Tag Archives: Marion Harding^*+++++

00410616

While Billie gassed herself up at the filling station next door, Philip had a bit of a lie down in his trailer. Gas station? he started pondering while laying there. When did Bombay Beach get a gas station? Then he laughed, a way to shake the dream off. Why did I call this place *that*? he he. I mean of course Sandy Beach. Then he realized this was wrong too: Sandy *Shores*.

He suddenly thought of Ron next door; wondered what he was cooking up. Why *meth* he realized. *His* meth. As soon as he starting dwelling on drugs he was gone from her, the Bug next door fading along with memories of Billie and even Marion, although the latter lingered on a little longer. Kept calling Ron Marion when he phoned him up, checking progress on the next batch; wondered if he’d been imbibing too much of it himself because of his peculiar thoughts this afternoon.

We have, in effect, returned him to his natural environment, his original home. Philip was no more as Trevor took over. He was soon to have a new gang of 3.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0616, California, GTA

00410615

“Anything, Philip?” asked Billie who was a Bug again. It was the next morning and the men, the boys, had gotten a fairly good rest during the night. And like I said, Billie didn’t need any. She counted 256 pieces of modern art that strolled or slid or lurched (etc.) down the road in front of them during the night. Fantastic — all seemingly benign. Maybe there’s hope for the town after all.

He stared at the house and the queer windmill blades affixed to the roof. “Nah, nothing.” But he was working on his coffee and had yet to wake up. Moving on…

—–

“Then how about his one? According to the Rock Star wiki, you picked up a woman injured in a wreck along the highway and delivered her to this safehouse, either dead or alive, depending how fast you got here.”

“Maybe… rings a bell?” Coffee sipped and done with, he was getting fuzzy memories now, unlike with the windmill house. Things were starting to get jogged up there. A woman, huh? he thinks, trying to picture her face, her… wounds. Belly, he sensed. Accident on the road, yes. Fellow… criminal? But then the vision faded. Moving on to the next structure…

—–

This did the trick, if not initially. Philip felt compelled to stop and get out of the car and explore this time. Marion was fine with it, since they still had to eat anyway. Billie turned from a car to a person again — transformation unseen to anyone else as far as they could tell — and all 3 walked up to the establishment’s door, Philip all the time staring around, starting to clearly see the overlap. Bombay Beach to Sandy Shores. But in his mind there were *2* bars with the same design. How’d that work?

And it is here that we *really* end our current story/photo-novel.

“Let’s let Philip go first,” suggested Billie. And she and Marion stood back and watched him enter.

“I’m remembering!” But they’d have to find another place to dine.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0615, California, Google Street View, GTA

00410614

“Check it out guys. A TILE house, ha. And, let’s see, our place should be directly behind it on the next street over if I remember correctly.”

“Yes, here we are. Home sweet home, at least for this week, maybe longer if the sandstorms don’t move in afterwards as predicted. Can’t survive here in sandstorms, at least while you’re out exploring. And it stirs up a lot of toxins in the air and water too. A week it is,” Billie Jean Kidd decided then and there on the length of their stay in this here Bombay Beach, with virtual Sandy Shores layered on top of it.

She parks the car, which means she parks herself. She gets out of the car but it disappears behind her. A kid once more, her primary shape or one she herself likes to call home. Home for home.

“TILE again, you’ll notice,” she points out to her boys, speaking about the 4 colors, red yellow green blue, on the wall inside. “Nifty — another reason I knew this was the place.”

Philip Stevor and Marion Star Harding had said very little during the short trip from the SW corner of small Bombay Beach to here, more in the center. The heart, if you will. They were still dumbfounded at the turn of events. But Marion offered this while peering inside at the cold hard floor of the ruined shack. “Shotgun.”

“Nonsense, Marion Star Harding,” she said to this. “You’ll stay here in the house with me as I truly am. You too, Philip Strevor, whatever your middle name is. I refuse to turn back into the car just so you can have some cushion to your sleep. You’ll be here… with me.”

