Tag Archives: Marg^^$++++

August 3, 2023 · 8:07 pm

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After reading Bart’s own what they later called treatise, a proper study indeed, Lisa wandered around the town as if on drugs, unable at times to distinguish the true nature of reality. “What’s this?” she asked Wanda, now working at Neptune’s Stop and Go. “An orange? A Christmas decoration? *Wait*. Too early for Christmas, since this is… dammit, what time of year *is* it?? The 4th??”

“Always the 4th,” spoke Wanda, probably part of the trance or vision or whatever was going on with the intelligent yellow gal, having confronted the nonunderstanable, even to the super smart, which she borders on at the very least. The Abyss, others call it. The Great Void. “Wha-what do you mean by that? Wanda?”

“Go home, Lisa. Go back to your maw, your paw. Do you know where you live?”

She didn’t! “No!”

“Then Sylvester will guide you. Syl-VESTERR!” she called in an impossibly loud voice.

“I’m *right* *here*,” the tuxedo cat said, popping out of the same orange and green arrangement Lisa had questioned just earlier. He leapt down on the floor, extended his hand. “Come on come on,” he urged in a slobbery voice, a bit of spittle landing on Lisa’s red shoed feet. “Your mommy and daddy are probably waiting on you, probably wondering where you are.”

“Where — I am?” She stared at the proffered white hand.”

“Go ahead,” urged Wanda from the side. “It’s your only hope.”

Only hope. She grabbed the paw and went out the door.

The cat was gone. Bart appeared on a skateboard, did a nifty turn to halt the thing and come right up on her. “Jesus, Lisa. Mom and Dad were worried sick! Now why did you have to stomp out like that, like some kind of zombie? And where is my paper?! I have to turn it in tomorrow. Did you throw it in the trash? Jeez, Lisa, why would you do such a thing? Didn’t you like it? I know I’m not as smart and don’t read nearly as much as you — heck, I hardly read at *all*. But… hey Lisa. You all right? Can you hear me? Jeez. We better get you home, Lisa. I better walk you home. If I only could connect myself all up, jeez, I guess I could do that very thing. But, as you can see…”

Something was wrong, very wrong. Bart had scared Lisa to pieces with his words.

She wakes up?

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August 3, 2023 · 2:11 am

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Lisa got permission to view the film because she was in a class for special children and was doing a project for it. Eventual title: “How Milk was Born.” Bartholomew, *not* being a special child and thus not in the same class with the same privileges, didn’t get the same permission. But oh did he watch the same film, over and over again, 5 times in total. He snuck out of his bedroom every night at 10:45 with the help of Lemmy the Magic Tree that was once a mortal enemy with a net and a knife. Lemmy had grown up to be a friend, putting childish rivalries away.

“Lemmy, come over here again,” Bartholomew requested, and a branch was extended, big enough to hold a boy his size and allow him to drop to the ground safely. “Thanks Lemmy,” Bartholomew said at the bottom, loud enough for the tree to hear through his “ears” but not loud enough to alert the parents, usually preparing for bed by this time or already in it. The tree rustled its leaves in answer and Bartholomew was on his way through the backs of lots and down alleys full of cats and rats. On to the 88.

First night:

“*Bart*. What are you doing here??” And so on with the reprimands for a while, which were dampened when Lisa learned that her little brother desired to create a report on the film too, and that he’d show those stuck ups at school he can make something of his life. “I’ll… help,” she finally relented. “Shhh, the movie is starting,” said Bartholomew to this, more eager than ever to be a success.

Lisa only went that one time, thinking with her superior brain that’s all she needed. Bartholomew attended the whole week up until Friday night when the regular people in town would be able to go and he might be caught and told on. So that was Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday, happy days indeed.

(to be continued)

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July 19, 2023 · 8:26 am

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“April May June passed so fast April Mae Flowers. Now it’s July…”

“And we’re resurrected, yes,” replied Herbert Glenn Gold’s wife of 47 (?) years. “Waiting for action. ‘Annnnnd…'” she attempts to joke like a director. “Remember what happened last time.”

“Um hmm,” Herbert murmured while nodding, wondering where his pudding is. How could he eat his pudding without his meat, though? Strange thought.

“So much promise over on the Jeogeot continent. So much disappointment. House *deleted* after, what was it, 1 month?”

“At that,” Herbert Gold replied, even a bit more disappointed than April Mae over the affair. Speaking of which; he should bring this up now, before we get too far into the story. “I saw Merry Hill Gouldbusk the other day. Supermarket,” he continued. “She had 2 apples and one banana and then excused herself to the cashier and got one orange and slotted it between the 2 foods before the whole thing was rung up, all the items in that order. She was trying to tell me something. She didn’t seem to recognize me, though. I was shocked.”

