Tag Archives: Bartholomew Smipson^*+++++$

August 3, 2023 · 2:11 am

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Lisa got permission to view the film because she was in a class for special children and was doing a project for it. Eventual title: “How Milk was Born.” Bartholomew, *not* being a special child and thus not in the same class with the same privileges, didn’t get the same permission. But oh did he watch the same film, over and over again, 5 times in total. He snuck out of his bedroom every night at 10:45 with the help of Lemmy the Magic Tree that was once a mortal enemy with a net and a knife. Lemmy had grown up to be a friend, putting childish rivalries away.

“Lemmy, come over here again,” Bartholomew requested, and a branch was extended, big enough to hold a boy his size and allow him to drop to the ground safely. “Thanks Lemmy,” Bartholomew said at the bottom, loud enough for the tree to hear through his “ears” but not loud enough to alert the parents, usually preparing for bed by this time or already in it. The tree rustled its leaves in answer and Bartholomew was on his way through the backs of lots and down alleys full of cats and rats. On to the 88.

First night:

“*Bart*. What are you doing here??” And so on with the reprimands for a while, which were dampened when Lisa learned that her little brother desired to create a report on the film too, and that he’d show those stuck ups at school he can make something of his life. “I’ll… help,” she finally relented. “Shhh, the movie is starting,” said Bartholomew to this, more eager than ever to be a success.

Lisa only went that one time, thinking with her superior brain that’s all she needed. Bartholomew attended the whole week up until Friday night when the regular people in town would be able to go and he might be caught and told on. So that was Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday, happy days indeed.

(to be continued)

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July 23, 2023 · 12:26 am

sunset

“Okay I’m here on the beach beside the TILE ball, Tom. I’ve got you on speaker so I can keep reading this interesting magazine in front of me. Perhaps clues in there, you understand.” Al didn’t really believe there were any clues in there. He just liked the articles advertised on the cover. All about Home — he wished he had a true home and not just continue to be a traveler of both time and space. He desired to settle down, like the old days, fast becoming the *good* old days.

After the reply: “About 8:01 PM it looks by the sun. Roughly speaking.”

Reply.

“No. No one on the beach except me. No surfers spotted, no one.”

Reply.

“It’s a pretty beach. Pretty long that is (*snicker*).”

Reply.

“No time for jokes, I understand. Jokes later.”

Reply.

“I’ll get settled in. I guess I’ll just bed down here for the night. Then start up the road tomorrow after I check out the beach more in the morning. Maybe I’ll get to interact with someone then.” Al didn’t doubt that his boss Thomasina was onto something sending him here. TILE was strong — he could feel it, as he does. ‘No orange, no purple, let’s make this shit happen,’ he recalls about the sacred manuscript. And here, supposedly, is the amender of such, the bringer of cow and a lot of other things. Won’t have any shorts left, Thomasina said. Al was looking for a little yellow naked fellow. But he was wrong on that.

(to be continued)

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July 21, 2023 · 7:33 am

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He was wore out from surfing so he decided to re-energize a bit. Banana should do it. “Just one?” asked Gloria to the request, now working at Hana Lei. “All I need,” he replied in his nasal, boy-ish voice. With his small frame he could make it go far. No need to over-weigh himself. “Help yourself, then,” she said, indicating the bowl full of fruit beside him. “Thanks.”

“Couldn’t help noticing your moves out there me laddie,” said the anthropomorphic turtle beside him, deciding between apples. Ah heck, he thinks, an orange will do, and orders one from Gloria. “No no no, changed my mind, ” he then said as Gloria indicated the bowl again. “I’ll have what he’s having.” “Same place,” she said, hand still extended toward the bowl. “I… don’t want to run you out of them. No, I’ll take an orange.” She turned with this, tired of dealing with him. It was like this every day for the experienced surfer. So good on the waves, so bad on the food. Maybe his ability to choose well runs out when he sits back down here, she rationalized at one point. Thus the reason for the bowl in the first place, actually. He helps himself.

After the selection (orange, no banana, no *apple*; but which one?), he returns his attention to the boy and the spotted talent. “Lessons?” he queries between bites… of something. I believe I detect crunching so probably one of those apples.

“You mean, have I *taken* lessons? In surfing?”

“Yeah. You have talent. If it’s natural then more power to you.” Say my name, he thought. Just say my name.

“Nah, no lessons.” Another noiseless bite from the lad. “I think lessons would just… *ruin* it for me.”

“The talent,” the turtle replied.

“Yeah.” More peeling and another bite. “I learned that quite a ways back. Wrote a treatise and my, um, mentor marked it all up with red. Top to bottom, mind you. Then she changed hair color from red to blue and it all went away, all the corrections. ‘Perfect already,’ she said, scooting the suddenly unmarked manuscript back to me from across the table. So I’m a natural at things — that’s what she said.” Special, he added to himself. Special special.

