Tag Archives: NODAL

October 31, 2023 · 6:34 am

00400515

The weight of the past…

… finally collapses the present into a hellscape sinkhole of no return.

Over and over…

… and over.

—–

“As you can clearly see, Dr. Mouse, the darts weren’t the cause of the death.”

“As I suspected,” he said in his superior, haughty way. “What did the extracted bodily fluids reveal?”

“Dr. Rabbid over at the lab is still working on the results,” answered Dr. Brown. Dr. Mouse was thinking he’d have the results already, would *cane* them out of a subordinate if needed for such an important case. All Millbank is depending on a correct diagnosis. For its own survival.

Sensing the tension, Dr. Brown put forth another option, since he didn’t have much faith in science to figure it out by this point. He acted as if it was his own idea instead of Dr. Rabbid’s but would quickly point the blame finger at the non-present doctor if Mouse didn’t like the proposal.

“Seance?!” Dr. Mouse responded to it, initially seeing only the negative of the thing. “Here? In Millbank?? Are you mad??”

Well, a little, Dr. Brown thought, but then answered: “It could be elsewhere. The other doctors wouldn’t have to know about it. You could be a hero, sir, swooping in from the outside to save the day.”

“All Hallows Day,” he specified. “All this,” and he looks around the room that represents the entire sim in the moment, “wouldn’t have to go back into storage. It could be perpetual, a permanent fixture. *If*…”

“… we could just figure out how to affix the past to the present; make it stable and unfluctuating,” finished Brown for the higher up doctor.

The phone in Dr. Brown’s pocket rings in an ancient way. He answers; he acknowledges; he hangs up. “Dr. Rabbid’s results indicate formaldehyde, 37 percent.”

“Formaldehyde?!” shouted the superior doctor even slightly louder. “Then this *is* about preservation.” The seance was a go, at least in the eyes of Brown.

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October 30, 2023 · 6:24 am

00400513

Turns out it was all a misunderstanding mostly created by Toddles herself. Vain and Artery Boyy and, especially, Rock didn’t have the sense to think that a legal guardian must be found for Toddles, due to the fact that she acted so *independent* around them, we’ll say. Toddles insisted they celebrate the reunion and work out the kinks of the intertwined connections later on after visiting the Millgate Halloween Festival — located to the north and west of Big Sandy on the old Bellissaria continent — before it was too late and her 2nd favorite holiday after Arbor Day was done and over with.

—–

They’d left Rock to play in a haunted sandbox outside with an object provided plastic zombie pail and ghost shovel. He would be happy for hours if needed. And Alice F., wore out from the tour already, was upstairs taking a power nap, as she described it. The bad dreams began almost instantly, like back in the Belt Days.

Which left Toddles and Vain and Artery Boyy (aka Gill) downstairs, trying to figure out a mystery. “The thing that interests me most,” spoke the precocious child, obviously precious as well, “is *not* the 2 darts through the eyes — that’s more a distraction I’m thinking. It’s the presence of that blue ball at the foot of the body. Blue, Vain and Artery Boyy. Like your better half.”

He thought of Blue Berry Girl here and the life that could have been. But too late now. She was off to the Pleiades or Andromeda or some other starry paradise high in the nighttime sky. Seeing herself seeing herself seeing herself…

“What do you mean?” he prompted, staring at it now as well.

“Well, I mean, it just doesn’t *fit*. Let’s continue thinking out loud together — why did the Lindens, or Moles whoever, put it there?”

After V&AB didn’t answer for a spell, Toddles went on. “Blue ball begets yellow ball begets red green begets green red. We’ve already been through that. The prison bowling alley. Exactly 2 sections back.”

“I–” Vain started, then stopped. He had nothing really to say. He just decided to listen to genius unfurled in front of him. Yes, he’d try to stick with the child. He’d fight for her, even, at this point. Grandmas are challengeable legal guardians he figured. Not like a mama and a papa, which apparently Toddles didn’t have. He wondered why — he’d ask the grandma as soon as she finished her nap. He’d battle on the grounds that she had a 37 year old brain inside a 3 year old’s body, ready to be released on the world.

