PHOTO-NOVEL 33
dangerous
“It’s a beautiful land, this Dairocha. But ultimately it does us no good if the library still isn’t there. Central! Right Wheeler?”
Wheeler, having determined this some hours back, had already left the scene. She was ready to complete this here photo-novel section about the Nautilus North elsewhere. She was Alysha now, aka Helen aka a lot of other names. But especially Helen, she felt. The antique village of Lips or One Pink called.
Under the big cross at the top of it all, he too changed. Sheriff R.V. Trailer it is to end. Wait!…
Just below. Sweeping. Lots of it; multiple brooms obviously involved. It reminded him of another place he needed to go first.
Multiple sweepers don’t remain any longer at this southeast corner bar of Odie just off Route 12, to his disappointment. Then he met grown-up Tessa and things changed even once again. He was immediately attracted to her waist high tattoo of 2 six shooters. How clever, he thought. Pointer. She leaned over and said her new name in a low voice, obscuring the ink.
He automatically leaned in too (*kiss*), One Pink or Lips transformed.
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He was back again. He looked down at his hands: fully white now. Return to his old self.
“How about you?” she said.
“W-what?” He looked around, remembered the sweepers. Witches. Witches did this to him. Now he’s returned. Fisher Rig, the dimwitted bottom half to his top, was gone. He was out of his cell, 7 day sentence over; free at last. That Poop file was deleted, if not the other. He still had work to do.
“You’re name, silly,” she said, grinning and shifting her feet around, suddenly shy, as if embarrassed about what she’d revealed. An act, I say.
“Oh. Edward. Edward Daigle.”
And he was. He looked up and recognized his cousin, the third person that was playing the fated Alphabet Soup game with him back in the 5th grade.
“Tessie?”
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She said she lived in a motel just up Highway 12. That was a lie. She said she was behind on her payments. Another lie. She said she had a great view of Big Cedar from her room’s window. Guess what: another lie, a fib in that case but still a lie. Pattern of a deceiver.
All she was after, all along, was the big monster book about Arkansaw, stolen from the Dairocha library in what’s-its-number novel (one of the more recent ones). The one Wheeler/Alysha was still after but couldn’t find, even when she tried the invisible realm. Still not on the invisible shelf before her, no matter what kind of light partner in crime Baker Bloch used to illuminate the situation. If the library had been removed, they determined, then there was no real center to the hollowed out volcano village that is Dairocha and thus no use in hanging around there and creating more little stories and whatnot. They and their now *huge* collection of attached avatars and characters had to move on, although a return is obviously possible. Nautilus keeps surprising and surprising. Must be the outside energy of our grand US of A penetrating the whole hypercube structure. This will continue for some time. I have time. I must have patience. Relatively unyielding and begrudging characters like grown-up Tessa irk me. What happened to her that made her leave her family nest and move to high and dry Nautilus, full of basically abandoned beige ridges and better populated but heavily banned green ocean front properties? The search for Lemon World? Traces? That must be it. Holed up in a mysterious hotel in the shadow of a beige mountain obviously linked to the real world (Lemon World?). Hiding secrets in order to protect her identity and purpose. It didn’t add up to her recently-united-with cousin D’Eddy, who she knows as Edward and not Eddy. Eddy was the other cousin who was playing that fated game of Alphabet Soup to her, the one introduced at the beginning of section 1 of this here photo-novel, 33 in a series of (fill in the blank). Edward — *her* Edward (our Eddy) — similarly shows up at the beginning of section 2. And now: Tessa — Tessie. The third cousin. The most mysterious of them all. What was she hiding? The 33 year old woman didn’t live at the motel, she just stayed there.
For starters, she applies mascara one eye at a time just like the rest of them.
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She finishes prepping her wig as Jeb drives up in his beat up old red truck. She knows him by another name but we know him as Black Bart. Dairocha has followed us, the reader and writer, here to this motel out in the sticks of Nautilus, one blending into another. This is (part of) the secret. That the inside has become the outside, flipped out and away from itself. Much like her bangs.
“Darling, you in there?” Grown-up Tessa decides that the reader and writer shouldn’t see her present lover, perhaps future husband. If things work out for her. A whole castle? She can get away from it all. (knock knock knock) “Darling?”
knocking on 102
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“Dub’s Jungle, eh?” said D’Eddy. But he was looking a different way now and not where neighboring Freddie was pointing, D switched with B. He becomes lost in his thoughts…
“Well guys, I’ve got to go visit my sweetie up in Dairocha. See you soon. *Losers*.”
He hopped back in his Bandit 25R sailboat and was gone.
Simple fishermen Luther and Al, formerly sharing the pier with him, didn’t say goodbye to Blackbart. They just sipped whatever was in their bottle and can respectively, thinking about the Starfish Lake or Sea arm they live on and the differences between above and below. Elbow to hand: White Elvis was all the rage and bottles were still in hand, like with Luther. Bottleball remained more popular than basketball, with its professional leagues not yet desegregated. Elbow to shoulder: Black with White. Shoulder to shoulder, like cans in a 6-pack, ready to be purchased for drink, 6th man included. Let’s see, I think Al has a Sprite, both lemon and lime; green and yellow. And that’s where we need to head next. But first…
“There’s no women left at Dairocha,” opines Luther, then knocks back a long one. “Not free ones anyway, you know what I mean, you know what I’m saying, heh heh?” He elbows Al in the ribs, who takes it good-naturedly and even elbows him back a bit. Must be a different location, Al thinks more logically than his backward fishing partner. Blackbart is hiding something.
Tessa, his Tessie, shows up, breaking his reverie. “Sorry I’m late. Setting up a castle in Lebettu. I guess you’ve heard.”
Eddy takes a breath, resetting himself. “I’ve heard there’s some unsettling stuff about the landscape around it. Sorry about that.”
“It’s okay.” She also takes a breath, recalibrates. They become related again, cousin to cousin. Our Eddy; *her* Edward. She takes a seat.
“Just having a daydream about your boyfriend,” he says, looking over at the tree again in the distance. Bud’s. “Talking to some simple fishermen on a pier, one more backwards than the other. In one arm, a fishing pole. Common denominator. But in the other: difference. One was drinking out of a bottle and the other a can. Strange fantasy, eh?”
“It’s the history of the place,” she says. She also thinks of the arm they’re situated more toward the “shoulder” of, Greek village here included with jungle, tame to wild. More oppositions, horizontal instead of vertical in that case.
