Tag Archives: Charlene the Punk^^+++++

April 15, 2021 · 9:59 am

00250703

“I like your gray hair.” It changes. “Oh, I mean, *black* hair.”

“Never mind that,” she waves off, still weeping a bit. She lays her head in her folded arms on the table. “I can’t (*sniff*) *believe* he’s *gone*.”

MAT pats her hand. “There there.” It’s something she did a lot for Jeffrey, especially when he woke up after one of his weird dreams. The memory makes her cry even more. We better postpone the post about her chat with MAT for another day.

Oh wait, she’s finished. She looks up, stares into MAT’s eyes. “I’m better (*sniff*). Yes,” she nods. “Better.” More nodding, like a bobble-head winding down. MAT withdraws his hand from hers, sensing he needs to do that. It starts wheels turning in Charlene’s head, though — the subtle pause. Was MAT interested in her? So soon after Jeffrey’s demise? How dare he! But maybe she’s just imagining it. She stares into his eyes. Very intelligent, yes, but very unformed. What would be a better word? Unfocused. *Fuzzy*. Blurred even, but perhaps that’s because of the remaining water in her eyes. She wipes them, looks again. Still a bit blurred, still a bit fuzzy. This was on MAT. How is he going to run a whole 1/8th sim town like that? she asks herself.

“How’s… (*small sniff*) Collagesity managing? I (*smaller sniff*) imagine the paperwork is piling up even higher than before, foot by foot.”

“One foot after another,” MAT recites, thinking back to leaving the subway and heading here. Spunky’s coffee bar, bought by Charlene the Punk from Rochelle the Spy in the Summer of ’98, which would be just last year, NWES Time Zone. She’d done a great job with it. “Money’s not great,” she admitted to Jeffrey Phillips just the week before last Wednesday’s Tuesday or thereabouts. So soon was he taken from us! “Come with me,” he then beckoned. “Come to Collagesity.” Oh, she was there some nights, and it always seemed the ones where he had those weird dreams. About this place called Pickleland, for example. Danny as a time traveling super scientist, ha! He can barely plunge a commode. Okay, he’s actually a pretty good janitor, Charlene admitted in her mind.

Man About Time had nodded off while Charlene thought about other stuff. He too was dreaming about Pickleland, and being in control again, fuzzy no more. Grandma loves him best of all, he knows, up there on the 7th level or whatever. Maybe 8th. But way up high, so no one could reach her. But him.

(to be continued)

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April 15, 2021 · 9:12 am

00250702

We began again the next day…

“It’s Plan 2, Stumpy,” spoke Man About Time within Moe’s Bar over at NWES City. He’s decided to leave this footprint in the town; keep paying rent on it. “Black Ice is kaput.”

“Yeah, I know,” replies Stumpy the formerly headless bartender, hired only after he promised to get one. “We’ll have to think of ‘what ifs’ on that one.”

“What if…” MAT starts, “… I was recognized for being a world renowned artist.”

“What if…” Stumpy chips in, getting into the game himself, “… I remained headless and could still balance red wine and blue pot correctly.”

“What if…” MAT’s turn again. “All of this is a dream.”

“What if… I were actually dead instead of alive.”

“What if… Charlene were actually my girl instead of Jeffrey Phillips’.” MAT pauses here; Stumpy takes a good gander at him. “Because, you know, he’s dead and all.”

“Maybe *we’re* dead,” Stumpy doubles down. Were they still playing the game? “Do you, er, fancy her, Man About Time? You can tell me. I’m your no. 1 bartender after all. Remember, you hired me after I promised to get a head.”

“Ahead in life, yes. Which the job would give you. So: case closed; loop completed. You are here. You have a head.”

“Back to Charlene…”

—–

He sits for a while on the subway before he remembers it was never finished. He’ll have to walk. Another “what if,” then. What if… the subway system of town was finished and residents could more easily move from one sim to another. But to Black Ice and continue his pitches which are All Pitch. Maybe he should buy Barry DeBoy’s red baseball cap. Put it on backwards so he can tell the two apart. “I’m here,” he imagines saying to forward cap wearing Barry across from him on the train. “And you’re there.” But he was facing (transposed) the other way and couldn’t even see him. Reminds me of a certain Tiger we’ve viewed recently. Barry, I mean, MAT sits alone again. Then gets up. Because of the whole nonfunctioning part of the subway. He’ll have to walk to Black Ice. Surely he remembers how to walk — yes, one foot then another then another. Feets get moving!

(to be continued)

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April 3, 2021 · 4:03 am

00250602

Sometimes you can’t help yourself. You have to take a snapshot.

