PHOTO-NOVEL 41
off to a flying start
We have a sign…
… and are directly tied into our neighbor’s road system to the south in two places. Super nifty!
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of downtown from the sign, we find a parallel Michelle Roundup examining another object. Just ribs now. But soon…
“Should be ready by the christening,” spoke mastermind Red Dead Beardy Head, a pirated version of himself from another open world game.
“But… how are you going to get it down to the sea?” she logically asks about the still skeleton of a thing.
“Don’t need to.” He turns and points up toward the circling seagulls. “Space.”
00410508
One needed parts and the other ran a salvage yard so it seemed these 2 characters pirated from other lands should get together.
“Flying ship, eh?” said one to the other. He turns. “What do you need? A propeller?”
“A crew, actually,” said Red Dead Beardy Head who we just met in that last post here, throwing a monkey wrench and all into our dialog. Building a space ship he is. Looks like a sea ship. Might be both. “I want to re-crew-t you.”
“Me?” Nick turns back to the bar, thinks about ordering another mug of Carribean White Rum from green haired Marcia with this. We’re from different lands, he ponders, *rival* lands. “You’re talking crossover here, you know.” He let the statement hang in the air, then: “You understand the consequences.”
“Yup.” One of the two parrots on his shoulders said, “Crossover, *squawk*” and the other said, “Consequences, *squawk*”.
The 3rd reddish parrot on the barrel beside him said nothing, biding his time. He was waiting for Nick’s 3rd line. It never came; Nick got up intending to leave this small parcel next to a road on the Corisca continent, never to return. Then he realized that Red Dead Beardy Head was the one who had to leave the property to properly end the scene, since he was the visitor. Embarrassed — turning red himself — he sat back down.
“Forget where you were, *who* you were?”
“Yup.”
(to be continued?)
00410509
“I came here looking for ship parts. Maybe even a whole ship. Instead I found an X. X marks the spot.”
“You’re in over your head,” she said back, the first female salvage related person he’d met. And the 1st person of color, period. She rezzed in to help, to be truthful. RDBH had the perfect angle for an opening shot. He didn’t want to mess it up.
“Or a spot marked by an X,” he changed the wording of his former sentence. Now that she had come he could look down.
Ah yes, a bunch of stuff named Mare: cigarettes, beer, ‘nother different kind of beer. “Why are you running an, er, eatery stand? Salvage person.”
“I have to make ends meet,” she said plainly, matter-of-factly. “Else how could I offer goofy looking scavengers like you such good prices, eh?”
RDBH looked over, took her in better. Pretty face. Jewels on head and body. Attractive. But the prices were still too expensive. More than one way to skin a cat? “What’s your name, dear?”
“Pearl. Black Pearl most call me. To differentiate from other types of pearls: grey, white, so on.”
“Black Pearl,” he parroted back, making the birds on his shoulders share a smile. He seemed to have heard the name before. But where?
(to be continued)
Thieves Landing (perfect time machine (pair of cards))
“No. *Not* like Blackbeard. It’s Red Head Beardy… shoot, let me start again. It’s Red *Dead*–”
“Why don’t I just call you Redbeard, eh?” she suggested with an interruption, hand laying on his chest. Red hair also there, she then realized, running her fingers softly through it; red hair all over, actually. “Or how about just Red?” Again, he’d heard this before. He’d turned in his hair. At a motel, he’s picking up. To be more myself, he thought.
“Oh *okay*.” He rolled over while taking her hand, looked straight into her pretty green eyes like a door or a phone. “*Black*,” he playfully chided with a return name. “Now about that ship?”
—–
She couldn’t find the free one in the inventory she had in mind, goofy looking but oh so reliable and roomy despite the odd shape. She decided to just let him have her own (The Black Pearl). On one condition: she goes too. Wherever this mysterious “X” spot is. He said there’s buried treasure to be found in the past there. 150,000 American dollars, which translates to roughly 5,000,000 dollars present day. “We just have to go there and find it in the center of the X, buy gold with it, and then come back here to cash in and spend — I’ve got it all mapped out. We’ll have to land in Mexico and take a smaller boat to the opposite shore. Or maybe just swim if the distance is not too prohibitive across the channel. How’s your swimming skills?”
“Let’s take the boat,” she said, dismissing the swimming part, not wanting to grease herself all up before going into town, this Backwater place, he said.
The name had been changed from before to protect the innocent.
00410511
Soon after leaving Aisle of Palms, the pirate ship ran into choppier waters rounding Thailand, encountering unexpected waves of stretch marks in trying to stick to the prepared dotted line of their journey. But this was only prognostication derived from the leg, with the actual voyage into space and not sea still lying ahead of them. Keeping with the body analogy, The Black Pearl was about to set sail for the fabled or perhaps fantastical Islets of Langerhans, said to dot the Pancreatic Sea in considerable numbers and whose shores are protected from harsher elements by huge ribs of sandbars, or so the legends go. The parallels to all this in space could only be guessed at (islets = asteroids? etc.).
Hopefully the sea and its islets haven’t been removed from the body in question and the dotted line they’re following turns out to be more akin to this, ick. In other words, the chest had been opened and the buried treasure within removed. Like coins in a gold bullion, maybe the islets themselves are this trove. We’ll work on it.
Barfly Sparrow has a secret.
“Hold *still* Prisoner Bermuda or whatever your actual name is while I take this final shot.” Officer Michelle Roundup had started at the end and worked her way back to the beginning. As shall we.
There. The Black Pearl is now in Aisle of Palms.
00410512
“I found the ship at a golf course sim which was closing up — got a cheap deal on it for that reason. Plus it was a mess, all cracked up on those rocks over there as you can see from the photo.” Black Pearl provided a photo to Red Dead Beardy Head much like the one below where she is finagling the deal with a woman named Libra Neptune who, of all places, had ties to Saint Dennis. So it seems like she has the power to manifest such realities. I, the writer of this here blog and attached current photo-novel, had no idea the Black Pearl ship would be here too. A gift, we can call it, ‘nother one.
“How ’bout Davy Jones?” said Red Dead still beside her in bed, although it was a different night than before. Plans had advanced. The restored Black Pearl, ready for space as it would ever be, parked in the vacant lot in back of downtown. They were staying in the captain’s cabin, testing it out. Well stocked with Caribbean White Rum — good start.
“Not needed in this story,” she replied plainly about Jones, knowing what he was referring to. *Her* Black Pearl was different from Sparrow’s. This was from a woman’s perspective.
—–
They were walking into town for a morning drink and a bit of breakfast when Black Pearl spotted her walking below Parrots for Pirates.
“Libra??”
00410513
“I hear the perch is good here.”
“Don’t be silly, dear. They don’t serve fish this early. These are *landlovers*.”
“Oh.”
“So… *Libra*. Is it still Libra? I mean, since we’ve been walking? It was Libra about 10 minutes ago and I’m just wondering if the name still sticks.”
“You can call me such but, admittedly, I go by many names.”
“Yes, I’m seeing the bigger picture now.” She looked over the parrot dress, which Libra aka Atlantis High Priestess aka Bermuda aka Victor/Victoria redonned shortly after being released from jail by Officer Michelle Roundup. Some sort of pirate convention in town; they figured they would need the cell soon enough. Assign a hefty fine for the crime and move on.
“Where is our waiter?” asked impatient Red Dead Beardy Head. That man over there in the other room had been staring at him all the time. Is that our waiter on a break — taunting me? he wondered. Turns out it was.
4 handed Keat Owens, waiter/chef by day, private detective by night. He’d learned to sleep with his eyes open but he needed to wake up now and go to work again.
00410515
“If we discover a new land in the ship I think we should call it Redlands. After our current hangout. Whaddaya think?”
“How about *Black* instead. Er: Black Nation, say.”
With his quicksilver mind from all that pirating business down through the years, Red Dead Beardy Head thought of a compromise. “*Well*,” he started the new pitch. “Since red and black are both card colors, 50-50 for each, how about a card game. Say: Poker.”
Black Pearl laying beside him had to smile. He certainly was honoring both him and her with the name. But she couldn’t help countering with: “Black Jack. I say Black Jack. Fits the card part. 50-50 on the cards.” But my color up front and on top again, was the implied meaning.
“Okay, got another one. How about, say, *Hearts* — Heartsland. Like our two hearts are joined beyond just playing poker.”
“Awwww. How *sweet*.”
“Red on top, I know.”
“Yup,” she returned crisply, knowing the game was on again. “Spades,” she countered logically. The game of Spades, like we have the game of Hearts. Except, let’s see if I remember, *spades* trump everything; a black suit trumps everything.
“Okaay, but if I remember correctly (thinking quick again), Black Lady and Black Maria are variants of Hearts (game). So *if* we find new land, how about we stick with Heartsland — but the capital or the town we found there or whatever will be called Black Lady. I mean, Black Pearl of course.”