After ordering a Sprite and a Coke, they talk of Starfish Lake (or Sea) for a while, then: “Oh… I almost forgot to tell you about Manassa.”
“Bull Runs?” Eddy guesses wrongly here. Tessa rolls her eyes to the sky, trying to fit that angle as well in her imagination. Both have wide ones. Yd. Yellow down. She decides it didn’t fit. Not quite yet anyhow.
“No,” she says. “Manassa *singular*. Without the ‘s’ like in the battle place in Virginia I believe.” She knew it was Virginia but didn’t want to seem too show-offy. She also knew details about the differences between Bull Run battles no. 1 and 2 but didn’t say anything about that for the same reason. No need to make Eddy, her Edward, seem lacking in comparison. They must remain even. They must remain as if cans in a 6 pack, 6th man included. Basketball not bottleball, although both involve a lot of cutting.
“Blackbart,” Freddie muttered in front of them, still pointing away from the jungle, though. “Blackbart,” he repeated, voice as even as before; no wavering in conviction. Eddy, her Edward, heard a speedboat in the distance. Blackbart, the *actual* one, had returned from wherever he came.
“Hello boys,” he spoke to Al and Luther from behind this time. “Miss me?” Their backs remain turned to him, as if they weren’t even alive, or were figments of his imagination, another Yd one. Yellow down.
He peels a lemon and is gone, WOOOSH!
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She came across him studying the one fully in Corrigan and not split between that sim and Pixy (Pixy!). Eddy and his blue ball, she thought. He’s finally found it.
“So Eddy knows you’re here,” he asked after she spoke a while. His Eddy, her Edward.
“Yeah. Met him recently. We’ve been…”
“… traveling. Me too. Stayed in a place over on the Jeogeot continent called Towerboro — believe it was part of now extinct Middletown at one time.”
“Cool.” Of course everyone had heard of Middletown. It was taught in all the schools, young middle old alike. Middletown was legendary, like Atlantis.
“Interesting people,” he continued. “A woman who plays nifty tricks with cards for one,” he says, the memory of that night and her talent with fingers producing a smile on his (one pink) lips. “And then another person, a guy, who was psychic, who was always pointing at something and predicting things that were going to happen. The two knew each other.” He turned to face his 3rd cousin, 1 in a set of 3 and not a 1st cousin twice more removed; I can say this fairly confidently because they were about the same age. “And he went by different names, first Kactus, then Donald, then the last… the last…” He searches his memory for the name that Tessie then provides for him.
“Freddie,” she said. Remarkably, she had had her own encounter with him during a recent trip to Dub’s Jungle (or thereabouts), and from what Edward, her Eddy, described it must have been the same person. Pointing, predicting, like an Oracle. “‘Blackbart’, he said, indicating an empty space in the sea that soon was filled with a flying boat, a sporty one as far away from a sailboat as you could possibly get.”
“‘Blackjack’ for me.” Her Edward became the same as our Edward, identical cousins all around.
“Ever heard of the expression, ‘peeling a lemon’?” she then asked everyone involved.
in a name
Arthur Kill teleported over to Monty and the former location of his new-ish girlfriend Tessa’s motel, now abandoned or “razed” as she lastly put it. Thus the need for her castle, she said, more lies but twisted ones with knots of truth along the way. No indication of the previous owner’s name he was looking for in the land description, pheh. He decides he needs to kill someone later today to let off steam from this failure, perhaps that butcher over in nearby Bouncer who chose to bed down with a prostitute for a wife. Fits his (new-ish) code, Blue Rose style.
But then, below him in a corner of the parcel: a *blue ball*. Success? Will the former owner’s true name be revealed through this trace left behind.
When he flies down to its seeming location in the corner of the abandoned land he was investigating: nothing, though. Then he sees it again, one parcel over and considerably tinier. Impossibility!
That’s when he realized it was attached to *him*. “Radar,” he cussed, which is the same thing both backwards and forwards. Doesn’t matter where he goes, there he is. DELETE Not any more. But who had been tracking him in the meantime? Tessa? Butcher? Prostitute/wife even? Better get back to hq (castle) and make his report. Funny that the object was also owned by someone named simply “castle” according to the description. Probably a connection, then, he thought. But he didn’t want to follow that lead too far, didn’t want to color his report until he could catchup with the proceedings. He also decides to temporarily delete the blue rose in his lapel just in case. He can always retrieve it from his inventory later. Nope, he then thinks. Better delete it from there as well. I’ll ask [delete name] for another one. Good ol’ [delete name], he thinks, originator of the [delete name] team that investigates [delete actions]. He’s been meaning to [delete action] him as well. This will give him the chance — two birds with one stone, ha — after he gets the object he wants. Not *needs*: *wants*.”
(to be continued)
telescope
“I need you to go somewhere I can’t go. Not quite yet. Another 2 or 3 months is all now.”
“Where?”
“Oh. Dear.”
“You’ll need to change into Miss Ouri (again). Disguise. (pause) I need you to tell someone they’re dead.”
“To you,” she attempted to clarify.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Okay.” She planned out the strategy. She knew who would approach her. She found herself becoming nervous. Okay okay, she calmed herself. You’re the head librarian of a mid sized University — (a library) trapped in a castle; that’s the twist. You were instrumental in bringing a special collections room there, red-orange mahogany in outer appearance. Inside: the Arkansaw monster book. Along with a lot of other books and manuscripts obviously. But the Arkansaw one is particularly attached to *you*, being Miss Ouri and all. One or the other had to go in your estimation. Wheeler, presently in the form of his 3rd cousin Tessa — or Tessie to him — said all this aloud.
“Good good,” he expressed after hearing. “I’m going to stay here and wait out the rest of my sentence. Chop wood at the cottage I’ve picked out, etc.”
Turns out chopping wood meant just that and not a euphemism. Good for Eddy (our Edward)!
“And stay away from that pot shop!” she said while walking away. But he didn’t.
—–
“Thanks for meeting with me, Jem.”
“It’s been a long time.”
“For the weed, you mean.” Because they’d been seeing each other lately, rendezvousing in clandestine places all over the grid. Like this.
“Yeah.” They’d only taken one hit apiece but they were out of it. Far corners of space kind of out. Jem could see Muff-Birmingham looming in front of her, the sphere that is also a cube. Light side and dark side; jungle and desert or at least plains. Plain to see, she couldn’t help add. “Where are you now?” she said, focusing on him instead of the inside. Trying, anyway. Best to communicate to the other when getting too deep. And where is there some wine around this place, the red to counterbalance the blue?
