Tag Archives: Ants^^^*++++~

00420416 (Natural World/ Rainbow Falls)

“So I think we can make a home here, Sepisexton. Get away from it all, talk about the tomorrows and yesterdays to no end. Dreams we’re talking about here my love. And no Gray Man around to erase the memories. He doesn’t come into The Natural World.”

“So I’ve heard.” She takes another bite of her ant beignet and mulls over possibilities. Amos T. Sandman points in the distance, over the waterfall.

“See those fish floating over there. Plenty more where they came from. I tested it yesterday. You can just go up to them and grab them with your bare hands and then another one spawns. Fish spawns — get it? I was running back here to tell you no tackle was needed. This isn’t football or even angling — no sport to it atall. Free food!”

Wheeler, currently playing the role of Sepisexton to Baker’s Sandman, took the inept humor in stride. Yesterday they had found the North, this place where Okama Majo came from, at least in comparison to St. Dennis (more on that soon). He said he sucked at a video racing game while living there and thus made his own where the walls don’t matter and there’s no shooting allowed, no target whatsoever to the game. A game about nothing. But at the same time: everything. Here we have the answers we needed. We’ll continue photo-novel 42 into its section 05 while keeping this in mind.

“Let’s go up beyond the waterfall to the sunken ship to end again,” requests Wheeler, last piece of beignet in her mouth, somewhat muffling the request. Ants, thinks Sandman to this. Sepisexton got rid of the last to save him from becoming fused superhero Santman forever and ever, a walking talking copyright violation. She’ll always be golden in his book for this.

Time for the dreamer to awaken.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0416, LSD, Natural World

00420304

“Are you disappointed that she didn’t want to sell the castle property back to you, Shelley?”

Sigh. “No, not really. Gave me an excuse to look around the place, see what she’d done. That’s good enough. For a consolation.”

“It’s pretty expensive still,” says Arthur Kill. “Baker only pays about 1 1/2 times that amount for the Aisle of Palms rental as a whole and that’s about, let’s see, 2 1/2 times as much land.”

“Do you still speak to him?” Shelley Johnston Struthers asked eagerly.”

“N-no. I thought *you* spoke to him.”

“No.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm, indeed.” Both understood that Baker Bloch, owner of the virtual town we as a family rent now, didn’t seem to know the couple’s whereabouts. They were off the radar. And then both also thought about George, aka The Musician. Was it the same with him?

“We should go down into town tonight. Go shopping and dining.”

Shelley looked out the window on their perch atop Yellowmoon Ridge at all the snow falling. Then she looked around the house at all the elephant decoration. Just came with the rental — no planning on their part. “Nah, I’m fine staying here tonight. That special on indie animation is debuting on Youtube at 8. Then they’re replaying a doubleheader of ‘The Pink City’ and ‘The Amazing Digital Circus’ at 9.”

“Love that stuff,” opined hubby Arthur, envisioning other stuff at 10. This 3rd honeymoon (or was it their 4th?) was working out swell. Cheap rental *exactly* on the spot where the old Ant Castle use to exist. Current owner didn’t even know anything about that storied history. Arthur had a hard time believing it — still does. He checks his watch not on his wrist. 7:45. Time to pop open the first bottle of wine? Why not.

They ended up drinking the 1st glass to Biff Carter, which was a strange toast indeed. Have to think about that.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0304, ADC, Corsica, Nautilus, NORTH, Northwest^, Rooster's Peninsula

00420301 (another VA neck)

Unable to write today he watched her from afar, wondering what she was waiting for. Hope she doesn’t abstract today, he thinks. Sometimes just doing nothing can set it in. Maybe I better go over there, talk to her, interact with her, check on her. Make sure she’s okay. Keep her mind occupied. Maybe talk about the past. And the future. But not the present. Never the present.

I wonder where this Shelley girl is, she ponders from the balcony like Juliet to his Romeo. She had an antipoison on hand just in case she made the same mistake as in the past. White Stone — check on it.

