Tag Archives: Lichen Roosevelt^^++++

ice cream dress 02

She woke up at 8 o’clock, another force of habit,  in her starry tent, still wearing her similarly star studded ice cream outfit — the reason Marilyn knew where she belonged. She checked her legs underneath the sky purple covers. Wooden one still there, ugh. What was she *thinking*? Her Husband assured her that California was safe, and that navels were still in the center of bodies and the supreme deity known as All Orange would protect the rest. “You just have to make sure it shows a bit,” he said as they packed to leave, and demonstrated it on himself, tying his shirt above his somewhat bulging stomach. Outie. Not her cup of tea, but then some of the other parts made up for it. She recalls walking around an art gallery across the road from Rhodenwald with original hubby Axis, staring at the red and green paintings. “‘Green Monster’ — over there.” He pointed. Ruby’s life changed. She suddenly remembered the wall, the tree beings, *everything*. And Wally and its Wallytown still lives, last time she checked anyway. Not far atall from her old sim. Protection at last?

She had to go back, she determined then and there. And, dangit, she thought — checking the inworld map in her head — only a couple sims to the south and east from here. Fate. She went downstairs and thanked ever-bartending Marilyn for the good night’s sleep and trodded in that direction, trying to compensate for the slightly shorter leg and not walk around in circles.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, New Island^, Wallytown/Fishers Island^, Ruby's Empire/Fishers Island^, Omega^^, The Straight^, The Cross^, 0410, 0038

ice cream dress

After donning her last remaining Flasherman’s outfit, she crossed with the good leg, force of habit. Her Boyfriend noticed.

“I strongly suggest you get the other one done to match the first. Else you’ll go around lopsided the rest of your life, see?” But that would mean going back.

Ruby Roo stared into the mirror at her one remaining good gam, wondering if she could do it. Her Husband still sat beyond the wall of spirals over there, savoring what he’d just seen (the jumping). Her Boyfriend over here was helping her adjust to the new, post-California, Nevada style life with a wooden leg covered all over with those same type of spirals. “You could say the war did it,” he suggested. “Both of them, in fact.”

SUDDENLY he was gone, along with the hubby, along with all the cool furniture of the place. Then the skybox residence as a whole disappeared; just winked out of existence. She fell fell fell from the sky. We’ve been here before…

Of course she didn’t die when landing from her almost 4000 meter drop, merely bounced a bit. Afterwards she dusted herself off, as was standard for Our Second Lyfe avatars undergoing such a thing, and looked around, spotting a skyscraper on a nearby parcel. She walked inside, explained her situation to a handy bartender named Marilyn. “I was with My Husband. I was with My Boyfriend. Now I’m not.”

“We’ll put you up for a while,” she said, and knew just where. She’d heard such Wall stories before.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, Wallytown/Fishers Island^, Ruby's Empire/Fishers Island^, Omega^^, The Straight^, The Cross^, 0409, 0038

00350706

“So, Residents of Paradise Lost, we, Shelley and I, head back to Omaha, which is in Oklahoma after all!”

“You’ll never make it!” shouted Fern below, reunited with Lichen since the latter was finished with her horse subplot. Poor Liz. “Wrong state, buddy!” she clarified.

But Abbey Abdominator, the Grey who was also several other people of this town, as in an actor playing multiple roles in the same film,* knew exactly how this thing worked… and ended. “So long everyone!” he said as the balloon rose into the sky and he expertly maneuvered it due north, soon enough dwindling to a point and gone as the few townspeople gathered on the rooftop at the launching pad kept staring….

Shelley snapped awake, pulling away from The Void, The Emptiness. Arthur, she immediately thought. I’ve got to tell Arthur!

—–

*SEE: Harry/Jerry, MessiaenSphere, Wizard Wells, Big Boy, Billy Bloodsworth, others

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0035, 0706, Nautilus, Omega^^, Southern

00350705

“We demand to see The Wizard!” spoke Lichen and Liz together after marching into the room, trotting into it even.

“Wizard?” replied receptionist Cathy Catchulater. “Oh. You mean *Abs*. The Wizard *boss*.”

“Well,” said Lichen for the both of them, being the eldest by 10 or 15 years or days, “that could be him I suppose. What does he look like?”

Cathy showed them a picture she had ready for the question.

“Yeah,” she sighed and peered over at also onlooking Liz. “I suppose that’s him.” Alien, she thinks. Grey even. What have we gotten ourselves into??

“Have a seat on a cube, any cube,” said Cathy C. “He should be with you in about 10 or 15 minutes or days. Just kidding. He’ll see you now. He was waiting for you. President’s Ball.”

“Presidents?” uttered Liz, quite lost by now. She was into the whole horse persona deeper than Lichen, who had escaped the iciest clutches of The Void. Seeing this, Lichen ditched her own, got rid of the plume, harness, that *tail*, yeck.

“Now *you*,” she commanded over as the confusion lifted. Freedom!

