Tag Archives: Tessa^^======+++

January 23, 2023 · 8:13 pm

ecumenical matter

“So tell me about this Church of the Ood. Been a while, you know.”

“Oh things have changed. No more clown sacrifices for these good folk up here. That’s all done and in the past.”

“Explain.” He looks at the pictures up front again, merged at the frames — black and white, yin and yang, he perceives. He’s explaining the situation to himself. “One beneath it all?” he guesses.

“Yes.” Guy sure is psychic, thinks Baker Bloch again, still hanging around Gold since his wife has been delayed. Suspicious but of course he doesn’t delve deeper into a reason. The Golds always seem to sort it out despite the many issues involved now, he thinks, infidelity to name a big one on both their parts. High Infidelity, then.

“I was also thinking,” Gold theorized further, “that the clowns have been exterminated through repeated sacrifices and there’s no more reason to hate them. Because none exist.”

“Yeah, that too I suppose. 1/2 and 1/2.” Gold glared over. We weren’t suppose to use that expression past novel 25, the one that changed everything. Baker apologizes, but he only 1/2 meant it. He of course kept that fact to himself. Because — it was a little thing but such things add up to make big things — he wanted to make it okay to say that again. He wanted to honor 12 Oz Mouse expressions above all else. Now that Spider has been found inside collages again. Spider equals Skillet, he knows through Missouri. Polk County, Missouri, to be specific. Home of Uncle Joe and Aunt Zoe, humanvillians both. He didn’t return the glare but he looked over all the same. Gold — could turn into platinum at any specific turn of events. Reaction. Visit from grand-niece and now grown-up Tessa could trigger it. Because she thought him dead anyway; surprised he was still a part of the Land of the Living after Baker phoned her up on a whim. He’s curious to see what happens when they meet.

And where is Preacher Zoidboro? he thinks. 7:05 now. Everyone is here that’s here so far, everyone is anticipating results from this lone religion of town now that the clowns are gone. They have to find or at least pretend to find some sort of God or else all is still doomed.

(to be continued)

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December 21, 2022 · 12:58 pm

Ichetucknee

“I really like it here, Eddy. The motel, the view of the Ichelus Volcano over there. Look! It seems to be erupting again.”

This made Edward, her Eddy, think of another eruption earlier. Couldn’t wait. “Hmm,” he said, also looking, also pretty impressed.

“Have you had a chance to crack the book yet, Eddy? I know we’ve been awfully busy,” and she winks here, “but I did go to a lot of trouble to get it for you.”

“Tessa,” he replied, starting to think of his cousin, 1 in a set of 3. The other…

“Yes.”

“I started reading the first chapter,” he said, which was truth, or at least he checked the title of the chapter to make sure it was the right book. ‘Marbles Fall, Marble Falls.’ He could have swore it was the other way around, but probably just a faulty memory. Close enough — it was the same, he determined.

“Newton,” she said, recalling her own reading of the cursed thing. “Physical world, mechanics. *No* dreams. Right there in the first chapter, stating it all plain and simple up front. We *live*… in Newton.”

“But we need Jasper,” he completed her thought. He tried to recall his dreams from last night, after all the frantic activity was over, like a volcano shutting down. Took some time. He remembers the lava turning cool and changing colors from orange to blue. Ichelus in reality, but in the dream it was something different. Itchy? No that wasn’t it.

“Be careful of the marble rolling off. We’ve already lost one.” I was just kidding about the cracking, she wanted to say but didn’t have the chance. Open *gently*.

We? Edward thought on his part. Why did she say that? “Right, I will.”

“Miss Ouri has it.”

“Yes. I recall.”

“We don’t want Miss Ouri to be involved again. Cactus doll.”

“Yes,” he replied. That ravenous, mutant cactus doll. Brought to life by library voodoo. No, we don’t want that (again). Stick with Nauty if you want pincushions. *Under* the library — around it but not inside.

“I would really like to see the volcano today,” Jem requested. “I mean, up close and personal,” she clarified while looking out the window again. “Not like this — from a distance.”

