February 7, 2024 · 5:54 am

March 12 1951

The file was as thick and complex as St. Dennis itself. “How did you find this office?” queried Chef-Inspector Petty, watching her closely as she studied it, watching the eyes dart about, noticing the scars cutting across her forehead, eyes, nose and cheeks somewhat redden in the excitement.  He could look past it. He wondered if she had any hair underneath that metallic green hood. And what up with the 3 eyed owl perched on her shoulder (!)?

“A little birdie told me,” she answered, which he assumed was the owl again, whose middle eye quickly winked at him right when he thought this.

“Oh. Yes. I see.” He kept staring at the owl, then, but no more obvious winks were produced. Just a steady stare with intermittent, calm blinking, each eye taking a turn now. He decided to ask the sex.

“Um. Both I think.” She was still staring down at the files, flipping pages rapidly in the swift reading. Was the owl helping her with this too? he pondered. Odd thought, he realized. But nothing was ordinary about this case, nothing atall.

“Light okay?” he thought to ask, although he had no way to increase it. Electric grid didn’t get this far in Aisle of Palms yet, on the opposite side of town from the generator in the Blue Feather and attached Perch Restaurant. At least the sun was coming up now. She’d been reading for about 20 minutes.

“Fine.” Looked like she was about 2/3rds the way through the file. He then thought he was peering down on her a bit, understood that he had missed the mark on the size change once more. He’d have to wait to adjust. Can’t risk shaking the table and jostling the pages out of order or something. He’ll just be patient. He looks at the watch still not on his wrist. Sunrise in 7 minutes. He’d have to excuse himself and go to his other job soon, the chef-waiter thing. Looks like she won’t be finished by then, he gauges. Would she allow this? The owl and its three eyes kept staring, blinking.

“Ah HA!” she then emitted, spreading out and then matching the edges of 2 pages she’d reached in the file. The owl then turned to her as she turned toward it. “You seeing the same thing I’m seeing?” Both looked down in synchronization. Both were staring at a picture of St. Lemon, before the beheading and the replacement with a giant lemon. Dennis again.

Another 2n1, both knew. They understood where to place the time machine.

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February 6, 2024 · 6:02 pm

00410704

He gives her time to look around the office, check out the maps, the painting, the works on the bookshelf, even the files in the filing cabinets if she wishes. What does he care? Sleep deprivation again we’ll assume; might as well burn the place down, he thinks while yawning for the 1000th time tonight. He finally gathers the energy to enlarge himself again — *just* enough to do the job (no overshot or undershot this time!). He waits for her to walk out, snooping apparently done.

“Find what you need, my fine lady?” he calls over, shocking her of course. It’s here he notices the face scars as she stares over with wide eyes. Too bad: otherwise quite pretty.

“Are you him?” she decided to stand her ground, defend her actions. “Are you Petty?”

“Some call me that. Some only know me as Chef. Or Inspector, depending on the time of day. Or depending on whether it is day or night I should say. You’re here at night. I assume you’re looking for Petty the Inspector, then.”

She approached him, scars looming larger. What *happened* to her?

“I also go by different names,” she said in turn. “Some call me Beautiful, some Plain. Some call me June, some Jane. Right now I’m June — night-time for me as well, I suppose. But the scars are there to remind me of Jane.”

“Yess,” he said. “Wondering about that. How did–”

“I just told you,” she cut him short. “I’m a 2n1, just like you. We have that in common but we have so much more. St. Lemon of Troy — the painting within. Do you know about Dennis?”

“Dennis,” he said thoughtfully. “Let me think…” Let me think of a *lie*, he says to himself. He *knew* he shouldn’t have hung that painting on top of everything else. His brain’s starting to operate better, perhaps because of its change back the correct size.

“St. Dennis, yes. The one that lost his head in the transition. The next time, the next go, he wore a helmet, golden in color. But it still didn’t protect him from the eventual consequence. So he had to be *deflected*.”

She know about that as well, he thinks. “Well,” he says to this. “Saints Hotel is a pretty nice place to stay, nice compensation. And anyway, I’ve heard that he and his *gang* have finally made their way down to the big city, the 8th wonder of the world some call it.”

“Where’s the auto in all this?”

“Auto?” He still couldn’t help play dumb within the flow of truthful revelations. Force of habit.

“You know which auto. You have pins of Yvonne, Dorenna and, yes, Anton inside on the Nautilus City map. Anton from Anson. I understand you were there when it first appeared, or when — I suppose — it first decided to reveal itself.”

“The Bug, yes.” Enough talk for now, he decided. He remembers that he’d locked the filing cabinets before enlarging himself tonight. At least he had the sense to do that. But perhaps it was time to look inside.