“Make it Black Maria and we’re good,” she finished the negotiation. Maria was her mother’s name as it turned out. Good to honor ancestors in a new land. Remember the past and roots while at the same time moving forward beyond them.
Heartsland, slightly changed to Heartlands, stuck. But Black Maria turned out to be Valentine.
(to be continued)
00410516
I feel like I have failed them, thought Atlantis High Priestess (etc.) into the sacred flame from her space, communicating with the Beyond. They’re heading toward Shangri-La but don’t understand what they’re leaving behind, Black Maria and so on. It will happen, she knew.
Valentine
Officer Howard’s wife
—–
“So how did you become an owner of a golf course? Libra is it still? I mean, as of 10 minutes ago?”
Libra aka Bermuda aka Atlantis High Priestess aka some other titles I’m not thinking about in the moment decided to be pretty honest for a change. “It all started when I got some money in St. Dennis.”
“St. Dennis?” replied Red Dead Beardy Head to this, tired of staring at Petty who was their waiter, convinced he is asleep instead of glaring at him. He’d heard of people doing such with their eyes open, and he was correct in this deduction as we’ve seen in an earlier post which this post is a direct continuation of timewise. We’re back with him and Black Pearl, soon to set sail in their sea ship to the outer depths of space, grilling just found Libra Neptune in recently founded Aisle of Palms on the Jeogeot continent of Our Second Life. Libra certainly had a story to tell, with a lot hanging in the balance.
“Money?” Black Pearl continued Red Dead’s line of inquiry. “From whom?”
“First off, let’s drop the pretense. I’m not really Libra. My actual name is Wheeler. I am what you could call a co-owner of this town. I *play* Libra.”
Wheeler let this set in a bit, then added: “Newt is my husband. But Newt is actually Baker Bloch, kind of Baker Bloch’s replacement. We’re king and queen — of sorts again.”
“King…” said Red Dead Beardy Head, utterly confused look on his face.
“… Queen,” continued Black Pearl again for him, just as shocked.
“Yes, that’s right. King and Queen. Of Aisle of Palms. On the Jeogeot continent. Of Our Second Lyfe. But, thing is, St. Dennis is separate from all that. St. Dennis is elsewhere. St. Dennis is (part of) the Shangri-La you seek. And I know the correct way to get us there.”
(to be continued)
00410603
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Rue-Saint-Denis-for-classic-or-BOM/15679735
“Well it was a foolish outfit and I was a foolish girl at the time. Blonde hair; rosy red cheeks after that, but not from rouge. Syphilis I contracted — still trying to be frank and honest with you guys. But it eventually cleared up when I got out of that crazy, mixed up place of a land full of bad, bad people. Arthur gave me some money. You see–”
“Arthur? Arthur Kill? I know him.” Red Dead Beardy Head again there.
“Err,” said Libra. “Yes,” she decided. “Yes, let’s go with him. Married to Shelley Struthers (partly named for Sally Struthers, TV daughter of Archie and Edith), right. It fits!”
“And what of Marsha ‘Pink’ Krakow?” Black Pearl responded to a slightly earlier declaration.
“The same,” Wheeler continued with the admissions. “Marsha ‘Pink’ Krakow equals Shelley Struthers along with 2 other components, a kid named Frankie Brown who provides some gestures and perhaps a conscience, and then another kid called Marsha. Shelley is the (grown up) body for the 3. Body, mind, soul we could call them, with the Marsha brain aspect up front and on top.”
“So… let’s cut to the chase,” said RDBH, trying to regain his wits in the barrage of strange information. “How do we get to the X on the pirate map?”
Wheeler dressed as Libra in her parrot dress exhaled. “You can’t… not with that ship.”
“You *sold* me that ship,” replied Black Pearl to this. “You *implied* it could.”
“I was wrong. That ship will divide the 2 of you. I know this because I understand the perspective from the opposite direction. I know the endpoint. I was *at* the endpoint. Red Dead Beardy Head,” she addressed the male partner of the 2 sitting across from her in the Perch Restaurant of Aisle of Palms, open for business at 10 but not serving fish until 4 to his disappointment. No perch in Perch yet. And will our damn waiter please wake up! he was thinking just before this. “Red Dead,” Libra said again, “you and Black Pearl will break up if you try to go in that ship. It’s certain death up there in Outer Space. I’ve seen the future!”
“But — you *sold* it to me.” Black Pearl was smelling a rat as big as a human and named Victor-not-Victoria. “You said the golf course is closing.”
“The golf course *is* closing,” followed Libra Neptune closely. “The Black Pearl was smashed up on the rocks outside. I fixed it up. But really, I didn’t fix it up. Not in the way that could take you safely to the X.”
“*Finally*,” said Red Dead, seeing the waiter shake his head and blink a couple of times before fully reopening his eyes. He’d been woken up with a poke from the right. Manager Percy had let him sleep until 10:15, feeling sorry for the overworked man who toiled both day and night, with few minutes for rest in-between.
Now, in the moment again, he was upon them. Talk of the ship and its position at the head of 2 streams of virtual reality would have to wait a bit; after some bites. “Sorry for the delay. Our breakfast special is perch,” he said, knowing it was unusual but wanting to please an irritated customer and his friends. He could hear like hell — just had to process all the information right after coming back into consciousness. Being both waiter and chef, he could make this so.
00410604
“Not too bad for a one handed one legged pirate of the sea,” opined Libra Neptune, watching the ball fly far indeed. “Now do you see why I wanted you to play? The golf here is solid, it’s real.”
“You’re just ready to give it up, you say. Go back to St. Dennis.”
“Right, Black Pearl,” she spoke to the fellow golfer on her right, just out of camera shot above. “I think I can make a big difference now. Heck I might even open a course there if I can muster up the energy. The swamp surrounding the town could use some draining in my opinion. Just full of red neck hicks and alligators and snakes and so on. Useless, otherwise.”
“Hmm,” said Black Pearl to this, sensing a flaw in her morality chip, perhaps a carryover from those harsh harsh days of having to be a prostitute and all the difficulties it presents. Screws with your body, screws with your brains. She mentioned syphilis, and how it cleared up but took a while. Maybe this is some kind of lasting effect of that. Maybe… hmm, maybe that’s why she sold me the ship in the first place, Black Pearl thought, even though she revealed it was damaged later. Damaged like her…
“You’re next up Pearl… should I call you just Pearl?”
“Black Pearl is fine,” Black Pearl said back, always wanting to attach the color to the name lest she forget her own hardships. Both were driving the ball further than Libra by this point, even though they were relative novices. In truth, she was considerably older than she looked, with her son Scorpio Pluto now in his early 40s himself. So age played a part here, along with just sheer repetitiveness of the game. You lose your edge sometimes when you do something over and over and over. It was that way with sex for her, and now it was that way with golf for her. Time to try something else; did she have another chapter in her life?
Black Pearl drove her ball about 10 yards beyond Red Dead Beardy Head, inducing whistles of appreciation from the other 2. She was a natural.
—–
On a break between front and back 9’s, Black Pearl and Libra Neptune talked more while Red Dead washed his balls and theirs along with them. Libra unveiled her replacement plan to get back.
(to be continued)
Valentine Too
“Hold on to your heads, ladies and gentlemen. Here we go!” SCREEEECH.
—–
Well. It *kind of* worked.
—–
“We’re Saints fans,” introduced Dennis Martennis for his gang to hotel receptionist Donald Arm. “Badly in need of a couple of rooms after a long day’s journey.”
“Tourists, eh?” said Donald, noting the helmet. “Well, we get you types in here occasionally.” He glanced out the window at the “parked” streetcar. “Wrong town I gather.”
“Yup.”
Beware…
… the man with no eyes…
… for he is death.
—–
“I’ve used the gold coins for what I feel is a good purpose, Mssr. To honor the dead.”
“Good, good. And so now you know who Bulby is.”
Supergal Ruby paused, then: “Davey?”
“The same.” He kept spinning his spinner but there was no yarn involved. Only truth.
His job here done, Herbert Glenn Gold soon returns to the sea from which he came, Special Spinner still in hand. He’d finally caught the Big One or, should I say, it caught him.
00410607
Bulby, St. Dennis style.
I believe this is where he came from. Another portal, then!
It all really got started with the breaking of The Bottle in The Barroom.
But which one?
Prognostication:
00410608
“So here be your three cornered hat you left behind, Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate. And your rum.”
“Thanks be to ye Saucy Wendy for being such a good bar wench to me, arrr.”
She smiled, dropped her own fake accent. “Soo, you still heading off into space with that old jalopy outside like you talked about?” She’d watched him sail in on the thing; had her doubts that it was really that seaworthy let alone space-worthy. And so should he.
“Aye, I be doing that very thing still, Saucy Wendy. And…” Dare he ask her to go with him? Too soon? He’d left his hat and his alcohol behind just for this very excuse. To come back and invite her to the stars. Could he go through with it? He’d experienced fierce battles, fierce storms on water. Yet this might be the hardest thing he’d ever done: cold feet on land suddenly; wanting to run away from commitment.