She smells the red roses and that makes her feel better. Arrive by sea and I’ll be waiting and watching, she ordered the girl who was actually a woman indeed. The Woman. Unless that’s Parasol.

Ah yes, that must be her pulling in there at the marina, she observes from her castle up on the hill. Better tell Amos I’ll be indisposed for a couple of hours.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0301, Nautilus, Rooster's Peninsula, Virginia

00390113

He listened over as best he could while pretending to stare at the pickle holding couple in front of him. Was this a gay couple instead? He’d just been with his own “chum” (as they were talking about), but that was different. A 3rd was involved. How about here?

Ant-man, he heard. Man of Ant. And the other: one of Sand; Sandman. Like one pickle is sandy colored and one pickle is the more normal green colored. Combine them and you have a green, sandy mess. He gathered all this from their talk. The Pickles, 01 and 02, were like themselves. But something had happened, something had gone wrong. They *contemplated* a gay relationship, or at least the Sandman did. He talked about different tongues…

—–

As kind of planned, he was now under the bone at the entrance to the Verdant Falls Dog Park, the exact same coordinates on Pickle 02 as the Squishy Pickle bench he’d just been on was for Pickle 01. He spotted a couple sitting on the exact same kind of bench, even down to the green and blue pillows. A merger had failed because of something that had happened before with Ant-man and Sandman. The Mann had separated from Ant, and was now interacting with Wo-mann.

“Come on boy!” he heard The Mann call. “And… boy!”

But there was only one dog from Edward’s angle. More mergers. We can move on.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0113, Bellisaria, Pickle 01, Pickle 02

00370201 (and 1 other)

And so they traveled from Mountainair down to Lordsburg, Hucka Doobie’s old stomping grounds. Before she died and was reborn again anew in her old bee form. Now she’s progressed far enough back to human to also more closely examine her human past, pre-bee. She retracts her antennae for good and dives in. Would they make it? Would Duck prevent the success of the journey? The point is that they made it. And Antony at the bottom again or at least Anthony, two of ’em in fact; double the fun. Border towns both. It was not all about Anthony — unlike that other claim — but at least the first 7th was (approximation). I don’t have many friends. Let’s call him up.

“I have to take this,” he said to visiting Hucka Doobie and Barry DeBoy. The Devil, he knew, because of the timing.

“Hallo?”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0037, 0201, New Mexico

00360614

When the death card was dealt he’d seen enough and turned his back on them, walking away. Ocean it is today, not mountains. Not Ant and his history.

“I”m so glad you decided to come back, Arthur,” she spoke with full heart as the dark castle on the mount continued to recede into the distance, mentally if not necessarily physically. They were wrapping up their honeymoon in Mortons Gap, getting ready to head home.

Wherever that was. Probably Soos Mountain Community I would think. It was all being prepared.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0614, Corsica, Jeogeot, Middleton^, Northwest^, Towerboro

numbers 03

“Yeah I’m looking right at him. Back to fishing on the pier. He’s forgotten again.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0514, Corsica, Northwest^

numbers 02

Shelley’s head appeared directly below where Barry DeBoy should have been fishing on the pier. But it appears he’s wised up, dispensed with his pole, and headed back to the studio, realizing the futility of the act (once more). Ant may even be his best friend again, at least in his mind. And of course there’s Hucka. How much woman is she? Enough to roar?

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0510, Corsica, Northwest^

00360509

“Baker Bloch’s soo gullible,” spoke Hucka Doobie to our right, certainly *not* an insect in this situation. Instead: a full fledged woman, complete with all the working parts. “He thinks I’ve reverted. Why would I want to be a bee again? I gave that up ages ago, along with the attached masculinity. And I’ve been faking the transformation back for months, maybe years.”

