ALBERTVILLE: Yes, it comes from the movie “Tampopo,” which literally means Dandelion (in Japanese). It’s a film about a woman, a cook like me, trying to create the perfect ramen; believe it came out in 1986 (sic: 1985). Her restaurant in the movie has the same name as ours. *We* are seeking the perfect ramen.
ME: Hold on. I think we’re having some technical difficulties. Yes, my power cord was loose, sorry (PRESS). Yes, now it’s on. Continue… (TBC)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0410, Europe, Wubbel
I stumbled out of the Athens restaurant, trying to get away from the doubling and the confusion as fast as possible. The tape wouldn’t work, the tape wouldn’t *work*! And I didn’t know where I was; it was all a maze of streets and jumble of people, people everywhere going in all directions at once. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I felt I was going to scream. I did. I wake up.
—–
He’d heard about a bar up the coast under new management and decided to check it out. “Pirates,” he muttered while pulling in and seeing the treasure map graffiti on the outer wall. But some of them are okay, he remembered. Like Randolph, which started him wondering where in the heck *is* Randolph the Bastard Pirate? He hadn’t seen him in years, it seemed. Anyway, he thought, better head in. Gotta get past that outside pirate first, he he. I’ll bump him real good to make sure he knows who’s the boss. “‘Scuse me fellow.”
Hmm, just passed right through the guy. One of those lifeless flatties, he thought.
And then, inside the bar, more flat, a haircut this time, apparently ongoing judging by the proximate hand with buzzing razor.
“Corona Ultra then, lady,” he ordered after picking his seat and getting the name of the house brand. He needed more alcohol to deal with the strangeness here, but then was greeted with: “We only got Non. No actual booze here, not after the attack by the alcoholic sea monster. Don’t want a return,” she said flatly, as was her overall style and the overall style of the bar as a whole, starting with the flat treasure map, the flat pirate flattie leaning against the front door outside.
“Oh. Okay. A Non, then, I guess. Do I still have to–?”
“Yes,” she said, anticipating the end of his question about paying for the thing he doesn’t desire. She’d heard it before. Several strangers coming here and asking the same. Like Peet Pelican over in Juho. Like Sachie B. from Vortexville, Raymond from Redwoods, Stillman from Stiletto Heels Hills. Drinkers like to drink what they call the real stuff, the real thing. But she’s aiming to change all that with a Non brew that will knock them off their heels, especially Stillman with his stiletto shoes I suppose.
While he was waiting for his drink he didn’t really want to pay anything for, the man simply known as Biker further inspects the place. “What’s with the robot?” he queried.
“Oh, came with the place,” she said while pouring. “I guess that it dropped down from the hillside above sometime during the renovation and just got lodged inside. So I set it upright, let it walk in place again. He’s harmless. I think. Anyway, I haven’t decided if I want to keep him or not. There’s another one, another robot — smaller — still up on the hill about to tumble over the side too. Maybe he’ll join him soon. Dunno, in summary. I call him Clocky but he doesn’t speak, he doesn’t have any soul that I can tell. Maybe he just needs reactivation.”
“I see.” (TBC)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0407, Europe, Jeogeot, Nawt Vaya, NVFS, South Lake, Vortexville
He told me to back up a bit more and I finally saw it, the double vision he spoke about before locking into place like a renegade magic eye. 2 halves of the restaurant directly overlapping each other through a crossing, slots in one seeming to be perfectly filled by the other.
The ears of the mirrored central woman with the flaxen hair is whispered into by the dark hard woman on either side, perhaps the most obvious communication between the now combined spaces. I could even make out the hushed words they shared: “I am instant.” With this, the two instantly became untangled, the special vision was over and the restaurant returned to mundane, like a master magician snapping one out of hypnosis. Albertville Mercury Spaghettiboro was back at his noodle cooking station inside the customer encircled kitchen, unable to be spoken to any longer. He was never here in the first place. But what was said before the transfer knocked me on the floor, kicked me in the shins, insert whatever idiom for shock and awe you wish here. Fortunately I made sure I recorded at least the meaty part of our imaginary conversation. 🙂
Looking around to doublecheck everything remained stable, I went into the men’s bathroom to play, making sure noone else was in it; just couldn’t wait. I killed two birds with one stone (another idiom!) while sitting on the commode. PRESS
ME: Yes, now it’s on. Continue… (pause) You were talking about the origin of the restaurant’s name (I prompted). (longer pause) Albertville?
I cut off the machine along with the pee. Something went wrong! (TBC)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0406, Europe
Well it was absolutely the worse place Lexi and I could have gone. The slurping the slurping! We could only stand it for a second then had to mute the whole location. We’d have to read lips from now on. Luckily lips are like one pink and we had no problem with it. Carrcass+1.