“So, erm, how does all that work exactly?”
He dropped his own fake accent, trying to accustomize himself to land loving ways. “You just aim up instead of forward.” He’d tested it out already. Trouble is, he’d gotten the right creator recommended by fellow pirate and long time mate Black Pearl who he trusted implicitly in the matter of ships, just the wrong vehicle. She actually meant this…
… while what was waiting outside for him and him alone was this:
The thing never stood a chance. Luckily Saucy Wendy elected to stay behind to start a now famous fast food franchise specializing in hot dogs. Initially.
Jim Randolph’s wrecked ship appearing on Red Dead’s planet…
… along with his tricorn hat and rum.
00410610
Stuck in the mud, Arthur has finished his journey around the map of Our Red Dead Redemption 02, which took 5 1/2 hours time for him but much longer for me the author of this here blog, working my way through the chronicling Youtube video piece by piece, bit by bit over a 3 week period. Side note: Arthur = Author?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pTT6867XJ4
Very curiously, here he looks directly at the site of another journey’s end. Right over there beside the smaller of two dead trees sticking up out of the water, with Arthur’s head smack between them in the above screen capture. Again this is precisely at the end of our 5 1/2 hour video.
We can zoom in on the location through another Youtube video created by Mr. Boss, an expert on the subject of All Things RDR2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0isUThnBpjo
It’s a smaller wrecked boat with a partial human skeleton inside and, beside it, what’s identified by the game as a Broken Pirate Sword which you can take and then use to slash and cut your way through various close-up troubles you might subsequently encounter in-world if you wish.
Building up my own mythology, I have some theories about this. I believe the bones and sword here belonged to Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate talked about several posts back. In this scenario, he survived the initial crash of his Humpty Dumpty ship on the Red Dead planet, then used this smaller boat to make his way up to these fairly nearby islands, not quite reaching the town of St. Dennis and potential safety (seen across the water in the first photo above) but almost. So close. Instead he seems to have succumbed to wounds already inflicted in the ship crash or else those coming afterwards, perhaps via an attack from one of the many local alligators laying about. There might also have been brain trauma involved, since he left behind his tricorn hat and also Aged Pirate Rum back in the ship. *No* pirate in his right mind would do this. Unless… hmm, maybe he didn’t *want* to be seen as a pirate. Maybe he was intending to enter St. Dennis in *disguise*. Many possibilities arise from this.
A map to end. Islets of Langerhans anyone?
And of course ribs as in rib cage are involved again.
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.
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.
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.
00410706
“The only Theft name of *any* kind in the US according to the old GNIS database was ‘West Central Texas Auto Theft Task Force’, a building in downtown Anson TX. The new database contains no listings with Theft. The old location, the whole *name*, was *stolen*, in effect: theft of Theft. I actually visited the site and found no Auto Theft Task Force office, much less a whole building devoted to the matter. I looked all around the supposed address, with only a bricked up side door and an unmarked back door fitting the Google Map directions. My theory is that it only existed in the first place as an indicator.”
Petty was furiously taking notes opposite yammering June Bug Johnston at his small office in the so-called Cement Village, hidden itself from the surrounding town of Aisle of Palms. The discovery of the 2 matching Dennis’ issued forth a torrent of words. She was *so* close to the answer (The End). The sun having rising about a 1/2 hour back now, he was late for his other job at the Perch Restaurant. But Manager Percy would understand. Overlaps sometimes happen with such a busy soul. Many a night he postponed sleuthing activities when a late dinner party arrived, or a bus full of tourists pulled up 5 minutes before closing. Too bad Percy doesn’t believe in phones or he’d ring him up. Mother’s exploded after she left it ringing too long one day; killed her and mortally wounded Aunt Gertrude who was playing strip poker with her at the time. Blew off a valuable piece of her body but she survived. His mother Wanda Bertaaa Doris’s naked parts were scattered about like a broken Humpty Dumpty. Speaking of which…
“… Humpty Dumpty sea ship modified into a space ship,” June Bug continued in sync with my own internal dialog. “Jim the Bastard Pirate–”
“Wait. *The* Bastard Pirate? Jim Randolph?”
“The same. Anyway he was *suppose* to pilot the ship all the way to the Red Dead planet but he crashed in the sea. Thing couldn’t take the pressure of the strange atmosphere and anyway, he took the wrong ship indicated by his pirate pal Black Pearl, wise in such matters.”
Chef-Inspector Petty, still an inspector despite being on the clock as a chef (and a waiter), thought back to his giant self peering out over tops of internal Cement Village buildings to the new ship parked out back, ready for space exploration according to all the rumors and gossip about town. The *correct* ship according to Black Pearl. Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate had gotten the wrong vehicle from the right creator as we spoke about before.
Petty’s sharp ears then heard the ominous roar of a tour bus roll into town from the south. “*F -it,* June Bug,” he cussed, checking his nonexistent watch again. “We’ll have to resume all this in another post. Gotta get to the restaurant!”
fingers crossed!
He’d left her alone to study further as he went back to Perch, but how much more was there to learn? She knew the VW was X-ed out for a purpose which then has something to do with this hidden office of his in Aisle of Palms’ so-called Cement Village, still being developed, still being filled in. The whole place was named for the event.
Things were getting fuzzy as the current novel recedes and the next novel begins to focus in. Like a right eye being closed and a left opened, we must shift from one to the other to keep having visions. My apologies to the reader for leaving so many questions unanswered but it’s all part of the game. 42 will answer EVERYTHING. I promise.
End of “Sunklands 2023-2024 Winter”!
PHOTO-NOVEL 42
00420107 (allies?)
He wouldn’t reach out to him if it weren’t desperate times. “I need your help, Cpt. Americus, with these two loud mouth *goof* balls I’m currently house sitting for. The manor should be mine — *will* be mine. Are you in, wannabe superhero? Or are you out?”
“Let me finish this bucket of grey matter chicken and I’ll be able to decide,” he requests, and takes another bite. Slow chews. Sloooww.
There, he can feel it working again. His brain.
“Count me in,” he said as the last bit of gristle disappeared into his mouth, also the last of the magically produced chicken. Oh look. A whole new batch of pieces to consume when he looks down again. The Mann could be waiting a while. He’d forgotten about the bottomless bucket, an isolated superpower.
“Hold on, I suddenly forgot what we were talking about; remind me of the deal again?” he said as the munching and crunching began anew.
“Never mind Cpt.,” The Mann decided. “I’ll have to get back to you — another meeting, you see.” He didn’t plan to get back to him. This part of the search was to be closed up like an abandoned dangerous mine with its own bottomless pit.
—–
“Spaced Ghost,” he said to the next. “You’ve been with us since before the beginning, it seems. Surely *you* understand the power I desire. You can be there too. Sitting alongside me… and Parasol.” The Mann wasn’t quite sure how Spaced Ghost was young again, since his son Baker Bloch was nearing 67 years old now. Had to be 95-100. But here he is, shiny cape and shiny teeth and youthful physique. He didn’t question it, though. He was told he resided at the Shakespear’s Club in Centre County PA. Maybe the location was magical and gave him youth. He’d heard about such things associated with places named for The Bard. Like that ghost town near Lordsburg NM (revitalized in novel 39).
But when he teleported in to the proffered landmark, the only club he could find was the one slung over Young Spaced Ghost’s shoulder, as in a vintage Shakespear Gary Player Black Knight #2 Wood from the 1970s.
“I liked this place because they had a picture of me up on the wall there,” he started. “Don’t know when it was replaced by these collages or whatever they are.” He stared at one called “Doc’s Art”, wondering what it meant and the technique used.
“Yeah, sorry about that, Spaced Ghost. But about the deal…”
“Me and Zorak and Moltar — all 3 of us together. Boy I miss those days. Ghost Planet.” He sighs.
“So… about those nincompoops I’m dealing with,” directed The Mann again. “The Dynamic Du–”
“Regaltown: gone,” Spaced Ghost continued with the nostalgic lamenting. “Horns of Hatton: energy dissipated. We don’t have much left in Our Second Lyfe to cling on to. Might as well all pack up and head to the Red Dead Planet. Maybe we can make it into another Ghost Planet or something. We’ve already had several tries. I guess you’ve heard about them. Libra Neptune, the owner of the course I’m heading to after this. St. Dennis — son Scorpio Pluto told me all about it. Said they got there through a streetcar and he hadn’t heard back in a while. Said he’s ready to go over too once the portal’s stabilized; sell the golf course here and then recreate it over there in a better way.”
St. Dennis? The Mann thought. Portal? Suddenly he had more to mull over than revenge on some old, irritating neighbors. A whole new world was opening up.