“Home,” he replied as simply as possible in order to communicate at all. 3D. 26 1/2 years it had been. He cried more when he gave it up than when he sold his childhood home, one replacing the other in a way, in a manner.
He looked over at Jem, held her hand, held it tighter. Because he realized she’d probably be dead before he went back. He’d make the most of these 2-3 months.
(to be continued)
a series of Daffy Duck films
He’d finished reading the paper (finally!). The phone rang. It was so old fashioned he didn’t know how to answer it. “Jem!?” he called. “A little help here, Jem!”
Afterwards, Jem returned to the computer. No progress on the Miss Ouri front yet, with Tessa failing to turn into the appropriate form outside the library according to her call. She forgot to bring the needed cactus doll! What an oversight, pheh. Back to square one almost. They’d have to erase her presence there from everyone’s mind and basically start over. Would take a couple of days, days she didn’t have much of, she knew, sand running out fast in her beautifully figured hourglass of life. If only… NO. She can’t go there. The cartoons were *lurid*… *nasty*. John L. Brown couldn’t save her and she knew it, despite the promises, despite the plotline of the comics.
And yet… she had Dafney, who may have been named after a duck. Ducks were her salvation according to John’s stoopid, lurid *junk*. Yellow, just like her friend. She decided she needs to phone her up, see what she’s up to after the wedding to George. George, ha. So funny. Always misplacing his clothes. Dafney never seemed to catch on that he was doing it on purpose, just biding his time until the end of the war when his uninjured comrades would come home to roost. They took out a knee but at least they were able to grow his finger back. Good ol’ Dr. Diper. Diapers, she then thought, free associating. *That’s* what the guardian needed.
The phone rang in her pocketbook. She pulled out the banana, put it to her mouth. “Hello? (pause) Hello??” She remembered to put the other end to her ear and then heard this:
(to be continued)
with Rotate and Bob
“I don’t think Jem is going to return again tonight, Bob,” red headed Rotate spoke over from her orange mushroom, not wishing to currently fly because of sadness. But Bob was more uplifting.
“He has his wood (bob up). He can chop (bob down up). He’ll be fine (bob down up down).”
“Master Daigle doesn’t think John is going to do a *bit* of good in this matter,” Rotate insisted. “I heard him talking to himself last night through the leaves and the limbs.”
“You should leave the trees to themselves (up down up down). Soon you’ll have deadwood on your hands. Like Ebony (up).”
They weren’t suppose to talk about Ebony and both knew it so the matter dropped. But what about Dove? Rotate thought. But what about Ivory? Bob thought.
The blue haired and blue clothed latter hadn’t gotten the news received by the red former. The white pixy had changed her name, thanks to Greenleaf, the opposite of Deadwood. And then the alphabet spread out before them on the forest floor under a big maple like soup, ready to be spooned.
“Mmmmmm dead,” one of them sung softly when tasting.
—–
“Why do you always say that when we’re about to play?” the other asked, rolling the dice. 12; 2 six shooters. As high as you can get without careening a car over a bank into Thirteenville, as the locals say. Already on L, she thinks. This could be another quickie.
when 6 becomes 9
Edward Daigle discovers riches underneath the larger of the 2 castles on the property. So quickly becoming a Midas figure and never having any money beforehand, he decides not to tell Jem about the find, keeping it all for himself. Maybe they’ll get married now, maybe they won’t. And anyway, she probably has only 30 good days left in her, maybe less. It was actually ten, about the same amount of days it will take for me to complete this here photo-novel, 33 in a series of, so far, 33. Totally serial about that. Jem will be dead, he thinks, and I’ll have all these gold nuggets and gems and such as consolation. If I can keep this a secret.
He suddenly has a desire to go sledding in all of it.
—–
“What did you do while I was away, Edward?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Oh you had to do *something.* Did you chop wood? I suspect you chopped wood.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Chopping wood.” He even recalled a pile chopped earlier he could point to for an alibi.
“Well *I* found John.” Oh yeah… in the excitement Edward forgot why Jem had actually left for a couple of days. John. Wait… “John?!”
“Yes: John. The John. With an L in his name.”
“Is (long pause) he dead?” But then Edward remembered that Tessa had the actual 6 shooters attached to her waist and became less worried about that.
“No.”
“Welll?”
—–
Another roll. 2 sixes again. It was becoming clear why they call her the shooter. She moves her red piece to X and pops a stick of Wriggleton spearmint gum into her mouth, irritating Edward further with the subsequent, slightly open mouth mastication. He rolls. 4. Then a 2 then a 3 then a 2. He’s on N still. She’s on W — or maybe it was V — anyway, not only ahead of him in the alphabit (as they called it in those days) but one ahead of him in rounds. When it comes to 3 or a little after he gets so upset he rakes the pieces off the board with his hands and pulls his own 6 shooters out, aiming them all around, toward apparently just observing Edward (the other Edward who, to us, remains Edward after the game and into the present), toward Tessie (our Tessa all grown up). He’d been saving them up his sleeves for a cheat. Dang, Other Edward, he thinks, knowing the 3rd pair of watching eyes joining him and Tessa near the beginning wouldn’t allow him the chance. The Edward who afterwards, to us, becomes Eddy throws one 6 shooter die at one and the other at the other. “Die” he says to each in turn, earnestly but of course without results. Is this some kind of curse? non-participating Edward thinks, rubbing his forehead and feeling a little bump forming there. This is some kind of curse, game dominating Tessie knows, feeling her own bump rise. She’d seen it before. In a bar in Midas, Nevada during the gold rush of the late 1800s. A man became so crazy he went sledding in it. In the middle of July. In circles. She’ll never forget that image, even though it’s from a different life. Rosebud.
Head still smarting, she looked down at the 6 sided die that had fallen in her lap, with 6’s on all sides, 3 visible to her in the instant. This is where it ends, she knows. She decides that her long pondered over and even inevitable tattoo will point there. She will hold ultimate power from now on, 13 always devolving to 12 when push comes to shove. And it will.
(to be continued)
head and heart
IMPORTANCE OF CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS
I asked the patient’s mom about the skincare regimen they were using, including their choice of soap. The parent said they were using Ivory soap. She said the previous doctor said to use either Dove or Ivory.
Now that would be an odd thing to suggest. Typically, one might recommend a less drying cleansing product to an atopic, but Ivory wouldn’t normally be at the top of that list. Almost undoubtedly, the doctor said to use “Dove, not Ivory.” But it is quite understandable how a patient could misinterpret what was said.
