Got it! said Bart internally at 12:37 on Friday morning after Thursday night. TILE is related to FILE! And so it began.
Tag Archives: TILE
00390316
Lisa got permission to view the film because she was in a class for special children and was doing a project for it. Eventual title: “How Milk was Born.” Bartholomew, *not* being a special child and thus not in the same class with the same privileges, didn’t get the same permission. But oh did he watch the same film, over and over again, 5 times in total. He snuck out of his bedroom every night at 10:45 with the help of Lemmy the Magic Tree that was once a mortal enemy with a net and a knife. Lemmy had grown up to be a friend, putting childish rivalries away.
“Lemmy, come over here again,” Bartholomew requested, and a branch was extended, big enough to hold a boy his size and allow him to drop to the ground safely. “Thanks Lemmy,” Bartholomew said at the bottom, loud enough for the tree to hear through his “ears” but not loud enough to alert the parents, usually preparing for bed by this time or already in it. The tree rustled its leaves in answer and Bartholomew was on his way through the backs of lots and down alleys full of cats and rats. On to the 88.
First night:
“*Bart*. What are you doing here??” And so on with the reprimands for a while, which were dampened when Lisa learned that her little brother desired to create a report on the film too, and that he’d show those stuck ups at school he can make something of his life. “I’ll… help,” she finally relented. “Shhh, the movie is starting,” said Bartholomew to this, more eager than ever to be a success.
Lisa only went that one time, thinking with her superior brain that’s all she needed. Bartholomew attended the whole week up until Friday night when the regular people in town would be able to go and he might be caught and told on. So that was Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday, happy days indeed.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0316, Jeogeot, Neptune, NWES Island
sunset
“Okay I’m here on the beach beside the TILE ball, Tom. I’ve got you on speaker so I can keep reading this interesting magazine in front of me. Perhaps clues in there, you understand.” Al didn’t really believe there were any clues in there. He just liked the articles advertised on the cover. All about Home — he wished he had a true home and not just continue to be a traveler of both time and space. He desired to settle down, like the old days, fast becoming the *good* old days.
After the reply: “About 8:01 PM it looks by the sun. Roughly speaking.”
Reply.
“No. No one on the beach except me. No surfers spotted, no one.”
Reply.
“It’s a pretty beach. Pretty long that is (*snicker*).”
Reply.
“No time for jokes, I understand. Jokes later.”
Reply.
“I’ll get settled in. I guess I’ll just bed down here for the night. Then start up the road tomorrow after I check out the beach more in the morning. Maybe I’ll get to interact with someone then.” Al didn’t doubt that his boss Thomasina was onto something sending him here. TILE was strong — he could feel it, as he does. ‘No orange, no purple, let’s make this shit happen,’ he recalls about the sacred manuscript. And here, supposedly, is the amender of such, the bringer of cow and a lot of other things. Won’t have any shorts left, Thomasina said. Al was looking for a little yellow naked fellow. But he was wrong on that.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0303, HANA LEI
TILEist bathroom
When she grew up, bad influences started popping up in her life. Like horn rim glassed, blue haired Sally here, obviously a witch. They even played a game in high school where one took the other’s name, just to confuse the lot of ’em, the rest of the class. The *dunces*, Sally called them.
“Why do you have to sit on that seat when you talk to me in here, Sally? It’s *disgusting*.”
“I’m not using it,” Sally defended her evil self. “Anyway, what if I was? I’m certainly being discreet. You can’t see what’s under this big black dress of mine. No one can, not even (local legendary mill worker) Wilbur on his shinyest, most glistenyest day in the month of May. I reserve that for personal use.”
Shelley ignored the lewdness; kept combing her hair, trying to get it perfect again. Last Thursday, yes. That was the last time it lay upon her head just in the right spots. She was becoming vain, and Sally was egging her on, comparing her, in an inferior way, to, say, pretty girl Ginger Granite who lives down the lane. Whose lane? Certainly not Shelley’s. Maybe Jennifer the novelist who lives inside the novels she creates later on. But those days were far ahead of her still. 29 combs, she counts. 30. *Still* not right. And 30 is her lucky, magic number. Unless it’s 31, it’s changed. She combs again. “Dangit!” she curses. 32, maybe. “Dammit!” she doubles down after this, giving up with the bird’s nest mess.
