Fingerprince
See for yourself!
https://veyot368870036.wordpress.com/2019/02/14/undertones-by-art-oluja/
Serenity
If she sits in her compression chair too much longer, she may never get up.
So tightly wound around. Like a Mummy.
Only Monsieur’s visits brings her out of herself. Where *is* he??
—–
“I’ve been waiting and waiting for you, Herbert Glenn Gold.”
The full name, he thinks. She *was* upset. “I’m sorry. I’ve been busy with the king. And then with the doll houses. We found Carrcassonnee inside. The one eyed entity that use to rule Collagesity. HF showed us.”
“But you were both Gold and Platinum inside Murdock’s Castle. Time was all mixed up. *Is* mixed up. You came too close to the truth.”
“Now I know. Fingerprince. I just had to find the second dollhouse to confirm it. And the second HF.”
“Are you going inside? Forever and ever and ever?”
“I’m not sure. What would you advise?”
She paused. “Maybe we should go to the Serenity Church. Perhaps the Reverend can help us.”
—–
“He’s *here*. Zoidboro is here.” Monsieur Gold was incredulous.
“Yes,” spoke Parasol below the tone of Zoidboro’s preaching. “It’s because of the Gold and Platinum mix-up. Zoidboro’s been here for years now. Yet he has just arrived. And then: he isn’t here yet. Some realities he was never born, never had a child by that strange mutant gal-guy Patrick Starr.”
“The drummer?”
“No, that’s Ingor.”
“Ingo?”
“No. *He’s* different.”
“My head hurts. I need to sit down.”
—–
So they sat down opposite Sally Spark O Naut — who had dutifully followed Zoidboro through the eyeball cave portal — and listened to the remainder of a beautiful sermon about the dangers of shark attacks. Afterwards, Herbert Gold’s head hurt considerably more.
In fact, I think he died there. Again.
Fruity Islands > Rosehaven > Collagesity
—–
“So *you* were the Prince all along. This Ingo. Should’ve known by the name. Ingo… Ingor, your drummer.”
“And you have been the witch Hazel all along,” declared Col. Flagstaff from his log. “My ancient nemesis.”
“Perhaps not any more. Maybe moving forward from this centre spot we can be allies instead of axis. Depends if I can choose blue over red. It will be hard.”
“You should ditch Banana Boy to begin. Your yellow lover.”
“I need him still,” countered Parasol.
“Alright. Suit yourself.” Both knew this was a mistake, though.
Parasol looked at Col. Flagstaff. “You’ll have to remove the sphere to make a final decision. You can’t take that thing with you.”
“Sure about that?”
—–
“Say they — we — were trying to get rid of you, huh?”
“Yeah. Implied I was a liability.”
“And you saw this in the cave.”
“Yeah. I was the fire in the center of it all. The observing fire.”
“Interesting.”
Charlie Banana knew that if he didn’t kill the puppet man soon Parasol would need his heart instead. Better move into action.
inn (Eotia Village)
“Amazing, Patrick my man. Man *wo*man. All I had to do was volunteer to preach at the local Broken Clock Church twice a week and we get wined and dined all we desire. Room and board too.”
“No – more – cave!” expressed Patrick, who hated to shiver. Doc said his baby was due any day. “Another glass of rosé?”
“Don’t mind if I do, sir. Don’t mind if I do.”
—–
“I don’t understand, Magnus Ellen. The observing truck is gone here at Crow Island. How do we keep up with the progression of Zoidboro and boy gal Patrick?”
“Something must have changed,” opined the wise Buddhist to his understudy. “Strands (of time) must have been altered.”
Sidechick Corea paced nervously on the wooden swing bridge. “What… now, then?”
“Back to Rosehaven. Back to the cave. There *must* be a portal, for we’ve seen Zoidboro also preaching in Rosehaven Serenity.”
“How many places *is* he preaching, sire?”
“Maybe he can’t stop saying, ‘Don’t mind if I do, sir. Don’t mind if I do.'”