(to be continued)
St. Dennis
Here they come in the streetcar, he thinks. Finally arrived in the right place. Must make my presence known soon. But first…
… a little havoc while I wait, he he. Bark bark, bark!
00420205 (friends)
The last one, belligerent as he was on the surface, was actually the most helpful. He suddenly remembered where he came from. And how he got here. Space.
Last stop today: the theatre to meet the others and tell them what he knows.
But he couldn’t get inside and he had no money. Only one thing to do. Backtrack; make a new “friend”.
“One please.”
And he did that levitating trick again and handed him the coins.
00420206
He didn’t meet the gang there as intended — wrong theatre in town as it turns out (there were 2) — but he did learn some very interesting stuff from the magic lantern films he paid 2 full American dollars for; exactly the amount he took from the beggar up the street and no more.
Is that… Mr. *Babyface*? he thought when the image of what they called Josiah Backwater appeared on the screen, complete with oversized head and smoking pipe to go along with an also smoking gun from his first animal kill.
A little later…
Nah, he thought about the new image, a grown up version of same. Head normally proportioned now for the body — wasn’t him.
But during the second film of the double feature, employing colored prints this time, he found himself gasping even louder. Flying ship. They know how he got here!
When he trotted out at the end he had much to ponder while reentering the light of day. Babyface… maybe it’s his great grandfather or something. Or maybe… *time traveler*. Would explain the spaceship reference.
Now to the correct theatre to find the gang for real. So much to talk about!
Luxembourg?
She was required to wear the hair at all times but she could change the outfit during off hours. Like now. Pink Hippo, lower reaches of Kangerootown over on the Omega continent, her new home of sorts. Where she decided to start the Wendy’s Hot Dog chain, at least until beau Jim Randolph Bastard Pirate reported back to her about the Red Dead planet. Hadn’t heard from him in weeks — probably dead in space, she determined, or crash landed on the planet at best with that rickety looking Humpty Dumpty ship of his. How right she was about the crash, but how wrong she was about the death. About to get eaten by alligators or shot by bandits (reader’s choice), he spotted a nearby fox and used a mod he’d installed just before entering the atmosphere to transfer his soul directly into it, switching over from his current body in immediate peril. Only till he could find another human one to inhabit. He watched from the new body as the teeth of the alligator sank in (or, in the other alternative death scenario, the bullets of the bandit sank in). He quickly scurried through the bush and away from the ghastly scene. Thank Gods for that mod. Actually, one of the God ones he installed upon recommendation of Atlantis High Priestess, who had lived in St. Dennis for a while, enough to know the advantages of God mode and attached mods in the “game.” Like bits for bytes.
Back to the Pink Hippo: Wendy had to decide by tomorrow whether to branch out her fledgling eating establishment to here in Kangarootown, about 5 sims west of the original store in Old Hen. She’d picked a central place in what you could call the burg’s downtown area. Now all she had to do was persuade the owner to give her the site. You can see it here — the red topped one. Just like Wendy. She liked that about the spot. Fate, she pondered.
Newt walked in and sat down beside her, a 67 year old recently retired German hailing from Brussels. Or so he said. “Buy you a drink, Wendy?” How does he know my name? she wondered.
00420305 (blow the doors off something (also: Rabbit))
Time for Mary Ball and Pitch Usurpius Darkly to move on to the next leg of their extended fishing vacation…
…. Fox Island at Endlessly Antipodal. Note that Antipodal is very close to antipoison, almost as if it was in the same jacket near the same pocket. Juliet-like, balcony standing Sepisexton we’re talking about here again and her hidden vial of the latter. Just in case, as she puts it. The former is included in picks by not one but two Yellowmoon Ridge landowners who seem unconnected to each other, er, otherwise (where we’ve just seen Shelley and Arthur). That’s why I knew I had to send the Darklys or someone else in my family of avatars there to check it out, interact with the landscape and perhaps the residents, if any exist.
Philosophy time now: Everything in Our Second Lyfe is connect to each other as if in a fractal environment. It all drills down to the same thing over and over. Only Outside can save us, something beyond Our Second Lyfe. Haze County where I actually live up in the Real World is an obvious, top level way to escape this void. Similarly virtual but much more intensely verisimilitudinous Red Dead planet too — if I can figure out how to get Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate out of that fox body and into a human one again in St. Dennis, its only full fledged city and what some call the 8th wonder of that world. GoogleEarth and associated Street View is yet another way to latch onto something more real. Thing is, Our Second Lyfe is losing energy as games keep developing way above and beyond it. If it weren’t for the ability to create. Oh, and also the avatar customization and the incredible creativity of Our Second Lyfe residents in designing clothes, buildings, vehicles, all sorts of things. I seem to need to relay this to the reader of my blog to illustrate that I’m in sort of a tug of war between it and the rest of reality, including even other virtual worlds (and specifically, at least at this point, Red Dead Redemption 2, even though I don’t yet own the game itself, ha). I mean, right now in one of my other computer windows I’m looking at something that shouldn’t be possible. Something in Mary Ball’s old Killing Shack now located at the bottom of a lake in Decker on the original Bellissaria continent. How did I get to this point?
Then there’s the problem of OSL laaaggg.
So here we finally return to Pitch Darkly and Mary landing in their small fishing boat on what’s called Fox Island in the River of Bear. Of course it has other names — no surprise there — including Squirrel Island. Because of this little fellow, currently surrounded by sniffing foxes checking him out. But he’s actually a chipmunk; that’s what the foxes have surmised as well, being versed in Endlessly Antipodal geography and the naming of local things. “We’re still okay; still on top,” one speak-thinks to the other, actually being a part of one soul beneath the separate exteriors, a distinct advantage they have over humans.
Maybe we shouldn’t be so hasty in switching Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate back into a human body himself. See what he can still uncover as an urban fox.
00420501 (Southern art gallery)
He was here to confiscate the so-called offensive painting and that alone, this Arthur *Kill*, disguised in another role. Even took the same first name this time. “Art like this shouldn’t happen in Saint Dennis,” the wife of a prominent town businessman said to the gallery owner on opening night. He countered that it was tasteful nudity, no naughty bits shown at all, “unlike, say, that one over there,” he said, pointing to another painting visible in the next room. “A bare bum! That doesn’t offend you but this does?”
“This one was done with more in mind. Chains!”
The gallery owner, raised in the North where his mama still lived (Illinois I believe), ruminated: I thought you Southerners *liked* chains and slavery. Maybe because the model isn’t *black*. But of course he kept all this to himself.
And so Arthur the policeman, gifted Shakespearean actor beneath the blue garb, was sent in by the powers that be to make a statement. Thing is, he helped seed the controversy in the first place, part of his overall plan.
“Oh Libra Neptune,” he quietly lamented from his position in front of the work while staring at it, contemplating the circumstances surrounding its composition. “I thought I paid you enough never to come back here.”
He also wondered if her unpictured cheeks had turned red again.
00420502
I wanted to take a look upstairs to see if there was anywhere I could hide the painting on the premises. Too risky to just walk out the front door with it… yet.
Unfortunately the two rooms there turned out to be phantom, although I was able to glitch myself in. Nice view down into the gallery through the invisible ceiling. Handy to know for perhaps later operations in this same area. More exhibits to come, more Libra to show off. I knew it was on the way.
I ended up stashing it in a conveniently placed hatch inside the building’s dome. No one will come up here.
The goods are safe for now. Better get back to Dutch to report what happened. Will he be pleased? angry? Hard to tell these days.
00420503
He enjoyed his time in Aisle of Palms rehearsing with his new band but it was always good to get back home. Back to his private, two palm beach beneath the house with its lounging boat and tent, back to his cats, big and small.
Plus the fact that all that talk about St. Dennis was kind of freaking him out. He *knew* where that was, he insisted to Baker Bloch and Wheeler Wilson, discussing the different angles of the subject at the new bar — Bull’s Bar I think they settled on for a name. Yes… and still guarded day and night by Grant Price and his security crew as hired by Bull himself, also known as Dragon. Bull Dragon sometimes, combining the two names. And sometimes even Ball Dragon or Dragon Ball, although he really doesn’t like the Ball version; best not to call him that, actually, because of his violent streak and all. Some say he comes from fabled Violence District itself; killed not one but a number of people there; kicked one to death in the middle of an alleyway, the legend goes. Anyway, being an omniscient type author to this blog and attached photo-novel, I also know that’s true, and that’s how Grant Price met him because he frequented the place too. Gray Man he was often called because of his suit and fedora style hat of that color. We’ve covered that a bit in the last section. Back to St. Dennis and Okama Majo’s different take on the topic. We’ll pick up discussion at Bull’s Bar two days prior. I’ll try to keep up better, ha.
He sat in the middle between the two as they chatted. They clearly wanted him to hear to further the narrative.
