They said if I went far back enough in time to lose my hair that I would see him. MAN. About to create Mistery from Mystery and Misery; combination of islands and isles. But where was I?
And what’s that island just over there? Oops! Got my hair back just as that tree found foliage. That must be my isle (!).
Fern, who Spore in his jealousy has deemed Substitute Fern, was smart, perhaps too much so. I don’t think she’ll be that easy to eliminate.
MAN was nowhere to be found now.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0214, Maebaleia/Satori, Outer Islands
She was on the retracted boarding ramp, looking toward the capsule. She had forgotten who she was again, sun shining brightly above her. She had her wings once more; she was ready to go. All she had to do was extend this ramp across the gap and walk in and sit down and hit fire. FIRE! She was up in the air, heading to Mars Mars. The one dreamed about by Bradbury and Dick and all the rest, but without the time-slips, the Fraudian ones. “Baloney,” she muttered, thinking back to her encounter with Baker Blinker who had left the scene, given up on AB for a spell. What I mean is that she went back to Meaux for a spell, so that AB would remember again. She didn’t have much time; fire would have to be involved, just as it was for her alternate (so far) persona of Jeffrey Phillips. The plan for Baker Blinker, who is, of course, Wheeler, was to go back to Meaux, like I said, and make the new fire spell so that when AB entered the rocket and hit “fire”, she would — again — remember who she was (core). Would it be too late if so? Baker Blinker, I mean, Wheeler wasn’t sure. But when she wrote thought it she knew that had to be the plan, canals be damned. A gap — AB *had* to remember. This was going from North to South, etc. etc. etc.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0209, Sansara
“Do *you* live here?” asked AB, trying to delay her journey as long as possible. Exploring more of the archipelago shaped like a giant 2 seemed the logical thing to do. Wheeler-as-Hidi followed her around. But I believe she’s shifted shapes again.
Yes, she’s our old old friend Baker Blinker, the female counterpart of the male Baker Bloch back for a moment to prove a point, I supposed. ‘Nother one.
“No,” she answers AB, then elaborates. “No one lives on this island, this archipelago of Misery, not Mystery. That is (only) reserved for the main one.” Her voice was pleasant as usual, not nasal atall. She showed no signs of aging but that wasn’t surprising. She did still have the gray hair — just like AB — but that was just youth again. They were a match in that way. Perhaps Baker Blinker was even AB in the future, much like Fern and Charlene. “The maker of the rocket certainly wasn’t around,” she followed.
“I know who that is,” AB declared proudly, as she’s wont to do. Wings again. Too much sun. “I went there.”
“I know you went there. I was there too.”
“I know you were.”
“I know that you know.”
“Well I know that you know that I know… anyway, you’re Fern. Charlene in the future.”
“I can be many people,” Wheeler stated plainly, who, like I said, was Baker Blinker in the moment. “Mostly women but some men. I back you up. You will learn these things, Jeffrey Phillips.”
But Astronaut AB had forgotten who she was at the core and stated she didn’t know who that was, taking Baker Blinker aback. She thought they were on the same page, with the hair and all. Turns out: AB was in trouble. “Don’t go on the rocket ship,” the female Baker decides to say. “Don’t go to that Mars with the 2 Saturns. Malefic,” she doubled down on her own. “Stay here on this 2, and, with it, Our Second Lyfe as a whole. “There’s no use rushing off to another planet when you…”
“… don’t know your own,” completed AB, certainly wise for someone so naive. She’d actually been having second thoughts — no joke involved this time. Look at the name of the rocket ship: Icarus. The Fraudian slip “wings” for “rings” acted as a tip. Suddenly she remembered Jeffrey Phillips. “Blue Rose,” she uttered, aware again.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0208, Sansara
I had my assignment, I had my links. Time to leave the magical Outer Maebaleia isle of Meaux where I learned all about quartz rock and the advantages and disadvantages of letting it be the center from Fern, who is Charlene the Punk in the future. Or in the past if you look the other direction from center. Time to visit other, similar if smaller outer isles, armed with my similar if smaller stash of spells and perhaps curses now. Time to begin to grow up. Magic is real.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0203, Maebaleia/Satori, Outer Islands
“Get it?” she asked. “It’s (a) trapped *rock*, then a picture full of rocks, a rotating one. Rocks.” She held out her hand which was balled into a fist. “Now you try,” she requested while snickering. Let’s see, I thought, rock beats scissors? Or was it paper — no, paper covers rock. Which one would I choose? Do I let her win, or lose? “The paper is one,” she says into my mind, short term product (curse?) of another spell. “The rock is zero, and the scissors are two.” She molds her still outstretched hand into the appropriate symbols while saying this. “Who do you know that is a 102?” Me, I realized. “What about the quartz?” I tried to deflect, but which led directly back to rock.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0202, Canada, Canada/Picturetown, Google Street View, Maebaleia/Satori, Outer Islands
She asked me to wait outside until she could clean the place up a bit but when I finally got to go in I initially judged she was instead just messing it up more — to irritate me, perhaps, or just to demonstrate that she was hard at work over here on the outer islands in this witch house. No time for tidiness with so many spells to perform (!), one of which — *which* — apparently brought me here. She said she and her “mates” (fellow witches) bought into the quartz business on a tip from Lisa the Vegetarian who they knew from the Omega continent. “And where are Lichen, Wendy?” I queried after finally being invited in. “Warm your hands first,” she demanded, and after I protested that I was just fine in terms of temperature, she turned around from casting her latest spell and indicated the fire. “Just do it,” she said, so I did and then I realized my hands *were* cold, my whole body, and it had been so all my life. Only now was I truly warm, truly alive even. She asked, “better?”, and I replied, “yeah… h-how did you do that?” “Oh you don’t know the half of it, the half of the *half* of the half. You are merely an apprentice,” and I realized she was speaking truth. This from my warm vantage point now. She was not an irritation any longer. She was a sage, she was a source of all knowledge, a conduit. Just like she had always been. Except I didn’t realize it. Until now.
