Carrcassonnee looked over at the spot she had just been. Sepisexton she was now, both the 7 and the 6. It was time to move on from the great olive being and the great olive body. It just wasn’t working. Not right now anyway. Syd was a way out. And TILE.
She walks away from the new spot into the future.
—–
“Hey Roosevelt. Remember when we use to be black and yellow clowns over in NWES City? Funny times. That’s where you started your stand up comedy isn’t it.”
“No.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0023, 0315, Apple's Orchard, Black Ice, NWES Island^
Filed under **VIRTUAL, *REALITY, 0023, 0111, Apple's Orchard, Black Ice, Byng, Herman Park, Marwood, Neptune, NWES Island^, Wedge, The, Yards Mountain
There he is, the poor bastard. Taking his troubles out by fishing at the canal and drinking that Bud beer he likes. But it’s my job as site manager of Moe’s to clean him up and get him ready for marriage. I don’t know why but it was in the job description: get Toothpick ready to marry his sister on Wednesday’s Thursday Friday’s Saturday Tuesday. Munday, in other words, the 6th and final day of the week. Marrying day. At St. Mary’s. Should have been the Temple (of TILE) but it is what it is. Carrcassonnee wasn’t ready; the boss couldn’t get Carr started, har. And so we are only left with 6 instead of 7, but still a Happy Day indeed, or it is suppose to be. By eliminating the 7th, we make sure the brother-sister thing is okay with the higher authorities, meaning God and his choirs of angels and demons alike.
—–
“Where’s Mr. Z?” he asked later at Moe’s where I helped him put on his suspenders one strap at a time.
“Traveling,” I answered. “Out on the continents gathering more masks.”
“Oh. Then I guess maw won’t be showing up either.”
“No. I’m your best man now.” 2nd strap done. Now to commence with the snaggly tooth combing and Neptune demo hair brushing.
“I expect a post card will do from them.”
“On with the show,” I say as I lead him to the sink behind the bar counter. “You still have your sister and that’s the important thing.”
“Really?” he declared. “After the wedding — will I really have a twin sister left either?”
I couldn’t answer that. It was up to the love birds and the alchemical gods to decide that. The marriage is what it is. He removes his toothpick and applies comb to teeth as I brush his hair with paste.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0022, 0703, Apple's Orchard, Black Ice, Marwood, Neptune, NWES Island^
MAT looked down and only saw Mercury X. Rising on the lowest floor, who was a dummy. No organ music from the 2nd directly below him either.
There is no mixture of sacred and profane here at the temple, he thought. No un-well placed people down below to go along with a check written by Dorothy to Wheeler. Baker must be mad, victim of the 2989 curse, or 49 x 61. All will be solved when Toothpick marries his sister here Tuesday’s Thursday Wednesday’s Friday Saturday. We invented a special time for it called Munday, another Happy Day and raising the total from 6 to 7 [or would that be 5 to 6]. Mr. Z. and Mrs. M will be very proud, the best man and the maw.
He turns back to stare at the big eye oh so wanting to be well and sacred again. “But it can’t come about without your cooperation, Carrcassonnee,” he speaks aloud to the great olive being on the 3rd and top floor of the temple, the alien object all is built around. “You are the beginning and ending; you are alive, true, but your eye is not functioning properly still. You are yourself and not yourself at once. This is alchemy, this is a tin or lead voice wishing to raise itself to be gold like the visible body. We must make sound synchronize with silence. Silence is good and golden but…”
He attempts again.
“Iiiiii. Iiiiiiii-iiiii.” Like a car trying to start but can’t.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0022, 0401, Marwood, NWES Island^
Harry stares outside the picture at the Earth and sees it is good. What an oddball.
On the same floor, Baker Bloch bangs out the entire organ version of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” before raising his hands from the keyboard and realizing he can’t play. That was vampire alter ego Pitch Darkly’s talent, who hasn’t been seen in a number of photo-novels. I lose count. 18 — that’s it. Or was it 12?
Ahh, *there* he is. It was Pitch all along — should’ve know. Just had to turn the camera the other way. The lack of a reflection in the organ’s strangely placed mirror should have tipped me off. Along with, of course, the deft keyboard fingering.
“Play that other Russian ‘sky’ composer I love so much,” listening wife Mary Tyler requests. She wanted Moore. And Pitch complies by belting forth “The Rite of Spring” to her great pleasure, although early on she was knocked off her perch on the organ by the heavy vibrations. Good vibrations, though, and Mary still grooved to them while laying on the floor.
She took the opportunity to also stare at the static filled tv placed nearby she was edging closer to with each crashing chord — temple must have been tilted a bit in that direction — and fell into a trance, dreaming about a trip to the Beach. Except it was The Beech. Here we come!
Upstairs:
“Iiiiii… Iiiiiii…”
“Almost got it,” Carrcassonnee adjusting MAT (Man About Time) declares hopefully but perhaps also futilely. We’ll see soon enough.
