Tag Archives: NODAL

October 31, 2022 · 10:05 am

new angle

“So you see, babydoll. You *can’t* leave The Cross right now. Right there in the contract you signed. You’re part of the club now.”

Shelley studied and studied the thing but couldn’t find a way out. Biff Carter was the same age as her or older than her by 2 decades. If the former, then *they* may be destined to be married — Biff — Mr. Carter — must know this too. If the latter, Mr. Carter — Biff — could be her father.

But she has a father. Newt, yes. And a mother: Wheeler. She tells Biff/Mr. Carter this, along with being engaged to George already, who, turns out, he knows by another name.

“Oh I know about Arthur,” he says in response to all this. “I don’t think you’re really engaged to this… *Musician*.”

“Am too,” Shelley tried to defend, but knew it was hopeless. Says right here: Shelley Struthers will be stuck on The Cross until the end of novel 35, where she’ll make a choice between 3 lovers. She knows two. Here could be the 3rd — has to be, I suppose.

Biff knew she couldn’t weasel out of this. The Umbrella Club has spoken. “Satisfied?” he ended.

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October 28, 2022 · 6:02 am

Franklin was shrunk down to size.

“We have a read on the shack, Control, over.” No answer.

“Repeat, we have a read on the shack, over.” No answer for a while again, then:

“Uh, copy that, Mission, do you see anyone down below? Over.”

Norris pauses himself now, partly out of spite. “Yes, we have green legs, repeat, green legs. Green as frogs, over.”

They could take her out now but it would mean sacrificing the pilot. Stan talked the possibility over with Tom. When will we get a better chance? rationalized the latter.

“Okay, Mission, we’re going to ask you to go straight in on her, repeat, straight – in – on – her. As in kamikaze, over.”

A longer pause. How much did Norris value his artificial life? Enough to break free of Control? He decided to sacrifice himself but go out on his own terms.

“Read that, Control. Going – straight – in.” And he did, except a little to the side, the left one I believe, hitting the boat. Or the right one, pulverizing the rose colored cottage. But not totally straight, thus most likely not wiping out Franklin under the Umbrella.

Roberts of course heard the crash from just over the rocks and came rushing, and Shelley and Lemont heard too from their beach just beyond and did the same. Collision in a different way. Two arcs of a story not yet met.

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October 26, 2022 · 2:07 pm

00350311

She came from The Void — above. And judging by this introductory picture she may have been formed by The Void, or be a manifestation of The Void itself, sent here to straighten out a pair of misbehaving whippersnappers far below, pheh (she gets into character). BEH.

Her name… give us a second; we’re working on it. Mourning Glory is what I got now. MG.

Here on Holding Level 02, or what some call the Gold Room, our grandmother looking type person decompresses by soaking in a hot tub for 2 weeks a while, its stairs borrowed by Burt to check on a malfunctioning heat vent in hall 4 1/2 a couple of days beforehand. Budget is low for these sorts of places today; MG had to climb in, difficult with her frame and developing arthritis, lengthening the process. No one really comes down from The Void to Our Second Lyfe any more. Back in the golden, olden days it was different. Hence the choice of color here: to remind one of past glory. And I suppose the name Mourning Glory could be a reflection of this too. What did this MG know about such? I’m eager, and I hope you, the reader or readers, are also eager to find out. She keeps the red phone close in case orders change from above.

She’s finally out of the cleansing, relaxing hot tub, ready to get down to business. She checks her face in a handy mirror first. Not there still — she’ll work on it. Only a placeholder version of The Void behind her, which, of course, if she turned around she wouldn’t see.

To the file room.

Filed chronologically instead of alphabetically according to the labels, good.

But — shock — no files within the cabinets! She even checked the dumpster around the corner, *oof*, her back!

She needs to call the boss about the apparent theft but first things first: another go in the hot tub.

Calm, MG, callmmm.

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October 26, 2022 · 1:21 pm

Big Boy

When I was a boy, I use to have dreams about The Void, but I remember them as a TV show.

Always the face, always the eyes. The girl reached out but could never find me. She remained trapped.

I can’t recall her name. Shirley?

“Shirley?” I called in the past. No answer.

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October 26, 2022 · 4:40 am

00350307

Did you know a faceless, objectless Void begins at 4000 meters elevation in Our Second Life?

And physics starts to get a little wonky even as you approach. Eels can appear, for example, but not the kind you might expect.

