“Well, here we are. Spirit House. Whatever will we find inside?”
Tag Archives: NOODLE
00490410
“For Scissorrun©? It all started right here, in Rodentia.
“Walk By Night.”
“Cool. I remember walking by there at night, wondering how a place that small could have a band that large. I recall.”
“Many a night I sat here at the bar, staring at that upside down cross, and asking, ‘why why why?'”
“Because of the band being too big for such a small place thing.”
“Upside down from what I anticipated, yeah. I wondered why Satan and his 666 powers had let me down so much. After all, there was the whole selling of the soul to him.”
So that’s in this story as well, I think. But I knew there was more.
“To cover up the cracks that were forming all over the place in Our Second Lyfe,” he went on. “To make it… perpetual.”
Oh, so there’s that too, I think
“Have you been around back? Have you seen the graffiti, the picture, round back of the place? Yeah, you’d think: *You* did that. To make your story come more in line with that of Gorillaz. But, no, it was there in the first place. Along with this upside down cross. This is the place.” TBC
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0049, 0410, Dokken Hollow+, Jeogeot
00490306 (Indigo Ridge 01)
I ran through the blue and violet vegetation toward the rings as fast as I could. This was way before I met Gemilly, became what I thought was part of a 2 person team moving forward. I was still a solo act here. I believed my name to be Dandelion but, in truth, that was just the place I worked. Tampopo was Japanese for Dandelion. Or Tanpopo — I don’t think the owners of the place even knew the correct spelling. Greece was the location: Athens. And this was my escape after a hard day’s work: video games.
“Albertville Mercury Spaghettiboro,” he corrected me about a name at the top of the ridge while I studied the gas giant this moon orbited. Schrodinger VIII, with the moon being VIIIa as it was deemed. By chance I’d landed in exactly the right spot to build a base later on. I invited him back to the spaceship for my patented 10 minute ramen dish I’d learned to cook at the restaurant to seal the deal. *We* were the team, at least for now. And also: not in that way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you. Strangely, I can’t recall his name right now. I’ll get back to you on that. TBC
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0049, 0306, Starfield
00480410
ALBERTVILLE: Yes, it comes from the movie “Tampopo,” which literally means Dandelion (in Japanese). It’s a film about a woman, a cook like me, trying to create the perfect ramen; believe it came out in 1986 (sic: 1985). Her restaurant in the movie has the same name as ours. *We* are seeking the perfect ramen.
ME: Hold on. I think we’re having some technical difficulties. Yes, my power cord was loose, sorry (PRESS). Yes, now it’s on. Continue… (TBC)
00480406
He told me to back up a bit more and I finally saw it, the double vision he spoke about before locking into place like a renegade magic eye. 2 halves of the restaurant directly overlapping each other through a crossing, slots in one seeming to be perfectly filled by the other.
The ears of the mirrored central woman with the flaxen hair is whispered into by the dark hard woman on either side, perhaps the most obvious communication between the now combined spaces. I could even make out the hushed words they shared: “I am instant.” With this, the two instantly became untangled, the special vision was over and the restaurant returned to mundane, like a master magician snapping one out of hypnosis. Albertville Mercury Spaghettiboro was back at his noodle cooking station inside the customer encircled kitchen, unable to be spoken to any longer. He was never here in the first place. But what was said before the transfer knocked me on the floor, kicked me in the shins, insert whatever idiom for shock and awe you wish here. Fortunately I made sure I recorded at least the meaty part of our imaginary conversation. 🙂
Looking around to doublecheck everything remained stable, I went into the men’s bathroom to play, making sure noone else was in it; just couldn’t wait. I killed two birds with one stone (another idiom!) while sitting on the commode. PRESS
ME: Yes, now it’s on. Continue… (pause) You were talking about the origin of the restaurant’s name (I prompted). (longer pause) Albertville?