“Gold face still in place?” April Mae only asked with a little venom. She was use to such sidetracking. After 48 (48!) years you learn to put up with a lot. And fantasizing about a woman half your age is not at the top of the shit list, not any more.

“Yes. Red hair still too.” Herbert stopped here, thinking back, which April Mae spotted. Still worth a hundred dollars? she wanted to ask but held her tongue. Long time ago now. They had bigger worries now, like how to cope with growing old. They had to stick together on this one. She’d seen Mr. Platinum, she’d seen the future. They could not turn back the clock.

“When did you get so tall, dear?” she diverted. She looked right. “And where is our favorite painting on the wall, the Blue Panther? The one we stole from… oh, I can’t recall, hmph, I can’t recall them all.”

Herbert slouched down and then answered the second. “I believe the farmer boy is bringing it over later.”

“What farmer boy?”

Herbert reconsidered. “No, I think it was repossessed. By the Blue Panther and his, erm, agent. Back at the end of novel 36. They came huffing and puffing up the hill to the house. Hill House we wanted to name it. But not after Merry.”

“Of course not,” April Mae waved the idea off. She tried to remember the repossession.

—–

Later in his study he remembered it was a gardener and not a farmer that his wife had had an affair with.

Later on the john, April Mae remembered that the art was destroyed instead of repossessed.

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July 3, 2023 · 2:24 am

Permaglow

She went back the next day to meet him. She knew to sit far apart and she also wore a mask for extra protection. Many said he didn’t exist but she knew better. She felt the chills of reality pass through her almost daily.

“I can’t… stop glowing,” he said to her across the patio holding the 3 Meter Monument. “I *can’t*… stop *glowing*.”

But what to do for him? Marg was dead. Homer had lost his head. Lisa, yes. She must contact the sister, the author of the other, lesser treatise on the controversial “perhaps sentence”. Not the channeler/psychic Bart was but still the only hope, she knew. And, chance has it, they had a mutual friend, even though she still didn’t know that fact.

Back home:

“Tarnation, woman! TV dinners again?! Where you been all day girl!?” She, of course, couldn’t tell him, except that she’d been walking per usual. Cowboys never see the other side. “I’m going to stake you down with a rope,” he warned. “Just like a big, fat cow I am.” He was close to her face now, rage in his eyes, nose, mouth, everything. Her window of opportunity to help the boy was closing. She’d need allies, at least one. And he was very close as fortune would have it. Now to somehow bring them together, hmm.

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October 19, 2021 · 5:57 am

Turkey Day for most

After dinner they all gathered around the boob tube to watch Greyscale Kimball give her annual Thanksgiving speech about the state of the South. “It is good,” she exclaims while the snow clears from the picture. “It is strong,” she follows. “The Heart Queen and I continually work together to make things better for all of us, including the conquered if not the vanquished.”

“I wish she wouldn’t talk like that about the North,” Lisa opines from her middle position. “Everyone knows it comes back to bite them in the ass now.”

“Lii-sa,” Bartholomew complains about what he considers a cussword in the house. But he looks around and sees no parents in the room and realizes all is okay. It’s just the kids. The parents are upstairs — doing another annual tradition while the children watch TV. Bart forgot that fact. He tries to block out the faint noise of bedsprings, which he thought was the small twittering of a bird outside before. Now he can’t get it out of his head. He moves toward the TV. “Don’t mind if I turn it up, I suppose.” Points to his ears. “Can’t hear.”

“It’s these old Sylvanias,” says Rose Wells the neighbor who they often pretend is their sister or at least sister-in-law, big for her age of 12. She’s already studying boxes, wondering what’s in the far corners of space while chewing choco chip cookies late at night on top of her house. She intuitively understands the cube, if not tangibly yet. Models would come first. Then reality. “Greyscale forbids the sale of colored TVs beyond the Line of Demarcation,” she finishes.

“The old battle line,” chips in Bart, hip to the 3 1/2 day North-South War from sex history class. Taming the elephants from the Shallows (Flats to the Northerners) was the turning point, he recalls. Just bulled right through the lines after that. He tries to focus back in on the speech…

“… Sinkology has proven, once and for all, that the Pipersville bomb was never set off. The South has nothing –”

“Hey, Rose,” he says to his faux sister beyond Lisa, having heard all this before a hundred times and getting bored.

“Shh,” she says back, still interested.

“– no one was hurt, no one was even injured. The bomb–”

“Hey. Rose,” Bart insisted. “I saw you up on the roof the other night. What are you studying? Stars?”

“– the inevitability of colored TVs to corrupt…”

“Space itself,” she decided to answer, turning away for the moment. “I’m making–”

“– and the corruption spread from town to town, region to re–”

“… a model.”

“Oh?” Bart was interested.

“Will you 2 please pipe down,” said Lisa between them. “Do you want to switch places with me, Bartholomew, so you can talk to your *real* sister?”

