Station attendant Ginger directed Marsha to a large square map hanging on the back wall. “So it is Lucky,” she said to herself, looking at the name of the nearby motel on the map. Just down the tracks as it turned out.
But in the unaltered reality, it wasn’t.
Mouse was right all along.
—–
“NC,” she said, staring up again. Could be either one still.
And then she walked inside the property to see what up. A considerably younger Octavia Tart awaited her appearance.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0307, Blue Mountain, Google Street View, Haze County, Paper Soap+, Soap
With part of the money she made off her successful debut album “Atlantis Rising”, she decided to take an extended trip to the Azores themselves, starting with Corvo, the smallest and least populated of the 9 island group and known for a huge stone statue of a pointing man on a horse perched atop one of its high ridges, supposedly dismantled and moved to Lisbon by the Portuguese government around the start of the 16th Century and then lost. Or so the legends go.
She tried to get into fishing while there… and failed. She’d settle for fishing out mysteries. She asked around about the equestrian statue, but tales were numerous and often varied wildly from each other. Some say the Portuguese themselves erected the horseman shortly after they discovered the island in the 1400s. They say the supposed inscription on the base of the statue, “Jesus, go ahead”, proves this, although it was originally claimed to be illegible. Some credit the Carthaginians who may have been in the area during the first millennium AD. Some dare to go even further back, before men as we know them began sailing the seas of the world. Pre-men known as Atlanteans. This is what she wanted to mine.
Another popular Corvo legend has it that a stash of coins was found in the cornerstone of a washed out house during the 1700s that predate the Portuguese, including many that were gold. No one on the island seemed to be an expert on this, but several directed her to a pawn shop on the neighboring island of Flores — in the City of Cass that we know pretty well now through these blog novels. But more appears to be there to explore and contemplate. One local even hinted to Supergal Ruby that the pawn shop owner *herself* had two of these gold coins stashed away on the premesis, but he seemed pretty mad to her, furiously producing thread on his oddly placed spinning wheel at Crow Beach in order, he said, to add to a giant ball of yarn she then found located about 100 meters further down the same Corvo beach. Guy who had the curious name of Gold himself, she noted, always paying attention to name synchronicities. We will return to him.
spinner…
… and ball
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0306, Cass City+, HANA LEI, Maebaleia/Satori
Axis shifted the name himself after satisfying his needs at the Lucky, concealing the missing letter. No need to be so obvious about it.
So Marsha “Pink” Krakow changes it back and arrives on same, aiming to do Alice Tart’s will and set things right again. She wore Alice’s “I am a Demo” sweater all along as a constant reminder of her mission in Paper-Soap, the Paper part fully yielded to Soap now, two halves separated out again in the passage through the tunnel. As she stood before the train, the symbolic missing letter now lay beside the track, with the reappearance of Gee Cat naturally coming along with it. Here.
“Can I help you Missi?”
“*Gee*. You *scared* me,” she spoke over to the large, upright orange cat appearing as if from the blue behind her.
“Yes, Gee scared you,” he spoke matter-of-factly in a regular type voice. “Gee the cat,” he announced himself.
“Wait. Your *name* is Gee? Like the letter you’re beside right now. I want to get this clear.”
“Gee is the cat. G is the letter. That is correct all around, then.” Is she the ONE? he thinks here, expecting such any day now. He checks the name on the train. Not yet, then SIGH.
“I’m looking for someone… or something. Greene’s Motel. Maybe it’s the Lucky Motel with a green door in the front office I’m still not sure. Woman with the last name of Tart and maybe a first name of Octavia. That’s all I’ve got. Can you help me? Gee?”
“Gee will help,” and he got to it, entering the station to talk to Wanda Berta Shirley. Make that: Laverne. Fresh from a closed down Barrow County beer factory, dreams of retiring in the bottling business shattered. But most people know her as Ginger.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0305, Paper Soap+, Soap
Couple of battered suitcases left behind but nothing in them as she checked. Clients should be arriving pretty soon; better make herself prettified, as she liked to say. *Remember*, the taller, richer one *doesn’t* like the blue rouge, she reminded herself. And of course that code he goes by to sanctify all this. Oil me up, I suppose.
She’s staking her claim to the room. Daisy Chain can go to hell for all she cares. Pills in her staff meeting breakfast for a knock out punch, BAM! She can work hers and Daisy’s together. She’s not that old yet: only 18 going on 38. Now if she could only remember the year. ’36? ’39? She decided to split the difference and settle on herself. Still before the Axis took control.
Town school superintendent Axis walks through the 104 door, taking control. “Mouse here yet?” He’d checked in his copper red hair at the main desk with Wilma the day clerk — no need for that inside. He could be who he was here. An older, balding man destined for chancellorhood, he felt.