I suddenly became cold again. I went back to the fire, knelt down and warmed once more. “It only lasts about 5 minutes or so,” she said about the latest spell. “I’m still perfecting it, but: pretty good, eh?” Fern Stalin turned all knowing, all seeing. Pretty good indeed.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0201, Maebaleia/Satori, Outer Islands
Later (or was it earlier?) he was looking at a portrait in one of the city galleries and recognized what he thought were the models. “Wheeler,” he muttered aloud, seeing the Triune that would always rule him. If he didn’t have Collagesity. He *must* hold onto Collagesity. He’ll get the crime spree under control. April Mae Flowers, yes, accomplished the actual homicides, he tried to assure himself. Didn’t work. He knew there were at least 5 active criminals in town (because of the fingerprince), despite only 3 registered residents so far. Danny, who tried to kill *him*, was, true, cleaning out his trailer, getting ready for banishment to… somewhere, Jeffrie Phillips hadn’t decided. Some place that has a lot of broken bathrooms, he he he. Or maybe where they all *worked*, ha ha ha, so he won’t have anything to do. Yes, Hell can be a place of complete, utter boredom too, he realized in the moment. So can Heaven — Heaven and Hell both… which means probably neither exists.
He must think of religion more. There are currently at least 3 active churches in town, or will be — they’re *built* is what I mean. Rezzed. There’s, obviously, the Temple of TILE, and Man About Town — MAT — certainly hasn’t given up on reactivating the old Collagesity ruling deity Carrcassonnee still up on the 3rd floor there, especially since (her replacement) Wheeler seems to be out of the picture. But all he can get out of her still is, “Iiiiiiiiii,” which may mean an uncompleted sentence about herself or maybe the “eye” that dominates her appearance. The eye is broke, he remembers — MAT told him that. That’s the 7th beyond the “unconscious” 6 prims of the body. That is the paradox of the 7 and the 6, the Sepisexton Enigma he termed it at another time. Wacky ol’ MAT, Jeffrie thinks. He’ll always be between one thing or another because of his non-fixed, variable nature. And he’ll probably never get Carrcassonnee to utter anything again except that one word, that one letter perhaps.
He looks again at the picture in the gallery and out of his thoughts. He decides (this must be later, then) that he’ll talk Charlene the Punk out of coming to Collagesity, if she hasn’t already decided herself. She has her business here, and can serve omelettes and other breakfast items in an untimely fashion. No doubt the local residents are use to such lags — heck, they may not even think about them much anymore. Like a fish living in water.
What he could even do is drop mention of Bad Kitten/Zado, Elsa, Darlene, and probably another one or two or three he isn’t thinking about. That’ll keep her here, he assumes. But he can always visit. Often. As often as all the others will allow.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0117, Neptune, NWES Island, Temple of TILE
On a break, Fern rolled the prophecy cubes and then wondered who Tessa was.
She better get back to her shift at the cafe…
—–
“I wish I had better news about the twins,” Fern Stalin later exclaimed to Lichen Roosevelt at the Yalta Bar and Grill down more in the innards of Castle Town. Actually, where we saw Barry De Boy last, taking up pen and paper for the first time and setting down his palette and paintbrush. Actually: both; he’s both an artist and a writer. Just like me. We return to the present conversation…
“All in this spell book?” Lichen exclaims back, surprised at the results of the equation. Q, she thinks. Barry knew all along.
One of the twins walks in. I wish I could say it was the right one but I’m not sure.
Actually I am.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0103, Castle Town+, Omega, Southern
“But I *saw* you there,” Tessa later insisted at the terminal cafe with the great view of Grandpa Cliffs. Devil Dave waves at Grandpa sitting at the far table and Grandpa waves back, realizing he was exposing too much while locking his knees.
Devil Dave returns his attention to the just arrived girl. “No, Tessa. That was a doppleganger. I have experienced much the same thing here. Our Second Lyfe is breaking down… *has* broken down. The only thing holding us together right now is Collagesity. So we must *choose*, young lady. The waffle house could have manifested in Collagesity but it didn’t because you were led back to Fryburg and the missing junk ship which you had already taken to Castle Town: here. Someone is following in the green one left behind.”
“*That* old piece of crap?” she exclaimed while shaking her head. “They’ll never get it off the ground and in the air. I *tried*.”
“Nevertheless, that is another doppleganger, a ship in this case.”
Fern arrived with their food. Yet another one.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0102, Castle Town+, Omega, Southern
“It could have happened in King Post at Wendy’s new place, although that would be quite a long way off. Or maybe King’s Stone, since the name location is closer. Or (its neighbor) Druid’s Post I suppose. Hucka?”
Cackling from the witches. Baker had forgotten Hucka Doobie went to the White Palace in the skies about, I don’t know, over a single photo-novel’s length ago by now I would guess without checking. “Come with us, Baker B.,” they beckoned. “Come with us to our photo shoot. Kita!” He didn’t have much choice. That would set him back several more hours in his search for the origin of the explosion, but, as a bonus, they indicated the precise location when finished. Not Kita: Kitaro. So close to the Urban Ice Cream Parlor — just missed. Elvis Kannelvis’ coordinates were just a little off. He did better with sports in school than maths. Plus he had indicated the wrong McMillan: there were several in the area as it turned out, although all unrelated to each other. Just like the Urbans. A strange place.
Speaking of which…
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0024, 0614, Continent's Edge, Gno Kingdom, Maebaleia/Satori, Nascera, X-City
Sunklands 