Tag Archives: TILE

December 19, 2022 · 9:08 am

what it all builds up from… and down from for that matter

“Looks like you’ve had some kind of adventure, Uncle of mine.”

“I have. But it’s all pretend.”

“Right. Bringing it to me, I suppose. Why I’m here.”

“Welll…” Mr. Babyface settles back into the bargain bin couch, wishing he’d bought up a little more to avoid the oh-too-soon broken springs, ow. One in his left cheek right now, as in buttocks. “Let’s say,” he continued, light bulb over his head now, “you’re here, staying with me, because of a local rock concert, say a progressive group right down there at the base of the peninsula, at the, what’s its name?”

“Dunno, Uncle.”

“Ah, heck. Progressive Rock Museum, but that’s not the name of the venue.”

“I’m okay with Progressive Rock Venue if you are.”

“Alright,” relented Babyface. “But you’re here because of that, say, supergroup Yes, which we both love, although we have a separate list of favorite albums. Yours is…”

“‘Close to the Edge’, ‘Relayer’, and ‘Going for the One’.”

“Yes, and mine would be ‘Fragile’, ‘Yes Album’ and ‘Topographic Oceans’.”

Peter winces. “‘Topographic Oceans’,” he says with some derision. “Bloated.”

“Okay, okay, let’s not get into that argument again. We agree to disagree. We’re talking about loving the same *group* anyway. It’s like we like the same forest but not the same trees or clump of trees — something.”

“Okay, my Uncle.”

“And we need to keep in touch more. You’re not even real here. You’re just in my head.”

“Sorry, Uncle. I’m busy. Winning tennis tournaments for one. You haven’t even congratulated me on my latest. Plus the comedy — another thing we differ on…”

“… but are also the same, yes yes. Firesign Theatre.”

“‘Bozos’!” shouted Peter Ladd.

“‘Dwarf’!” countered Mr. Babyface to his thought-to-be estranged nephew playfully. They would hug each other in the moment if they weren’t so maladjusted. It was just the families, their upbringing. Both kind of square pegs in round holes. Just so thankful, thought Babyface here, that Peter was born with a normal head, phew! Which brings us back to conception.

“Tell me about Shamon, Peter, how you got here. I’ve been thinking about the Big Schwa lately.”

“Big E!” shouted Peter, making his Uncle Babyface smile but not as much as before. This was more serial stuff, as the young’n’s might put it.

—–

So they pried themselves away from watching the blog on TV and went upstairs to stare at it from different sides, different angles, to ponder what Mr. Babyface had surmised earlier. “Shamon on top of course,” he reminded Peter. “Closest hit in the Oracle is Shamokin PA, but with a pinch of collage magic we can create one of those 2-n-1’s… that you hate so much.”

“Stop it, Uncle. We’re not enemies.”

“I know, sorry.” But look… I’ll project it on the screen downstairs when we return.”

“What else while we’re here?”

He pivoted the Big E around until the proper side was facing his nephew, turning it into a Big Schwa. He was seeing from his Uncle’s perspective now.

“Orgas, Peter,” recited Mr. Babyface on another closest Oracle hit, this time for the sim of Orgamast, label right in front of Peter’s eyes. He reloads his pipe, Blue Pennant now.  “Orgasm, obviously (puff puff). And there’s also an Organ Cave population place in the same state of West Virginie. The Lordshore-Orgamast Floor is the lowest level of the Kidd Tower here (next to the Lebettu Castle). Lordshore also begins with LO.”

“What are you getting at, Uncle?”

“Let’s go back to the couch.”

—–


Shamokin > Shamon

“Shamon… from the inn… place of thorns. This is where it happened.”

“What happened?” Then Peter realized what his Uncle was talking about. “Ooooh.”

Mr. Babyface thought of a joke here but wisely decided not to mouth it.

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December 13, 2022 · 6:00 pm

HARDR

“He’s quite a big bigger than her,” observed Baker Bloch or Wheeler Wilson, laying under another one of those umbrellas on the far side of the pool. “Your turn now,” one of them said.

