And so we end in a bar, Wheeler serving herself with tag-along 88s keeping guard. Usually this is the way you can tell it’s Wheeler and not someone else, say, Baker Bloch or Bracket Jupiter (and so on). She realizes the resonance with the hat and increases its tips two-fold, least she can do for poor, dead Zimmy. Mr. Z. One and the same. Putting that to rest we can move on…
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0416, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File
“Why from the Abyss,” she answered the hot dog guy, trying to guess the ambiguity. The Christmas look and the green nose didn’t win him over. “Gracious goodness I’ve forgotten the name of this festive thingamabob growing out of my nose,” she said just earlier, talking about it before he did, they all did (in her mind). “Not mistletoe — that’s for hanging *above* your head, not *off* it, ah ha ha ha ha!” Did the laugh convince?
“Well it looks like a big long booger,” he said crudely, and then asked if she wanted relish on her big loong dog. Disgusting. Why did she come out of hiding in the first place? To deal with lowlifes like this beach bum? This nobody? “Where you from? Woman?”
—–
Where indeed? There were *elephants* in her Abyss now, another sign she had to go, along with the rest of the avatar family. Zimmy is obviously Jimy. Jimy Z., gone as sure as Zimmy since he was also dead. Only the symbolic Liverpool plane remains: big red machine, twitch of the Morgan, lumber for a Bench. Red as Rose, another archetype and more obvious. Red Star becomes Old Red Star and is banished from the game he so so loves. They bring in a Foster boy and he turns out to be just as legit as any of ’em. Conception is an error caught between the legs. Perez just is. Geronimo! (and he died) Griffey had a Junior who took control. One through eight complete. Visible compendium. No need to worry about the zero and the nine. They were enough by themselves to carry the team through any troubles, ride it to victory. Never mind who pitches what. What’s the pitch, Pitch? Didn’t matter. They were enough. Biiig lumber.
She went to talk to Willy Wonka in the past present future to give him a piece of her mind, dodging big piles of elephant doo all along the way. They met at the south end of the property, where we’ve been before, CROOKED in clear sight through an opening between palm trees and rocks. “You *don’t* understand,” she complained while indicating. “Those are *historic* buildings over there.” “That *junk*?” he reiterated, trying to think of new and more effective ways to derender all that for his fancy smancy artsy fartsy photos. “It looks like, I don’t know, a giant kid ate a whole bunch of tinker toys and legos and then threw up.” “*Moard* *Ling*”, she kept defending. “You’ll never hold a candle to him… Wonka.” It took a while but she had learned to respect the prolific prim creator, stuck in the past but with lessons to teach. Sometimes the past is better, at least in part, in ways. This is what she learned from Constantynople, soon to be no more here. She was about to have her last pass through it. She spotted the purple garbed guy — another *former* after all, another one living in the past. Why can’t he *see*?
It could have been different.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0415, Colorado, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File
“I’m looking for information on Ted Bear, his current whereabouts,” spoke Suzanna Oh 2345 out of the side of her mouth which she didn’t possess. The little robot at the bar looked knowledgeable. And, most importantly, one of her kind. He probably wasn’t stationed here like that, at a centerpoint of gossip, for nuttin. He had dirt. Spill, she requested after sliding up beside him… or her, actually. Molly OU812. Make me at least one small mound at the bottom of a hill. Bigger than ant size, maybe anteater size. Something I can really dig into. But most of this was implied.
“Ted Bear. Just checking…” the smaller robot sputtered out.
“He use to own a small island in this sim. Say: islet.”
“Islet,” the small robot complied, still checking her database with a corresponding lowering of surface functions.
“No, I mean, let’s call it an islet. Very small.”
“Smaller than… me?” Still checking behind the scenes.
“No. Ted Bear is bigger than you so that does not compute.”
“You?”
“No, you. Ted Bear is bigger than you.”
“You?”
Pause. “Oh, sizes right. I’d say between me and you. Teddy bear size, but to the max.”