“I understand,” and then another memory locked into place. He was tubing in the lava that wasn’t lava any longer.

(to be continued)

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August 30, 2022 · 5:17 pm

00340415

“Looks like a Dove. Highlighted by white, even. Shadow against light.”

“Could be could be,” he relented. Spider. They’d found him! Carrcassonnee was overjoyed.

“Can I… see him again now? Now again him see… I can?”

—–

“Well I’ll just wait upstairs while you finish speaking with each other,” said Jamie, walking away and highlighting Sign.

The footsteps on the stairs ended and the footsteps on the top floor began. Roberts was more free to talk about what Tessa needed to know. She’d already apologized about before. She said it was the town and the lag there, made her appear… less clever than she was. Roberts actually meant Tessa here but Tessa thought she meant herself (Roberts). There was just that difference between the two. Now at least the difference is clear, because we weren’t in Cable Isle any longer but back in Towerboro. Which office was the branch of the other didn’t really matter. That would be revealed soon enough. I would assume (the branch is) here without knowing more, but I’m about as clueless as Tessa in the moment. We better get to their dialog.

“I’m sorry about before, Tessa. It was the lag and the town.”

“Yes, you said that before.”

“I was just checking to see if you were listening. Sometimes people don’t when I speak, but maybe I’m just use to Cable Isle and its issues. Maybe here will be different.”

So just listening in, it appears that there is only one Roberts and Franklin investigating firm and it has moved from there to here. Back to the interaction.

“I’m listening,” said Tessa, trying to do this simple action. All I need, she thought, is to wake up, not sleepwalk all the time. That’s what Roberts desires.

“Let’s just enjoy the here and now for a moment, shall we?” Roberts kept silent. Tessa kept silent. Roberts reengaged eye contact. “*Now*.”

A blue Martian appeared. “Who’s that, Roberts?”

“Laura, please,” requested the psychic-detective. “And that, my friend, is an Observer.”

“Hmmm. What is she observing?”

“You,” came the quick reply. Silence again. Tessa was trying to think of a next step — what Roberts wanted from her again. She was trying to be mindful. Roberts — Laura — was patient, she knew. There was something here to be revealed, she picked up, and not just the Observer. There was another *thing* involved, a (she gleaned) thing that is not what it seems. An animal! She said this aloud.

“Good. What kind of animal?”

“She immediately thought, dog, but discarded it as too easy, not trusting her gut reaction. Her thoughts drifted to horse. She could just guess aloud. “Horse,” she said.

“Mmmm, not quite,” spoke Roberts, face remaining neutral.

Alligator? she thought. “Alligator.”

“Again: not quite.”

Spider came to mind but she broadened it as insect. “Insect.”

“Yes.”

Tessa was pleased, thinking that was the end of the game. But then Roberts continued. “And?”

“Something else besides an insect?” Tessa tried to clarify.

Roberts gave up the game, opened the door with her mind.

“A… dog?” It was the first thing that came to mind and then it was the last thing that came to mind. Funny how things work that way.

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August 28, 2022 · 10:52 am

00340411

“Drop it!” Tessa commanded, then realized she was in the wrong post when she shouted this. Wrong post wrong place. Although they may meet again, she said.

—–

“This orange ain’t right,” Maggie McFarland pondered in the correct time and location, thinking it too yellow to be true. Halfway between an orange and a banana we could add from our perspective. Not here not there. She puts it back… in the bananas?

Maggie had left the remainder of her groceries at the check out counter, including a green apple and a red pepper. Check that: a red apple and a green pepper. Checkout lady and part-time Twin Pines Market owner Mabel (Mabel!) was in the bathroom, waiting for Maggie to finish. She always goes back two or three times for other stuff. “Oh, I forgot the oregano sauce for Den Den’s supper, oh dear,” she might utter after Mabel (Mabel!) had already rung her up. So she just lets the food collect now on the counter and bides her time patiently uses her time wisely. “Oh never mind me,” Maggie said at another point, “I’m just an old lady looking for a slice of fun pie,” and went off and retrieved Den Den’s spagettios, perusing the shelves for the right kind first, the one made with veggie broth instead of meat. Mabel (Mabel!) had learned she could comfortably fit in a bathroom break after the first layout of groceries, like here (see above photo). She actually saves it up just for this occassion. 2 o’clock. Every day at 2 o’clock Maggie McFarland comes in to shop for her groceries. Unless its Munday. No one shops on Munday. No one does anything on Munday. Noone.

