He was at the table now, asking me to join him on his side. We were done with the Nautilus City map. He said we were waiting for someone but wouldn’t say who. He said we could play chess against the house in the meantime. I imagined both of us leaning against the outside of the fairy building, awkwardly holding a board between us. I told him this vision. He said, “No, against *the house*.” He waved his arms all around. A chessboard then appeared on the table before us, white pawn moved to King 4 in an opening move. “I’ve never able to beat her myself,” says this new Keat Owens. “But maybe with your help we can give her a run for her money. And she *is* expensive, my dear.” I told him I didn’t know how to play chess, and we do not have that game on Mars where I’m from. He said he’d do most of the work. It was over in 13 moves. The board disappeared. The new Keat Owens cussed a word I won’t repeat here. I didn’t learn a lot about the game except to note the power of the pieces and the general nature of their motions. I knew that the Queen was the most powerful and not to be f*cked with, to use the language of Owens. Then a person I had met once before came into the room, an ovoid portal appearing on his or her
headchest.
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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0412, Heterocera, Rubi
VW(X)
“Yes come in. Quickly, quickly,” another Keat Owens implored from within the fairy house. “There’s mysteries to solve. No doddling dear — there’s been enough of that. Well, come in,” he said again. “Leave the golf club outside, yes.”
Old Mabel goes up the stairs and then leans the iron gently against the house just outside its railing. Taking one last glance over at Keat Owens Joker, she passes through the door she just opened.
—–
“Yes, well…?” a similarly rushed Baker Bloch asks later at the Joker’s Wild Bar. Furry Karl was still under the weather. Rhoda remained the bartender for now.
“We stared at the Nautilus City map for a while. The position of Doreena, Yvonne, and, um, this new person or entity we haven’t heard about before named Anton, were marked with red pins. Keat Owens Jack, as we’ll call him…”
“… because his suit is like Jack’s across the way…”
“Right, Baker Bloch. So this Keat Owens Jack then says Doreena has unexpectedly changed her name and appearance, and that this is more work of Mid Hazel the witch. Her “do’n’s” is how he put it. And Spider was in the corner of the small room beside us; forgot to mention that. He’s still spouting out or uttering or speaking those 4 numbers over and over, like you described before when he was with Carrcassonnee.”
“Slightly before your time here in Collagesity, yes. Interesting. When did you wake up?”
“I was just staring at the pin representing Anton — more at my eye level — and a picture of what you call a Volkswagen Beatle at the bottom of the sea entered my mind. I stared at the completely algae covered car for quite some time. It was sad. Then I was jolted back to reality by the start of ‘Revolution No. 1’ on my player. That’s from the ‘White Album’. The more graceful ‘Long Long Long’ precedes it there. Then afterwards we have ‘Honey Pie’ and the horn laden ‘Savoy Truffle’.”
Old Mabel’s really getting into this Beetles research, Baker then thinks. Too absorbed? Well, she’s preparing for the next Table meeting, which is scheduled for tomorrow night if Wheeler can pry herself away from her new infatuation — her New Island. That seems to be a danger: Wheeler may be imprisoned by this new threat named Mid Hazel forever and ever on that island. Baker then noticed Old Mabel is staring at him.
“Thinking about other things?” she asks.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0411, Heterocera, Nautilus, Nautilus City, New Island, Rubi
Doorstep
She’d made it to the fairy house! All Old Mabel had to do was switch out a wood with an iron. Simple. “Hello in there,” she spoke to Keat Owens The Joker positioned beside the door. “Anyone home?” No answer. She gently tapped her iron several times against his chest.
“Stop doing that and get inside,” a muffled voice then issued from within. Old Mabel retracted the iron. Keat Owens’ face remained motionless behind the Joker card. “They’re waiting for you. *I* waited for you. Go ahead, go on….” Old Mabel heeded the command.
She noticed a picture of a cartoon man with yellow hair above the green table in the side yard before ascending the stairs.
“Roostre,” she said while waking up.
—–
“Next time I’m just going to walk into the fairy house, Baker Bloch, and not attempt communication with The Joker.”
“Probably a good idea,” Baker responded. He was trying out a black beer tonight. “Incremental entry. I don’t think I’ve personally had a dream like that. Serial.” Something then seemed to be clawing on the roof of the bar. “What’s that?”
“Um, probably just the wind?” But Old Mabel had started looking around for a light switch.
Rhoda knew what it was. And he knew about Roostre. He wisely kept his mouth shut concerning all that mentioned stuff tonight. Dreams, pheh.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0410, Heterocera, Rubi
Try 02
Armed with a golf club Dutch had recommended, Old Mabel was now past the pink flowers and at the west mouth of the big log. She peered down the circular tunnel, ready for action. But no demons appeared within or on the other side.
Instead her attention was drawn to the dust bunny fairy house Dutch had also told her about.
She cautiously walked up to the door…
… and found Keat Owens as The Joker beside it, just as Dutch had described. But she then somehow got caught back inside the log while trying to approach him.
—–
Old Mabel woke up. She’d have to try again another night.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0409, Heterocera, Rubi
Stuck
As Dutch advised, she was beyond the gate now, but caught in some kind of solid growth of pink flowers.
