With her kids shoes and grown up hair, Alysha was more red than ever. She even had a red door to her office here near the center of Squared Root City, where I’ve decided to end this particular section of “Collagesity 2020-2021 Winter”. But not the (photo-)novel itself — I don’t think. Haven’t quite made up my mind yet, actually. Anyhoot, we’re back, Alysha is in charge again, *not* Fern Stalin, and ditzy blonde Lichen Roosevelt is merely along for the ride, at least that’s what the other 2 think.
Alysha hangs up the phone. Herbert Glenn Gold is okay — she just wanted to check. April Mae is back in prison over in Collagesity. Good. She speaks to the people present.
“So you see, Lichen, Fern, we’ve been working on three different scripts ever since, well, I guess, since the last director left.”
“That’s *me*,” interjected Fern, still sharp as a tack. “Why are you *there* and I’m *here*?”
“Well, that’s the basic problem,” explained Alysha, the same age and also intelligence as myself, actually. A bit dimmer than Fern, perhaps, but one up on Lichen in that department. If only she had Lichen’s comic timing, though, she often laments. Back to business: “It started — or we picked up on it — with a phone call from this very town — just right over there at one of the coffee shops.” She tries to determine if she can see it from this direction but decides she can’t. Took her just a minute to get her bearings. Fern silently thinks she would know such a detail *before* the meeting started and not embarrass herself with such a thing in the middle. Lichen was thinking of an Abbot and Costello type dialog involving the confusion of “here” and “there”, but she hadn’t gotten very far. Fern can’t wait. She puts forth what she knows.
“So *I* have the blue script, since I’m ahead of everyone else — July apparently. “Then you have the white one in front of you there, Alysha — or you did — anyway, we can collage that in later — then Lichen has red — or pink — to end. Even further back. May.” She turns to Lichen. “May, dearest?”
“W-what?” Costello was about to find out the center fielder’s name was I Don’t Know.
“The date on the script, beautiful. May? April?” Fern then recalls it is actually April and continues with her theories, ignoring Lichen’s fumbling through the pages attempting to determine a date.
Alysha jumps in before the bazooka that is her mind starts firing again. “We are all one.”
“That’s what I was just about to say (!). We are all one core. Wheeler Wendy Wilson.” The full name — Fern *must* be serious, the other two think at the same time. “The 3 faces of Al — Anselmo.”
“Right, right,” Alysha tried again. “Ansel…”
“… also reverberates with Adams the black and white photographer, yes.” Fern with the upper hand again. She rarely loses it. Unless a name like Helmet Newton comes up. Which it did next.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 