otherworldly
“My father is right over there,” Baker Bloch spoke to spiritually oriented Hucka Doobie. “Just beyond the unwaving grass.”
“Bamboo,” Hucka Doobie elaborated. “A type of grass, yes.”
“But I can’t interact with him,” Baker Bloch continued. “Oh the things I could tell him.”
Hucka Doobie remained silent, then: “Why can’t you interact with him? Since he’s just right over there especially.”
“I thought…”
“That you would change the future?”
“Well… yeah.”
“The future cannot be changed, because there is no future except a web of possibilities. We could change *one* probability, yes, but it was already there in the first place. We cannot change anything.”
Baker Bloch nodded for Hucka Doobie without really understanding what he said. “So… I can go see my father? My *young* father?” He points toward the bamboo on the other side of the frog pond. They can see the trailer faintly through it from where they sit.
“Sure, sure,” Hucka Doobie agreed. “But would this be pre-Baker Bloch Spaced Ghost or post-Baker Bloch?”
“Not sure.”
“What I mean is… what I’m asking is…”
“Whether I am yet born, yet *conceived*,” Baker Bloch realized.
“Yes.”
“Well…” He blew out air here. “One thing I know is that I better not be my own grandpa or something.”
“How would that work?” Hucka Doobie shot back.
Baker Bloch thinks of his mother here, who we’ve only seen as Old Grey in the Collagesity novels. “I suppose it can’t.” Baker Bloch gets up off the bench they’re awkwardly perched upon. “Come on, Hucka D. Let’s go see Pops.”
“Hold on there young fellas.” It was Bullfrog, who rented the cottage behind them. “I can’t help but see you were sitting on that bench but you weren’t *sitting* on that here bench. You must be straight…. unable to run scripts… not part of the group.”
Standing Baker Bloch looks over at standing Hucka Doobie, then admits this is true. “We are here as observers,” he elaborates. “From the future.”
“Ohh.” Bullfrog looks anxiously back at the cottage. A diminutive figure emerges from around it: Bullfrog’s partner Aqua Dude.
He almost immediately invokes one of his own special powers. “The green turns to red and the red turns to green,” he recites down to Baker Bloch and Hucka Doobie, still clustered around that bench. Things completely change.
They look around. “Is this *real*?” Baker Bloch speaks to his bee friend.
“I’ve heard of such,” exclaims Hucka Doobie, also looking at the pond, the ground, the sky. “In theory.”
“This way,” Aqua Dude pipes up, “I can turn into Super Guy as well as being Aqua Dude. Ruler of the sea *and* the sky. See? Hehe.”
“He thinks his colors now are the same as his arch nemesis Super Guy,” explains Bullfrog above him. “But it’s not really an exact match. Just humor him. He does it to everyone he first meets. He’ll get use to you.”
“I rule the *skies* as well as the *sea*,” he repeats, glaring toward them.
“Sure you do, Aqua Dude,” tempers Bullfrog. “Sure you do.”
Satisfied that the strangers understand perhaps his most unique ability, Aqua Dude shuts it off and the pond and its environs return to normal colors. “The red turns to green and the green turns to red,” he reverses.
“Now, about that trailer…”
heat
“Tell me what is troubling you my dear. I hope you like it here in Chicken Itza.”
This is *not* Chicken Itza, Chesteria Arthur thinks. And I’m not doing this tonight.
—–
“….Chicken Itza?”
“Annie!”
—–
flowery
“Soo. I’m trying to figure out if you’re gayy or not, Chicken Itza. I mean, *I’m* gay. Grey Scale Kimball is gay. Marcus is gay.”
“Marcus is not gay,” corrects Chicken Itza. “He just likes flowers. Primmy flowers.”
“I’ll take your word for that.”
“We can go ask him if you wish. Saw him out back of his gallery when we were jogging by.”
“Hmm,” responded Chesteria A. Arthur, mate of Grey Scale Kimball. “Sometimes I wonder why we jog together, Chicken Itza. Is it just that we’re next to each other alphabetically in a list of new novel 15 characters?”