Camouflage knows.
Jacob
“It’s perfect Patrick. We can raise our child here on retro Pineapple Island. We don’t need Eotia Village any longer. It’s just me and you, babe. I got you and all that.”
“What about the Oracle?” spoke Patrick, wiser than ever. The baby was coming!
“Oh, that thing. Discard it. Let it go. Tigers can be found anywhere. In the jungle. In the snow. Even in the desert or wasteland. We have our baby to think about now.”
—–
“Something’s not right, Zoidboro. There shouldn’t be a lake here. And the trees should be taller.”
“Nothing to worry about. Everything will adjust. Dog Island, the new one, is right over there.” Zoidboro indicates behind them, through the feed store and across the bay. “This is the new Murdock’s Island. Pineapple. The highway ends here.”
—–
“I think the trees *are* getting taller now.”
“And the water is beginning to evaporate. See? Everything will be fine.”
Murdock Island Too
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanai
Lānaʻi (/ləˈnaɪ, lɑːˈnɑːi/;[1] Hawaiian: [laːˈnɐʔi, naː-]) is the sixth-largest of the Hawaiian Islands and the smallest publicly accessible inhabited island in the chain.[2] It is colloquially known as Pineapple Island[citation needed] because of its past as an island-wide pineapple plantation….
In 1921, Charles Gay planted the first pineapple on Lānaʻi. The population had again decreased to 150, most of whom were the descendants of the traditional families of the island.[14] A year later, James Dole, the president of Hawaiian Pineapple Company (later renamed Dole Food Company), bought the island and developed a large portion of it into the world’s largest pineapple plantation….
In 1985, Lānaʻi passed into the control of David H. Murdock, as a result of his purchase of Castle & Cooke, then owner of Dole….
In June 2012, Larry Ellison, then CEO of Oracle Corporation, purchased Castle & Cooke’s 98 percent share of the island for $300 million. The state owns the remaining 2 percent.[15]
“I have gone too far down Murdock Cherry. Collagewold influence lessening. The green A Team from Pineapple has murdered — even lasered down with their red beam — the blue Bees. Shivering commences again. Porch sitting Homer and Lady La La talk about knife fights and poisoning. The saucy eyed saucer spits out aberrant things.”
“I must return back to The Islands.”
It’s a boy!
—–
Martha was both polite and curious. “Have you thought of a name yet, Mr. Zoidboro?”
“I’m thinking about Daniel. Or Danny.”
“Excellent. Like ‘The Shining’.”
“Oh… yeah.”
—–
“Danny, huh,” utters an exhausted Patrick, fresh from the Jacobian Hospital. The only hospital on this Pineapple Island, with over 100 beds. “I was thinking about Jack. Or Jackson.”
“Jack’s son?”
Ruby Fantasie: savior
“It’s so beautiful Zoidboro. Just like you said. The trees would grow, the water would go. I’m ready to name my baby.”
“Jackson, then?” guessed Zoidboro, steeling himself for disappointment.
“No, a compromise. If our son is very special — say, can do 6 butterflies in a row…”
“What’s a butterfly?” queried his cephalopodic partner while watching yet another shooting star cross the sky.
“That’s right. You never went to dance school like me — sorry. It’s a cartwheel where your hands never touch the ground. Anyway if he can do 6 of those as opposed to, say, 4 or even 5, we will call him Jackson. Otherwise: Daniel. Danny will be a good boy, I’m sure, but not special. Jackson is reserved for Special.”
“Like Jack’s son.”
“Yes. I wish 100 times over that he is special, but we must love him equally either way.”
“Agreed,” Zoidboro quickly returned.
Patrick turned away from the sky and toward his partner, his ally. “And now, it’s time, to go, inside.”
—–
“I have found them! In the heart of the Pineapple Island. My intuitions are correct!”
“And across the street: another tiny car! This must be the controller.”
“I’ll go inside.”
—–
“Ahh. Should have guessed. Tessa.”