“When you grow up, Shelley, when you *really* grow up, what do you want to be? A novelist? You said that at one time. You’ll have to go from dairy writing (Sally purposely said diary wrong here) to actual writing. A woman of letters is traditional if unpublishable. Maybe (she gleans), maybe you can start your own publishing company someday. That way you can publish your own! (the insinuation being that no one else would publish it)
Shelley stops staring into the mirror, looks over at Sally still spread out on the toilet. What *is* she doing underneath that dress? She’s never seen Sally take it off — ever — although she doesn’t follow her home, say, and watch her undress. Even though that would be interesting, hmm. What kind of bra does she wear, what type panties? Hanes like mine? This makes her think of Michael Jordan and the Hanes commercials, which brings her back to Grant. Grant Hill. The Sprite guy. He should have been as big as Jordan, Shelley laments not for the first time, and certainly not the last. She imagines, yes, kissing him on the lips to say she’s sorry, the least she can do. Even if it is only a sports poster she hangs above her bed, just in case she needs it. But black, others blabber, is taboo. Redbirds and Blue Jays, some put it. Dunces, true. *Idiots*. Shelley and Sally can certainly agree to that. Why they bonded in the first place — two 1st class dolts for boyfriend or boyfriend wannabes, actually. And the girls circling all around them like demented crows or ravens aren’t much better; cut from the same cloth; unkind to say the least, murderous at the extreme. Look at poor Tiffany Jabber, dead through the head in her bed beside Jed. Tragic. And just because Molly thought he was cute enough to be her stud, no one else as suitable.
She puts down the comb, picks up the mascara stick and starts messing with that, more successfully, she feels. Maybe she can be a cosmetologist when she grows up. But, no, destiny calls. “I’ll (apply mascara) *start* my own publishing company true (apply). But *only* (apply) after I turn down all the other publishers who flock around me, begging me to print through them. I’ll be a success, Sally. A star. Bigger than anything you’ve seen before. Bigger than, well (apply) *Rowling*!”
Absurd, Sally thinks, but nods her head. Shelley’s falling further into her web, making grandiose plans she absolutely can’t fulfill. Trouble is… well, we’ll save some of the success and/or failure story for later.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0302, HANA LEI
00390209
Shelley 02 does indeed find something at the location of the red pin. A portal. 1st two offered locations through it seem to cancel each other out in importance: child vs. adult (Too Young vs. Too Old). 3rd location called Wake seems more central. TILE is here for one.
10:01 AM. Time to ball.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0209, Bellisaria, HANA LEI, Pickle 01
00390203
In a cage underneath the bed he waits his turn as reality shifts back into fantasy, virtual playstuff and all. It was always going to be this way. Once they returned to the top. “How’s your novel going?” he said over, blue rose decorated suit back on. “I’m really sinking into this one,” she admitted to her hubby who was still gone a lot of the time, acting in Europe, Asia and Africa currently, Shakespeare being a world-wide phenomenon. “Sinking as… how?” “You know, really getting into character,” she replied. He rolled over, stared upward. If he’d kept rolling he would be looking right at the answer. “So you’re Jennifer Lane, the writer who *writes* Shelley. But to me you’re still Shelley, since I’m not in your books.” “Oh, you’re in them alright,” she said, which was truth. Just not the whole. 2-4 percent, like incomplete milk for a half baked, choco chip cookie. And so, on the 5th day… “Explain,” he ventured, pressing further tonight, kind of hearing the muffled cries of help from beneath him but still kind of not. He could sense an actor in peril.
