And so we return to the beginning of sorts, the grave of Constantyne, namesake (of sorts) to Constantynople.
Close. Very close.
Tag Archives: NODAL
ML Gazebo 91c: What’s Next after Newt?
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0514, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File, Wild West
ML Gazebo 91
A wall. Indicating my time in Constants may be limited, despite the name. And not a really pretty wall at that. But I, of course, have tricks to get around it.
There’s Falmouth Gallery! Is it so ugly that you have to hide? Moard (original creator) would not be proud. I think it’s bea-u-ti-ful.
After taking the picture, Mr. Z gets up from the chair and continues his journey intent on finding cousin Zimmy and his maw before sunset, er, sunrise if possible. Word.
—–
Truth of the matter exposed, he soon made his way into the center of Constantynople, unknowingly walking right by the stairs that would take him to his new apartment. And, perhaps more importantly, the new meeting place for the TILE study group. Had to happen.
“Hooray, he’s here!” cried the standing yellow porch ickle upon seeing him enter the square.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0512, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File, Wild West
00380511
She thought of herself as ugly, a cow even.
Later, from her perch above, she watched her bathe, thinking, If I was only that beautiful. Xia and her cat. Always the cat, even in water. Sky, land, water — didn’t matter. Sometimes she believes she is the cat. I can’t leave, Myrtle thinks. I love her too much.
“All done!” came the call from below. Then she moves toward her clothes, cat still glued to the shoulder. Another constant, let’s call it. Myrtle watches everything with great interest. She use to not be this way. There was Ted, there was John — his twin, granted, but still another person. Then Harry the Lie Detector Magician. He hooked her up one day after much pestering. “Who do you love?” he asked her with great sincerity, tricking her. “You?” she answered basically as a question, making the meter jump. “Try again,” he said with some venom. Zimmy of course. Forbidden love. But then Zimmy changed into Xia. Soul shift. She use to not be this way.
—–
“Tell me that you love me, Xia,” she said, looking over. 1/2 sincere, both knew. Xia was playing this game too. She’d learned from the best (Zimmy).
“Of course I love you, Myrtle. You’re my bestest friend in the world, even closer to me than Zimmy.” Myrtle knew Zimmy didn’t exist any longer physically so he really didn’t count. She said so.
“Oh, Zimmy’s around. I just saw him fiddling with that portal, trying to get that thing to work for *real* this time.”
Myrtle had watched *Xia* mess with the so-called portal on the porch over there just before she came for a visit. There was no Zimmy. Not any longer. Okay, she’ll play along. “Zimmy’s a good brother to you.”
“*1/2* brother,” Xia quickly added.
“1/2 brother,” Myrtle calmly corrected herself.
“He taught me everything there is to know.”
“I know.”
“I *know* you know.”
Silence between them. Xia’s feet daintily kicked the old wooden fence marking the border between their properties, reminding her that she needed to return home soon. But — so lonely over there. Only Zimmy. Like talking to a mirror sometimes, she lamented. They were only 1/2 kin to each other blood-wise but still so close that their skins almost overlapped, blood shared and then some. “Come over here,” he said just earlier, before the visit started, patting the rug below the non-blue ball.
It took about 5 days, but Xia, slowly but surely, began to think of Myrtle as a mom. *Her* mom. Zimmy’s too. This baffled Myrtle. She decided to retreat into the interior of the island for contemplation, to a parcel some call the Abyss. Maybe the term was applied later, after what happened to Myrtle. Myrtle became… dark after that.
While gone, she rented her place to an orange being. All Orange. Not useful any longer, the elves retreated back into Philip, their creator after all, if not a Dark Lord. They’d forgotten who their actual father was, and that he had been living amongst them all this time. Everyone absorbed the inevitable fall together. Dancing Chuck looked on at the mess, wondering how the heck he was going to put all these pieces back together. In the end, Zimmy became intermixed with Xia and visa versa. And Philip became part fish, part tall tale himself, the stuff of legend; many books and documents written about him. When Myrtle returned from the Abyss and kicked All Orange back to greener pastures… well, we better save some of the story for later…
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0511, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File, Wild West
“Doorpick”
“User,” he said, pointing. He knew who I was. Did I? Am I still Baker Bloch in the game we play that is Our Second Lyfe? Is that my primary avatar still?
