“There he goes again out to her, Olaka.”
“I see her, ” he replied to his twin bro-sis Okama, on pink this time. They take turns. His was the Middle Ages.
“Might as well be tied to the mast of that small vessel, you know. Siren call.”
“Not Calypso but getting there,” Olaka said to close. Too close.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0052, 0105, Bandanaboro, Dickey Trace, Mythopolis, Omega, Wazob
“I wait in front of the motel for Shelley to come back with some ice. ‘I’m staying put,’ I said before she disappeared around the corner. ‘I’m expecting the shipment of The Hitcher aan-y time and don’t want to miss it. Can’t get distracted.’ ‘Suit yourself, lover,’ and (she) was gone from me in more ways than one but I didn’t realize it at the time.
“So I waited. And I waited. The text I received along with placing the order said it may take up to 15 minutes for delivery but 25 and still nada. And Shelley hadn’t returned either. Slowly it dawned on me like a peeled banana glistening in the morning dew after 30, 50 and especially 70, the Platinum phase of it all. The Hitcher hadn’t shown up because there is nothing to hitch, I say to myself, idiom mode switched on again. The marriage to Shelley, the name change to Silver for first me and then her through me, never happened, pheh. And here I sit all lonely and worn out on a worn out bench in front of a lonely motel in seedy town perhaps named for a banana called Bandana with one in my pocket instead of change — money. Absentmindedly I fish around in it, even pulling them inside out to empty the potential contents. Nada once more. Shelley had gone back to a very much alive Okama not as a lover but a partner still with a shared love of music, vocals and keyboards respectively. Okama’s bro Olaka never peeled off into his own reality to create a (Burger) King, (Dairy) Queen east to west line of eating establishments ending with Jack which stands for Jack shite now I suppose. He remained at the hospital, staring down at a bed containing not the corpse of Okama about to be covered up with a sheet by assistant Luther but an empty one which Okama stood up from 12 hours ago to exit the place and return to the Land of the Fully Living. Where he went just afterwards also makes for an interesting story — but I have to shift to omniscient author to tell it.”
“Well go ahead,” Hucka D. urged, still beside me, still my personal AI of sorts. Until we can sort out the other.
“He returned to the location where he theorized he contracted the highly contagious disease called Pill that almost did him in in the first place. The *Head*.”
“The Head of Bandanaboro,” clarified Hucka. “The sand colored one directly connected to a same colored Body with a total length of around 100 feet.”
“The same,” I say. “He recalls giving Shelley a tour of the town before their 5 night gig had started, beginning with this Head which he said was a place in town you could hang your hat on.”
“Idiom mode again,” said Hucka D. to this. “Now change it to idiot, as in the stupidity of heading from the Head down into the Body through the esophagus, also known as the gullet also known as the food pipe in some circles if not doctor’s circles. Olaka would never have called it that. He would always say esophagus and also steer away from gullet.”
“Okay that’s good,” I say to Hucka’s speech, remembering why I placed her here in the first place. To hear, to speak, to breathe, to live. I had to hear this out.
“But — here’s the thing he recalled,” I continued. “Due to warped perspective caused by that picture we already looked at…
…Shelley went both up and down the stairs into the meat of the Body. Like this. Can you see?” tbc?
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0051, 0610, Bandanaboro, Omega
“God I hate that itchy thing,” O*laka* Majo complains about his doctor’s outfit he’s shedding as fast as possible now that Tony B. and Shelley J., the newly minted Silvers, are out of eyeshot and earshot and heading back to their motel kind of on the opposite side of town. Him: heading sort of the opposite way to the Dairy Queen next door to the Burger King for an actual shake in an actual proper food establishment. “Done!” he shouts with some satisfaction as he discards the last of it while sitting down, stuffing it under his table so it’ll be out of sight and hopefully out of his mind too. Return to his normal self before and between and after the crazy. He takes a deep breath.
“Fool some other dumb ass tourist with your tales about the Pill?” Dairy Queen attendant Ruby Twistytwirl calls from the counter. “Reason for the doctor’s outfit again?” she again guesses correctly.
“You bet!”
“Are they headed to the motel? *Your* motel?”
“Right,” he answers. “Swallowed the pizza story too. Swallowed it whole, exotic topping and all. They’ll be here for a while.”
“What about your *brother*? An accomplice I assume. Per usual again.”
“Oh he’s really dead this time,” he says, surprising Ruby T.
“Dead? Can’t be. He’s immortal!”
On and on this went. At one point, Olaka approached the counter, extending a hand toward 15 1/2 year old Ruby not for another shake this time but to propose marriage himself, sugar high cranked to the max. “Run away with me to the icy hills of North South Dakota Montana,” he begged, grasping the appendage tightly and on his knee now as well. She could barely keep hold of him over the counter still separating them, if just for play and giggles. The counter that represented her job, her ties to town. She could no longer run away to a glacial paradise than he. And both knew it. Instead: wedded to the town itself, this Bandanaboro of the upper east west central plains of Omega in the virtual world of Our Second Lyfe that has also become Their Second Lyfe through osmosis and also a bit because of the line of eating establishments starting with King running through Queen and ending not at Jack as one might suppose — say, visiting musicians from an exotic foreign land — but at Pizza. Plus she was a bit too young still, 16 being the minimum marrying age if not working age here in this borough of not just bananas but getting there. Only play keeps them alive.
Better move to the last of them now. tbc
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0051, 0608, Bandanaboro, Omega
“Wait. Who are you?”
—–
“We have a Burger King, a Dairy Queen, and a Jack in the Box,” she said, playing 3 of the highest cards the town had to offer, this Bandanaboro of the upper east west central plains. Not Bananaboro. That’s different. “And a church,” she continued. “Aand a roller derby. Many many clothes shops, some even offering free stuff.” I complained that the one store I saw free stuff in, the vendors didn’t work. Yes, I teleported out and back into the sim to check, I reassured her. And this stuff — everything in the town, really — is old. “Part of the charm!” she countered. “And you can rez anywhere and your things won’t disappear.” Role play! I suddenly thought, getting excited again about the prospects. If I could just find somewhere I could hang my hat on. “Meet me at the entrance to The Body that looks like sand,” she said to this. “The head entrance.” Smart. Very smart.
—–
“After you,” she said. Or he.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0051, 0508, Bandanaboro, HANA LEI, Omega