“I didn’t know Mmmmmm’s came in different sizes like that,” said Wheeler (making the 1st speaker Baker).

“They seem happy,” spoke Baker. “For now.”

“Com’on. We don’t know how this species really interacts with each other.”

“I know they have an average lifespan of about 26 years.”

“26 1/2,” amended Wheeler.

“And the little one, perhaps even less.”

“Again… you don’t know that. You’re thinking of dogs or cats or something. Could be the bigger one, the male, who has the shorter life. Plus males tend to die earlier than females (in general).” She looks over at Baker Bloch, those dead eyes, and remembers he doesn’t have to worry about all that. Already deceased. Her? Could be immortal as well. We’ll have to make sure she’s archived if so.

“Notice the TILE floaties all around?”

“No I didn’t. But that’s more your thing. I have my own kind of TILE.” She wonders again about his missing piece, the thing that can turn from an I into an E given the right circumstances. Ones she controls: E; perfection. There’s a whole ‘nother side to the religion/philosophy/game that Wheeler could explain to us in great detail. If she were allowed.

“It’s something we could talk about in great detail (told ya). Me with my own more analytic take, and you with your more physical slant.”

“Hmmm.” She was drifting off now in the noonday sun, just downed Russian Roulette doing its work.

“Notice the Christmas trees,” Baker added about the props in the central platform. “Green and red (line). Being emphasized above the blue and yellow.”

“You’re talking about Roberts now, and what she might give Franklin as a present,” Wheeler replied without opening her eyes. She was seeing in the dark. “Franklin hopes, anyway.”

“Why… did we have to take that away from her?”

“I didn’t. *You* did.”

“Oh.”

“‘Oh,’ right. Think about that analytic boy. Why would I care enough about her Gang of Willard to remove it, like a surgeon. No, that’s intellect, that’s airiness. That’s…”

“Male.”

“Yes.”

“Me Tarzan, you Jane,” Baker spoke while pointing between them. Wheeler couldn’t help but chuckle a bit with this. If only.

—–

“I like this pool *much* better than the guitar one. Bigger!”

“Oh, Grassy,” said Sassy, his new girlfriend, perhaps his new wife. They may be on a honeymoon. Certainly not the first date at least. The other one fit me better, the smaller one, she thinks internally, not wanting to disappoint. She’d save up the grudges, spew them out later like an erupting volcano. A smaller one, but packing quite an internal heating unit. What attracted Grassy to her in the first place. Sassy indeed.

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October 22, 2022 · 3:18 am

00350301

Someone emasculated that poor statue over there, she thinks, then continues to read.

Omega continent — might as well, ahem, bone up on the history since it seems she’ll be staying here a bit. Let’s see, Trojan-Durexian War… could have swung either way, interesting. Southern Bypass a key turning point, yes. She recalls that General Duncan led the charge for the Durexians, a black man. Arthur Kill Lemont Sanford told her this — is one of his heroes, right. Died unjustly for a cause and all, like Joan of Arc, one of her heroes.

And here she sits in a park where one of the important battles took place, or so say the locals who make a decent profit off of selling war souvenirs, like ink dyed bamboo shoots for the kids, and bamboo bayonets and bullets for the older generations. According to their pamphlet they even have one of those old Durexian bamboo planes famous for their bombings, as in failings. 1/2 couldn’t get off the ground, but that’s what you have when you base your air force on *magic*, nay voodoo (she corrected). Take away 2 or 3 control witches and everything heads south, as in out of the sky and into your back yard. But, true, their voodoo power was waxing at the end of the war, and the Trojans were good to get out with their heads up when they could. 1942. Or was it 1492? She couldn’t quite make out the figure on the page before her, as if it was moving about like a spider. Strange effect; strange thought.

There really wasn’t much here. That rock over there with the waterfall is where they tortured and sacrificed the slaves who worked for the Trojans, just to teach them a lesson. Slave Rock, then.

