Tag Archives: The Musician^*++

October 2, 2023 · 4:50 am

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He was sturming and dranging in the background, leaving the door to his 2nd or 3rd or 4th trailer wide open so that the whole of Big Sandy could hear, she supposed. The big egomaniac. Lured her over here thinking that she was easy pickings, and that Eddie, her Edward, wouldn’t mind a tradeoff, he with Dogg now. She’s not that type of gal, despite the writings. Which she must start soon, taking off from where Shelley Struthers left it. Shady Lane as a publisher’s name, true, but a more classy type of writing for that genre. This wasn’t no Robert Silverberg cheapie side project done just for the dough, despite more trailers being involved. Shelley had loftier ambitions than trash and even science fiction, another gutter style. And Marsha “Pink” Krakow must follow up on this because of the whole absorption thing that happened back there toward the end of photo-novel 39, as I’m sure you, the reader, will recall. How couldn’t you?? It brought our new heroine back from the land of the dead which was also Storybrook. As in: she died there; was murdered there, along with what turned out to be, in the end, her best friend Tammy “Beige” Brown, also known as Frankie “Brown” Beige. Or something.

It was like the music was being directly funneled into her brain from her good ear it was so loud. Ketchup Tom thought when he finished she would be wowed off her feet and onto that pull out couch over there. But she was only here because of the typewriter. And, yep, the possibility of her playing with him later on, as in, wishing to take up the old hobby of drumming as well, exclusive to the Marsha aspect this time. Strum and Drum, hmm. Nice ring for a new band name. At least she can put it in her novel if nothing else. How about 3 sentences back to begin.

(to be continued)

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October 1, 2023 · 3:20 pm

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Tessa was in the foreground talking to someone just off-screen. Her boyfriend/faux cousin Edward if I had to guess. Chair sitting Pink was similarly highlighted in the background interacting with a punk on the couch: Ketchup Tom, who owned the trailer, named for his bright red Mohawk if not visa versa. And they all owed him a big favor whether they knew it or not. His given name before he acquired a stage one: George. Rumor has it he destroyed a punk bar carved out of a big piece of coal in West Virginie when playing his signature track “Fire Ants”, quickly followed by “Water Uncles”, a lesser hit. A folly we could call it, but the oddball builders of the thing couldn’t have foreseen George’s powerful sturm und drang guitar licks ahead of time, like something straight out of a Nazi war lab. And he also had a magical ring to amplify the sound — very important detail there.

I couldn’t figure out some of the elements happening to the right in the location pictured above so I just left them out by blocking them with a wall (sorry). We could guess a stereo system or something given Ketchup Tom’s musician status, maybe a guitar or 2 to go along with a microphone or 3. Yes, let’s go with that. We’ll see them soon enough, then.

Oh, I do know that Eddie, Marsha “Pink” Krakow newly appointed boyfriend, was outside walking Dogg, an older mutt now she purchased as a pup over on the Corsica continent in a town that subsequently sank beneath the sea. Storybrook again.

Actually let’s move inside while we have the opportunity and zoom out a bit at the same time.

Turns out there was no stereo or musical stuff to the right. I must be thinking about a different Big Sandy trailer, then, perhaps also owned by the affluent punk and maybe one a little more solidly constructed to withstand the magically enhanced noise he’ll be making there. In the simultaneous zooming out we do reveal a poster to the left he keeps by the door to remind him of his lost origins. Marsha “Pink” Krakow has Dogg; Ketchup Tom has George.

(to be continued)

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January 3, 2023 · 10:31 am

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“Over here, Arthur. Behind the bushes!”

—–

“Black against white. As it should be.”

—–

“You’re not ashamed of us still?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, well. The bushes.”

She sighs. “It’s just so we could get more romantic. Towel has a better view of the rocks over there I like so much.”

“Ropes, yeah.” Arthur stared out, thinking of George/Musician. “Have you heard from him lately?”

“Him?”

“You know. Him.”

—–

“Strange dreams, yeah.” Continuing, he thinks to himself.

“Moon is bright tonight. Better get you back to the hotel.”

“Okay.”

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December 30, 2022 · 12:32 pm

00360306 (New)

He approached cautiously from below.

—–

He’d been saving up presents for some time, preparing for the worst. Flood! they warned. Global warming gone rogue! they cried. Thus the ark.

Or so the story goes.

After a return trip to the box, they ate Christmas dinner up top. “Shelley, you seem depressed,” he spoke. Probably just leftover effects once more, he rationalized.

“Oh. Just thinking about The Moon again. Where are we on it?”

