I had to face the tiger head on.
Wheeler is Charlene is Her Majesty the Bigfoot!
One remained on the jigsaw pieces to our left, because there was only one left. Waiting for the snowman to turn orange again (it always did).
There (Wheeler joins the game).
Harrison just kept on dancing like a fool with his new mates behind the theatre. He was free!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0604, Canada/Picturetown, collages 2d, Marwood, NWES Island^
“Thanks for helping out, Charlene Brown.”
“I’m busy: but I’m here.”
“Okay, so there’s the two girls who must have seen Bart, yacking in front of the Giant Tiger painting. This would be catty-corner to you standing at the intersection of, let’s see, Main and Elizabeth. Bart should be skateboarding by you right this instant.”
“I see nothing.”
“So let’s just swing the camera around and… Charlene? Where’re you going? Come back!”
I finally spot the pink dress wearing punk again just beyond the Rosehaven Yarn Shop, about to walk under the Regent Theatre marquee. But she’s way ahead of where she should be. Where’s she going?
“I see him Baker Bloch!” she suddenly exclaimed as I pull back beside her at Main and York.
Three Beatles were crossing the road in front of me and I knew this was a special, sacred spot.
“And that’s how Bart Smipson travels between Picturetown and NWES City,” I write in a letter later to Hucka Doobie. “Through that alley with the 102 graffiti. He’s indicating how he does it!” I sign my name with love and stick it in an envelope addressed to the White Palace.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0603, Apple's Orchard, Black Ice, Canada/Picturetown, collages 2d, NWES Island^
“Thank Gods that shaking is finally over,” Charlene the Punk declared to Harrison Ford Jett, still with those apples. “Getting on my nerves sooooooo bad, arrgh.”
“The sim below Brodovima we’re in presently,” Harrison recites mechanically. “And an expression commonly used in the famous Peanuts comic strip.”
“Arrgh,” she exclaims again to something different now. “No it’s not. That was ‘aaugh’. I should know.”
“Right. Being Charles’ brother.”
“I’m technically still a Brown. Jeffrie and I aren’t married yet. We may not even be engaged — hafta check. But *you* — you’re different sir, different indeed. She looks at his face, and then down at the apples again still in place in the blouse-shirt. “You’re…”
“Don’t say it.” He looks at her own blouse. He’s guessed what he is. It changes.
Charlene drinks alone now. Maybe she should wander up to the bar and talk to The Mann, also drinking alone. Might be worth a try.
And this is how Fern met fellow shapeshifter Lichen, with Wendy still in the future.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0414, Bellisaria, Pickle 01
“Two pickles,” she explained later. “One yellow or sand colored: here. Then the one over there that’s more green.”
“Like my apples!” exclaimed listening and looking Harrison Ford Jett to her side in Spunky’s cafe down on the docks. Charlene’s home away from home, now that she’s in the thick of her dissertation. Detailed description of Knob Noster coming up next! Charlene looks over at her good friend Harrison, then down at his apples. Still in place. Still hasn’t been sold to the highest bidder.
“I suppose so,” she realized, and turned back to the girl holding the pickles in the doctored picture on her computer screen (she wants to be a doctor, after all). “But: sand. Sandman. The sandy pickle. That came first, although it was formed second.”
“What does that mean?” Harrison F. Jett instinctively held one of his apples then the other, as if testing they were the same. Then he turned red as a winesap as he realized Charlene noticed what he was doing. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Force of habit — I’ve been thinking a lot about them later. What it would be to be without them.”
“Well… maybe that fits into this as well.” She puts hand to chin while activating deep thinking mode. She scrolls to the next picture, undoctored this time. She’s losing vision of the future. Detailed description of “Knobby” will be difficult, nay impossible to achieve. She faces the prospect that it could be a stumbling block on her way to fame and glory.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0405, Bellisaria, Black Ice, NWES Island^, Pickle 01, Pickle 02
“More Bigfoot art,” Harrison Ford Jett whispers in the waning light to no one except himself. “It’s all here.”
“A cave! Marked with green again. Pickle. Pickle Too. Let’s go!”
The underwater rock cavern was pretty long; about 200 meters.
More of that type of art? Harrison F. Jett found these identical, half filled bottles of unknown alcoholic content wedged together in a rock opening and was unable to move them.
The rocks holding the stash penetrated the roof of the cave, making a distinguished marker. Watch out passing Bellisarian ships!
The rocks even appear to have feet.
The man who was also an ant back at the Hideout said I knew Bigfoot. Something about my shirt… should be getting back to NWES City and meeting up with Charlene. Maybe she would have some ideas about what the odd superhero or supervillian or whatever he is, was talking about. He recalls she studies these type of things, and her dissertation she’s hard at work on late into the night is about a somewhat similar creature called the Loch Ness Monster. And she talks of another “monster” called Knobby (actually: Knob Noster, *not* Knob Monster!) — maybe that’s what her paper is about instead (he intuits in the cave, staring up at a rainbow hued crystal cluster in the ceiling).