“Pheh, ain’t nobody claiming we aren’t yellow.” “Bird twitterings” upstairs again. Greyscale was wrapping it up.

“And so, the Queen and I bid you farewell until next year when, special surprise, the *King* will be joining us.”

All stare at the black and white TV with open mouths. Snow comes in again, hiding the exit ceremonies. Static fills the air, just in the nick of time. Mom and dad upstairs had just reached the end as well.

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October 14, 2021 · 8:58 am

Bell is serial

“Honey?”

“Yes, Homie.” So raspy. She was between compositions now, deciding what to play next at her beloved pink upright.

“Do we know anyone named Wells, as in well well well?” The internet search had rung a bell. “Indian Wells”, the name on several of his daughter’s records, the stuff he couldn’t stomach in the least. “Well Well Well, If It Isn’t Indian,” was a particular (comeback) album that stuck out for him. He set aside the pictures of donuts for just one minute and tried it.

“*Well, Homie, they were our next door neighbors for 15 years is all.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, the musical family. The ones you couldn’t stand.”

“I can’t stand *any* of our neighbors.”

“Well you should get to know them better… obviously. They moved away I suppose, hmmm, about 5 years ago. Right before…” She stopped. She didn’t want to talk about Bartholomew and how he left in the middle of the night after declaring all of them 2 dimensional and unreal. He’d had enough. Now he’s sorry and wishes to return to the good graces of the father especially. But Homer would have none of it — sic Itchy the family dog on him if necessary to chase him away again. But Bartholomew is still trying, with new boss Alysha’s urging. Maybe it wasn’t worth it to keep knocking on and beating on and pleading through a front door that would remain locked, doorbell never rung. Because *Lisa* knew how to ring the bell, making their hearts sing. Wild thing remains ostracized, despite Lisa’s support. She’s in touch with Alysha as well; wonders about her change from black to red hair. My cousin dyed her hair red, she ponders one night while listening to the adored, atonal croonings of Indian Wells again on her pink record player upstairs, Primary Rabbit and a peculiar, sticky-outy potted plant between them. Made her wild as well… like Bart. She imagines embracing him again, pretending he is real and standing before her. The little yellow fellow, always smaller than her despite the age advantage. He told his father that he was going to straighten his life out, stop going in circles forever and ever and that he knew he was in a rut. But his father was too much like him and wouldn’t listen.

“I’m going to shut the computer off now,” he rather shouted over to Marg, who had started again. She stopped and imagined them switching places, she at his computer and he at her piano. What would *he* compose? Something like Indian Wells? Wouldn’t that be just.

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October 8, 2021 · 8:23 am

she’s coming home

He was playing on the keyboard.

She was belting out the piano.

The front door rang. No one knew where they lived. Who could it be?

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September 26, 2021 · 7:54 am

Close enough.

A girl within. Looks like Jill Valentine but it’s not. And I’ve run into another girl named Valentine recently. Can’t remember where…

Oh, of course: *Faye* Valentine. With the gun. On the *other* Diagonal we’re currently examining.

Cowboy Bebop. Mimosa Lanes. Ur-parents. Still guiding (“We: here”). Hoooome cooking, Andy Griffith NC style.

—–

Marion “Star” Harding, cowboy for life, ponders the death of his lover, his *director*, in that awful explosion over in Paper-Soap. Oh Heidi — or whatever your actual name was — I will miss you deeply. I will miss the *money* coming in, because I was one of your favorites. You cast me in every film you directed, and even though I didn’t get every part (too obvious!), I got a good heap of ’em. We were together tonight, albeit briefly.

All we have are memories.

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August 21, 2021 · 10:10 am

something to behold

“It’s a beautiful land, Mr. Koala.” Kolya didn’t correct his name for Mr. Lemon. Now he wasn’t sure if it *was* Kolya. Koala (Koyala) sounds good too. “You should talk to your owner about moving here — if the price is right. We, the residents of this place, would certainly welcome you. Open arms!”

“I think…” he started, “my owner… wants to stay between the two roads.”

“13 and 14, yes. M and N. Makes sense.” Lemon’s eyes start watering. He soo wanted the stranger to… take his place. This *man*.

Pear swinging in the hammock nearby in this treehouse in disguise chimed in. “Wizard,” he said in a voice pitched higher than the rest, even Lemon. “This man is a wizard.” It was as if he were reading his partner and friend Lemon’s mind. And so it is.

“The birds will decide,” declared Lemon back into Pear’s own mind without saying it aloud this time. “As they always do.”

Kolya went to the balcony, attracted by the sound of a passing eagle. It seemed to say his name (but which one?).

“He can do it he can do it he CAN… do it,” opined Pied Flycather to friend Yellow Crowned Gonolek down below, who wasn’t so sure.

More opinions will come.

(to be continued)

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August 11, 2021 · 6:19 am

home cook’n

“Your… hair. It’s very… blue.”

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