“I don’t understand, Wheeler. The library simply… *disappeared*.” Mainly. A couple of books left, but –”
“Quiet,” Wheeler demanded, who had turned into Alysha in anticipation of the event. Crestfallen! Yet she was determined to try. She thought the air felt a little different just over… there.
There!
“Am I holding anything, Baker B.?” she queried expectantly, palms getting sweaty even.
“Not a thing.”
“Rats!”
“Wait. Lemme try a little brighter light just to be sure.
“Still nothing.”
“F-ck.”
Baker Bloch trying to love his new, temporary home and forget that his Collagesity rent is now 1 day overdue, pheh. PHEH.
He hasn’t quite got the lighting in here, he thinks. Trying out “Fairy dark blue (Paulina)” currently.
View of the place from the west. Complicated. Potentially many stories to tell within with the many dummies present. Just like Towerboro before it. Wonder how Towerboro is progressing — still a work in progress after all, according to the land description. But Baker shouldn’t be focused on the past. Instead: current. *Dairochia* — yes, that’s the name I concocted several novels ago now. Because we’ve been here before. Library. Looking for a particular book about monsters. Then: stolen.
And it has a secret core, Baker also remembers. Where the letter “l” was exchanged for an “i’.
Time to bring in Wheeler.
—–
“Morgan, eh? Just like Alysha.”
“Yeah,” Baker answered Wheeler. “I’m positive she’s still here.”
“She stole the book, she stole the letter. She won’t be welcomed in this here kingdom of several powers that be.”
“No,” agreed Baker.
“He’s not coming out of there,” he says to me. “He’ll always be a part of the library.”
I knew I was weighted too much in the South. But that’s where he chose to stay. “Who will replace him?” I asked Buster Damm sitting across from me, an impossibly small vampire in such a big big world. Too small to fit in anywhere properly. But too important to die himself. He stared the answer into me.
“So they just found him there. Dead.”
“Gone to South America,” Buster elaborated as best as possible. Just like Sherwood before him, another Allen.
—–
Nighttime at the Castle in De Skies; fog getting thicker. Must think about heading home soon. North.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0516, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Nautilus, NORTH, Rooster's Peninsula
“Good, isn’t it?” she wanted to say in her Northern accent. “Comes in bottles in this county.”
“Jasper?” she could hear him say back, which prompted in her mind: “Bling, Diamond Cave, Arkansaw. CAN.”
“Are you a witch?” he actually said, sitting on the couch before her and knowing she was the one. Miss Ouri.
Of course I’m a witch, she again thought, but decided to answer otherwise. She went with the Arkansaw story. Can saw right through it.
“Take off your robe,” he tried, figuring she was a simulacrum. “I want to see.”
But she was no pleasure bot like Tronesisia still hallucinating that cactus plant over in the library. Her eyes were equal to each other, orange against orange. 2 + 2 adds up to 4 for her. She is rational, reasonable. “No.”
Well I tried, he thought. It was worth the effort. “Then… reveal yourself for who you really are.” It was second choice but maybe had a better chance to work.
Since she was a bot if not a pleasure one she had to obey this time.
“Satisfied?”
He was — 1/2 and 1/2. “Where do you come from?” Trick question! “Your Mama?” she played with in her head. She was from nowhere, actually. Outside *everything*.
“Chattanooga,” she decided, then ended with a weak, “choo choo,” and the appropriate pulling arm motions, like a conductor with his toots or whistles. Yes. Exactly like a conductor. Mahler.
—–
The next thing he knew he was in bed, drink still in hand which indicated that what went on before wasn’t actually a dream. Not really. Along with the 2 orange legs of course to match the eyes.
“You had to see, ow,” she said in her mind.
He studied them later and decided they were like 2 coke bottles while he finished his drink. Evil, they were. Not Northern atall.
—–
He went back to bed and had a different dream about the dresser and their wardrobe.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0513, Lower Austra, Nautilus
It was chilly up on this ridge above Kings Bishop, near the lower end of Route 13 on the western side of Lower Austra. Not as chilly as Collagesity would be this night, Man About Time ruminates, glad for a little break from all the building and shuffling about in his home town just up in the mountains a little more. Town, hmmm. Man About Town —
Anyway, the relative cold makes him think about the distance formed between creators — artists — inworld and beyond, each in their own sphere of influence and interest. He needs to let go; he needs to forgive. He’s gone very far, the 32 being the latest number reached if not finished. He’s working on it, as always.
