“Good,” he exclaimed, jumping out of the teleport hammock. “I’m where I’m suppose to be. Rainbow Falls.”
He turns, he walks. “Now to find Little Tonshi Ashokan.”
Tag Archives: Jim/John L. Brown^*+%
00330513
So here we are, Charlotte. Back at the beginning. Anything different you notice?
“Shhh,” Charlotte requested. “Someone’s fading in.”
Hey, where’d *he* come from, thinks observing Orilia from the bar, always aware of the comings and goings of customers. But this was no ordinary man. Instead: cartoonist, or so they assumed.
He then produced one of the latest from his pocket, unfolding it before their eyes.
“Jem,” Charlotte uttered, recognizing the inspiration.
“Yes?” Jim answered, not knowing if she was referring to one or the other. He then produced another from the other pocket, likewise unfolding.
“Jem,” stated Charlotte more firmly, pointing this time.
Jim understood. Jim L. Brown, with the L standing for nothing. At least that’s always what his parents told him. Actually we know it stands for the number 12, as in 4+4+4. “You… knew her?”
“Know,” says Edward Daigle, chipping in. “We know her.” She’s not dead… yet, he thinks with malice. His stern stare matches Charlotte’s. This was *wrong*. “Nice trick, by the way,” he said of Jim L. Brown’s manifesting act. Magician as well, they assumed. Cartoonist and magician: hand in hand. A combination bourne in the depths of hell itself, they also quickly decided.
Seeing the loathing, he scrambles to explain himself. “You don’t understand, people. I’m here to *help*. I don’t like this either. *John* is to blame, not me.”
Edward’s stare turns toward Charlotte and visa versa. “Twins?” they utter simultaneously to each other.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0513, Jeogeot, Towerboro
00330202
In a place run by cats, there were always a lot of naptimes to get the information he needed. Like the actual scoop on the Poop Pool, as it was called locally, at least behind closed doors, often in the middle of the night when a faint whiff of the former smell could be caught by those who’re perceptive. Deputy here had been out since about 8 now, hugging her little froggie toy until the wee hours of the morning. Eddy Daigle, cousin to our Edward Daigle already met in part one and originally sharing the same name, sniffed the air. Faint but perceptible. He hit delete on the sheriff’s computer and the file about it was permanently gone, as if the problem never existed. Much like Edward from his name, revised and revamped to the more colloquial Eddy after 5th grade when he also switched first and last names to hide the connection even more. “Daigle, Eddy” he liked to be called after that, 2 steps or functions away. And he was from Montana, not Louisiana or Maine or, especially, Illinois. Unlike that John L. Brown we’ve yet to come across in the current novel but who played a part in the last one, small but effective, like a rat silently and stealthily tearing away at the insulation in your walls, leaving you eventually laid bare to the elements. John L. Brown was a bad one, and deserved to be behind the bars of this here law enforcement establishment.
Uh oh. Deputy’s rolled over and lost her grip on her little, favorite toy. Sheriff’s snores on the couch over there are getting a little shallower and further apart, REMs decreased. Soon dreaming will be over for the fellows, Eddy knew. But he still couldn’t find the second file he wanted. Best to pack it up, come back tomorrow. Or after, actually, the next town animal banquet when the ferocious gazelles would bring more fresh kill from the beaches and the water. Snorklers this week. Could even be some deep sea divers mixed in next. That would put them even more under for his clandestine night operations; would allow him to get more work done, dig deeper.
“Daigle, Eddy” knew he wasn’t kosher and that saved him many times from being on the wrong side of one of these feasts. 9 times he had been saved in fact, making him part cat himself. Thank you great great grandma on my father’s side! He licked his hand softly as he does instinctively every now and then and shuts the laptop off and heads home.
No one in the cell right now except a member of the Bad Katz Gang, who was turning her back to the illegal nature of his visit. He hoped to change that soon.
00330116
The next day, Dafney met new bestie Jem for a celebratory birthday breakfast at Ted’s Sweet Shop next to the open market. Both had turned 42, years for Dafney and weeks for Jem, since she was a simulacrum, with a much shorter life expectancy than true humans. Thus the strong desire to see the world and not stay in a dead end bookkeeping job in Dodgey City before it’s too late. Plus the lurid cartoons based on her of course that we’re not suppose to talk about or see, orders of her doctor-therapist.
“How’s Jim?” Dafney began the serious talk after the meal was over, flapjacks for Jem and mustard over easy for the yellow one, a canary today, a freebird. She’s heard that 42 is the year you learn about everything and anything, with no more “mine over here” and “yours over there.” Everything blends, everything rotates around each other, like 6 is the opposite side of 9, the same figure. She’ll start with Jem — they will be as one today.
“Jem’s fine,” Jem speaks in the third person about herself. “I’m here aren’t I? Eating breakfast with you. I probably have 60 good days left for me.”