Flash! The world is gone, then reappears. Blue Berry Girl sits on a rock, trying to figure it out. “Norris. Be *quiet*,” she demands. But Norris had said nothing in fact, not being alive in any way except through remote animation. She takes him everywhere. We could call him a constant sounding board. “Norris. Stop picking at your nose!” That kind of thing.

Flash! The brightness then dies down from the last pocket of virtual reality. A pond with real seeming rocks lining it. They sit down again, tired from the 50 meter walk, or Blueberry Girl imagines Norris is tired. Looking down, she then wonders when and why she painted her fingers (and toes) such odd colors.

“Norris. Stop *humming*.” Blueberry Girl imagined her constant companion was humming a Schuman, perhaps the one with the red eye (hopefully).  But then Norris stops and doesn’t start again.

“What *are* these rocks?” Blueberry Girl asks. “They seem… *different*!”

Norris had an independent thought for a change. *I* rock! he realizes. He is alive, resurrected even.

“Scratch scratch scratch!” went the seagull down at the rocks like a demented violin, trying to tell them the truth but being unable to communicate effectively being a simple bird and all. He has plans to change himself.

—–

“Another dream, Charlene. I was a dummy.”

“Aww,” she says with fake pout. “I’m sooo sorry.” She rubs his arm. She hands him his red tie, which he must put on first thing even to get out of bed.

“I saw rocks. I woke up. I was a violin. I was a seagull.”

“There there, now now.” She was rubbing the other arm now. She was patient. Jeffrey Phillips was doing right by her these days. Collagesity was not that bad. Once you get use to the crime and the background shooting and looting. As long as you’re in bed, say, by 7, and wear your noise cancelling headphones to go to sleep: you’re okay. April Mae Flowers was still in custody. There has to be more criminals, especially given the 5 sets of fingerprince and, well, the continuing crime, only slightly abated much to Jeffrey’s chagrin. He returned to continuing chaos. The paperwork containing the police reports among other things piles up. He works through it one day at a time, inch by inch, foot by foot. Then he comes across this.

—–

“The sun is hot today Norris,” she says, looking up from her hands into the cooler trees, trying to spot the seagull that had flown away from the toasty rocks down at the shoreline. But in vain: the demented violin sings no more.

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April 1, 2021 · 5:09 am

Pickleland end

He was near the start again, deciding which way to go and whether it was even worth choosing at this point. The house on the hill to the left remained a disappointment, with no Grandma inside except a kindly one named Tessa who was obviously not the horrible monster he’d heard about from several denizens of PickleSong now. But there also seemed nothing of real value or meaning to the right either: no real structures of substance. The red door loomed front and center before him. Dare he (despite the warning color)? There was nowhere else. Except retreat a little further back toward the Portal and thank Brunhilde for the bike, which he never did, and ask for his advice. He seems kindly enough as well. Yes, that sounds like a plan.

“It’s already been taken care of,” offered muscle bound Brunhilde about the door, helping Sandman more than he could know if confusing him in the present. “I’d go ahead and start over: go back through the Portal and start afresh tomorrow. Things will be different, trust me. And, oh, leave the bike behind. I need to pedal to the store up on level 5 today for some bread and eggs and some other stuff.”

—–

Jeffrey Phillips woke up back in the Blue Feather in Collagesity. He wiped the little bit of grit from his eyes (sand!), and looked around at familiar surroundings: the infamous red tie draped around his bedpost, his tuxedo hanging in the corner on an antique coat rack, his Phillip Linden doll beneath him that he’s cried into many a night before sleep. And, most immediate: Charlene the Punk beside him. “Put on a dress babydoll and get out of that babydoll,” he spoke over to the groggy punk. “We’ve got to go see Man About Time and pronto!”

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March 23, 2021 · 4:06 pm

pink punk

“Did you know I have a hole in my back, Jeffrey? Do you even notice these things?”

“Let’s not argue tonight, Charlene.”

Pause. “Anyway, I guess coming here gave me an excuse to wear that hot pink dress I haven’t worn since, oh well, I suppose since I walked under that marquee in Picturetown and then glanced down the alley at skateboarding Bart Smipson. The bastard.”

“Now now, Charlene. He’s just a kid, a ragamuffin of the streets.” Smaller pause. “Plus, he’s probably dead. We’ll find out soon. Because of the next place we have to visit. Fern’s already been there. Which means you will be there. Eventually.”

“Pheh.” Charlene the Punk reached behind her shoulder and felt the hole in her back, suddenly becoming self conscious of it. She then drew her attention forward again. “And who’s this suppose to be? Me in the past I suppose — presume.”

“That’s the idea. Felicia Mae Appletree, but not the Smipsons teacher, the one who would have taught Bart most likely.”

