“An agreement was reached, Hucka Doobie. Two realities, but then one reality. And it’s not the one that won.”
—-
“Bluebox…”
“Hills of Bill,” Hucka Doobie elaborated from behind once more, also looking at the map containing the former “Blue” galleries of Maebaleia/Satori on the 2nd floor of the house. “Center.”
“… then Blue Feather.”
“North.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0602, Golden Sink, Maebaleia/Satori
“Go ahead and take off your head and roll it into the center of the sink. That way you’ll be free of it. You can enter Pipersville unencumbered.”
“Of what?” Hucka Doobie speaks behind me in the void. “Yarns?”
—–
Beyond the resourcefulness of its porcine citizens, there wasn’t much to recommend the small mining town of Rumpus Ridge. But even in such a hardscrabble place, they had created something they could be proud of: over the years they had collected the biggest ball of string in the world. Folks came from miles around to see it. But one night, a flood carries their prized string away and washes it ashore near the town of Cornwall. Rather than return it, the Cornwallians decide to keep the string for themselves.
https://foursquare.com/v/porters-sculpture-park/4cb6046256fca1cd653a5318/photos
—–
“See what we did, Keith B.? I *told* you we couldn’t avoid Horns.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0515, Google Street View, Illinois, Maebaleia/Satori, Pipersville/Sink X, South Dakota
Center. 128/128: Rhodenwald. Roads Rhoads Rhodes. LIVES (2nd and 1st). Black Man… Men. Central Pumpkin.
“Pipersville,” Hucka Doobie chipped in.
“Pipersville,” Baker Bloch reinforced from the corner.
Hucka Doobie was chatting to pass the time. “You know you’re colored about the same as a chicken, Baker Bloch. Maybe you should think of becoming a chicken man yourself. By that I mean opening up a restaurant, perhaps a chain. Maybe you should begin to think up a name. Blochbuster Chicken? You could even steal some signs from that old, defunct VHS tape renting outfit, the one that went belly up.”
But Baker Bloch was still thinking about his father instead of chicken, although the 2 will always be connected now in his mind. Banished back to Regaltown. Could this possibly be the end of the Horns of Hatton tale already?
Hucka Doobie studied his worried face. “Aah, still thinking about dear old pops. He’ll be fine. Kevin A. too — Kevin Orchardsity, all three of hisselves. Come on; cheer up. The Queen’s story can continue on without the King and his tomb, without Space Ghost’s trailer.”
“But the parcel was called ‘*Ghost* land.’ Fate.” Baker Bloch sighed. “I just feel — something will always been missing here.”
“And then Cpt. Americus accidentally jumping in the watermelon tub with the *real* Queen (!) Awkard indeed! But I don’t think the Queen was present at the time. By that I mean she was AWOL.”
“AFK,” corrected Baker Bloch.
“Um, like the chicken, then.”
Baker Bloch expressed confusion, then realized: “Oh, you’re thinking about KFC. No, it’s like the former president. AFK. They’re talking about renaming the whole of Bay City after him.”
“JFK, then. The (former) president, I mean,” responded Hucka Doobie. “John Fitzgerald Kennedy.”
“Yes, you’re right — that’s it.”
“Well there you go. Something else to think about. Another Ghost.”
“Everybody in the country laughed about it,” [Carolyn *Kennedy* Crusey] said. “There was no city out there.”
Who voted Mor the mayor? No one, she said.
“That was just purely for something to put in the paper,” she said.
How did it change from Bay City to JFK City?
It was shortly after the assassination, she recalled. Across the country, people were renaming all kinds of things after the late president. Plus there was another guy out there at the time named Kennedy, (no relation to her or JFK) who came up with the idea, she said.
I wondered out loud if they’d hatched the plan while drinking at the bar. It wouldn’t be the first piece of Alaska legislation born that way. Maybe that was how Mor was “elected.” Maybe they dreamed up the dome city, too.
“We never did find out what happened,” she said
Mor eventually moved to Anchorage and started spelling his name with a second “o” and an “e,” she said. She couldn’t remember why.
The last newspaper clipping to mention the city was a 1973 story about Alaska ghost towns. It called Bay City “an alleged village” with a population of 0 in the 1970 census, that might have been renamed to “The City of Kennedy” after the late president.
“But,” the article said, “there’s nobody left to verify it.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0307, Alaska, Horns of Hatton+, Kowloon+, Maebaleia/Satori
“Well, might as well man up and say we don’t have a finish for the Regaltown section yet, Baker Bloch,” Space Ghost speaks to his son playing the role of Bullfrog here. “Just twiddling our thumbs, waiting for lines.”