“Yes,” states Chicken Itza bluntly. “Else I’d still be laying in my own pool of blood back at Bridgeman’s. That and the suit.”
“Ah yes. The *gay* suit,” Chesteria purred. “But sometimes I think you are a straight in gay garb.”
“Humph.” He assumes a less manly pose on the bench with this.
“I’ve run behind you now too many times. Your hips don’t sway the right way–”
“Oh I’m gay,” breaks in Chicken Itza, fearing exposure of his true self could mean expulsion from the community. He needs his scripts! Love scripts.
“Prove it. I mean, you have the suit, yeah. But anyone could climb into that cock-amanie outfit, hah, and declare themselves gay.”
Chicken Itza’s thoughts turned toward Marcus again. “Okay, I have a way. Follow me.”
—–
“Hmm, dee dumm. Dumm dee… dee…” Oh hi guys. Jogging around the community again?”
“Pucker up Marcus,” warns Chicken Itza just in time.
flowery 02
“Soo,” Chesteria A. Arthur began again, trying to get to the bottom of things. “You and Marcus have been a secret gay couple all along.”
“That’s right, Chesteria.” Chicken Itza turns to Marcus. “Pucker up again, lover boy. We’ll prove it.”
Chesteria waves it off. “No, I think I’ve seen enough of *that* type of proof. I need more.”
“I mean, I have my art…” Marcus states rather weakly, waving his arm around the house. “All these… men. Why do you–” but he stops himself here, understanding he was giving himself away more than defending himself.
“*Exactly* what someone *straight* would do to ingratiate themselves with the community,” reveals Chesteria A. Arthur. “*Our* community.”
“I mean,” Marcus begins again. “Really–” he sputters.
“Please don’t say that we’re the only lesbian couple in (Regaltown). Please don’t go down that path again. We have the approval of the council to be here.”
“But–,” Marcus speaks haltingly again. “*Your* lover — Grey Scale Kimball — *is* the council. Her and Pat.”
“And Pat doesn’t count,” Chicken Itza quickly points out. “Since he or she’s bisexual.”
“Hrmph. All this is sidestepping the actual topic. We’re *gay*, get it? *You’re* — you two guys — *aren’t*. Potentially — still haven’t quite figured it out.”
“The art,” Marcus almost whispers, waving his arm around again.
“The kissing,” Chicken Itza emphasizes, and then leans over and gives Marcus another peck on the lips, making Marcus feign another small smile. “So pleasant,” he says, licking his lips a little for emphasis while Chesteria stares at him. He then leans toward Chicken and pecks him on the lips as well, having some trouble maneuvering around the hood on his head.
“*Alright*,” Chesteria pronounces, tired of the accing. “You’re *gay*. Okay, I won’t tell Grey Scale about this. You know how she’s like.”
Marcus and Chicken couldn’t decide whether to jointly say “thank you,” or keep on defending their faux homosexuality by saying nothing. Glancing nervously at each other, they chose the latter. Keep playing it safe, they thought in harmony. This was all so new to them.
truths
She wasn’t named for this gray scale alien. Instead: the gray scales of a fish to oppose the blue feathers of a bird. In toto: Grey Scale Kimball of the South pitted against Blue Feather Douglas of the North. Bird, sky, opposed by Fish, sea.
But in staring at the crop circle picture again hanging in the recently reconstructed House of Truth at the very center of Golden Sink, she’s beginning to think she *is* named for this famous, highly complex 2002 crop circle that miraculously appeared overnight in a field of wheat near Pitt, England (locally: Crabwood Farm). Both “grey scale”. Too coincidental.
http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/anasazi/wormholetechnology.html
Crabwood of August 15 was one of the most famous crop pictures in modern history, but no one could really understand its message. As shown in two pictures below, the schematic face of a “grey alien” was drawn within a large “rectangular box” that contained 60 horizontal lines, just as for an early “mechanical” TV image, chosen in the 1930’s because we use 60 Hz AC power. The variable width of each line then creates different “gray scales” (modern TV screens use far more lines to give better pictures):
Next, that rectangular box with an alien face was carefully aligned so that it would point at two, nearby TV-radio towers. This was as if to say: “Yes, our new crop picture is really meant to represent the TV image of a grey alien.” In other words, those crop artists can only see the alien “from a distance”, where the word “television” means of course “seeing over a distance”.