The whole sim was named after another aunt, fascinatingly enough, Beatrice in this case, beloved aunt of a famous local, weightlifting sheriff back in the days. Although there have been other theories tossed around about the appellation’s origin that’s what most go with currently. Mostly Beatrice, then.

And then through Newt, I find the remains of one of those old Durexian wrestling rings where they fought their slaves, and then where the barely victorious but victorious still Trojans, usually without clothes (see: statue), fought the Durexians as their own slaves. I believe that might be the Sheriff’s Castle just behind, where Beatrice lovingly made him soup for breakfast and cereal for supper, etc., devoted Tilists as they were. And that’s what we have to bone up on next: the influence of TILE in the general area. Or General’s area, actually, as in Duncan.

Getting dark. Better head home soon.

Is that a key over there?

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October 10, 2022 · 7:53 am

00350201 (2 Bakers and 2 Wheelers)

“IGNITE.”

“Now I’ve brought you all here to tell you, first of all, I’m not *better* than you. Just, um, higher.”

“Wacky, man,” says Roberts primarily for grinning partner Franklin beside her. They’d been partaking of the sacred bush just before. Now: here. Fire brought them together.

“True, Albert is lower in contrast, but we all work as a team, a TILE if you will. Blue (he points to himself), green or red, take your pick (he points to Roberts and then Franklin), and, finally, you (he points to Albert).”

“Me? I ain’t lower than anyone. I’m a prevert and I’ve accepted my role in life. It’s you guys who are in the wrong. Trying to kill me!”

Silence from the still guilty feeling women, as Claude says: “Now now, Albert. No one is in the wrong. Each has their challenges, *including* me. That’s what I’m trying to say to you.”

They look each other over with this, one by one, realizing the truth of it all, if only subconsciously. A TILE, back and forth and across balance. Blue should have been opposite yellow and green opposite red, but Claude wasn’t in charge of setting up the chairs. Probably an intern, he thinks.

“I’ll begin,” he then says.

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October 9, 2022 · 9:29 am

00350115

Afterwards he was too despondent to even fish off the back porch, his favorite past-time here after Wanda and watching TV, which always seemed to feature reruns of that old 60’s sitcom “Green Acres”. “Since you’re so *interested*, would you like to see?” Franklin said, and he said, “*sure*. Why not.” He hadn’t seen one in a while, except Wanda’s. And she really didn’t count. “Sorry about that, Wanda,” he imagines himself saying into the shack to his companion in the moment, his companion for a while apparently, however rubber and fake she is. He didn’t realize it was a mixed up jumble of stuff down there for Franklin. How could he? And then to top it off, the yellow came. Right in the face! He didn’t think he’d ever get over it. They cackled like hyenas, they left, back on their boat to the hell in which they came. Just around the corner, they said. Come see us if you want more, sweetie. So now he was scared to move in any direction — even if he could right now, being without a boat himself as he was still — for fear of facing them again, fear of facing *it*. He felt them all around. “Aim free guidance,” she also said while the, er, *flow* was happening. “Right down the toilet, ha ha ha!” And then that song or whatever while they were gliding away, having done all the damage they wanted or needed — for the time being, they said. Eels. Just the word repeated over and over, in a certain pitch. He didn’t have the gift of perfect pitch, else he’d know it was D Flat, the most cursed key of all, directly resonant with The Abyss itself some say. A green woman — or *something* — a “song” or sea ditty about eels… what did it add up to?

Albert was never good at maths, so the next day, taking pity on him a bit, Claude came back to visit, finding him still in about the same position as that photo at the top of this post. Back porch. No fishing pole in hand.

“You knew something like this would happen?” he begin in earnest to the black man sitting beside him now, both staring out at the waterfall in the distance during the exchange.