“Who are you??”
breakfast of champions
“Don’t kill me sir!” the puppet man pleaded vigorously in his high, wavering voice. “I’m an innocent! I haven’t done nothing wrong, done no one no harm!”
Charlie stares into the eyes of innocence, lowers the knife. He can’t do it. Charlie Banana begins untying Freedom Puppet.
“Get up. Here. Take the knife.”
—–
“That trick was easier than I thought,” Freedom Puppet said while quickly cutting a circle around the center of Charlie Banana. “Eat your heart out Gene Kelly.”
—–
At her Fruity Island house boat, Parasol goes to check the morning mail. “Ahh. A real heart instead of a puppet one.” Parasol sighs. “Poor Charlie Banana. We had a good run, though.”
“Looks like blue might win out after all.”
link
The company put Jackson Bloch up in a shack over in Hambone, just across the sim line from Nevermore. Handy for work, but he had to live with rental furniture and decorations, which he usually hated. However, this place was different. All the decor that should have remained alien to him began becoming more familiar instead. Slowly, surely, he felt like this was home, not only the shack, but, perhaps even moreso, Hambone itself.
He’d heard of a local man named Pat who disappeared in the past that some say looked and acted like him. They didn’t say “slow” or “ugly” or “unkempt” to his face, but that’s the essence of what they meant. Maxine Cornbread, Howard Johnstone, and the rest. The Gossipers, they called themselves, and met at The Last Drop every Wednesday afternoon, sand storm or shine. Jackson Bloch was now part of their outer, extended circle. So was a new dude named Walt: Walter Westinghouse. Philip Tongue as well. The Tongue — fits right in with that nickname. Anyway, the similarity between Jackson and Pat — our Patrick Starr of course — has been brought up several times now by that group. Slowly, surely, the story of the Nevermore abductions will intertwined with those of Pat and Jackson. 1 plus 1 begins to add up to 3. As in an unexpected baby. If he hadn’t died in that killer shark attack 15 years back, imagine the relief Zoidboro would have experienced learning who the true father was. Aliens! “Should have known,” I can hear him say from the grave.
With his mind, Jackson removes several posters from the wall he suddenly finds unwanted and unnecessary.
He’s been doing such things all his life. That’s how he became involved in the ruin construction business. No one puts up ruins faster than him. Or tears them down if the reverse is needed. No one.
Jackson is indeed very blessed and very special.
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
soaking it all in…
dogged
“Slowly but surely, Spring is coming to Rosehaven, Sandy. The snow is melting. The old link with Winterfell is weakening once more. Eversnow.”
“Herbert, please,” spoke Sandy Beech, still under contract. “I suppose that will have to be one for the blooper roll of this novel.”
Merry Gouldbusk skips over Herbert’s breaking of the 4th wall in her reverie. “And castles… they are changing too. I’m not sure for the best. Homogenization.”
“Still sulking about Murdock’s Castle, eh?” Herbert Dune looked at his nails. “There’s still Dog Island.”
“No. (The essence of) that’s moved too. I consulted the Oracle yesterday. It spoke of a Pineapple Island where the true savior of Our Second Lyfe was born. One Daniel. Or Jackson — the Oracle couldn’t specify.”
“The Tiger Oracle,” clarified Herbert. “How is DJ anyhoot?”
“He’s doing fine. He’s looking forward to spring too. When the rest of Rosehaven will homogenize with his evergreen, everliving Borderlands.”
“It’s a nice anchor,” declares Herbert. “A tale that wags the dog — something.”
“Something,” agreed Merry Gouldbusk.
—–
arrival 01
“This is not ideal, Philip Dilip.”
“I know, I know,” he gruffly relented. “It’s all we could afford. Rent here is out the roof!”
“You said something about Clyde. Where is Clyde?” Billy Jean Kidd puts her hands on her hips for emphasis. This was important!
“Um, well, let’s just go meet Marion Harding over at that Vineyard he found yesterday.”
“Vineyard *cafe*,” Billy Jean Kidd corrected, still in a steam. “I could use some coffee. This heroin is beginning to wear off.”