He usually calls in Wheeler to help him, in this instance because he’s simply too lazy to rise up from his comfy sleeping bag and look around. She may come as Miss Ouri tonight, or maybe not — someone else. Once she was Alysha. He sighs, thinking of his former girlfriend, like if Thelma Lou left Barney for Sherriff Andy Taylor, attracted to the shine of the bigger badge. Another King over Bishop (or Rook) situation, then. Or a King’s Bishop anyhoot.
—–
He hears the manifestation. 10 minutes — not bad for Wheeler. He looks out to see Miss Ouri, his latest crush, sitting on the chair outside along with that creepy prick doll of hers, the cactus creature. A mascot she calls it. For the library they’re building together as a whole. He thinks of the King. He thinks of the Bishop, the Rook at best. King’s Bishop (or Rook); that’s what he is now. He’s been adopted it seems. The black and white swan urged him forward instead of back, trying to escape her own shadow self. “See down there in the library’s floor,” she said to him as Ted one night, working late on his novel instead of his dissertation which he should have been doing, pheh. But Ukraine and the Delta needed him, another camper in another camping spot. “That’s *me*.” The white swan, out of her element in special collections, could not pass through the door to the library proper without causing a shadow. It’s an old story with a familiar ending. Entrapment, much like he can’t be bothered to get out of this tent and go speak to Wheeler. He summoned her after all.
Here goes nothing, he thinks.
“Nice morning, huh?”
“If you’re going to climb out of your tent, why did you need *me*?” She’d been busy doing other things. She had a lot on her plate: grapes, kiwis, bananas, oranges and apples from the looks of it. Kactus was hungry and requested permission to dive in, which was granted.
I could stomp on it and put an end to the thing, Man About Time thought, looming above. But what would be the consequences? He decided quickly he didn’t want to find out. Wrath of Ouri might not look as pretty.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0507, Lower Austra, Nautilus
Listening through the walls and the coke machine is over. It’s time to find out who’s in the basement. Is it Rooster?
I think it must be Rooster. Smells like Rooster, even from this distance. We’ll see.
“Halt! (wheeze)”
It wasn’t Rooster. He backtracks a bit; forgets about the end of the tunnel for now.
“Who are you?” he asks mildly.
Squeaky voice, like a inflatable toy full of little holes: “I am (wheeze) the answer you seek.”
Significant pause as he takes the creature in. “Where’s Rooster?”
“He is (wheeze) not here yet.”
Smaller pause. “Will he ever be?”
“(wheeze) No.” Slowly and skillfully the seated small being then moves a chest pin down to emphasize his pricked nature.
“Funny,” is all MAT could think of to say.
“Is (wheeze) it?”
Voodoo doll, Man About Time mulled over. Obviously related to Kactus back in the library — up in the library, just above him in fact. He tries to see through the ceiling toward it. Doesn’t work.
“Ponder (wheeze wheeze) the nature of the peninsula, another (wheeze) sticky outy thing (wheeze wheeze). I am (wheeze) running out of (wheeze) air (WHEEEEeeeeezzzee).”
The final prick did him in. He shouldn’t have done it, MAT realized. Like Conception Concepción Conception, he’d made an error between his legs.
He moves on beyond the deflated being, encountering himself in the first of two cells off the passage.
“Hi me,” he said nonchalantly to himself.
Should he wave back? Or is that how you become trapped in the first place? Acknowledge that you’re here already? MAT decides to ignore him(self) and walks down to the final cell, the end of the journey that has become this post. Is he ready? After seeing himself down here, what choice does he have? No going back.
“What is it?” he asked, out of his cell and sneaking up from behind.”
“How–?”
“I think you should go back where you came,” the other requested, pointing down the passage over his shoulder while he finds himself waving at *it* for some reason. MOA he knew, but that was just another puzzle inside a riddle inside a cypher. The foul smell was starting to become overwhelming; not Rooster indeed. “Let me handle this now. I’ve been waiting for you after all.” STOP
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0502, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Nautilus, NORTH, Rooster's Peninsula
Swanie is finally asleep and dreaming up her own characters to play with. Center of the night: time to crack into that Monster Book for real, but caarefullly so as not to jar loose the remaining marble again. (Got in) so much trouble before!
