Janice spots a 15 speed bicycle hanging on an apartment wall upon exiting the Slaashsides subway, first of a succession of bad signs…
The stinking green pocketbook is still there, check.
So is Burro Alley.
—–
Johnny’d come back from a serious bike trek. He needed to replenish.
“New Mexico, pheh,” he mutters while gobbling.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0037, 0107, Nautilus, New Mexico, NORTH, Slaashsides
“Baker Bloch said there was some kind of bookstore here with the 2 page letter. No bookstore. No letter. Just some kind of clothing boutique without any clothes, right 88’s? Oh,” she continues speaking, just to herself she realizes as she looks around. “Not in this scene.”
Oh well, she thinks silently now. Might as well primp while I’m here. Shocking pink should do.
Stick in hand she tries to pucker up for the mirror but ends up just emitting a yawn. High up here, she realizes. Mountain air.
A little later:
“Laundry?” A beep sounds. Arthur Kill realizes his clothes are done. Now maybe he can find out who he actually is.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0037, 0106, HANA LEI, Mississippi, New Mexico, Tennessee
He had to face it now. This basement was his new home. Wheeler has chosen.
Moving on (and up)…
Barry DeBoy was *soo* happy. He’d found another Tintown, huzzah! And right on the outskirts of a proper town just like the other one in Mortons Gap. Some kind of doppelganger effect going on here fer sure.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0037, 0105, New Mexico, Omega, Southern
The 2 parts of the letter appeared before him, as if by magic. “Abra-” ended the first page and “-cadabra” began the next. Baker has much to ponder.
—–
He landed just out of sight with his out-of-place swimming trunks and beachy attitude. Arthur Kill, still confused over his role, still confused over who he *is*. Arthur? Kill van Kull, a much tamer cousin? Or, dare he speak the name, Lemont. Lemont Sanford. The overseer, the one who controls. Not him, though. Not yet. But he has to choose a cousin in the meantime. Else: this keeps happening.
—–
“*Not* here. Not on my watch,” speaks bartender Zane Tar, holding out a stop hand. “We know about the castle.”
“You *do*?” But Arthur knew he had to move on. These were military people at the bottom of it, good at digging out information. This was, in essence, an extension of Rose Heaven, where his user had gotten in so much trouble looking for the fabled Murdochh Castle of Loch Ness. “It was all a misunderstanding,” he’d said in his head to them, the collective, so many times now, a defense set on repeat.
“Actually,” he decided to say, “I’m just looking for a child named Archie,” and then took his leave. He would keep them hanging this way. Because Archie would lead them right back to “East Lynne” and confuse the heck out of them, for at least a while, until they could get their bearings. He’d check back later to see what they’d come up with in the meantime.
—–
“See you later, Clyde.”
“Good day, sir.” The policeman made a note about the HUD being missing this time. Cousin? he pondered, probably also reading his mind. Military people, pheh. But he’d try to use all that to his advantage… we’ll see.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0037, 0104, HANA LEI
“A demon? No, I don’t think you are a demon. A *demo*, maybe, ha.”
“Thanks, Keith.”
“Call me Dad.”
She wasn’t going to call him that. She’ll stick with Keith, but she doesn’t say any kind of name for a while. Just to pretend she’s forgotten.
She wonders about the man at the table next to them again. Obviously a *recorder*. She’s almost got a name for *him*. Besides bastard. Keith notices the stare, whispers over: “This man bothering you?” Keith was thinking he could be giving her the eye. She has that way, he knows. Heck, if he were 20 years younger and he didn’t know this was his daughter… But he had to climb out of those depths, back into the present. He was Keith B., former drummer of the Blown to Smithereens and some others. Safely retired from all that rock n’ roll lifestyle and its wildness. He was tame now. He was ready to present himself as a nice and decent father for a change. Sobered up, cleaned up. He didn’t *die* in that Room (for instance). And neither did she for that matter.
—–
“He doesn’t remember me,” Biff Carter says to the camera without moving his lips. “Nor she, although she’s getting there. Almost a name now. I can read what’s in her mind. It’s the same as this book.” He holds the book up for us to see.
“Well it’s just lovely, dear.”
Like you, he thinks. He’s still smitten with her beauty after all these years. To him, she hasn’t aged hardly a bit. In his eyes. “We’ll get you some new art,” he explains about the missing piece on the wall, stolen from a gallery somewhere they both can’t recall the name of at this point. “Turning over a new leaf in this here newest version of Collagesity we are. Crinimals no more.”
“No more,” vowed his wife Lovey, the former Ms. April Mae Flowers, together the Clyde and Bonnie of Second Life art thievery. She reaches across the table to hold his hand. A team still they are, just on the right side of the law this go around. But then her mind started wandering back to one particular piece specifically, the one that earned them their nickname of Humanvillians at the time of the steal. She was picking up on the psychic vibe of the community in her gifted way (so many residents with “gifts”!). Intuitively, she knew about the cave, the railroad, the train, the castle, the deity within who needed to return home so badly, whether it be Missouri or Kentucky or Oklahoma or some other state, even a state of mind.
“I’m glad that man I killed in Collagesity is still floating in the pool back there. A constant reminder of the errors of my way. We’ll keep him there.”