“Well, we had to give you *something* for the trip. And to prepare you for, well, *this*.” He indicates toward the cottage he’d rented just several days back. Their new home: he and the Kidd and Marion. The kid who wasn’t really a kid atall. So the drug part is totally legit, at least in Caledonia. I’ll have to check the local laws on drug use before the 3 settle in. All heavy imbibers they are, Marion with his pot, Philip his pills, and Billy Jean, well, she’s the worst of the 3 now. Old souls can falter in that manner.
“Coffee!” The Kidd begins to stomp in place on the melting snow. “Coffee, coffee, coffee!” She was having a caffeine conniption.
—–
“It’s so laggy here, Philip, Kidd.”
“It’s the beginning of the end,” states Billy Jean plainly. “And where’s my *coffee*?”
“In a minute, babe,” spoke Marion, smooth and gangsterly as always. “Just gotta knock the edge off this pot with some wine. Then we’ll shift — over.”
“Wine, beer, booze, drugs, cigarettes.” It’s all we do any more. It’s like we don’t *exist*.”
Philip and Marion try to absorb the impact of this statement. “*Clyde*” Billy Jean harshly interrupted their ruminations. “The *reason* for the *being*.”
Marion finally thought to take another sip of wine. Buzz was strong this afternoon. Blur the higher regions a bit, the parts he’s not suppose to know yet. The blue above the red. Red wine, blue pot, hmmm. He drinks deeper. Must return to red.
“Well I for one am going to get some sugar… donuts hopefully. Take the bite out of these barbiturates I’m on currently.” Philip scoots his chair back and gets up to go to the other side, across the wooden swing bridge. The side of the cafe that has the coffee. And the pastries.
Marion then stares at The Kidd, who stares back. “You don’t… really like me do you,” Marion states, seeing the hatred in her eyes.
“No, I don’t really like you Marion Star Harding. Not at the moment, anyway.” But Marion thought it went on longer than that. Through eternity, maybe, but that was the blue beyond the red again. ‘Nother sip of wine. Oh… he realized, she just wants some coffee. And I’m here, taking my time, drinking my wine. Slooowly.
“Oh… I see,” he spoke aloud. “You want…”
“Duh,” she interrupted. “Are you through with the wine?” She pauses a beat. “How about now?”
“Listen, doll… kid. We’re here to show you something, Philip and me. There’s something special about this place. It’s not… just about getting away from Caledonia. It’s *fate*.” Marion ends here.
“It’s fate *what*?”
“The, er, Oracle.” He decided just to blurt it out. “It’s in the other side. The pastry part.”
“Well,” states Billy Jean Kidd, unimpressed. “Down the rest of that precious wine and we’ll head over there. Join Philip in his sugar binging. It will probably be cocaine after that. Usually is after sweets. We may have a clear spot between…” — she checks her watch which she actually isn’t wearing — “… between 5:30 and 5:45. That gives us 15 minutes to make some actual sense to each other. Not red… blue… black… yellow. I need some coffee, I need some drugs. We’ll actually *talk* to each other. Like a regular family.” Billy Jean Kidd thinks again how she desires a normal family, not necessarily a father and a mother instead of 2 fathers — pseudo-fathers. Just… normal. White picket fences, red apple pies, blue skies, green trees, yellow dress — well, she has that… but the rest. She so wants it. And she thought this mythical Clyde might supply it.
Marion finally remembers to drink the wine again. And that they need to get to the other side. He stands up, a little wobbly but then steady (as she goes).
arrival 02
“Philip! Come here!”
—–
“She said her name was Edwardston. I figured that was code for something.” Billy Jean Kidd had an opinion but bit her tongue for a change. “She said she was waiting for spring to arrive in Rosehaven before properly returning. I told her the snow’s melting, melting, melting as we speak — shouldn’t be long. She said she had to wait until it was good and gone because she didn’t like snow one bite. ‘One bite’, she said. Not ‘one bit’.”
