Tag Archives: Eightyeight^^++++!

00380413

“My card, sir.” And then he took his leave. When the matre d asked who to say left it while he was walking away, he just shot back: “Someone very smart; say it was from Albert Einstein.” “Very well, sir,” Edvin replied. The stranger made a turn up the stairs past the site of the future Barry De Boy painting and was out of sight if not out of mind. Even though Edvin thought he might be. Odd, he kept thinking, staring at it. How can odds be evens? And was there an s cut off at the end? But Osse-Motor. That spelt trouble. Christopher’s more visible brother Jimmy lost a mansion because of it. Perhaps several. Forty lost an eye.

One hour later, Eight was with town gossip and bigot Rag Doll instead of counterpart Eighty, wasting time instead of making hay. Deadly time. Edvin moved toward them with the redeeming card. “Someone left this for you,” he said, extending it. Eight took, read. “Albert Einstein?” she questioned, looking top left. “Throw it away,” Rag Doll opposite her suggested after quickly grabbing and reading  it herself, knowing the name. “Worthless. Nonsensical.” She knew what Osse-Motor meant better than anyone in town. Dang, she could lose her *own* house if Eight (or Eighty) took this seriously. An eye!

(to be continued)

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observation point

Important SODA representative Christopher “Sound of Music” Piper knew Eighty and Eight could get to the bottom of this Black vs. Clear, sight vs. sightless thing. If they could keep straight which is which and who equals ten and who equals one. They keep multiplying on top of each other, passing through each other in effect. Odd if it wasn’t even. It represented his top priority about the village: keeping these guys on the straight and narrow, up and up.

And, oh yeah, bringing all the old war zombies back to life. They have wrongs to right too!

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00380411 (turning)

“I don’t know why they renamed this part of the lake Clear. ‘Bout as black as the other part as far as my eye can tell.” Eighty knew Forty couldn’t see with the other one so no need to correct the singular. Another victim of the war, let’s say.

“Meddling, pure meddling,” she replied. “Boredom maybe. The more things change the more they stay the same.”

“Amen to that.”

They kept staring at the still pretty murky water, despite the acquired name. Eighty spotted the octopus again, reminding her she had to meet her counterpart Eight at the town ratskeller. She excused herself from this wonderful but ultimately fruitless conversation. Her last uttered sentence here says it all. Black split up with a dam to make Black and Clear but it doesn’t matter. Everyone can *see* what’s happening, even half-sighted Forty here, Eighty’s wannabe boyfriend but only part of the way there so far. And, spoiler alert, it doesn’t get better for him moving forward. Because she’s got an extra 8 on top of the one she already has. Sometimes they forget which is which.

—–

“I forgot you were coming,” Eight admits. “Sometimes I…”

“… forget which is which yeah yeah yeah.”

“You too?”

“Me too,” Eighty reciprocates. She has to ask why to a lot of things to help remember the y, the letter that makes all the difference. Why split Black Lake with a dam that was formerly just a footpath bridge to create Black and Clear? Stuff like that. She stays outside most of the time because of it. Eight: usually here… in the relative dark. Sometimes sitting with Rag Doll instead of “sister” Eighty. Which is how turning Alessandra remembers the scene, finished studying the newest work of boy-like genius Barry De Boy. Men, she thinks. So full of themselves. She’ll stick with bathing suit clad Shelley, however imaginary she is… no one else can see; black instead of clear.

“Welcome back Miss Aless,” Edvin the matre d spoke up to her, like a page to a queen. Table for one as usual?”

She wanted to say, “make it two tonight,” but knew she couldn’t. Busboy Peterson had starting clearing her regular spot as soon as she showed up on the stairs, studying that painting from the future. Almost done.

(to be continued)

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upper central New Mexico

“We do know that Tintown, this second found one outside Madril, was totally unique, although others have tried using the same general energy found in the area. Like this one about 20 miles away, a more elaborate place but missing something — slide 2 please, Hucka D.

“And then this one, in turn, 20 miles below it — slide 3 please. This one is an attempt at a town actually made out of tin but it turned out to be just a cemetery.

“Why was the one in the 1st slide unique for us, you might ask? What made it so different? Slide 4, please.

“Because it contained The Void.

“I’ll open up The Table for questions now.”

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00350707

It was at the end and not the beginning but the marriage finally came through.

“Do you have a problem with this?” Newt ask in a low voice as the I do’s were being said. “Speak now, you know.”