Port Ivory is a coastal area in the northwestern corner of Staten Island, New York City, New York, United States. It is located on Newark Bay near the entrances the Kill van Kull in the east and Arthur Kill in the west….
The area bore the name of Milliken originally, and became locally known as Port Ivory after Ivory Soap, one of the best-known products from Procter & Gamble, which operated a factory at the site from 1907 until 1991 when the soap making operation was moved to Mexico.[1][2]
“I knew you’d be back. *Boyfriend*.” Mexican standoff.
“You know what I’m here for.” SHOOT SHOOT POP POP.
Red at the waist.
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“Nice hair. Is that your natural color?”
“You can get your food to go, you know,” she shot back. She’d had enough of this stranger in town, who showed up at 7. 7:15 now. 10 minutes to order, 10 minutes to look over the menu that had only 3 items. Bar owner made it sweet and simple to save time.
“Martian,” Wheeler continued the absurdity. “Greentown — should’ve known.”
Jamie hadn’t read any Bradbury so she didn’t get the reference, and probably wouldn’t want to if she did. The dinger dinged on the stove. Wheeler’s fries, extra cheese were ready, burger extra blood still cooking. She wanted to make sure it had as little blood as possible now.
“In town for a funeral, thanks for asking,” Wheeler then said, rummaging around in her purse. “Man named Arthur, Arthur Kill. Strange thing I know. Because he was actually killed — murdered. Mexican standoff.” She pulled out a pistol. “Killed by something much like this.” She plopped it on the counter with a loud clunk beside the just delivered fries, barrel facing forward. Jamie turned back around, saw the gun, stared at Wheeler.
“You can’t bring that thing in here,” she started to say but then changed her mind. She could take the gun from Wheeler, she calculated — confiscate it in effect, since a town ordinance forbids firearms inside the city limits. Would be close, though. Then, hehe, she could *back* Wheeler out of the bar with it and tell her to not come around here any more and to get her ass out of town, funeral or no. But as she was thinking this Wheeler picked the weapon back up. She’d missed her chance.
She looked it over a bit. “Yesss. I think it is exactly this type of gun that did our poor Arthur in.” She pointed the gun in the direction of the far wall to her left. “Ping ping… *ping*,” she produced with corresponding, fake recoils, then blew pretend smoke from the end before reinserting it back into her purse.
“Out!” Jamie wanted to issue. “Done!” she shouted instead, turning around as Wheeler stared into her more-dairy-than-vegetable fries, devising a plot on the spot. The burger was off the grill and into a day old bun faster than a Wyatt Earp burp (local expression?), then plate on the counter as loud as the pistol was earlier, clunk for clunk. Wheeler took the plate and deftly dumped the contents into her purse as well, making a bloody mess (but not as bloody as Wheeler wished). “Thanks!” she said pretend sweetly and made her way out of the bar to Jamie’s exasperation, leaving the dirty, empty plate spinning at a booth near the door. It spun and spun and finally settled down on the formica table top after Wheeler walked up the street, down another, and into the town cemetery to meet a waiting (or awaiting) Baker Bloch.
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It wasn’t much of a cemetery, but then Arthur Kill wasn’t much of a man. “Where’s Tessie?” Wheeler exclaimed, hardly making an effort to honor the deceased via her casual pose. “She should be here.”
“Tessa’s at the town psychic,” Baker Bloch said, assuming a more deferent stance over the grave. He truly liked the actor playing the character and hated him to be killed off, as it were. Though perhaps Lemont Sanford can come back later as someone named Kill van Kull, he pondered, a brother or maybe another one of those twins, cousin or not. Anyway, it wasn’t fair. It was suppose to be a Mexican standoff in Ontario or at least Lake Ontario, above New Jersey above New York and not visa versa. One shot from the shooters went north to the head, the other south to the heart. Yet Tessa survived. That damn third eye just took in Arthur’s bullet and… absorbed it! Then the pyramid appeared. Then another pyramid appeared here. Tessa had to go. Soon Wheeler Wilson and Baker Bloch would learn what actually happened, eye for eye.
Time to bury the dead. Tessa missed her chance.
Wheeler decided to throw in her purse as well on top of the lowering coffin. Fire should be getting pretty hot already.
“Any money in there?” queried Baker, waiting for the inevitable.
“$1500,” she replied. “I figured he might need it for some air conditioning, ha. Final gesture. Fat chance though, right? Am I righht?”
Baker couldn’t help but emit a small smile.
“Just kidding (of course). I wouldn’t give that sorry slimeball any of my hard earned cash. Actually it was just his cursed pistol — good riddance (like him). And some food for his arrival.”
Soon enough, the burger inside began to sizzle again, blood continuing to withdraw and pistol rendered even more useless. Tessa’s duplicate, on the other hand, still worked perfectly. She was using it right now to defend herself again, this time from a fellow 3rd eye being posing as a psychic posing as a detective. But that’s another story for another photo-novel, it seems.
END OF “SUNKLANDS 2022 MIDDLE”!
PHOTO-NOVEL 34
00340101
“I *know* this person,” thinks Wheeler at the door of the investigator/psychic’s interior office. She’s playing around with forms again, and this one is an extension of her recent consumption of fries with cheese at the nearby Twin Peaks bar and grill. File it under: you are what you eat. She thought she had 30 days before the skin turned green on this freebie avatar she’s attached to the outfit. Not as advertised; no wonder it was a budget item. She’s trying to become — but never mind. It’s not turning out. But that figure on the door (!).
“What was that Mrs. Corn?” Corn? she thinks. A last name? What’s the first? But she knows what it is.
“Oh… nothing. Just staring at the big eye on your door. It reminds me of someone.”
Psychic-detective Roberts pivots toward Mabel (Mabel!). “We’ve been through this.”
The situation changes.
—–
Jack barges in with his recently cleaned shovel. “Ma’am, the corpse is now bur — oh. Sorry. Didn’t know you were with someone.” Why would he? Miss Roberts never has any clients. Except dead ones. But this one appears to be alive. And green! Must be — but it couldn’t. Martian?
“Hi Harry,” he speaks over to the shorter figure standing beside her, also a gnome, also working for the firm.
“Hello Jacob,” as Harold calls Jack, which he doesn’t like but puts up with. Harry’s a nice guy. And a great carpenter. He did a fine job with this coffin. Extra long, but he made it fit.