What could they do. They laid down on each side of her, determined to get some rest for what she called an even bigger day tomorrow.

“I’ll keep watch,” she volunteered, knowing there were other toxic dangers out there besides air, water, soil. Like Billie, modern art never sleeps.

She watched a tesseract, 2 surfboards in tuxedos, and a shark with a television for a stomach pass by without incident. And in the second minute she saw even more.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0614, California, Google Street View, GTA

00410613

Baker Bloch and bee-person/blog guru Hucka Doobie share a pizza while Philip continued to play his game over there, watching from afar as the virtual trailer park slowly repopulates itself with killable, expendable NPCs.

“You sure bringing Strevor back is a good idea, Baker? He’s kind of a psycho after all, especially if he’s off his pills. Does he have his pills on him, Baker? I hope you made sure of that. Else… we could be in a lot of trouble shortly… after he’s finished with his game and becomes bored again. Boredom leads to violence in this case. Believe me, I’ve seen it up close and personal when I was going out with Marion that brief bit in Gaston.”

“Sure it is,” Baker defended the idea. “He’ll, in fact, lead us right to your true love Marion Star Harding. They’re natural partners in crime — different types of partners.”

“I wondered about that for a while,” she said, scooping the artichokes off her slice. Baker knows I don’t like artichokes! she fumes internally. Yet, in his selfish manner, he ordered them anyway, not thinking about his dinner companion. So similar to Marion in that way, she thinks. But she loves him anyhow — both of ’em, she reckons. In different ways of course. Now.

—–

Okay, I’m beside the sign Philip said he would meet me at, Marion Star Harding thinks; now I just wait. He sniffs again, his face screws up like a walnut again. Philip better hurry, though, or I’m going to catch some kind of respiratory disease just standing here so close to that cursed sea, he thinks, not being able to get the rotted egg and salt stench out of his nostrils despite breathing through his mouth once more. What horrible germs and viruses are going down in his lungs?

Meanwhile on the opposite side of town, still portal hopping Marsha “Pink” Krakow seemingly arrives on the scene in her orange VW Beetle. After a long 2 1/2 month journey we’ve finally come full circle, you and I my loyal reader. We’re ready to end it here. But first we need to get Philip and Marion beside the same sign in the same town. A phone call from the latter should do the trick.

—–

“I’m here,” Philip said to his natural partner but not his lover. “Sorry about the mistake.”

“It’s that game again,” guesses Marion correctly. Distraction, he knew.

“Yup. Sorry again. Wrong reality.”

Having circled around the village in search of the correct Aisle of Palms indicator, the orange VW pulls up in perfect synchronicity. “Get in,” she said, and, without words, they did. They’d been expecting her. Their beloved Billie Jean Kidd in yet another guise, the third and final gang member and a shapeshifter of some power. She can take the appearance of a kid, an old woman, a young lady, a dog (poodle), and last but not least, a Bug. In short, Marsha “Pink” Krakow was never in the car to begin with here.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0613, Big Woods, California, Google Street View, GTA, Jeogeot

00400412

AND she’s started smoking pot. That’ll teach the Powers that Be, she thought while finally exhaling the wicked weed and then feeling the Devil pull her heart out through her belly button. All Orange, she thinks. “All Orange!” she cries, looking at the thing wriggling and writhing in front of her like a Red Incubus Baby. RIB she decided to call it on the spot as it was dropped to the ground and walked away on its own energy. Into the night — it would always be there from now on, she knew. Waiting…

There it is again and 10 times larger!

—–

He liked this particular apt. because he could keep an eye on Newton’s boat out in the harbour, a sim-skipper. He knew that if the unique ship was gone for any length of time, then it could come back with an outsider, which might be bad, really bad. He had too much invested here in this Gaston, formerly Mimosa. Pot was basically free, Philip’s pills were plentiful. It was perfect for the criminal duo. Shady dealings all around. Laggy but — small price to pay. And now he had Hucka. But did he really? She didn’t have the best reaction to that pot he provided her night before last, he continued to ponder. And she didn’t call last night like she promised.

