“Someone is at the Fal Mouth Moon gallery. I heard the vortex teleport all the way up here.” They were sitting in Karoz’s apartment above the Bodega market, staring out at the green terrain.
“Yes, I hear it too once in a while,” responds Karoz. “Listen… I’m sorry about the suggestion. We are just starting out. We’ll make adjustments and move forward.”
“There will be some changes,” Baker Blinker says defiantly, thinking Karoz is talking a bit like an academic administrator again. “Baker Bloch has handed me the keys to his house. I would feel guilty if we didn’t have the same user. But you are somehow different in that respect. How?”
“I was born considerably after the original group you guys were in. I am from a specific place to start off with: Chilbo.”
“But you *aren’t* from Chilbo. Or Chilbol either.”
“No,” admits Karoz. “But I am from Norum and that’s nearby.”
“It’s time to tell me — us — the truth. Peter SoSo showed up in Collagesity to play in the celebration party after the Intense Shower. That’s what it’s starting to be called.”
“Yeah, I know.” He thought back to the embarrassing 7th Spire incident with the shower, obviously enough.
“But when you went up [to Peter SoSo] and said hi and started talking about the past, he didn’t seem to recognize you. Or was he being extremely cold to you for some reason? I can’t figure it out.”
Karoz doesn’t immediately answer, but instead stares out the window, looking toward the neighboring Sikkima sim. He points in its direction.
“Do you know Collagesity use to exist in that large sinkhole over there, Baker? Well, it was technically New Pietmond but same idea. It’s the only one on the oldest continents that we know of. Odd, huh? They say the Sylver Forest extended to at least its edge.”
Baker Blinker was again tired of beating about the bushes. “What don’t you like about my eyes?”
—–
Afterwards Baker Blinker goes to see Carrcassonnee.
Baker Blinker (after putting on the glasses):
So what do you think? Do they help?
Carr.:
Very nice. Poets say the eyes are the windows to the soul Karoz wishes to stare into. Love is difficult. In the end, I decided to eat my last partner, Perch. Tasted like chicken. No, more like beef stroganoff. That’s [a] better [line].
Baker Blinker:
I am very happy, mind you.
Carr.
Of course. Talk to me some about Bogota, before he left. What happened between you two? That’s something I don’t know and I know a lot. Remember this is girl to girl talk and won’t leave my gazebo. Do you mind?
BB:
No, that’s fine. We went to… first base. Okay, we were heading toward second. Maybe we got 2/3rds the way there, maybe 3/4ths. Maybe. But I stopped it. Out at second; end of story (Baker Blinker makes a baseball out sign with her hand). Then he was gone. He invited me to travel the stars with him. Out there. Reinforced my confidence. But then with Karoz I hit a…
Carr. (eye raised to the door):
Homer! You snuck up on me and that’s another surprise. Come on in my boy.
Homer (speaking to each):
Hello Carrcassonee, hello Lisas, hello lady.
Carr.:
Homer, do you know Baker Blinker, the other white Baker, tee hee?
Homer:
Didn’t I see you walking around the woods the other day — looking for a towel?
Carr.
Ahem, Homer, that was *me*.
Homer:
No, I’m pretty sure it was this lady here. At first I thought it was Marge. They look kind of similar in the shade.
—-
It took several hours for Baker Blinker to get over *that* conversation. “Comparing me to a *bulgy eyed* cartoon woman with 4 foot hair!” she kept thinking again and again while thrusting back and forth in her new rocking chair.
Sunklands 