“Just looking for the case, Mrs. Corn,” Roberts excuses herself to Mabel, now considerably smaller but just as green. Moreso, since she’s now wearing a Hannah Montana lime toned outfit, fresh from a concert at the Rooftop Inn over in mid-town. Where are we, then? The land description mentions an asylum. Is everyone here nuts? Could explain the outfit.
And the book! Just like the one at the newly established Table Room on Rooster’s Peninsula, where I live as a castle dweller, library in the center still. For now. A sprite was looking in it for information about her type, where she comes from, what are her weaknesses. This is Greenleaf, who also shows up in Towerboro standing on a big rock behind Dove, formerly Ivory, but still a sister to Ebony on the giant tree trunk dead in front of her: Deadwood. And the alphabit spread out on the forest floor below them, which they eat with a spoon one by one by one until they reach M, when *they’re* dead. Mmmmmm dead. Thirteenville.
But I feel like I’m needlessly complicating things again. Let’s back up more.
—–
“Okay, Mrs. Daigle. Let me just begin to look for that case we were just talking about. Oh — and Barry? You can take off your pyramid and go home now. I think you’ve learned your lesson well enough, young gnome.”
The striped dunce cap he was wearing! One and the same.
We must follow this figure and see what happens next.
Top gal
Building numbers the same: too coincidental. This is the neighborhood where I grew up — highlighted in the Oracle as well (Alabama, other states). And *Edward*. Poor Eddy Daigle, Wheeler thinks, purposefully getting his name wrong in honor of cousin Tessie (our Tessa). She “defeated” the pyramid being; sent him out the door without his dunce cap into the world of reality. Although he made a lot of D’s (hence the corner standing), she’s confident that he could work things out; join the land of the living.
She’s got on her retro sock hop outfit to better blend in. Now to see what else is here in this rainbow powered burg.
She checked building after building. The place seems empty. For now.
—–
The next town up and kattycorner: more success.
But can she fit in here?
sideways
The front door to the investigators office had slammed hours ago, it seemed. Tessa had basically given up, when:
“Yes, here it is, Ms. Daigle. Thomas Mantell. Born Franklin Kentucky 06/30/22, died Franklin Kentucky 01/07/48. The famous UFO case of course, hidden amongst these more ordinary court cases and in a darker shade, which is why I overlooked it before. My missing partner.”
Tessa Daigle, divorced from her first husband for 3 years, looked up. “Your missing *what*?”
Psychic-detective Laura Roberts turned. “My missing partner,” she repeated evenly. “Robert Franklin, the beginning, the end, and everything between.” She sat down at the table with the confused Tessa. “*And* I think also *your* missing partner. Black Bart wasn’t it? Donald is never wrong. He predicted the going, he predicted the coming back to Earth in the cursed ship. Black Bart… Black Jack. The plane crashed in Black Jack.”
Tessa knew the case as it turns out. And for a specific reason. “But… you said he died in Franklin. Born in Franklin, died in Franklin. Hence: Franklin through and through it seems.”
“Yes.”
—–
Tessa scratches her head. “Black Bart has risen from the grave, the one just out there, beside the Junk Yard and…”
“And?”
“Auto re-pair, yes.”
“Good.”
“Both are dead now, the junk purveyor and the, um, jalopy mechanic. Done in by Black Bart, whom others know as Arthur Kill.”
“Soon he will acquire a new name, ” spoke the prescient Roberts, jotting down something. “Here — here’s an address he may go to next. Or this person will eventually be involved — probably already has been.”
Tessa looked down at the almost illegible scribble Psychic-detective Roberts handed back to her on the sticky note. She finally made it out. Wheeler… Wilson, yes. Wheeler, Wilson. Who’s that?
—–
“You cannot return here, although we may see each other again. Goodbye.”
00340411
“Drop it!” Tessa commanded, then realized she was in the wrong post when she shouted this. Wrong post wrong place. Although they may meet again, she said.
—–
“This orange ain’t right,” Maggie McFarland pondered in the correct time and location, thinking it too yellow to be true. Halfway between an orange and a banana we could add from our perspective. Not here not there. She puts it back… in the bananas?
Maggie had left the remainder of her groceries at the check out counter, including a green apple and a red pepper. Check that: a red apple and a green pepper. Checkout lady and part-time Twin Pines Market owner Mabel (Mabel!) was in the bathroom, waiting for Maggie to finish. She always goes back two or three times for other stuff. “Oh, I forgot the oregano sauce for Den Den’s supper, oh dear,” she might utter after Mabel (Mabel!) had already rung her up. So she just lets the food collect now on the counter and bides her time patiently uses her time wisely. “Oh never mind me,” Maggie said at another point, “I’m just an old lady looking for a slice of fun pie,” and went off and retrieved Den Den’s spagettios, perusing the shelves for the right kind first, the one made with veggie broth instead of meat. Mabel (Mabel!) had learned she could comfortably fit in a bathroom break after the first layout of groceries, like here (see above photo). She actually saves it up just for this occassion. 2 o’clock. Every day at 2 o’clock Maggie McFarland comes in to shop for her groceries. Unless its Munday. No one shops on Munday. No one does anything on Munday. Noone.
Maggie comes to the counter a second time, lays the too yellow orange on the counter between the red and the green. She put it back with the bananas and then changed her mind. That would be nuts to keep it there, she thought, and then actually slipped it in her pocket for a second, glancing around first. Mabel’s always gone this time of day, about 2:20. She could get away with it, she knew. Deep deep deep in her pocket.
But then thought better of it, temporary insanity over. “Done!” she shouted in the direction of the bathrooms and everywhere else, all the fruits and vegetables properly in a row now, starting with red and ending with green. Yellow in the middle, yellow in the middle… she picks it up again, makes a face. One last chance to steal.
“Me too!” Sound of water ends. Mabel has come back into the light. Is the banana colored orange still between the red and the green? An important question to be answered right after we come back from our sponsers. “Fun pie, it’s there when you need it, it’s there when you’re not.”
00340415
“Looks like a Dove. Highlighted by white, even. Shadow against light.”
“Could be could be,” he relented. Spider. They’d found him! Carrcassonnee was overjoyed.
“Can I… see him again now? Now again him see… I can?”
—–
“Well I’ll just wait upstairs while you finish speaking with each other,” said Jamie, walking away and highlighting Sign.