“Yup.” Silence between them. Albert then realized that he never really, properly made an apology to the boy, because he called him [delete name] in the process, as in, “I apologize, [delete name].” Thus: here. The Abyss. He knew the term from his parents, devout Tilists both while he was growing up, having been drilled about the static filled hell ever since he was big enough to pick up a book as heavy as the TILE Bible, all 1036 pages of it (518 x 2). “You’re going to the *Abyss* if you don’t eat your cereal,” says Jasperia, the mother. “You’ll go to the *Abyss* if you don’t do your homework then say your prayers before bed,” she might start again after supper. Always the cereal at supper and not breakfast, all because a certain passage from the damn thing that said morning and evening are interchangeable (pgs. 518-519). What else did the cursed thing say? he tried to recall.

“Albert,” Claude said over, tired of my inner monologue apparently. “You don’t have to face them again, you don’t have to face *me* again. No dykes or [delete names]. All you have to do is go back to your family — Ohio is it?”

This [delete name] knows it’s Ohio, Albert thinks here.

“And apologize. Not to Darla directly, but to the parents, your sister and her husband. Tulipia and Pinky isn’t it?”

Albert turns toward Claude, tries to tone down the hate showing in his face. “She goes by *Apples*.”

“Apples, right right.” More silence. Albert realizes Claude is waiting for a response. Out of his control, he finds himself blowing a raspberry.

He’s going to be here a while longer.

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August 14, 2022 · 8:54 am

00340307

August 14, 1974. Lucy Blue Dress takes one last look back at the campsite she’d stayed her summer after graduating from high school. She’d miss the cool cool stream that flowed and sometimes cascaded by her tent. She’d miss the gatherings at Sugar’s shack with all the weirdos of the woods. She’d miss more organized White Tree Village and dreamy Bluebird who lived there and who she took occasional long walks with. Most of all, there was Titiana and Vanessa, her bestest friends during this period in her life. “Come with me to college!” she begged of them beside their favorite wagon near the shack near the center. “No, we stay here,” said Vanessa, which made Titiana nod. They all called her Tiana, because her full name was just a little too much to pronounce in casual conversation. She didn’t like it but she accepted the shortening; she was growing up and becoming more mature about such things. Both were smart. Both took the SATs and did well enough to go to their pick of at least a public school. But: no. The woods had captivated them beyond escape. The Ourobos that is the stream had worked its magic, beginning matched with end. They would be happy going round in circles the rest of their lives, without a worldly degree, without a decent and rewarding job that resulted in such, without the ability to support a family beyond perhaps a husband or wife — both girls swung either way on that preference. “The woods will take care of us,” they said, and bade her farewell with teary hugs just minutes ago. They offered to follow her to the campsite down the stream and see her off from her woodlands home of 2 months but she said this wasn’t necessary, and there was no reason for them to watch her leave the way they all came: alongside the brick wall that led outta here. This corner is where the woods die for her.

And then there was Zapppa, who was set to leave the forest himself tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow at the latest, he promised. “Just gotta wrap up something at the cemetery,” he said minutes before she then met with Vanessa and Titiana that one last time.

He was the love of her life. Pretty sure of that, she was. Going to college with her, he was. Studying math: her, psychology. Stats would be their shared passion beyond the bed. They determined there was a 24.687531% chance they would return here after college, using their acquired skills to better the woods and their denizens and citizens. Never happened. The zero and nine would have to be added in to make it work and that, they realized, would defeat the whole purpose. Worldly they remained.

In one reality.

(to be continued)

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July 25, 2022 · 8:23 am

remembrance

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June 2, 2022 · 10:05 am

00330216

He was back again. He looked down at his hands: fully white now. Return to his old self.

“How about you?” she said.

“W-what?” He looked around, remembered the sweepers. Witches. Witches did this to him. Now he’s returned. Fisher Rig, the dimwitted bottom half to his top, was gone. He was out of his cell, 7 day sentence over; free at last. That Poop file was deleted, if not the other. He still had work to do.

“You’re name, silly,” she said, grinning and shifting her feet around, suddenly shy, as if embarrassed about what she’d revealed. An act, I say.