“Fit (still checking) into a 3 by 3 foot box?” She was just making chit chat really at this point while computing deep down, where it counts. 02345 x 812 files counted now. Only 812 to… *done*.
“3 x 3 box,” Oh 2345 pondered aloud, but then OU812 interrupted.
“I have all the information needed. You can stop talking now while I do. Ted Bear lived here from 2020-2022 on an 20 x 22 foot islet near the center of Moomit Bay. Conditions for entering: you had to bare something, could be a small article of clothing, could be all of them. Ted Bear was clinically insane. He was quarantined. I will pause now to let you ask questions if you wish. I have all the information.”
Suzanna Oh 2345 looked around. The music was blaring — no one else could hear them. No one even at the bar presently, not even a tender. Must be on break, perhaps a big bathroom one. With her supersonic ears Suzanna detected several flushes earlier and some other noises. An upset stomach could be the problem. The tender could have, yes, tended himself, imbibed himself, didn’t cut off himself at the limit normally assigned to others. He wasn’t a good tender to himself.
OU812 waited patiently, hearing the whirring of Suzanna Oh 2345’s inner workings indicating she was thinking. Suzanna Oh’s thoughts shifted to a question, changing the sound slightly, raising it up an overall pitch or two. More focused thinking here.
“Baker Bloch, the owner of the blog–”
“Yes,” anticipated OU812. “He was there. Took off his hat so he could enter. Wheeler Wilson or Wilson Wheeler too. She had to take off more. Ted Bear set up an islet next to his islet so that Baker Bloch could be with him forever and ever. He turned into a bobblehead, top making up 9/16ths of his body’s total mass. But then he was saved.” OU812 stopped here, calculating the many possible meanings of that word. Backed up? No, that wasn’t it.
“Describe the interaction with Wheeler Wilson more,” Suzanna Oh 2345 requested.
(to be continued)
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
They switched horns with each other, Ben with Jerry, becoming Benny and Jer again. Jer gets up after the transformation, says he has to check on his bars, even the Zero, even the Nine. Beyond the visible compendium. Larry would not be happy. Or Lawrence.
—–
The scene is set. The return of Thomasina Boyy.
—–
“You’re nervous aren’t you?” the old woman beside me on the waiting bench spoke. “Why don’t you feed the pigeons to take your mind off your worries. Steven will be back soon.”
I checked but no animation in the bench that would allow such. And laying on her lap, another one of the few options, seemed inappropriate, although I *was* sleepy. The end must be near. Yes, down there, unseen to me in the moment. Because she was me.
I thought of the visible compendium again, the 1 through 8. Jer, left horn in place again, becomes the owner of bars, Kedas and others. He wanted me to don the Crazy Blue and perform the cancan, old fashion style. How dare he (!). I’d slap him if he were here beside me instead of this old woman. I wanted to get a name. So I decided to bring up the lack of that animation she spoke about.
“You call me Grammy,” I finally got out of her. I recall her from the Newt pharmacy, striking provocative pose after provocative pose for the apothecary in an attempt to get SODA. Most likely why she’s here, and it turns out one in particular did the trick. Call it her cancan moment.
—–
His break over, Steven returned to playing the guitar across from us, entertainment and also a needed distraction. The policeman guarding the gate to the inner sanctum, Tank I believe, mysteriously clapped in slow motion to the beat, about 1 per every 4 to 5 measures, I reckoned. It’d been 1/2 an hour already, maybe, yes, 45 minutes (as I checked my watch). Ten till 2 now. At least the meeting didn’t take place in the cursed fairy blue light of middle late morning. Else I might be doomed, designated for Hell and Devil alike. Hellville. Joining the Hills, or at least Grant. But Mike is trying to save them by roping my parents into the story, of all people. “Lemon!” he said earlier, stuffing that one in Mama Wheeler’s mouth. “Lime!” he then said, doing the same with Daddy Newt (named for the sim and not visa versa). “Speak!!!” he then shrilled after telling his own tale, but the fruits were still in their mouths. He removed them, causing the cascade of words we talked about before which still didn’t satisfy him. Guess what he uttered next.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0610, Nautilus, NORTH, Oooo, Rank & File, Rim Isles
He was washing the car with roommate Devil Dave in Wendy when he got the call.