“It’s the Horns of Hatton, Dad,” his son tries to defend. “So laggy over there; it’s holding us down, impeding our progress forward.”
“If everyone blamed everything on *horns*,” Space Ghost replies firmly (presently voiced by the great Gary Owens!).
“Well — what’s your idea, then? How to go forward I mean?”
“White,” and here Space Ghost reveals the whites of his teeth. “Elephant,” he then completes crisply, making the teeth actually glint with an accompanying, tingy sound effect.
—–
Just like that they’re somewhere else. Still on the same porch, but — at Horns instead of Regaltown.
“See how easy that was, Son? You still have a lot to learn from your old man.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0216, Horns of Hatton+, Maebaleia/Satori, Regaltown-
“We’ve got to get into this place, Kevin E. Kevin A.’s depending on us(!).”
“Yeah,” responds the other Kevin at the registration table. “If only — we could read like him.”
“We’ll have to fake it,” answered the somewhat smarter Kevin C. to Kevin E. after glancing back over his shoulder at Baker Bloch (a.k.a. Arnold). “Uh, you take the straight letters and I’ll take the squiggly ones.”
“Um.” Kevin E. didn’t recognize the first 3 letters on the application form.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Uh. Yeah.” He spots his first one. “‘L’,” he mouths, jabbing the appropriate letter several times with his finger. “That’s definitely an ‘L’.”
“Very good.” He pats his hatted lover on the back.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0207, Maebaleia/Satori, Regaltown-
“My father is right over there,” Baker Bloch spoke to spiritually oriented Hucka Doobie. “Just beyond the unwaving grass.”
“Bamboo,” Hucka Doobie elaborated. “A type of grass, yes.”
“But I can’t interact with him,” Baker Bloch continued. “Oh the things I could tell him.”
Hucka Doobie remained silent, then: “Why can’t you interact with him? Since he’s just right over there especially.”
“I thought…”
“That you would change the future?”
“Well… yeah.”
“The future cannot be changed, because there is no future except a web of possibilities. We could change *one* probability, yes, but it was already there in the first place. We cannot change anything.”
Baker Bloch nodded for Hucka Doobie without really understanding what he said. “So… I can go see my father? My *young* father?” He points toward the bamboo on the other side of the frog pond. They can see the trailer faintly through it from where they sit.
“Sure, sure,” Hucka Doobie agreed. “But would this be pre-Baker Bloch Space Ghost or post-Baker Bloch?”
“Not sure.”
“What I mean is… what I’m asking is…”
“Whether I am yet born, yet *conceived*,” Baker Bloch realized
“Yes.”
“Well…” He blew out air here. “One thing I know is that I better not be my own grandpa or something.”
“How would that work?” Hucka Doobie shot back.
Baker Bloch thinks of his mother here, who we’ve only seen as Old Grey in the Collagesity novels. “I suppose it can’t.” Baker Bloch gets up off the bench they’re awkwardly perched upon. “Come on, Hucka D. Let’s go see Pops.”
“Hold on there young fellas.” It was Bullfrog, who rented the cottage behind them. “I can’t help but see you were sitting on that bench but you weren’t *sitting* on that here bench. You must be straight…. unable to run scripts… not part of the group.”
Standing Baker Bloch looks over at standing Hucka Doobie, then admits this is true. “We are here as observers,” he elaborates. “From the future.”
“Ohh.” Bullfrog looks anxiously back at the cottage. A diminutive figure emerges from around it: Bullfrog’s partner Aqua Dude.
He almost immediately invokes one of his own special powers. “The green turns to red and the red turns to green,” he recites down to Baker Bloch and Hucka Doobie, still clustered around that bench. Things completely change.
They look around. “Is this *real*?” Baker Bloch speaks to his bee friend.
“I’ve heard of such,” exclaims Hucka Doobie, also looking at the pond, the ground, the sky. “In theory.”
“This way,” Aqua Dude pipes up, “I can turn into Super Guy as well as being Aqua Dude. Ruler of the sea *and* the sky. See? Hehe.”
“He thinks his colors now are the same as his arch nemesis Super Guy,” explains Bullfrog above him. “But it’s not really an exact match. Just humor him. He does it to everyone he first meets. He’ll get use to you.”
“I rule the *skies* as well as the *sea*,” he repeats, glaring toward them.