“*Anyway*,” continued Wheeler Wilson-as-Martha Lamb, “rumor has it that Atlantis High Priestess, this so-called Libra Neptune from the golf course back in novel 41, rediscovered the underbelly of St. Dennis, reverted back to her old, whoring ways. This is all in the movie too.”
“Red Dead Redemption,” Baker said back.
“02, like I said.”
“Okay. How does this… just go ahead. I’m sure it will clarify itself if we talk long enough.”
(to be continued)
—–
some things were hard to understand (Violence District)
00420506
The attic space of Newt’s 4 story Big Victorian Townhouse has been turned into an LSD Dream Emulator mini-museum, namely for objects and spaces found in the central building of the game called Bright Moon Cottage, pictured on Newt’s computer here also located in the attic. Newt noticed the structural similarities between the 2 virtual buildings shortly after first learning of LSD through Youtube algorithmically generated video suggestions about 3 weeks ago now.
Here we peer down through the invisible ceiling of the place, much like Arthur did earlier at the St. Dennis gallery from his phantom room above. Let’s take a look at the individual rooms while Newt finishes his dinner. Gotta eat sometime in Our Second Lyfe!
In the immediate area of dining Newt are, left to right, a bookcase similar to that found on the 3rd floor of Bright Moon Cottage, a futon with sleeping figure inside, and then the most detailed topographic map of The Natural World Newt could find, the largest location of LSD Dream Emulator and one acting as a connector between all other major locations, 5 in number. These include the Bright Moon Cottage itself, situated on an “island” in the center of the map, the game’s ground zero of sorts as individual dreams of its 365 day dream cycle most commonly start here.
And then just around the corner we have a Television, Teddy Bear, and a Pterodactyl figurine on a fireplace.
Next room down the hall of the attic comes Giant Head and Book.
And then in the final room we have Dying Woman with Giant Astronaut looming over her. The layout of the objects in Newt’s townhouse is not exactly the same as found in Bright Moon Cottage, as I’ve smushed the several floors there together to condense. However, I feel the, er, space vibes are similar.
Now I just gotta go to the marketplace and find some bird cages to finish.
—–
There I suppose. Let’s call it a night.
00420507
He was on the first floor of his Victorian house now working with the heavy duty computers when she passed by outside. He instantly recognized her from Cass City. Marsha “Pink” Krakow. But which role is she assuming under that overarching persona today? Secretary Berta Brainard? Or pawnbroker Pinkie Brainerd? Neither as it turned out — she had another one to go along with the new location. This is the way she bypassed her paralysis demonstrated in the middle of novel 41 and also a bit with the car wreck in the current novel. Like a female before her named Ball, she desired now to become a top notch comic. She’d warmed up in St. Dennis on the Red Dead planet with a smash act which she headed… without a head. Now it was time to up the ante here in Aisle of Palms. She knew psychedelic artist figure Okama Majo would be looking on.
She backed up and took the right turn to Bull’s Bar. Security agent Grant Price let her pass without inspection since he recognized her from the posters.
Inside a crowd had already gathered. She sat down unobserved at the bar and ordered a stiff one. She was kind of irritated that the animations in the stool didn’t allow her to properly close the front of her dress but she found one that somewhat retained decency. Only the bartender could see her anyway and since he was only a head, well, probably not too interested in her body.
She turned.
00420510
When we first see Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate in a fox’s body in St. Dennis, he’s waiting for his Our Second Lyfe friends to arrive in a streetcar from Valentine to the north. He thinks this is the streetcar but he’s wrong. Thing is, in this position his new body — head specifically — is juxtaposed directly in front of a taxidermist shop that the streetcar in the back is currently passing…
… whose display window prominently features a stuffed fox. Seems to be some kind of foreshadowing but of his own death I’m not sure about still.
00420513
She didn’t understand. These kind of jokes killed it in good ol’ St. Dennis. The beheading was a shocker and a stunner there but here, just groans of, what was it, disgust? Even, what-*ever*? So when the main act started warming up on the stage to her right everyone who was anyone flocked over there, leaving her with, who was it? The ogling Thompson Twins? Obviously here for more than comedy or an attempt at such.
“Stand back, she’s mine.”
“Oh no you don’t,” said the brother, trying to regain the advantage.
Then when lead singer Shelley hit the stage and started dancing and singing to Linen to appease the band’s God, things changed once more. She became who she really was back on the Red Dead planet. Atlantis High Priestess aka Libra Neptune, inextricably linked with the other 2 girls in a symbiotic triangle.
How to get out of this?
00420602 (rockstars)
On his days off, Grant (aka *Fred*dy) Price likes to roam the streets of Lost Sanos, sucking up people’s dreams to replenish needed energy for his various security assignments. This unsuspecting guy walks right into it.
Meanwhile, on another planet altogether (most say), Arthur sees horses at the end of a tunnel.
“We got a second one!” shouts Newt from beyond the 4th wall as Arthur reenters the light.
00420603
The fox is dead, Arthur realized while looking to the left on the same walk. Something had happened. Think Arthur, think!
He was in the tunnel again, light at the end once more. But different. White, not yellow. Different planet, he realized. Newt, he recalled. Something about Newt.
He turns left instead of right, thereby avoiding the dead fox.
Choices, he pondered. It’s all about the choices we make.
—–
Into the clotheslines!
00420604
“Ain’t got time for you, boy.” But the dog had something to say, something to tell. For he was the animal that the fox had become… just after getting run over by that streetcar he was following too closely. Last gasp effort before death: switch to another body. He was surprised he still had the power. But he did.
“I said *git* Red.” The dog bit the bottom of his pants, tugged at them. Arthur was tempted to kick the mutt but hesitated. He looked down. Same red as the fox. “Bastard?” he tried, feeling himself foolish at the same time. The dog heeled, seemed to smile at him while wagging his tail.
“Bastard!” The dream finally ended, longest of the night. Back to day thinking. Newt was forgotten, night was over. He had to find Dutch and try to explain to him what happened. Would Dutch listen? Probably not in this day and age. The Age of Enlightenment, Arthur thought derisively. Fat chance. Where are the powers of the Dark Ages when you need them.
00420605 (immobile (paying the price))
Day 042:
I manifested on an island in the void I couldn’t move away from — no bridges — so I took a picture before the dream ended. Crystal (at the peninsula’s tip). Have to look that up.
Yes, there it is. I’ll just place a little (red) pin on that island to remember…
—–
“Remember what?” Wheeler tested later, looking at the pin with him.
“I… forget!”
“Gray Man, hmph,” exclaimed Wheeler to this. “Wiped you out again. You’ll have to start over.” She looked at him instead of the map to emphasize her point. “Stick to The Natural World as much as possible, Newt. He doesn’t go there. You won’t be as, um, *abstracted* there.”
“Okay. I’ll try.”
“Now sit back down here and let’s begin Day 043 while I watch and advise.”
“Alright.” He sits back down like a good boy.
00420607 (05 and 06)
Perhaps the last major building has been manifested in Aisle of Palms: the original version of the Edwardston Station Gallery, holding the entire “Art 10×10” of 100 collages I created in 6 series from 2004 to 2009. Not the prettiest of structures with its plain cubic form, admittedly, but effective in its role. 6 floors, 6 series, with all but 2 and 5, or Rose Hill and Hidalgo respectively, holding 20 collages apiece. Those 2 floors/series contain 10 in contrast. I’ll get to what occupies the other 1/2 of the 2nd and 5th floors in a bit.
The immediate prompt for me rezzing this structure is that I wanted to show Newt (or whoever) that the fox-to-dog conversion of Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate in St. Dennis recently was seemingly preordained. The Yale-*Newt*on series of the “Art 10×10,” its 3rd, dates from 2006, going on 20 years ago at this point. Gosh, where have the years gone (!). Anyway, when we reach the 4th collage of that series we come to this dualism again: fox vs. dog or, more precisely, fox against dingo, for the orange dog of the work, titled “Outfoxed?”, is suppose to represent such, as the orange-ish dog in St. Dennis is in kind.
Then in the next two collages of Yale-Newton, making a type of animation with each other, we see the fox and dingo again, the in-taking of water if you will (“Diamond Dog”)…
… and then the release of same back into the atmosphere (“Coasts is Clear”), as the original Diamonds sign on the roof of the depicted restaurant bearing the same name is multiplied 16-fold and becomes a country unto itself, let’s say — our country, built up from the middle, this Diamonds Restaurant in a central state of Missouri, until it extends ocean to ocean. A seed becomes a tree.
And then in the next collage, the 7th of the series (“Here’s Lucy”), we come to another depiction of the word “diamonds”, now in connection with the initials LSD like in the famous John Lennon song we saw Shelley Struthers singing earlier in her band audition at Bull’s Bar in this here blog and attached photo-novel, 42 in number now of course. So I have a feeling this could reference Osamu Sato’s LSD Dream Emulator game on top of the drug and Lennon song — additional foreshadowing. More on this aspect soon, I’m predicting.
