Tag Archives: HELMET

November 14, 2021 · 11:43 am

lines

The Sun and Moon seem to be moving very fast in this town.

“I thought I’d come talk to you first, Marilyn, clarify some stuff about your angle in this, ahem, evolving story. We have bigots in town, we have zombies, probably all wearing spiked or non-spiked helmets. Like that policeman who keeps eyeing me all around town.”

She wanted to say Tank but held back. And Bazooka — Bazooka was his dad, and, as former captain of the force back in the good ol’ days, the one who wore the spiked helmet. Tank: just a bright blue cap. Put him in the bigot category.

Then she remembered the slip of paper in her jeans pocket, the one she was suppose to pull out in case she got stuck. She pulled, she read. “Moms, don’t let your boys grow up to be Dimmy Jean.”

Silence. Was that helpful? she pondered, staring into his watery eyes. Was he… crying?

—–

Dimmy wipes the counter down nervously, thinking that 1/2 the people in the room are watching him and half aren’t. But he doesn’t know which. He tries to determine friend from foe through the caps and helmets but all the lines get blurred together. He’s lost it. He needs to go home but he doesn’t even know where that is any more. Home is here I suppose, he says to himself. He pours two shots of Jack Daniels, one for the raccoon man and one for himself. “Here’s to home,” he proclaims while raising his glass, resigned to the fact. Over in one gulp, he pours another while 1/2 the room still eyes him.

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July 25, 2021 · 5:33 pm

around the corner…

—–

He recognized her immediately upon entering his pizza parlor, despite the black and white checkerboard makeup. Wheeler. She, of course, knew him as well. Knew he was *dead*: killed by a monster way back in VHC City in the olden days, before the coming of Mud and the parallel need for Soap. He took off his crown. He dared to sit down, confront her.

—–

“H-how?” she uttered about his resurrection. I mean, she’d seen enough of them in the meanwhile but still — a bit of shock. He was stone cold dead laying on the floor when she found him. Heart attack. Couldn’t reach the pills in time. Surprise crocogator appearance through a thought-of solid wall did him in. They’d walked through the Fate Gate together, even, she escorting him to the afterlife. This is what he told her; she wasn’t physically there at the time; left when she found the body; alerted the authorities; cried her eyes out way into the night, The Musician, her other boyfriend at the time, seething on the other side of the bed, green with jealousy. She loved *him* more than *me*, he thought, although she was still with him, didn’t run wee wee wee all the way back to Collagesity like a broken piggie, even though she had supreme power there and not in VHC City. And now — The Musician was long back in the rear mirror, yielding to Axis and Opp both, take your pick. And now her new husband, she as Wendy Wilson Wheeler that is. Not really Wheeler any longer. All the old avatars had packed it up and moved to the White Palace, as Hucka Doobie liked to put it. But really: storage. Old yields to new. Continually.

“Jeffrey — Phillips?” Old Man Allen Martin, the resurrected one, didn’t like the sound of it. Then again, he wouldn’t like the sound of any of Wheeler’s lovers past himself. “How many down the road from me (and The Musician)?”

“4 — something like that. It’s complicated.”

“I bet it is.” He blew out air. “Well, yeah, I *died*. But then Soap cleaned me up, wiped away all the grime of a dirty grave. Plenty of Suds and Bubbles did the trick.”

“They *are* uplifting,” opined Wheeler, having caught the vaunted dancing troupe’s act in Collagesity 02 not long ago, Peter Ladd on his soapbox between them. The contrast of talent almost balanced out to mediocre but not quite. Skippy Bittman.

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December 25, 2020 · 7:28 am

pansies 02

Like Olive Oylstick and blue monster companion Groover before him, Man About Time — MAT — also waited at the Blue Airfield for a ship of some sort, hopefully an airship, you know. He perched upon the best vantage point possible, on a high knoll just over the line from Blue in Gray, he thought. He was testing out realities. He’d just found pansies in Orion Falls and much more.

He was hot on a trail but to where he didn’t yet know. It led here first, picture-wise, a stepping stone. He thought back to Marvin the Martian next to the Blue Feather Sea (his original home). And HELMETS.

An agreement signed. Planes penetrating each other. I remember something about Jim Polk but then someone else warning me to slow down and that I was going too fast and to take the 2 blue pills and don’t think about red for a while. So here I am. At Blue… field. So here I am… at Blue… field.

He turns. Something was wrong, he realizes. He should be in Gray; this is not Gray. Too much Blue! Instead: over in that small bit of woods across the Blue field. Hiding. He was too much out in the open. Warning again. Exposed! (War!)

The ship swooped down and carried MAT off to a lala land and dropped him into the ocean where he was rescued by a passing whale and brought instead to Humansville where he met Baker Bloch and Hucka Doobie while breaking into a house and who then helped him find the right house for the keys he now possessed which turned out to be not the ninth he tried, but the 10th, like a wheel and then he thought about dinner and 12:37 and a spark on his shoulder which told him to return to Bellisaria which led to the pansies… and the prison… and Elizabeth. There. He felt better. He turns back, away from a lala land triggered by the moving blocks of color. Time to go hide in those woods.