“Why would I have any problems with this?” said Wheeler back. “Shelley would just run around with other men behind his back if she married George. This way she’ll be happy. Or at least have a chance to be.”

“Do you, Shelley, take Lemont slash Arthur…”

“And there’s always Liz,” whispered Newt.

“Yes.”

“Should we end there? Again?”

“Why not.”

“You may kiss the bride.”

END OF “SUNKLANDS 2022 LATER”!

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Cloz again

“Is that white stick mellowing you out a bit?”

“A bit,” Shelley admitted, but still so anxious. Big wedding coming up. And she’d just escaped being blown to pieces over in the Moray Docks Town! If it wasn’t for George and Debbie over there being so booring…

“Good, good,” returned Wheeler, taking a toke of her own. “You know (pause) he thinks you’re me. Deep down, I mean. Remove the goofy hair –”

“Hey!”

“Sorry. You know what I mean. You need to grow up more yourself to match Liz’s advancing age. She’s 17 the last time I checked, almost legal to be married herself. You’re, what, 23?” Wheeler looked over on the brown couch they both sat upon. The umbrella eyes would come soon. Then she’d be out of her control, automatically know more than herself. To impart wisdom before it happened was important, the locking in. Shelley *was* her. But she didn’t need to know that yet.

“How’s Newt holding up?” Shelley decides to ask. “I heard — he’s also trying to change The Musician to meet the times, get rid of his punk look and all.” Did Shelley approve? She didn’t know yet. That would also come with the locking in.

“Newt’s fine. Listen, daughter of mine, daughter I didn’t know I actually had until that last photo-novel.”

“33 isn’t it?”

“34.”

“Jeez.” Shelley takes another toke, considers the length of the process. Her own story is quite complicated and that’s only one of a multitude, heck, one of a multitude involving Wheeler alone (!).

“Anyway, we need to review. Just like Newt did for The Musician.”

“Crap.” Shelley extinguishes the last of her white stick, preparing to get serious.

(to be continued)

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plum beautiful

“Whatcha doing?”

“Just hanging around til you got here.”

“Well, I’m here.”

“Pretty, huh?” Baker Bloch offered to just arrived Wheeler about the fairy garden he’d discovered tonight in his roamings.

Sigh. “Sure. Point Zero?” she couldn’t help but ask.

“Maybe.” Baker indicates with a tilt of his head. “Blue fairy over there. Just like in ‘Pinocchio’.”

“Um hm, I remember. Blue screen of death. Oracle… dead.”

“But not now.”

“No,” she agreed. She looked around, studied each of the fairies she could see and their tableaus. She decided not to walk around. She wasn’t sure how long she wanted to stay. She has a seat in front of the fire; waits for Baker to stop swinging and come over to join her.

She quickly became impatient. “Are you going to join a swingers club or are you going to stay loyal to me?”

Baker hopped down from the rope and walked over. “We’re not married, you know. That was just a joke from the last photo-novel. The last of the last,” he said.

“I know. I thought it was fitting to say anyway. Have a seat.”

He does, and then a colorful person appears from behind some rocks and comes over and starts to serenade them with queer violin playing while bobbing up and down.

“Aw jeez,” says Baker to this.

“What… what is it?” Wheeler looks him over; decides he is harmless.”

“Aw it’s just his guy I met. Bouncer. He must think…”

“We’re a couple? I did too. And then you drop this bombshell on me. We’re not married.”

“You know we’re not married, Wheeler. Just drop it.”

“Like a ball. Like the ball I deserve? My wedding gown. Had to pack grandmama’s away again, perhaps for good. She’s rolling over in her grave for certain, tsk tsk tsk.”

“Stop,” Baker requests, loud enough for Bouncer to hear. He lifts his bow. He bows. He waits.

“I think he wants a tip,” Wheeler said, not offering any herself. Baker traditionally has more of the money, she thinks. But currently he’s got that high rent payment each week. 750 dollars due *now*. Wheeler knew Baker was fishing again.

“5 okay?” Bouncer just stands there unbouncing. He touches the purple musician to deliver the money. No bowing this time. Disappointment. He takes his leave behind the rocks again.

“100 would have been more appropriate,” Wheeler opines, trying to figure out how he disappeared so quickly from her angle. “200 maybe. It was a good tune. Messiaen I believe, one of his bird twitterings. I’m surprised it didn’t attract some pigeons.”

“You could be right,” he says, moving his hot feet away from the fire by sitting sideways.”