Now in one lower corner of that rectangular box, the crop artists also drew a “spiral disc” which contained an elaborate, ASCII-coded binary message as shown. I have omitted all concerns for punctuation or capitalization here, for increased clarity, especially since the last five bits of an ASCII code give one of 26 letters in the English alphabet.
In summary, the crop artists sent us a brief “computer recorded message” on CD or DVD, to accompany their TV-type image of a grey alien. Was Crabwood really alien-made? Many investigators thought so then, and continue to think so now….
And then there’s *Maebaleia’s* Crabwoo, she ponders further, another rectangular box (2 side-by-side, square shaped sims) whose northwest corner just touched the eastern edge of the Blue Feather Sea.
Original capital of the North before its decline and eventual death circa AL 1812-1814. Ur home of Blue Feather Douglas who derived his her name from the sea. Her arch-enemy. Her… sister? Doppleganger? Is he even a she? We’ll most likely find out soon enough.
Sweetwater over Sweetgrass
“We’re going to have to make a decision, Wanda. Are we gay? Or aren’t we gay?”
“Well — *my* old lover is a psychopathic killer. Enough to turn a woman against gaydom. And *yours*…”
“Marcus, I know,” spoke Pete Archer, a Sagittarius through and through. Big Wanda? Aries of course. Horns of Hatton.
She looks downhill into the heart of the village, shifts her sturdy weight in her chair. “Well. One things for sure is that I’m not going to take orders from that Grey Scale woman who recently swooped in and just took over the place. Freed *Annie* for Pete’s sake.” She then looked blankly at Pete. “Sorry — I-I know you don’t like expressions using your name.”
“That was a long time ago, Big Wanda.” He flipped his hand. “Forget about it.”
“I’m sorry your mother never let you go to school. All the advantages lost–”
“I said forget about it.” There was finality in his voice now. Pete had forgiven his ma, his pa, his bro, his ho sis who joined the 1st Prostitutian Church of the Deep South when she was only 15. But now a woman of 30 and straight in her ways. Except she was gay as well. Was *he* gay? Maybe Big Wanda and he should do the big dirty again. Test all those different kind of moves out once more. But he could just be bisexual — no harm in that. Except it is frowned upon by the community here. He’s either in — or out. Can’t flip both ways.
“Let’s head to the Deep South again,” he offered. “Love Letters in the Sand.”
A big smile spread across Big Wanda’s face. Maybe they won’t have to stay here after all.
Regaltowner wannabes
“We’ve got to get into this place, Kevin E. Kevin A.’s depending on us(!).”
“Yeah,” responds the other Kevin at the registration table. “If only — we could read like him.”
“We’ll have to fake it,” answered the somewhat smarter Kevin C. to Kevin E. after glancing back over his shoulder at Baker Bloch (a.k.a. Arnold). “Uh, you take the straight letters and I’ll take the squiggly ones.”
“Um.” Kevin E. didn’t recognize the first 3 letters on the application form.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Uh. Yeah.” He spots his first one. “‘L’,” he mouths, jabbing the appropriate letter several times with his finger. “That’s definitely an ‘L’.”
“Very good.” He pats his hatted lover on the back.
unfriendly neighbors
He was down at the frog pond feeding the ducks when he spotted her through the bamboo. “What the??…”
And he moved forward through the water to investigate, striding the bottom to the far edge. Spaced Ghost’s edge.
“That’s *it*. I’ve had it with these shenanigans by interlopers like this Spaced Ghost, this new guy Kevin A. This is *not* funny.”
BANG BANG BANG.
“Spaced Ghost, I know you’re in there.” No answer. “Spaced Ghost!” he belched out in his gribbety voice. “Open the door. We need to talk.”