George/Musician didn’t bother to correct this time. “Tranquility, love,” he said instead. “Remember? We landed there, all of us Americans through two specific Americans. All in the Family.”

Shelley Struthers buried her suddenly aching head in her folded arms, trying to forget everything. The nearby lemons and drink bottle were reminding her of something she didn’t want to see.

“Would you like to open a present?” offered George/Musician. Maybe that would help her mood.

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December 30, 2022 · 11:52 am

numbers

He thought about Back as he lay on his back and she turned her back to him.

“Where are we on The Moon again?” she asked dreamily while studying, lingering effects of the box.

George/Musician sighs. “We’re not *on* The Moon, Shelley. We’re in… Mortons Gap. I think. At least the Ant Castle, old style, is playing on a continual loop on our TV over there.” Ropes, George/Musician thought. Aah the good old days when marriage meant something and everyone knew their place.  He sat up.

Back ruined all that, pheh. Better get back to it while I have time. 7:04AM. Soon it will be 5.

Yeah, there it is. Too late. Next! (as Wheeler might say)

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December 16, 2022 · 2:42 am

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Afterwards:

“Look down there, Shelley. That’s where you’ll live; same as the color of your hair.” He dared to stroke it from behind. “That way, darling, you can come up here to the box and play any time. Anny time.”

“Shelley?” she questioned above.

—–

“Shelley,” she answered below.

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November 26, 2022 · 12:09 pm

cake = lie

And so we end with Stiggy the Bluebird arriving early for her supposed birthday party, asking where the spectacular cake was Elanea promised to show her. Elanea said she’s it, then fired a tranquilizer dart right in her forehead between the eyes, then dragged her back into the kitchen to be prepared. One too many jokes about her amphibian nature for Elanea to stand. And she’d spewed the same racist type insults to people in powerful positions like reptilian Stu in Marketing, human Pamela in Waste Management, and, most importantly and most damning, to the Big Boy himself, calling him a [delete name]. To the Abyss she must go, he declared, which was his own personal word for the Void, having been raised a devout Tilist all those years ago, memories and rituals sticking like glue. The others decided the degree.

After the party, they prepared one cross that had the wrong year of death — had to be redone (too much partying, perhaps). A second, sturdier and more upright one was made by Harold the Carpenter, a gnome sent down by Head Office to do the task right, along with another named Jack who’d dig and fill in the grave. No coffin needed, though: no part of her remained to be buried by the time Elanea finished with the knives and saws and the gnomes arrived, not even her heart, deemed inedible from her species but which was still put into the cake just for spite and to rub it in all the way.

The bird was George.

Shelley’s still beating heart only pointed one direction after that. Biff Carter provided an interesting alternative but had aged 20 years overnight, thus eliminating him from the picture. Big Boy again, of course — [delete name] again the hurled insult. Only Arthur remained. And through him Liz. The marriage will take place at the beginning of the next section, 7 in a series of 6.

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November 20, 2022 · 5:22 pm

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She thought of another answer while chopping pepper for the big meal. George was coming over! Or was it Arthur? Anyway, she thought of this: I *love*, that George’s backwards guitar was destroyed in the Moray Docks explosion when that new Tar Guit appeared over top of it. BOOOM! she recalled joyously. That can replace the “resourceful” answer, #4 I believe.

“She’s gone,” Baumbeer speaks later to Newt about the poor girl’s mind. “But I know where she is.”

“I’ll go see her,” replies the father not father-in-law. “No need to bring the boy in the picture,” he says half to himself. “He’s already heartbroken enough.”

“Let me know if I can help more,” spoke Baumbeer into the receiver to finish. He hangs it up. On a clothes hanger.

Newt rings Shelley up. I mean, he calls her. Since the wedding is off and he’s no longer the Best Man. Thus the meal.

“Newt!” she modifies again, moving to the cucumber or tomato next. “The father-in-law.” Her face squinches up. “Father *in-law*?”

They meet at the same gazebo in the sim’s corner. Property called Sim’s Corner. The Void’s energy was just loosened enough so he could reach over and straighten up the blouse on her shoulder. Pepper t-shirt no. 1 she wore now. Small successes before bigger ones, he thinks, staring at the daughter he didn’t know he had until the end of the last photo-novel, 34 in [delete rest of sentence].

“Wheeler says to say hello,” he starts again, trying to jolt more memories. Does she remember the spaceship? Of course not, Newt thinks. Too young. Shelley says say hello to Wheeler back, even though she doesn’t know who that is. She’s trying to mask her big big problem. And where’s George? Or was it Arthur?