He opens up the book in the middle which is the same as the beginning. Just then, the “front door” of special collection slides forward. Someone enters.
“Ross C.!” Man About Time exclaims in a rare outburst. So mild usually.
“I’m glad you made it back, sir,” she said in her robot way, continuing to dust around the shelves and making up time for last week’s snowstorm. Ross C., Man About Time ponders. Haven’t seen her since…
“Sir?” MAT still doesn’t respond. “Sir?” She approaches the reading table. “Oh dear, he’s gone a bit *glassy*-eyed, hehe,” and then dusts him off as well while she’s there.
Pretty good joke for an interloper.
“Oh look,” she continues while looking down at what he’s studying. “Abner again.”
The marbles fall out of his eyes and he can see. But Ross C. was gone. Ross C. was never there.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0417, Arkansas, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Nautilus
Cone grew up in Pine Apple, Alabama, with a population around 100. He attended Moore Academy, a one-room school from kindergarten through high school. He did not play football because there were not enough people to field a team.
He emerged from the blue and yellow tent in another dream, a blue and yellow type dream himself. He closely studies the pine cone atop the book tree we found Agent 47 (or 23) reading beside a bit earlier, remembering something about his father. Pine cone… pineapple cone, he free associates. My father lived in one. The cone became the same as one of his eyes. The Other: The Mother.
“I’m worried about my son,” Snowmanster confessed to her bartender at the town’s Hole in the Wall. “He’s built this whole fantasy library around this Kactus figure he made up when he was a kid and still believes in. He *is* Kactus… at times. When he’s playing that role he doesn’t remember who I am, who his parents are. His whole life becomes a blank.”
Now kimono clad Miss Ouri waited patiently for Snowmaster to come around to the obvious, and the prickly green doll she held in her arms. Maybe she needs a coffee mug or t-shirt to spell it out better. Don’t be a prick! The white swan turns into a black swan.
Wheeler wakes up and instantly remembers to jot it down thanks to a strategically placed poster. Good ol’ Arkansaw! Back to reality, phew.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0416, Arkansas, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Missouri, Nautilus
Well, Eric is not standing but the sentiment is definitely there. He’s reconstructed his Delta based blue and yellow tent in the Collagesity library, either skybox or ground, take your choice. Even both or neither if you wish, reader’s option. It could be time to get more of his story. “I’m assuming you’re a man, and not an Erica.”
“Correct,” he says in his dreams to us. Because he only exists on Delta and has those memories during sleep. When he wakes up, POOF. Gone.
“What happened?”
“I ran out of money what can I say. Life’s circumstances. But I got too far out, saw too many things.”
“UFOs?” I guessed.
He looked out his tent toward the New, toward the regulated pine forest across the meadow across the river. What he saw was inside that. We have more information.
Erik wakes up. He later sits at his visiting scholar writing desk watching the tent start to glow in his mind. “Strangest dream,” he mutters to himself. “Something is not right.”
“Who’s that?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0414, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Nautilus
“Lou, be a dear and buy your old man a drink while he’s studying, would you?”
“Dad-dy,” Lou replied, arms still crossed. “We’ve been here *3* days.”
“Keep it down, keep it down,” father Osborne Well says over more in a whisper. “Other people are here too.”
Lou Well stays quiet this time.
“Weelll?” her father prompted, a typical reply and a play on their last name he loves to utter when he can. He beams a wicked smile. She still doesn’t return the smile but rises from her chair with a small huff and does what he asks. She inserts a quarter, hears a bottle drop. Or is it a can? — she can’t tell if the sound is more glassy or metallic. Queer, she realizes. And — great — she can’t get the door to open at the bottom of the thing. “It’s broke, daddy. We’ll have to go into town for your sody pop.” *Finally*, a possible way out of this prison of books for her.
“Then leave it,” he decides, learning winning over thirst and sugary desire. He’s about to uncover the deepest, darkest secrets of the great tentacled one. He confers this to his daughter.
“MOA,” she replies without thinking. “We’ve been there already. We *know* what it is.”
“Shhh,” he reprimands again about her raised voice, but then realizes she’s right. It *is* MOA he’s searching for: Most Old Ancient.
Man About Time wakes up but remembers what they said behind the wall. He’ll return another night in another dream to this spot. This portal is *key*.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0410, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Nautilus, NORTH, Rooster's Peninsula
Sunklands 