“Bullfrog?” the superhero at the peak of his powers replied innocently. Bait taken.
easy as
Arnold had brought them here to this chicken laden place to sit just outside. He wanted them to be witnesses in case Grey Scale Kimball launched a full, um, scale investigation of the two.
“So many chickens around here, Kevin C.,” Kevin E spoke to his lover while peering around him at the other side of Bridgeman’s. “I can count 1 (pause), 2 (pause), 3. Like us, hehe. 1 (Kevin E. points to Kevin C.), 2 (Kevin E points to Kevin A. on his other side), 3 (Kevin E. points himself).”
“That’s very good, Kevin E.” Kevin C. pats his knee this time. “Remember the word ‘appli-cation’ from yesterday? There were 3 squiggly letters — 1, 2, 3. Then you said the next letter, a straight one. What number would *that* be in word.”
“Errr. 3 again?” Kevin E. guessed incorrectly.
“No, that’s not right.”
“Shh, guys,” spoke up Kevin A. — as stated before, the smartest of the group. Or least dumb I suppose I could put it more accurately. But that’s not really fair to them. They’re all sweet as can be. Especially C. and *especially* especially E. Sweetgrass sweet for those two. Kevin A. didn’t quite make the cut and had to remain straight. He is just outside looking in. Outside with Spaced Ghost at the Northeast Quadrant that’s filled out nicely in the meantime. “I hear someone ‘coming’,” he continued after listening a bit more. He was just outside looking in again. But the big dining table hid the supposed action.
Kevin C. looked up and down the road running beside Bridgeman’s but saw nothing. Kevin E. followed his eyes and then looked himself, a copycat act. He was often in copy mode. Kevin C. then realized what Kevin A. was talking about.
If that moaning would stop inside, Kevin E. thought, maybe I could concentrate on the road and see what Kevin A. was talking about. He peered further down the road right — direction 1 he decided to call it to keep organized in the moment, as Kevin C. had taught him recently. He studied the old Archer place from a distance; could almost see that blue band or whatever playing at the dance pad over there.
Then direction, um, 2: Airport tower this way.
Still no sign of someone coming. The moaning accelerated inside, reaching a climactic point just as Kevin E. uncharacteristically shouted “Shut up!” to them, “I can’t think with all that going on.”
—–
Chicken Itza and Marcus walked out of Bridgeman’s, looked at the Kevins lined up in a row outside, and feigned turning red. “Eh heh,” laughed Marcus nervously. “Er, just some bad chicken. We *ate* some bad chicken.”
“Yeah, *bad* bad,” accented Chicken Itza beside him. Bad as in *good*, he thought to himself as part of the cover up.
Kevin E. realized what Kevin A. was talking about.
chicken knowledge
stream
Bridgeman’s.
Swan Lake.
Swan Lake
“We’ll have friends here, love. Already you are jogging with that Chicken man. Lover of Marcus Fox Smartville I assume. Since they live together next door.”
“Correct.” Chesteria A. Arthur tried to make her tone as flat as possible. Grey Scale Kimball still stared at her, but she was only thinking of a next topic. She suspected something, but it didn’t cross her mind right this second.
“And I’ll get my furniture shipped in as soon as possible. Just wanted to see if I — I mean, we liked it well enough to go to all that trouble.”
“Why wouldn’t we?” Chesteria exclaimed about the house, noting the stumble. “It’s perfection. Swan Lake. Swan Lake with an island. Swan Lake with an island with swans. Two of ’em! Just like us. Living in perfection.
But I can’t help notice,” she continued in a somewhat different tone, “that one stays on the island all the time while the other roams about freely. Wonder why?”
Grey Scale Kimball stares again, this time thinking about Chicken Itza and Marcus Fox Smartville directly. True to Baker Bloch’s Arnold’s worries, she called a council meeting the very next day to discuss the possibility. The Kevins’ stood up for the ersatz couple, though. Good thinking Arnold!
forwards and backwards
“Have you rested enough, love?”
“I guess so,” Grey Scale responded, but still taking pretty deep gulps of air.