She could figure a way to get out which would also be bad, leave a potential trail for others to follow, both out *and* in. He’ll have to review with her the collage and the pushing and the arrival at the jail. Casey One Hole, PHEH. He’s still around too, he knew.

“Marion, I’m *bored*. Let’s go do some drugs or something. Sex, drugs, rock–”

“Don’t say it,” Marion cut him off. Strum and Drum was playing one last time at the Rhino tonight and Hucka D. hadn’t called about a potential date. And it was protocol in this Sadie Hawkins kind of town for her to do so, females rolling the dice instead of the men in affairs of the heart. But… she said her heart was stolen over at the pool after she finished off his joint. Maybe he should have warned her about the potency, and that he’d been smoking so long that it took a powerful strain to do anything for him any more. Maybe — he looked over — maybe he was stuck with Philip after all.

“Okay,” he said. “But I still would like to drop by the concert sometime.”

“Will Levon be there?” the professional pill popper on the couch asked.

“You bet he will.” And he asked him to keep an eye out for Hucka too and to call if he sees or hears anything, he thought privately. She *did* leave the first part of the gig for a while the other night, the Ketchup Tom composed half which involved a lot of noise, she said afterwards. But she seemed to enjoy the transfigured “Jackie Blue” enough to end; asked a lot of questions about its origin and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils and then the mountain they were named after. “Big Sandy,” she said at one time about the current band. “They said they were from Big Sandy.”

“Yeah?” Marion said back. “It’s a place. People have to come from places and go to other places,” he said matter of factly, adding a smile.

“There’s a boat out in the harbour there,” she then said, which immediately made him think of Newton’s boat but which turned out to be much larger. And more complicated.

“3 sims?!” he cried when she told him the dimensions of the thing. An internal sim-skipper, he dwelled about afterwards, complete unto itself. *Danger-ous*. But also completely fascinating.

“Philip?” he said in the present, hatching a new idea. “How would you like it if I bought us 2 golden tickets to visit the mainland?” *Or*, he then thought… hmm, how *exactly* did *Strum and Drum* get here, hmph? He knew about the Volkswagen Bug of course; it was still parked half on the sidewalk outside the club. But… it couldn’t just *come over* by itself from the mainland. Not without some kind of magical aid.

Daffy Duck had just blown up Uncle Scrooge with a rigged 100 dollar bill. “Say what?” Philip said, not breaking his stare from the TV and the blackened duck, suddenly realizing he was hungry.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0040, 0412, Gaston^^

00400411

“Definitely silver,” he rechecked through the past observing tool locally known as the chronovishmach. “So definitely George.”

—–

In the past, Hucka Doobie was eating alone. But in this alternate version she had the guts to walk up to Marion Star Harding and ask him on a date. Just after this she continued her guttiness and told Ozzie Osbourne, another star, that his gig was up in Gaston and that he’d have to return to Meat City for future concerts like these. Still on an adrenaline rush she goes back to Marion at the bar and gives him a kiss full on the lips, saying that’s to tide him over until tonight. Just arrived Ketchup Tom, aka The Musician (aka *George*) walks into the club, wanting to check everything out while Marsha was unloading the car, especially the structure of the place, trying to determine if his music would collapse it like before with that huge piece of coal for a bar in West Virginie. Hucka Doobie assured him that all had been prepared and that a non-collapsing spell had been cast by a local wizard. Club Rhino: definitely at a crossroads between various dimensions. Why Hucka Doobie was here in the first place, she finally determined after much lamenting and gnashing of teeth about her “entrapment” in Gaston. “Damn you Tammy Whatammy!” she cursed aloud a lot at first. “Damn you evil, conniving Casey One Hole!”, the root person to blame since Tammy was just following orders when she pushed her through that imprisoning collage back in photo-novel 7. Such a long time ago. She knew alternate versions of herself existed elsewhere. But she only existed within the body, the *vessel* of this here one. And she’s tired of complaining about the darkness. “When in Rome,” and so on.