Someone is pregnant. Someone shouldn’t be here. The bus down there is the way out. Take it.

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October 22, 2022 · 3:18 am

00350301

Someone emasculated that poor statue over there, she thinks, then continues to read.

Omega continent — might as well, ahem, bone up on the history since it seems she’ll be staying here a bit. Let’s see, Trojan-Durexian War… could have swung either way, interesting. Southern Bypass a key turning point, yes. She recalls that General Duncan led the charge for the Durexians, a black man. Arthur Kill Lemont Sanford told her this — is one of his heroes, right. Died unjustly for a cause and all, like Joan of Arc, one of her heroes.

And here she sits in a park where one of the important battles took place, or so say the locals who make a decent profit off of selling war souvenirs, like ink dyed bamboo shoots for the kids, and bamboo bayonets and bullets for the older generations. According to their pamphlet they even have one of those old Durexian bamboo planes famous for their bombings, as in failings. 1/2 couldn’t get off the ground, but that’s what you have when you base your air force on *magic*, nay voodoo (she corrected). Take away 2 or 3 control witches and everything heads south, as in out of the sky and into your back yard. But, true, their voodoo power was waxing at the end of the war, and the Trojans were good to get out with their heads up when they could. 1942. Or was it 1492? She couldn’t quite make out the figure on the page before her, as if it was moving about like a spider. Strange effect; strange thought.

There really wasn’t much here. That rock over there with the waterfall is where they tortured and sacrificed the slaves who worked for the Trojans, just to teach them a lesson. Slave Rock, then.

The whole sim was named after another aunt, fascinatingly enough, Beatrice in this case, beloved aunt of a famous local, weightlifting sheriff back in the days. Although there have been other theories tossed around about the appellation’s origin that’s what most go with currently. Mostly Beatrice, then.

And then through Newt, I find the remains of one of those old Durexian wrestling rings where they fought their slaves, and then where the barely victorious but victorious still Trojans, usually without clothes (see: statue), fought the Durexians as their own slaves. I believe that might be the Sheriff’s Castle just behind, where Beatrice lovingly made him soup for breakfast and cereal for supper, etc., devoted Tilists as they were. And that’s what we have to bone up on next: the influence of TILE in the general area. Or General’s area, actually, as in Duncan.

Getting dark. Better head home soon.

Is that a key over there?

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October 21, 2022 · 12:10 pm

Kentucky

“Told you there was those type of holes on The Cross. Shall we?”

“Jesus, Shelley. You’re going to get us sent to the *Bad* Place with talk like that.”

“I think,” she ventured not too boldly, “we’re already there.”

“Right, heh.” After laughing nervously, he looked around, under the Umbrella again. Shelley applied more lotion. She did this every morning; said she always woke up with an itch. “How is it today?”

“Still there.” Legs now. In just a minute she’ll go inside and do the rest. Couldn’t wait until after breakfast. More bothersome than usual for some reason. Thought it was getting better.

“You really need to go to the doctor. How long has this been going on now?”

“2 months?” she questioned, trying to think back to the beginning. It was all her damn fault. And, yes, let’s blame the pandemic again. Laziness of hygiene for one. Folds increasing on the skin.

“Does it bother you when we…”

“No. No effect there.”

“That’s because we’re in the other Life. The Second one. If we were in the First, if we were real flesh and blood people, then…”

“Yeah,” she answered. “Guess so.”

—–

“Alright I’m ready.”

“Just a minute, I’m checking the stocks.”

Men, she thinks at the doorway under the mistletoe. This is going to end just like with George. The Preacher continues to be unhappy.

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October 16, 2022 · 2:58 pm

thorns and roses

“Okay, Liz is your kid. I get it. Whether factually or fictionally — doesn’t matter.”

“I am Arthur Kill,” states actor Lemont Sanford beside her, also staring at the “Break the chain” statue by Eva, “but I am also me. We made love in both ways.”

“How do I approach *Liz* with this is what I’m wondering?”

“Tell her we have a common aunt that convinced you to go with me over George — The Musician if you will.”

“Oh, he will,” replies Shelley to this. “I’m kind of sick of the ambiguity.”

“Then tell him.”

“No,” she stands firm. “I’m done with it. The wedding is off. We will get married instead. Just like in the film.”

“What film?”

“Stop it, you know what film.”