“Yeah,” chipped in Barry Deboy, famous artist of the Yellowmoon peninsula with his latest series, “Adventures in Tintown”, being a much talked about hit and spectacle. Imaginary defunct tiny town on the outskirts of Mortons Gap, residents say, marveling and shaking their collective heads at the inventiveness. What will that genius come up with next? “He thinks I’m scared of the Ant Castle up here,” Barry continues. “Why… Ant’s one of my best friends (!).” He turns to his right. “Aren’t you Ant?”

Ant didn’t remember or recognize the fellow but he acknowledged the close friendship anyway. That’s the problem with running a business the size of a small banana republic. Lots of friends — hard to keep up with. He’ll take the guy’s word. “Sure, chum,” he said, hoping to catch his actual name later.

“And I guess he thinks you live over in Fearzom on that smaller mountain to the southeast. Good one, Ant.”

But Ant *did* live there. He didn’t live here, in the skybox above the location of his old castle. Back ran the castle and its grounds now, rebuilt from the ground up after the fire explosion of ’83. Ant actually didn’t live in Our Second Lyfe at all. He’s too busy with his business, with his many friends. Real Life we’re talking about here. In Our Second Lyfe he was just an ant, nothing less nothing more. An oversized one, true. And he invented the Bell telephone. Oops, there’s a ring now. The Devil probably, since we were speaking about it.

“Gotta take this.” Ant was hoping it was a call leading him back to the Real World. Exoskeleton costume starting to weigh him down. He answers with his free hand, Tom Collins in the other. Barry’s rock’n a Russian Roulette, and I believe Hucka Doobie holds some ginger ale. She’s not against imbibing but not on the job. And this definitely was work. Acting. With these Bozos. She wonders again if Barry is borderline autistic, so bad he was at it. She’s about convinced. The topo maps did it for her. But he makes up for it in other areas, she thinks (see: last paragraph).

“Hallo?”

Ant sets down his drink and moves away from the others after hearing the voice. Devil indeed.

“Iiii… didn’t expect to hear *back* from you so soon, he he.”

Answer.

“Comedian, yeah. Always. Soo… (he lowered his voice even more) have you made a decision about the girl? Will she be able to keep, you know… her *head*?”

Hucka Doobie knew what the call was about but she prepared to feign ignorance. Barry just wanted to get back to his collages. More fame, more adulation!  It was like a drug to him.

They were dating, by the way. Barry and Hucka. Baker Bloch had no clue about that as well.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0509, Corsica, Northwest^

trunks

Shelley loves hanging around the beach. Arthur and she have such a great time night after night, day after day here… in Mortons Gap overall. She could see living here, staying here. A bit laggy, but they’re working on it, reducing shaders, draw distance, etc. Even minimizing screens, their view on the world, if needed. It wasn’t ideal. But — so pretty.


If she could just erase that full moon faux pas from her memory. What did Arthur do that night? she wondered for certainly not the first time. Because she’d found lipstick on his coat which wasn’t hers — she rarely uses it except when they hit the town. And the smell of lobsters. Or was it crabs? — she’d have to check the difference between the 2 later on when they walk down to the fisheries. Do it nice and subtle.

Nearby Arthur was building another one of his patented sand castles, complete with ants that he’d found on the vegetated dunes in back. He was trying to recreate the past. In truth, someone had put a spell on him. George/Musician most likely, if only from his dreams. He wanted to walk up to the real Ant Castle later that day, thus Shelley’s excuse to visit the fisheries kind of on the way. Ah heck, she’ll just ask him. Why does she care if he stayed with another woman that night. *She* was with a woman that night. Served her right. Painful, very painful, but… what was the right expression for it? Tit for tat, she decided. Or tit for tit — something.

She swung down from the palm tree, walked over. “About ready to go?”

He was about to coronate the new king and queen of the ants after building their thrones. “5 more minutes,” he requested, herding the crowd in the right direction.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0413, Corsica, Northwest^