Tag Archives: Axis^*+++++

00330411

Holding his two hot drinks comfortably in either hand, cozies in place, he pauses before leaving to admire the view toward the ocean, the sea that surrounds his home continent of Nautilus like a circumference to a circle (or square). About at the same place Newt, earlier on it seems, saw those salt and pepper shakers tittering on the floor. Exactly the same spot. Not tittering: *crying*. He readjusts the cozie on either cup and proceeds to take his “little bambinos” — as he likes to call them — back to The Table room for the meeting with Wheeler. Guess I should have asked if she wanted anything, he thinks while walking toward the castle gate. Perhaps one of those unsweetened teas she likes so much.

But too late: inside the castle now, its walls sealing off exterior from interior. He didn’t even look over at the whale tail brushing the side Starbuccaneer Barista mentioned. Another tight but meaningful that Baker missed in the rush toward safety.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0411, Nautilus, NORTH, Rooster's Peninsula

00330409

She’d lost her hat. She’d lost her ability to speak. The White Whale looks down on her, concerned that things had taken a turn for the dark again. Blue must be involved. Blue’s always involved when there’s trouble, she thinks. She opens her mouth. Nothing. Starbuccaneer Barista also opens her mouth and also produces nada.

“Newton and Jasper!” she wanted to cuss so badly.

Observing Newt then heard a tiny tittering beside him on the floor. About as small as ants they were, he thinks. Salt and Pepper.

He becomes them.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0409, Nautilus, NORTH, Rooster's Peninsula

00330406 (gammy rays)

Hucka Doobie looks up into the Blue Feather Cube and imagines seeing Mr. Tom “Spilly” Bean emerge from the center of a triangle of 3 white stars, falling or perhaps even plummeting to Earth in a beam of white. Must be white.

Now to bring him actually to life.

—–

She recalls the day she gave up her blackness, all ears now. In the opposite direction: red. She became the Controller after that, some say Morgan the Hagg returned from a watery grave, even. She picked up the phone. She gave him a call. Pepi “Can” Kolya was no more in her life. Until now, which was actually then.

“Herbert, it’s me,” she remembered saying into the screen, waiting with baited breath for a reply. Was that even his correct name?

—–

“Herbert. I mean, *Newt* (sigh). Can I take off the ears now?”

“Not yet, babydoll.” He reaches over.

“Again?”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0406, Blue Feather Sea^, Maebaleia/Satori, Nautilus, Rim Isles, Yaya Land

ponytail (greentree (zeroed out))

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0403, Hana Lei^^

sports trivia

“OK, Tom, we’re ready to roll again,” he hears in his ear PRESS.

Tom the bartender is recording. Should be OK and it was. Geronimo, Slick, Olive. Then: *himself*; and he was careful not to mention his real name to Eyela and Newt. Yes he clearly heard the word Tom followed by Kite. Then again several sentences later to the west, Watson this time being the follow up word. Two famous golfers named Tom, he realized after a pause. “Kite probably means drugs,” he later relayed to his boss after Eyela and Newt had left the club, “as in ‘high as a…’ (he was good with wordplay). Watson points to something deeper, blacker even. I’ll check on that.” He removes the recording device from his shirt UNPRESS.

U.S. President Jimmy Carter grew up at Archery on his family’s farm from age four, in 1928, until he left for college in 1941.[3] In Carter’s time, the population consisted of approximately 25 black families and 2 white families, namely the Watsons and Carters.[5] President Carter recalled in 1976 that Bishop Johnson was “the best-educated, most famous, the most widely traveled, and the richest member of the community”.[9] The Carter family remained at Archery until 1949; ownership of the Carter property was transferred to the National Park Service in 1994.[10]

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0402, Lower Austra^, Squared Root City

alchemy

“Lord, lord. Lord lord lord lord lord.” She shook her head as she uttered. She looked down into her coffee which wasn’t steaming any longer, meeting stretched beyond expected. Yet Newt had forgotten about the parking meter and the need to feed past 8. Too much had happened. Clyde! It’s back! The impossibly loud sound of horseless carriages transfixed. He was almost there; just up there. He could reach into the screen and probably procure some kind of souvenir or relic to bring back to the others: Fern, Lichen… and the one who most figured in as the cause, the one who was red, the one with the awkwardly long gams (she thought), the multicolored tree on the back and the fox and the octopus up front, black and white zebra’s eyes formerly x’d shut but now wide open. He can hear, he can see. He *must* get married after this. He knows too much.

Lichen went over and exchanged wigs with her. “See?” she said, returning to her seat, spell intact.

“See?” prefigured Fern and then also leaned over and exchanged her hair with Alysha’s. “Doesn’t matter.”