“Newton’s the name,” the turtle-man said, and extended his apple-less hand to the kid, who shook it. “Newton Jasper, like the liquor. Except backwards.”

“Jasper… Newton?”

Bingo, he thought, and changed directions, facing out to the sea again. His true home — this was just a stop between dives. “Some call me Jack,” he said. “Friends call me Jack. Tell you what, you call me Jack from now on. Eh?”

“Jack,” the yellow *rapscallion* amended, also turning. He’d been here before. And, there, he was starting to glow again. Just looking at them continue to roll in.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” the turtle said, noticing too.

“Sure am!” And they were both at it again, remainder of the fruits tossed aside during the running from land to water.

“Cowabunga!” the turtle shouted as he jumped on his board.”

“Hey, don’t eat my shorts!” the likewise surfing boy responded to this. And so it continues…

(to be continued)

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July 21, 2023 · 6:26 am

wrong righted?

They were deep in the portal and Edward was her chosen beau, if by default. No more Arthur, but for a good reason. Shelley packs her ring away and decides to dance again, but Eddie went too far per usual and it got him into trouble. Between crests of a wave, this can happen.

But the dancing then continues. Endlessly, thanks to this place.

“Cowabunga!” I suppose.

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July 19, 2023 · 8:26 am

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“April May June passed so fast April Mae Flowers. Now it’s July…”

“And we’re resurrected, yes,” replied Herbert Glenn Gold’s wife of 47 (?) years. “Waiting for action. ‘Annnnnd…'” she attempts to joke like a director. “Remember what happened last time.”

“Um hmm,” Herbert murmured while nodding, wondering where his pudding is. How could he eat his pudding without his meat, though? Strange thought.

“So much promise over on the Jeogeot continent. So much disappointment. House *deleted* after, what was it, 1 month?”

“At that,” Herbert Gold replied, even a bit more disappointed than April Mae over the affair. Speaking of which; he should bring this up now, before we get too far into the story. “I saw Merry Hill Gouldbusk the other day. Supermarket,” he continued. “She had 2 apples and one banana and then excused herself to the cashier and got one orange and slotted it between the 2 foods before the whole thing was rung up, all the items in that order. She was trying to tell me something. She didn’t seem to recognize me, though. I was shocked.”

“Gold face still in place?” April Mae only asked with a little venom. She was use to such sidetracking. After 48 (48!) years you learn to put up with a lot. And fantasizing about a woman half your age is not at the top of the shit list, not any more.

“Yes. Red hair still too.” Herbert stopped here, thinking back, which April Mae spotted. Still worth a hundred dollars? she wanted to ask but held her tongue. Long time ago now. They had bigger worries now, like how to cope with growing old. They had to stick together on this one. She’d seen Mr. Platinum, she’d seen the future. They could not turn back the clock.

“When did you get so tall, dear?” she diverted. She looked right. “And where is our favorite painting on the wall, the Blue Panther? The one we stole from… oh, I can’t recall, hmph, I can’t recall them all.”

Herbert slouched down and then answered the second. “I believe the farmer boy is bringing it over later.”

“What farmer boy?”

Herbert reconsidered. “No, I think it was repossessed. By the Blue Panther and his, erm, agent. Back at the end of novel 36. They came huffing and puffing up the hill to the house. Hill House we wanted to name it. But not after Merry.”

“Of course not,” April Mae waved the idea off. She tried to remember the repossession.

—–

Later in his study he remembered it was a gardener and not a farmer that his wife had had an affair with.

Later on the john, April Mae remembered that the art was destroyed instead of repossessed.

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July 6, 2023 · 4:12 pm

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Weird she can see the lower tip of Beatrice from here, she thinks. Where she, in fact, comes from (novel 38; on a white horse). She checks the distance on the inworld map in her, um, mind. Over 200 meters away still, and her draw distance used here is only 64 to reduce lag in an urban area. She thinks again of Constantinople, the *real* thing, and her graphically talented, er, doppelganger. Here incarnated as Myrtle Beech out on the southern tip of *this* island. Another 200 meters or so in the opposite direction.

She moves to the opposite window of the upper floor of her new (!) apartment, important furniture purchase finished. It all revolves around, well, the central affair which is not an affair atall. She smiles at the irony. She can continue with her romance novel 39 and keep the marriage to Arthur intact. She can have her cake and eat it too. She came here, in effect, in 2 boats at once. But what really was this island she now exists on with her others? Constants? Close enough.

Arthur will be home soon from job hunting. Better get back to the interwebs and do some more research before he arrives (she decides). Hogs the whole living room with his applications and such. Great views, but — drawback — small apt. Barely room for the bed upstairs. And what about a kitchen? She’s *not* sharing an oven and a fridge with that big headed dude downstairs (!).