“Not yet,” she answered. Octavia always fancied Axis among her townspeople clientele. Certain a step above, say, a baker, a farmer, a grocery store owner in the swampland. He owns an actual, bona fide *house*. Mouse — that’s the other one’s name: Mouse — might be richer and also have a house but he’s not as devilishly handsome. And the emblazoned cross across his chest he bears helps with this judgment too. Man of God he’s said about himself. Mouse was obviously devoted instead to science; even brought a beaker and test tube along for one of their sessions, and not to decorate the tree in the room, he said. “This time,” — like he was going to bring them again during the holiday season which was in full swing now, hmm. What does he suppose he can test with all *this*. She didn’t like to think about it; didn’t want to ponder the possible weird requests that could come along with such things. Daisy’d warned her about stuff like that. Maybe she was too harsh with the drugs; maybe she couldn’t pull off this 2-n-1 thing she planned today. If it wasn’t Mouse and his eccentricity she figured there was no way it could work.
—-
“I’ll finish up here Mouse; you can go back to your house now,” still-in-control Axis said later on. Octavia needed more than the doctor could provide.
—–
“We’ve gone back and changed time, Marsha,” said Alice, seeing the results, “but now *Axis* is instead my father. Villain of villains!”
“He’s not that bad.”
“I guess you’re telling me *Hitler* wasn’t that bad.”
“He invented the VW Bug — or something,” she attempted to justify, then realized this was wrong, all wrong. And where was her yellow Bug? Still orange? Still in Amiable? She made a note to herself to check. After all this dialog here was worked out.
“We have to go back. Daisy *wasn’t* sick that day in April’s May.”
“I believe that would have to be November’s December, Alice — holiday season and all. The beakers and test tubes on the tree. Remember?”
“I don’t remember *nothing* because it didn’t *happen*. I’ll MAKE it not happen.”
“Again?” Marsha said, staring into the other girl’s eyes who was still wearing the same “I’m not a Demo” sweatshirt as herself, same holey denim jeans.
“Again,” she said back firmly across the gap, closing it for the second time.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0304, Paper Soap+, Soap
He checked progress in the book while Marsha rested her now covered arm on top of his hat, a sign of the irreality of the situation. “Let’s see, I’ve come into the pawn shop, I’ve found Marsha ‘Pink’ Krakow asleep on the job, I’ve spotted and then continued to gawk at her short pink hair, and then I’m reading this book to check on progress.” He puts down the book; continues to gawk at her hair while noticing the change of clothes. Only one thing left to do per his next line. “Go on… a date with me Victorian lady?” And so their second one and actually maybe their first official one was set up for that night at mirroring Shenanigan’s just across the street. There they would run into June Bug Johnston aka Plain Jane Johnston once more as their stories continue to grow and evolve.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0217, Cass City+, Maebaleia/Satori
Her new hair made her doze a lot but she figured it was the only way to get rid of the gargoyle dreams. Wanda in a hot tub there, Wanda in a ballerina dress over there, Wanda in a… well you get the picture(s). Biff Carter walked into the shop, interrupting her latest non-gargoyly dream. No more Wanda for a while. She even got rid of the green phone so she couldn’t call him first thing in the morning. She’d seen enough in the mirror. Greene’s Motel, she knew. There was no Greene’s Motel, not any more at least. Just a green door left of that color which led into the role playing room behind the main desk. The one she just used last night for that purpose, non-gargoyly indeed. She had to go back in time and make things right again. Dr. Mouse was now truly Alice’s father, thanks to the lucky Irish whiskey imbibed just before. She talked him into breaking the code! Swamp and sewer lesson learned.
“Pink — oh sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt–” He was embarrassed about catching her sleeping on the job but then realized it *was* her shop. No one else to answer to.
Pink stirred, tried to focus back into this reality. “Biff,” she recognized. “*Andrew* ‘Biff’ Carter.”
“No. *Wendell* ‘Biff’ Carter.” Is Pink drugged instead? He imagined her mind being a prison.
It’s also here he noticed the hair as her head continued to rise from the table and fully separated out from the rest of her outstanding pinkness. She now stared directly into his eyes. “Biff — yes, of course. *Wendell* ‘Biff’ Carter.” She looked around the almost empty shop, remembered her job, why she came to Cass City in the first place. Certainly not *this*. No she had a much bigger mission in mind than to carve out a Southside pawning niche. She came here because of the man standing in front of her… gawking.
“*Boy*,” he said. “That’s *different*. I *like*, but it’s… um…”
Marsha “Pink” Krakow reflexively reached up and felt her new doo. “I’m just trying it out, mind you. It’s called Victoria.” She gauged his reaction closely.
“Like in the Age? 50 years?”
“Er, kind of I suppose. Victoria,” she said again. “With a modern twist, a *Pink* twist.”