So she gave him permission to come back into her life, to live in this place with them as well. Her lovely Edward, fresh from a dog park over in Pickle 02. Someone else was under the bed now. He stared at the answer. “Jem, is that you Jem?” He rolled over, all the way. “Oh it’s *you*.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0203, Constantynople, Jeogeot, Kidd Tower, Middleton, Nautilus, Rank & File, Xilted
00390202
Mr. Babyface is now downstairs in Kidd, having yielded the top 2 floors representing his old penthouse apt. to the new couple in town, the *owners* as it were (Arthur and Shelley). He’s also agreed to share the dining table of his upper floor with them, since their own upper floor is basically taken up with a bed. That’s fair, that’s fair, he ponders, puffing on Red Dragon this morning. Out of Blue Pennant, his favorite. Have to run up to West Virginie for a restock soon. But how to get there? Last time he had to go through Hana Lei, holding his nose all the time. Fairy poop, yeck! The worst kind, and they leave it all over the place, not believing in civilization and modern conveniences such as flush toilets and pressure showers. Thus the body odor added in to the rest of the smells, the poop, the pee. He *hates* going there. And yet… I suppose the band Lamb is still in all that mess somewhere. High as the sky; not figuring a way out yet. They have likely been totally assimilated, he reckons. Poor Paul, poor Peter and Mary. He may never see them again. His poor poor nephew (*sigh*). *Anyway*…
He continues to puff as he stares at the Big E on the now shared table, a ritual of sorts. He doesn’t know quite what to make of it still except that it’s perfect in its own way, and a worthy additional the TILE family of absolute glyphs. He stares at the green green sim of Xilted, thinking back to his own experiences there, 0202 as well and exactly 3 novels back. More perfection.
He met a soldier specifically named Chet, a veteran of the Trojan-Durexian War. He can’t recall the names of the other soldiers that were there at the outpost with him and then lover Greg (or Gregg) but he remembers Chet. “Grass, the usual,” Chet always use to say to him whenever he asks the ever pointing, gun toting soldier what he’s aiming at today from his lookout post. And Mr. Babyface would always pause in his activities of the day and stare out with him a bit here — into the green green hills of Xilted (now with grass!). Maybe they could be considered even… friends? What else did they talk about? The cow loving, fellow Trojan warrior now living in the Northern Hills of the original Bellissaria continent? Certainly a possibility, I’m guessing, although they could have become chums after this assignment was over given the whole perpetual war thing, but certainly before his own untimely, well, death. Chet died at the hands of a machete wielding enemy with more blood lust in his spirit. Kill or be killed, he learned too late. But perhaps he was right in doing so; rewards in heaven and so on. Mr. Babyface didn’t know about Chet’s death, I’m supposing. He’d only learn that later in this here photo-novel, 39 in a series of a lot. Maybe from Groover.
And how appropriate his table is now 3 floors down from the top of Kidd and thus displaying the Xilted sim on its side wall as well. At the top — his former upper floor again — Shelley has (XY*Z*) Zebrasil, very close to a volcano that had just gone off. Can he recover enough to go at it again the next day? You betcha! Yet another perfection and directly related. Little e to Big E, you see. TILE talk.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0202, Constantynople, Jeogeot, Kidd Tower, Middleton, Nautilus, Rank & File, West Virginia, Xilted
Village
She manifested two pills in her mouth and swallowed, one red and one blue. That way her size stayed the same. Phyllis began to speak.
“Red yellow green blue. NO purple. NO orange. NO nothing else. We have our 4. I am Phyllis. Let’s begin.”
This was a test run with her old pal and sometimes comfy pillow Groover but she was taking it very seriously. She wanted to make sure she hadn’t forgotten how to do this, and that Phyllis would still come through clear and strong. Strong enough to answer questions. Ruby had taught her well.
Meanwhile, just next door…
“Tarnation, woman. You’re not really thinking about *going* to this thing, are you?”
“You can come too,” she offered only 1/2 heartedly at best. She could also feel the future, telling it didn’t include her Cowboy, the thought-to-be love of her life. But that was long ago. Before the 1st lassoing.
“I’ll hogtie you I will,” he continued in that fashion. “I’ll *make* you stay one way or another.”
“I’m going,” she said firmly from the couch that was the same color as her dress. She was one with it. Cowboy had to get up and leave. “Well then tarnation galdarnit I am too!” he said in a huff before slamming the front door, intending to head to the beach for a Blue William or three or five. Boat Bar’s Gloria and Wanda would listen to him there, especially Wanda. But that would give him a lot of trouble later, perhaps the final nail in the coffin that had become their relationship.
“I wish Sarah was as good a listener as you… Wanda.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0115, Ashton Village, Bellisaria
Minnesota to Louisiana, the mighty river rolls on
He visited the residence nearest the center of Chum and found another tiger laying on a couch. The more things change the more they stay the same, he contemplated, also looking across the deck at a dancing bear.
