Mouse leaves the scene, happy with the results. “Taxi!!”
—–
“Someone’s coming,” spoke the top.
“Must be that girl again,” said the girl of the two.
The girl entered the chapel.
Mouse leaves the scene, happy with the results. “Taxi!!”
—–
“Someone’s coming,” spoke the top.
“Must be that girl again,” said the girl of the two.
The girl entered the chapel.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0202, Cass City^, Maebaleia/Satori
Being Thanksgiving Day already, Marsha “Pink” Krakow started to husk corn for the festival. Now plain June joined her. Tom showed up and did a little work. Christina showed up and did even less, ranting on and on about her miracle recovery from polio as she does. And Stan never showed atall per team leader Donna’s prediction, over at Dick’s sweets and drink stand all the time drinking and sweeting away her worries. Team leaders never subbed for team members according to the rules — she at least had that going. But the corn was slow to be shucked and the cornbread needed to be served by 7, 7:30 at the latest. Something had to be done. Enter Andrew “Biff” Carter from the woods with a black and white shucking machine made from miracles, June’s beautifying witch power transferred to it instead. Marsha was suddenly free to do something else: either Reuben or Steuben, whichever one was the drummer, was lost in action (remember we’ve already heard from the horse’s mouth that one of the two wasn’t real). Marsha felt 2 drumsticks manifest in her back pocket, also part of the magic. She went over to warming up Batcorn beyond the corn and offered her services. She’ll play her way onto the band, she determined then and there, watching the machine spit out husk after husk, leaving naked white ears of goodness in its wake. All team members and all team leaders were happy. The 2023 Amiable Thanksgiving Day Festival would be a success despite the odds.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0117, Teepot^^
“I have come from the mound I have come from the corn. Your turn now.”
“From the mound?” still sitting Pamela returned to the person claiming to be Jane as in Plain, even though everyone knew her as June. “From the corn?”
“Yes. From the mound from the corn. Your turn now.”
Pamela pondered what to say next.
In the gap: “Follow me.”
—–
“From the mound…” she said, standing before it with Pamela now.
—–
—–
“… from the corn.”
“*Five* people is all,” exclaimed Donna, leader of the husking team and owner of most of the stuff in town: cows, vineyards, etc. Using the other hand, she counted them off with each finger starting with the thumb. “There’s *Tom* — and he’s all thumbs ironically; probably won’t go through a half a dozen himself; there’s *Stan*,” she continued this with the index, and then freed it so that she could point in the distance. “He lives in *Braggtown*. Do you know how far away *Braggtown* is over those hills? In other words: will take him half a day to get here, half a day to get back. And, let’s see, half + half equals whole, as in, a whole day away from *husking*. If he even makes the effort.”
“I believe that’s where Christina claims she’s from,” offered upbeat Ben beside her, leader of the sweets and drinks team and solid with his own personnel. Scowls all around. “*Christina*, then,” said Donna, holding the middle finger now, “can’t mow grass much less husk corn. And that leaves…”
“Jane,” spoke the person everyone knew as June just back of the white corn mound. Pamela had disappeared beside her. Pamela was never real as it turns out.
“Jane,” said Donna back to her, taking in her plainess from about 10 feet away. “Is that what you go by now.” She didn’t add the “whore” part but everyone knew she wanted to. They had some bad blood between them, namely a man named Bazooka, formerly the police chief of this here little village. Former owner of Biff’s farmhouse before he allegedly came over from Braggtown himself, but perhaps that’s just more Christina talk, Christina’s World.
“And me, Marsha ‘Pink’ Krakow,” she spoke while walking in stage left. Donna let go of her ring finger and took firm grasp of her pinkie. She joined the inner circle; tried to smile cheerfully. Dick to her right (music team leader, replacing stressed out Sitton seen in an earlier blog post here) tipped his hat, a built in gesture. Silently amused Harry (weights and balances) studied Donna’s reaction to this newcomer, this Johnny-come-lately.
“Marsha, huh?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Staying up at Biff’s I understand. Found the secret bedroom. Found the *truth* behind it.”