Alice woke up in a different bed, but the shadow figure was still there, go figure. And then someone else. Not a leprechaun but similarly sized. Maybe it is some kind of leprechaun given what comes afterwards. “Hell-o!” he or she or it says innocently in a child-like voice. “Hell-ooo!”

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October 30, 2023 · 1:52 am

00400512

He had returned but he found himself more and more excluded from Ozma’s inner circle after a lukewarm reentry. “It’s *temporary*, dear,” she kept repeating to him. “I brought you back after all. You’re *here*; back in Oz, back to patrolling the Yellow Brick Road. And boy dear howdy that took some smooth talking to the inner council to get done,” she often reminded him. “So be *grateful*. You’re not out *there*.”

But it’s been months again, maybe years. When would his so called probation end here in the cornfield far away from a central power he was use to? Contemplation like this naturally led him to check the clock that always beats the times in his chest. 7:15 in Quadlingland, 3:15 in Munchkinland. And in the center, the middle, well: heartbreak.

He watched her slip away in the stalks, reminding him of that old Oklahoma song about a quirky little alien who comes to Earth and can’t get enough of corn, all types. He involuntarily begins to sing it in his head.

I like cornflakes, corndogs
I like corn bread and cornstarch
I like the band Korn and popcorn, I like all kinds of corn
ALL KINDS OF CORN!

He can’t recall the rest and, anyway, Ozma had already disappeared down the rows. Their meetings were almost as brief as in the Lost Forest when he was truly exiled. Now it’s still a false exile, an ostracizing by the rest. Scarecrow barely talked to him, feigning being constantly tied up with businesses of the mind. Lion similarly excused himself when encountering the famed metal being, saying he had to face down or have a tangle with this or that adversary who still lived some distance from wherever they were standing at the time. And Dorothy… he doesn’t even like to think of Dorothy.

—–

“I thought we were going to replace Dorothy with *me*,” spoke up the precious precocious child listening in on Marsha “Pink” Krakow’s latest version of her novel with a working title of “Lost Path of Oz,” changed from the earlier “Forgotten Road of Oz.” “After all, L. Frank Baum’s greatest goal was to please a child. And what better way to carry on that tradition than to cast me, a child as child can be, in the leading role of your book. Similarly, Vain and Artery Boyy replaces Lion, and Rock” — she looks over at him, dumbly counting the fingers on both hands over and over to make sure they’re the same on each — “well, we’ll work on him,” she admitted, sharing a smile with Pink about the irony.

“Maybe,” gleaned Pink, “maybe *you* should replace the Scarecrow, Toddles. And Rock can play Dorothy — you know what I mean.”

Toddles as the brains of the operation. She instantly likes! She automatically sees it is the right change to affect.

“No one is going to play ANYTHING until I get some ANSWERS!” Toddle’s grandma Alice Farrowheart had shown up at the reading in the so called Center Hole of Big Sandy. With a loaded shotgun.

Marsha quickly checked to see if this was in the book as well.

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October 28, 2023 · 11:01 am

00400509

She changes into her true form to better convince the youth.

“Carrcassonnee,” he said, still looking her over, noticing the lack of “junk”, for instance. “I can’t believe it’s really you. After all these years!” But then he remembers he’s not his father. He’s just having memories of his father — happens sometimes. This is what you get for being estranged. Confusion at times. Who is who and such. “I mean, after all this time about my *father* talking about you, heh heh.” Nervous laughter to end. He gazes up at the single eye. What did it see, what did it read? His soul?

“Iiiiiiii…,” she said. “Iiiiiiiiiiiii…”. She tries to start again. “Iiiiiiii–”

Bart cuts her short. “Yes, I *heard* that you’re having problems starting again. Like an old car that’s been sitting in a field for a while or something. I believe that’s how my father once described you. But at one time–”

“Iiiiiiii…” she said again. “haaaaaaavee…” she continued. “Newwwws,” she said better.