“No — *Jim*,” insisted Dafney. “The Brown one. Like I’m yellow.”
“I don’t know about Jim, but *John* can go to hell for all I care (!)” He was the one who published the cartoons. Jim is his twin brother. John is spelled with an L, Jim with an A. Both stand for nothing, which is of course the opposite of everything. They suck in life just as much as Dafney exudes it, Jem thinks here, glad for their friendship.
“I’m… sorry.” Dafney begins to cry. Or is it laugh. She searches for the phone again, determined to call Redbird or text Bluebird to see which one.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0116, Jeogeot, Towerboro
00330111
“It was the only place I felt really safe in all of Dodgey City: Charlotte’s dust filled attic with the telescope that she often pointed to the Moon, Mars and other heavenly bodies to also escape the stardust glitter all around.”
“Stardust,” said the doctor, now a therapist. “Interesting term. Can you elaborate further?”
—–
“They made… *cartoons* out of me. It was awful.” The sobbing began again. The doctor-therapist offered her another kleenex from the second box used today. “They thought it was *funny* (sob sob sob, blow nose, sob sob, sniff).”
“There there,” said the dr.-therapist. “Take your time.”
“I — (sniff sniff) don’t *want* to go back.”
“No one’s sending you back, Jem. Take your time,” she or he emphasized again. Probably a she… because of the nature of the events that took place there.
“Those cartoons you spoke about,” she started carefully once more. “Did you…”
“*NO*,” stated Jem firmly, guessing what the doctor-therapist was going to ask, an almost prescient moment. And perhaps it was.
The doctor-therapist decided not to bring John L. Brown of the Browns into the picture today. She looks up at the clock, pretends the session is over even though it is 12 till the hour. “That better be it for today. You can take that box home with you.”
“Thank you,” BLOOWWW.
00320411
The cracks of thunder behind the door should have been a clear warning for danger ahead, along with the illuminated cracks in the wall beside it. But Joey ignored them all, going through door after door to reach the ultimate end. John L. Brown tried to warn her, albeit faintly, albeit sarcastically. “Don’t go,” he whispered over after she went through, and then had a giggle. Count him among the nefarious agent types. Joey: good. But Ontario had become malfunctioning thanks to the deletion of half the town and so she was back here, trying to retrace her steps to the… tree. Or whatever the thing was: family tree perhaps, like in genealogy. She had to fill in the memory gaps. She resisted the urge to become plastered beforehand; wanted to keep her mind open just like the doors that were presented to her, 1 2 3.
Onlooking John, seen by us but unseen to Joey, tried to determine what species she was and correctly guessed Venusian because of the blue-green skin. Or blue and green skin. But orange eyes. Alien obviously.
There she goes!
“Don’t go,” he whispered as the door closed behind her, even hitting her rump a little bit. The giggles begin.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0411, Long Islands, Nautilus, Wendy-Ontario-, Wild West
102
He was called in to replace Agent Joey Avatar. Or help her — he wasn’t sure. Anyway, he was here, aiding her to begin, not mentioning the replacement part, although of course she suspects. Purple hair, he ruminates. Symbol of suspicion. Just woke up like that the other day, she says. Fat chance.
*There*. John or Jim — one or the other; doesn’t matter. Here’s where he comes out of the portal. Now to pinpoint the center. “What you got?” he asks Joey through his walkie talkie wristwatch after John/Jim moved down the road a bit, out of earshot.
“2 seconds,” she responds from her position on the other side. “He went into the closed up subway at exactly 11:37:07. Did he come out with his sub?” she tried to joke. Agent 47 was a serious type, she understood. She was attempting to loosen the armor. But she knew she was in trouble. First things first, though. They had to figure out the mystery of this plaza that stood in the middle of it all. Umbrellas, they had determined. But which one?
“Let’s let him go in one more time to make sure.”
11:38:37:
“Too foggy in this gal blasted town to do much more tonight,” Agent 47 said after the double check. “Let’s reconvene at 08:00. I’ll stay with Black Bart downstairs from you guys.”
“Um, I wouldn’t do that,” she responds, shaking her head for emphasis.
“Elaborate.” It was one of the most common words these agents used. What he got back surprised him. A shadow being! And all because he was being tracked by The Mouse. Weelll. He’ll fix *that*. Shadow beings have no place in the land of living breathing Second Lyfers. All of Wendy would be for naught if so. Nautilus, hmm, he thought. That would come back shortly. But first…
“Bring him out in the light,” he rather commanded to Joey when they returned to the Underground Apts., 3 in number but only 2 viable in the moment. Because of Bart.
“Told you,” Joey Avatar said to Agent 47 after he opened the door, standing back a bit from the spectacle.
