Dark Peak. The Power.
Blue Boy knows.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0605, Back Rooms, Gaston^^, Hana Lei^^
I’d moved on. The library that use to be in this place: no more. A gap instead. 31 increased by 1.
All because I pressed the button.
Or not.
I sometimes dream about the Blue Boy. Or someone like him. Verbally abusive, but not really on purpose or intentionally. Just part of the overall dense atmosphere. Yes, dense. Bad juju I suppose. Like Earth itself in a way, in a manner; one blue thing becomes the other and visa versa; interpenetrating. I nibble around on the periphery now. I think he understands.
I call them out and they back off. All is well.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0509
“Go ahead. Press it. It’s okay; I’m okay with it now. You’ll be fiiiinne.
“I just wanted to tell you that.
“Go ahead. Presss itt. I’m… okay with it now.
“Go ahead.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0508
“Lou, dearest,” he whispered over. “Buy your old man a can of soda while he’s busy studying will ya?”
“Sure thing Daddy. What’ll it be? Kolya? Pepi? Maybe even a bottle instead of a can?”
“Shhh, babydoll,” he said to her louder voice, finger over lips to reinforce his point. “Keep it down. Other people are studying here besides me.”
“And me — just sitting here twiddling my thumbs,” she responded in turn, tone not much softer than before. “Wishing there was an actual town again to visit while you read these old dusty things.” She became curious. “What’d you finding anyway? You mentioned a MOA or something or another.”
“Most Ancient One, yes,” he hissed, finger pressed against lips again. “Right underneath the library here, I’m speculating. That *whole town* you’re after. Files within!” Oh GOD. He shouted he was so excited. And now the whole rest of the library is staring. He waves at all of them, trying to indicate he’s sorry and that the outburst was just a slip-up.
Right through that Big Red Machine there it is, though. The secret passage. ‘Nother one.
He could walk through…
… and be in a different world altogether. And so it was.
“Ahh yes, thanks Lou,” he said after carefully popping the top and taking a sip. “Hits the spot.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0412, Gaston^^, Nautilus, NORTH, Rooster's Peninsula
“Done in by (the Nautilus continent region known as) the Wild West,” thought Can, drinking from a bottle inside the dresser that was his Dream while glancing left at the dangly orange legs that match her eyes. “*Not* a witch,” she begged just before the ironic crushing. Of *course* she was a witch. Just like…
… oh no, he thought in a panic, position suddenly reversed from before. NOT a witch. A decent person overall. Just…..
….. separate.
What has he *done*???
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0409, Jeogeot, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Newtown, Wild West
Voodoo doll holding Miss Ouri observes Pietmond Boy patiently waiting outside SC’s Secret Door for a father who seemingly never shows. Wait for it… Wait for it…
There.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0317, Collagesity Fordham, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Perch-Mistletoe, Upper Austra^
Something’s happened over in Crooked, psychic Myrtle Beech intuits from her position at the center of the island while spying the distinct looking Constantynople building through a gap. One person would definitely know and that’s Old Orange (= All Orange). On her way…
“Okay, Old Orange. Start moving your dangly red legs which are the same as your forked tongue and spill the truth for a change!”
Old/All Orange complies.
—–
MEANWHILE… world maker Philip Linden had made it over to Constanynople library’s Special Collections, despite his head blowing up about 57 times now on his journey across the island south to north. “What’s in those crooked bookshelves over there?” he couldn’t help asking room attendant Swanie Rivers, trying not to flap her wings in disgust and irritation despite the gum. And the gun; both poppers, if both dormant for the moment. Tough stretch of land in the middle of the island — The Abyss some call it — and he decided to pack some heat in his pocket beside his pack of Wriggles chews already planted there. Back to the crooked shelves, he believes he’s seen them in a dream.
Flattie cleaning robot-lady Ross C. slides through the secret door connecting SC with the rest of the library and takes a listen while dusting the totally straight shelves — easy work. Is this really Merk Coolie Brighton in disguise? she thinks. She’d only seen him twice since his death almost 3 1/2 years ago, job killed off along with his Records Center, which he had become the functional manager of down through the years. Blue Boy, she thinks. He called me Blue Boy! Do I *look* blue to you, Merk Coolie Brighton? But I can hear him say he was just trying to kill off the library in turn, making everyone he actually cared about within a color of his TILE, red yellow green blue, with me at the end timewise. It was all up to me to find out the truth, she thinks. 42. Bad juju, and so on and so forth.
But she can’t quite make out what they’re saying, what Philip Linden or what appears to be Philip Linden actually came here for. If it’s that book, that one single book, then she can slam the door on the subject, case closed. But if it isn’t… then the door remains open.
It all depends on what happened in Crooked.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0314, Constantynople, Nautilus
I spoke clear and distinct into the Air. “I’m here looking for a BOOK.”
No answer for about 15 seconds, then:
“WE ARE HERE.”
I think that’s *Lauri*, I realized. I pondered what to say next. Simply repeating the request didn’t seem right. They knew.
I had to specify.
“31 pages with a 32nd ripped out,” I tried.
15 more seconds, then:
“CHECKING.”
10 more seconds, then:
“LIMITING QUERY TO PICTURE BOOK, 32 PAGES MAX. PLEASE RESTATE REQUEST.”
Picture book? I thought. I didn’t even know what that really meant. I assumed: children’s book. What children’s book did I know?”
“‘Little Black Sambo,'” I said once more into the Air.
2 seconds later: “THAT REQUEST IS NOT ALLOWED.”
O-kay, I thought. Good the library has some kind of racist filter, I suppose. Although someone old enough with a valid ID should be able to request the material anyway. Just then:
“PERHAPS SPECIAL COLLECTIONS CAN HELP YOU SELECT A PICTURE BOOK. OPENING A CONNECTION…..”
Hmmmm. Dare I? It would mean returning to the beginning of it all. Perhaps losing everything that’s happened since in the process. All those hard earned years of service.
Couldn’t do it. Like Denmark, something rotten went on there. 42. Bad juju.
I’d have to keep working from outside the system. Nibbling away on the periphery.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0311, Back Rooms, Canada/Picturetown
“What you see before you is the Power of the 4. Let’s start with green, okay?”
“But — we’ve already *done* green, he he,” said talking dog Jack.
“Oh,” said Bill looming above them in his deep, lispy voice. “Alright. Then: blue. Okay? We haven’t done blue yet, have we?”
“Uh, I don’t think so,” says Fink, still human as far as I can tell. Much like *Susan*, but we’ll get to that. Su-san.
“Okay, great. I’ll just put a little gemstone in the slot representing green, and…
“… close enough. So are you ready for blue? This shouldn’t take as long.”
“Okay, alright,” agrees Jack.
“Sure, why not,” says Fink.
“Nice. So let’s begin.”
—–
“After retirement on that fated day of 3/1/22, err (checks his notes), we have no further contact with green and blue is to pay. So you approach blue, tell him who you *really* are and that you actually have a life *outside* the library. You tell him you’re a writer, a creator (by nature). You don’t tell him about the photo-novels but he didn’t ask either. He is *busy*. He was going to respond to your email but hadn’t had time yet. You must be patient with him. His story is not yet told. I suggest we come back to him in, say, 5 years?”
“*5 years,*” I exclaim. “But I need to resolve this *now*.”
“Oh.” Pause; deep sigh. “Very well. I’ll accept that blue’s story is done for now even though it really isn’t. Yes (smaller sigh), we should move on. To red.”
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0045, 0302, Oooo