Silence for a while as the boy absorbed this. Carrcassonnee speaks! “Welll… go ahead,” he encourages, thinking of his father once more. The Tin Woodsman, he picked up on in his psychic way. My father’s old friend; he’s returned!

“Iiiiiiii…” started Carrcassonnee again, understanding the message had been received, “… can take youuuu… to himm.”

“Cool!” And so they set off, across the land and then across the sea. Out of the southeast corners and into the real world.

“Whoa whoa there, Carrcassonnee. Slow down boy, er, girl.”

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October 26, 2023 · 2:59 pm

“Wobbly…

“… she was in the head, just having finished her stiff drink. But she knew.”

Laura was reporting back to Dolores, the Big Boss of Big Sandy. Just across Big Channel she was. Somewhere. Laura had her phone number at least. She continued speaking into her cell after receiving message after message earlier. “Call me”, “Call me”, “Call me”, they read. “We need to talk,” was the implication, “we need to catch up. I’m here to help.”

She was on my council, perhaps as a counsel.

—–

“I had a dream there was not one giant bug but many, weaving a grid so regular it acted as a prison. I was back in Meat City, the Utah part after Broadwater and Rockaway Beach and the Osbournes and Kuradov but before the big bend away from all that at Rhodenwald. The part that’s *locked up* with (Utah’s) Kamas in other words.”

Kamas reduced to Kama was too close to Karma, she knew. And Laura also from a defunct place called Strong Karma — resonance.

“You must focus on Big Sandy right now as best as you can,” she advised. Until the end of section 05 of this here present photo-novel was the hidden meaning. I think.

—–

I knew the Silver King Grill was a stand in for Strong Karma (SK). And although defunct, I knew where its spirit lived on, then. New Eden.

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October 22, 2023 · 10:41 am

00400501

When Marsha “Pink” Krakow returned to what she knew was her true home now, Big Sandy on the oldest Bellissaria continent, her Mother was waiting. With a big surprise. “I bought this for you,” she said to her shocked daughter after she arrived, indicating the trailer. “Pink, you see, or as close as I could get to that hot variation you prefer.” Edward, her Eddie, was already blackening his patented vegetable stew dogs on what Wheeler told him was his new grill. He was already sold.

“Oh. And that pink scooter you’re standing beside! What do you think?”

Marsha was thinking of *price*, not necessarily money price but emotional price. And here it comes.

“I can see you’re speechless, dearest. Come sit beside me and we’ll talk.” Wheeler patted the lounging couch across from her and then pulled out an apple to eat. “Price?” Marsha wanted to ask her so bad. “Price price price?” And here it comes.

“Have you talked to Serenity since you’ve been here (chomp, chew chew chew)? Never mind, dear, I know you have. You told her about Shelley, my *actual* daughter.”

“*I’m* your daughter,” she wanted to protest at this point, but knew it technically wasn’t true — in a way. Shelley provided the body and added a lot to the personality as well. But Brown was also there inside. Conscience? Mere gestures? She wasn’t quite sure yet about the so-called 3rd component, the last of a trilogy. And then herself up front and on top of course, resurrected from what happened in photo-novel 19 that she doesn’t like to think about a lot. Cook for the Ozmo Devils. Dead in the head in bed like Jed. “Why didn’t you tell me about Serenity?” she actually said aloud. “That she wasn’t her cousin but her *wife*?”

“Oh it’s just one of those things that slips the mind (chomp; chew, chew, chew). Lots of important stuff going on up there,” and here she pauses in her apple eating to tap on her forehead. “I’m still the mayor of that damn Meat City and its dominant male energy. *I’m* more male than them, despite the body, the femininity,” she decided to put it. Marsha understood. Her mother had to put the town council (etc.) in their place or they’d gain the upper hand again, the blame misogynists. Dominant sex, *pheh*. Marsha had to do the same with her Eddie in a lesser way. It’s just how men are raised in our society in part, she figured. So she didn’t blame him *all* that much for his own, lesser brand of the disease of the mind.

Marsha had to ask this next”: “W-why, then, oh why… did you put me in prison? Turn me into a *doll* Feed me those drugs through my head to think that I *wasn’t* in prison but next door, singing karaoke until the wee hours of the night? With the fake doll looking on?”

