Tag Archives: Marilyn^^++++$

34th Street

“I’m just saying you haven’t been the same, since… since…”

“Cincinnati. Just say it.”

“Bench.”

“I know,” he interrupted again, knowing the story all too well.

“It was a lot of lumber!”

“He deserved it.” Silence for a bit, then: “I guess we’re going to talk about Rose next. The *ul-timate* Red.”

She shook her head. “No. No, I’m just saying…”

“It was the frigg’n Metz!” he exclaimed, finally raising his voice on the subject, as he almost always does. “How would I know, a MIRACLE would occur?”

“It,” she tried to calm him down, “was… a long time ago.”

“Not in my nogg’n.” He knocked on his head. It made a hollow sound. Lumber again. Bench would get his revenge. “The whole *team*, was jinxed. Just look at their names. Rose, pheh. Bench, *huff*. Perez… well that one was kind of normal. But *Morgan*.”

“Now dearest, why don’t we wrap up some more presents,” she distracted again. “Then afterwards, afterwards…” She dangled her leg seductively. No need to think about 69 any longer. *That* 69.  It was often the only way to get him to shut up about it once he started. Now the other leg joined the first: two danglers. Would he take the bait?

—–

“Tom… SEEVER!” he said to end. Always the same.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0514, Iowa, Paper Soap, Soap

Paper… Soap

An expert at 4 was called in to help with the transition from whole to half: Dr. Rabbid Baumbeer, last seen wheeling this dark baby around NWES City over on the Jeogeot continent one last time before putting it in storage. Stored no more; out and about again. Thanks to Zoidboro and the magically pronounced words.

Mr. Yellow glances in at the *plant* sitting beside him in the yellow chair, the cheese being also known as Marilyn but seldom seen in that guise except for the gifted of sight. She’d even given him back his attached rats to make him pure rabbit again, although he didn’t know it in the moment. He talks to his supervisor via phone. Dr. Mouse. Dr Mouse? Yes. Dr. Mouse.

“Good, good,” he says about the setup over at the new rental beside the old parsonage Zoidboro was kicked out of just yesterday’s today’s tomorrow. He knew now he was (also) fully back to life. He imagined he could throw a stone from his asylum and it would hit the roof, perhaps rolling down to knock his agent on the head. In fact, I think he went up to his own roof to gauge if this were actually possible. Let’s take a pic of it.

No: a bit too far still; trees kind of in the way. He can’t help but point with his cane at what irritates him presently, old habits dying hard.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0512, Paper, Paper Soap, Soap

pulling a Rundgren

She listened to Keith B.’s drumming, trying to determine whether it was ultimately soothing or just irritating. Somewhere in the middle, as a lot of stuff is, she thought. He hadn’t answered her earlier question about what he found out at the ranger’s station this morning; dodged the question in fact, it seemed to her. Just started drumming after lunch. Drumming and drumming. Her right hand wanted to clap, but her left hand wanted to slap.

“I — feel — so — *young*!” he called over.

Pheh, she thought, not noticing the difference while looking away. Might as well still be peeing in his outhouse.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0510, Paper, Paper Soap

00300509

Safe Zone — where had Keith B. heard that expression? Of course: *Marilyn*. He asked about it to Jim B., currently playing the role of Alvin Jr., son of Alvin Sr. who climbed that beanstalk in Wales all the way to… some say The Moon, others: Uranus. But, as stated, we happen to know it was Mars, an in-between compromise.

Alvin Jr. listened to the query, wishing that darn phone would ring for a change and interrupt this conversation, hopefully distract Keith B. to a different topic. And why did he come down here to the ranger station anyway this morning? Must be looking for more spots to hunt, Alvin mused. “Safe Zone?” he answered Keith B. “Oh, that’s just a map that came with the station. Has nothing to do with the actual park here. Just a generic map. I… haven’t even looked at it that closely.” He peers at the map he knows all too well, pretending to see it as with new eyes. “Echo, eh?” he says, pronouncing the map name below Safe Zone. “Overrun,” he continues in that vein. He thinks of the zombies here, the Germans, but also the Italians. Came in through the portal from the Great War. “Sounds like, eh, something from a game or something, dunno.” He shakes his head, convincingly he hopes. He’s surprised Keith B. hadn’t seen the map before but that was just part of the magic of the place, good and bad. You often see things when you’re suppose to, not when common sense tells you you should. Keith B. should have spotted this anomaly of a map long ago, inquired about the Safe Zone shortly after he arrived in Paper-Soap, say. But it was the same with Alvin. *Jr.*. People kept mixing him up with his  dear old papa and it irritated the *hell* out of him. He’d stopped going to church because of it. But he’d heard there was new trouble brewing over there. He decides to ask Keith — a presented tangent after all.