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December 24, 2020 · 10:14 am

pansies

“You’re one of our most trusted contacts, Bella.”

“Sandy here, YUCK. Sandy *Squirrel*. I’m a squir-rel, HO.”

“Right, right. You’re a squirrel here. You’re name is Sandy. *Not* Bella.”

“That’s right. And I can’t breath, HUH HUH HUH (pants). See? I just removed my helmet and the atmosphere’s plain POISON. It’s like I took a red pill, a blue pill, and then turned into a COW, hehe.”

“I don’t get it. Anyway…”

“It’s that old saying,” she explained with another chuckle, still without helmet. “‘And on the FIFTH day… wait, And SO on the FIFTH day…”

“Right, right. I get it. You’re a cow.”

“I’m NOT a cow. Becauuuuse… I didn’t take the *pills*. I didn’t become Phyllis. I h’ain’t no channeler, see. I’ll leave that up to…”

“Phyllis?” I interrupted. I didn’t see the connection between pills and Phyllis yet. I could tell I upset Sandy/Bella by interrupting her. Me and my big mouth. I think of the calming blue pills in my pocket that could slow me down. Getting anxious. I reach; try to disguise to Bella/Sandy what I’m doing. Cartoon-like, she begins to imitate me; reaches into her own pocket on her astronaut suit or whatever the heck she’s wearing.

“I got some TOO, and I bet they h’ain’t the same color, HO.”

Synchronized now, I pull out two, she pulls out two. I figure out the Phyllis-pills connection. Together we could do each other in. She reaches over with one and I do too. We exchange. We swallow.

—–

We’re in a different place altogether, staring at trash that also isn’t trash with TILE channeler Phyllis and revived lady of the night Sammie Parr. It was all a dream.

—–

Tickie comes back from the bathroom. “Where’d they go?” On his own now, he became even slightly more blue but it would take a while.

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December 14, 2020 · 6:41 am

closer

Sandy knew this was the dream to end it. She had a breathing helmet and so did the person before her. In the past.

“Hilllllsdale County,” she said to herself in that Texas drawl while studying the screen. Haven’t thought about that place since 18-86!”

A snake completing the task and swallowing its own tail appeared beside her. She remembered.

(*pop*)

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October 11, 2020 · 9:03 am

small variations matter

“I’m telling you, Jack. They’ve forgotten everything. The war’s over, they go home. Then slowly, one by one, they make their way back .They pick up their arms once more, if they have any arms left to pick them up from the last time. Or maybe they just grow back. Like lizards do. Jack — are you listening to me? You seem distracted. I’m saying–”

“Hitler’s dead, is what all the papers say,” the youthful bartender mutters anxiously to the raccoon man, returned to the Jeogeot Gulf for a timely visit. “Yet the Japs fight on. Soon the war will be over. But then I wake up, it’s 1939 all over again. Poland is invaded.” Jack starts to sob a little here. “It just starts *over*.”

“Well, that’s what I’m trying to *tell* you Jack. I should know. I started out as a private and rose in the ranks to a 5 star general in charge of the whole caboodle. I said, from this position of power: this is it. Surrender. Go home y’all. Lay down your arms… all the things you said. Then I come back and everything is unlearned, undone. Tell me Jack.” He takes another sip of insipid beer, probably American. “Do you even know what side you’re fighting for any more? Some don’t.” He turns and looks at the 1/2 filled bar of military personnel. “If the uniforms were a little grayer here, a little drabber there, I don’t think anyone would know.”

Jack wipes the counter down nervously, thinking that 1/2 the people in the room are watching him and half aren’t. But he doesn’t know which. He tries to determine friend from foe through the caps and helmets but all the lines get blurred together. He’s lost it. He needs to go home but he doesn’t even know where that is any more. Home is here I suppose, he says to himself. He pours two shots of Jack Daniels, one for the raccoon man and one for himself. “Here’s to home,” he proclaims while raising his glass, resigned to the fact. Over in one gulp, he pours another while 1/2 the room still eyes him.

Rocky Racco stares intently down into his own empty glass like it was a scrying device, and maybe it was. He needs to figure out what went awry with his plans and end it for good this time. This smells like a Casey One Hole case in his estimation (he channels?), with everyone vying for that damned mustard seed.

(to be continued)

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October 2, 2020 · 5:32 am

Head’s Helm(et)

“Boy I’m stuff, phew! Thanks for the pork chops flapjacks, Berry.”

Berry, MAT (Man About Time) thinks. That’s how he sees me currently. I can play along. “No problem [delete name].”