——

But Liz didn’t have the guts to do it, fear retaking the reigns. She stood up from the cube and took a seat at the mirror in the guts of the town, waiting, like her equine fellows, for the next customer, hopefully a fellow this time. Because, unlike most of the batty people around her, the *inmates*, she wasn’t a switch hitter. Heck, she wasn’t even a pinch hitter, needing out in the worstest way. However her story is more complicated than the rest, perhaps, and we’ll have to wait till a future photo-novel to find out more about our lovely Liz, our beacon of hope. Goodbye for now! And the best of luck until you find an opening. Hold onto Trixy — she’s a dear. And Betty, despite her faults (like long and unexplained hiatuses from the, er, set), has a heart of gold. Argent — stay away from her, despite the name symbolizing purity as well. And Angel will act as a mother figure to you all. Build your imaginations. Pretend that you are somewhere far away with someone very special indeed, without warts and awful battle wounds and all those other things you will encounter. Stay strong, stay brave!

“Next!” calls Angel from the front room.

“That’s you,” Trixy says softly from the bed beside her.

“‘Bout time,” gruffed Argent with crossed arms in the corner. Think that’s it. Betty was in a different game this week exploring San Andreas.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0035, 0705, Omega^^, Southern

00350703 (one off)

Inky McOilwell just before getting fired, then terminated. Didn’t see or hear the leak behind her on Sunday’s Tuesday’s Thursday of last week’s Monday’s Wednesday. The specific day was Friday I believe, unless it was Saturday. Unhappy for Inky whatever.

Despite the loss, the ridge rig kept working, thanks in part to today’s fresh recruits…

… like Ginger here, just come over from the satellite base in Azzlebury and preparing for her 10th bath of the day.

And… is that Franklin watering the plants over there? She’s alive (!).

Jesus, Lichen and Liz in their horse costumes coming through the gate now too!

—–

Fern felt she was still 1 step ahead of them, despite the progress. “What did I do to you to deserve this is all I want to know,” the fellow boat riding minion spoke up to them from his tight fitting cage.

“You exist,” spoke Fern as plainly as possible. “1/2 fruit or vegetable, 1/2 robot… all bastard. And where’s the banana I gave you to eat? Did you throw it overboard? I don’t see the peel. Better not litter in this water. You know what happens to people — and creatures — when they misbehave around here”

“I–I…” He admitted he ate the banana peel and all. He was confused about what he was suppose to do. Yeah, he was told not to litter. Why do you think he did it? he asked them.

“Throw him in the water,” Boatman Neil said for not the first time, tired of the yapping and begging and whining. “Let the underwaters have him.” He thought about his own encounter with MessianSphere not 3 years ago. But somehow he escaped. Or did he?

“No. We need him,” spoke Fern softly back to Neil only. Because she had a plan. Fern always had a plan, for every occasion. And 7/6ths into a photo-novel still without a plot was a special one indeed. Unprecedented if memory serves, unless it was 11, 16, 21, 26, 31.

We move on…

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0035, 0703, Omega^^, Southern

00350701

Harlie and friends head into the woods today for a little more inmate bashing.

—–

“So what did you hear over there?”

“The wedding is *definitely* off.”

“Good, good. So I guess we’ll be getting a little cake from all this.”

“Saved you a piece.”

“Mmmm *mmm*.”

—–

“No, this one’s not wine. Instead: Jeannie.”

“Genie, eh?” Derick was now more interested than ever. He’d always wanted superpowers of some kind. Hero School wasn’t hacking it for him.

“Yeah, but spelled with a j. And an extra n, And an a. Talking about a person… in a bottle. Found it on a beach where I crash landed in my Gemini or perhaps Mercury space capsule, we don’t know which. Could be a 2 seater, could be 1. A mystery, a conundrum. All for a nickle.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

Thinking of Lichen here, Fern said: “I never joke.” But maybe I should more, she thinks. The Claude-Fern combination was pretty funny though, or so Lichen told me afterwards. I have ultimate respect for her opinion on those matters.

“I’ll give you 5000 dollars, that’s my lowest offer.” Derick knew the bottle was probably cursed, didn’t want to insult the Gods of the thing by swindling this poor stupid lady who came in from the beach or wherever.

“Call it 10000 and I’ll throw in the mate,” Fern said, reeling in a fish. Now she can pay off her gambling debts from this morning.

—–

At the next table over:

“This wine has a finger in it.”

“And it’s mine!”

“Ah HA HA HA HA HA HA!”

What’s so funny over there? wonders Fern as Derick studies the second bottle.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0035, 0701, Omega^^, Southern

00350611

It takes planning to go to Earth from Space, how to get in but also how to get out successfully. Reverse parachutes must be prepared.

Abs was monitoring the situation over in France for this. Fern Stalin and Lichen Roosevelt had come and gone, nothing detected with their inferior Star Team detectors, blah (he thinks). Apollo inferred through logical progression of Mercury into Gemini. Abs knew his old pal Virgil was involved at the top (as he liked to say). “Get him on the receiving end the old lemon sucker,” he requested, nay demanded to another underling named Alan, a variant astronaut of the solo kind. Virgil had a sense of humor about it now, since he knew selves were living all over the globe and being born and dying with regularity under different guises and under different circumstances, some long and drawn out departures, some (like his own) not so much. Extreme pain and no pain and all degrees between. Like Archie Reiner in Meat Town. We’ll get to his story soon (or not).