“Oh. Edward. Edward Daigle.”

And he was. He looked up and recognized his cousin, the third person that was playing the fated Alphabet Soup game with him back in the 5th grade.

“Tessie?”

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May 23, 2022 · 8:25 am

00330203

They had to talk in code because of the presence of the (righteous) nun to their right, obviously some kind of spy and listening in. “Daigle, Eddy” felt he had an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other: Fisher Rig to his left, fresh from helping the beasts with another killing spree. “Beasts must have their feasts,” he says, rationalizing his actions with rhyme. “Besides, I’m not part cat like you,” he might add to D’Eddy here (as he also likes to be called sometimes). “I don’t have protection.”

“You don’t have to *stay*,” D’Eddy could reply here. “I *do*. I’m married to this place,” he might continue.

“Because of the pool?” Fisher Rig would say here if so. “I thought you deleted that file, those (particular) actions. Like Schitt’s Creek, nobody needs to know the proper name. Like, well, your *own* name. Edward.”

“Don’t call me that,” he would certainly command at this point, perhaps pulling a small gun out of his pocket and pointing it for emphasis. “Don’t *ever* call me that.” For Fisher Rig, he preferred D’Eddy, simply because the simple fisherman had trouble grasping the comma centered moniker he chose in the 5th grade, after his cousin had humiliated him in a… well, better save part of the story for later.

(to be continued)

Oh what the heck. It was a game of TILE, then just called Alphabet Soup. Edward traversed the alphabet three times before his cousin finished one. Full alphabets were especially important for Daigles of whatever first name, including Pierre, including Bradbury. The Oracle demanded. And since Edward was *also* named Edward, the humiliation was increased at least 3-fold. Probably more. He had to get rid of it as best he could according to the laws of the land.

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April 28, 2022 · 10:05 pm

00320602

He waits between hot and cold, choosing hot himself and currently enjoying a mustard and ketchup laden dog of such temperature before customers show up for the midday “rush” — not much of a rush actually but he’s not much of a worker these days, being technically retired and a bona fide Whitehead in Da Woods.

The Mustard Ketchup Kid plays soccer in a nearby field with his sister Ventura, who hails from California. She channels her energy in order to attempt to get the ball past Bert (actual name), but all this is just more code.

Squared Root City is expanding across Highway 13-14 into the sim to the north. Still exciting times for the burg. We hold out hope that it can replace Collagesity-Fordham as proper capital of Lower Austra. Because the latter is probably going away and is, anyway, too small for the role, being only a little over 1/8th of a sim in size. Squared Root Cy is, in contrast, about a sim and a 1/2 in area now.

That’s why the Axis-Windmill character is back. He waits in the Zero Club at the beginning of it all — just before the beginning, some say — for another important character that has chosen to resurface in these here blog-novels to match the new energy. Vim, some call her; others: Vigor (that’s actually her sister, maybe a twin). She counts her Mississippi’s in anticipation of the manifestation. One Mississippi, Two… wait, she forgot something. Newt! At the Zero!

“Hi baby doll.”

He turns. “Eyela?? Wasn’t expecting *you*.”

“No one is,” she speaks truthfully and, after adjusting the strap of her new clockwork eyepatch to better match her face, takes a seat beside him at the bar. Both now turn away from the camera and speak privately. We try to listen in but only catch a couple of words like Geronimo, Slick, Olive, and Oklahoma. We gather an oil spill in Indian territory of the panhandle state may be involved but could be mistaken. Let’s back up and move in closer. We’re the bartender. Let’s call him Jim. Tom, actually, only 3 feet away. Close enough to properly record. We ask if they need a drink to be more legitimate seeming. They refuse. We move away but not too much — should be OK. And… PRESS.

“I’m glad we could mustard enough energy to catch up,” she began, which was code for “very important information to follow.”

“Spill,” he requested, and she did. We were right. Kind of.

(to be continued)

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