That bubble topped mound in the middle of the 7th collage being threatened by bulldozers is actually where it all starts to kick in, the whole “Art 10×10” and my journey into the world of digital collaging. Looks like fellow collage artist Barry De Boy will be our observer here instead of Newt, perhaps gaining inspiration for a jump start of his own art. Wendy is a muse!
He follows The Beatles’ yellow submarine between Greenup 05 and 06 as it floats downstream, into the tunnel of night lights, illumination in darkness.
What will he find there, a fox or a dingo? I’m guessing both. In fact, make that a certainty.
00420608 (kenbaiki (ticket to ride))
She’d seen enough of Castle Town for now. She was buying a sky ferry ticket back to Kangerootown from whence she came. She’d heard through the grapevine that keyboardist/DJ Okama Majo had returned to his cat house there, taking his own break from Aisle of Palms and the Dream Emulator band he’s part of with classically trained guitarist No Lag V, hog calling kid Don without a last name, and animated singer Shelley Johnston Struthers who has 3 to make up for it and who specializes in Lennon songs like “Strawberry Fields” and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and the like. But despite that, Okama named the band, not her. All because of his artistic hero Osamu Sato, so close to his own. Too close. Shelley’s found that out too. “You’re *him*,” she said recently during an acid drop sponsored by LSD, tripping the light fantastic and drawing truth from every corner of the universe, only to forget the vast vast majority of it later, of course. Gray Man works in all dimensions when you’re on that stuff; perpetual darkness. Must – stay – away, she thought to herself afterwards. No more sheets.
on her way!
00420616
“It’s simply beautiful here, Barry. But –”
“Why did I wait so long to show you this?”
“Well… *yes*.” It could have help swayed my judgement, she thinks. She could still change her mind, but… a contract was signed. Wendy’s Hot Dog Restaurant is a go! Except switch hot dogs with hamburgers and meat byproducts to just pure beef. Okama talked her into it, just as he talked himself into giving up the dream of taking over the Dream Emulator band and kicking everyone else out except maybe classically trained guitarist No Lag V, which they usually just shorten to No Lag. He’d assume the mayor’s position of Kangarootown instead, recently vacated by disgraced Golden Jim, fired because he’d called the wrong person the wrong name, it seems. Anyway, Okama = Mayor, Okama invites Wendy to open her restaurant in his former K-Town store (basically just a store for mouse traps, he said, waiving off the inconvenience), and then giving her a 25 year month lease on the place for 500 lindens a month. That’s the contract signed; too good of a deal to pass on; had to act fast, she felt, lest he or she changed his or her mind. And her affections returned to Bastard — wherever he is up there on the Red Dead planet. St. Dennis, she’d heard for a possible location. She hadn’t given up hope that he not only lives but thrives, and is just waiting for the right time to invite her up too. Hmm, but she’s locked into a lease now. She better think about a second in command just in case.
“I was waiting for the right time,” Barry finally answered, allowing Wendy’s internal monologue to unfurl in a proper manner. “I thought–”
“We could go steady?”
“Well…”
“Barry. I still have Bastard — you know, Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate.”
“But… he’s dead,” answers Barry to this.
“No, I refuse to believe that.”
“But… they found his *skeleton*, the Red Dead crew did. They *buried* him… out to sea.”
“No. Not true. I *sense* he exists still. I’m just not sure how.”
“All those rumors about him surviving and living in St. Dennis are just that. Fiction — fable. The skeleton in the boat was *his*. There was even his trusty sword to go along with it. Wendy — face it.” He makes her face him. “He’s gone.”
She was tempted to slap him for the stubbornness. But after all, as Okama Majo also pointed out, *he* has Hucka Doobie now. She substituted the slap with that harsh declaration.
Barry quickly looked away, almost as if he’d been slapped anyway. “She’s with someone else, I’ve heard. A Marion Star Harding. Never met the guy. But he predates me, even. Last I heard he’s in Gaston. Do you know of Gaston? I had to learn about it. I learned it from–” He stops. He realizes the irony, the *synchronicity* of the matter.
He recalls piecing together a document about the place. From wadded up papers strewn about his shed near the Pink Motel. Home.
PHOTO-NOVEL 43
00430106
“A word for each letter of the alphabet,” Wayne Bruce continued about his company, the famed Asylum Inc. started in the 70s on the west coast in a town that time had forgotten. He didn’t, and he’d drag others into his alternate reality as well. With the lists. He separated the top paper from the rest of the short stack and put it on the other side of the opened manila folder. “Second list now,” he said, staring at the new page front and center. “Black for the 1st’s white. Asylum revealed for what it truly is. Shadow government to the world everyone assumed ran from A to Z in an orderly fashion. This was only facade.”
“Here’s where he gets to the part about the Green and the Gray,” Fern directed to likewise watching Lichen, returned from her trip down the river to hunt for opposite shore sea shells. She’d come back home to Mama.
“… the Green… and the Gray.”
“Told ya,” said Fern with some satisfaction. She paused the film she’d found in an obscured archive in a hidden data farm — took a lot of digging to find this gem of a dangling carrot. She assumed Lichen had questions. *Should* have a lot but she’ll see about the total. Will help her determine how far Lichen has come along with her soil studies and overall brain development. She’s *funny*, Fern reminded herself. Funny as all get out at times. But she needs to develop the other side. Fern also reminded herself that she needs to work on the opposite side and find her own funny bone with which to work from. She told what she felt were two legitimate jokes yesterday that Lichen seemed to smile at or at least acknowledge the humor in. Advancement.
“How…?”
“How does Blue fit in?” Fern guessed about Lichen’s question. “With the Black, the Green, the Gray? Dark spectrum colors all I’m sure you noticed.”
“So… Red,” said Lichen, thinking back to the first list. “And…”
“Yellow, yes. And Golden and White. Light spectrum. Dark and light, Lichen. Dark and light.” She looked over at the light that had gone out of Lichen’s eyes. “Daark…” she said slower, trying to reignite. “And liight.”
Bulb went off.
00430117
In this here photo-novel 43, almost certainly not the last of a series, I’ve been cobbling together images from a number of separate Our Second Life locations to make a poor poor man’s rendition of Nightsity from the Cyberpunk 2077 video game, perhaps the most realistic virtual city ever created. Probably is, minus its NPC’s, which are a little wonky acting and looking still. Not up to snuff in that way with urban areas from vaunted Rock Star games Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2. But most everything else is equal or better for the newer game, the latest Grand Theft and Red Dead installments being from 2013 and 2018 respectively. Cyberpunk was released in 2020 to much fanfare but was *filled* with glitches and errors at the beginning. Well, according to recent reviews these seemed to have been essentially ironed out in subsequent updates and patches, and CD Projekt Red, the company that put out the product (also known for the Witcher video game series), says they’re basically done with the thing as of earlier this year. The dust is still settling on the finished work and people are still debating what has been created/revealed. Seems important. Seems different. A terrifying vision of the future, *our* future as a country (US of America) and of the world as a whole.
Maybe when I get a more powerful computer I can go there in person. 🙂 But in the meantime I have my small, connected collection of Our Second Lyfe substitutes and also game exploration videos found on Youtube by the likes of Daydream Gaming (who I call Daydreaming Gamer in the blog and attached photo-novel) and Mares The Martian (who I shortened to just “The Martian” in same (coming up!)). Also: Let’s Walk has some quite fascinating Youtube videos out there, including a 7 part “Walking Around the Edge of the (Cyberpunk 2077) Map” that I’ve been slowly making my way through. So a big shout out to these Youtube content creators, and also the ones making the Nightsity-ish locations in Our Second Lyfe that include Mouser Dowling’s Dystopian Night and Sektor 2, Sensory Hax’s Neuromancer 2020, and ღJennyღ (llxjenxll)’s ATP Paradise. Well done all. And I’m certainly still exploring the content from these and others.
And of course it’s Night City not Nightsity, another blog/photo-novel alteration.
One day…
00430307 (1/2 mil at least)
But does he really?
He goes into his bedroom to make a call to Lester, telling him the assassination is done and that he wants his money and new house for the job. After Lester says it’s a done deal, all his personal belongings disappear before his very eyes.
“What the???”
Frank Lynn wakes up, rises off the wide if short couch he fell asleep on. 8:30 in the evening: time to get in a real bed, he figures. He has 7 king size ones to choose from now, depending on which direction he wants the sun to be when he awakens in the morning after a refreshing 8 hours, beyond just these dratted accidental “power naps” of his. Ghetto dreams, pheh. Aunt Jen can only haunt him from them on a couch like from his youth, falling asleep to “Aqua Dude Hunger Force” reruns on the boob tube or something. He’s so far above his gangster roots and Aunt Jen and her woman power ways it’s not even funny. He thinks about the wide if not high garage full of short, powerful yellow cars — horse-powerful. He runs through other aspects of his wealth and influence in his head. Asylum Inc. He *will* make it a reality.