“You get it.”
“No, I’ll get it.” Typical, playful pals. Karoz answers the phone ringing in the front seat. He forgot to roll up the side window and it was ringing wet but so apparently not damaged. Wife Baker Blinker was on the other end. He’d forgotten he was married. “Come… *home*,” she said with defiant voice. He knew he was in trouble. “Chilbo?” he asked for some reason. It had been their home for I suppose 5 years. Why would it change now?
“No. We have a new home.” He knew somehow! Maybe it was just the oddity of the call. Baker Blinker hadn’t phoned him in, what was it, *2* years? He’d forgotten he tied the knot. He told Devil Dave all this after receiving the rest of the information and hanging up.
“Summer,” DD replied, still playful wiping the front of the La voiture de Grand-père they’d been bumming around in for 3 months. “You moved here at the beginning of summer. You last talked to Baker Blinker in spring, May I suppose. Not 2 years.”
“Oh.” He recalled now. But bad timing with the car wash. He’d have to drive it through the ocean and get it all salty to reach where Baker Blinker indicated was their new home. Place called Constantynople —island-state up in Nautilus, she said. Strange pronunciation, he thought. He also realized the irony that they were going to be residents of the place, “Constan*ti*nople” being the best known hit of the bizarro group known as The Residents. First track off “Duck Stab/Buster and Glen”, also their greatest album. He knew it well through the audiovisual synch “Waits 4 No One”. Wheeler (Wheeler!) use to play it quite a lot on the TV. Back in the days. Got him in a lot of trouble that one afternoon. Had the sound up too loud — may have even been “Constantinople” playing; more irony if so. Baker Blinker approached unheard, opened the door of the bungalow, witnessed what was inside. Nothing *too* bad, but Karoz had his legs propped up on Wheeler’s lap. She knew. He wasn’t allowed to enter the wrestling ring again for maybe about 3 months after that, maybe more.
“School’s closed anyway, library shut down,” said Devil Dave in resignation, car wash given up. He hated to lose his friend, his won over ally, but the future calls. Literally. Karoz Blogger wasn’t a bachelor. His days at Crabwoo U. were long gone. This had to be all a dream. Wake up, he said to himself. Wake up! And he did.
Karoz remained in the dream, though. Sans Dave, he now prepared to waterproof the car for his journey. He wasn’t going to leave Wendy without it, planes and trains not being an option here.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0602, Constantynople, Kidd Tower, Nautilus, Rank & File, Wendy-Ontario-, Wild West
“I found something,” im-ed Wheeler, disguised as ice cream dress wearing Ruby again. “A second memorial. You can mark it on your map from my position.”
But Baker, disguised as Newt, had found something too. A working portal. He clicked one of the balls and it took him directly to ML Gazebo 91, a miracle. Just where he was suppose to be.
“Got it!” he im-ed back after the pin placement, not daring to tell his new discovery to the young, impressionable Ruby. Wheeler later, maybe.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0516, Constantynople, Nautilus, New Island, Omega, Rank & File, Wild West
“So how long you going to keep up this ruse? *Pitch*.”
“As long as it takes,” he replies generically, shifting his long legs nervously again. “Do (he indicates behind him), do these *people* have to follow you everywhere you go?”
“The Eightyeights? Of course. You know that.” She paused, thinking about what to say next. “Bad luck to stare at the ocean this time of day, though, they believe. Have to face away. Like the bear.”
“Ted?” He dares to glance back in its direction, centered in the sandy passageway that runs between the two halves of Sunklands Institute.
Another pause. “We can call him that. Or her.”
“What’s with this Tiki curse anyway?… riddling the town. Saddling it.”