Excuse me. I have to contact someone.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0022, 0316, Marwood, NWES Island^
Must be catching…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roads,_Ohio
The community was settled by people of German descent, and was originally known as “Berlin X Roads”.[2] The Berlin Crossroads Post Office was established on June 28, 1850, and stayed in service under that name until December 30, 1933.[4] As of 1901, the community was known as “Berlin Cross Roads”.[5] After World War I, due to the local feelings towards Germany, the Berlin part was dropped and in 1962 the community was registered with the USGS as simply “Roads”. At that time, the population was recorded at 130.[2]
http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/5533.26
The highway constituting a portion of the Appalachian highway system, and running east and west across the state between Cincinnati, Ohio and Belpre, Ohio, and passing near the city of Jackson, Ohio, shall be known as the “James A. Rhodes Appalachian Highway.”
Whenever a section of said highway is opened to the use of traffic, the director of transportation shall, as soon as practicable, erect thereon suitable markers indicating its name.
Effective Date: 09-28-1973 .
So let’s see what we have *here*. Lightning couldn’t strike again at another X Roads… could it?
—–
Looks pretty innocuous so far, but there’s men there again.
Hmmm: Twins. You have to stand right in the center to get the best effect.
—–
Roads from Carcassonne’s CAR (Complete Annotated Rules):
A completed road
A road is completed when the road segments on both sides end in a crossing,[3] a city segment, or a cloister, or when the road forms a closed circle. There is no limit to the number of road segments which can lie between these endings.
A player who has a thief on this completed road scores as many points as the road is long, decided by counting the number of tiles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lake_River
The Red Lake River (French: Rivière du Lac Rouge; Ojibwe: Miskwaagamiiwi-zaaga’iganiiwi-ziibi) is a river located in northwestern Minnesota. The river begins on the western side of the Lower Red Lake and flows westward. After passing through Thief River Falls, Red Lake Falls, and Crookston, the river merges with the Red River of the North in East Grand Forks.
More soon…
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0021, 0513, Minnesota, Ohio, Omega^^, Ruby's Empire/Fishers Island^, Urbane Blue/Fishers Island^
Crack reporter Tulsa’s headlining newspaper article for the NWES Gazette turned out to be laughable. Carrcassonnee was not dead; Gill Alex made sure of that. Overnight, he established Collagesity’s Temple of TILE in Marwood along with reassembling the great olive being’s 6 body pieces back together, with the 7th, eye, being worked on. Once that’s done, it’s done! The 7th is always tricky but I’m sure he’ll manage it. After all, this is the former Little Robert Plant Variant we’re talking about here, who was from quite nearby Nowtown which destroyed even closer, neighboring Zen City with an atomic bomb called the Tall Cool One, elsewhere: Kevin. I can’t make this stuff up. It happened! But that is zen and this was now. Um.
In fact I have an old map of Jeogeot to help prove all this, showing the position of Nowtown and Zen City on what’s called The Claw of the continent, with the sprawling NWES metropolis forming a number of years later just NW of Zen City. There may even be some past-present overlap between the two. And to make things even stranger, the old city of Sternberg also marked on this map is now the site of NWES City’s parallel, somewhat smaller sister burg centered in the Xenosaur sim. Our Second Lyfe still produces quite amazing coincidences! And to add even more, Sternberg was where Little Robert Plant Variant gave up his tube, but I jump ahead of myself too far. We first have to understand why Page didn’t go along with the Sunklands Initiative at the time, unwilling to disengage from the, by now, radioactive Zeppelin brand. Plant, both 16 and 59 at once, worked alone after that.
Carrcasssonnee: almost ready to speak again.
Back at their rented house, the local servant boy was offering them some kind of regional soup that looked grody to the max to Gill Alex. He instead stared out toward the sea, which at least they can *see* from this spot, if not visit. “Rain’s coming in again,” he observed. “Had a brief reprieve…” “Between 4 and 6,” Rock completed for him. Always thinking about numbers, he observed himself about his brother-lover. Always 4, always 6. Like clockwork. The rain just cooperated with what was already in his split hemispheric mind. Thank Gods for the topping golden hair. He could always talk rationally with that; it operated the mouth parts and most of the nose and ears. The eyes he couldn’t control. Gill Alex continued to stare at the sea and become one with it. He kept thinking of the eye they spoke about earlier. Tulsa was typing out her notes on a (regional) computer-typewriter by now, getting ready for a splashy, stormy front page story in the NWES Gazette. Picture here:
The Man About Time supposed this was his apartment now, what with the death of Carrcassonnee. He had no one left to take care of. Collagesity was done and over with. NWES is where it’s at; The Current.
I realized that MAT was me in the future. And the past and the present, I suppose. All the colors, well, one (current). Green, I guess. Lime. Olive?
“Why did I call him Jim?” he wondered mildly from his rainbow colored couch, too big for his apartment and probably something he would be getting rid of soon (along, obviously, with the bits and pieces of Carrcassonnee’s body). He has many options. This town is big and wide if lacking depth. But, then again, the town owner, a true neighbor of a guy, is working on the subway it seems. In the meantime: road system disrupted; north cut off from south. It rang a bell too close to home. He must hit it off with this neighbor and not be a (total) stranger. Because he thinks he knows this Guy. Met him on a RR once; talked about Azure Islands. But I’ve speculated before who Guy is. I thought he was Magellen and just gell’n. I thought he was…
The phone rings. Too close to home to answer. Maybe it was under his couch? He’d find out soon enough.
