“Who are you? And what are you doing here??”
——
“He said he was this guy. I’m telling you Frank. These walls are haunted!”
“Simmer down, Philip. Say he *gave* this to you?”
“Yeah; just dropped it into my inventory and then vanished. Said he lived here. He’s lived here for a long time. Behind the fireplace; in the walls. Watching. This is a colored version of him where I saw a white one. But I know they’re the same. And… sorry about saying the word colored,” he apologized while looking over at his black friend, who took the mention in stride. “Like black-and-white and colored TVs I suppose,” Philip needlessly continued the apology. “No harm meant.”
“Watching, huh. Creepy.” Frank didn’t believe Philip’s story but was just going along for the ride.
“Like I said, Pierrot’s the name. Edward Pierrot. Said he died here or something, then mentioned Alabama. But now he’s back, he said. Like the Alabama Phoenix, whatever that means.”
“But… Phoenix is in Arizona. Dawg,” he added to make it more authentically him.
“I don’t know. But I, um, might not be coming up as much, Frank, to be honest with you. He’s *watching*. How can I play pinball in peace and escape all the stress of the world if I know *that*.”
“Truly an issue. Well, tell you what, Philip. I’ll dig into it, maybe hire some kind of exorcist, you know.”
“Really?” exuded Philip, still not catching on that Frank doesn’t believe anything he’s saying. “That would be *great*, bud.” And he punched him on the shoulder to show his gratitude and then excused himself, saying he’s late for dinner with Lexi down at the sea. He still didn’t like Frank to call Nawt Vaya a lake but Frank doesn’t do that much anymore. He’s caught on too. He likes it here! No dead fish smell, etc. Much better than the Alamo where it/they came from. “Remember the Alamo,” Philip likes to say. “And then forget all about it,” he adds the punchline, the joke of it all. Alamo > Nawt Vaya. Fate, they’ve determined. Lexi too in her own special way and special place manner.
After he went home, Frank continued to stare at the painting Philip left behind. Frank can’t return it immediately or Philip will see it show up in his lost and found folder and maybe get wise to his little game. So he just moves the thing up into the ceiling so he won’t have to look at it all the time. He’d have to talk to Lexi about Philip’s new issues first chance he gets. Maybe an extension of the ones we’ve seen him saddled with in photo-novel 47 — just completed in the nick of time for its end of August deadline, yay!
https://bakerbloch.com/virtual/sunklands-2025-middle/
Another Edward Pierrot from a land far removed now (Mythopolis).
Sunklands 