Tag Archives: LIBRARY

book tree

Select one. Sit a spell.

Agent 47 has already perused Frank Herbert’s “Dune” and found it applicable to Fordham’s Collagesity. The movement of the town from Rubi to a lifeless ridge of Nautilus is like the movement of Paul, Atreides, from lush Caladan, his home world, to the brave new world of Dune, ultra rich in spice but ultra harsh in environment. No Rubi Woods here to protect and balance. There’s a small park owned by the neighbor to the immediate east but it’s not quite the same. Fake green. Beige landscape dominates underneath it all.


park next door/fake green/library in background right

New book: Well, it seems to be about a man who grew up in coal country Virginia and became a Tennessee detective. Biff Carter. Now recently retired and off the force but still acting like a private dick. Teresa, hmm. Who are you? Did that cause the breakup, like the separation of McMillan from Wife? Rock was gay — couldn’t help it. But what about Biff?

Getting sleepy, he thinks. Better put the book down and go find a bed or at least a floor.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0405, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Nautilus

00320404

One of the first things Miss Ouri does in her new role is to make special collections part of the library, despite protests from some in town that the structure is an eyesore sticking up there on the side of the square, pheh. But no one actually threw up at the sight and the addition was passed 4-3 in a special town council meeting held just below to emphasize the safety of the thing.

So let’s go inside and have a look.

The first visitor to the newly attached collections is none other than Our Second Lyfe creator Philip Linden himself, who was curious to find out what had been written about him. He can’t select one item or the other, drawing suspicion from reading room manager Swanie Rivers, here also seen alarmed at discovering his “Don’t be a Prick” coffee mug he brought in with him.

No drinking in special collections and no foul mouthedness, whether verbal or written. She tells Philip all this in no uncertain terms, threatening to expel him if he doesn’t choose an item to study and get rid of his coffee and mug. He downs the coffee in one long swig and then additionally eats the mug. “How’s *that* for special?” he replied to the exasperated swan being. It’s always about him, it seems. The rare book and manuscript he subsequently selects and brings back to the now empty table was full of it.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0404, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Nautilus

00320403

“Live around here?”

“Nooope. Pietmond,” he said. But Sunklands’ Pietmond had been destroyed long long ago. Something was up.

“Live around here?” she tried again just around the corner in a “secret” nook.

“Naah. Just here to study,” the long haired man across the loaded down table said hoarsely, as if he’d just sang a rock n’ roll concert for a 100,000 people.

The other sitting there even turned her back on the child, not wanting discourse and hoping her Goth father was about ready to split this boring town. So that takes care of Pietmond Boy, Osborne Well, and Lou…

… moving us into the opposite corner of the new Collagesity library containing an estimated 100,000 books, a book for each person at one of Osborne’s concerts to put it another way. Here: Tronesisia.

“Live around here?” she tried once more to the former pleasure bot turned tame, this child named Shelley who had given up her castle to construct this building, be with these people. But blue eyed Tronesisia was having a vision and couldn’t answer immediately.

Where had she heard this before? Blue *and* green. It didn’t compute: something was ill fitting; broken even.

“Arkansaw,” she said softly, starting to figure it out. “Arkansaw,” she said again, one blue eye changing, seeing beyond the other, seeing North beyond South.

In the center, Missouri appeared — Miss Ouri. The new librarian.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0403, Arkansas, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Missouri, Nautilus

bon appétit

“Thanks for coming over from Wendy to meet with me, Wheeler. I know you’re mighty busy over there.”

“I am (!).”

“Anyway, I see you brought your bodyguards.”

Wheeler looks at one Eighty-eight at the table in front of her, and then glances over her shoulder at the second one sitting at the table behind. “They’re still needed,” she summarizes. “176,” she totals up.

“Fascinating,” says Baker Bloch, still in sarcasm mode. They have important business to discuss tonight and better get down to it. Baker has been waiting for over 30 minutes now while Wheeler lounges about the castle library. I thought we were done with all that. He condenses these observations and says them aloud for her.

“Yeah, not quite (about the library). We have more issues to work through.” She looks around again, quicker this time. “But good we are in Ontario. I sent Dickie Doom over. He is my (original) burger.”

“You… as Wendy.”

“Yeah.”

Baker looks down at his hands through the grated table. “Center Point,” he blurts out.

“Yeah?” Wheeler waits for more, hands still in lap. Her food and drink are getting cold.

“It doesn’t come up in the Oracle. The one in Kentucky, probably the most important one. It brings to question…”

“… the Oracle itself, its veracity,” she finishes for Baker Bloch. Because they are one beneath it all as well. Just like Baker Blinker and Baker Bloch. Just like *all* the cores. There is no real separation from The One. In the end.

He produces the tic tac toe board from his inventory; is kind of irritated that Wheeler doesn’t move her dinner tray so it can be positioned more in the center of the table itself.

“So this is the game, Wheeler. Who moves first, what moves second? We don’t know. But *whoever* it is, they win.”