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February 6, 2024 · 6:33 am

00410703

He enlarges himself beside his office so he can better peer over the tops of internal buildings and view the object while still remaining clandestine in the dark. Probably; maybe the sleep deprivation is really catching up with him now and he’s beginning to lose his mind. Enlarging himself? He hasn’t resorted to those tactics since the early days of Collagesity (!). But they’re readying another ship to travel into space and he has to know the ins and outs, and since he has another job in the day when people are actually awake to answer questions about it…. well, circumstances seem to dictate this.

Footsteps behind him. He quickly micronizes back down to ordinary size or attempts to. Overshot! — you see, this is one of the dangers of enlarging in the first place. But maybe all for the best, since he didn’t think he was spotted that way. *No one* comes to his office. He’s embarrassed about the smallness of *it*, which he’s hidden in the bowels of the otherwise empty, cold and foreboding so-called “Cement Village” for this very reason and then put out rumors in the community at large that the place was haunted. Plus the population wasn’t ready for the truths within yet. St. Lemon of Troy.

Indeed she hadn’t spotted him because of the size. She walks within, intending to snoop around while no one was apparently home. Yes, she thinks. She’s in the right spot. Yvonne, Dorenna and Anton marked on a Nautilus City map.

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February 3, 2024 · 4:36 pm

straightening out the past

They’d found it at the bottom of the sea just north of the boat house where she was staying. An Anton avatar was there in the Anson sim — so close of a name it couldn’t be an accident. Spiderwebs covered this orange version of a VW Beetle but she knew it was the same. Had to be. Someone was playing Grand Theft Auto in Our Second Lyfe and it all led up to this place. Shoes inside, she recalled. Of a ruby variety. Stolen as well.

Roger Pine Ridge kept looking at the flickering white glow beneath the water that he knew was Anton. Shoes stolen; mission accomplished. Like finding the ruby slippers of Oz, he thought. Anorexia’s gonna be pissed off as hell.

He looked over at the green robed woman beside him, face harshly illuminated by the glare of the flashlight she held. Scars. “I’m just waiting for the significant other to finish up inside,” he explained from his *self named* chair.. “How about you?”

—–

Cyberpaperdoll walks out of Fae’s Boat House with 50,000 lindens in hand.

“Come on, Biker,” she said just above a whisper toward the closest Pine Ridge chair. “Time to go.”

“Don’t forgot to sign the guestbook out there!” Jim the Pirate Bartender called from within, a request they most definitely ignored while leaving.

I should have kept the name Kelp, she pondered while still staring at the pirate ship in the bay from the balcony of the big white empty house. The owner, Shippe, *must* be the same as Jim the Bastard Pirate from back in those days. Too coincidental (once more). And as Anton is likewise close to Anson, so her own chosen nickname at the time, Kelp, is to Kulp, as in Nancy Kulp as in plain Miss Jane from the “Beverly Hillbillies” TV series, replaced by similarly plain Miss Janet in Grand Theft Auto, Ski Inn bar parallel. The one who woke up Philip Strevor to who he really is.

Apparently the opposite happened to his partner-in-crime Marion Harding back in the past which may be the same as the present. From the same deck she sat on and read her book of spooky stories in the dark one year later, he dove into the sea that represents the unconscious, intent on finding the vanished auto that was his little Bug. Where did it go? Back to the beginning of this here photo-novel? Think, June Bug, think!

Then she realized: Chef-Inspector Petty would know about Anson. He was there with Baker Bloch when the original auto was found. He’d probably have records of it in his files.

Now to figure out where he ran his private dick nighttime business in Aisle of Palms. In Perch Restaurant as well? Another 2n1? So many questions, but we’re still indeed nearing the very end of the thing.

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February 3, 2024 · 9:05 am

June Bug Johnston

She walked up to the large house owned by the man who also owned the ship out in the harbor, a person named Shippe himself. Queer. Peculiar. She wondered if possibly a cork trumpet or trombone could be found inside but knew, if so, she couldn’t rezz it herself. Highly unlikely, then.

She’d been here before, basically this very spot as far as she could tell. Fae’s Boat House. She was investigating the theft of an auto, an orange VW Beetle to be specific. She’s realizing now this must be the same as Marsha’s Bug that just disappeared from Bombay Beach, California at the end of the last section of this here photo-novel. 41. 42 fast approaching. Everything is at stake.

The big house, so white inside and out, appeared vacated, no Mr. Shippe, no furniture, nothing. She stared out at the ship in the sea which drew her back to this place, the whole thing run by a skeleton crew. A bunch of Certain Deaths.


And also another Black Pearl according to the ship’s description. What’s going on here really?

