Tag Archives: Christina^^+

December 16, 2023 · 10:27 pm

00410315

From the computer table in my apartment, I watched her stand between the two openings, scratching her head and obviously trying to choose which role to play tonight. Pinkie Brainerd, owner of Pink’s Pawn on the bottom level? Or Berta Brainard, secretary and girl Friday to private investigator Wendell “Biff” Carter on the 3rd and top floor of the same building? Nothing was in-between the two; there was no middle ground here, all intermediate floors vacant instead. Despite being the author, I suppose, I couldn’t make the choice for her. The pink color of the dress drew her toward the pawn shop, but the ribbon aspect of it made her want to type and organize files and such.

This was an important decision; this was a crossroads. I’d been here before, almost in this exact spot doing the same. Before the beginning of things in that case. Here: almost in the middle. Maybe there is some kind of middle ground to be found after all.

There. Down there. That was me at the time. Pepi “Can” Kolya was the name back then. Before Mouse fixed the holes in my head and gave me expressions and the ability to wear different clothes. I became non-mesh.

I started out wearing a beanie with a spinning propeller thingy symbolizing windmills but I quickly grew out of that early look. I gained the coat/mantle of Axis, but moved beyond the darkness of a second Great War as well. I’m not German, but I proudly wear the red, yellow, and black colors of the modern aspect of that nation to remind me of my origins. A small dog named Spider was around here somewhere in my Cass City apartment to remind me of the swastika (thanks Greti!). I cannot escape my start in holey darkness but I now strive toward holy light. Through me (the author again I have to assume), Marsha “Pink” Krakow is now doing the same.

The lights grown softer, more realistic. She turns toward me and even though she doesn’t make eye contact I’m pretty sure she recognizes I’m there — at the computer desk — typing what we’re doing in the moment. She suddenly staggers and falls, then brushes herself off and assumes an upright position again. She falls once more, but in a different way. Then another fall, a 3rd kind.

She doesn’t get up this time. She remains frozen in the same position on the pavement of Southside in front of the 2 doors she apparently can’t choose between. Paralyzed, I understand. Unable to walk toward either now. She eventually vanishes on the spot but I’ve received my message for tonight. There was more to be found here.

(to be continued)

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November 22, 2023 · 3:44 pm

00410116

“I have come from the mound I have come from the corn. Your turn now.”

“From the mound?” still sitting Pamela returned to the person claiming to be Jane as in Plain, even though everyone knew her as June. “From the corn?”

“Yes. From the mound from the corn. Your turn now.”

Pamela pondered what to say next.

In the gap: “Follow me.”

—–

“From the mound…” she said, standing before it with Pamela now.

—–

—–

“… from the corn.”

“*Five* people is all,” exclaimed Donna, leader of the husking team and owner of most of the stuff in town: cows, vineyards, etc. Using the other hand, she counted them off with each finger starting with the thumb. “There’s *Tom* — and he’s all thumbs ironically; probably won’t go through a half a dozen himself; there’s *Stan*,” she continued this with the index, and then freed it so that she could point in the distance. “He lives in *Braggtown*. Do you know how far away *Braggtown* is over those hills? In other words: will take him half a day to get here, half a day to get back. And, let’s see, half + half equals whole, as in, a whole day away from *husking*. If he even makes the effort.”

“I believe that’s where Christina claims she’s from,” offered upbeat Ben beside her, leader of the sweets and drinks team and solid with his own personnel. Scowls all around. “*Christina*, then,” said Donna, holding the middle finger now, “can’t mow grass much less husk corn. And that leaves…”

“Jane,” spoke the person everyone knew as June just back of the white corn mound. Pamela had disappeared beside her. Pamela was never real as it turns out.

“Jane,” said Donna back to her, taking in her plainess from about 10 feet away. “Is that what you go by now.” She didn’t add the “whore” part but everyone knew she wanted to. They had some bad blood between them, namely a man named Bazooka, formerly the police chief of this here little village. Former owner of Biff’s farmhouse before he allegedly came over from Braggtown himself, but perhaps that’s just more Christina talk, Christina’s World.