If I said he wasn’t perturbed at this new development I would be Lion.
Yes, there I am below, a Batta-lion to be specific. Ready for battal. But it was all a dream about the war again and the loss of Chet. They poured into the sea looking for the real me. I wake up.
—–
Later, much later, I revisited the scene and found 3 girls, probably sisters, all peering round the corner of a neighboring houseboat down the pier at… me again I assume. Wondering what went wrong. Their lives had unfolded perfectly: 3 beautiful children spaced about 2 1/2 to 3 years apart. The golden family. “Golly gee,” the pigtailed middle one said to the others. “Do you think he’ll *ever* make anything of his life?” “Yes,” agreed the younger also coming around like the others before her, also watching me flounder around the end like a lost seal puppy. She was my junior by close to 15 years but was already enrolled in special classes for the gifted and damned, although I just added the second word in jest. This must have been before I enlisted and made something of myself. Finally. My family would beam down smiles instead of rain frowns. The war was the best thing that could have happened. The girls grew up to be successful women in their fields of archeology, anthropology, and astronology from top to bottom, although the youngest had a tough time choosing between astronomy and astrology in her junior year of college and decided to combine them into one to create something new. Since she was special, perhaps special special, the instructors granted this wish. She became the most interesting one to me later, after the war, after all the death and destruction was over. Because she had the most insight into herself, being a kind of split being like myself, although obviously not as fractured. I sat down with her one day and talked away, although this was not part of the dream. This was reality. I told her about TILE. I told her about the renegade treatises by two other children, without a third this time. I was looking for them. I wanted to find out… what they knew. How they channeled such important documents at such a young age. And why that milk for that bread, that (peanut) butter? Was it really needed to make the whole thing palatable to others at least in part?
—–
She still wasn’t allowed to eat with him, despite the changes. “Dear, why don’t you take off your mask. *I* have.”
That is just a wig you put on to give the appearance of a beauty and not a beast, he thinks. You’re still a white faced cow. He stared over, looked at her black vacant eyes. Yes, cow. Nothing to be desired at all. He imagines the heat again, the flies again. He remembers the military.
“I wear this, *cow*,” he answered aloud, “because I don’t want to forget who I am, how I got here. If it wasn’t for Chet–”
“Oh Chet Chet Chet,” she cut in, tired of the name. “Watermelons and cantaloupes, right. You have to get *over* it dear.”
“Stop saying that,” he protested. “Stop calling me that.”
“*Dear*,” she insisted. “Just take off the helmet — not the cape. Let me take a peek. It’s only fair.”
If he took off the helmet he would no longer be one with Chet. He refused, adding another “cow” or two to rub it in. We are different still, you over there and me over here, he thinks. He will not succumb.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0104, Bellisaria, Northern Hills, Pickle 02
5th
It was her 1/2 hour “lunch hour” and she decided to explore the sim, mainly remotely but with some direct teleports. She’d discovered Tigger Peak, currently covered up with false landscaping. And a larger club and bar in the ne corner of the sim — maybe she could get a job there to earn a living instead of working for Al the slave driver. Then, the last parcel she checked (she was going to be late getting back but who cares at this point, she thinks), the Land of the Cows. And she’d found their throne tucked away in the loft of a barn. Seeing no green dots indicating other residents nearby she dared to directly sit in it from her remote viewing spot.
She looked down and counted her white gloved fingers. 10 instead of 8. Good. She was still whole. Like proper milk, 5 percent instead of 2, or at least 4 to make the ratio come out correct. She’d held out her number challenge hand and someone grasped it. She was saved by the FILE, she knew. She had to keep abiding by the golden rule. But nobody said she had to keep working for *Al*. Heck, she could work here, with the cows, be a type of secret, inside agent uncovering their inner workings, including 4 stomachs we assume. But everyone knows that. Deeper secrets; beyond strange body workings. She could see into the soul of the cow, beyond the black and white, and peer deep into red, the ultimate unity. Like alchemy. But… where was the citrinitas? she wondered with this train of thought. The yellowing? The missing 4th? Ah… “Eureka!” she shouted, leaping out of the throne, attracting the attention of at least one other. Someone named Beckett, an expert on historical. An expert on all things missing in the now. Including himself.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0703, Nautilus, NORTH, Rank & File
Sunklands 