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February 1, 2024 · 7:29 am

00410616

While Billie gassed herself up at the filling station next door, Philip had a bit of a lie down in his trailer. Gas station? he started pondering while laying there. When did Bombay Beach get a gas station? Then he laughed, a way to shake the dream off. Why did I call this place *that*? he he. I mean of course Sandy Beach. Then he realized this was wrong too: Sandy *Shores*.

He suddenly thought of Ron next door; wondered what he was cooking up. Why *meth* he realized. *His* meth. As soon as he starting dwelling on drugs he was gone from her, the Bug next door fading along with memories of Billie and even Marion, although the latter lingered on a little longer. Kept calling Ron Marion when he phoned him up, checking progress on the next batch; wondered if he’d been imbibing too much of it himself because of his peculiar thoughts this afternoon.

We have, in effect, returned him to his natural environment, his original home. Philip was no more as Trevor took over. He was soon to have a new gang of 3.

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February 1, 2024 · 6:53 am

00410615

“Anything, Philip?” asked Billie who was a Bug again. It was the next morning and the men, the boys, had gotten a fairly good rest during the night. And like I said, Billie didn’t need any. She counted 256 pieces of modern art that strolled or slid or lurched (etc.) down the road in front of them during the night. Fantastic — all seemingly benign. Maybe there’s hope for the town after all.

He stared at the house and the queer windmill blades affixed to the roof. “Nah, nothing.” But he was working on his coffee and had yet to wake up. Moving on…

—–

“Then how about his one? According to the Rock Star wiki, you picked up a woman injured in a wreck along the highway and delivered her to this safehouse, either dead or alive, depending how fast you got here.”

“Maybe… rings a bell?” Coffee sipped and done with, he was getting fuzzy memories now, unlike with the windmill house. Things were starting to get jogged up there. A woman, huh? he thinks, trying to picture her face, her… wounds. Belly, he sensed. Accident on the road, yes. Fellow… criminal? But then the vision faded. Moving on to the next structure…

—–

This did the trick, if not initially. Philip felt compelled to stop and get out of the car and explore this time. Marion was fine with it, since they still had to eat anyway. Billie turned from a car to a person again — transformation unseen to anyone else as far as they could tell — and all 3 walked up to the establishment’s door, Philip all the time staring around, starting to clearly see the overlap. Bombay Beach to Sandy Shores. But in his mind there were *2* bars with the same design. How’d that work?

And it is here that we *really* end our current story/photo-novel.

“Let’s let Philip go first,” suggested Billie. And she and Marion stood back and watched him enter.

“I’m remembering!” But they’d have to find another place to dine.

(to be continued)

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January 31, 2024 · 6:53 am

00410614

“Check it out guys. A TILE house, ha. And, let’s see, our place should be directly behind it on the next street over if I remember correctly.”

“Yes, here we are. Home sweet home, at least for this week, maybe longer if the sandstorms don’t move in afterwards as predicted. Can’t survive here in sandstorms, at least while you’re out exploring. And it stirs up a lot of toxins in the air and water too. A week it is,” Billie Jean Kidd decided then and there on the length of their stay in this here Bombay Beach, with virtual Sandy Shores layered on top of it.

She parks the car, which means she parks herself. She gets out of the car but it disappears behind her. A kid once more, her primary shape or one she herself likes to call home. Home for home.

“TILE again, you’ll notice,” she points out to her boys, speaking about the 4 colors, red yellow green blue, on the wall inside. “Nifty — another reason I knew this was the place.”

Philip Stevor and Marion Star Harding had said very little during the short trip from the SW corner of small Bombay Beach to here, more in the center. The heart, if you will. They were still dumbfounded at the turn of events. But Marion offered this while peering inside at the cold hard floor of the ruined shack. “Shotgun.”

“Nonsense, Marion Star Harding,” she said to this. “You’ll stay here in the house with me as I truly am. You too, Philip Strevor, whatever your middle name is. I refuse to turn back into the car just so you can have some cushion to your sleep. You’ll be here… with me.”

What could they do. They laid down on each side of her, determined to get some rest for what she called an even bigger day tomorrow.

“I’ll keep watch,” she volunteered, knowing there were other toxic dangers out there besides air, water, soil. Like Billie, modern art never sleeps.

She watched a tesseract, 2 surfboards in tuxedos, and a shark with a television for a stomach pass by without incident. And in the second minute she saw even more.

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January 30, 2024 · 4:05 pm

00410613

Baker Bloch and bee-person/blog guru Hucka Doobie share a pizza while Philip continued to play his game over there, watching from afar as the virtual trailer park slowly repopulates itself with killable, expendable NPCs.

