karoz’s table and poured herself another glass of wine.

“This is what *always* happens,” Bendy complains again from her shoulder. “I haven’t been fed in 2 weeks!”

Snapshot7129_014

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi

Tagged as , , ,