“You know we’re only about 100 feet from the house.”
“I know. I’ll get my second wind. I know how this goes.”
“You’ve *heard* how it goes. When’s the last time you actually ran over, say, um, 100 feet? High school?”
“I’ll have you know I tried out for track in college.” Her eyes widened. “Failed miserably, admittedly, but I tried. It was all those coconut cream pies they offered in the cafeteria. So tempting.”
“And all the cigs, I’ve heard,” responded Chesteria A. Arthur with a chuckle. “And some of those *special* cigs you like.”
“Well… maybe.” Grey Scale’s thoughts turned to ambition again, as they often do. How long to stay in this backwater village. Who’s here besides them, Marcus and Chicken Boy next door, Bullfrog and Aqua Dude, and then, let’s see, the Kevins I suppose. Kevin C. and E. at least. Kevin A. lives in the separated Northeast Quadrant on Spaced Ghost’s property. Non-gay they are. “Didn’t the guy with the archery set and his gal pal leave the village recently?” she asked her non-winded partner. “Something about converting back to straight?”
“I’m not sure,” Chesteria said. “Okay, enough dilly dallying. It’s time to see what you’re made of, dictator girl. Then she was up and running, so fast that she was around the bend up the hill almost before Grey Scale could turn around. This would not work out well, she knew. Better just head back to the house; pull out one of the special cigs; wait for her return. She’ll understand… she didn’t want me tagging along anyway. I’ll smoke my cig and plot world domination again. I have my eye on Horns.
out of sight
“Good one, Aqua Dude!”
“Where’s Chicken Guy today!?” he shouted in return, but Chesteria had already run out of earshot. So fast. Cheetah fast, of course, since she was 1/2.
Watch out for that fountain, Speedy Gonzales! But she was nimble as well as fast. Best of both worlds.
The cows wouldn’t recognize her if she stood still. Always a blur to them.
Then something suddenly made her STOP. A running plane at the airport on the west side of town — new one. Circle within circle design on the wings. It somehow rang a bell. Like a cow.
“Help!” shouted the occupant, a lone flyer. But now: no fly. He had landed in Regaltown and he wasn’t gay, so the scripts didn’t work here. “Help!” he repeated, unable to even separate himself from the cockpit.
Keith B. 1/2 of the non-gay team called The Basterds. He suddenly found himself 20 years younger. Maybe 40 after the glasses also disappeared. Grammy’s vortex powers were still in effect for the area, eating up the decades in pairs.
white heart elephant tree
“Oh yes, we have many plans for expansion, west *and* east sides. We will span the continent.”
“That’s great, Tillie,” exclaimed Tealy, waving his hand in front of his nose — once again, a familiar gesture. “Maybe we should stop jiggling so much now, eh?”
“Sure,” states Tillie, getting the message.
Space Bridge
“Well, might as well man up and say we don’t have a finish for the Regaltown section yet, Baker Bloch,” Spaced Ghost speaks to his son playing the role of Bullfrog here. “Just twiddling our thumbs, waiting for lines.”
“It’s the Horns of Hatton, Dad,” his son tries to defend. “So laggy over there; it’s holding us down, impeding our progress forward.”
“If everyone blamed everything on *horns*,” Spaced Ghost replies firmly (presently voiced by the great Gary Owens!).
“Well — what’s your idea, then? How to go forward I mean?”
“White,” and here Spaced Ghost reveals the whites of his teeth. “Elephant,” he then completes crisply, making the teeth actually glint with an accompanying, tingy sound effect.
—–
Just like that they’re somewhere else. Still on the same porch, but — at Horns instead of Regaltown.
“See how easy that was, son? You still have a lot to learn from your old man.”
whiteright
Tom Bean was a mysterious character that showed up in Grayson County one day – having just traded his horse and pistol for a wagon with a yoke of oxen carrying a barrel of whiskey. He had everything needed to open a saloon and so he did – naming it the White Elephant for what he considered his end of the trade…. According to one source he had one blue and one brown eye.
“Thank you for the eyes.”
Sunklands 