“Um. Yes, er, ma’am. I suppose I did.” She looked over at olive green Jane beside the unhusked corn, recognizing an old friend from Storybrook. Jane will get her through all this. There *must* be a loophole.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0116, Google Street View, Teepot^^
“Do you realize if we get married, Biff, that I’d be June Carter? We’d have to do it in Franklin KY again, then. Just like before. Do you feel like a Man in Black, Biff? You’re almost dressed as one.” She kept strumming her punk song while talking and he kept picking his roots based music one while silent. But somehow, despite the 2 wildly disparate genres involved, the tunes blended perfectly with each other. June Bug Johnston made sure of that with the spell that keeps on giving.
“Awesome,” he finally said, paying attention more to the frets than the fretting. He’d have time for that later. Much time. Much later. After all this wore off, the potion.
We’re at what they call Isolation Cabin, but not far away enough from Amiable Proper that you couldn’t sense the corn. Thanksgiving wasn’t that far away either: shucking time. But who would be participating from the small group of villagers and visitors we’ve already met? Certainly not Eddie, Pink’s Edward, who quickly teleported away upon learning that actual work was involved here. The members of the band Batcorn — Jane, Rachel, Reuben, Steuben — would be providing the music so that lets them out I suppose. Christina’s mind was too far gone to chip in much. And Wally would be seething somewhere out of sight, pissed off that the town didn’t want *him* to perform instead of Batcorn. So that leaves, well, Pink herself. And then maybe these 2. And maybe that Pamela, if she’s not merely a dream figure of Pink’s — probably not. But we’ll meet more soon. Better end this post so we can get at that.
“Songs are over, Andrew ‘Biff’ Carter,” she said, putting away the guitars back inside the bench. “Time for bed again.”
“Where’s — my tractor?” he asked, partially out of the trance since the music was over but quickly put back under inside.
“Doesn’t matter. You’re free of that old clunker now, along with your clunker of a family, Biff. You have me now. *Now*. Inside with you you old shucker,” and she slapped his buttocks to get his big feet started in the right direction.
We’ve answered the part about Biff at least and, by default, June. Formerly Jane as in Plain before she turned herself into a witch.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0111, Kentucky, Teepot^^
“Well he obviously crashed it into that lamp post and then stumbled off somewhere, probably drunk on his expensive wine he claims he can’t taste/doesn’t touch. Probably off in the middle of the woods where no one can find him, no one goes for fear of being lost.”
“Or,” offered Marsha “Pink” Krakow as a alternative, “he was *taken*.”
“Taken??” responded Pamela, then was gone. Marsha woke up on the wrong side of the bed in what was initially a strange, unknown place. Then she recalled what happened. The finding of the formerly hidden bedroom.
She knew what she had to do. She walked outside. “Alright I’m ready to talk to you, you stinky old man. About the *truth*.”
Did — he just shoot me a bird?? Marsha then noticed his legs weren’t buried in the soil any longer. Would actual fit her new theory well. Things were being changed, things were being altered. Right under her cute-as-a-button nose.
“You’re from North Carolina I see,” he started after a pause, looking over at the VW Bug still parked on the road near his sitting bench. He also knew the town, the street, the house. Just by looking at the plate.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0110, Teepot^^
The identification is obvious here at the start and all up and down the line of Google Street View shots of the village. Good work re-creators of Amiable in Our Second Lyfe (I’ve got a name!)!
Panning just right in the virtual world version where Google Street View can’t, we spot Marsha “Pink” Krakow at her table, still studying the accordion.
Eddie, her Edward, has split the scene, saying he prefers the hustle and bustle of Meat City as opposed to the boring, backwards life here. He’s read the attached note procured from the woman standing near the start of the weedy lane leading to their table. He has no desire at all to help the few villagers, mostly older like her, with upcoming Thanksgiving festivities, primarily focusing on corn shucking it appears. Marsha is left alone in the village. Lacking any other meaningful contacts, she decides to go back and visit Andrew “Biff” Carter.
But the tractor was gone at the farmhouse…
… in both real and virtual worlds.
Andrew’s split the scene as well. More on that story coming up.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0106, Google Street View, Teepot^^
“I can’t hold out much longer here. My world is breaking down Eddie, my Edward.”
“How are you sitting? My chair won’t work. Can we trade?” he asked selfishly. Like the man he was. Was he even listening to what she said?
“It’s *not* about the chairs.” She huffs a bit and looks around, down the road. Just over there. Where the camera is. “I have a new game in the meantime, Eddie. I call it Pan All Around.”