“Sure you do, Aqua Dude,” tempers Bullfrog. “Sure you do.”
Satisfied that the strangers understand perhaps his most unique ability, Aqua Dude shuts it off and the pond and its environs return to normal colors. “The red turns to green and the green turns to red,” he reverses.
“Now, about that trailer…”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0201, Maebaleia/Satori, Regaltown-
“I was just there watching the red and green grasses wave back and forth with the fairy, thinking: love is the answer, but what is this question we all must ask?”
“Kind of going beyond John Lennon in that way.” Kevin C. (or was it E.?) expressed puzzlement. “Like in the ‘Mind Games’ song, the flip side of the better known ‘Meat City’, admittedly, but still fairly well known. Here, let me hum a few bars.” He proceeds to do so, then mouths the appropriate lyrics. “‘Love – is – the answer. And you know that – for sure.’ See, he never sings about the question.”
“So — are you going to let me stay? Knowing what you know?”
“That you’re not gay, yes. Alright. But we’ll have to put you in the Northeast Quadrant, behind the art gallery. The old Coutts residence. Old codger is more like it. Straight as a porcupine quill he was. I should know.”
But when Kevin A. (A. — that was it) arrived at his new home in the Northeast Quadrant of Regaltown, someone was already there. Not old but young. Space Ghost, with all his powers returned. Ability to turn invisible. Er, ability to do this and that and the other stuff. Not pointing out imaginary green squirrels with his cane any longer. Kevin A. would have a male roommate after all. And wife Grammy was no longer around, since this was the past. Her vortex powers made sure of that.
Young Space Ghost takes one look at Kevin A., then says, “No gays in this quadrant. Who sent you? Arnold? Tell Arnold he can go to hell. Or back to Sweetgrass, where he came from. Americans.” Young Space Ghost spat on the ground with this.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0115, Maebaleia/Satori, Regaltown-
They kept coming in from both the Golden Sink and 7 Stones direction. Avatars. Wanting to act (or acc) in Baker B.’s newest Collagesity production (photo-novel).
“Do you think my foot is on fire, Sanchez?” spoke one of the candidates to the other. “Feels like it’s on fire.”
“NEXT!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0112, Golden Sink, Maebaleia/Satori
“Look at that green squirrel over there, honey.”
“No time for trivialities tonight, love. I’m worried.”
“When aren’t you?” returned her husband of 3 years. The original Space Ghost (!).
“We’ve lost our son Oliver. We’ve lost our daughter Eva.”
“Ona,” Old Space Ghost corrected. “Our daughter’s name is Ona.”
“Whatever.” Grammy sighs. “They’re gone. Along with the original homestead. A place called, called…” The name escaped her.
“Something about owls,” spoke Old Space Ghost, also pondering the appellation. “Something about the way they hoot.” He kept racking his brain. “Hootyville!” he exclaimed in a Eureka type moment, then shook it off. “Nah, that’s not it. Darn brain.” He knocks against it lightly with the head of his cane. “If only I were younger.” With this, he looked over at his wife Grammy expectantly.
She glanced at his stare, then back. “No. We’ll not go down that path again. Stick to the road. That’s the plan. She looked ahead at the golden dirt road curving around the fenced-in cornfield they sat in front of. “This is all that’s left of the old place. The only spot we have to hang our memories on. If we move — I’m afraid we’ll lose them forever.”
A trap, thought Old Space Ghost, looking at the golden track as well. A jail of sorts, even. Locked into this old body. Locked into this old, basically circular dirt road. Should have been paved a long time ago, pheh. That would have set time straight. Space too. Along with… something else.
Baker Bloch approached from the east. “Father;” he nodded toward Space Ghost. “Step-mother;” he nodded toward the woman known most commonly as Grammy. “It’s time if you’re still up for it.” He stared steadily at Grammy.
“Don’t do it woman,” sputtered Space Ghost, changing his mind. “You don’t know what the whale can do for you. Drive you *nuts* with that whirling and twirling and — *jiggering*.”
“Can’t I — just come in by default?” she pleaded. “Because I’m, you know, married to your father?”
Not the way it works, step-mother. You have to ride the Wild Whale (like everyone else). All Hail the Wild White Whale,” he recited automatically, but they didn’t return the exaltation. But he then pushed them and they grudgingly acquiesced.
—–
The vortex started about 3 seconds in, her secret superpower revealed.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0110, Collagesity Fordham-, Golden Sink, Lower Austra, Maebaleia/Satori, Nautilus
Sunklands 