“When in Rome” (2018)

And so in this version she dines and drinks with Marion Harding instead of doing so alone. And other things have changed: no “Welcome to Mimosa” on the sign, you’ll notice in comparing the last photo of this here blog post with the one above, anything that was once golden having been lost in the transition. Silver now. Night. Dark. Welcome to Gaston.

“We better get to the gig,” Marion requested after 2 wines, hoping to move to his more standard pot soon. Levon would have some, he knew. And Levon liked his music over his money, women, anything else. He’d be at the gig for sure.

“Oh,” said disappointed Hucka to this, wishing they’d just skip to whole gig thing and move on to that other stuff she had in mind. Bases, although obviously safe at home still — home base is definitely off limits tonight. But 1st, maybe 2nd? In play, she envisioned in her mind. Was she still desirable? she couldn’t help wondering as Marion got up and she followed suit and then looked at the back of his suit as it made pleasing motions while he walked toward the Rhino.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0040, 0411, collages 2d, Gaston^^, Omega^^, Urbane Blue/Fishers Island^, West Virginia

wrapping up a long year…

“They just watched her disappear down into the hole,” he reported in a low, yelping voice, “like they figured she’d be okay on her own.”

“The lady in the red dress?” questioned the other, too lazy to rise up off the ground beside Fox to witness the spectacle himself. But we happen to know it’s Greg Ogden, painter of the Paper sim Monolith and some other stuff. Maybe this stuff — later on.

“No,” corrected Fox. “She’s already gone. Palace in De Skies. Or so the script says, the blue one I believe. Unless it’s red too. White? Let’s split the difference and say it’s white,” he completes, ears twitching with the possibilities. “This one was just a kid.”

Greg Ogden sighs, already tired of the new year. He knew a kid, a mere babe, would be involved but now the issue had been raised he didn’t care. “And the others,” he continued wearily, “this Marion Star Harding and Philip Strevor I’ve been told? The Well Well Well brothers.”

“Weellll.” STOP

—–

START “You have been told correctly. Still sitting there these two. Maybe waiting for some kind of MIRACLE, like in ’69.” But Fox then remembers he wasn’t suppose to talk about that. Not since ’96.

Night fell and everything flipped over, black becoming white and white black.The fire was burning down down down. Soon they knew she would not return. “Give me til midnight,” she requested before the descent and subsequent ascent. White Palace? We’ll see. “If I’m not back by 2022 you can give up on me. I will have failed in my mission to find Clyde.”

Philip checked the watch that wasn’t on his wrist. “11:15 — time is running out. What the f– is taking her so long, Marion? It’s like she found a newspaper up there and is reading it back to front.” Philip was oh so close with this jest. Downloading information was indeed the crux of the situation.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0706, Corsica, Splinterwood^

00290512

He was not far behind them, in Ross. He stared at the 3 primary colors under the red and white umbrella that represented candy. Cotton candy in this case, doubly meaningful. Because he’d also learned of Peter Cotton, inventor of the world famous cottonpicker from Kick-ass Bogota, as well as about Marion, a fellow pilot of WWWWI. “Flew a mission with me the day I went down,” he said at the bar drinking a tall grasshopper, as green as his outfit. Greener, Axis-Windmill realized. “Came to get me — only reason I’m standing here with this metal plate in my head. *Borneo*. Get that: Borneo. And all the maps said it didn’t exist, said there was nothing beyond the Elephant of Celebes or the Giant Rat of Sumatra. Rose knew all along where the cube-box was hidden. In one of the deepest corners of space. Marion took me there one night. We were up drinking and drinking and he said he knew of a place where we could get the best whiskey in the solar system, nay, the *universe*. Mind you, we were really drunk. He would have never told me otherwise — said so the next day. We climbed this low granite hill near his new airport over at… I think it’s Enchiladas. Anyway, something that starts with an ‘E’. Some wooden box type thingie was at the top. We reached it. He pointed west, I believe. A particular star, he said. Just rising… over there.”

“Alpha Centauri?” I offered, just saying the brightest one I knew.