Maggie comes to the counter a second time, lays the too yellow orange on the counter between the red and the green. She put it back with the bananas and then changed her mind. That would be nuts to keep it there, she thought, and then actually slipped it in her pocket for a second, glancing around first. Mabel’s always gone this time of day, about 2:20. She could get away with it, she knew. Deep deep deep in her pocket.

But then thought better of it, temporary insanity over. “Done!” she shouted in the direction of the bathrooms and everywhere else, all the fruits and vegetables properly in a row now, starting with red and ending with green. Yellow in the middle, yellow in the middle… she picks it up again, makes a face. One last chance to steal.

“Me too!” Sound of water ends. Mabel has come back into the light. Is the banana colored orange still between the red and the green? An important question to be answered right after we come back from our sponsers. “Fun pie, it’s there when you need it, it’s there when you’re not.”

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August 27, 2022 · 7:17 am

sideways

The front door to the investigators office had slammed hours ago, it seemed. Tessa had basically given up, when:

“Yes, here it is, Ms. Daigle. Thomas Mantell. Born Franklin Kentucky 06/30/22, died Franklin Kentucky 01/07/48. The famous UFO case of course, hidden amongst these more ordinary court cases and in a darker shade, which is why I overlooked it before. My missing partner.”

Tessa Daigle, divorced from her first husband for 3 years, looked up. “Your missing *what*?”

Psychic-detective Laura Roberts turned. “My missing partner,” she repeated evenly. “Robert Franklin, the beginning, the end, and everything between.” She sat down at the table with the confused Tessa. “*And* I think also *your* missing partner. Black Bart wasn’t it? Donald is never wrong. He predicted the going, he predicted the coming back to Earth in the cursed ship. Black Bart… Black Jack. The plane crashed in Black Jack.”

Tessa knew the case as it turns out. And for a specific reason. “But… you said he died in Franklin. Born in Franklin, died in Franklin. Hence: Franklin through and through it seems.”

“Yes.”

—–

Tessa scratches her head. “Black Bart has risen from the grave, the one just out there, beside the Junk Yard and…”

“And?”

“Auto re-pair, yes.”

“Good.”

“Both are dead now, the junk purveyor and the, um, jalopy mechanic. Done in by Black Bart, whom others know as Arthur Kill.”

“Soon he will acquire a new name, ” spoke the prescient Roberts, jotting down something. “Here — here’s an address he may go to next. Or this person will eventually be involved — probably already has been.”

Tessa looked down at the almost illegible scribble Psychic-detective Roberts handed back to her on the sticky note. She finally made it out. Wheeler… Wilson, yes. Wheeler, Wilson. Who’s that?

—–

“You cannot return here, although we may see each other again. Goodbye.”

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July 23, 2022 · 10:33 am

Top gal

Building numbers the same: too coincidental. This is the neighborhood where I grew up — highlighted in the Oracle as well (Alabama, other states). And *Edward*. Poor Eddy Daigle, Wheeler thinks, purposefully getting his name wrong in honor of cousin Tessie (our Tessa). She “defeated” the pyramid being; sent him out the door without his dunce cap into the world of reality. Although he made a lot of D’s (hence the corner standing), she’s confident that he could work things out; join the land of the living.

She’s got on her retro sock hop outfit to better blend in. Now to see what else is here in this rainbow powered burg.

She checked building after building. The place seems empty. For now.

—–

The next town up and kattycorner: more success.

But can she fit in here?