“The film of our life?”

She sighs. “We have the same aunt. We are already married in a way, future moved to present. We have a child, 1/2 black and 1/2 white, just like us. *No* ambiguities. We are a couple, a team. I, I mean, *they* brought you back to play Kill van Kull, the sophisticated twin cousin of Arthur. You did swell — too much so, as character became reality, bringing Esther in the picture as well.”

“Act I, scene 7. How could I forget.”

“Cut back to the Inky Man from the Boulder Scene still hiding in the rocks, head in the sand — *cringing* (recoiling) instead of Fred. But it *wasn’t* Chaplin. Instead…”

“Keaton, Buster Keaton,” Arthur, I mean, Lemont finished the thought.

“They were heading for the church. I know where this is now!”

“Let’s go,” he deadpanned. No ambiguities any more. The Cross has spoken.

In this “joke” above, Buster recoils after realizing the potential bride he approached from behind is actually an African-American. Although this joke is overtly racial (one of the few in Keaton’s oeuvre), modern audiences may not realize that at the time it would have been illegal for Buster to marry this woman.

“I’ve watched it over and over,” Shelley says about the scene. “This is overt, *period*; this is a line drawn in the sand. No going back! Save the boulder sequence the rest is trite garbage.”

Lemont Sanford mostly agreed. They’d have to edit, they settled. He had a new role. Let’s begin again; technicolor; picket fences.

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October 16, 2022 · 5:35 am

00350211: staying on Nautilus instead…

“Shoo, cat. I’m not actually a bird.

“Hey, watch it! You nipped me you little booger. I’m *not* a *bird* (!). Not really, although, come to think of it, I might taste like chicken.”

—–

A star once more, a pink to match the green in the middle of The Cross which made me dance and drove the toys away, right and left (she thinks).

A red statue created as mate and partner to the blue on the other side of the star-man. Are these toys as well (she ponders)? No (she decides).

—–

I had thoughtful Blue Bird sit at a handy bar while I continued to remotely look around the artsy place set on a high beige ridge of the North, the same Nautilus continent region featured in every other post of this here photo-novel so far, save 3. Staring at her from this angle, I realized that she was also part cat as well as part bird, offering up an alternate explanation for the black cat’s nipping back there, like attracting like. Love nip it was in this scenario, not a hunger bite. Blue Bird considers this as I explain it to her, but rejects it as a partial answer. “We have enough 1/2 and 1/2s in these photo-novels, 35 in a series of 35 so far. Time to go for the all or nothings more don’t you think?”

She was a woman, I was in a gallery dedicated to the efforts and sufferings of women, what could I do? I had to shore things up a bit here; follow her advice put to me kindly instead of harshly, picket fence instead of barb wire. She could have gone with the latter, which would have been more subconsious. Instead: alert and awake, making choices that others would also be pleased with. It satisfied her, I could tell. A suggestion is just that if so framed. I did not have to heed the guidance, although I most likely would have been wise to do so. I ramble…

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October 4, 2022 · 5:16 am

West to North

She said she was on a break from bartending to better pick up men but quickly adding he wasn’t her type. “Too black,” she said, then snickered. He wasn’t interested in this *Marilyn* (she said) anyway. Too white, or not enough black as in hair color, as in clothing. Darla provided that for him. And he was bound and determined to find her and bring her home. He’d follow her to the ends of the Earth, or at least Ohio. If it wasn’t for his own shackles, however electronic they were. But *here*…

“Having problems with your i-pad… *here*?” Marilyn said, looking over while nursing her tea I believe and also probably reading his mind as well.

“Yeah,” he admitted since he had to. She was only about 3 feet from him and could see everything. “Won’t move from sideways.”

“*We’re* sideways,” she offered, then giggled. “You don’t even know where you are.” Fact.

Albert thought back. He was walking down the beach toward the Umbrella Club or Resort or whatever after finishing up with Claude and then… here. Someone or something teleported him. But he wasn’t too worried about it. He figured it was a feature of Our Second Lyfe he’s not familiar with. He’d solve the issue soon — get back on track. He was trying to google the problem and then this.

“This is HOME,” she said, and finished her tea with a big gulp before resuming her position behind the bar. Should be a busy night. The Umbrella Operation is not the only one with a deal with the Abyss.

“This is home,” Albert mused, still sideways, still not seeing the correct direction. He never will… here.

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