“About the dandelion!” I said if only to others, the words understood as mere vibrations to myself physically and in my head mentally. Lexi couldn’t take any more and exited the scene stage left, not even being able to stand just visual. Those mouths those mouths!
“Yeah, what about the dandelion!?” responded the waitperson closest to me, 2 plates in his hands and one spinning on his nose, just kidding about the nose. But as deftly as he was handling those plates with 3 bowls apiece full of steaming hot noodles he might be able to pull it off. I could tell he could pause only for a second, which was reinforced when he said, “Hurry up, man!”
I hesitated again and he was gone. Waitress I’d had my eye on next. “Miss, oh miss!?” She presently had 3 drinks in her two hands and one arm, that 3rd tucked behind one of the ones in the hands, reader’s choice. Not a nose once more but pretty impressive still. “Hurry it up, bud!” she said, kind of mimicking the man. “The dandelion… what is the signif—!” But she was gone with the “…”. I had to learn from past mistakes! We’ll… 2 of them. Dammit!
Next: the ramen cooker. Albertville Mercury Spaghettiboro I learned, an Italian by way of Stockholm and Lima. I had to lean in real hard from my stool at the crowded counter to get his attention back in back. “About the dandelion!” I pointed almost straight up now to the most significant card picture (to me) attached to the metal partition encircling the kitchen at the center of it all instead of forward like before. “Significance?!” I uttered as simply as possible but still with perhaps too many syllables. Caught him right at the start of his break. And, big break, he was a big fan of restaurant lore. *My* big break.
15 minutes and 15 seconds later, we got to the mention of “tartar mosquito” in that badly translated Tripadvisor review which led me here in the first place. Success! (TBC)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0405, Europe
“Mt. Sandraman,” exclaims Eddy, not tired at all from the hike up since it’s only a 42 meter peak. Still he’s very happy they reached their intended goal for the, er, (photo-)novel. 6 sections in; kind of cutting in close….
“Pretty,” admits Shelley laying beside him in not nearly so high grass this time. Nor wavy. No wind here on *this* New Island. Or very little. “But nothing like the black and white one in my dreams.”
She rolls over, faces Eddy, her Edward, her New Island husband and just new husband period. “We can’t stay here, Ed. You know that.”
Eddy exhales. “I know.” He was tired of the argument of 6, slavery — at least in its triplicate form — vs. 7, freedom. He had to let all this go.
“We lost our thought-to-be villa.”
“We should have never left Sandraman here,” Eddy reinforces the loss. Perfect, though, they knew. For a brief time. Oh well.
“There’s always Gaston,” she tried to brighten the mood. “Dark Peak — more good times, right Ed?”
“Yes. Good times. But laaagggy.”
“Yeah. Austin is there, though, 3rd down in the pile of Firesign Theatre members still performing weekly at the Rhino. Or 2nd up.” She edges a little closer. “We could, let’s say, pluck him from the rest, sit him down and talk to him about… stuff.” She looks heavenward, as if seeing more in the sky. “And there’s also his island (sigh). More good times. It seems they would never end. Infinite supply of… you know.”
“I know.”
She rolls over again toward him. “He probably set all that up, you know. He wants to stay on our radar. Probably wouldn’t be too hard to manage. Look at what I provide you, he might say. Do this in remembrance of me.”
“Shel-ley,” reprimands Eddy, glancing over at her with a scolding look. Neither were religious in the traditional sense. But both also believed in the concept of evil in the form of, let’s call it, non-freedom. Witchcraft could be an element of that. Black magic. Control.
“At any rate, he wants us to read him. We also know that from Colorado.”
Eddy sat up. “Where are we *going* with this?” But he couldn’t help playing footsie with her through the frustration.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0604, Colorado, Gaston^^, New Island^
“Great Shelley. Now there’s an alien involved. I *told* you we should have never left Sandraman.”
“And dandelions (!)” she added to her newly minted husband Eddy’s declaration, attention on something up front instead of ’round back. Opposites they were in many ways, light and dark. Eddy still enjoyed the triple form of the number 6 back where they came from, back over there around that hill/mountain in the distance you can still see from here. He never tired of it. Slave to it even, he was. Because he actually doesn’t have his own independence. Apart from Shelley. Minted; created. Like Albert/Douglas before him. Or actually after him, since the avatar named Eddy, D’aigle comes from an earlier photo-novel than the last one. Just after my retirement. Probably 33 without checking. Feels like he’s always been around now, along with his twin cousin Edward Daigle.
Freedom, she though about once more, stare remaining forward. Like seeds blowing away in the wind. 7 over 6 but still remembering where it came from. Never forget my friend, never forget.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0202, New Island^
Mysterious, blood red sky…
… continued…
… and then a “dandelion” of all things.