Time to get back to the Red book colored blue. He has them all about the house to find easier. If he misplaces one, there’s always another to fill in right around the corner. Always puts him right to sleep. *No* ghetto dreams in an actual, full sized bed. Power.
00430309
“It all started with Redd, Doc. We were just sitting in my car at the time, an old Oldsmobile I believe. Some piece of junk or another Stinch talked me into buying from his uncle’s cousin up in Grapeshot. Anyway, Redd was there, telling me what she could do, the prices — kind of like you, Doc, ha. Screwing me over.”
“Yes,” said nonplussed Clyde from a nearby chair. “Go on.”
“Bj was the standard for the car, she said. Quick yet effective. The back seat and the others will be more, she indicated. I glanced in the back, realized I hadn’t cleaned off the seats from all those Burger Shot wrappers and stray fries and such. Damn Stinch and his junk food habits. You see, I’d just bought the car off his uncle’s cousin day before yesterday’s yesterday.”
“Wednesday,” Clyde clarified more for the reader than anyone.
“Yeah, suppose. Drove all the way up there with him and still had to pay 50 dollars more than what Stinch said he was asking for the old thing.”
“You mentioned Gold earlier. Color of the car?”
“Color of the *man*,” Frank Lynn corrected to his June-July-August therapist, soon to be replaced by Fremont in the Fall. “And the car. Everything gold about him, even the teeth.”
“Let me get this straight,” said Clyde. “You bought a gold car from a gold skinned man with gold for teeth.”
“Yeah. Midas kind of fellow for sure.”
“Sounds like a robot to me.”
00430316
I occasionally come here to walk, almost always at night and most often in the rain when less people were around. Like tonight. As David Bowie following in the footsteps of John Lennon well knew, fame certainly comes with a price. No more anonymity, especially in my former hood.
Many things had changed since the 2 years I’d been gone. The old Hands On Car Wash behind Aunt Jen’s where I lost my cherished spool table was now the Crown Car Wash, taken over by big corp.
Fern’s old Foreign and Domestic car parts place across the street from it had been bought out by a neighboring business dealing with electronic circuits.
But Fern herself was still in the area; had herself bought a failing Crucial Fix Jamaican coffee shop nearby and turned it into a self named cafe, no possessive form this time. Just plain Fern — actually The Fern as I’m thinking of it. Drove by it during the day already…
… but try as I might, I couldn’t find it now in the dark and the driving rain.
Once found, I planned to spend time there with the smartest person I knew, black white or any other color. Except maybe for Stinch’s uncle’s cousin up in Grapeshot who could sell bacon to a policeman, ha. Fern’s a mentor for sure.
10:43. Better get back to the “mansion” and pick which of my 7 king size beds I’m going to sleep in tonight and pick one of those Red books to fall asleep by. Author a guy with Mars in his name — go figure. J. Marston. Could be John, could be Jack. But probably Jack, the son. I’m on chapter 4 now: ‘How to Deliver a Foal’. Fascinating reading; getting sleepy just thinking about it. Here’s my turn.
PHOTO-NOVEL 44
00440410 (cow?)
She came in from a planet called Red Dead, she said. St. Dennis, she specified. Said she was very busy there and what did I need? I asked her what was so important there that she was so bothered to meet with me, her other half after all. Something — the male counterpart — of sorts. Maybe we need to sort all that hierarchy and stuff out soon too. Maybe now, hmm. So I told her this after she sat down, ordered her own drink. She was wearing the Crazy Blue, good. That means she would be obedient to me. I checked my watch on purpose. “Been waiting 2 hours, you know. 2:27 now.”
“I know what time it is,” came her response. “I have a clock in my head.”
Doubtful, I thought. Then I thought again. Could she? Powerful, I knew. From another planet — probably true.
We went out on the balcony, me and her. Well, she was on the balcony and I was standing just inside, still staring at the harbour, the boat I couldn’t see because of the building and all. East end. I asked her about it.
“Oh that old thing. It’s just a cargo boat.” She stopped, looked at me with a glint in her eye. *She’s* the cargo, I realized. Mechanoid? So I asked her that too.
“Long long ago,” she began her answer. “There was a forest, a woods. Big Woods, let’s call it. And in the middle of that woods, a Sugar Shack, run by a gal named Sugar. But no ordinary gal. A *dinosaur* gal — small one, granted, but a dinosaur.”
“Yeah, you’re giving me the backstory of Aisle of Palms so what? And I suppose *this* Aisle makes 3, a perfect triangle.”
“Not perfect. But close.”
I turn on the shaders so I can see her better, in her true light and color. Hopefully I can keep from crashing out of this world again. But I couldn’t resist.
“Do you want me to change out of the Crazy Blue?” she asked, trying to adjust her AO so she could seem more natural standing in the corner of the balcony.
“Whatever.”
“You will have no control over me if I do.”
I felt the horn on my head, sprouting left right.
“Alright.”
She had gone through about 10 standing animations. I thought 2 were fine — including the present one — and told her so. “You can stop,” I said. “Just stop.”
“Do you think I’m fat?” she ended as the waves crashed behind her.
PHOTO-NOVEL 45
00450401
My study of Osamu Sato’s 1998 LSD Dream Emulator game and the setting up of this mini-museum to it in the attic of my Aisle of Palms “Big Victorian House” seems so long ago now. It was only April. So seems my heavy involvement with Our Second Lyfe, whose influence is undoubtedly fading from this here blog and attached photo-novels, 44 1/2 in number now (a long journey!), as more modern and much better looking games like Grand Theft Auto V, Witcher 3, and especially Cyberpunk 2077 and its humongous Night City take more and more of both my daytime and nighttime attention. But also, My Second Lyfe is not dead. Just *concentrated*. Think that’s the best way to put it. It glows bright blue to me, a square in the middle of everything still, a house-like home base sitting in the center of a large yard, with GTA V lying green to the west, C2077 red to the east, and Witcher3 yellow to the south (also taking the shape of a square unattached to the first (like a garage or large shed?)). This what-we-can-call expansion is happening now, but it also happened long long ago, in what seems like a different lifetime over 50 years back now. Aisle of Palms is my virtual village that represents the launching pad for exploring these post-Second Lyfe worlds, beginning, really, with Red Dead Redemption earlier this year, before the influence of the 3 likewise newer games I mentioned really started kicking in. A link from this far far past to the present in this way is MONKEY.
Monkey City = Lost Sanos
There I said it, Mother. Monkey City *is* relevant to all this. But I think she sees that now.
This is probably where I’ll first virtually incarnate beyond Our Second Lyfe in the near future. A good guess, given this snapshot of GTA V’s original monkey mosaic 1 1/2 photo-novels back taken by Trevor (beginning of 44) coupled with a snapshot of a *different* Trevor — recently dead — wearing monkey brand underpants in the Badlands desert of C2077 from later in the same photo-novel. Maybe hard to explain but I definitely think the two images from two different games are linked.
Why GTA V (Lost Sanos) over C2077 (Nightsity) then for the incarnation? I’ll have to think about that explanation and get back to you.
(to be continued)
PHOTO-NOVEL 48
00480408 (NEXT!)
00480415
“Snowlands, huh?” Frank Lynn repeats the location where Clucky says she’s moving to… 5 sections of a photo-novel into the future.
In the present (and just after the move):
“The temple and attached pool don’t seem to be much of an eyesore from here,” Frank Lynn talks only to himself now while staring out from the View at the view. “Must be something about Clocky instead. Maybe *he’s* still somewhere in the area and can be properly talked to.”
“Clocky?” Daisy Flathead answers him when he then walks down the hill to the revamped, reopened Hole in the Wall bar parallel to and in synch with the newly placed temple/pool complex and asks about the robot’s current location. “Kicked out by the ties.” Like tiles but different, Frank Lynn understands. Along the same lines.
“So he’s not going to be your bartender or anything?”
“Dunno, still. He *did* say he has experience, I’ll give him that.”
experience
“Tell me more about the tiles, I mean, ties,” Frank Lynn requests, taking another sip of Corona Non, his 3rd of the day. Can’t get enough of it! So tasty. Daisy picked the right Non for the house drink fer sure, he thinks.
“Ever heard of the band Tally Hall?”
“No,” he answers flatly. “Enlighten me.”
“Ever heard of the song ‘Banana Man’?”
“No again.”
“Their most famous. Probably. Unless it’s ‘Ruler of Everything’.”
“Sounds like you’re a fan, Daisy.” And here Frank Lynn starts thinking about her hair and its flatness. And it’s frizziness. Is she at least part African-American? Got him thinking along other lines too.
“Kind of,” she answers about the fan part. “But they wear ties — red, yellow, blue, green and also a gray to unite them all through drums. You have to have drums to complete a proper rock band. 4 isn’t enough in this case.”
“Hey, doesn’t Barry De Boy up on the hillside wear red ties?”