“Clean him up and bring him out,” he doubled down. *You* clean him up! she thought, but then did what he requested. She was only 45. No way to jump two numbers in a fortnight. She’d have to wait til Tuesday.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0316, Wendy-Ontario-
00320315
“I’m glad at least *you* remain my friend, Joey,” she said between sub bites. Dreaming makes her hungry. Must replenish, must recuperate. For most this is sleep itself. Not Leforest. “Agents can be so thin skinned. It’s *just* an assignment. Some fits are better than others.”
“Yeah,” expressed Joey across from her, also eating a sub but with meat instead of potatoes, “they told me to wear purple hair now…”
“Wondering about that,” says Leforest Bresford.
“Yeah, purple is sometimes a sign that you’re about to be taken off a case. Like, you know…”
“Debbie,” replied Leforest, thinking back to her description of the purple door in Lorsters Worst and how she couldn’t open it. *Sign*, yes.
“But to your dream.”
“Dreams,” corrected Leforest, glad for the diversion and thinking about her own red and blue companions at each shoulder, unseen to Joey and others as she chooses at the moment. But potentially another purple situation, with her in the middle which is, as we all know, unfortunately in the way a lot of times.
“Dasher” passes by. “Morning Luke,” says thought-to-be James or Jim L. Brown.
“Morning John,” he says back as he moves on to the corner down the way, no one to push around this time. Maybe next go round.
“Did you hear that?” whispered Joey over to Leforest, watching him now dash diagonally across the road in front of her to continue his cycle. “*John*. Not Jim.”
“Or James,” her fellow sub eater whispered back.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Certainly am.” Twins.
Then in total synchronicity to the situation the other twin walked by in the distance but neither spotted him.
Only we the blog readers know for sure still.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0315, Wendy-Ontario-
staying on the grounds
Leforest Bresford soon realizes that the town, this Ontario, is chocked *full* of mysteries. Like this floating woman at the back of the church apparently named Selene by the description. But through her training in the 32, she also knows this is somehow user and blog owner Baker Bloch’s mother Old Grey, exposing her oily way again. Gong, pheh. Zero Hero. She’s in it deep again.
She attempts to merge with the figure and understand its meaning. Training again — making shit happen and such. Zero back here; maybe 9 up front?
She continues to roam the grounds of the church that also contains the ruins where she shot up that tin can and became one with it as well. It still surrounds her, only she chooses, in the moment, not to let us the blog readers see it. Trash and Recycling some call her red and blue companions sitting at either shoulder, combined in this way to make something not quite as good as either separately. Purple perhaps, weaker than either constituent red or blue. She ponders this too.
From the rocks the church is perched upon she thinks she sees Jim or James L. Brown walking down the sidewalk in the distance but is unsure, and then forgets to check immediately.
She wanders through an opening in a row of tall cypresses to this nice patio with a green table with green chairs set up for game playing. It begins to rain, then it begins to pour. She takes shelter in a roofed pergola and starts reading a proffered book…
… only to swiftly fall asleep as the text bores her, a mystery about a wee man murdered in a normal sized outhouse. Quite unbelievable. In the subsequent dreaming she is in the same place but with two more strange characters interacting at a table nearby, also out of the rain.
“I believe you know my father,” the 1/2 snow 1/2 sponge being spoke to the other.
“Oh Snowbob,” his snow white mother with two coal lumps for eyes exuded, tired of the games. Who is he now? she wondered. Kactus?
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0314, Wendy-Ontario-
no comet
Dickie had solved the mystery. A man, walking in a cycle, runs into him if he stands in front of Jim’s counter and pushes him to the corner, where he then leaves him and dashes diagonally across the road.
About 2 minutes later he’s back, pattern repeated. Again and again this happens. Did Jim set this up on purpose so customers wouldn’t loiter? he thinks.
The morning light was increasing. He had to find Joey Avatar to talk to her about the shoes and some other important things. Like their prospective date tonight. He doesn’t think he’s up for it. Besides, that apple juice he just bought from Jim was not quite agreeing with his stomach. Perfect excuse for backing out. “I’m sick, babe,” he rehearsed in his head. “Jim?” he imagined her saying, because he was responsible for the bulk of things bad in town. He may even be the person behind the transmutation of Black Bart himself, Dickie realized in this created scenario. He then imagines going back to Jim, confronting him. Oops, there’s that guy pushing him to the corner again. Yes: convenient.
Jim L. Brown, he recalled. He makes a mental note to check what the L. stands for sometime, because he’s heard of another Jim Brown and doesn’t want to confuse the two in his continued investigation. A., he also remembers about the other. Jim A. Brown, with the A. standing for nothing, he recalls, even turning into B. at the drop of a dime, for no rhyme or reason. Maybe L. is just a progression of this, and stands for nothing itself.
Here comes the dasher again. “Merry f-cking Christmas to you too!” he called in turn, stepping aside this time. Dasher yes, hmmm.
He checks his wallet but it’s okay. The guy appears to be a pusher but not a taker. Hmm, again.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0310, Wendy-Ontario-
Sunklands 