“And me, Marsha ‘Pink’ Krakow,” she spoke while walking in stage left. Donna let go of her ring finger and took firm grasp of her pinkie. She joined the inner circle; tried to smile cheerfully. Dick to her right (music team leader, replacing stressed out Sitton seen in an earlier blog post here) tipped his hat, a built in gesture. Silently amused Harry (weights and balances) studied Donna’s reaction to this newcomer, this Johnny-come-lately.

“Marsha, huh?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Staying up at Biff’s I understand. Found the secret bedroom. Found the *truth* behind it.”

“Um. Yes, er, ma’am. I suppose I did.” She looked over at olive green Jane beside the unhusked corn, recognizing an old friend from Storybrook. Jane will get her through all this. There *must* be a loophole.

(to be continued)

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November 19, 2023 · 3:08 am

AC/DC

“Do you realize if we get married, Biff, that I’d be June Carter? We’d have to do it in Franklin KY again, then. Just like before. Do you feel like a Man in Black, Biff? You’re almost dressed as one.” She kept strumming her punk song while talking and he kept picking his roots based music one while silent. But somehow, despite the 2 wildly disparate genres involved, the tunes blended perfectly with each other. June Bug Johnston made sure of that with the spell that keeps on giving.

“Awesome,” he finally said, paying attention more to the frets than the fretting. He’d have time for that later. Much time. Much later. After all this wore off, the potion.

We’re at what they call Isolation Cabin, but not far away enough from Amiable Proper that you couldn’t sense the corn. Thanksgiving wasn’t that far away either: shucking time. But who would be participating from the small group of villagers and visitors we’ve already met? Certainly not Eddie, Pink’s Edward, who quickly teleported away upon learning that actual work was involved here. The members of the band Batcorn — Jane, Rachel, Reuben, Steuben — would be providing the music so that lets them out I suppose. Christina’s mind was too far gone to chip in much. And Wally would be seething somewhere out of sight, pissed off that the town didn’t want *him* to perform instead of Batcorn. So that leaves, well, Pink herself. And then maybe these 2. And maybe that Pamela, if she’s not merely a dream figure of Pink’s — probably not. But we’ll meet more soon. Better end this post so we can get at that.

“Songs are over, Andrew ‘Biff’ Carter,” she said, putting away the guitars back inside the bench. “Time for bed again.”

“Where’s — my tractor?” he asked, partially out of the trance since the music was over but quickly put back under inside.

“Doesn’t matter. You’re free of that old clunker now, along with your clunker of a family, Biff. You have me now. *Now*. Inside with you you old shucker,” and she slapped his buttocks to get his big feet started in the right direction.

We’ve answered the part about Biff at least and, by default, June. Formerly Jane as in Plain before she turned herself into a witch.

(to be continued)

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November 17, 2023 · 10:16 am

00410108

“What are we looking at, Christina? Are you looking for your father?” Pamela huffs. “Never mind, you *always* look in this direction, long long before your father went missing on his tractor just day before yesterday.”

“I am a visitor to this place. Over there… those hills. That’s where I’m from,” Christina said dreamily, like she was a ghost instead of a flesh and blood person. Which she wasn’t anyway — mesh, as I indicated before. In contrast, Pamela is “real” in that she has an actual body, actual skin, actual clothes that she can change out of if desired. Actual hair. And those feet! Get back to that soon.

“Christina,” she chastised, but only mildly, knowing the young girl was “troubled” to say the least, “you’ve lived in Amiable all your life. We went to school together starting when you were a wee lassie, pardon my Scotch. You’ve lived here with your father, your brother, all your life. Well,” she amended, “your younger brother *most* of your life, since you were, I believe, 3 when he was born.” She turned and stared at the girl instead of the landscape, very pretty indeed but not worth contemplating for more than 5-10 minutes at a time from this particular angle, she gauged. Yet Christina was up here all day, minus food breaks and various small chores her father dared burden her with. Which reminds Pamela: “Grass is going to need cutting soon,” she said to the younger girl by 2 years while walking away, determined to talk to the almost as robotic acting brother, up at what they call the farmhouse as usual playing or at least attempting to play — *strumming* — his punk songs. Whole albums he is into, not just songs, he proclaimed to her one day in April’s May.