At any rate, she certainly lives in the land of Paperville. Hmm, odd thought — where’d that come from?
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0403, Bellisaria, Pickle 01, Pickle 02
Mary Pippins’ red umbrella and the Red Umbrella gallery
Bake’s Bakery (newly relocated!) with Barry X. Vampire and pretty Poetry Dancer
Zapppa’s apartment? (dreaming of that chick down there)
that chick down there — actually, those chicks, including the Her Majesty bigfoot/yeti in the doorway just down
Toddles roaming the mean streets of Black Ice at night again after drugging up her Grammy
Stumpy, the new bartender at Moe’s, smoking bong hit after bong hit while listening to noise rock with Gotham the psychedelic reggae monk. He’s got a head! He *is* a head!
Charlene Brown the punk working late night on her cryptozoology dissertation, unaware that off again on again boyfriend Barry X. Vampire Jeffrie Phillips is with Poetry tonight, the bastard
Melvin the devil boy offers a passing skateboarder some suspicious looking soup while half-sister Eldwina ponders her 1st assignment as an official member of the City Squad. Knew it! thinks full brother Judd from the stairs.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0308, Black Ice, NWES Island^
“See. I *told* you if we waited long enough he would change colors.”
“Very good, Sandy. I need to tell a story now.”
“Go ahead, Wheeler, um, Wendy,” encouraged Sandy. It was her turn after all.
“I was wheeling my way from Picturetown, trying not to be late for the Blue Feather meeting with Baker and, er, the other one. The green toy fellow.”
“You know his name,” Sandy complained.
“Anyway, I see my name on the side of a small square house as it comes into view around another house…”
“Lemme guess. Which has the same name.”
“Yes!”
“Do you want my apples yet?” asks Harrison Ford Jett opposite Sandy now, waiting his turn. He was eager to give them up. He wanted to be a man for Charlene.
“Not yet. We already have the orange and that’s enough for now,” answered Sandy. “Bananas: not needed.”
“So I’ve heard.” Harrison Ford Jett glances sideways at his own partner, his own bestie. They both knew something the other 2 didn’t. That Charlene the Punk was… well it should be obvious by the shirt. We’ll get a pic in a moment. Back to Picturetown and Wendy’s story who is the same as Wheeler.
“In that frozen moment, it was then I noticed a (red) car on the other side of the road from the buildings with my name, also coming into clear view from behind a passing truck. Before the obscuration I knew it was an ordinary car. Now, after the passing, it had a flat. Then *I* had a flat. I became the car.”
“Carrcassonnee?” Harrison Ford Jett guessed, turning his attention to the story and away from his gnawing apples, those chafing, gnawing things in his shirt-blouse. His head pivots to Charlene. “Carrcassonnee is a deity of the Temple…”
“I know who Carrcassonnee is. She’s talking about a car.” Let’s get a picture of that shirt in the pause here.
Oh well, turns out we can’t see it from this angle. Sandy presses the issue on. “Blue again,” he says while staring at the tiny snowman in the midst of it all, formerly All Orange. “We’re losing the reader’s attention.” He wondered if he remembered that line correctly. Must be director Eraserhead Man breaking the 4th wall once more. He glanced at the camera, pretending it was the reader he mentioned. He complimented himself for the improvisation before fully coming back into character.
Wheeler/Wendy as a car.
“I looked over at the square building again. My name was obscured once more (around the corner). I knew I couldn’t make it to the meeting on time. Then, in a flash, everything changed. A boy came by on a skateboard.”
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0208, Canada/Picturetown, Marwood, NWES Island^
“Shop’s closed,” Judd offered from the stairs, staring at the back of his sister Eldwina, who was dressing more and more like a little hooker each passing day, he thought. Maybe she would join the City Squad soon.
The coffee shop just down the walk was most assuredly not closed — perhaps the kids were talking about another place (they were). Charlene Brown the pseudo-punk was washing her hands when I came in, looking for stories.
“Be with you in a minute,” she calls as she counts. 16 Mississippi, 17 Mississippi… almost done. 19….. done. She turns.
“Oh it’s you. Haven’t seen you around in a while.”
“Yeah. Almost forgot how to get here. And then those kids…”
“Aw, jeez. Don’t get me started (about those kids).”
“Yeah, the one on the stairs…”
“He’s *always* sitting on those stairs.”
“Yeah, he said you were closed up.”
