“It’s over, Sandy,” Baker Bloch said from the bench in front of the canvas. The search for All Orange: done.”
“I know,” he speaks over from the game he and Wendy and perhaps several others are playing. Not Carcassonne, but close, because tiles are involved, jigsaw shaped ones in this case, which they are sitting on as well as playing with. They are playing with themselves.
“Whose move, Wendy?” he asks.
“Yours.” They switch jigsaw pieces with each other while Baker continues to stare.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0207, Marwood, NWES Island
“Well, the apartment’s ours again, Wendy. We have a new start here at Bigfoot.”
“Wonderful.” She was truly happy about the situation. She was truly Wendy in the moment, mediocre actress Alice Frame a far away dream for both of them. It was just like with Breeze before. Sandy should have known by the names — Wendy; Breeze. Together: Breezy, the archetype thereof.
“But I do insist you change into the other dress as soon as possible. The Twins are still out there… somewhere. The Cub Run consignment store is a thing to be reckoned with.”
“I know.” She smooths her present dress’ puffed out nature, not ready to show Sandy too much too soon. She knew how he was. But she was ready to take the gamble that she could change him. She’s betting that he’s ready to settle down with one woman and one woman only. For more than a week’s stretch. The search for All Orange: over. She knew she was the one. The right dress will come soon enough. Then he can see what he wants to.
“Let’s run away, Wendy,” Sandy then tries. “Forget about The Twins. We’ll hide out in one of the suburb cities away from town, maybe this Meat City I’ve been studying up on. There’s a place there you can dance. My new friend Francis can probably get you a job. Then I can run the slot machines next door or something. Maybe work at a newspaper office like I did before in Tinseltown–”
“Stop,” she demanded. Both knew the impossibility of it all. They were stuck in Town, formerly the City before the council told everyone otherwise. Their new landlord MAT is fighting it — wrote a strong guest editorial in the well respected Meat City Post, a true up and coming rival to the NWES City Gazette which I guess will have to be changed to the NWES Town Gazette now, perhaps weakening its position as top dog further. Collagesity be damned, Sandy thinks. But MAT makes some persuasive arguments.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0514, Apple's Orchard, NWES Island
“Aren’t you a little light to be a Blue Berry Girl?” Sandy quickly tried to backpedal the comment. “I mean, the *blue* and all.” He looked away from her crossed arms and her stare. He didn’t want to seem racist, but had stumbled into a big pile of awkwardness. Constance, sensing this, tried to lighten the mood.
“I knew what you meant.”
“I know you did, I know you did.” He was back to his confident self after the bumble. Should he ask her out on a date? Too soon? He thought again of his quest for the alchemical endpoint of All Blue, turned to All Orange for the purposes of this here blog. Started as a child when he saw the perfectly round, orange-like navel in a box. We covered that in photo-novel 10. And better make that a navel orange back in that sentence before last. In a fruit box.
“If you don’t want me, you can leave me.”
He leaned forward, switching gears. “Try the other one, Wheeler. If you don’t mind. She’s going to show up sooner than later. Best to test it out now.”
“I’ll do better than that,” Wheeler currently playing the role of Constance Blueberry said back to Baker Bloch currently playing the role of character-actor Sandy Beech.
So just for the record, here we have two core avatars interacting with each other so no need for that collaging effect I spoke about earlier. This is Baker Bloch, this is Wheeler. Not 2 characters of Baker Bloch or 2 characters of Wheeler, etc. On with the show…
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0510, Heterocera, Iris
“You think he’ll go back?” asked Philip Strevor to his partner in crime Marion Harding, wearing his Gaeta V shirt for this particular shoot.
“Maybe.”
“He has to,” quickly came the reply. “He has to find that demon that killed our little girl.” His voice was becoming anxious, murderous even. Philip had not smoked any pot to take the edge off the racier drugs he was currently imbibing. Marion, in contrast, only did the marijuana. So much here! Mixed in with red wine per usual; balancing the red and the blue as he liked to say. Easier said than done. Like tragedy and comedy in life as a whole.