She knew Wally kind of fancied her, as all young boys do, even those as lost in their own world as him. Said so another time. “You’re pretty,” he opined then. “Looong legs. I’d give them a 10, just like the Ramone’s 3rd album. Have you heard ‘Rockaway Beach’?” and he then proceeded to play the whole album the single was from as a kind of serenade, she supposed. Another time he said he liked the way she tended to walk on her toes, and played an entire Sex Pistols album called “Never Mind the Buttocks” as she recalled, perhaps as a tribute to the feet as opposed to parts higher up that she also reckoned he liked although couldn’t say out loud to her.

I’m going to snap him out of this rock trance he’s in, she decided on the spot. By snapping off my feet. “Wally? Wally. Waallly. Wally!” He didn’t stop playing some punk song she didn’t recognize — not her style of music. But at least he was glancing at her now, knowing she was up to something. Those legs, he thought. Those feet!

But then he did a double take when the snapping off was over and the alpha was removed. The music halted mid-strum. “Those *feet*!” he exclaimed. What happened to the beautiful toes??

“This is who I really am, Wally,” she said back. “*Now*… since I’ve awakened you from your music trance, let’s talk about your father. Where he possibly is? How far could he get with that old tractor that breaks down all the time? Let’s *find* your *father*.”

This kind of strategy wouldn’t work with Christina, since she, in her limited mesh way of course, wasn’t looking for shells on the opposite side of the beach. Wally could be persuaded in that fashion. And could be woke up in that fashion.

“My *father,*” he exclaimed, putting the guitar down for the first time in Pamela’s memory of him, “is *missing*.”

So is introduced the story that Bigfoot took his father away into the woods and made a pet out of him, which wasn’t totally false by the way.

(to be continued)

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November 13, 2023 · 10:16 am

00410104

In the morning she skipped breakfast with the creepy mesh family and drove more into the heart of the village. She checked the gauge after starting the car. Gas tank full, good. She was back on the right timeline, the one she came from when she entered the portal.

Seeing some cows in a field above her after parking, she decided to visit them first. She always had an affinity with these gentle animals, actually wanted to be a cow when she was little. “Milk me,” she said very inappropriately to her younger brother when they were 8 and 10 respectively, too small to know what they were doing. Their Mother set her straight later on. “Get it through your bull headed brain: you are *not* a cow.” But then when she grew up and started to put on a few extra pounds, well, things got complicated again. “I *am* a cow,” she would often say to herself after that, until pound begat pound and she was puttering about the house in a black and white suit made from miracles. Took a long time to get over that. She thought of Christina again and her own unburdening. In a mesh way in that case, of course. Hard to compare the two.

And low and behold she found that she could milk the farthest one she automatically dubbed Bessy as per custom, like strange dogs tend to become Rover or Spot when addressed. Milk, mmm. Would be tasty after not having anything to eat this morning. Needed nutrition.

“You’ll have to give that milk to Donna,” spoke Andrew “Biff” Carter loudly over a nearby fence. “She owns the cow.” Can she not shake the creepy mesh man? She wondered about his ability to have sex again. Maybe he’s feigning all *this* — mesh could be just an act so that he could seem innocent when following her around. I bet he drinks that wine after everyone else has gone to “bed”. Bet he dreams about more than just tools in a shed. Wait… is *she* mesh instead? No no no, she waves the crazy thought off. I’m *real*. I *eat*. But yet she skipped breakfast with no ill consequences yet. And she couldn’t manage to quite go to the bathroom last night behind the house.

I’m *not* mesh, she then thought. But I’m *turning* into mesh. This place!

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November 13, 2023 · 4:04 am

00410103

She asked for the little lady’s room and got another stare. “The *what*?” he replied, then realized the nature of the request. “Oh, outside on the back wall we have what you call a *bathroom*. We, of course, have never used it but it came with the house,” the implication being that he and his children were mesh creatures each and every one. Marsha was the only actual person here with physical needs like that. Heck, they didn’t seem have a bed to sleep on, not one that she’s spotted. Probably just stop and rest upright when needed. But still they feigned to eat, hmm. Maybe for social acceptance in the small community where they lived. Must get a name for that soon (she made a mental note to herself).

