“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.”
Tag Archives: LIBRARY
00470412 (the great 100,000 book library in de skies)
“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
00470409 (Miss Ouri)
“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
00470401 (Center)
Miss Ouri looks to her right now with her matching orange eyes. “Come out, child,” she urges manifested Shelley. “Come out from under the lamp and become big before us so we can properly see you.”
“No.”
Good girl.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0401, Bogota, collages 2d, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Perch-Mistletoe, Upper Austra, Willow Hill
00470317
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
00470314
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
00470311 (level 9223372036854775807 = trap?)
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
00460613 (library & cave (Windsong 3))
They were disappointed that they couldn’t sit directly across from each other and talk. Tessa had found something in her book about the Windsong fairy and wanted to tell Carolin. But she had to wait. All she could do in the moment was give a big thumbs up to her mate, her gal pal from the old days in the caves. Carolin returned with a thumbs up of her own. She’d found something too. Cat-people. Secret room. Somewhere around the Windsong portal. So two Windsong finds. Although they couldn’t talk with each other to coordinate the tales and make them as one. Because that’s what they were.
Benny Right Horn knows this too now, having visited the End of Time library several days back and coordinating the two stories himself. Rebl and Guyd were two cat-people, cat *aliens* indeed, who were left behind as the rest of their kind boarded the Mother Ship waiting for them in space and went back home to their red cube planet, probably circling the giant red star Betelgeuse by the color of it, Benny determined. And that’s where my brother must have gone, he thought. He’d also heard about the 1 after 909 ship from Big Ass Franz the bartender at the castle in the skies. Upon threat of death, sharp and long knife blade held to throat. Despite his flabby, unkept appearance, Benny had expert military training in the Queen’s army too just like his trimmer shaped and sharper dressed brother. The Queen, who just happened to be their mother, insisted on the training; knew it would come in handy to save their lives not once but a number of times most likely. She’d seen them argue as toddlers and then argue and fight in their schools as children and teenagers and then argue and fight and argue in their jobs as so-called grown ups quote unquote. Troublemakers these two were. But they were *her* troublemakers still. She had to make sure they were protected.
He wouldn’t stick to the tracks this time, because that just shoots you out the other side, he knew from his prior visit. But he also wouldn’t try to pick his way through the rest of the dangerous, labyrinthine cave system to find the cat-people’s hidden lair and be led astray that way. He’ll stay put in one place, and he knows precisely where this should be.
The pretty nature room adjacent to the watery Windsong sim Portal. Whatever goes down, it will happen here — he’ll *make* it happen.
Setting up camp for the night…
… and *quietly* warming up on the guitar, he he he. He’s had expert training that way as well — but it’s been a while.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0046, 0613, End of Time+
00450302 (opened up)
“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
00450216 (end (430 (words)))
“This would have probably been Fall 2015, or maybe even back to Spring 2015. But probably Fall 2015. Or even Winter 2015, or at least before the death of Bowie in Jan. 2016. This started several things. It, in a way, started the photo-novels themselves. Bowie *came* to Our Second Life and its Collagesity for a visit on his way to other destinations. This happened right after his death. He flirted with Baker Blinker, even propositioned her to go with him to the stars and leave Collagesity. This would have, of course, null and voided her relationship with Karoz Blogger (occurring just afterwards), so crucial not only to photo-novel 01 but all the photo-novels to come. They may *not* have come, you see.”
“I see.”
“Your double played a part in this. You synchronize further over the death of Bowie and the release of his last album, ‘Black Star’. Playing it right after Bowie’s death, you were amazed at its depth, how good the music was. You’d only known Bowie through his singles before this. Thus the can was opened to explore his oeuvre in a much more thorough way, which you did over the next several years. And your double went right along with you in a way, reliving his own appreciation of the Thin White Duke. After ‘Black Star’, you then moved to ‘The Next Day’, his previous album. As you told your double, there’s not a weak song on the album, which he agreed with. You also gave him a copy of ‘Black Star’ which he didn’t have. More synchronization. You were kind of moving as one. Or at least so you thought.”
“I thought?”
“Even at the start, you were not as synchronized as you thought at the time. You were a damaged soul by then. Your double represented a light in relative darkness, someone you connected to. You, in a way, in a strong way maybe, needed him more than he needed you. He had enough friends. Maybe he had *too* many friends, too many connections. You didn’t have enough, he had too many. And he had ambitions in the library, desired to be a major player there, which finally worked out for him by the time of your retirement in 3/1/22. The date is significant. It represents a place you separate from the double, are born *away* from him and back into your own sphere. You are on your own after that, just in terms of male friends. You thought you could continue that friendship beyond the library. But a wall was built at 3/1. (Photo-novel) 31 — remember that.”
“I will.”
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0045, 0216, Nautilus, Upper Austra