“Philip,” Marion tried to calm him, “have you ever thought about how we got from Gaston to here. I mean, *really* thought about it. The chain of events that leads from one to the other.” He looks around, at the other hippies milling about the place. Well, *he’s* a hippie. Philip definitely was the odd man out in this bunch. So much pot, so much booze. But the racier drugs were few and far apart. This wasn’t Philip’s place in the end. Corsica really wasn’t his continent. Gaeta V suited him better. But Capitol City and its Capitol Hill were no more. Returned to the swamp they arose from. Flattened back to the pancake prairie it started as. Pancakes… Laboratories. Marion suddenly had an idea.
“Philip, how would you like to return to Gaeta V? Just for a bit.”
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Eddison/242/165/27
—–
—–
I’m just going to have this red wine but you eat as many pancakes as you like, Philip.”
“Oh *goody*.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0207, Corsica, Gaeta V, Southwest, Twin Peaks, Twin Peaks Laboratory
It’s a strange place for certain. And big! It *could* work — that’s why he’s here. Especially given that he’s just found his long sought for All Orange. I started to write “seemingly”, but, no, he’s found it. The Rose but also The Thorn.
“I’ll *make* it work,” he says aloud to no one in particular. “I have motivation now. But where to next?”
There was a simple answer. Home. Just in the back there.
I must do something with the place, he ruminates when entering. Especially since he has a bonafide assistant now. Joy!
—–
“Soooo. Herbert Dune — that’s his name?”
“Yes,” answers Baker Bloch to Hucka Doobie. They’re back!
“He’s in one part of Apple’s Orchard. And his girlfriend — *assistant* — is in another part, more to the north. South and north.”
“That’s our limits (!) For the present.”
—–
Meanwhile, in the Faux Rhino Club across this sim, Breeze, reverted to plain ol’ Merry Gouldbusk for the afternoon at least, had just heard out Herbert Gold’s profession of love for her. Two in two days! she thought to herself. When a woman is in demand, she’s in demand! “H-how did you find me?” she asked innocently. She knew the larger answer to that. Destined couples have a way of getting together, no matter how the surface odds are stacked against them. But she has Herbert Dune now. Confusion! Good confusion, though. She is wanted! And… another *Herbert*. What’s with that?
“It was your last letter to me,” he explained. “About half a year back. You mentioned NWES — New WES I think you called it at the time.”
“That’s right. I remember. I said I wanted a change, a new life. Ingo can run Rosehaven by himself now. It’s *his* kingdom, yes.”
“As opposed to your queendom.” He looked her over good. “Soooo…”
—-
“And he basically asked her flat out if she had decided on a sex for herself. He’d touched her in two places before; knew there was some mixed up boy-girl confusion going on up here… and down here.” Hucka Doobie was fondling the appropriate places on her body.
“I know what you’re talking about, Hucka Doobie. No need for the grabbing and such. Welll?”
“All of a sudden,” the bee-person continued, “she didn’t know again. It’s when she first laid eyes on Herbert, walking down the street beside her apartment on 108 Rib Lane.”
“Actually, I think it’s Serpent Avenue.”
“Whatever,” Hucka Doobie quickly followed. “But the skin came back, the *mask* came back. She was all glinty goldeny again, much to her dismay. She thought it was over and that she had found true home. Home with Herbert. But there was *another* Herbert to deal with.”
“Maybe *he* should just steal her golden skin. His last name is Gold, after all. And — what about April Mae? Is she left behind forever down at West End in, where was it, the Irish Village in that Fi sim?”
“Well… the 4th had to be reached. Rubedo. End of Work.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0016, 0207, Apple's Orchard, Jeogeot, NWES Island
He must get his eyebrow spiral just right. For today was the day to pop the big question. Just a little more product should do it.