“A byte is 8 bits,” offered Philip to one side. “I learned that in my computer science class.”
“The one you failed. Speeding through your assignments all the time and not paying attention to what you were doing.”
“How about you?” Philip countered to his old school chum Marion. “Always high. Always slow… to learn.”
“Admittedly it was a blur. The whole school thing… but — anyway — getting back on subject, Edwardston said she knew all about the Oracle.” He paused here.
“Well?” urged Billy Jean Kidd on the other side, finally showing her impatience again. They had a 15 minute window here at the Vineyard cafe to talk about something serious, very serious, in as clear a way as possible. And it was 5:36 now. They were 6 minutes in — almost halfway into this theoretical space. Rainbow space. BJK indicated their time limit to the others.
“Aww, that’s just something you made up,” insisted Philip to her left. “It’s not like at 5:45 I’m going to get up, go to one corner, pull out my dime bag of cocaine, line it up neatly on the table, and then take a straw and sniff, sniff, sniff — very quickly.” Philip imagined how pleasant this would be, and the resulting state.
“Yes you will,” states Marion plainly. “You always do. 15 minutes after sweets. Always the same story.”
“5:39 now,” issues BJK, pointing to the watch still not on her wrist.
“Anyway,” continues Marion. “She said the tiger pictures were placed at the end of the tale on purpose. And then — get this — she said she came from *between* the two of them.”
“What’s that mean?” inquired BJK.
“I asked the same thing to Edwardston and she didn’t respond. Instead she got up: ‘Walk with me,’ she said. There was another part to explore. The large balcony was just the beginning of the end, she said. ‘Walk with me,’ she repeated.”
“5:42, now,” implored BJK, sneaking a glance at Philip. His forehead had begun to perspire. So little time left!
“We rounded a corner of the large room and entered another one, with a window facing the opposite direction — toward the north instead of the south, I believe. A man named Pat sat on a couch surrounded by cats.”
Philip gets up from the table.
“Time’s up,” BJK declared, throwing her hands in the air.
arrival 03
It took them half a day to reach another of those clear spaces where they could make enough sense to each other for more of the story.
“A railroad oval. An engine runs into a caboose. Tale before the tiger,” Marion explained. “A race between beginning and end, she said. Tale wins.”
“Maybe tails win,” Billy Jean King said while sitting on a small bed in the corner of the otherwise almost unfurnished and undecorated cabin. “As in a coin. Flipping a coin — heads and tails.”
“Maybe.”
“What else?”
“She said to always pay attention to the blue roses. They always indicate something. We looked west now. Two thrones — blue roses to side. She said these were the Prince and Princess of Rosehaven, but only when Caledon is Caledonia.”
“See?” BJK nudged Philip sitting beside her in the ribs. “I *told* you it was Caledon. Maybe we were in the wrong place to start with.”
“No,” insisted Marion. “We were definitely in the right place. Caledonia. And then — get this — they removed their, er, masks. Actually the Prince had on some rainbow swirly globe or something — over his head. The princess just shed her golden skin, like a snake. ‘Let the waters rise,’ they said in unison, then. I looked around but didn’t see any water, let alone water rising. But something had changed. I could feel it.”
I also noticed there was a tiny bit missing from the Prince’s fin-foot, like it was bitten a little bit.”
“A little *bite*,” BJK insisted. She turned toward Philip knowingly. Philip just stared back blankly.
“The Princess’ shoe was right there.”
“Achilles heel?” BJK offered, visualizing it backwards in her mind.
double down
From the famed Nepenthe Gate at the southern edge of Rosehaven, Princess Merry Gouldbusk stared out at the void separating her almost-queedom and Caledon Caledonia. She thought about the rising water that would result in the re-merger. Tomorrow! “2 meters, Sandy. What harm could be done? I can re-terraform the little coastline that might be flooded.”
“None atall, my dear,” spoke Herbert Dune behind her, ignoring the botched name again. I’m still under contract! the actor screamed in his mind, however. *Herbert*. Herbert Dune. Dummkopf.
