She/he went from the cross…
… to The Cross.
Page’s convincing portrayal of the “church lady” image of Aunt Esther was in marked contrast to the “blue” material of her stand-up act and record albums.
“What can I say, that’s my aunt.” “No it’s *not* (pause) Okay, yes it is. But…” “But what?”
Waiting for more change in Spornimore. Sporminore.
Everybody has them, some more than others (apples, oranges, bananas).
After so much effort he’d finally caught one. Himself.
Gathering of clones (Umbrella Club inductees).
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0207, Nautilus, NORTH
“They just watched her disappear down into the hole,” he reported in a low, yelping voice, “like they figured she’d be okay on her own.”
“The lady in the red dress?” questioned the other, too lazy to rise up off the ground beside Fox to witness the spectacle himself. But we happen to know it’s Greg Ogden, painter of the Paper sim Monolith and some other stuff. Maybe this stuff — later on.
“No,” corrected Fox. “She’s already gone. Palace in De Skies. Or so the script says, the blue one I believe. Unless it’s red too. White? Let’s split the difference and say it’s white,” he completes, ears twitching with the possibilities. “This one was just a kid.”
Greg Ogden sighs, already tired of the new year. He knew a kid, a mere babe, would be involved but now the issue had been raised he didn’t care. “And the others,” he continued wearily, “this Marion Star Harding and Philip Strevor I’ve been told? The Well Well Well brothers.”
“Weellll.” STOP
—–
START “You have been told correctly. Still sitting there these two. Maybe waiting for some kind of MIRACLE, like in ’69.” But Fox then remembers he wasn’t suppose to talk about that. Not since ’96.
Night fell and everything flipped over, black becoming white and white black.The fire was burning down down down. Soon they knew she would not return. “Give me til midnight,” she requested before the descent and subsequent ascent. White Palace? We’ll see. “If I’m not back by 2022 you can give up on me. I will have failed in my mission to find Clyde.”
Philip checked the watch that wasn’t on his wrist. “11:15 — time is running out. What the f– is taking her so long, Marion? It’s like she found a newspaper up there and is reading it back to front.” Philip was oh so close with this jest. Downloading information was indeed the crux of the situation.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0706, Corsica, Splinterwood
He was not far behind them, in Ross. He stared at the 3 primary colors under the red and white umbrella that represented candy. Cotton candy in this case, doubly meaningful. Because he’d also learned of Peter Cotton, inventor of the world famous cottonpicker from Kick-ass Bogota, as well as about Marion, a fellow pilot of WWWWI. “Flew a mission with me the day I went down,” he said at the bar drinking a tall grasshopper, as green as his outfit. Greener, Axis-Windmill realized. “Came to get me — only reason I’m standing here with this metal plate in my head. *Borneo*. Get that: Borneo. And all the maps said it didn’t exist, said there was nothing beyond the Elephant of Celebes or the Giant Rat of Sumatra. Rose knew all along where the cube-box was hidden. In one of the deepest corners of space. Marion took me there one night. We were up drinking and drinking and he said he knew of a place where we could get the best whiskey in the solar system, nay, the *universe*. Mind you, we were really drunk. He would have never told me otherwise — said so the next day. We climbed this low granite hill near his new airport over at… I think it’s Enchiladas. Anyway, something that starts with an ‘E’. Some wooden box type thingie was at the top. We reached it. He pointed west, I believe. A particular star, he said. Just rising… over there.”
“Alpha Centauri?” I offered, just saying the brightest one I knew.
“That’s how you *find* it,” he replied, and then pointed me west to the famous cross of somewhat fainter stars, the crux of the matter as things turned out. His buddy studies it, he said, which I later learned referred to Philip Strevor, a professional pill popper over in Heaven Town.
“Dead?” I guessed about him after learning his job title and the name of his town.
“Might as well be,” came the answer from the green guy, almost as green as his drink he was still sipping, still nursing. “‘To death do us part,’ he said one night on the same low granite hill actually. He was staring at the star and said that, like the star was going to kill him or something.”
“Or marry him,” I added to the story. I was, of course, channeling in the moment. I’d gotten very good at that, in fact.
“We better get to Bartholomew,” he then said, turning toward me, or perhaps looking behind me for someone. I turned as well. Who were we looking at? 102? Something that can’t be edited because it goes in a perpetual circle, editing itself in the process as it revolves around and around and around? Could be.
We were both psychic is all I knew for sure.
He turned away from the cotton candy dispensers and headed toward town.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0029, 0512, Horns of Hatton+, Maebaleia/Satori, Purden/Snowlands, Sansara
“Honey! I’m home!”
“We lived on that island for, I don’t know, 5 years, me, Jacob I. and the kid.”
“The cat,” I clarified (for the reader). “Broken Heart.”
“Yeah, that one. That was before I met Philip Stymie and moved to another island. Same house, though — I just moved it through space. I could do that by that point.”
“The wisteria… helped?”
“Sure did (!).”
“Tell me about Stymie, then. He was a different species. I mean, he wasn’t like Jacob.”