“That’s how you *find* it,” he replied, and then pointed me west to the famous cross of somewhat fainter stars, the crux of the matter as things turned out. His buddy studies it, he said, which I later learned referred to Philip Strevor, a professional pill popper over in Heaven Town.

“Dead?” I guessed about him after learning his job title and the name of his town.

“Might as well be,” came the answer from the green guy, almost as green as his drink he was still sipping, still nursing. “‘To death do us part,’ he said one night on the same low granite hill actually. He was staring at the star and said that, like the star was going to kill him or something.”

“Or marry him,” I added to the story. I was, of course, channeling in the moment. I’d gotten very good at that, in fact.

“We better get to Bartholomew,” he then said, turning toward me, or perhaps looking behind me for someone. I turned as well. Who were we looking at? 102? Something that can’t be edited because it goes in a perpetual circle, editing itself in the process as it revolves around and around and around? Could be.

We were both psychic is all I knew for sure.

He turned away from the cotton candy dispensers and headed toward town.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0512, Horns of Hatton^, Maebaleia/Satori, Purden/Snowlands^, Sansara

job change every 3000 miles

“Fill er up, Burt.”

“You!” I exclaimed beside my old Papa.

Marion Star Harding stared into me while still strolling toward us, taking his time. I knew I shouldn’t say his real name. I’m remembering!

“You know this Bozo?” Papa also stared over at me, but with puzzlement instead of secret knowledge.

“No.” I looked between the two. “No, I was mistaken. I thought this was the man–”

Marion stares again. She’d said enough. She stopped.

“Thought this was the man what?” Keith asked, still with furrowed brow.

“I thought… this was the man who offered to drive me to your place,” she decided to allow. “Before you picked me up.”

“Burt?” uttered Keith B. “A *pilot*.” He started to laugh. Jennifer join in with him a bit — nervously. Then Marion Star Harding: just a chuckle and a smile. Because Keith B. would only expect that from the silent type guy.

“Whadda ya say to *that*, Burt?” he said between guffaws. He turns to Jennifer. “I’ve known Burt since he was a little boy. He can’t tell right from left, heck, up from down. Right Burt?” Laughter again all around, Keith B. the most, then Jennifer, then Marion. “He… he he… he once tried to build a submarine on top of a mountain and fly it into space (giggle). You remember that old wooden sub, Burt? (grin).”

Marion Star Harding remembered the sub. And indeed, he got it to fly into space, deep into space. But only at night when no one was looking and the stars were out. Because he had a particular Star in mind. His own.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0511, Purden/Snowlands^, Sansara

Hookton Hill

Lengthening their draw distance a bit as Keith B. recommended, they both stared out at Clarksey from this low granite summit to the north.

“It’s big, Shelley.”

“Jennifer,” she corrected.

“It’s big, Jennifer,” he began again, then backtracked a bit to “…biggish”. “Ambitious,” he started once more.

“I get the picture.”

“It’ll get more people.”

“Hmm,” she declared. “How many now?”

“Five, I think. Wait: four. Clovis fell into the gorge the other day. Decided it was too dangerous to stay what with his drinking problem. Flew away from Enceladus day before yesterday. You just missed him over there, then.”

“Nice people over there,” she replied. “This one guy, Marion Harding, a Cowboy, even offered to drive me over here from the airport.”

“Who was the pilot?”

She wanted to say Indian but she knew that wasn’t possible. Indian was her brother — 1/2 brother — from another mother. Like Rose — full siblings those two were. “Can’t remember,” she decided to utter, trying to mask the hesitation. Memory gap! ‘Nother one.

“Did anyone follow you?” Strange question from her old Papa. But there *was* someone, someone black. Check that: someone named Black. A, um, black man. Doubly black.

“No,” she issued. “No one. Strange question from you actually.” She took drama in high school. She could still act a bit if necessary. But she’s remembering (!). A trio of men: Cowboy, Indian, Black. And behind them: still fuzzy. Maybe someone named… Frank?

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0510, Purden/Snowlands^, Sansara