“You sure bringing Strevor back is a good idea, Baker? He’s kind of a psycho after all, especially if he’s off his pills. Does he have his pills on him, Baker? I hope you made sure of that. Else… we could be in a lot of trouble shortly… after he’s finished with his game and becomes bored again. Boredom leads to violence in this case. Believe me, I’ve seen it up close and personal when I was going out with Marion that brief bit in Gaston.”

“Sure it is,” Baker defended the idea. “He’ll, in fact, lead us right to your true love Marion Star Harding. They’re natural partners in crime — different types of partners.”

“I wondered about that for a while,” she said, scooping the artichokes off her slice. Baker knows I don’t like artichokes! she fumes internally. Yet, in his selfish manner, he ordered them anyway, not thinking about his dinner companion. So similar to Marion in that way, she thinks. But she loves him anyhow — both of ’em, she reckons. In different ways of course. Now.

—–

Okay, I’m beside the sign Philip said he would meet me at, Marion Star Harding thinks; now I just wait. He sniffs again, his face screws up like a walnut again. Philip better hurry, though, or I’m going to catch some kind of respiratory disease just standing here so close to that cursed sea, he thinks, not being able to get the rotted egg and salt stench out of his nostrils despite breathing through his mouth once more. What horrible germs and viruses are going down in his lungs?

Meanwhile on the opposite side of town, still portal hopping Marsha “Pink” Krakow seemingly arrives on the scene in her orange VW Beetle. After a long 2 1/2 month journey we’ve finally come full circle, you and I my loyal reader. We’re ready to end it here. But first we need to get Philip and Marion beside the same sign in the same town. A phone call from the latter should do the trick.

—–

“I’m here,” Philip said to his natural partner but not his lover. “Sorry about the mistake.”

“It’s that game again,” guesses Marion correctly. Distraction, he knew.

“Yup. Sorry again. Wrong reality.”

Having circled around the village in search of the correct Aisle of Palms indicator, the orange VW pulls up in perfect synchronicity. “Get in,” she said, and, without words, they did. They’d been expecting her. Their beloved Billie Jean Kidd in yet another guise, the third and final gang member and a shapeshifter of some power. She can take the appearance of a kid, an old woman, a young lady, a dog (poodle), and last but not least, a Bug. In short, Marsha “Pink” Krakow was never in the car to begin with here.

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January 29, 2024 · 10:43 pm

Gunn City

Of course I had to steal Bombay Beach’s Aisle of Palms street sign and make it my own welcoming sign to the city. I’m talking about Aisle of Palms again of course, My Second Lyfe style. And then it was logical to position Trevor Philips’ look-alike Philip Strevor in the Perch Restaurant table above it. Let’s check in on what he’s up to.

Well, currently he’s starting to play that game he loves called Gunn Mobile Trailer Park, with a style so similar to what his doppelganger up in Bombay Beach’s own double of Sandy Shores experiences each and every virtual day. I wonder if he understands the bond?

Soon he comes to a critical point, building upon hours and hours of non-stop action and violence. 223 trailer park residents and visitors killed in a murder spree no one will soon forget in the overarching Mobile, Alabama metro area and indeed the whole state, at least according to future newspapers he has access to at this level like “The Bermingham Journal” and “The Phoenix City Citizen-Gazette.”

He’s killed everyone off, with no further need of his avatar’s trusted .45 caliber combat pistol. Can he deposit it into that glitch he’s learned about through a Youtube tutorial and progress beyond the park, venturing into the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta region and its vast swamplands? He knows he’ll encounter Indians there: the famed Bottle Creek tribe most noted for their large platform mounds NE of Mobile and with many rewards to reap along the way according to that video. But he cannot find them if he still possesses the gun. The makers of the game wanted the player to learn a moral lesson beyond just learning how to aim and kill in the most effective manner.

Just as an experiment, he places the gun in the glitch but knows, all along, he can’t go through with it. Instead, weapon safely back in hand, he’ll have his avatar lie low for a couple of days while the trailer park repopulates itself with outside NPCs. Soon he’ll have enough to start the murder spree all over again. And, in his head, it will continue like this, week after week, month after month. He reckons it will never get old — at least until they release version 06 of the game with its updated graphics and even more intense killing scenes. He can’t wait. Projected date of release: Fall 2025. But will his beloved character Cloe Prince return? he wonders. And if not, will he form such an intense bond with a new lead “protagonist”? Will Cloe become — gasp — obsolete in the eyes of others? Will he stick with her even so? He knows he can’t, though, because the character doesn’t make the man. Instead: the instrument of death he or she wields. And it could be a he the next time around. He’ll get use to it. You see the irony here?

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