“No, he was different from me. Had the 2 eyes instead of the one. I was a pure bred. Jacob was half alien half human, with 2 eyes still below the third. Broken Heart was both animal and tiny in a similar way. We were happy. But perhaps… we were too similar in the end. Jacob moved to the peninsula; figuratively fell asleep for years and years, maybe at the castle but maybe all over the peninsula — the peninsula itself. Eyes (species) sometimes have a tendency to do that: drift off for a large amount of time, doing nothing, at least on the outside. Inside we still have a rich and vibrant life. I’ve done the same.”
“You are figuratively dead?”
“Could be. Listen do you want some more lemonade? How about some pear juice?”
—–
“We never did build that castle, Stymie and I. But we had a heck of a moat.”
“Now maybe things have changed.”
“Maybe so.”
—-
“Where were you happier, Eyela? Can I call you Eyela?”
Leila thought it over and decided to say yes.
“Thank you. It’s the same house, the same structure I understand. But different islands, different men. Did you have a cat at Viterbo?”
“No. Broken Heart went with Jacob I. They were more a couple than we were. That was always the case. The weed drew them together. The high grass.” Here Leila/Eyela puffed an imaginary doobie to emphasize her point.
“Yes, I remember hearing about that. So… you were happier with Stymie?”
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0028, 0212, Nautilus, NORTH, Retirement Islands, Rim Isles, Rooster's Peninsula, Wild West
“So as you can see, Billie, we’ve had a bit of excitement in town since you’ve been gone. But it’s all cleaned up now. Your tower scrubbed up nicely. The only thing damaged was a couple of house plants which were dying or dead anyway. And, oh yeah, this is where Kolya had his head damaged.”
“I was wondering where that happened,” she replied in her child’s voice from the chair, this youth that was not young atall. “The encounter with God.”
“We should have never erected that giant golden *cow* in the middle of town, Billie, and you know it. We have been frowned upon.”
“Claudette is there for a reason.”
“*This* reason?” Mr. Babyface questioned, wondering if the idolatry had come to this. Fire.
“God must show himself,” she reckoned. “Or else…”
“… all be damned, yeah I get it.” Mr. Babyface didn’t get it but he didn’t want to seem stupid (again!) in front of the precocious child. So prescient. I’m sure she saw all this coming and that’s why she was away at the time. And she probably also spared me, he rationalized, by organizing that rant rave by my nephew that afternoon. It was all in the book, all in the pattern. The Oracle book and/or pattern.
“How was your comedy show, by the by?” he decided to deviate.
“How was yours?” She knew it wouldn’t be as good. She had chosen the freshest act and left him with the leftovers.
“You know,” he said. “A nephew is a nephew and needs support.”
“Nepotism, yes. I enjoy a Skippy Bittman too but only as an act of an act, a step beyond; meta–.”
Skippy Bittman? “*Anyway*, I suppose you know Marion Star Harding was here as well.”
“I had a feeling.” She didn’t see this! Time was changing again, infinite becoming finite as inflammable separated from flammable. She could see the edge of the plane but not beyond. And the beyond was becoming here, plain and simple. Marion Star Harding. Not since Rose Heaven, for him and Phillip Strevor both. Maybe Phillip is around as well, she rationalized, perhaps down at the church cemetery trying to cover himself up with dirt. It would fit.
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0413, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Nautilus
Marion Star Harding flew over the town, not knowing what he was looking down at. The South. The Opposite. Phillip Strevor instead of Trevor Phillips. And he being the new guy in town, so to speak. And shapeshifter Heidi Hunt Ives or whatever she calls herself these days tagging along as well, controlling each of the paired gangster types in a different way. Good times all around. But now he had more responsibility; was a respected pilot up in the Starfish Lake or Sea area; had a different kind of clientele to deal with. Hole headed Kolya wanted off of this “2” continent back to “1” and he was bound and determined to help him, given the right price. He use to say money wasn’t an option but he’s changed his tune, perhaps changed his key as well away from middle C to a different one, maybe D Flat. A small but significant difference, the same adjectives that apply to the town below as stated in that previous post here. Diminutive yet important.
Uh oh. Running out of gas. He’d forgotten to fuel up at Borneo, the last stop outta here. He’d have to make an emergency landing, but the place appeared to have no landing strip that he could tell. Small — too small now. He’d have to crash into a building to halt forward progress. He donned his inflammable airsuit, thinking it would protect him being fireproof and all. In the same way he use to think infinite and finite meant the same thing. But of course inflammable *does* mean flammable, so when the plane burst into flames upon impact so did he. Filled with pure oxygen it was, with no nitrogen or any other neutral gas anywhere to be found. The abbreviated Kidd Tower, highest in town despite being only 3 stories high in this incarnation, was the unlucky target. Tower resident Mr. Babyface didn’t make it either, nor namesake Billie Jean Kidd. Wait — I’m getting indications that Mr. Babyface was down at the town arena listening to one of his nephew’s rant raves so was spared. Same for Billie — back up in the Lost Angels bar for her, also listening to a comedian but of a much funnier ilk, or that’s what the raucous audience leads us to believe. And Marion Star Harding, then? Spared, because in *this* dimension inflammable actually means flame retardant, as it should in any dimension it exists logically. But as compensation infinite and finite are the same here, which explains why he couldn’t pilot the plane off the, well, plane (of existence). Because the plane is endless.