“Your… *mother*,” Newt says to this, understanding she doesn’t recognize the name. “George — you know George, right?”

“Georges,” she says, which Newt lets slide.

“Anyway, *your* George says you look a lot like her. You even have some of the same tattoos.” Kind of odd, Newt thinks here but, again, lets it slide; chalks it up as another disturbance of The Void.

—–

“You’re batty I tell you. *Batty*!”

“Out of my way, whoever you are! *Whatever* you are!”

“W-where you going, dude? Nothing left but *me*.” She starts dancing and dancing with her weapon. Hypnotizing. Just like on the bus. It was her.

Shelley wakes up. What did I do to *Johnny*, she immediately thinks. We go back to that point. That’s where she began to lose it. The baby. My baby!

She was the baby.

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November 15, 2022 · 7:48 pm

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The Musician had a plan. Play his last gig at Pink Think before returning to Nautilus and take Shelley with him, freeing her from the prison cave closest to The Void in Gemini (4006m). That’s how he can keep her from opening the door to her cage. Power. Power behind powers. He thinks she’s ready. He’s delusional. She’ll never forgive him, although she feigns acceptance to escape.

Albert and Biff sit around the wall still from the ensuing gig at their tea table, the music too deafening to their more sensitive ears. Plus they’re all too familiar with the notes and beats. They’d rather remain in the bar with at least equally-sensitive-to-sound Marilyn, a light in their darkness now. True they were were resigned to their entrapment here in Gemini, not being as blind as The Musician. But they were still trapped.

Marilyn? With Fern now, catching up — Fern said it was super hard to find her in the sim, what with all the cubic meters to cover from top to bottom, all 16 stories of 256x256x256 of it. Claude never showed up, intervention with the 3 beastly boys delayed. Or did he? Fern changes to demonstrate what happened.

She was back on top, ha — in charge. “The *clue*,” she said while nursing a red cocktail 1/2 in Claude’s body, educating Marilyn/Lichen as well as putting her back in her place, “was the receiver part. I live in a receiver, like a jeannie lives in a bottle. Get it? Like ‘Jeannie and the Tiger’. You remember? We watched that summer before last — it was just showing, by accident let’s say, on the Cartoon Network where we usually hang out. We switched over from ‘Dirty Duck’. Do you recall?”

“I remember,” said Marilyn, marveling at the brains, the brilliance, of her partner in crime once more. If only she had my humor, she thinks. Always pretty dead serious about stuff, like this. I’m not really surprised that Fern has outmaneuvered me and don’t really care. I could make 10 jokes about the situation right now, make light of it.

Yes, I suppose they made a good team, nay, a great team, especially after Marilyn/Lichen decided to ditch the horse and the association with The Void. Because this was the ultimate lesson learned for the traveling bartender in the sim of Jem– Gemini. Avoid the Duck.

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November 15, 2022 · 4:50 am

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“So when you said you disappeared behind the bar, you meant you worked there — behind the bar…”

“… as a black horse, yeah. I’m not ashamed of it (she was). I just didn’t want you to… look down on me.” She could read disappointment in his eyes by now. How to recoup from this? Could she espouse any redeeming qualities without giving too much away? She let him just unwind his theories. Check check check, she assumed.

“Black Horse is not code for Black Hole. Black Horse is more, let’s say, Black Ho, reduced from the obvious. The two go hand in hand, or, in this case, hoof in hoof.”

She made a check mark with her hoof hand.

“You were working for The Void.”

Check mark.

“The same Void that Marilyn had already rejected, the same Void that had her dress up as a white horse before she found the clean and sobered up job at Pink Think here in Gemini.

Check mark.

“You took her place.”

Hesitation, then another check mark.

“Do you keep in contact? I mean, you’re both here, in the same sim. Is it too painful to do this?”

Check mark. This guy is good! Liz thinks. He’s earned all the answers he desires. Not like her regular clientelle, where she doesn’t like to say very much. This was different. This was *clean* fun. Yes, she was having fun, unburdening herself. But she had one big secret stashed away still. George. Keith B. didn’t need to know about The Musician and their true relationship through her parents. George was a bad person and deserved what he got. Same for Albert and Biff, she thought here. For she knew of them as well: the Beastly triad. She knew that much from Marilyn. Yeah, they talk. But only on Mundays they agreed, the hardest day of the week to get in contact with someone. It was a window, tall yet narrow, so much so that they couldn’t see eye to eye. But the exchanges had depth still, black to white. At some junctures it was almost as if they could agree to disagree. It never came to that, but she sensed the possibility. A lost friend, a lost sister even. That could make up for *everything*.

(to be continued)

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