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July 21, 2022 · 6:49 am

00340101

“I *know* this person,” thinks Wheeler at the door of the investigator/psychic’s interior office. She’s playing around with forms again, and this one is an extension of her recent consumption of fries with cheese at the nearby Twin Peaks bar and grill. File it under: you are what you eat. She thought she had 30 days before the skin turned green on this freebie avatar she’s attached to the outfit. Not as advertised; no wonder it was a budget item. She’s trying to become — but never mind. It’s not turning out. But that figure on the door (!).

“What was that Mrs. Corn?” Corn? she thinks. A last name? What’s the first? But she knows what it is.

“Oh… nothing. Just staring at the big eye on your door. It reminds me of someone.”

Psychic-detective Roberts pivots toward Mabel (Mabel!). “We’ve been through this.”

The situation changes.

—–

Jack barges in with his recently cleaned shovel. “Ma’am, the corpse is now bur — oh. Sorry. Didn’t know you were with someone.” Why would he? Miss Roberts never has any clients. Except dead ones. But this one appears to be alive. And green! Must be — but it couldn’t. Martian?

“Hi Harry,” he speaks over to the shorter figure standing beside her, also a gnome, also working for the firm.

“Hello Jacob,” as Harold calls Jack, which he doesn’t like but puts up with. Harry’s a nice guy. And a great carpenter. He did a fine job with this coffin. Extra long, but he made it fit.

“Just looking for the case, Mrs. Corn,” Roberts excuses herself to Mabel, now considerably smaller but just as green. Moreso, since she’s now wearing a Hannah Montana lime toned outfit, fresh from a concert at the Rooftop Inn over in mid-town. Where are we, then? The land description mentions an asylum. Is everyone here nuts? Could explain the outfit.

And the book! Just like the one at the newly established Table Room on Rooster’s Peninsula, where I live as a castle dweller, library in the center still. For now. A sprite was looking in it for information about her type, where she comes from, what are her weaknesses. This is Greenleaf, who also shows up in Towerboro standing on a big rock behind Dove, formerly Ivory, but still a sister to Ebony on the giant tree trunk dead in front of her: Deadwood. And the alphabit spread out on the forest floor below them, which they eat with a spoon one by one by one until they reach M, when *they’re* dead. Mmmmmm dead. Thirteenville.

But I feel like I’m needlessly complicating things again. Let’s back up more.

—–

“Okay, Mrs. Daigle. Let me just begin to look for that case we were just talking about. Oh — and Barry? You can take off your pyramid and go home now. I think you’ve learned your lesson well enough, young gnome.”

The striped dunce cap he was wearing! One and the same.

We must follow this figure and see what happens next.

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July 20, 2022 · 8:53 am

00330617

It wasn’t much of a cemetery, but then Arthur Kill wasn’t much of a man. “Where’s Tessie?” Wheeler exclaimed, hardly making an effort to honor the deceased via her casual pose. “She should be here.”

“Tessa’s at the town psychic,” Baker Bloch said, assuming a more deferent stance over the grave. He truly liked the actor playing the character and hated him to be killed off, as it were. Though perhaps Lemont Sanford can come back later as someone named Kill van Kull, he pondered, a brother or maybe another one of those twins, cousin or not. Anyway, it wasn’t fair. It was suppose to be a Mexican standoff in Ontario or at least Lake Ontario, above New Jersey above New York and not visa versa. One shot from the shooters went north to the head, the other south to the heart. Yet Tessa survived. That damn third eye just took in Arthur’s bullet and… absorbed it! Then the pyramid appeared. Then another pyramid appeared here. Tessa had to go. Soon Wheeler Wilson and Baker Bloch would learn what actually happened, eye for eye.

Time to bury the dead. Tessa missed her chance.

Wheeler decided to throw in her purse as well on top of the lowering coffin. Fire should be getting pretty hot already.

“Any money in there?” queried Baker, waiting for the inevitable.

“$1500,” she replied. “I figured he might need it for some air conditioning, ha. Final gesture. Fat chance though, right? Am I righht?”

Baker couldn’t help but emit a small smile.

“Just kidding (of course). I wouldn’t give that sorry slimeball any of my hard earned cash. Actually it was just his cursed pistol — good riddance (like him). And some food for his arrival.”