—–
“The town *could* hold many mysteries,” she complained metallically to photographer Herbert Dune later at Spunky’s coffee shop on Southside, “but I’m not sure that’s the way it’s pivoting. A choice must be made soon. Am I a mixed up man-girl or one or the other? Not sitting on the fence any longer. Feel one part: one. Feel another: the other.”
Herbert Dune was staring at her hair, thinking: I believe you’ve already chosen, baby*doll*. My doll, that is. Could this be, could it be…? He said aloud: “I-I’ve made a decision as well.” Stumbling with his words? That’s not like him. He *must* be nervous about all this too. But he seems so close this time. After failing so many times before. A doll come to life. Dare he even think the name? Yes: All Orange. I think I’ve found her. “I wish you to become my assistant.” Confidence back now. He stares her straight in the eyes, trying to ignore the golden sheen. He’d almost found his style. One more trick with the hair at the shoot tonight might do it. Along with shedding the skin again, of course.
—-
“Wow, that was *da bomb*, Merry.” Marry me, Merry! he wanted to scream to the world. The illusion was complete.
“Call me Breeze,” the assistant then requested. She’d been pondering the new name for a while.
“Breeze it is!”
—–
“Marry me, Breeze!” He couldn’t help himself this time.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0016, 0206, Black Ice, Jeogeot, NWES Island
“You admit you are the girl that goes by California.”
“Cal, yeah. That’s me.”
“You have an unregistered navel. You declared All Orange back in 1914, before such things even existed. Do you admit you are also a time traveler?”
“I can admit that. I am allowed. Now… give me something hard.”
Natali Woodhull did not respond immediately. Then: “I’ve lived here since the lemony days. I know a thing about citrus.”
“Good for you Natali. Can I let Rocky in now? We must practice for the big ball 2 weeks from Friday. End of story. Completio.”
Natali paused again. “Not quite yet,” she decided. “As California, you are created by a man named Wilson, true?”
“I *am* Wilson. I am the 28th president of the United States of America born in Staunton, Indiana.” She smiled.
“But… you are a woman,” points out Natali.
“Then: Wilsonia. The feminine form of Wilson. I tipped the scales in favor of me. I am both feminine and masculine. General Grant knows.”
They sat there for a while. They could hear Rocky rapping on the door of the coffee shop, saying stuff like, “come on,” and, “let me in already.” Finally he seemed to go away. Tronesisia nodded her head a little with this. “It’s going to be difficult for him to come back. He’ll get lost in the city lights, he will.”
“I’m sorry. But this is important. There’s a wall in this town of course. In olden days it was called the Green Monster, not because of its color but because it ate green — trees to be specific.”
“General Grant allows glimpse into Navelencia at Orange Cove,” says Tronesisia cryptically, and then reaches down to lift her metal shirt a bit, exposing the orange in question. “Green Monster. It has a hole in the center.” She circles the navel with a silver index finger, then lowers the shirt back and beams blue eyes at Natali. “I heard you used a recording of our signature song for a dance last week.”
“I did,” admitted Natali, hoping Tronesisia wasn’t mad about the borrowing (what was *that* about?). “But just for a particular customer. On a whim, if you will. I got it from Chris.”
“Did it have a certain effect?” Tronesisia’s pace was crisp and precise.
Natali didn’t know. She recalls she was really into it. Trance dance. “I’m not sure,” she offered. “Can you explain?”
Tronesisia got up out of her chair and danced the same exact dance, right there on the spot. Natali Woodhull’s mouth remained agape at the beginning. How? she thought. How?
And then she began to remember.
There was a ship.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0010, 0510, Wallytown/Fishers Island
“So is this her?” Ruby asked without a hint of jealousy. The Green (Eyed) Monster.
“Yes. Beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Yes.” I wish I were a 100th that beautiful, Ruby then thinks. Eraserhead Man was thinking at the same time: But not as beautiful as you are right now, Young Ruby. EM is certainly smitten (!).