“Pheh.”

“Instead, the child, the daughter. Maebaleia tattoo already on her back — she’s too young for that.”

“I have a tattoo of a *hole* on my back,” Charlene complained. “I don’t want to hear about some itty bitty upper back tattoo.”

“Central back.” He had walked behind the bar and checked. That’s how he knew where they needed to head next. Fern must have planted the idea in the young Charlene’s head. If this is Charlene, and it appears it is so.

“Does she *talk*?” Charlene the Punk says exasperatedly, about ready to leave if some kind of music doesn’t start soon. And no Residents this time or she’s outta here real real quick. She’s already told Jeffrey that, who assured her that’s it’s only Pink Floyd music offered here. She checks to see where his hands and fingers are, though, and notices that some remain hidden either in darkness or in clothes. She will not be entertained by the mastications of Homer; she was never one of those kids.

Boxes of donuts were rolled out on the stage. Charlene the Punk was outta here quicker than a pig with wings.

—-

“Have a seat, er, Felicia,” offered Jeffrey after the exit. 10 years younger, underaged even for him. Probably all for the best.

“Tell me about the tattoo; I dig it,” Jeffrey requests after the entertainment starts. Turns out she was one of those kids after all. She’d just forgotten what she had dug.

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March 14, 2021 · 8:27 am

Teepot revisited

“What happened to the doctor?”

“Doctor… who?” she replied, talking gesture repeating over and over even when she was silent, like now… with me, waiting for a reply. This dame’s head was as empty as a coke bottle in Spring. Time to meet Charlene anyway at the coffee shop; explain to her why I’m here.

“Excuse me. I’ll be back in a millennium.” And he was out of the castle and down in the village.

“The doctor is dead,” she finally explained 15 minutes after the exit, coinciding with Jeffrey Phillips saying down in the village…

“I’m here on a tip from Tor. He knows about Viterbo, you know, the location of that last post, the one I wasn’t in, a rarity these days,” he extended more. If Charlene were channeling future self Fern Stalin, she might have understood all this metadata. But as of the present she was giving him a rather blank stare back. She gave up a cryptozoology lecture at prestigious Mammoth Cave Institute to meet him here. This better be good — no more metadata!

“H-how does he know Meaux?”

“He lives near it,” Jeffrey replied rapidly while leaning back and tossing his hand flippantly in the air. “I believe his house may be the closest mortal to their land. But you should know that. You’re Fern after all.”

“Not any more.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, not in this moment.” Charlene knew if she gave up Fern she gave up any hope for the future which is the present which is the past. And that couldn’t happen. But it grows tiring, the constant channeling and channeling funneling. One day she will become rid of it, but only when she’s Fern.

“Why are you here?” Jeffrey ventured, taking a closer look at his date for the night across from him. She’d been hurt before. She didn’t like the pain. Soon she’d be Fern Stalin and have the upper hand at any rusty twist and turn.

“Viterbo,” she deflected (channeled), letting the word hang in the air like a demented sunset gone cold wrong. The Sun wouldn’t go down so the Moon couldn’t come up, alchemy all awry. Jeffrey Phillips was finally at a loss for words. Good.

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March 1, 2021 · 9:52 am

00250203

I had my assignment, I had my links. Time to leave the magical Outer Maebaleia isle of Meaux where I learned all about quartz rock and the advantages and disadvantages of letting it be the center from Fern, who is Charlene the Punk in the future. Or in the past if you look the other direction from center. Time to visit other, similar if smaller outer isles, armed with my similar if smaller stash of spells and perhaps curses now. Time to begin to grow up. Magic is real.

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February 28, 2021 · 8:57 am

separate

Later (or was it earlier?) he was looking at a portrait in one of the city galleries and recognized what he thought were the models. “Wheeler,” he muttered aloud, seeing the Triune that would always rule him. If he didn’t have Collagesity. He *must* hold onto Collagesity. He’ll get the crime spree under control. April Mae Flowers, yes, accomplished the actual homicides, he tried to assure himself. Didn’t work. He knew there were at least 5 active criminals in town (because of the fingerprince), despite only 3 registered residents so far. Danny, who tried to kill *him*, was, true, cleaning out his trailer, getting ready for banishment to… somewhere, Jeffrie Phillips hadn’t decided. Some place that has a lot of broken bathrooms, he he he. Or maybe where they all *worked*, ha ha ha, so he won’t have anything to do. Yes, Hell can be a place of complete, utter boredom too, he realized in the moment. So can Heaven — Heaven and Hell both… which means probably neither exists.

