—–
Gold face? he thinks.
“AVOCADO,” came the booming voice back, reading his mind. Everything was out in the open here, nothing hidden. She, Elvira, addressed Baker as Mountain Man.
Yes: Mountain Man. A fellow drawer. He must help (2 places at once). Showing him an easier way to the top is a *beginning*.
Then there’s the other side.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0037, 0413, Blue Mountain, City Park, Lands End, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Wild West
How appropriate, he thinks. A big purple cube-like thingy has manifest just outside my front door since I lasted visited, sign of The Void of course.
Anyway (he turns), this is the last of my stuff, Nautilus continent home cleaned out. Couldn’t afford it, you see, with the upcoming court battle looming and paying for legal fees, etc. But I know who my real foe is now.
It seems like yesterday I was standing on the back porch with Shelley, inviting her to my sand paradise sim. She came to the party with Edward, who was somewhere just below with the rest of the still raucous crowd, even at half past 1. She explained, fairly early on actually, that her husband was away and he didn’t mind Edward taking care of her in his absence — trusted him just as much as he trusted someone named Keith who was a kind of surrogate father to her, I gathered. Also revealed that she was a writer, which interested me greatly. I happened to be a friend of a friend of one of the upper echelon of Lonelyhearts Publishers over on the *Omega* continent — caught her with a lie on that: she claimed Corsica Prime for the location, where her husband was, actually (she then admitted), looking for roles as big as his ambition and ego, she stated. I’d even heard about one or two of her books, although I couldn’t remember her attached nom de plume. “Jennifer,” she said. “Jennifer Lane.”
He turns back from the memory, red handtruck and hauling the final boxes down to the boat in his mind now. 1st pre-hearing at 7:45 tomorrow morning; gotta give about an hour for prep on that as well. He’ll have to do with around 2 hours sleep, he figures. He can catch up with the dreaming this weekend. Information, pure information. When he can interpret it, pheh. Like last night with the avocado.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0037, 0312, Hana Lei^^, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Sand Springs, Wild West
Janice spots a 15 speed bicycle hanging on an apartment wall upon exiting the Slaashsides subway, first of a succession of bad signs…
The stinking green pocketbook is still there, check.
So is Burro Alley.
—–
Johnny’d come back from a serious bike trek. He needed to replenish.
“New Mexico, pheh,” he mutters while gobbling.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0037, 0107, Nautilus, New Mexico, North, Slaashsides
Let’s see, I’ve done a blue dress and a red dress. How about a purple one this time.
A purple cube manifests in the room as sewing Wheeler Wilson thought this. The door opened. Showtime.
—–
“This cat’s ears are soo soft (!).”
“Ma’am — or sir — I hate to rush you but the show’s about to start. Do you want to check in your overcoat or not?” She indicated the indicated sign with the hand and all, warning that the establishment would not be responsible for hats and coats unless checked in at the front.
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” She could feel his eyes bore into her back and side. Her *real* son. At long long last. She was actually frozen with indecision. And because she was a chaos object, everything else in the place froze along with her — oops, there goes Doris, not asking questions any longer, not pattering her fingers impatiently on the counter. 7:21PM. Son Cory’s shoulders also move for the last time in the recognition. Mother.
Spade tattooed bartender Sarah escaped with her gum *just* in the nick of time, but heart tattooed assistant Rosalyn didn’t make it. A bit too red herself, I suppose.
—–
Alright Jackie. Explain to me *one* more time about how you escaped the crematorium? And where’s Don?”
“Burt. His name was Burt.”
“*Was*? So… he’s dead. He did his duty.”
“Yes. I guess.” She started crying. “I don’t know.”
“And the rooooocckks??” They were the most important thing for Officer Davis Jefferson, the most complete bastard of a guy on the town’s force, ever in pursuit of the notorious Black Lake Gang and his one-to-one ultimate archrival Brutus, who also goes by Ted. Curious: So close to Burt; just rearrange the beginning letters a tad, a pinch, after dropping off the US. And where were we? Back on Nautilus? It might be so, although the map says Maebaelia. We’ll coordinate and synchronize asap.
Better stop questioning the dangerous bitch and handcuff her, Jefferson thinks here. Haul her unfried ass back to hq.