Anyway, thanks to Pearl Grey for including this work in her most recent Wanderlust Art Truck show! Pearl’s blog here:
https://millionhappyendings.wordpress.com/
And you can teleport directly to the exhibit here:
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0508, Art 10x10, Ashenlave, collages 2d, Corsica, Wheeler-Jasper
fishy
“So how long you going to keep up this ruse? *Pitch*.”
“As long as it takes,” he replies generically, shifting his long legs nervously again. “Do (he indicates behind him), do these *people* have to follow you everywhere you go?”
“The Eightyeights? Of course. You know that.” She paused, thinking about what to say next. “Bad luck to stare at the ocean this time of day, though, they believe. Have to face away. Like the bear.”
“Ted?” He dares to glance back in its direction, centered in the sandy passageway that runs between the two halves of Sunklands Institute.
Another pause. “We can call him that. Or her.”
“What’s with this Tiki curse anyway?… riddling the town. Saddling it.”
Wheeler paused longer this time and decided not to even answer Baker Bloch, currently disguised as thought-to-be obsolete VHC City originating vampire Pitch Darkly. Married to Mary instead of Wheeler. The reason for his being.
“You can’t keep postponing the inevitable,” she said after staring into the hateful ocean for a while, bright in the fairy blue light. The light of the Devil, some say. 10:01. The Eightyeights couldn’t handle it, thus the turning. Wheeler was, in contrast, soaking it all in. Pitch was just glancing all around, shifting his feet and legs and arms. And glowing eyes. “You’ll wake up next to Mary one morning, perhaps one much like this one, and realize she’s just a symbol of something bigger. ‘Mary me,’ I said so long ago that I can’t recall where and how.”
“Boston?” Pitch said, and then corrected himself. “No, not Boston.”
“Not Miami,” Wheeler also offered. They both sat there, trying to remember the circumstances surrounding the event. It was also the day he met Mary; he did recall that. Reel reel reeling them in. Just like now.
“Caught another one!” she cried gleefully just over at the newly placed dock.
“Wonderful dear! A *whopper* this time!” he observed.
“Just like your story,” Wheeler hissed over through folded hands.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0507, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File, Wild West
different
Despite the prehistoric nature of the place they sometimes had guests. Like today. Robed angels of death stared at her in several sizes and shapes from this perspective. Death was the guest as well, it seemed.
“If I have children, *when* I have children,” she corrected, “I’m going to name them Flaarf and Bozo, after this Second Lyfe sim.” She has a second life here, she realizes. A second chance.
“What about Ingleboort, dearest,” offered Dr. Brown beside her. “I thought if you had twins you were going to name them Ingleboort and Flaarf, giving up on Bozo — like with the Middletown children. ” He didn’t add *alien* children. “It’s not a very complementary first name. Kids will make fun of him. Or her.”
“Yes,” she said, recalling that decision as well, a Muff-Bermingham one and not from the Moon. That darn, lingering Moon, bearded and all. She briefly looks into the sky to see if she can spot it. No luck; too sunny today she reckoned. Full shine on.
The guest finally spoke. He wanted to make a deal to come back. He wanted a religion named for him, this Mr. X as he called himself. Xianity would do swell. He said he’d die to make it happen if it came to that. And it probably would given our history.
“Starve,” he said, choosing a course to do it certainly not involving a meal. “I’ll go out in the dessert and fast myself to death. If it comes to that.” The visions must be purified, he knew. “Desert,” he then amended. “Did I just say dessert? How fitting!” He laughed, probably in a good way. Ally, yes.
As they negotiated, the roaming Allans roared but kept their distance, instinctively knowing here was someone who could eventually defeat their dark overlord and set them free.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0502, Nautilus, Rank & File, Upper Austra
a lane to walk down
He never could remember which one was an Allosaurus and which one was a Tyranosaurus so he ended up just calling them both Allanosaurus, a catchy name that he couldn’t get rid of, *achoo*. Darn, lingering cold.
He had just finished wiping his nose when Jane stirred in the tent.
“Ohh, my *head*.” It was here she realized she had lost another baby which was the same as a ball. It was all play and pretend except it wasn’t.
