Grassy Noll had shifted one chair down to make room for Nauty, but he said that wasn’t what it sounded like. It was just short for Nautilus (continent) — he wasn’t some kind of sex toy doll, he reinforced. “Or was he?” he then joked, and repositioned the pin near his navel in a most inappropriate way, getting a laugh from Wheeler at least.
“So you can help with our pin cushion problem,” said Baker, staying serious because he had a big problem. The Nautilus map behind Nauty had been itself overrun with red pins, marking locations already featured in the blog and with more to come. He needed organization, he needed categorization. What is the true relationship of Lower and Upper Austra? How is the North, deemed non-Austran, really different? And what of the Wild West, the Mild East, the *Southwest*, where he’d just been with Man About Time? And then: Collagesity. Between Highways 13 and 14 that stood for M and N. Soo much there already.
“Yes,” answered Nauty, and then said he had a Rubber Soul. Baker thought about this for a moment and realized it meant he was beyond Help (!). If it kept progressing in this direction he’d need a Revolver to end it all.
“You mean *I* have a Rubber Soul,” he said to Nauty.
“Yes.”
Across from him, Opp or Tropp (True Opp) had also shifted one chair over to make room for another newcomer, this Al guy we’ve already mentioned several posts back, the last one set in Paper-Soap in my new rental there, the one in front of Soap Beach but in the Paper sim, the place where the dead wash up in banded groups, ready to be sudsed and bubbled for rebirthing purposes. Wash away the sins type of deal. More newcomers. Perhaps, secretly, Al with his multiple faces was one of ’em. Also: Nauty. Maybe Jinx Doll as well. Seems too coincidental they’re here.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 