“This is Smithy’s House,” EM then declares. “Not finished. We also don’t know who’s going to play Smithy. Maybe the man in the bright green coat who came on the set earlier. But maybe not.”
“Where are all the others, Pencil? (for that was what Ruby always called EM since their days back on New Island — Pencil)
EM points to his eraser topped noggin with a stubby arm. “In here.” He waits an appropriate beat. “Nah, just kidding. They’re in the southeast corner of Fishers Island. Doing my bidding.”
“Gwin included?” Ruby tried to word her thoughts properly. “She… returned to the set?”
“Yes. Sorry you can’t play the part, Ruby. But we have something special cooked up for you. Did I ever tell you I have a doppleganger too? Some call him Penn Mann. Some just penhead, because he’s quite irksome. But lately he’s been sporting a pink mohawk and disguising himself as a she. Under this guise (he’s known as) Chuck Cheese. Sometimes Heidi, which I suppose indicates his ability to hide well. But we’ve struck a deal. Man to man-as-woman. I get the southeast corner of Fishers Island, he gets Wallytown of Fishers Island.”
Ruby pondered on this new information. “Then who gets Fisher?”
“Ahh, so logical, so precise you are. Yes, our Orange Boy. Orange itself. That is the conundrum. To answer that we must first go back to when Herbert Dune was just a boy on the threshold of adolescence. Or just beyond, I guess. Rounding a corner. Seeing something earlier on that day that he didn’t understand. A flesh and blood woman turned into a doll. Heidi — or whatever she or he’s called — insisted that he — or she — direct the shoot.”
—–
“Do you have the orange makeup on all over the appropriate spot, Chloe?”
“Yeees.” Chloe Price was being paid quite handsomely for this scene, but still her voice had an edge. She was nervous. She never had done anything close to a nude scene for a film, never exposed her midriff for anything. Oh, there was that pool scene in “Life is Strange”. But that was all innocent fun and games. This is different. She could back out… but she was already inside.
“Alright. Young Herbert Dune — George — you come around the corner just there and then spot Chloe. You slink back around the corner. Chloe doesn’t see you. The case is opaque, not transparent. Here… let me set the mood better.”
—–
“So the case is darkened. All except that circular opening. And then, Young Herbert can’t help himself, takes another look. The legend of All Orange is born.”
—–
“I’m giving you back your 50,000 lindens, EM. I couldn’t do it. Director Heidi took my place. She was a better height for it anyway.” Chloe Price huffed. “You don’t know *what* I went through in ‘Life is Strange’. Creepy stuff. I couldn’t do it,” she reinforced.
EM pats her hand. He’s finally breaking through that tough exterior. “There there, friend. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to here on *my* set.”
That day, Chloe may have fallen a little bit for Eraserhead Man as well.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0010, 0504, Urbane Blue/Fishers Island
“Thank you Yip Yip! We’ll be speaking later on these matters!”
“You’re welcome!” gruffed the large, blue creature while shuffling his way out of the same colored coffee shop.
“So… that leaves just you and me, Sandy. ” Eraserhead Man counts the characters off on his yellow hand. “Jer Horne, Benny Horne, Gwin, Doris Drane, Blue Yip Yip… oh, the *rabbits* (!). He shakes his eraser topped head, breathes out heavily. “Oh well, I’ll talk to them individually later. Frank Bowers and Jenny have some large issues going down, Sandy. And Commander Yip Yip — Cookie — is right smack in the middle of it all.”
Suavely dressed Sandy Beech just stared at his director, letting him unwind his ideas as he’s wont to do. He’s *trying* to be patient. It *is* an important role in his career, perhaps a defining one. He decides to simply nod instead of speak at EM’s implied prompt for a response. Auteurs needs affirmation. Over and over. He’ll give him this right now and nothing more. After nodding, he settles back in his golden seat.
