Harlequin moves from the darkened corner of the courtyard into the house with Columbine, Pierrot having shuffled off below the event horizon like a dying orbital sun. The oldest extant animation ends here with the created black hole, paint applied gelatin finishing its run.
—–
“Now let’s get to the other one, Daisy. Father you say?”
“Father I say.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0613, animation, collages 2d, Jeogeot, Michigan, Nawt Vaya, NVFS
“You see? You SEE?? Columbine. Revealing strangely bright lit Edward Pierrot coming from the North. He doesn’t know what will backstab him in a minute. Or back *stick* him as in a stab. This is important. This is *crucial*. She should have never opened that door in the wall and neither should we.”
“Simmer down, Mouse,” said Philip Strevor to his oft times housemate, still unable to beat his high score at his best game, NUMBER not to be taken down yet. 28064212. “Just start over at the beginning, pal,” he said while also looking up at the castle’s video feed he just walked in on. Mouse: always jabbering, always theorizing. Until it ends.
“How about the middle,” said Mouse, and then went there.
“The banana moon hangs low in the blue night-sky, yellow-ish or maybe even green-ish, sun nowhere to be shone now,” he describes. “In the shadow made by the walls the stick keeps poking, keeps jabbing, turning him ’round and ’round and eventually gone. Leaving Columbine for…
“…. Harlequin. This is the tragic tale of our Edward, Philip.”
“Edward… Philip?” TBC
I took another day off to explore the town more. I’d taken a lot of days off lately. Perhaps I was already pretty bored with the mayor’s job, I don’t know. I found myself wandering… and wondering. Here I sit in Downtown’s subway station watching a train that never stops. Where is it going? Where’s it been? Never here apparently, or never gathered people here or dropped them off. I move on…
… to an abandoned petrol station, wandering and then wondering about the name Clyde on the window over there behind the tires. I knew the town was formerly called Blue Ball or Blue Balls so that didn’t seem to fit, despite the name Clyde being applied to a lot of towns across our fair country of America back in the day. Like one in Ohio where famed American author Sherwood Anderson grew up, along with U.S. independently affiliated senator and so-called father of the TVA George Norris and a couple of other famous people, including a Civil War Union general I can’t recall the name of.
I know, I’ll go ask Charlene. But maybe Emily would be a better target, having been here in The Burg longer. What’s her story, why did she move off the Makah Indian Reservation after being raised there? Something about Wolvie? — probably something about Wolvie. So that ropes in Charlene who’s the sister of what clearly is a shapeshifter in this here town, probably a werewolf by the sound of it. And he recognized me (!). In that service station with the black and white wolf poster over in Juho. I wonder how Newt is doing over there (her thoughts deflect). I wonder if he’s done anything with Newtonia since I’ve been… away.
That graffiti artist over yonder (she triangulates between useless subway and abandoned petrol station, a right one it appears). Maybe they will know something about Clyde. Worth a try.
She approaches, notices the cigarette in both his mouth and spraying hand at once. James Smoker he quickly becomes in her mind. Until she learns the truth.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0046, 0405, Jeogeot, Juho, Nawt Vaya, Ohio, The Burg, Washington
“Susan was a goner, Fink. You essentially killed her with your attack at the beach. But you were only defending Jack, who would have gotten killed himself if you hadn’t intervened. If *Fern* hadn’t intervened. You first saw him — remember? — across Susan’s sprawled out body, his green matching your flesh, his square matching your round.”
“I remember,” said Fink. “I– didn’t mean to kill her.”
“*Told* you to control that freak-ish green arm better,” reprimanded Jack, then felt bad about it. “I mean, I guess you were defending me and all still.”
“I *was*.”