“What did you call me?” Toothpick truly couldn’t hear his own name being thrown back at him. It was part of the hypnosis of the role currently. He was fully Toothpick now, brother of beautiful, strong and handsome Elberta but soon to be more. The Temple of TILE wedding bells beckoned again after a brief lapse of trepidation. They’re so in sync! Of course they should get married. It was the way of the Deep South, their heritage. The Deep South of the Black Ice sim. He wonders how Boos and Bogota are getting along way down there. He needs to revisit the old homeland — hinterland. Invisible to most but straw enhanced Toothpick could see.

“I called you [delete name].”

Toothpick cocked one of his ears in MAT’s direction. “Say again?”

“Never mind that, um, Toothpick.” He really had a mild voice. Again, for someone so important. He knew a lot, being able to leap about time like he does. A man about it. But he often was a little confused; unfocused. Part and parcel of the gift.

“I am your neighbor,” MAT tested further.

“No. You live *here*” protested Toothpick, knowing that Berry moved to his Kidd Tower penthouse apartment in The City to start attending services over in the Temple of TILE and to, well, serve *him* instead of visa versa, with Master becoming, um, Slave. Sort of. Which makes Toothpick think of choppers. He points to the space where his two front teeth should be. “Lost ’em. In the war.”

MAT knows it was football and that Toothpick has a ways to go to remember who he actually is. Maybe the Monkey helmet would help.

—–

He gives it to him the next time they eat. “What do you think this is, [delete name]?”

“What?”

“Toothpick.”

“Oh. A, er, helmet?” He takes it out of the box; inspects; places it over his head, even.

“Yes but what kind of ‘Head’ protection?” So mild.

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January 4, 2020 · 11:56 am

helmet world

“I was in a virtual reality, Grandmama, Grandpapa. Two wrestlers had just made an alliance. One had to manage the other. That one had been replaced by the other in the far past.”

“Virtual reality, huh,” groused Grandmama. “Is *that* why it took you so long to find us?”

“*Finally*,” reinforced Grandpapa to her side.

“Then I found a store selling progressive rock t-shirts, but, get this, they were *cartoon* versions.” Guy shows his Grandmamapapa one of the t-shirts, with a parody of Genesis’ classic ‘Nursery Cryme’ album cover on the front. “Pretty cool, huh? They had *2* Genesis t-shirts, one for this and then for ‘Foxtrot’. You know, the one with ‘Supper’s—”

“No ‘Lamb’?” interrupts Grandpapa, staring at the thing. Among early Genesis efforts with front man Peter Gabriel, it’s the only one that interests him personally. He likes the story. The music is glossier and fuller. He says so, and adds, “just like Grandmama here.” Here reaches across the table and pinches her fleshy side.

“Stop it, Jack,” she complains, swatting his flirting hand away but at the same time taking the “complement” in stride. “We’re *suppose* to be angry with *Guy* here. 15 weeks since the last visit? Too long young man.”

“I’m trying to tell you that I can’t *find* your place that easy in all these twisty-turny alleys. And there’s so many distractions.” He indicates the shirt he’s wearing again. “Look,” he decides to display. “Here’s the other one.”

“Well sit down, Guy and I’ll put some more tea on.” Grandpapa attempts a joke about Guy putting on another t-shirt and Grandmama putting on another tea which fails in mid-effort. He clears his throat and then drives home his point about “Lamb”. “‘Lamb’ is *real*, not fantasy. *Not* virtual reality. It’s the gritty streets of NYC that we found anti-hero Rael spray painting his name on.

“Subways,” Guy corrects. “The album says subways.”

“Yes, of course.” Guy knew his Genesis. He respected “Lamb” too. He just digs early Genesis in general. The only album he really likes by them post-Gabriel is “Duke”. He laments the fact that the t-shirt fat pack didn’t include that album cover. Nor “Lamb”, but “Lamb” was probably simply harder to do, since no singular focus on the cover. Probably hard to create a cartoon image of Rael. Maybe that adds to Grandpapa’s point, he then ponders. Rael is too *real* to turn into an animation.

(to be continued?)

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June 18, 2019 · 9:24 am

Hello Jinn (leaves 02)


“Jethro Tull!”

The pot got too hot. I was away too long. Rooster.

I recall something about the Hills of Bill. Lindens. Agreement.

Yes.

I remember something about Polk. Jim Polk.

“Care-ful.”

“Who is that?”

“A friend.”

“Jinn?”

“Slow down.”

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May 3, 2019 · 8:05 am

granted 03

An old train track encircled the cabin, which struck Allen Y. as odd. Why a train out in the middle of nowhere? he asked himself. Why a circle? He crossed the track, but something seemed different, then. An enclosure, just like when he felt he couldn’t breath and had to wear his hydrogen helmet topped with the far seeing eyes. In fact, he better put it on again just to be safe. So the 2 circles become one here.

“Hello?” he called just inside the track. “Anybody there?”

Sleeveless, muscular Rock Ramby came onto the weather worn porch, stared at him. “RR at your service,” he offered in a low, calm voice. “What can I do you for?”

(to be continued)

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