The footsteps on the stairs ended and the footsteps on the top floor began. Roberts was more free to talk about what Tessa needed to know. She’d already apologized about before. She said it was the town and the lag there, made her appear… less clever than she was. Roberts actually meant Tessa here but Tessa thought she meant herself (Roberts). There was just that difference between the two. Now at least the difference is clear, because we weren’t in Cable Isle any longer but back in Towerboro. Which office was the branch of the other didn’t really matter. That would be revealed soon enough. I would assume (the branch is) here without knowing more, but I’m about as clueless as Tessa in the moment. We better get to their dialog.
“I’m sorry about before, Tessa. It was the lag and the town.”
“Yes, you said that before.”
“I was just checking to see if you were listening. Sometimes people don’t when I speak, but maybe I’m just use to Cable Isle and its issues. Maybe here will be different.”
So just listening in, it appears that there is only one Roberts and Franklin investigating firm and it has moved from there to here. Back to the interaction.
“I’m listening,” said Tessa, trying to do this simple action. All I need, she thought, is to wake up, not sleepwalk all the time. That’s what Roberts desires.
“Let’s just enjoy the here and now for a moment, shall we?” Roberts kept silent. Tessa kept silent. Roberts reengaged eye contact. “*Now*.”
A blue Martian appeared. “Who’s that, Roberts?”
“Laura, please,” requested the psychic-detective. “And that, my friend, is an Observer.”
“Hmmm. What is she observing?”
“You,” came the quick reply. Silence again. Tessa was trying to think of a next step — what Roberts wanted from her again. She was trying to be mindful. Roberts — Laura — was patient, she knew. There was something here to be revealed, she picked up, and not just the Observer. There was another *thing* involved, a (she gleaned) thing that is not what it seems. An animal! She said this aloud.
“Good. What kind of animal?”
“She immediately thought, dog, but discarded it as too easy, not trusting her gut reaction. Her thoughts drifted to horse. She could just guess aloud. “Horse,” she said.
“Mmmm, not quite,” spoke Roberts, face remaining neutral.
Alligator? she thought. “Alligator.”
“Again: not quite.”
Spider came to mind but she broadened it as insect. “Insect.”
“Yes.”
Tessa was pleased, thinking that was the end of the game. But then Roberts continued. “And?”
“Something else besides an insect?” Tessa tried to clarify.
Roberts gave up the game, opened the door with her mind.
“A… dog?” It was the first thing that came to mind and then it was the last thing that came to mind. Funny how things work that way.
PHOTO-NOVEL 36
Ichetucknee
“I really like it here, Eddy. The motel, the view of the Ichelus Volcano over there. Look! It seems to be erupting again.”
This made Edward, her Eddy, think of another eruption earlier. Couldn’t wait. “Hmm,” he said, also looking, also pretty impressed.
“Have you had a chance to crack the book yet, Eddy? I know we’ve been awfully busy,” and she winks here, “but I did go to a lot of trouble to get it for you.”
“Tessa,” he replied, starting to think of his cousin, 1 in a set of 3. The other…
“Yes.”
“I started reading the first chapter,” he said, which was truth, or at least he checked the title of the chapter to make sure it was the right book. ‘Marbles Fall, Marble Falls.’ He could have swore it was the other way around, but probably just a faulty memory. Close enough — it was the same, he determined.
“Newton,” she said, recalling her own reading of the cursed thing. “Physical world, mechanics. *No* dreams. Right there in the first chapter, stating it all plain and simple up front. We *live*… in Newton.”
“But we need Jasper,” he completed her thought. He tried to recall his dreams from last night, after all the frantic activity was over, like a volcano shutting down. Took some time. He remembers the lava turning cool and changing colors from orange to blue. Ichelus in reality, but in the dream it was something different. Itchy? No that wasn’t it.
“Be careful of the marble rolling off. We’ve already lost one.” I was just kidding about the cracking, she wanted to say but didn’t have the chance. Open *gently*.
We? Edward thought on his part. Why did she say that? “Right, I will.”
“Miss Ouri has it.”
“Yes. I recall.”
“We don’t want Miss Ouri to be involved again. Cactus doll.”
“Yes,” he replied. That ravenous, mutant cactus doll. Brought to life by library voodoo. No, we don’t want that (again). Stick with Nauty if you want pincushions. *Under* the library — around it but not inside.
“I would really like to see the volcano today,” Jem requested. “I mean, up close and personal,” she clarified while looking out the window again. “Not like this — from a distance.”
“I understand,” and then another memory locked into place. He was tubing in the lava that wasn’t lava any longer.
(to be continued)
ecumenical matter
“So tell me about this Church of the Ood. Been a while, you know.”
“Oh things have changed. No more clown sacrifices for these good folk up here. That’s all done and in the past.”
“Explain.” He looks at the pictures up front again, merged at the frames — black and white, yin and yang, he perceives. He’s explaining the situation to himself. “One beneath it all?” he guesses.
“Yes.” Guy sure is psychic, thinks Baker Bloch again, still hanging around Gold since his wife has been delayed. Suspicious but of course he doesn’t delve deeper into a reason. The Golds always seem to sort it out despite the many issues involved now, he thinks, infidelity to name a big one on both their parts. High Infidelity, then.
“I was also thinking,” Gold theorized further, “that the clowns have been exterminated through repeated sacrifices and there’s no more reason to hate them. Because none exist.”
“Yeah, that too I suppose. 1/2 and 1/2.” Gold glared over. We weren’t suppose to use that expression past novel 25, the one that changed everything. Baker apologizes, but he only 1/2 meant it. He of course kept that fact to himself. Because — it was a little thing but such things add up to make big things — he wanted to make it okay to say that again. He wanted to honor 12 Oz Mouse expressions above all else. Now that Spider has been found inside collages again. Spider equals Skillet, he knows through Missouri. Polk County, Missouri, to be specific. Home of Uncle Joe and Aunt Zoe, humanvillians both. He didn’t return the glare but he looked over all the same. Gold — could turn into platinum at any specific turn of events. Reaction. Visit from grand-niece and now grown-up Tessa could trigger it. Because she thought him dead anyway; surprised he was still a part of the Land of the Living after Baker phoned her up on a whim. He’s curious to see what happens when they meet.
And where is Preacher Zoidboro? he thinks. 7:05 now. Everyone is here that’s here so far, everyone is anticipating results from this lone religion of town now that the clowns are gone. They have to find or at least pretend to find some sort of God or else all is still doomed.
(to be continued)
PHOTO-NOVEL 40
a record of TILE
“Hurry, dear. Hurry back to the 2n1 trailer before it’s too late!”