We decided to meet in an alley near the center of town. Virgil said he liked the view of the surrounding Alps here and planned to go skiing with his friends Ed and Roger afterwards. They hadn’t seen each other in a while, he said. Time to go past the pain of betrayal — start healing the wounds of this broken broken world, he declared to me, sincerity showing in his eyes, his facial expressions, his body posturing. Here was a man of integrity, ready to fight for a just cause. If justice involved making a pact with the Greys so be it. Abs himself wasn’t in line with the mainstream thinking of his kind. They were both rebels, hopefully with a cause. Together.

“Something about that Alley,” said Fern from afar, having dreamed about it since their visit. “I think we should go back; take the alien made detectors this time.”

Lichen was up for it. Just had to wrap up the horse subplot.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0035, 0611, France, Illinois

stop and go

“See the whirlybird, Tabitha? Whirl whirl,” she emphasized with a twirling finger. “Whir whir,” the toddler she was holding mimicked without the finger. The actual birds in the vicinity, doves, remained frozen between them, opposing frantic spinning with rigid stasis in protest of the “invasion”. Or so legend goes: frozen birds, later the inspiration for a frozen pie company.

Tar stepped out of the copter, followed by Guit. The experimental, guitar oriented punk-folk fusion band Tar Guit had landed in rebuilt Moray Docks Village, ready to put on a celebratory show for the ages. Trouble was, they sucked.

—–

I suck at this game, thought Liz. But I’m not going to let these bastards known it. Fiction power: on!

She expertly places the 1st black stone. Everyone had to play clean, the rules stated. So they washed them down before the match, these opposing horses or ponies. They couldn’t take a water or food break until it was over. The Watchers were going to have a good time with this. Because they knew Liz couldn’t resist. Then at the end they’d all give her a big Thumbs Down despite her seeming big win. “In reality,” they might chide, “you couldn’t beat Lichen with one hoof tied behind your midsection. Black never succumbs to white!”

“Does so!” she might exclaim back, and end it all with a fall of cards, or, in this case, a shower of rocks, inharmonious black and white mixing together in a fused mish-mash all around.

Robot servant Ruttitutti shows up, ready to take food and drink orders. It was over.

—–

Thank God, most of the scattering concert goers thought.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0035, 0603, Nautilus, North, Omega^^, Southern

black and white

“She’s somewhere in that prison.” Lichen Roosevelt glances up. “Tall and narrow.”

“Like in the windows,” her companion Fern Stalin said for clarification, mainly to the reader of this here text. “The prison itself is rather short and squat, despite appearances from our angle.”

“Right right. Well?”

“France was a no go,” Fern said to Lichen.”Nothing in Mercury-Gemilli, or what we could detect at the time.”

“We had our Star Team tricorders,” said Lichen to this. “We should have sensed something if something was there.”

“Maybe later,” encouraged Fern.

“Maybe later,” echoed Lichen.

They begin to prepare for scaling the walls…

—–

“Liz!” Lichen exclaimed, waking her up.

“Shhhh. Keep it down!” she whispered as loud as safely possible, she felt. But she was overjoyed at the sight. At long last they meet almost eye to eye again. Get me out of here!

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0035, 0602, France, Omega^^, Southern

Fern’s figurings

“Oh, on a more minor note I think I figured out the tiger angle, Marilyn slash Lichen. I found another picture (of one) bumming around the property, coupled with an Auburn logo on the front of a dartboard cabinet. Auburn — Tigers. The owner must be an alum.

“Cool (pause). Anything else?” Subtext: Are you ready to go to France now?

“Nah. Guess that’s it.”

“We better line our ducks up in a row then.”

“Nice.”

—–

earlier:

“Oh yeah, you know I told you I showed up in Gemini (sim) on the beach, in that capsule. But, get this, it was a *Mercury* capsule, not the 2 man Gemini one. 1 man capsule. Here’s the thing. When Major Nelson comes back to Earth in his capsule and washes up on the beach with Jeannie also in that capsule.”

“Her bottle,” clarified Marilyn

“Yeah.”

“And you set her free.”

“Yeah, but my point is that Mercury was a solo act, for one astronaut. Major Nelson arrived alone on the beach, so it also must have been a one man capsule. He must have been a part of the Mercury Project. But here’s the thing. Later on, Major *Healy* said he also was there on the beach when Jeannie’s bottle was uncorked. So that makes it Gemini instead of Mercury — two man capsule instead of one — no other way. This is the retconned aspect, as I’ve studied up on. The beginning of the show was changed, modified. Whose memories are right, Nelson or Healy?”

“That’s a major memory problem, ha.”

“Good one. So… what you think? Mercury? Gemini? Which one would *you* choose?”

“Maybe we don’t have to,” Marilyn says cryptically, thinking of another location she’d learned through her comedy act (That’s why the French don’t wash, etc.) where the 2 are effectively merged, major problem solved.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0035, 0516, France, Gemini, Hana Lei^^