It was 9 before Newt got back to the car with the inevitable ticket attached to the passenger window. “Zero strikes again,” he muttered and then crumpled it up and threw it in the gutter, knowing the thing was now worthless. Nothing mattered in this Squared Root City in this most virtual of realities. Except 3.16227766. Let’s shorten it down to 3 so we can move on…

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0317, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Squared Root City

00330316

She’d just popped down to the fire department to check her mailbox and now *this*. But she dare not remove the parking ticket and throw it away in disgust after learning it came from Zero, apparently a policeperson in this here town as well as the owner of that club. We have been reset.

Glancing over at a clearly distressed Elisa staring at the ticket on her illegally parked Mazda RX-7 sports car, Newt checks to make sure he’s off the street good and pays the parking meter before heading inside to meet the others. He understands parallel time as well as parallel parking. He’s seen three squad cars circling around the city now and knows the force is strong here, like Star Trek or Star Wars — he can never remember which one applies. Star, hmm, he then thinks. He swears this use to be Star Street instead of that long German name he doesn’t know how to translate. Why the change? He believes it may be a bad omen. Or a good one — hard to tell yet. Maybe the meeting with the 3 “witches” will clarify either way.

Uh oh. Likewise tardy Alysha coming from down the street. He pretends he doesn’t see her and rushes inside before she can catchup with him. He’d rather not have the meeting colored (red) before it began.

Just made it.

“You’re late,” black haired Fern Stalin says at the door. “And so is the other one.”

“Right behind me.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0316, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Squared Root City

00330315

He corrected me as soon as it came out of my mouth, perhaps before. “Bono, I’m Bono here,” he said. “And you’re Newt — we can’t change that.”

“But Peggy –”

“Peggy Smeggy.” He took a breath. “You don’t understand the implications yet. Darkside is *here*.” He looked me square in the eyes now, black inside black. He wasn’t evil but he came from a place of called Intensity. In Mississippi I believe. Very focused in his tasks, he was.

“So… you brought them here.”

“Yup,” with the “p” emphasized with a pop. I reviewed what I knew. I thought he was Nemo but he said he was Bono. Bono Jores, fresh from the bowels of Mississippi. Or was it Arkansas? Anyway, he presented me with the book; said it was the way out. He did this now.

“This is the way,” he said, scooting it toward me. “The Way.” He scooted it closer. “Open in the middle and start reading.”

“I–,” I started to protest. Closer. He even opened it for me, eyes still boring. But he was no Sherwood Anderson. Or was he?

—–

3 hours later — sunset — I finished the book that was the same as 1/2 a book. Everyone had left in the meantime, Bono to my right and Peggy Gertrude to my left. Peggy was still here with her friend over at another table in the establishment. And that’s where I headed next — to give her the good news. All was not lost.

The convincing took a while. Her hometown was still gone; I led with that. But there’s *another* hometown coming up where gravity’s not as much up in the air. “Aerial,” I said, and demonstrated with my hand.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0315, Lower Austra^, Mississippi, Nautilus, Squared Root City

disattached from land

“Can’t you pull one of your Tungaske type miracles to save my village?”

“I’m afraid not. Too small.”

She shed a tear, perhaps with more to come. Probably so. These were scientist tears, the tough ones. “Hard to believe it’s gone.”

“No one under 18. Really nothing we can do [Eyela]. (pause) I’m sorry.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0314, Canada, Canada/Tungaska, Iowa, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Squared Root City

Newt and Eyela (one strange rock)

“No. You go first,” she requested, not being as prepared as I wished.

“I was just going to say,” he started, probably improvising, “that you look lovely tonight.”

“Thank you (!).” Cute tittering, cute covering of mouth. “Oh, I was going to check out *Whitson* tonight,” she realized. “*Sorry*.”

“Kind of your double, I’m assuming.”

“Kind of,” she agreed. “Um… uh…”

“Well,” he decided to insert in the awkward pause. “Baker Bloch still has ties to Lower Austra, *roots*, even.”

“In Squared Root City here, yes,” she said, remembering some of her lines now thanks to the prompt. Not all, but perhaps enough to get by if she can fill in the rest with filler.

“Zero Club.” He glanced over his shoulder at the sign; another prompt. “Just like Baker was looking for. A place Baker, the male one, could Zero Out and reset everything.”

“Good to know.” She was struggling. The Whitson gaffe threw her off her game. She decides to end the scene and do some research.

—–

“I’m going into space again,” she said after learning she was. Thanks once again wikipedia! You’re a life line. “It’s a joint venture between Axiom and SpaceX.”

“So… Axis,” he responded. “Like me.”

“Wellll.”

—–

“My name is not Axis any longer. My name is Newt.”

“I know that.”

“I don’t like to be reminded of my Axis past.”

“I… won’t say anything more about it, won’t bring it up.” She cleared her throat. The research got her into hot water (!). She said his new name to reinforce her conviction. “Newt, yes I like it.” She recalled a tree growing out of his head instead of the other place. She realized she had to part with Whitson on this, Mars or no Mars. She had to choose… well pump over spaceship.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0313, Iowa, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Squared Root City