“Heard Preacher Zoidboro knocked the congregation for a loop yesterday,” he frames it. He knew the power of the 4 would come in eventually and attempt to topple the totalitarianism of the 3. And he knew the Monolith would have something to do with it — just didn’t know the details. Until now.

“Ah, yes,” Keith B. said back, prying his eyes from the map to Alvin Jr.’s relief. He’s going to subtly alter that thing as soon as the man from Nautilus leaves. Take out mention of the Safe Zone first. There *is* no Safe Zone. Thanks to Keith, pheh.

Turns out the congregation of the Trinity Church is split down the middle on the subject of 3 vs. 4. It’s the beanstalk all over again, thinks Alvin.

5 years ago:

“You alright up there Pops!!”

“Pops!!?”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0509, Paper, Paper Soap, Sansara

birthplace of TILE (‘nother one)

“Listen to these words,” Preacher Zoidboro commands from his pulpit of power, shuffling the first page back to the top. He’d been reading it all afternoon and then one evening and then another afternoon after a morning break for contemplation. It had been slipped under the door to his parsonage out back at 7:15 on Tuesday by the blackest of hands, as dark as licorice candy. “‘Four’s Company, parentheses, Three’s a Crowd, close parentheses,'” he starts, reading the title first of course. “‘Let’s make this,’ ahem, ‘shit happen.'”

Gasps from the audience, but not from the pronouncement of the word shit, deemed a cuss word in this here neck of the woods. They couldn’t hear that part the preacher said it so low. Instead: the inferred defamation of the Holy Trinity. It was in the name of the church! What in Hell’s Bells was the Preacher thinking, doing this? they thought as one.

“‘Let’s begin with a,’ uherm, ‘joke, quote unquote,'” he continues to read from Sepisexton’s text on the mount. Sweat beads on his forehead. Dare he go through with it? Alvin would be pleased, though. He always liked Alvin. “‘A Spade walks into a bar with a Heart,'” he ventures forward into a brave new world. “‘The audience says nothing.'”

The audience says nothing.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0508, Paper, Paper Soap

00300505

“I’m as high as you (*wheeze*) now. Let’s trade.” He hands him the chips, he passes him the bong. The cycle begins again.

Having finished chopping the wood for tonight, Greg Ogden plays on his roundabout, also going in circles but in a different way. He’s getting in the mood to paint.

In a darker perspective, rogue clown Sepisexton sits down by the small beach of the same rental unit and ponders a cry, thinking back to when she was just Sepi and Sexton all separated out. She wonders if she should split, depressing party over except for the really serious heads like Even and Steven smushed together over there on the bench behind that painted Martin rock. She decides it should be between sections 6 and 7 of this here photo-novel, 30 in a series of, dare I say it, 31? Because there will be a 7 born from 6 the way things are progressing, fer sure. Just like the last one (but unlike 28, 27, 26 before it).

Let’s see, what else here? There’s Ted, another head, on the swings that won’t swing. He doesn’t care at this point, tripping the light fantastic.

And then of course the Monolith itself towering above it all, which Greg will paint a bit later for the umpteenth time. Call it his new Treasure Hill. He plans to make bookoos of money from the art soon. Very soon, he contemplates. As soon as Agents 23 and 47 phone him back with some figures. But in truth they were just investigating his drug ring, being police and not business agents. They’d have enough evidence for a bust soon. Let’s call them Crack and Whack.

