The tiles behind the stove were falling off. And she’d left the burner on again.
“Oh Mom,” he complains. “What are we going to do with you?” He turns the knob to the off position and starts clearing the air.
—–
“We have to fix TILE,” Man About Time urges, making his pitch. “Carrcassonnee has become Sepisexton, the 7 and the 6 at once, and is roaming the metaverse unchecked, freeing demons right and left that she can use at her disposal. We’ve already clocked 4 with the same name of Jenny.”
“Jenny is *not* a demon,” countered Mabel, present for the debate. “She’s just… very orange.”
“Aldebaronian,” clarified likewise alien Roger Pine Ridge, who also made a window in his busy schedule for this important discussion.
“No, like I said, there are *4*.” Man About Time remained fixed about the unfixed nature of the town’s chief religion, the one it is known for through the temple and some other stuff.
“Boat,” Baker Bloch piped in. “I recall a boat. Didn’t that crash over in Wallytown, though?”
“*Wallytown*,” stepped in Wheeler, “is something we’re *not* suppose to talk about. Not after the shower.”
“Counter that,” uttered Carrcassonnee propped up in a corner, unable to walk still or talk very much. She was basically limited to things that belong in a kitchen. “Spachula,” she offered further. “Scrape up eggs off counter. Will stick if not scraped. Spachula.”
The rest tried to figure out what that translated to in the latest Carrcassonnee limited language issuances. Probably something to do with eyes again. Or “I”s. Despite the split, MAT had gotten her this far, which was something, they agreed.
“Danny. What say you?” Danny was, once more, Man About Time’s right hand man, just like in the past. Pickleland in the sideways world, his trusty plunger turned back in time. Tiger.
“Radar.” Another simplistic issuance but followed up by 176 more sentences that I won’t write out but explained very well what the lack of radar meant to the Schuman without the N. Because there was Sector R to deal with now. “… mustard,” came the end of his last sentence of the 176, describing the color of the entity most responsible for the confusion. Earlier words in this sentence and the 175 preceding it elucidated a robot from a sideways world, probably Oz, who wormed their way into susceptible people’s lives disguised as a “best friend”, as he had called it. This was the case with Barry.
“Very good, thank you Danny. I will close then, for now, by saying that every state of the US is also a state of mind. Think about that.” MAT stares them down from his position in front, on top. For the moment and, hopefully, for the future.
Of the 10 people in the meeting, only 2 thought about bordering states with this, and that is only because they shared some of the same static, been out in the same snowstorm and not made it back in time for supper and a movie that one instance. And suffered the consequences.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 