“I had to give you a sedative so you’d sleep through it all,” Dr. Brown explained to his ground 00 patient, still waiting for that ball to turn blue so he could determine a sex. Else: this keeps happening. Waking up in the woods. With the dinos, Real Self far far away.
Jane remembers the 8 corners of space, the near (Moon) and the far (Muff-Bermingham). Trouble was, she couldn’t remember which is which, more memory condensing and overlapping. Like with the Allans, as Brown eventually, inevitably shortened the name to.
“I… *died*!”
“Yes, in a way. Your baby died. You died along with it. Except you didn’t. You are here.”
Jane managed to raise herself from the tent floor, look out the door. Dinos. Allans. Everything was here that was needed to understand. South America. Land of the Dead.
“Library,” she said.
“That too,” he admitted. “I suggest we read while we wait. Cut back the talk. No need to waste oxygen. You have them in your eyes as well. Just think of a book to read… and read.”
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0501, Nautilus, Rank & File, Upper Austra
00380416
A flat place to rehab my back and still get away from it all. A void space between Haze County’s 2 primary towns of Blue Mountain and Boulder. A home away from home of sorts. Jenny Lane, all grown up as it were and lacking in signage if not tell-tale weeds.
Won’t be there forever; trying to enjoy while I can. Got a reading tree which is apple, etc. Wedding chapel just beyond one end…
… Barney car just beyond the other. Barney car! We’ve been here before.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0416, Blue Mountain, Boulder, Mayberry
The Line (Upside-Down)
Doc Brown had about given up. He just can’t quite get this whole alien pregnancy in a ball concept down. He’s tried basket, he’s tried soccer now. He wanted a blue one but couldn’t find it in his inventory. Blue would set the correct position, right-side up instead of upside-down. This wasn’t working. He needed to get some sleep. He dozes on the spot. Right next to his creation. The girl from Venus, maybe Mars, with Jupiter and especially Neptune a much longer shot. He wanted her to be from a planet you could see and observe and not hide from. So Jupiter still in play. Even barely noticeable Uranus. Here he is, spacing out about space again, he laments. Can’t… sleep…
But he was.
He wakes up next to his wife of 17 years and stares over at the expanded stomach, the child they made together. Finally, after so many attempts. He’s going to teach him or her how to play basketball or soccer, his or her choice. Then he remembers the plug, the thing you’re not suppose to see but somehow he can. Just like Ruby. This indicates the alien nature after all, his greatest fear.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0415, Nautilus, Rank & File, Upper Austra
Annaberg Annabell
He barely looked up from the paper to acknowledge her presence. Artung with him ignored her completely, pretending to be absorbed in his own words. He was instead thinking. Back in the day this girl was *poison*. Yet she stood her ground before them defiantly, daring them to speak or act in some way. Jimmy Dieselengine finally rattled his paper loudly, which we know now is a sign of agitation and/or disapproval, and then rolled his eyes upward over the top, cooly meeting hers. “If we have to speak let’s do it in the cemetery where no one else can see us. 3:19 this afternoon.” And then he was back to reading, or at least pretend reading. Because he too was spacing out about the past now. The dancing. The playing of cards. Or so they heard.
—–
She had to pay 250 just to get him to sit down with her. He knew she had lots of cash because of the wall between the states. The tree beings she allied herself with back in the former era horded away beaucoup green within their narrow, dark confines, ready to burst forth at the Freeing Day, as they called it, and spend it hither and thither on overpriced trinkets and baubles, the opposition said of the impulse. The same considered her one of those trinkets or baubles, depending on what faction you asked. She was capitalism embodied, em*boldened*.
—–
She was a weed to be removed, she remembered a senior councilmember saying about her as she stared down at one of her kind, according to them, growing from a crack in the pavement. The meeting with Dieselengine was over. Someone was approaching with a ho. Better amscray before I am recognized again, she thought, and moved back into the shadows of the place.
—-
“The Monolith,” he summarized earlier at the bench in the far part of the cemetery, giving her what she wanted, what she could handle. The cold breath kept flowing out of her body like an expulsion of good from evil. “They had to push you out,” he said, watching it.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0406, Jeogeot, Newtown+
Sunklands 