“Nope. As you can see. Maybe he was talking about the old Same Coffee Shop. It’s a basic duplicate of this one. Except: closed. That must be it.” She studies him more. Maybe a little grayer around the temples. Maybe a new wrinkle here and there. But not much change. For all the passing years.
“I’m here again.”
“Oh?” A twinkle in her eye. “She’d just dumped her 5th boyfriend in 5 months. There was the age different but… he was still attractive. She liked the gray. Distinguished, as they say. “In Black Ice?”
“No, but just up the road.”
“Apple’s Orchard?” she guessed again. “Neptune?” She paused. “Marwood, even?”
“Marwood, that’s it,” I decided. “Up at the new temple. I stay in an apartment in the air.”
“I don’t get up there that much — the northern part of the city.”
“Now now,” I reprimanded. “You’re not suppose to say that word any longer.”
“City?” she provided and then smiled. “It’ll change. We just have to get rid of the *other* cities clinging onto the main one. Like…”
“Meat City,” I proffered. “Zen City — well, that’s *already* gone, poof.” I threw up my hands in a poor imitation of a miniature atomic blast but she smiled all the same. Always laughing at my mainly lame jokes. Good ol’ Charlene. I decided to ask about Charlie. I wish I hadn’t.
—–
“It was Halloween night. Just day before yesterday, then. Out in the pumpkin patch. He didn’t listen to his pseudo-girlfriend’s brother about the demon that always showed up there that night. Neither of them made it. Just a blood patch now.” She starts to cry again, tears dripping into her cup and on the tablecloth. I didn’t know what to add. I’d said I was sorry several times now. I desired to leave, frankly — this wasn’t the story I was looking for. Oh look, though, she’s holding my hand now. She’s looking deep into my eyes with that twinkle again. Maybe this will work to my advantage. The last time we saw each other I was obsessed with another. But I’m older now; she’s older, although you’d never know it. It’s like time stood still for her. And maybe it had. Did she make a pact with someone, ho?
And what about that ill placed vending machine over there we got our hot beverages from? That’s new. Just then, Jeffrey Phillips’ cup vanishes into nothingness but Charlene’s remains. She knew how to replenish it automatically and bridge the gaps.
—–
In the closed duplicate coffee shop, Apples 02’s chair turned sideways and she knew lover Appleyon’s plan had worked. Now to get back to Somerset and try it on Apples 01. The bastard.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0612, Apple's Orchard, Black Ice, Marwood, Meat City, Mississippi, Neptune, NWES Island^, Somerset
I am both the contrary motions of male and female in one body,” he spoke over to his brother-lover Rock Ramby, who was sure to go everywhere Little Robert Plant Variant Vain and Artery Boy Gill Alex went. What a lamb. They were on vacation from Misty MO, like last year around this same time. “Always hurricane season for a coastal town,” Gill Alex groused about the location choice again. “Can’t go to the beach. Can’t lay out this gorgeous body on a sun towel for every passing boy and/or girl to ogle at.” He reflexively flexed his blue toned arm muscle with this for Rock. “Hard as *you*,” he added while patting it, making his significant other grin. “Shut up,” he waved Gill off. He knew he had to take certain kinds of pills now to be a serviceable lover. And Gill Alex liked to rub it in every now and then — when the opening occurred. They were playful and carefree like that. “*This* one,” — he flexed the muscle in his red arm now — “not as strong. Weak. Limp, even.” “Alright, knock it off Gill. Or should I call you… Alex.” Gill Alex shut up, then. He didn’t like his first and last names switched with each other, not one bite. He took another bit of his butterscotch topped doughnut in front of him so he could bite his tongue. He knew he deserved the come back. Then he got over it. Just that quickly. They were… well they were who they were. More Popeyes.
Speaking of which, Rocky Ramby was about to reveal to brother-lover Gill Alex why they were *actually* here.
Tulsa behind them was taking notes all the time.
“Oklahoma,” he started. “Oklahoma, then Olive.”
“Confederation?” expressed Gill Alex reflexively. When was the last time he’d thought about *that*.
They were here for the *eye*.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0416, Black Ice, Jeogeot, NWES Island^
They were. And so was Bigfoot. The locals referred to it as Her Majesty, again for mysterious Xplicit reasons. In the winter when she became all snow covered, she was more often called a yeti. 12, up to 13 residents were lost each holiday season. Baker’s dozen; Baker never liked that kind of talk associated with his name. Because that meant he was the last one to blame, I mean, he was to blame for the last one, the thirteen. If only he’d been a better Christian as a boy. The Boy. And now he’s paying through the Dark Peak of 2. Twin Peaks. Just like Harrison Jett had. The real deal.
If only he knew what the bluebird chirped down at Blue Jay Bay he would be a head of the game.
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0404, Apple's Orchard, Jeogeot, NWES Island^, Stranger Creek^
Sunklands 