And so Eddie unstuck her golden VW from the drift once more with his golden shovel and they drove away, leaving Edward behind to his own devices. Grilling was not a specialty so he’ll miss that aspect of their partnership. But he’ll manage. He has Wanda as a backup after all.
*Tessa* (sorry!).
—–
“You know we’ll have to say we’re cousins to keep living here on such low rent and all.”
“Fine with me,” and she finished peeling her banana and began to munch.
00400301
Tessa was in the foreground talking to someone just off-screen. Her boyfriend/faux cousin Edward if I had to guess. Chair sitting Pink was similarly highlighted in the background interacting with a punk on the couch: Ketchup Tom, who owned the trailer, named for his bright red Mohawk if not visa versa. And they all owed him a big favor whether they knew it or not. His given name before he acquired a stage one: George. Rumor has it he destroyed a punk bar carved out of a big piece of coal in West Virginie when playing his signature track “Fire Ants”, quickly followed by “Water Uncles”, a lesser hit. A folly we could call it, but the oddball builders of the thing couldn’t have foreseen George’s powerful sturm und drang guitar licks ahead of time, like something straight out of a Nazi war lab. And he also had a magical ring to amplify the sound — very important detail there.
I couldn’t figure out some of the elements happening to the right in the location pictured above so I just left them out by blocking them with a wall (sorry). We could guess a stereo system or something given Ketchup Tom’s musician status, maybe a guitar or 2 to go along with a microphone or 3. Yes, let’s go with that. We’ll see them soon enough, then.
Oh, I do know that Eddie, Marsha “Pink” Krakow newly appointed boyfriend, was outside walking Dogg, an older mutt now she purchased as a pup over on the Corsica continent in a town that subsequently sank beneath the sea. Storybrook again.
Actually let’s move inside while we have the opportunity and zoom out a bit at the same time.
Turns out there was no stereo or musical stuff to the right. I must be thinking about a different Big Sandy trailer, then, perhaps also owned by the affluent punk and maybe one a little more solidly constructed to withstand the magically enhanced noise he’ll be making there. In the simultaneous zooming out we do reveal a poster to the left he keeps by the door to remind him of his lost origins. Marsha “Pink” Krakow has Dogg; Ketchup Tom has George.
(to be continued)
X factor
“I’ve decided not to write trash, Eddie, my Edward.”
“Call me Eddie,” he repeated. She never listened. Much like “cousin” Tessa to Edward, the *real* Edward.
So many faux cousin/lover pairings in this novel already, and we’re not even halfway through quite yet. First there was Eddie and Edward, the faux being affixed to the lover part in that case. Then Tessa and Edward, cousin linked with faux in that example. And now supposed cousins Serenity Lane and Shelley Lane (Struthers). Let’s just have Marsha “Pink” Krakow bring up the last pairing to Edward as they’re laying in bed in their 2n1 trailer, wishing to have their cake and eat it too again.
“Edward?” she said after thinking some of these things herself, mirroring the actual author (me) once more.
“Yes?” he relented, not bothering to correct her now.
“As I was saying…”
“Oz. I know. Rock told me all about it. And Gill. What do you call him? Vain and Artery Boyy, right. And the child as well.”
“Toddles,” she said to this. To please a child, she thought.
“All 3 approached me, Rock and Toddles and then Vain and Artery Boyy separate from them. Told me how much they enjoyed the new novel and the switch of genres and how they hoped you keep it up.”
“Oh. Wonderful! I wonder why they didn’t tell me themselves?”
“Probably…” he shifts his weight in the bed, assuming a more upright position, “because you were visiting that large prison complex over in Rockaway Beach. I myself didn’t have time to tell you until now. Had to keep reinforcing to you that it’s all right, and the, ahem, tour will be over soon.”
“Took some time to get from top to bottom, yeah,” she admitted. She got pretty scared about halfway down, even though the internal bowling alley reassured her that TILE was there, even amongst all this negativity. The light shines through.
Eddie, her Edward, was with her after that — called him over. “So. Are you going to go in that direction, go back to Meat City? Or stay here in Big Sandy?”
Was that the ultimate question? Past Broadwater, the grid took over, Utah to Omega link locked in again until it bent away on the other side of town. She saw this now. She *had* to see.
“Let’s give it a couple more posts,” which is probably what I would have said in her shoes. She decided not to bring up that Serenity Lane wasn’t Shelley’s cousin but her ex-lover, her ex-wife in fact. And now since Shelley was out of the picture she apparently has designs on the “replacement”. Drugged back to Meat City against her will! Prison of all places. She could have spent one day there, she could have spent a lifetime there. Big. Practically Big Sandy big sitting up there wide and long and thick in the sky.
Back to the sand the way she knew how. With Edward.
PHOTO-NOVEL 46
00460606
Tessa (after getting a busy signal for the fifth time at the station and then giving up): “Oh DARN. And I so so wanted to catch up with my old old friend Carolin from the Caves. I have news about them!”
MEANWHILE… Seventy-six radio station manager Marty had been stabbed in the head, heart and hands, leading to a severe decrease in health. Only the hustle of local paramedics Charlie and Peet saved his sorry ass.
https://www.morningagclips.com/head-heart-hands-and-health-a-short-history-of-4-h/
“Can… of worms,” he said up to them weakly as they carted him off in a gurney to the Chilbo General Hospital where he stayed a week I believe before getting strong enough to leave. But employee Carolin would be gone by then, unable to be canned by him for her troublemaking down at the station because she had, in essence, canned herself. Back to the caves with Tessa, who’d caught up with her by other means, in-person visit I’m guessing.
The stabbings? Cat-people, cat *aliens*. Who were looking to get back to their cubic, red home planet at any cost. Or so THE OTHERS would have you believe. Others led by the Horns (= Big Bosses).
(to be continued)
00460612 (Windsong Too)
“Uh, *Tessa,*” Carolin says to her on the Isle of Crow after the fairy had just manifested out of thin air in a puff of semi-sparkly dust. “Be-hind you (!).” Tessa stops playing the guitar, turns.
“I wass acttraccted by the musss-ic,” the odd looking entity started with a bit of a slurpy slur. “Bea-uu-ti-fful! Won-dder-fful. And that’ss jusst youu!” she tried to compliment the player. Too creepy? She doesn’t want to project creepy and odd. Yet she always seems to fail at this.