“I *am* right. I can always tell a Messiaen. He must be a real pro to play that fine. 300, I say. You should have tipped 300… no 400.”

“I assume you’re going to raise it to 750. I know what game is being played.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. You know why you’re here.”

“Decision, yeah.”

“Yeah. I’m strapped for cash as you know.”

“I…”

(to be continued)

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00330211

Baker Bloch wonders where he lost his cowboy hat. He remembers visiting the antique village of Lips or One Pink with it — heard both while there. Then: here. Without.

Oh well. I’m sure he’ll track it down. He’s here for a reason on this stand alone peak, unusual for a continent dominated by long ridges. Not to ponder more about his supposed missing hat (in truth it just hasn’t rezzed in yet), but about Nautilus in general. He deems this place Point Zero, a new beginning for him and his family of core avatars. He figures they have to start over somewhere. Why not here?

Now to invite others to tell them the good news.

“Wheeler,” he texts. “I’m here on Cedar Mtn. I wasn’t banned this time (unlike you before). I think if you just stay on the property with the mountaintop and don’t fly over other parcels in the area you’ll be fine. I’ve been here for, I don’t know, 10 minutes now. I’m just missing my… oh wait, *there* it is.”

He feels the hat now around the crown of his head. He sees the brim in front of him, senses the air cool a little around his ears. Wheeler shows up.

And then immediately disappears. She texts afterwards: “No, no good Baker B. I’m still banned. 2 hours. But it might as well be forever. Someone doesn’t want me there, pheh.”

Pheh, he thinks. Typical. They’ll have to look elsewhere for Zero. Maybe Enzor still. It’s in the name after all. Enzor it is.

“Meet me at 128 128 Enzor,” he texts back. Poor Wheeler, he thinks.

Such a promising place too.

—–

“I wonder what it’s like to be without a heart, Wheeler. To… try to figure out what heart even means.”

“I don’t know. And I don’t think I want to find out.” Good answer.

Enzor it isn’t.

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West Hel*en*

“She can control everything in Lower Austra, once it is defined, boundaries and all. But outside…”

“Gone,” she realized. “Lost.”

“Like beachcomber Pepi ‘Can’ Kolya. Saved by Nauty who has knowledge of the Big Picture. The complete puzzle, pieces all in the right place. It’s because he comes from…”

“Iowa,” she finished again.

Man About Time looked over. “But you’re not Miss Ouri,” he continued mildly.

“And you’re not Baker Bloch,” she said in turn.

“Hmm.” He pondered whether to get a coke to drink. K K Cola here. Damn copyright infringement laws. Wheeler had wine. He wondered where she got it.

“I have one blue eye and one green eye — damaged,” she started again after a guzzle. “I don’t have two matching eyes like Ouri.”

“*Miss* Ouri,” Man About Time dutifully wanted to say but held his almost always mild tongue. No need to bring Texas Pete into this, his mama always said about verbal acidities. She trained him well; he absorbed everything he could from her. Poor Mama, he lamented. Hanging with the angels now.

Instead: “Where did you get the wine?”

“A barrel,” she said, and then winked. I think the green eye remained open but difficult to tell. All eyes looked the same to him. After Miss Ouri.

(to be continued)

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Fred…

Cone grew up in Pine Apple, Alabama, with a population around 100. He attended Moore Academy, a one-room school from kindergarten through high school. He did not play football because there were not enough people to field a team.

He emerged from the blue and yellow tent in another dream, a blue and yellow type dream himself. He closely studies the pine cone atop the book tree we found Agent 47 (or 23) reading beside a bit earlier, remembering something about his father. Pine cone… pineapple cone, he free associates. My father lived in one. The cone became the same as one of his eyes. The Other: The Mother.

“I’m worried about my son,” Snowmanster confessed to her bartender at the town’s Hole in the Wall. “He’s built this whole fantasy library around this Kactus figure he made up when he was a kid and still believes in. He *is* Kactus… at times. When he’s playing that role he doesn’t remember who I am, who his parents are. His whole life becomes a blank.”

Now kimono clad Miss Ouri waited patiently for Snowmaster to come around to the obvious, and the prickly green doll she held in her arms. Maybe she needs a coffee mug or t-shirt to spell it out better. Don’t be a prick! The white swan turns into a black swan.

Wheeler wakes up and instantly remembers to jot it down thanks to a strategically placed poster. Good ol’ Arkansaw! Back to reality, phew.

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