Wheeler takes a sip of her coffee, takes a bite of her plumeria sandwich, getting under Baker’s skin again. He doesn’t like people eating when he’s explaining something and Wheeler knows it. “This is,” she says with mouth full and muffled speech, “Collagesity.”

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0401, Collagesity Fordham-, Kentucky, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Wendy-Ontario-

00320312

The lake is just silver shores now. Debbie is gone; the situation had changed. He had Joey now. Time to head back to the underground, check on Joey, check on *Bart*. If he starts to stir again he should be there. Too bad Debbie can’t help since she’s better at recording. But she has the library gig now, she explained a bit earlier, before the mist moved in and turned everything metallic. “I… love…” he confessed, and she just POOF: gone.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0312, Wendy-Ontario-

00320307

Face stitched up as best as possible, rescuers gone, Wendy finds the portal to neighboring Ontario through a void sim thanks to the help of Dickie and some indicating, howling wolves. Delight! Maybe there’s hope for the chesskers situation after all.

“Iowa,” she spoke back to Dickie while feeling the cold wind of reality blow on her wounded face, stinging it a bit. Close!

The library can finally be left behind. Dickie waves goodbye as the darkness envelops her, wolves silent with their task done.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0307, Wendy-Ontario-

colors

“This board must be broken Debbie. I can’t get black to move first.”

It was over in 13. White (Dickie (Archibald)) had no more to say. Sister Debbie retreated back up the cave tunnel from the meeting in the underground game room to her Hobbit Hill rental, pondering what just happened and the true nature of reality. *Why* can’t black start? Who goes first, what goes second? She doesn’t know; can’t figure it out currently. There must be a game of chesskers where the rules are reversed, she ascertains later, but only after the mission is done.

—–

“We’ve just got the one piece left,” Rescue John responded to Rescue Joe’s question about the face. “But it’s a crucial one. Looks like, let’s see, we’ve got a green eye instead of a blue to match the other. Asymmetry: can’t have it.”

“Boss wouldn’t be please,” Joe said back weakly, and looked into the distance from the top of the Gap toward the Hobbit Hill rental, toward Jer and Jem’s Ragged Rocks abode, toward Tar and Jey’s watermill home, and toward the cottage on the perch currently housing interns (Devil) Dave and Karoz straight from fabled academic mecca Crabwoo after their final exams were done and over with. He knows the answer lies out there somewhere. But here… they can only insert the wrong piece for now; no other way. He says this to John, who agrees to “finish” the process with a big sigh. “Green it is,” and crams it in despite the ill fitting nature of the thing.

Wheeler can see again.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0306, Wendy-Ontario-

twirly things

“The library, as a castle-like monolith, stands against you; wouldn’t allow you back in beyond the moat, the safety net that, admittedly, also cast out others.” Hucka D. paused again, reflected. “Only One, actually. The One that stands in front of the Two (and unites them). But marriage would have to be involved. It won’t be pretty. You’d… have to get her to accept the whole of Wendy.” Pause again. “The entire body of work, as they like to say down here there.

“See it as protection instead of the obvious.”

They found some of the outfits left behind, I realized. I had been sloppy in my goings back and forth between here and there, confusing the two with each other.

—–

Reinforcements came. Like Humpty Dumpty they were able to piece her back together. Except for the face, which remained a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, missing black and white pieces still to the sides.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0305, Wendy-Ontario-

00320302

“There have been other libraries in other places. Like Crabwoo.

“Right, Karoz?” he prompted after turning.

“Are you going to answer my question about the Abyss or not?” Dave’s blue-green roommate for the exciting semester replies while applying the last bit of mascara to his face. Wendy! In all its glory. They finally made it after a long, hard stretch of work. Reward!

—–

In a different part of the dream, Karoz looks up to see a whale sized blimp pass over a backwards blue E, otherwise known as a schwa. Red seems to be a theme for tonight but it’s not Devil Dave this time. Instead, a car, and a particular car at that. One plucked from the Iowan hypercube they knew so well now.

“Your burger, sir,” Wendy offered from the side… with a side (fries), prying him away from the aerial spectacle. Perhaps he should get back in the car to receive.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0302, Bay City/Nova Albion, Iowa, Sansara, Wendy-Ontario-

00320301

On a windy day in Windy Wendy, before the castle library, wedding gown bedecked and alpha constricted Wendy jumps into the Gap, unable to decide between Axis and Tropp.

“GERONIMOOOOOO!” *SPLAT*

“Don’t look at her head, don’t look at her *head*!” the first to arrive at the cliff and peer down commands to the other. Taking the brunt of the fall, it was a plain and simple checkerboard catastrophe.

“BLEH!”

Down below: Axis first now to take turns and give still unwell Tropp a break. They couldn’t get to the body. The gap was too narrow. Reinforcements would have to be called in.

Axis’ turn now, “BLEH!”

Wheeler wakes up.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0301, Wendy-Ontario-