“Rockaway Beach?” Wheeler started her answer, citing the name of the first place which was also its location. “Kenzie’s Korner in Kuradov?” she said the same about the second. Now the circumstances.

(to be continued)

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October 20, 2023 · 9:12 am

00400415

Ketchup Tom knew this day would come. End of gig; time to go. But what is time here? It was as if he’d just arrived.

He stared at what he remembered was a sim-skipper outside the window in the harbour. “Should’ve come in on that instead of Marsha’s VW,” he muttered to himself. Marsha was in the shower. *No*: Marsha insisted on renting the place next door instead of staying in the same apartment with Ketchup. She certainly hadn’t given up on Eddie, her Edward, back in Big Sandy — which we’ll be returning to soon.

Ketchup Tom knew he was The Musician. He knew he could come in but, once here, couldn’t leave, unlike so many before him. Because he was different. He and the town were like two cut out pieces of paper stuck together. Like fused leaves of an old waterlogged book found floating in the harbour. “*No*,” he insisted just as vehemently back to Marsha in the rental place next door when he came to tell her. “You have your place and I have mine. Here.”

Yellow House, he knew. He wasn’t going anywhere. Marsha would have leave Gaston by herself.

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October 14, 2023 · 7:32 am

00400409

So unable to do so herself because she was underaged and also didn’t have a payment record on file with the Lab, Marsha “Pink” Krakow had to take her place on the lime green karaoke stage of Kenzie’s Korner in Kuradov while she watched as best she could from outside. Marsha tried to sing to her as much as possible through the window, feeling sorry for the self proclaimed war scarred doll-girl. She warmed up with “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor, a crowd favorite from the 70s. Then it was on to “Rockaway Beach” by The Ramones from about the same time period — she was getting closer. Then Ozzie Ozbourne’s “Crazy Train” took her all the way home to “Jackie Blue” by another “Oz” act, Ozark Mountain Daredevils in that case. She knew she was singing all about herself now, like a canary. Canary in a mine? No, just canary, she realized. “Oooo hoo hoo, Jackie Blue,” she belted out the first line like there was no tomorrow. Which there wasn’t.

She’d never left her doll cage. Drugged up by the implant in her head to believe she was free again and her imprisoner was her friend, not fiend. *They* recorded it all.

And then the next night she went down the stairs that didn’t exist and out of the neighboring Rockaway Beach prison and did the same. Over and over and over. Slowly, gradually, the Ozmo Daredevils song lyrics began to change; take their true form. She was beginning to remember. They almost had the final original version.

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October 13, 2023 · 4:13 pm

apple red hiding a key

“Thank gods you have arrived. Now I can be free to exact my revenge.”

“Revenge?” spoke Marsha “Pink” Krakow, unsure what part of the prison they’re in but knowing it was a crucial place, a decision point. She was not ready to let the doll in front of her go. She has the key.

“Yes. The people that put me here. The Durexians. They came to Mountain Lake where me and my doll mates often bathe our parts. They took us. Here. Prisoners of war. Exchanged for information. First Dolly — obviously — with a name like that it would seem she’d have the most knowledge. But stupid as a porcelain dish she was. So, frustrated, they took Dimmy, thinking it was an ironic name too and maybe *he’d* have valuable information to give them. But: the same. Dimmy was not an ironic name.”

Marsha tried to speed up the conversation. *She* needed information. And here was one willing to talk, sing even, perhaps. Sing sing.

“What about the canary?” she decided to phrase it.

“Oh it died in the mine,” Billie almost responded, humor chip activated just by someone showing up. She was always pondering a joke when others were around. “Oh it died,” she actually said, stating the stark truth and that alone. She took off her hair to show what happened.

(to be continued)

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October 13, 2023 · 2:10 pm

00400405

“There!” she cried again. “Mother’s apple!” She was still studying, still perusing the category “All Orange” in the blog through her remote feed. Orange slice after orange slice, she ate, trying to get the whole, rounded picture.

“And there!”

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