EM leans forward at the same time, reaches over and pats Sandy’s nearest foot to further get his attention. “But *you*. I wanted to keep this just to ourselves, Sandy, so that’s why we’re here. Inside. “I consider *your* role in this production the most important. Sure, sure, Chloe’s has elevated as well, and she’s certainly the principle female protagonist what with this new payoff I’m giving her. Which means she’s the love interest you’ve been wondering about, Sandy. Chloe’s the one.”
Sandy sits back up, interested now. “You mean All Blue?”
“No Sandy, I want to stop you right there. That’s a mythological term borrowed from your source character. Hmm…” EM repeatedly snaps his stubby yellow fingers, trying to get the name. “Sanji,” he comes up with. “Yeah. But your character is different. Just like Frank *borrows* from both Frank of ‘Donnie Darko’ — love that film, by the way — and also Frank Bowers of the ‘Life is Strange’ production. Another great work, especially using certain edits. That series gave me the idea for multiple plot lines diverging off from each other.” EM here raises his hands in front of him and spreads his fingers out.
“What, then?” Sandy Beech was both excited and irritated at once.
“Get this, Sandy. Not All Blue. All *Orange*. It’s something you saw as a child. Now pay attention here. It wasn’t your mother — that would be too inappropriate — not your aunt, *maybe* a cousin or maybe just someone who lives on your street. But you saw a person, a *woman*, turn into a doll while a kid. And then you saw the container where they put her after the transmutation — like we had Sally transmuted from an ordinary woman in the shoot several days back.
“I remember,” offered Sandy, trying to resist the impulse to tap his fingers impatiently against the arm of his golden chair. He stared as graciously as possible once more.
“But the container,” continued EM, “had only one opening, a round one. And through that opening you saw a navel, a belly button, framed as perfectly as possible within it. Like an orange with a navel. And that started your life long search for All Orange, the whole shebang. And along with that, the obsession with cooking with oranges — souffles, cakes, pies, you name it. And, of course, the, er, doll peddling.” He paused — another response was needed, Sandy sensed.
“And this — doll — is Chloe. Doris Drane I mean.”
“Right you are. And I’m $50,000 lindens poorer because of it. We just have to think of the setting, the lighting and so on. But that’s the pivotal vision I had. A navel in a round opening. An orange.”
I wonder what Chloe thinks about all this, Sandy then ponders. I’ll have to ask her the first chance I get. Maybe an, ahem, accidental rendezvous is needed tonight, hehe.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0010, 0415, Urbane Blue/Fishers Island
“We should get back to the hotel, Benny. I need some ice cream. I checked. That truck behind me back there at the drive-in theater…”
“*Dive*-in theater,” Jer’s brother corrected.
“Yeah. Like I said. Dive-in theater — anyways, the truck is completely empty. And the fridge in our apartment here is empty. And the fridge over at Audrey’s next door. And the…”
“Yes, yes, I know,” spoke Jer’s brother. “We have no ice cream. We have no bananas. Those girls *took* it all.”
—–
“I’m not sure I get all the fruit references, EM. Apples, oranges, bananas.”
“Orange,” amended Eraserhead Man, sitting in the opposite golden hand from the actor playing Jer Horne (Ted Sprinkles). “Important to leave out a letter.”
“Right. Like I said.”
—–
“My time in the hot seat, um, hand, eh?” He adjusted his weight in the awkward sitting spot. “Kind of hard don’t you think?”
“Listen, Jed — ‘Benny’. You and Jer are the Ice Cream brothers through and through. You’re not just a nice guy, for example. You’re a *sweet* guy. And your brother has an *icy* stare. And your hotel has pillows as soft as whipped cream. And so on.”
“Great. That’s great — I get it. Back to the fruit.”
—–
“We’re going to have to let someone show a little skin, Jill. Nothing higher than the navel, nothing lower. Just the midriff.”
“Check my contract, EM. *No* nudity.”
“It’s not nudity,” implored the lauded director. “It’s just… never mind. Send in Chloe. I know she’ll do it. For a price.”
—–
“50,000 lindens. Take it or leave it.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0010, 0414, Urbane Blue/Fishers Island