Wheeler paused longer this time and decided not to even answer Baker Bloch, currently disguised as thought-to-be obsolete VHC City originating vampire Pitch Darkly. Married to Mary instead of Wheeler. The reason for his being.
“You can’t keep postponing the inevitable,” she said after staring into the hateful ocean for a while, bright in the fairy blue light. The light of the Devil, some say. 10:01. The Eightyeights couldn’t handle it, thus the turning. Wheeler was, in contrast, soaking it all in. Pitch was just glancing all around, shifting his feet and legs and arms. And glowing eyes. “You’ll wake up next to Mary one morning, perhaps one much like this one, and realize she’s just a symbol of something bigger. ‘Mary me,’ I said so long ago that I can’t recall where and how.”
“Boston?” Pitch said, and then corrected himself. “No, not Boston.”
“Not Miami,” Wheeler also offered. They both sat there, trying to remember the circumstances surrounding the event. It was also the day he met Mary; he did recall that. Reel reel reeling them in. Just like now.
“Caught another one!” she cried gleefully just over at the newly placed dock.
“Wonderful dear! A *whopper* this time!” he observed.
“Just like your story,” Wheeler hissed over through folded hands.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0507, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File, Wild West
And so they were wedded that June. Something about substance over style in the vows. Something about quantity over quality. Substance and quantity over style and quality? Something was wrong here, really wrong. What does this wedding have to do with Constantynople, our newly minted darling of the blog? And why do we have the returned, purple gowned Wheeler in Alpha with Baker Bloch? Marriage of convenience? Let’s back up, have them eat those words for now…
We are at the end of 32, sliding into 33. Wheeler wasn’t joking. She’d won the Tic-tac-toe game fair and square. “We will be married to each other and also the town,” he now recalled about what she said at the grated white table in Ontario above the completed board, food shunted aside for the moment. Town, he contemplated. Wrong one. *Really* wrong one. He was falling into a pit, deep and dark and dank and dingy. 4D. No returning to kaput Ontario to the scene of the crime. We’d have to resolve this situation elsewhere. He lost his hat.
Someone stirred in the blue and yellow glowing teepee.
Fall over, Pitch Darkly stepped out of his dark (etc.) house and into the blinding white light. “Hey you blippity bleep bleep kids stop playing around with that statue!” he cried from the porch.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0506, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File, Wendy-Ontario-, Wild West
Some call them Clear Lake and Black Lake, although the 1st wasn’t quite clear and the 2nd wasn’t quite black. Separated by only a small dam, they were closer in color than many wanted to admit. And it is here our Annaberg story must continue, kind of a new development since my first visit to the place back in late ’21, just after I learned I could retire the following March. Which, I suppose, sort of makes *my* story the same as Jimmy Dieselengine, formerly of Ossemotor, keeper, at least for the morning, of grandson Pete Pistle, who may be the same as Pete Piper from other places. His African mansion was raized because of his political beliefs. Here:
square of misery
—–
It was 3:18 in the afternoon when he walked into the bank and took out 499,000, a whole Reno’s worth of money as they say in Sunklands speak. Cory Piper, father to Pete (perhaps), still looking for his maw, still banking on the state of affairs to improve and that the wall between Nevada and California would finally be ripped down. Fat chance, I say. Will free the tree people inside for one thing, who some, perhaps many, fear as green monsters. The ones who don’t want east and west merged will block it, I predict. Wally will live.
—-
10 months later and just below, a dog named Spider floats into the Cavern bar from the sky and orders 24 drinks, all with the same 4 numbers just rearranged a bit. All the bits, in fact — every possible permutation. Current bartender Edwin doesn’t know how to handle it and goes overload, which brings a small manager named Bach from the back for aid and assistance. Veiled, mysterious Alessandra looks on very interested, pretending not to be somebody else. But Bach notices before turning his back on the resolved bar situation and going back inside again. Whores of Babylon, he thinks, seeing a bit of black projecting from the white gown’s back, just enough to be tell-tale. What is *she* doing black, I mean, back?
Sunklands 