“*Kolya*,” he exclaimed upon entering the arena from the crash site, smoking hot. “Forgot about Kolya!” But the damange had been done, with a permanent big 2 in his head. Happy birthday!
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0412, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Nautilus
“Don’t worry about the wine, lady. I’m not really a kid.”
She simmers for a second, then: *Wonder*lady if you please.” She tries to stop simmering, crosses her legs, assumes a even haughtier if more subdued tone. “I’m a pro-per superhero after all. Like Superduper Man.”
“Realllly?” Billie Jean Kidd fakes, since she’s not really a fan of that genre. “Telll me mooorrr (!).” (*sip*)
“First you have to tell me something,” Wonderlady bargains, falling for the trap. “Who is that green *lady* back there on the bed. Is she sick?”
“She has a Little Bug — that’s all I’m allowed to say.” Snickering inside here from our old friend, a kid who is not a kid indeed. A lady as well: young, old, everything in-between, and then add a dog and perhaps that other thing to top it off. Shapeshifter in a word. That’s why she’s a member of the Black Lake Gang, recruited originally by gangster pals Marion Star Harding and Phillip Strevor, the *louts*. She hasn’t seen them since Rose Heaven. They promised so much; delivered so little. She had to part ways, ask for a reassignment. And here she was. With the alien. Ruby. Her *bug*.
“So not too serious a bug.” Wonderlady starts to feel the wounds forming again. She must be close to something.
“Oh it’s *serious*. But indeed Little. Little in a different way, though. Like, see, *I’m* a kid.” Billie Jean Kidd was revealing so much without revealing anything at all she had to stifle a laugh here. “But I’m really not a kid. And I’m *serious* about that.” She couldn’t help herself. She let out 3 quick laughs, like fake ones except not. The cover was still in place, as Wonderlady then said:
“I’m going to the loo (restroom). Cover for me.”
When Wonderlady went into the bathroom to check her body for new openings, Billie Jean Kidd looked over at Ruby Alien and winked at her, which was reciprocated. The game continues…
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0027, 0405, Lower Austra, Nautilus
Sally decided this would be her last trip into Jack’s former office with the all important ring binder she was still carrying around the day after yesterday. She had taken it to the bathroom with her and had a peek inside. Peking: (old) China stuff. “Just around the bend,” one document proclaimed. “Epidemic escalated to pandemic,” another said. “This was about the bug, like up in the beige hills, beyond Collagesity even,” she whispered to herself while on the john. She shut the ring binder, propped it carefully against the stall wall, balled her hand under her chin while sitting there in thinking mode. Sally was a bright chick, perhaps too much so. Since she had a double life, just because she was smart enough to pull it off. Lackey by day here at the Dogoog Coast Guard Station, an affiliate of Angel’s Airports. By night: spy. It was like the split of Orient and Occident, she realized, and herself as a reverse Marco Polo ready to unleash the goods to the enemy.
—–
Marsha knew that boss Phillip Strevor was spying on her while she photocopied downstairs, eager to get away sometimes at least from the direct stares of her backside. At first he hid behind that big palm pictured above. Okay, good: only a sideways view, she thought, and tolerated the stalking. Then, gradually it seemed (it probably happened all of a sudden, though), Phillip slid out from behind the palm and over to the couch for a better view. He had sunglasses and wore a fake beard. He usually sat lotus position to disguise himself as an Indian. He thought it would be enough to fool her. Phillip Strevor perhaps wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but that’s probably because of his head being cut off and all back in the war. He had it reattached, but decided to keep the demarked cut lines just to make him look tough. “CUT HERE”.
He also thought the beard would hide this from Marsha.
—–
While still hauling around that damning ring binder all over the building to various offices (traitors, she thought, every last one of them!), Sally checked the script weight board. No sign of Wilson Fox this time. Only 2 All Oranges now, the big boss out on the dock taking care of the what’s-his-name dignitary, and the hooker across the bay probably wearing all that bling jewelry she likes. Man attactors, she calls them. Little lurid beacons of light. Sally usually hates women of the night and thinks them the lowest of life forms. But she’s befriended the hooker — Ginger I think is her name — because she has valuable information about the Orient she needs to dig out from her. And to top it all off, there’s Lime: the very origins of Our Second Lyfe. It actually started on Yd Island — just beyond the edge of the Coast Guard property over there. You can almost see it with a 512 meter draw, the maximum allowed in this here game. Ratzenburger Rabbit. Ginger (I think) knew the whole story. She grew up on Yd Island back in the 30s, 50s, and 70s.
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0026, 0613, Lower Austra, Nautilus
Sunklands 