“Peter? Here?”
“*No*.” Another huff. “Pan like in zoom. Pan like in circle around something. Pan like in…”
“Peter,” he repeated, staring out.
Marsha realized he was correct after all.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0105, Teepot^^
In the morning she skipped breakfast with the creepy mesh family and drove more into the heart of the village. She checked the gauge after starting the car. Gas tank full, good. She was back on the right timeline, the one she came from when she entered the portal.
Seeing some cows in a field above her after parking, she decided to visit them first. She always had an affinity with these gentle animals, actually wanted to be a cow when she was little. “Milk me,” she said very inappropriately to her younger brother when they were 8 and 10 respectively, too small to know what they were doing. Their Mother set her straight later on. “Get it through your bull headed brain: you are *not* a cow.” But then when she grew up and started to put on a few extra pounds, well, things got complicated again. “I *am* a cow,” she would often say to herself after that, until pound begat pound and she was puttering about the house in a black and white suit made from miracles. Took a long time to get over that. She thought of Christina again and her own unburdening. In a mesh way in that case, of course. Hard to compare the two.
And low and behold she found that she could milk the farthest one she automatically dubbed Bessy as per custom, like strange dogs tend to become Rover or Spot when addressed. Milk, mmm. Would be tasty after not having anything to eat this morning. Needed nutrition.
“You’ll have to give that milk to Donna,” spoke Andrew “Biff” Carter loudly over a nearby fence. “She owns the cow.” Can she not shake the creepy mesh man? She wondered about his ability to have sex again. Maybe he’s feigning all *this* — mesh could be just an act so that he could seem innocent when following her around. I bet he drinks that wine after everyone else has gone to “bed”. Bet he dreams about more than just tools in a shed. Wait… is *she* mesh instead? No no no, she waves the crazy thought off. I’m *real*. I *eat*. But yet she skipped breakfast with no ill consequences yet. And she couldn’t manage to quite go to the bathroom last night behind the house.
I’m *not* mesh, she then thought. But I’m *turning* into mesh. This place!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0104, Teepot^^
She asked for the little lady’s room and got another stare. “The *what*?” he replied, then realized the nature of the request. “Oh, outside on the back wall we have what you call a *bathroom*. We, of course, have never used it but it came with the house,” the implication being that he and his children were mesh creatures each and every one. Marsha was the only actual person here with physical needs like that. Heck, they didn’t seem have a bed to sleep on, not one that she’s spotted. Probably just stop and rest upright when needed. But still they feigned to eat, hmm. Maybe for social acceptance in the small community where they lived. Must get a name for that soon (she made a mental note to herself).
She checked the animations in the toilet before using. She could, to put it more politely than the built in descriptions, do #1, #2, or throw up. Interesting possibility on the last for drinking later on. She noted Andrew’s fine wine collection on a table in a corner of the kitchen — untouched, he said at the time when she asked about it; the family only drank water. What was the point, she figured now, if you couldn’t taste it, thinking the wine was perhaps another amenity that came with the house. Which reminded her that she never actually saw anyone else woof down a bit of food at dinner — should have been a tip off to their type. They were all just chatting away in the vacant way they do. Wally about the Ramones that, the Sex Pistols this. Christina about her recovery from the crippling grips of polio — a miracle indeed (she hadn’t needed a wheelchair in years), but she wouldn’t stop about it. On and on and on, like it was the only thing in the World for her, and the people around her, her father and brother, were just sounding boards to proclaim this miraculous event again and again. She wasn’t real, Marsha then understood. Beyond just mesh. Something even meshier and more unreal than just plain mesh. At least with Biff (Andrew) you could carry on a conversation of sorts. And Wally — maybe the same as his sister. Is it some kind of *degenerative* mesh, passed on from generation to generation until they just end up as statues or something? She peered around outside the bathroom walls for the son and daughter “sleeping” upright. No sight of them on this side of the house. But they had to be *somewhere*. The ground, she thought. Do they just *bury* themselves at night… and then dig themselves up in the morning? Odd thought, she realized. Probably just staring too much at the tools lined up over there against a shed wall while she tries to finish her business. Must think of something else (she attempted to refocus).
She ended up just sleeping in the shed, which made her dream about malicious tools throughout the night. Dug her own grave and then beheaded with the same shovel to wake up.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0103, Teepot^^