“I don’t quite get all these references to clowns, Buster. Could this be a Clare Nova influence on the town? Clown town?”
“Here it is, Wheeler,” said Buster beside her, not really listening. “The stairs I took up to my death spot. But now Peter says there are two such structures (in town).”
“Well, let’s go look around. Anyone coming in has to land there. Why did they do that? Some things here puzzle me. Puzzle me greatly.”
“My guess is that there are two forces in Olde Lapara, one for each involved sim. The town is split, in effect. Male and female. Black and white. Good and bad. Old and new. The town needs to heal itself in order to go forwards. It’s the same with every one of us.”
“Quite the philosopher you are, Buster. I guess that goes along with you being 10,000 years old or something.”
“Yes. I’ve seen a lot. Do you know how hard it is to kill a vampire?” He answers himself. “*Really* hard. If they don’t want to be killed. And I’m simply a coward. I enjoy life in death.”
“Jesus could give you that,” offers Wheeler. “So says the protesters. Where’d they go anyway?”
“So many questions, but we must start at the beginning. And the end.” They walk up the stairs.
—–
“We could just wait here long enough and meet up with everyone that regularly comes through the place,” says Wheeler, staring inside. “Manifestation spot. What does it mean?”
“Stop asking that. Meaning meaning meaning. Maybe it just is what it is. A work in progress. Continual progress.”
“Let’s go see the other one. This one’s empty to me.”
Buster took a closer look.
“You don’t understand, Wheeler Wilson. I couldn’t even look out to see who was continually shooting me. 47 times. They thought I was already a vampire. But I wasn’t. At the time.”
“Who turned you?” queried Wheeler (yet again). “I mean, to become a vampire someone has to kill you — drain you of blood, right?”
—–
Synchronicity. Just then, Bettie manifested in the south side of town using Rocky’s Unique Mushroom Portal, as she called it — RUMP, for short. That was part of the deal. Rocky would possess the small house, but Bettie and her alts like Little Tonshi Ashokan could use it as a shortcut when they wished to come down the mountain for a visit. Which was turning out to be often, much to Rocky’s irritation. He was attempting to jumpstart his second novel. Current working title: “Two to Know.”
On August 8th, 1926, cubic Arnold and Betsy Layne had just arrived in town, demanding a room in the already booked up Grand Lapara Hotel…
Rocky took the sheet out of the typewriter, wadded it up and threw it toward the wastebasket in the corner. “No, that won’t do,” he sighed.
—–
“Do you want to do it or should I?”
“I’ll go. You go get some rest for tomorrow when we explore the other end.”
—–
“I said *I’d* go.”
Sunklands 