It wasn’t Brutus but it was a pretty satisfying arrest nonetheless. Might get him a promotion to sgt., even, which would be bad for everybody, the law, law abiding citizens, and crinimals all.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0036, 0412, Maebaleia/Satori, Nautilus, North, Slaashsides
My Lebettu Castle is still there in all its glory, seen here in a “Phototools — Still Life” environment. The library remains at its center, its core. However since I’ve been retired from same for *8* months now, it may be time to move on. I revisited the co-workers I was probably closest to a couple of weeks back and exchanged pleasantries and caught up with the latest. My old position had shifted into something new which helped the team, but also probably marked the end of a more interactive involvement with the overall campus in the way I fostered, a continuation from past practices. *Writing* is my job now, that and the accompanying art and photography. And also I view daily hiking as an extension of this, a needed opposite and balancing pole to virtual reality. It’s a good life. 🙂 I explore both.
Moving forward, I’m almost 1/2way done with the current Sunklands photo-novel, 35 in a series of “we”ll see”. Characters keep evolving. I am almost as much there as I am here.
I did not maintain contact with others outside my team. I was as much a part of campus as a whole as the library — theoretically. It was a perfect balance for a while, me acting as one man juggler. But it could not go on. I passed into retirement as naturally as about anyone could, thanks in part to the pandemic and the changes it wrought. It certainly contained echoes of actual death. I know better what to expect.
There have been other libraries in other times. Even now, in a virtual setting and obviously on a much smaller scale, I still have one, another echo. A friend died there.
I can still go inside the special part created by new-ish head Miss Ouri and read books, some of which are even my own.
Like this one.
There still exists a dividing point between Ordinary/Mundane and Special. It’s all in the pages.
But he didn’t go home (Real Life/back to bed). Not yet. Instead we find him traveling through centers of sims (128/128), like here in Gaston, staring at the Dark Peak of two twins, the other topped by (a) white as hell Jesus (statue). Slavery inside the first. Black. And I found a black man in this very spot back in photo-novel 7. Perhaps staring at this very thing and understanding the truth. It wasn’t Duncan, but Duncan found out later that he was also there in hypertime. And he had red on his hands, which meant Indian and blood at the same time. What happened here?
The sim before this (Rhodenwald): also a Black man found at the center, 11 this time. But not an African-American. A man with the last name of Black, the same as his wife/partner who likewise owned part of this sim. Duncan also found this guy — normal time now — and thought he was AFK, but then he turned toward Duncan, proving his mobility and his significance (to the cause). We have mysteries, yes?
Interesting.
And, to add to all this, Gaston is just kind of an extension of Omega/Meat City/Rhodenwald. Of sorts. Both are Hidden Vilages, “l” purposely removed.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0035, 0302, Gaston^^, Meat City, Omega^^, Southern, The Cross^, The Straight^, Urbane Blue/Fishers Island^
Someone emasculated that poor statue over there, she thinks, then continues to read.
Omega continent — might as well, ahem, bone up on the history since it seems she’ll be staying here a bit. Let’s see, Trojan-Durexian War… could have swung either way, interesting. Southern Bypass a key turning point, yes. She recalls that General Duncan led the charge for the Durexians, a black man. Arthur Kill Lemont Sanford told her this — is one of his heroes, right. Died unjustly for a cause and all, like Joan of Arc, one of my heroes.
And here she sits in a park where one of the important battles took place, or so says the locals who make a decent profit off of selling war souvenirs, like ink died bamboo shoots for the kids, and bamboo bayonets and bullets for the older generations. According to their pamphlet they even have one of those old Durexian bamboo planes famous for their bombings, as in failings. 1/2 couldn’t get off the ground, but that’s what you have when you base your air force on *magic*, nay voodoo (she corrected). Take away 2 or 3 control witches and everything heads south, as in out of the sky and into your back yard. But, true, their voodoo power was waxing at the end of the war, and the Trojans were good to get out with their heads up when they could. 1942. Or was it 1492? She couldn’t quite make out the figure on the page before her, as if it was moving about like a spider. Strange effect; strange thought.
There really wasn’t much here. That rock over there with the waterfall is where they tortured and sacrificed the slaves who worked for the Trojans, just to teach them a lesson. Slave Rock, then.
The whole sim was named after another aunt, fascinatingly enough, Beatrice in this case, beloved aunt of a famous local, weightlifting sheriff back in the days. Although there have been other theories tossed around about the appellation’s origin that’s what most go with currently. Mostly Beatrice, then.