On the far edge of the flowers from the gate was lodged the marble head of Dutch’s human form: Detective/Chef Keat Owens, who everyone thought was burned to death in Collagesity North by grey alien Jerome T. Newton over a week back.
Turns out the marble hands left behind were only a prop. And now Old Mabel, in a dream state, has uncovered the accompanying stone head. But she can progress no further tonight, although she caught a glimpse of this green table just beyond the entrapping flowers.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0407, Heterocera, Rubi
Fell a Victim
“But I don’t understand,” says Keat Owens The Librarian. “David Bowie seems like a good and decent guy. You are just *evil*.”
“David Bowie played with demons and you are what you eat,” explained Wheeler. “If you are a lemon and consume sugar cubes you turn into lemonade. It was inevitable. This is one path split in two. Just like you.”
“Curious. Do you have a copy of “Valis” in your library here? Or in the other library?”
“Why are you asking *me*?…”
“… Librarian,” they both said together. They even shared a smile for split second.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0402, Heterocera, Rubi
New Leaves
“It’s time to take off your mask, Librarian,” speaks a freshly arrived Wheeler. “I have learned information concerning you from an old witch named Mid Hazel over at New Island.”
“Alright,” he relented. “I know Mid Hazel and her ways. But when I reveal who I am you must change as well. We must do it in concert. Ready?…”
“Don’t play that one two three game with me,” demands Wheeler. “Just remove the mask.”
He did.
And she did.
“As people like us say,” the transmogrified Wheeler pronounces, “we meet again.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0401, Heterocera, New Island, Rubi
Of the Irish
Wanda the Lower Minoan approached perhaps the only one who knew what really happened to the village on March 17th, 1968, the day the trees began to die.
And he has a familiar face.
“I like your sandals,” says Wanda in a different dream.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0318, Heterocera, Rubi
Double Trouble
Old Mabel was confused. She set out much earlier tonight to track down a sighting of Keat Owens in Sansara’s Langdale sim, but this *twin* claimed never to have visited or even hear of Collagesity. Old Mabel asked his name. “Pety” returned the person. Obviously not Keat Owens, then. While in the hotel room he inhabited Old Mabel looked around for further clues about what was going on. A blue feather pen attracted her attention, but she was on the wrong path now. Pety also mentioned something about a thimble thief. Old Mabel will do more research on that.
Meanwhile, back in Collagesity the *real* Keat Owens was in a world of trouble. The double hand situation was intensifying. Owens sensed the end of his existence in the town. He wanted to know what hell Jerome T. Newton sprang from. He had that right. He stared at SoSo South’s Newton 10 collage and its central image. This *was* Jerome T. Newton. But how?
Death stalked the chef/inspector. Newton summoned.
“Did you get the information I requested?” Owens had not; he felt the truth slipping away near the beginning of his meeting with Spongebub.
“The square yellow man has accomplished what he needed to do here,” Owens spoke from his heart. “His wife is saved. It is too late for our kind. *Their* truth will get out.”
“Fool!!” Newton screeched, and the burning commenced. It was over in 30 seconds tops. All that was left in the end were his true hands, ash gray and turned to stone. The Truth Hands.
They remained in that very spot for many years to come.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0218, Heterocera, Rubi
Interview
Keat Owens gleaned important scraps of information from his Wednesday morning meeting with Spongebub (son Snowbob wasn’t around), but didn’t get to the core of the matter. He asked what his wife was doing over in the Askja sim of Corsica. Spongebub plainly told him that she was on assignment. Owens asked for more details. Spongebub said his wife was an employee of the space program, but they didn’t discuss her work. “So if she works for the space program,” Owens probed, “is she an engineer, a technician, a, I don’t know, an administrator?” Spongebub shook his head at each guess. “Well you seem to know what she *isn’t*.” Spongebub laughed nervously. Owens switched tactics and ask how Spongebub and Snowmanster met each other. Then he playfully added, “If I ask ja, would ja tell me?” but the yellow fellow didn’t get the pun. Turns out they met right here in Minoa, in this very house at a neighborhood Christmas party dating from 2007, or at least that’s what Spongebub told Owens yesterday. Snowmanster is a native of the region, Spongebub explained. A demon, he supplemented with a whisper. His uncle, Spongebill Triangleslacks Sr., owned the house at the time, and was, in fact, the original owner of the property, which Spongebub then inherited upon his passing. “Well,” said Owens, “I’m rechecking the About Land information right now and it says the property is owned by Clarity Dagostino. This would include both houses and then that lighthouse over in the corner of the lot.” Spongebub explained that the land was deeded over to Ms. Dagostino in a complex 3 way interaction also involving a rental company, but Uncle Bill technically remained the owner. Owens then cut the meeting short, feeling there was enough to chew on. Plus he had other concerns this morning.
I’m sure glad he didn’t ask about my extra pair of hands which suddenly manifested around my belly when I sat down, Owens thought while leaving. When he stood up: all gone again. Queer!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0215, Heterocera, Rubi
Sunklands 