“Okay, um..” He couldn’t stop staring at it. Something about that hair.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0216, Cass City+, Maebaleia/Satori
“There. That was me, Alice. A wolf caught in the bright headlights.” CHANGE
Lazy girl Marsha “Pink” Krakow had seen and heard and felt and tasted and touched enough in Paper-Soap. Back to Cass City to wrap this section up, she said in her mind. Just after she finishes nomming down this delicious sewer popcorn.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0215, Paper Soap+, Soap
“She’s gone now.”
“She certainly had important information to relay to us.” And lo and behold his 50 year old cold was gone (!).
Time to move back to the present as inevitably as red turns yellow turns green turns blue. 1936. Or thereabouts.
—–
Dr. Mouse confessed to his daughter Alice about what happened. “Why didn’t you just pay for an abortion?” she queried in the diner the next day. Mouse had to run off to an appointment the day before or certainly they would have caught up then. Interview with another doctor, a more promising one than Grayson and especially Brown so he couldn’t miss it. Apologized and was on his way, leaving Alice to the pinball machine herself; left alone in the city once more. She peered up at the last score before inserting a quarter: 28064212. Lunar month. Deception. The Sun nowhere to be found. Gloomy day.
The huge Arabic number disappeared as her own scoring began.
Sunnier now. A boy in the far distance stops revolving around 10 to 13 to 10 etc. etc. and becomes 18 for a spell. He asks out the girl down the street he’s had a crush on forever. Now that he can speak to her eye to eye he figures: why not. Forecast doesn’t call for rain until Thursday. And today was Munday; time for maybe even several dates with tall, blonde Sarah. Or was it Nikki?
Back to Mouse and daughter Alice in the diner booth. “Octavia,” he hesitated, “… we had a different relationship than…” Did he want to say “clientele”? He just decided on the “others.” Her other men, her other clients, Alice understood. “She knew the man who owned the swamp, the one the psychic children in town were always altering and changing. This made her special in my eyes. The man’s name was…” He suddenly couldn’t remember, although he’d thought of him a thousand times since Alice’s conception on an old mattress in an alley back of Greene’s Motel (he assumed). “Robert,” he then recollected. He tried the name out on Alice.
“I don’t know that name,” she returned. “Do you mean Bob Levarbe? Leverber?” she tried again herself. “Levargee.”
“Bill,” he suddenly recalled. And a last name. Lavosier! He felt the air around him become heavier and more combustible. BOOMB! he recalled. He got too close.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0210, Cass City+, Maebaleia/Satori, Paper Soap+, Soap
She found a half programmed “Victoria” — or what she knew back in Paper-Soap as a Claude (or Claudette) — in the old Big Dick’s Halfway Inn building next door to the diner, proof her father was up to something. Why bug a robot if you don’t have a purpose?
And then there’s the mutable wall glyph…
Based on what’s out the window, she thinks it has something to do with the movement of time. 50 years. What changes in such a span?
—–
“She’s here.”
“Damn cold,” *sniff*.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0209, Cass City+, Maebaleia/Satori
Berta was conveniently on her lunch break but Keith B. timed it that way. Drugs in Biff Carter’s last coffee and also last donut just to make sure — he’ll be snoozing for a while. Time to take a gander at that 3n1 file he knew Dr. Mouse dropped off just day before yesterday on a visit to his old detective pal. Said to him: find this girl, before she separates out again and all is lost.
Entering the downtown building, he couldn’t see the evidence right in front of his face. A spacer this one is, always thinking about the next operation in a broader sense of the word. He’d just met with Dr. Grayson uptown at his Serapis Club, a potential replacement. Dr. Brown is no longer an option, since he perished in that Millbank haunted house explosion back in the last photo-novel. By Dr. Mouse’s hands no less. Brown maybe knew too much about the 3n1 since he had the same last name as one of the 3 components (Frankie “Beige” Brown) — he couldn’t take a chance. And all that talk about preservation and Halloween being a perpetual holiday from him. Nonsense! That would cut out his favorite one of all which was of course Christmas, Xmas as he liked to call it, not being a practicing religionist. Science is instead his thing of worship. If there is a God, he’s determined, he’ll have on a lab coat when he meets him at the Pearly Gates, with a beaker in one hand and a test tube in the other. Maybe some kind of Adam-Frankenstein laying on a nearby gurney. And of course an Xmas tree in back adorned with more beakers and test tubes. He’s pictured the scene quite a few times now. Makes him merry.
He feels like he has control of the city but it’s just an illusion caused by a game. An in-disguise Marsha “Pink” Krakow enthusiastically claps from across the midtown diner after he breaks the jackpot once again. He turns.
In fact, I don’t think there’s any way he could have missed that Pink Pawn sign and made the connection. Marsha did that as well. She’s covering her tracks. In fact, this is what she looked like to Dr. Mouse when he turned from his still dinging and clanging and whooping machine.
“Alice??” he exclaimed. His daughter.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0208, Cass City+, Maebaleia/Satori
Sunklands 