The actor playing Merry Gouldbusk realized her gaff. “Oh, let me start again on that.” She turned toward the camera. “Can I just start again?” Her face was turning red.
“Well. I guess we’ll *have* to now,” groused Sandy, thinking the name could have been voiced over in post-production later on, along with a good number of other mistakes made by his co-star only in the last several days. But not now. And time was short… the snow was almost gone! But he must *affect* love again. Because Herbert Dune truly loves his soon-to-be Queen. The actor playing Herbert Dune despises the actor playing Merry Gouldbusk, though: one Lilly Frame, fresh off the bus from Ontario. That was a little disguised fact.
Director Eraserhead Man sets the scene again.
Cameraman Blinky was ready to roll. “And… action!”
“2 meters, Sandy… oops!”
“Oh GOD!!”
rounding it out
Eraserhead Man re-created the scene. “The drawbridge will CLOSE! The delegation from CALEDONIA — not CALEDON mind you — will move across with the Prince to meet the ones from ROSEHAVEN on the other side! The closing of the BRIDGE represents the closing of the GAP between the two QUEENDOMS. KINGDOMS… whatever!”
Hearing aids, thinks Sandy Beech opposite him at the Vineyard Cafe table. He’s forgotten them again. Where’s that Ruby woman when she’s needed — he never shouts around her, aids or no aids. A magical relationship. He then has an idea.
“Where’s the actor playing Ruby now? Is she still up in Borderlands?”
“What’s that?!”
“The ACTOR playing RUBY. Where is she?!” Sandy Beech forgot his own aids — the blue, calming pills.
“OH: BORDERLANDS.”
It took a few minutes, but Sandy finally got the idea in his director’s head that they should go visit her… check the scene out that may end the current production. The oracle and such. “That sphere over there,” and he indicates with his head a table across from them in the cafe without looking, “is only a terminal! We need to find where the MOTHER oracle is!”
“I see a TIGRETT over there, Sandy!” Eraserhead Man then declared, fingers nervously pattering against the table. “What do YOU see?!”
Sandy turned.
End
But Ruby (Fantasie) had already left the Borderlands and entered Rosehaven proper with the true coming of spring. She has emerged from between the tigers’ tails which are actually Tiger Tail. This was the true meaning of Eraserhead Man’s vision of the Tigrett in Vineyard Cafe, for they are one and the same, tiger tales both now.
The Borderlands Oracle, the *Mother*, is currently stuck on the figure of Morgaine, an ambivalent character from Arthurian legend who can take on both negative and positive roles. Red and blue if you will. Surrounded by 12 rounded rocks, this border also signals the end of our yarn or weaving, or as far as we can take it currently. Our 12th Collagesity novel.
Borderlands has greenly homogenized with Rosehaven as a whole. There’s no need for a tale now within. We are done with it. Same with Fruity Islands, End of Time, The Waste. All put away in the creative closet, perhaps pulled out later for further play.
The Brachiosaurus which doubles as a sea monster here seems to be telling Baker B(loch) goodbye.
But what of Mssr. Gold and wife April Mae Flowers of Snowlands? Herbert Gold will keep dreaming of these lands for certain — he is stuck as well. April Mae will keep seeing the gardener Steve on the side and visiting her ex’s grave over on the Omega continent. The mysterious Bauerbridge dune will remain an obstacle in her way.
Despite the end of perhaps a cycle of Collagesity novels, Collagesity itself also goes onward, up and away and beyond the effects of any storyline. For this is home. The anchor. From here I can enter any world I dare to penetrate with a certain style of wizardry: Stonethwaite, Tugaske, Avebury. All the “satellite” realms. But one has to have a center to return to.
So I, Baker B., Baker Blinker and Baker Bloch both, will say goodbye to you my loyal reader while sitting at home sipping on my Starbucks 4 shot latte and enjoying the relative warmth of an early spring night.
END OF “COLLAGESITY 2018-2019 WINTER”!
Sunklands 