She checked the animations in the toilet before using. She could, to put it more politely than the built in descriptions, do #1, #2, or throw up. Interesting possibility on the last for drinking later on. She noted Andrew’s fine wine collection on a table in a corner of the kitchen — untouched, he said at the time when she asked about it; the family only drank water. What was the point, she figured now, if you couldn’t taste it, thinking the wine was perhaps another amenity that came with the house. Which reminded her that she never actually saw anyone else woof down a bit of food at dinner — should have been a tip off to their type. They were all just chatting away in the vacant way they do. Wally about the Ramones that, the Sex Pistols this. Christina about her recovery from the crippling grips of polio — a miracle indeed (she hadn’t needed a wheelchair in years), but she wouldn’t stop about it. On and on and on, like it was the only thing in the World for her, and the people around her, her father and brother, were just sounding boards to proclaim this miraculous event again and again. She wasn’t real, Marsha then understood. Beyond just mesh. Something even meshier and more unreal than just plain mesh. At least with Biff (Andrew) you could carry on a conversation of sorts. And Wally — maybe the same as his sister. Is it some kind of *degenerative* mesh, passed on from generation to generation until they just end up as statues or something? She peered around outside the bathroom walls for the son and daughter “sleeping” upright. No sight of them on this side of the house. But they had to be *somewhere*. The ground, she thought. Do they just *bury* themselves at night… and then dig themselves up in the morning? Odd thought, she realized. Probably just staring too much at the tools lined up over there against a shed wall while she tries to finish her business. Must think of something else (she attempted to refocus).

She ended up just sleeping in the shed, which made her dream about malicious tools throughout the night. Dug her own grave and then beheaded with the same shovel to wake up.

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November 12, 2023 · 9:31 am

00410101

She tired of yellow so she changed to orange, another kind of disguise. The woman on the road directed her to the man on the tractor in the distance — up at the farmhouse — but she could travel only so far. Ran out of gas, we’ll say. Another man was waiting who turned out to be the same as the one on the tractor, which was only trick of shadow.

“My you’re a sight for sore eyes,” he said in his gravelly old voice when she approached, being use to only cows around here. “What’s your name, Hot Pink?”

“Pink actually,” Marsha “Pink” Krakow answered with a wry smile. “But you call me Marsha — I only let friends call me Marsha.” Lie lie lie, she thought. They call me *Pink*, which you never will again you old pervy man on the road. She noted his half buried legs. “Looks like the ground’s a bit soft around here.”

“This?” He looked down too. “Got caught in some quick terraforming by the owners, people named Locus. Only met ’em once or twice I believe. Now I can’t get out.”

“Would explain the smell,” Marsha said, noticing it for the first time. She wondered if she should pull him out, get him going again.

“Don’t worry,” he said, sensing her desire to help. “Owners will come around again soon enough; they’ll set me free.” With this, he looked hopefully down the road beyond Marsha’s now orange VW, beyond the woman still standing there. Christina I believe is the name, from Wyeth County, Missouri. Waiting on her dad Andrew.

—–

She found herself driving up the road again to the farm with the tractor. She didn’t run out of gas this time. There was no man on the bench waiting for her. Instead someone was actually at the tractor, apparently working on it. Christina’s father. “My you’re a sight for sore eyes,” he said as she approached from behind.

“H-how do you know?” She got within 10 feet or so and halted, looked at the pleasant back of the dude.

“Switch places with me. Know a lot about tractors?” He had seen her from before, she realized. Test run.

“Not really. I was… *pretending*,” she decided to explain herself.

“Nothing pretentious about farming young lassie.” He turned. “Could you pipe down for a moment, Wally?” he requested to his punk playing son on the left now, a Ramones song I believe, perhaps “Rockaway Beach”. Hard to tell since they all sound alike and he’s just kind of mumbling the words as he quickly strums along. Probably doesn’t know the lyrics, Marsha guessed. But could it be possible? Could he know about her stint in prison?” Just then, he pretty clearly mumbled the words “Rockaway Beach.” It *was* that song; he *knew* about the prison. What *is* this place, actually?

“Christina!” the tractor man suddenly belted out in the direction of his older child. “Time for dinner!” Her wait was over.

“Joining us I assume,” he spoke to Marsha. Was she?

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