He must think of religion more. There are currently at least 3 active churches in town, or will be — they’re *built* is what I mean. Rezzed. There’s, obviously, the Temple of TILE, and Man About Town — MAT — certainly hasn’t given up on reactivating the old Collagesity ruling deity Carrcassonnee still up on the 3rd floor there, especially since (her replacement) Wheeler seems to be out of the picture. But all he can get out of her still is, “Iiiiiiiiii,” which may mean an uncompleted sentence about herself or maybe the “eye” that dominates her appearance. The eye is broke, he remembers — MAT told him that. That’s the 7th beyond the “unconscious” 6 prims of the body. That is the paradox of the 7 and the 6, the Sepisexton Enigma he termed it at another time. Wacky ol’ MAT, Jeffrie thinks. He’ll always be between one thing or another because of his non-fixed, variable nature. And he’ll probably never get Carrcassonnee to utter anything again except that one word, that one letter perhaps.

He looks again at the picture in the gallery and out of his thoughts. He decides (this must be later, then) that he’ll talk Charlene the Punk out of coming to Collagesity, if she hasn’t already decided herself. She has her business here, and can serve omelettes and other breakfast items in an untimely fashion. No doubt the local residents are use to such lags — heck, they may not even think about them much anymore. Like a fish living in water.

What he could even do is drop mention of Bad Kitten/Zado, Elsa, Darlene, and probably another one or two or three he isn’t thinking about. That’ll keep her here, he assumes. But he can always visit. Often. As often as all the others will allow.

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February 28, 2021 · 8:56 am

equals?

“Well it certainly sounds like a dangerous place. I’m not sure I want to move there now, despite the advantages.”

“I mean, look at your wine. It’s still gray,” Jeffrie Phillips pointed out. “Sooo laggy.” He looks around, as if he can see the whole, huge city from his vantage point. NWES City, which once, not very long ago, almost decided to become a town and let its several suburbs handle all the city problems. Not any longer. But… what if.

Charlene takes a sip of gray wine, which tastes perfectly fine despite the color. She looks again: red now. But it took a while. And it also took a while, albeit a shorter time, for her shirt to rezz in. She thinks of, for example, omelettes. It would probably take half the time to cook them in Collagesity if she decides to move there. But what is the night life? As Jeffrie Phillips is describing it to her: none. Except for crime — maybe the criminals are just *bored*. She says this aloud to Phillips.

“We think it was just one person committing the actual homicides if that helps, one April Mae Flowers, a widow. She has a history of crime in the town — notice I use town there, not village, but not city.” He was trying to paint a contrast between Collagesity and NWES City for Charlene to help lure her back.

“How big again?” she queries about the size of the town.

“8192, with room to grow. Approximately 500 prims worth of room. That’s a lot of omelettes.”

Charlene was wondering how Jeffrie Phillips knew she was thinking about omelettes earlier but then dismissed the mind reading possibility. But was he? She knew they were separate cores, so no symbiosis there for psychic sharing. He was, at the core, Baker Bloch. She: Wheeler Wilson. Baker Blinker, Karoz Blogger, Hucka Doobie, and most of the others seemed to have faded away in the distance. It was only us two left, she thought. She says this out loud to Jeffrie Phillips.

“Then we should be king and queen of Collagesity. I know you are Fern Stalin in the future.”

“In the *past*,” Charlene the Punk counters about the time relativity.

“See there? We’re a great balance. You look at something one way, I another. We are Janus headed, looking in both the past and future directions. Can’t you see?” He manifests a glass of gray wine in his own hand and adjusts his position appropriately. “Fate.” He takes a sip, the sip of victory. He reaches the wine glass out to clink with her own. Dare she?

She could have asked about veracity advantaged Bad Kitten/Zado, she could have asked about Elsie at the kissing booth and nimble Darlene down at the bay and “Hot Shot” Cloris over in the Rat Village bar and grill. Had she known about them.

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February 4, 2021 · 9:44 am

a way out?

Charlene Brown the Punk and Jeffrie Phillips sit in the car again in the center of Harbourtown, the twin city of NWES. “Rose Heaven seems to have closed up for us, dearest,” she spoke to him. “Gaston too.”

“Don’t go there?” asked Jeffrie Phillips again, to which she responded in the negative. “Too many ghosts,” she added, looking over at the Happy Travels Travel Agency, Harbourtown Branch, with its 3 featured portals.

“Karma,” he elaborated, or perhaps just added onto what Charlene said.

“We still have Guy. In the temple over there. Shall we go worship?”

“Sure.”

—–

Where a door closes a hole opens. Guy had protected one he knew was important, thus preserving the past as well. The past to the future. UNEXPLAINED ANOMALY.

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