—–
“What are these mysterious *seeds* floating in front of me. And… who *am* I??”
Filed under **VIRTUAL OT, 0046, 0509, VOTV, Witcher
“I fled through many worlds, many times… They came very close to catching me once. It was then that Avallac’h appeared, out of nowhere. He found a portal and took us to a world where Eredin couldn’t find us for… oh, perhaps half a year…”
“The world where Eredin couldn’t find you. What was that like?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“People there had metal in their heads, waged war from a distance, using things similar to megascopes. And there were no horses, everyone had their own flying ship instead.”
“Siri, stop fooling around.”
“Told you you wouldn’t believe me.
“Ah, we should’ve stayed there.”
—–
“And so *that*, dear lady, is how we all came here, you, me, Gerald, others. One by one by one, we all got sucked into the portal, with Siri on the other side, desiring us to join her after she returned to this strange but hopefully safe land — safe from the Wild Hunt of course. And I’ve… adapted. As you can see.” He waves his arm around the small but busy cocktails bar he runs with Zoltar, another that came through the portal. His old tavern partner who had become his new bar partner.
Merry Gouldbusk’s brain gears were spinning fast with excitement. “So… Siri is here as well?”
“Of course,” answered the colorful, dandy Dandelion with confidence. “She’s at the center of it all. A game within a game. Trapped. But for a reason. Found her in a drawer in my office out back. ‘Hmph,’ I say at the time. ‘Wonder how someone that looks like Siri got on the cover of that magazine?’ Later I learned that *was* Siri. Literally. Siri and the game had become one.”
“Fascinating,” is all dumbfounded Merry Gouldbusk could think of saying. Portals, she ponders. She’s beginning to understand why Gerald hates them so. Trapped! Just like all the rest. What would she do here? Streetwalker? Would it get that bad? Surely it wouldn’t get that bad.
“So… Dandelion.”
“Yes, my lady?”
“Do you, ahem, need a dishwasher here by chance?” she only 1/2 joked.
“I… have something better. Siri has been preparing for this moment. Come with me. Back to my office. Another part of the magic of this world. A talking book. Just as Siri linked up with me, I was suppose to link up with you. Gerald… not really sure about yet,” he admits with a shake of his head. “We’ll cross that bridge later. Here… come.”
And they get up and go to his office out back for further instructions from Center Control.
(to be continued)
“Interesting place you have here, Dandelion.” She’d caught up with the owner of the cocktails bar. Indeed a dandy, a playboy, but of the loyalest kind. “But… I must ask, of course. How did *you* get here?”
“Interesting question in turn, my lady, interesting indeed. And the crux of the issue — you’re good at getting to those as I’m recalling. Our many adventures.” He shakes his head with the flood of memories, takes a second to absorb and then recalibrate the discussion. In truth, he didn’t think his great great friend Gerald, the former witcher recently retired to the Touisant vineyard he inherited after killing that, well… red headed *monster*, would choose Merry here over Jennifer. He considers the red head before him, looming large and bright. That must be it. Gerald was always a sucker for bright colors. Like those painters who only paint red yellow blue all over Beauchamp. Abstracters, they’re sometimes called. His other great great friend Princess Anna of Lea who ruled that land had explained it all. Abstraction’s the rage of Beauchamp, she said while pointing an artist out, busy away at it on one of the many town terraces. If you paint or draw realistically you are considered mundane, run of the mill; *anyone* can do realism, she said at the time, which he thought was odd. He preferred landscape paintings himself. And portraits, especially of himself. Which gets him to the point.
“It all had to do with a painting, Merry. A painting of me.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0046, 0503, C2077, Heyworth, Maebaleia/Satori, Witcher, X-City^
I know, I’ll ask that pedestrian up ahead for directions, she thinks.
“Dandelion!?” she shouted over the cycle’s roar while pulling up beside him and slowing to his pace. “Know where to find!?”
But he kept on trudging along in his stumbly bumbly way, not answering. “Well *fine*!” she said and motored on, only to encounter him *again* just ahead. NPC, she realized. Not real. And no dialog assigned to it apparently since she got the same non-response from the second one. Meet him in another district of town and he could be a Chatty Kathy, though, she theorized while pulling away once more.
“Dandelion?!” they said after she finally flagged down someone real about 3 blocks away, a native to Night City named Dave. “Different part of town!” he answered over her still raging motor. “You’re in Watson! You *need* Heywood, Vista Del Rey to be specific…!”
“… Dandelion to exactly pinpoint!” she finished for him. And he told her.
But when she arrived at the indicated location, she finds that she *herself* is already there. As another Redd. She gets up off the bench to its side and heads within…
Sunklands 