I cut off the machine along with the pee. Something went wrong! (TBC)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0406, Europe, Greece
00480405 (Athens now)
Well it was absolutely the worse place Lexi and I could have gone. The slurping the slurping! We could only stand it for a second then had to mute the whole location. We’d have to read lips from now on. Luckily lips are like one pink and we had no problem with it. Carrcass+1.
“About the dandelion!” I said if only to others, the words understood as mere vibrations to myself physically and in my head mentally. Lexi couldn’t take any more and exited the scene stage left, not even being able to stand just visual. Those mouths those mouths!
“Yeah, what about the dandelion!?” responded the waitperson closest to me, 2 plates in his hands and one spinning on his nose, just kidding about the nose. But as deftly as he was handling those plates with 3 bowls apiece full of steaming hot noodles he might be able to pull it off. I could tell he could pause only for a second, which was reinforced when he said, “Hurry up, man!”
I hesitated again and he was gone. Waitress I’d had my eye on next. “Miss, oh miss!?” She presently had 3 drinks in her two hands and one arm, that 3rd tucked behind one of the ones in the hands, reader’s choice. Not a nose once more but pretty impressive still. “Hurry it up, bud!” she said, kind of mimicking the man. “The dandelion… what is the signif—!” But she was gone with the “…”. I had to learn from past mistakes! We’ll… 2 of them. Dammit!
Next: the ramen cooker. Albertville Mercury Spaghettiboro I learned, an Italian by way of Stockholm and Lima. I had to lean in real hard from my stool at the crowded counter to get his attention back in back. “About the dandelion!” I pointed almost straight up now to the most significant card picture (to me) attached to the metal partition encircling the kitchen at the center of it all instead of forward like before. “Significance?!” I uttered as simply as possible but still with perhaps too many syllables. Caught him right at the start of his break. And, big break, he was a big fan of restaurant lore. *My* big break.
15 minutes and 15 seconds later, we got to the mention of “tartar mosquito” in that badly translated Tripadvisor review which led me here in the first place. Success! (TBC)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0405, Europe, Greece
00470514
My sister positioned her (stolen?) golden auto as close as she could next to the front doors of the small, out of the way eating establishment. “Follow my lead,” she said, then got out of the car and glitched inside. I moved over to the now vacated driver’s seat and did the same.
“There,” she spoke as I stood beside her now, taking in the quiet. Free at last to eat in peace instead of pieces. Why she brought me to this hidden eatery in the first place. “We can pull up those two green seats around that table.” I looked around. No one here except us. And counter person Bob, who Lexi explained didn’t count.
“Say you come here all the time?” I asked.
“Sometimes. Just when I want to eat out. *Ever*.” She smiled, maybe even laughed a bit. It was good to hear. She’d been so serious lately what with the finishing of Ralph, her dog robot which she called a “pseudo-flathead.” Having worked at the robot factory for a week, I kind of knew what that was now. Not Arasaka quality — glossiness, she called it — but compensations in other directions. She could rig it in her own, special way. “End of August,” she said earlier about a deadline for completing the thing. “End of August or I might have missed my chance.” I doubted it. Who would even think of sending a robot into those channels? And now here, another Kabusie secret revealed.
What else did she know? I needed to stick closely to my sister. She’s here to help. We *share* a condition. There’s a reason for that.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0514, C2077, Kabusie
00460108 (319)
That’ll be 4 bucks please,” said ramen shop attendant Jacwylin, extending her hand with the bill for the bills. She was also the manager of this small cyperpunk type shop, if it wasn’t Tammy (pause). No, I checked. Tammy isn’t projected to be in this here photo-novel, 46 in a series. So this remains Jacwylin. “You know,” she begins again, name settled on and free to dwell in the past now, “Blue Moon Kentucky sat on that very seat, ordered that very meal. Blue like you too.” She scrutinized the face more closely. “Nah,” she begged off. “You’re not her.”