Oh, I forgot about Marilyn back at one of the teepees beside Keith B.’s cabin on the other side of the Monolith from Greg’s rental unit, just across the long and dusty road. ‘Nother one, pheh: currently plucking feathers from a hen for a new batch of arrows while Sylvester the Stallion looks on…

… make that chipping an arrowhead with a chisel and ballhammer. Um…

She turns her back on peeing Keith B. while carving an arrow shaft with a chore knife, the final tableau, wondering why he doesn’t do his business in the woods like all the other animals. The place still stinks but she doesn’t mind — she’s not the neighbor who complained (Suzzy Q, the teepee dweller across the way who up and moved day before yesterday’s tomorrow). Probably infected with the virus as well, wouldn’t you think, perhaps catching it from him. Because they were an item, maybe still are. She reminds him so much of his sister, which is probably not a good thing. She feels safe around him — her Safe Zone here — because she knows he would kill to protect her. He blacks out and another stuffed animal is set up in the woods just over there next to a cave, or perhaps just over here beside a camping tent. Like Mother.

Done (both of them). “Head’s up!” she calls. An arrow whizzes by, just missing his now forward facing abdomen and landing at his feet.

(to be continued?)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0505, Paper, Paper Soap

a state of being timeless

“Avalon,” he said without turning, remaining old and gray instead of black and white. The Room would always be his center, another Box come to think of it. Trapped.

“Yeah,” ditzy blonde Marilyn says back to him, still cleaning that glass, almost wearing it out like with sandpaper now. She should think of another task to perform. She’s stuck as if in a rut. But at least her mouth, her *mind* is still working forward. As well as backwards. “Some say Our Second Lyfe started here — in Dex — instead of Babylon.”

“Whore of Babylon,” he responded. “There *is* no Whore of Babylon.” He should know since he was there. “It’s all… make-believe.” He said it with disgust, she thought. He’s bitter about something else. A hidden truth. He could have done the deed as well as young Travis, she gleaned. If circumstances were different. She turned.

He assumed the position of a man, she a woman.

“You know, I had a sister once,” he started his confession on that late April day on the 4th of July.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0412, Nautilus, Rim Isles, Yd Island^

Old and White

The wheels in his mind kept spinning. I’m in Dex, he thought rapidly. But in olden days this island, this *town*, was named Avalon according to that map over there on the wall, not too far from (the Isle of) Babylon but also: not too close. A gap between, but Smaller Water instead of Bigger Water. He had to prepare. The past meets the future and it’s not pretty. Pink (or red) does not bode well for a man. He’d been tested. Red it was. The lipstick remained. He could not remove it now, however hard he tried.

“Try again,” W. urged from the side, still just out of sight, of reach. He could only talk to her as if via phone.

She remained black and white as she twirled and whirled, like a rotisserie chicken in the Wild West of Nautilus, he believed, beyond the reach of phone. Hurry up, he thought, rid of the lipstick for now but not for long. This was a battle of Madam and I’m Adam. He turns.

At least Marilyn is here. Sing us that national anthem again, dearest.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0411, Nautilus, Rim Isles, Yd Island^

purple mountains 02

“Long night again, Joey?”

“Ahh yes, I *need* this.” The kangaroo has spoken.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0403, ENIGMA, Nautilus, Wild West

Wild West

He kept looking toward the window beside the door at me instead of the action in the ring. In the ring.

“New around here?” asked Lichen Roosevelt, tending bar in this here town until her big break as a singer comes, national anthems being her specialty.

Axis-Windmill kind of looks toward her, kind of doesn’t. “We’ve met many times before, Marilyn,” he deadpans.

Marilyn? she thinks. Hadn’t heard *that* name in a long time. “Well… can’t recall. Many, huh?” She keeps wiping the wine glass in her hand, although it’s perfectly transparent now. She looks through it at him, watching his distorted steely eyes move here and there, sometimes toward the door, sometimes at her, sometimes in-between. But not at the action. Another lift, another slam to the canvas for Joey. Poor Joey Avatar. Looks like a rain of pain coming tonight. How did *she* get into this mess?

“That’s right,” he finally answered Lichen. He walks toward the door. He opens the door, telling me to come in and join him. He indicates the tables to his right. We sit down, no words between us. We watch Lichen tend bar. The action in the ring (in the ring) wraps up. Victor Eugenia O’Neill moves toward the bar, decided what kind of drink to order for Joey to make up for breaking a couple of her nails tonight. Usually: so gentle, so careful. Must have been the full moon, she reckons. Grasshopper should do it, extra mint.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0402, ENIGMA, Nautilus, Wild West