“Why *thank* you,” says Tessa, studying her face, her features in general. She didn’t want to seem too surprised at the sudden appearance. After all, this was End of Time. Weird occurrences and appearances happen with some frequency here, she knew from her extended stay back in the day. But she hadn’t returned since she was a kid. Not even a teenager then. It took her many years to refind this magical place. And of course she had to uncover the whereabouts of her old friend and former fellow cave resident Carolin to tell her too. “We can go back (!),” she says during that in-person meeting in Nawt Vaya I hinted about before in this here blog and attached photo-novel. “We can find the cat-people for real (!!).”
“*Why* would we do *that*” countered Carolin, having a quite different experience with those caves. Imprisonment! At least for a couple of days. Until Glinda got her out and sent her home. Back to New York where she was trying to get to all along. Mannikins PHEH, she can’t help but cuss inwardly, an old old grudge. Turned her against magical beings in general, truth be told. So she was certainly *wary* of this fairy. Wary of fairy wary of fairy, she chanted in her head to drill the wariness in. So back to the current dialog…”
“Would you like to be a ssstarr?” the being mildly slurped and slurred. “Would you like to be a rocktt sstarrr?”
“Maybe,” Tessa lied, not trusting the creature before her either. A magical proposition. Always a bad thing, she believes.
“Would you like to have luxurriousss hairr?” she continued with it. “Would you, would you like adddoorration, like looking in a mirrorr and alwayshss seeing beauty. Puurrre beauty.” This worked before, the fairy thinks. Why not now?
“How about if she doesn’t? interjected Tessa’s mate on the bed with her. “Will you just leave us alone, then?” Blunt Carolin, more a glass half empty than full kind of gal. But a gal pal still.
“I… will leavvve,” the queer little fairy agrees.
“What’s your name? Fairy?” Carolin continued with the grilling.
“My namee?” She seemed to be actually thinking about it, like she didn’t know. “Scharlie,” she came up with. “Peet,”
“You don’t look like a Charlie or a Peet,” countered Carolin.
“Nooooo. Your contactss. Fairiess too!”
0460613 (library & cave (Windsong 3))
They were disappointed that they couldn’t sit directly across from each other and talk. Tessa had found something in her book about the Windsong fairy and wanted to tell Carolin. But she had to wait. All she could do in the moment was give a big thumbs up to her mate, her gal pal from the old days in the caves. Carolin returned with a thumbs up of her own. She’d found something too. Cat-people. Secret room. Somewhere around the Windsong portal. So two Windsong finds. Although they couldn’t talk with each other to coordinate the tales and make them as one. Because that’s what they were.
Benny Right Horn knows this too now, having visited the End of Time library several days back and coordinating the two stories himself. Rebl and Guyd were two cat-people, cat *aliens* indeed, who were left behind as the rest of their kind boarded the Mother Ship waiting for them in space and went back home to their red cube planet, probably circling the giant red star Betelgeuse by the color of it, Benny determined. And that’s where my brother must have gone, he thought. He’d also heard about the 1 after 909 ship from Big Ass Franz the bartender at the castle in the skies. Upon threat of death, sharp and long knife blade held to throat. Despite his flabby, unkept appearance, Benny had expert military training in the Queen’s army too just like his trimmer shaped and sharper dressed brother. The Queen, who just happened to be their mother, insisted on the training; knew it would come in handy to save their lives not once but a number of times most likely. She’d seen them argue as toddlers and then argue and fight in their schools as children and teenagers and then argue and fight and argue in their jobs as so-called grown ups quote unquote. Troublemakers these two were. But they were *her* troublemakers still. She had to make sure they were protected.
He wouldn’t stick to the tracks this time, because that just shoots you out the other side, he knew from his prior visit. But he also wouldn’t try to pick his way through the rest of the dangerous, labyrinthine cave system to find the cat-people’s hidden lair and be led astray that way. He’ll stay put in one place, and he knows precisely where this should be.
The pretty nature room adjacent to the watery Windsong sim Portal. Whatever goes down, it will happen here — he’ll *make* it happen.
Setting up camp for the night…
… and *quietly* warming up on the guitar, he he he. He’s had expert training that way as well — but it’s been a while.
(to be continued)
PHOTO-NOVEL 47
00470210
“No sorry we *have* to keep it this dark,” Sherry says to the new stewardess Blush, ready to take the air and leave this forbidden dot on the map that is our world. Or so it seems.
“Him?”
“Yeah. Because of the boss. You know, The Boss.” And she wasn’t talking about Springsteen. Not yet. This was (about) New York not New Jersey. For now.
“Marty,” Blush specifies a name.
“Black Hole Sun, right.” Such a can of worms this situation’s become.
—–
Meanwhile, in another part of Vortexville, Tessa practices her heart shooting skills to take down a lover. Soon the target becomes as large as a small boat to her.
“Die, cupid. DIE,” she says as she pops the stupid winged beings off one by one by one in the now spacious air within.
Blowing smoke from the end, Tessa then reholsters the six shooter beside the other already in her pants. She determines she’s ready for Kill. Arthur that is. As in crossing a line from New York to New Jersey. Her 3rd eye will absorb the return shot from the north. She’s trained for that as well.
(to be continued)
00470211 (brick)
“You’ve got to hide me, Roberts. Behind the secret wall with the dog. My girlfriend Tessa’s trying to kill me again!”
“Again?” questions Roberts, then uses her own magical 3rd eye to discover the truth. “Ahh. *Overlap*. Again — right.”
“Right?”
“Well. If you go back there there’s a fair chance he’ll absorb you, the 20 right and the 4 left, which are all wrong.”
“20 right and 4 left, er, wrong, yeah. Got it.”
“That leaves you with 5/6ths odds of your self surviving. I’m just telling you the risks up front.”
As an answer, Arthur Kill lays his own 6 shooter on Roberts’ desk, part of the deal. He’s desperate. He’s seen the Oracle map of New York into New Jersey, south into north. He knows he doesn’t stand a chance against *her*. These are certainly better odds than the Mexican standoff he’s facing otherwise. That damn eye (!). The only way to beat it is to find another eye. Thus: Roberts here.
Roberts inspects the gun and sees that it is the correct one. She presses a button under her desk. The door opens: Spider revealed to him once more. 2130, etc…
“You are free to enter, Arthur Stanford Kill.” She keeps staring at him intensely. He faced life and death if he didn’t do this but he also faces it here, just not with the odds stacked totally against him. Can he stay positive and not descend into negativity? That’s the ultimate question. His survival still depends on it.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 