And then through Newt, I find the remains of one of those old Durexian wrestling rings where they fought their slaves, and then where the barely victorious but victorious still Trojans, usually without clothes (see: statue), fought the Durexians as their own slaves. I believe that might be the Sheriff’s Castle just behind, where Beatrice lovingly made him soup for breakfast and cereal for supper, etc., devoted Tilists as they were. And that’s what we have to bone up on next: the influence of TILE in the general area. Or General’s area, actually, as in Duncan.
Getting dark. Better head home soon.
Is that a key over there?
Half the audience will be red, the other half blue. But in her purple sock hop outfit singing the right songs she thinks she can make it work. First off: the national anthem. “America the Beautiful”. No one can argue with that choice.
She decides to augment the “purple” in mountain through synthesizer manipulation. Lampton will be more than willing to help, she realizes. He knows the importance of all this too. The manipulation of the people of our great US of A.
Come on back Lemont Sanford (!). Turns out you weren’t killed off after all. Wheeler has that power.
But Duncan Avocado was another story and thus we cut off at the drums. Acapella I presume. Get ready for that augmentation Arthur “Kill van Kull” Lampton!
“Oh beautiful for spacious skies…” Beautiful singing voice. Just beautiful. Get ready.
“For ℘ùℜ℘Îē …”
She keeps singing but she scans the audience for change.
He came down in a beam of white light from the sky.
Mr. Bean, but not that one. That’s just a stand-in, basically a cardboard cutout of a 3D person.
The real one had blue eyes. At birth. Now…
But who’s that over there sitting at the visiting scholars table?
—–
The dead man in the teepee-tent doesn’t bother me any more.
I pick up my blue feather pen again and begin to write.
Dearest Greenleaf,
I know it was you in the woods today, sending me a message. Thank you. With the rolling orange mushroom head you were telling me about the path and the correct way to go through your precious ferns (kind of). You are protective! Very.
I will attempt to construct a Circle of Peace at Aloha. I know now that you would want that (yes). Guide me in choosing the rocks I need.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0033, 0614, Blue Mountain, City Park, Jeogeot, Nautilus, North, Rooster's Peninsula, Towerboro
“Miss Graham, Miss Graham,” Barry DeBoy interjected, raising his hand.
The teacher points to him with her chalk instead of circling the all important modifier on the blackboard, the center of it all.
D’Eddy, sleeping in a nearby cardboard box and overhearing some of it at the end of his dream, wakes up. What started with his hands now extends over his whole body. He is fully black now. He looks at his hands, his arms. He even takes off his shoes to check his feet. It’s all tinged with red a bit too. He ponders what that could imply. Indian as well? “Well well well,” he found himself muttering, shaking his head at it all. “Well well well.”
He prepares breakfast by standing on the sink and touching it. Rosebud tea with butter and muffins. Perfect.
He realizes he can’t get rid of the cap attached to his belt because it exposes the red around his waist. He can’t exchange it for red because red is already in place. I.e., he is not the Barry DeBoy of his remembered dream. He has that much.
He waves hi to his neighbor Hutchison (or was it Hutchinson?) out the window, tending to his garden next door. Not seen.
He goes downstairs to play the piano, since there’s not a lot more to do in the house where he lives. The cardboard box was a dream, but he knows where it is still. Enigma. He’ll go there later when he gets bored. A player’s place is at the piano, he thinks, and begins to tickle the ivories. He decides he needs to study the ebony keys more and incorporate them into his compositions. Ivory *and* Ebony — could be the title for a song, even. Could he compose a piece with only black keys, sharps and flats in other words? It would make for a challenging exercise; cut into the boredom that always comes when he lifts his hands from the Bechstein upright.
His other neighbor Victor also plays the piano. He’s a more proper player, although not a composer: teaches the subject at a local university in fact, a community college I believe, which is all the education most middle class people can afford these days. He doesn’t want to be an elitist, or at least act like one. Because he knows he’s an elitist — 1/2 and 1/2 (here we go).
Barry DeBoy can faintly hear the other piano play on top of his own. Why does he always start about the same time as me? he wonders, momentarily stopping to listen in. Gershwin?
“Put the cap back on,” he hears in another dream. “You are an artist; you are *not* a piano player.” And so it goes.
He stands back from the piano, realizing he can’t even play. One of his paintings appears on the wall beside him: “Capsule in Ocean”.
Can you see it?
Sunklands 