“The… gardener,” Herbert Gold, in turn, reminded his wife, thinking they really *both* killed him. Since he was his rival for her hand back in ’72. The Zoo Year; all the monkeys let loose; everything *bananas* (flying about). Who knows who did in who at the time, or who cheated on her husband and/or wife during any particular stretch. That Zoo needed to be closed, become a fossil. That Zoo was also Boos, the gallery, the collages. Did I say ’72? I meant 2017. 2016, actually, although 7 is a funnier number than 6. Sepisexton.
At the bottom of the hill below Herbert and Lovey’s new house, Sepisexton pulls in with Paul. They’re here about the art.
“Just up there,” she points. “Let’s go,” Paul says, ready to spew some acidities.
(to be continued)
Clifton “Carbon Glow” Mahoney taking a well deserved rest at Gloomy Gus after a busy day working on the train and railroad. He’d figured it out. The last *key* was removing the cave front and replacing it with this suspiciously rectangular piece of rock positioned at the top of the town’s cascade, a leftover mistake of residents at the time…
rock before the move
.. because this was obviously the old front of the tunnel that the train passed through beneath the 7th and final spire of Castle Soos, also known as Soos Mountain Castle, or Somoca, not to be confused with the Soos Mountain Community, instead abbreviated Somoco. Anyway, once he figured this out and did the switcheroo, the train slotted perfectly into the hole, spinning keytop on the locomotive fitting comfortably beneath the top now, which the shorter cave didn’t allow. Check it out.
Another thing he had to do to make it all work was to shrink the miniature train found in storage behind the castle (more sloppiness!) from Tiny back to Teensie, an even smaller, original, pre-Robolution version, the one that allowed for proper portal hopping, he felt. He wouldn’t go to Oklahoma next time, even though that was just a dream. Or if he did, he’d know it wasn’t in error this go around. Something about dunes last night. Check here:
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/oklahoma/sinister-beaver-dunes-park-ok/
That’s not the first time we’ve brought up Beaver formerly Beaver City Oklahoma in this here blog and attached photo-novels. More soon (stay tuned!).
Making his way through the profusion of lettuce, tomatoes, and peppers in the community garden, avatar Clifton “Carbon Glow” Mahoney, fully transferred over from Baker Bloch and accepting of that new role, enters the cave system from the hole directly below the 7th and last spire of Castle Soos. Probably goes to Kentucky, Real Life, he’s thinking. Pretty sure. Hence the name: Mammoth, changed over at the tail end of the 2nd Robolution, the Panhandle Year some call it.
He switches on the light.
“Adventures in Tintown Part 4b of Tin”
“Oklahoma?!”
“See? He likes you. He’s staring at you instead of me.”
“And…” said Lucas to the left of us, the reader or readers, “… you are?” He had to ask. The other seemed oblivious to the transformation that happened while they walked up the hill to here, not really a chance meeting since the town wasn’t that big.
“Baker. Baker Bloch. We just looked at the Falls Shack together the other day. You pay me rent. 15 bucks a month.”
“You are not Baker,” spoke Lucas. “Or at least the Baker I know.”
“Well of course–” Baker Bloch looked down at his non-gloved hands, his olive drab shirt, his black-gray shoes and pants. He was not the Baker he knew.
“Explain,” said Lucas. “Explain everything. Start with Carrcassonnee. How did you come up with such a krazy kooky name?”
—–
I Carr,
I sat today with blog owner and blog stranger or newcomber. They asked me questions about my source. I, Carr, came up with something. Rrrrr. RRRRrrrrr. Rrr Rrr RRRRrrrrrrr. I start (continual raspberry noise).
“So tell me about this Church of the Ood. Been a while, you know.”
“Oh things have changed. No more clown sacrifices for these good folk up here. That’s all done and in the past.”
“Explain.” He looks at the pictures up front again, merged at the frames — black and white, yin and yang, he perceives. He’s explaining the situation to himself. “One beneath it all?” he guesses.
“Yes.” Guy sure is psychic, thinks Baker Bloch again, still hanging around Gold since his wife has been delayed. Suspicious but of course he doesn’t delve deeper into a reason. The Golds always seem to sort it out despite the many issues involved now, he thinks, infidelity to name a big one on both their parts. High Infidelity, then.
“I was also thinking,” Gold theorized further, “that the clowns have been exterminated through repeated sacrifices and there’s no more reason to hate them. Because none exist.”
“Yeah, that too I suppose. 1/2 and 1/2.” Gold glared over. We weren’t suppose to use that expression past novel 25, the one that changed everything. Baker apologizes, but he only 1/2 meant it. He of course kept that fact to himself. Because — it was a little thing but such things add up to make big things — he wanted to make it okay to say that again. He wanted to honor 12 Oz Mouse expressions above all else. Now that Spider has been found inside collages again. Spider equals Skillet, he knows through Missouri. Polk County, Missouri, to be specific. Home of Uncle Joe and Aunt Zoe, humanvillians both. He didn’t return the glare but he looked over all the same. Gold — could turn into platinum at any specific turn of events. Reaction. Visit from grand-niece and now grown-up Tessa could trigger it. Because she thought him dead anyway; surprised he was still a part of the Land of the Living after Baker phoned her up on a whim. He’s curious to see what happens when they meet.
And where is Preacher Zoidboro? he thinks. 7:05 now. Everyone is here that’s here so far, everyone is anticipating results from this lone religion of town now that the clowns are gone. They have to find or at least pretend to find some sort of God or else all is still doomed.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0606, Church of Ood, Jeogeot, Middleton, Towerboro
Sunklands 