“Not when he is awake,” Daisy answers, and then Frank thinks she winks at him. Her hands move closer to his on the counter.
“Oh,” Frank says, and looks down. The 2 sets of hands get closer closer… overlap (!). (TBC)
PHOTO-NOVEL 49
00490102 (simultaneity)
Tree tattoo, front and back — no crack.
Which leads us to… these side-by-side pictures of the 2 very different appearing and acting Dennis the Menaces both emerging in our world on the same date of March 12, 1951, US and UK style…
https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2010/10/18/the-odd-case-of-dennis-the-menace/
1951 must have been a very bad year to be named Dennis.
The reason is because on March 12 of that year two separate comics entitled Dennis the Menace went on sale, one in the UK, one in the U.S (Note: The UK version is dated March 15 but actually went on sale on March 12).
The UK comic Dennis, which first appeared in Beano #452, was created by David Law and published by D.C. Thomson as a comic strip inside a popular comedy comic book. It’s U.S. counterpart was created by Hank Ketcham and initially distributed by Post-Hall Syndicate as a syndicated comic strip for newspapers.
Though, based on this simple fact, many draw the conclusion that one of the two creators had to have plagiarized the other, it’s become clear that simply wasn’t the case. Not only did the two creators have no way of knowing what the other was working on, but the two characters are actually extremely different. The UK version is a true menace, a mean-spirited boy who likes to cause trouble, and the U.S. version is happy-go-lucky child that causes trouble without intending to.
US and UK happen to be the prefixes of two separate but directly related Cracks in this here blog and attached photo-novels, the first, US Cracks, a “real” band from the Cyberpunk 2077 game with a name derived from the expression “ass cracks”, and the second, UK Cracks, my reimaged and repurposed US Cracks headlined by a Blue Moon Kentucky instead of a Blue Moon period
Red anyone?
Blue Moon and Red Menace (and “divide the difference” Purple Force) of US Cracks
Simultaneously appearing US and UK versions of Dennis the Menace discussed in a 2010 *”Cracked”* article:
https://www.cracked.com/article_18788_the-5-most-mind-blowing-coincidences-all-time.html
Let’s switch back to Frank Lynn’s giant, mobile or wannbe-mobile castle home in the sky over in Jeogeot’s Nawt Vaya (Free State) for the next one, specifically its only bathroom, pre-Daisy Flathead 2nd date condition, he he.
Here he’s ogling “Xxxmas Belles” magazine’s 2025 centerfold beside an attempted 666 coverup of 3 more cracks — didn’t quite work this time unlike for the first picture of this blog post. “Damn, Miss Mistletoe you demon,” he says to the spread out centerfold before him. “I’m truly gonna miss you. But I have new lips to smooch. Better pull out my phone and call Daisy.”
Which returns us to Kentucky… TBC
00490109 (Where’s the red?)
answer: in Red Dead Redemption 02 (*not* Starfield (crustaceans, PHEH))
BGR — backwards from the question mark on the mtn. that ends this trail of clues currently. Let’s see what happens next!
00490304 (Queen)
*CLUNK*
—–
She paced behind me, asking me question after question that turned into 1 question I couldn’t answer. “What did you do with the picture?”
“What picture?” I ask.
“THE picture. Of *me*.. o-or, at least from the thighs down.”
“Well… who *are* you?” I ask back.
“You know who I am.”
I pause, gathering the energy to say what’s next on my mind. “I *thought* you were someone I met back in Valentine. But apparently you’re not.” Must be the illness making me hallucinate, I think here.
“Am I not?”
No, I wanted to say. You’re most likely just a common hooker. Not a noble person like Mrs. Downes. She could have made it big in this world with her heart, her determination. Instead he made her into, well, *this*. I deserve what I got. Death row for Arthur “Orient” Morgan, a man with a Far East history that would do him in.
(Red Row too, if Arthur (Morgan) equals Arthur (Kill), as I, the author (Arthur?), believe it might. We’ll see… but let’s not end there.)
“I want that picture you stole from the gallery,” she continued, emphasizing her purpose in all this. “The one from the wrong side of St. Dennis, the *Southern* part.”
“The underbelly, yeah,” I admitted.
“Right, you give me that and you can go. You can seek out the real Mrs. Downes if you wish. You can pay for sex with her, you can just pay her without the sex, I don’t care. I just need… that *picture*.”
Dutch saw this coming, I think. He said it would be worth a lot one day and to hide it in a safe place, which I did. Turns out he’s right. Knowing my own well-being didn’t matter at this point, I thought of as much money as I would need to make Mrs. Downes comfortable in her older age, put her back on the right track and potentially allow her to thrive. “10,000 dollars,” I say aloud after determining the amount I’d been formulating in my head for a while, maybe since May. “10,000 or you won’t be able to find it. Kill me if you wish. I’m a dead man walking anyway.”
She ended her pacing, went to a nearby door, peered in. “How about… a trade? Thighs up instead of thighs down. And a man instead of a woman. Aand, clothed to the hilt, military style. An opposite painting. North for South. But just as valuable, probably even moreso.”
“Well I need to have a look at what you’re talking about first, lady,” I say while turning toward her as best I could given my roped circumstance.
“Yeah, ogle while you can old lady,” she speaks more to herself than me it appears, still staring through the window of the door. “The King will be taken from you soon if I have my desire.” She turns toward me with this. “Wheeler,” she says. “You call me Wheeler.” TBC
00490305
She looked over at the files that goes with the painting before leaving the door, debating in her head whether to throw that into the deal as well — as a sweetener. If only she had a copy… or a copier. “Wheeler… is that a last name? Or first? Or some kind of nickname, I don’t know.” In his chair, Arthur struggles against the tight ropes to no avail. She’d tied him down good. Old girl scout, let’s say.
“Wheeler is a way of life,” she answered cryptically. “Wheeler is something that goes and goes only to circle back in on itself again. Wheeler is love; Wheeler is… truth. Wheeler is. In short: I don’t know either,” and she emits a soft chuckle with this.
Arthur is shaking his head now. “First you appear to be someone I know, then you knock me out — don’t know how you got the drop on me so quickly.” And here, Arthur laments being overpowered by a woman again. A man would have been bad enough. He puts great pride in his strength and agility. Maybe she’s some kind of athlete, Arthur ponders, struggling once again in the increased frustration. Or a *witch*. He’d heard about such creatures roaming the streets of St. Dennis at night. And also over in the swamplands. “Then, you drag me in here,” he continues after finding the ropes as tight as ever. Arthur then looks around, sees the car tires, sees other objects he doesn’t understand. “Where are we anyway? This almost looks like it’s not St. Dennis any more.” How long was I *out*? he thinks.
“It isn’t,” says Wheeler. “We’re in a place called Rodentia formerly complemented by a giant white — and brown — rat named Rodentius, a male for the female. Yet Rodentius has left the scene. Giant bathroom in the sky is all I’ve got so far.”
“Nonsense, lady, er, Wheeler,” Arthur quickly decides. But he’s shaking his head still, trying to absorb. “And what about that *painting* you mentioned, the one I could trade for. Answer me!” His frustration had spilled over into rage. He’d reached a limit of whatever patience he had left.
Wheeler kept silent. “You’ve had enough for today, Arthur. I’ll come back tonight and we can talk more about the 2n1. I’ll let you cool down for a while.” TBC
00490310 (the truth)
“It’s suppose to be a representation of the Red Room from Twin Peaks but, as you can see, it’s not quite finished yet. Gotta get that zig zag black and white texture for the floor… and so on.”
“Really nice, Wheeler,” I say, wondering again why she hadn’t shown me this before. “And the painting — I assume it is a duplicate of the one over in Salty’s, in the old storage area behind the cooking section.”
“Or the same,” Wheeler answers. “Maybe this painting is in the past and the one over at Salty’s is more in the future. Or visa versa. Depends on if Arthur is still tied up over there. And I think he might, making this the, um, future?” She looks over at me. “But you’re not Arthur. And we haven’t made a deal yet. Better get over there, then.”
“Okay,” I said to end things here. Because I was never really here without her. I wanted to talk about the old core of avatars and her role in it. Baker Bloch — me, in essence — came before Wheeler. Baker Blinker came before her. Baker Blinker is more me than her. And then Hucka Doobie came along to make an original three. Hucka Doobie is of course the spiritual guide for the blog and attached photo-novels as a whole, although she hasn’t been in the recent ones as much. That might change. Then there’s Karoz, kind of my blue-green alien brother, if I am the same as Baker Bloch which I mostly am (Whitehead in Da Woods). Then and only then came Wheeler, and, at first, she wasn’t who she is today. All that changed with the photo-novels, 2 if not 1. She came… in 2. All the rest were there long before even 1. She was the last who became the first. Arkansaw.
But we never got around to that discussion.
I watched her disappear up the stairs and then I did too.
Sunklands 