Soon enough, the burger inside began to sizzle again, blood continuing to withdraw and pistol rendered even more useless. Tessa’s duplicate, on the other hand, still worked perfectly. She was using it right now to defend herself again, this time from a fellow 3rd eye being posing as a psychic posing as a detective. But that’s another story for another photo-novel, it seems.

END OF “SUNKLANDS 2022 MIDDLE”!

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July 19, 2022 · 10:16 am

00330616

“Nice hair. Is that your natural color?”

“You can get your food to go, you know,” she shot back. She’d had enough of this stranger in town, who showed up at 7. 7:15 now. 10 minutes to order, 10 minutes to look over the menu that had only 3 items. Bar owner made it sweet and simple to save time.

“Martian,” Wheeler continued the absurdity. “Greentown — should’ve known.”

Jamie hadn’t read any Bradbury so she didn’t get the reference, and probably wouldn’t want to if she did. The dinger dinged on the stove. Wheeler’s fries, extra cheese were ready, burger extra blood still cooking. She wanted to make sure it had as little blood as possible now.

“In town for a funeral, thanks for asking,” Wheeler then said, rummaging around in her purse. “Man named Arthur, Arthur Kill. Strange thing I know. Because he was actually killed — murdered. Mexican standoff.” She pulled out a pistol. “Killed by something much like this.” She plopped it on the counter with a loud clunk beside the just delivered fries, barrel facing forward. Jamie turned back around, saw the gun, stared at Wheeler.

“You can’t bring that thing in here,” she started to say but then changed her mind. She could take the gun from Wheeler, she calculated — confiscate it in effect, since a town ordinance forbids firearms inside the city limits. Would be close, though. Then, hehe, she could *back* Wheeler out of the bar with it and tell her to not come around here any more and to get her ass out of town, funeral or no. But as she was thinking this Wheeler picked the weapon back up. She’d missed her chance.

She looked it over a bit. “Yesss. I think it is exactly this type of gun that did our poor Arthur in.” She pointed the gun in the direction of the far wall to her left. “Ping ping… *ping*,” she produced with corresponding, fake recoils, then blew pretend smoke from the end before reinserting it back into her purse.

“Out!” Jamie wanted to issue. “Done!” she shouted instead, turning around as Wheeler stared into her more-dairy-than-vegetable fries, devising a plot on the spot. The burger was off the grill and into a day old bun faster than a Wyatt Earp burp (local expression?), then plate on the counter as loud as the pistol was earlier, clunk for clunk. Wheeler took the plate and deftly dumped the contents into her purse as well, making a bloody mess (but not as bloody as Wheeler wished). “Thanks!” she said pretend sweetly and made her way out of the bar to Jamie’s exasperation, leaving the dirty, empty plate spinning at a booth near the door. It spun and spun and finally settled down on the formica table top after Wheeler walked up the street, down another, and into the town cemetery to meet a waiting (or awaiting) Baker Bloch.

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July 19, 2022 · 8:51 am

head and heart

IMPORTANCE OF CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS

I asked the patient’s mom about the skincare regimen they were using, including their choice of soap. The parent said they were using Ivory soap. She said the previous doctor said to use either Dove or Ivory.

Now that would be an odd thing to suggest. Typically, one might recommend a less drying cleansing product to an atopic, but Ivory wouldn’t normally be at the top of that list. Almost undoubtedly, the doctor said to use “Dove, not Ivory.” But it is quite understandable how a patient could misinterpret what was said.

Port Ivory is a coastal area in the northwestern corner of Staten Island, New York City, New York, United States. It is located on Newark Bay near the entrances the Kill van Kull in the east and Arthur Kill in the west….

The area bore the name of Milliken originally, and became locally known as Port Ivory after Ivory Soap, one of the best-known products from Procter & Gamble, which operated a factory at the site from 1907 until 1991 when the soap making operation was moved to Mexico.[1][2]

“I knew you’d be back. *Boyfriend*.” Mexican standoff.

“You know what I’m here for.” SHOOT SHOOT POP POP.

Red at the waist.

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