“Of course I’m not her,” said the blue clad woman back. Still working for the Horns, the big bosses, although the boss boss Edward was the only one still around. Who was now also her boyfriend. Luckily for her, he doesn’t have a cleanliness obsession. He doesn’t mind a little dirty. “But,” she reconsidered, “that’s an interesting story, worth a follow up statement.” There. I just did it. Would she get the joke?
“Ha ha,” she started after a significant enough pause. “Hu hu hu, good one.” She got it. “But, *anyway*, Blue Moon… do you like her music? Do you prefer the Cracks or do you prefer her solo work? Some do.” She withheld the “like me,” part. Wanted to get the other’s opinion first.
“I’ve heard of ‘Keep on Shining.'”
“Yes yes. Good one.” Maybe a solo lover. Like herself. She’ll keep patient.
“And, let’s see, the one about suicide is certainly interesting. Can’t recall the name of that.”
Jacwylin couldn’t either in the moment. Oh yes, she thought. “Elvis Esley.” Or Isley — she couldn’t remember if the last name of the single started with an E or an I, our first mandela effect in this here post (pause). I checked to make sure and, yes, it is so. The name Tammy remains a mistake and not an alternate reality.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0046, 0108, C2077, NIGHTSITY
00450610
Being a poor student at the local public university majoring in psychology, Peter Melanchton often came down here to the roadside ramen shop to get a free hot meal. But he had another reason to sit on this rock and eat his noodles: Shelley Johnston (Johnson?) Struthers, seen here running into that tunnel again. He often daydreamed that she was his girlfriend, and that they would run together through the whole of the Nawt Vaya inland sea, rain or shine.
Today Lexi joined him, and then, after Shelley passed into the tunnel, gave him a good lecture about stalking young girls even though she was actually doing the same here. Hypocrite, then: just wanting to eliminate the competition. Edward was enough. No need for another pretty faced *boy* to enter the picture.
Sufficiently spooked, Peter doubled down on his studies and eventually graduated Summa cum laude from Nawt Vaya State, which means peak of his class. Doing some modelling on the side sufficed to cover the cost of food and amenities after that, no need for free. Too tempting down on that rock overlooking the tunnel entrance. Didn’t want to get a reputation, maybe even attracting the attention of the local police force. All elements of Lexi’s lecture.
—–
Later, Lexi met Philip at the local Slurpies and started bragging about the deed. Philip checked in his red book and saw this had indeed happened but 2 weeks ago. Lexi must have skipped a chapter or two, he figured. He tells her she’s late and that she needs to recalibrate her internal clock. Just then the school bells rang (dong… dong!), signaling graduation of the 2024 class where Peter just gave his Summa cum laude speech. What is happening to time??
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0045, 0610, Jeogeot, Juho, Nawt Vaya+
00430415 (The One)
“Here. Let me play walk you through this.”
I wanted to go up and ask them, “Are you girls UK Cracks??”, but I knew better. This was a specific gang formed to protect those of their kind. Like the great majority of things in this world, they don’t cater well to humor — *cracks* as it were. Besides, the color schemes were different, with more greens and yellows involved along with frizzier hair as I recall. More Africa than Asia. So after carefully navigating around this wrong trio, I went on to find the right one, or at least the right one of the right one. Blue Moon Kentucky, named for a specific village in a specific state. Specific again. In the marketplace roundabout, or so legend goes.
—–
I’m sure I had the right location: a Zuru-Zuru ramen shop with a number 24 neon sign. Other stores in the area had the same sign but I’m certain this is the one. I’d completed the needed Police related mission, found the body at the bottom of that damn Petrochemistry dam. Dead all right. Thrown over the edge only to bounce back up again here. There’s plenty of evidence for it. Could, of course, be a ghost though. Or an indicator.
If only she were here I could simply ask. If only there were another, *roundabout* way to *crack* this egg. Say… Our Second Lyfe?
Sunklands 