Strange, she think while staring from the couch now (*not* new). The entire Smipsons family shows up at the bottom of the store’s page but no sign of Al or Sarah’s avatar, hmm. Oh, she realizes. No adult content here; she’s not signed in to the Marketplace. And Al and Sarah are certainly adults now after what happened at the Homeless Union last night, away from Cowboy’s still drunk presence. Who cares if he chokes on his own vomit, Sarah thinks while packing her duffle bag for an overnight stay, looking down on him writhing about on the stained bed, murmuring something about Wanda and Gloria giving him 2 rides between snores and incoherent utterances. I bet they did, she thinks with vile, harking back to that afternoon and the beach and the lateness of his appearance and his *appearance* when he arrives. Drunk off his tits. “I bet they did,” she hisses aloud before stomping out, thinking this is at *least* a 2 night absence now. Maybe forever; probably so.

Back to the family…

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July 3, 2023 · 2:24 am

Permaglow

She went back the next day to meet him. She knew to sit far apart and she also wore a mask for extra protection. Many said he didn’t exist but she knew better. She felt the chills of reality pass through her almost daily.

“I can’t… stop glowing,” he said to her across the patio holding the 3 Meter Monument. “I *can’t*… stop *glowing*.”

But what to do for him? Marg was dead. Homer had lost his head. Lisa, yes. She must contact the sister, the author of the other, lesser treatise on the controversial “perhaps sentence”. Not the channeler/psychic Bart was but still the only hope, she knew. And, chance has it, they had a mutual friend, even though she still didn’t know that fact.

Back home:

“Tarnation, woman! TV dinners again?! Where you been all day girl!?” She, of course, couldn’t tell him, except that she’d been walking per usual. Cowboys never see the other side. “I’m going to stake you down with a rope,” he warned. “Just like a big, fat cow I am.” He was close to her face now, rage in his eyes, nose, mouth, everything. Her window of opportunity to help the boy was closing. She’d need allies, at least one. And he was very close as fortune would have it. Now to somehow bring them together, hmm.

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July 2, 2023 · 4:03 am

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She had walked much further today than normal, all the way to Permaglow on Pickle 02 to see the famous 3 eyed fish.

And then she spotted the forgotten nuclear fuel rods at the bottom of it all, obvious source of this aberration. Springfeld came to mind, the home of the boy. Stuff of legends. Also: skateboarder from Tull, but last she heard he was surfing.

After counting them, one two three, same as the eyes, same as the rods, she felt a chill pass through her and looked around. She’d felt this before. Something had happened. Parallel world.

Later, when she returned home and was hanging out the wash, she just missed him passing by on the street on his way back to the Homeless Union, mission in the western mountains scuttled, at least for now. Both had information the other needed. And much much more.

But first there was the little matter of Cowboy. “Are my chaps dry yet!?” he called from the house. “I need my chaps! Woman.”

(to be continued)

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July 2, 2023 · 2:08 am

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At the first mountain pond, low but discernible as such, he spotted one of those famous angle fish he’d heard about. But angle only mirrors angle as it turns out, as in the corner of the sim of Carumba just beyond where it meets up with Tickle Ridge, Beaver Lagoon, and Westvale. With his lower draw to reduce lag, Al could only see flatter ground from here on up. What was there to skirt? It all seemed like a trap. He rang up Tom again.

“Get out, abort,” came the suggestion, nay, order from his superior being. “We’ll start again in this direction soon. Regroup at the Bellissaria Homeless Union. There are other people there, I’m sensing now, that you need to interact with. Try to find the turtle for real this time. Maybe even Bart,” even though Tom knew this would be more illusive and the equivalent of finding the goose that laid the golden egg. Could he, can he? There was a reason the ridge dwindled to nothing past Cowabunga. Tom didn’t remember that. Space and perhaps time were being altered.

Never mind that Al was wrong and that the ridge continued a little west of where he was looking, low but discernible again if you remove the hiding trees from his angle. Fate dictated he return to the coast. And he forgot to take care of procuring that stick, which he took as an omen too.

(to be continued)

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July 1, 2023 · 8:38 am

psychic daydream

He was nursing his 5th Blue William and nibbling on his 3rd sailboat sandwich of the day when the cry came from the waves. “CowaBUN-GAAA!!” followed directly by, in a much higher, nasal voice, “Don’t eat my SHORTS MANN!!”

From this vividly imagined exchange down at the beach, Al fairly quickly deduced that the famous expression of amazement, enthusiasm, or joy commonly uttered by surfers — a “short” if you will — was *stolen* (eaten) from the young, yellow ragamuffin by the turtles. The sim of Cowabunga in the mountains to the west was still relevant after all, along with nearby Carumba, also a historic revision, he figured. Al knew where to head next.

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