“*Anyway*,” said Princess Pinky Gumm, “I knew her essence could be put to better use than keeping her alive for another day or three at best until she succumbed to those obviously fatal injuries. So I used that energy, that essence to heal myself. Remember? I was possessed by The Lich. *I* wasn’t going to get any better.” Better her than me, Princess Pinky Gumm thought but didn’t say aloud. Was she 100% sure Susan wouldn’t recover? Actually: no. She had been selfish. Susan was a renegade cyborg killer, programming triggered by an electrical shock from a giant Acid River eel. But maybe, just maybe, she would have recovered. But that left the killer part intact still, she tried to rationalize. Yes, better her than me (for death), she reinforced to herself.
“How?” says Fink.
“I’m both a physicist and psychic trained at world esteemed Cal State, Fink. The answer would be too complicated for your meager brain to comprehend. Given you just made an F minus on what I would consider the easiest test on Earth.” Princess… Pink(y)… Gum(m), she reviews the glaringly obvious three-parter, and looks over at his blank, human face. So typical. At least fellow human Susan had killer written all over hers. After the eel. Kill or be killed, she thought once more. Yes, her complicated arrangement of physical-psychical interactions used for the transfer were justified.
(to be continued)
“Hurry, dear. Hurry back to the 2n1 trailer before it’s too late!”
And so Eddie unstuck her golden VW from the drift once more with his golden shovel and they drove away, leaving Edward behind to his own devices. Grilling was not a specialty so he’ll miss that aspect of their partnership. But he’ll manage. He has Wanda as a backup after all.
*Tessa* (sorry!).
—–
“You know we’ll have to say we’re cousins to keep living here on such low rent and all.”
“Fine with me,” and she finished peeling her banana and began to munch.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0040, 0215, Bellisaria, Omega^^, Sandfly, Urbane Blue/Fishers Island^
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)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0215, Hana Lei^^
“When do you leave?”
“Day after tomorrow (pause). It was a lot of money.”
“I assumed so. Coming from Back.”
“Just a shadow figure,” Charlie Banana reinforced to his best mate Hatti, currently without one, blue hair which can sometimes be mistaken for black fully exposed. Both mate and girlfriend. But not wife. Perhaps they never will be now. “No face.”
“I know the feeling (another pause). You know Shelley and I go back a long ways. In some ways we’re closer than sisters. I understand her and she understands me. We discussed it on a beach far away from here once. Far away in time now as well. Hard to recall what we spoke of. She already knew about Liz there. And, of course, I had…” She tried to remember but couldn’t. Then she did. The eternal lover now. If he assumed a certain shape. Charlie Banana could be the same.
“Are you going to the Ant Castle first?” she began again. “Or just Mortons Gap in general?”
“All I know is that it has something to do with dogs.” His voice was pleasant, melodic even. Hers: a little more shrill but not unpleasant. They could both pose as ordinaries to others, which they weren’t. You have to be at least 108 years old to join the club they’re in, which includes the Silvers of course, the founders and owners. Brought all the way here from Neptune by the powers that be, some say. But we happen to know it’s Mars.
—–
We could have guessed hot dogs, we could have guessed feet. But it was actually dogs.
“Simmer down out here,” spoke Banana from the balcony, tired of the constant yelping and baying. Moon indeed.
A mysterious stranger arrives from the sea to the west, ready to rock his world.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0310, Corsica, Nautilus, NORTH, Northwest^
Charlie Banana saw it all from his DJ booth, the setting up of the ironically named Happy Rezday decorations, the lowering of the temperature, and then the entrance of the man himself, who was only part so, the other half being… he thinks it is mink. Should have made himself into a coat before venturing in here, but I guess that’s the point anyway. Sacrifice. Vulnerable sort. Chest congestion. 108 did him in finally, a triple threat in this case, a deadly threat, then. He should have seen it coming when Amazon was purposely changed with Amagon to bring Hucka Bee into the picture, not human atall now although still a man. Bee-man. Where are we on that?
He wasn’t surprised when he was intercepted after his gig was over at 10. Money was thrown at him, a lot of cash. Replace Wolvie, the mystery figure said, back turned. As always. Just a sort of shadow figure he was.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0309, Nautilus, NORTH
Sunklands 