grey is the day
“I’ll never get through all these books, Chesteria A. Arthur. Conquerors draw the worse lot!”
“The whole assimilation process, yes,” speaks Grey Scale’s mate from behind. She thinks: we must get rid of this blue vase I’m leaning next to and kind of hiding, yes. And that one over there as well. Don’t have Grey Scale be reminded of her blue enemy in any way. The Big Blue Machine. Like a sleeping blue whale. So deep, so blue.
“You’ve become quiet, Chesteria my love, my dearest. Please keep talking to distract me from these confounded histories before me!”
“Okay. Just don’t turn around. I have something between my front teeth and I’m presently sucking it out. Keep at least pretending to read and I’ll move to you.”
“Alright.” She feels Chesteria’s hot, 1/2 cheetah breath against the back of her neck now. “Maybe I’ll read aloud to you. Then you will feel the weight of your eyes too. Listen: ‘In 1312 the village of Horns-on-Hatt was formed with 15 soldiers of the disbursed Copper Queen’s army. Items included 10 cows for milking, 5 golden rings, 25 standard issues of toilet paper bark, 50 bayonets, 22 rubber gloves, 14 fishing rods for the hobbit pond, 77 individually wrapped pieces of copper colored candy for the boys and girls, 88…’ well, you get the picture. Do you see what I mean?” She abruptly shuts the book without saving her place somewhere near its beginning. Dust flies from it, making golden-silvery glints in the air where the sun shines. “And, you see (she waves her arm around the table here) there’s maybe 20 more to go through. I’ve done 6 — *started* 6. I just can’t even get through the 1st chapter of most. If you can call these sections chapters. ‘Moby Prick’ did writing right. These (she waves again around her) are just ephemera, the flotsam and jetsam of dull, boring grey life. Soldiers’ lives at that in this case.” She pounds the book before her with a flat palm, as if trying to compress its three dimensional nature back into 2. “*Cartoons* would be more entertaining. *Much more*. In fact…”
Chesteria was reading her mind. She had the newspaper funnies in her back pocket, ready to whip them out to stave off breakdowns. Grey Scale Kimball eagerly pushes the “soldier book” away and flattens the funnies before her. Almost immediately she begins to smile. “Hehe. Hatfield. So funny.”
respects
They all sat on the bench, wondering what she was attempting to actually accomplish by being here. But they dare not ask, since they were the conquered if not the vanquished — yet. Grey Scale Kimball had assured the little people of the land that she was fairy friendly, and that she had come from Regaltown which was full of such people and they all got along very well indeed and that she herself was a type of fairy. The fairies knew what she was alluding to. Fairies are certainly not dumb creatures. Little bodies and brains, true, but a lot of thoughts spinning round those small grey matters. They knew that she was referring to homosexual fairies and not fairy fairies, although there were also homosexual fairy fairies, if not in present company.
Benny’s brother Jer showed up on the other side of the praying Grey Scale. He was much less timid in his position as the Left Horn to his brother’s Right. Horns of Hatton they were together, although not rulers of the land. That was Grey Scale now. Formerly: their father.
“My ruler,” he acknowledged Grey Scale while bowing a bit. “My brother,” he said over to Jer sitting on the bench with the fairies.
“Howdy,” Jer’s less formal brother spoke back. The fairies (Aubrey, Austin, Addison) waved “hi.”
Jer turned his attention back to Grey Scale. “May I assist you in your prayers, my ruler?” His voice was authoritative. *He* should have been the eventual ruler. Not this usurper. But armies decide battles and hers won. Certainly having the armored elephants didn’t hurt her cause. He should have thought of it first. They were there, just having a good time roaming the shallows and flats around the sacred Hills of Bill. He should have put them to good use first.
“No, I think I’ve got the hang of it,” replied Grey Scale, thinking: how hard is it to pray, dummy? I sit on the single pose ball, I *pray*. Very simple. But then she realized that maybe she was missing something. Like needed, spoken words. Perhaps a ritual mentioned in those dusty old tomes which she’s still read only about 10% of. She decided enough was enough before she got herself into hotter water, and rose solemnly, unlocking her hands. “There. I feel better,” she said, breathing deeply. She shrugged to both brothers. “But it’s war, fellas. There’s gotta be winners… and, well, losers.” She glanced into the tomb with this. The final resting place of Max the Mad, also known as the Red Devil. “Now he’s in a better place,” she tried to reassure again, but Grey Scale here instead pictured a world of fire and brimstone and much gnashing of teeth.
pawn
Having faced 2 white dead ends in the southerly directions, Kevin A. rests outside the music store and looks back at Spaced Ghost’s trailer on what’s called “Ghost land”, even *before* their move here from Regaltown. Fate it was they were in Horns of Hatton. Like many others, Kevin A. has already shortened the name of his newly adopted hometown to just Horns. He hasn’t met the actual Horns of Jer (Left) and Benny (Right) yet, but will soon. He’s caught his breath. He’s ready to move on.
Kevin A. decides to change into tiny person Super Guy to explore underneath the store through this spotted opening here…
… but finds only one way out.
This transformation is the one superpower he has himself — as Kevin A. — since reading at a 3rd grade level doesn’t really count. Then *Super Guy’s* one, superior superpower is the ability to invert space left to right. If you remember back, Super Guy’s arch nemesis Aqua Dude’s chief superpower was the inversion of colors. In both cases, there’s the creation of a second, full world equally as large as the first. One thinks of Alice’s famous mirror world from “Through the Looking-Glass” in the case of Super Guy especially. Also different from Aqua Dude: Super Guy’s inverting powers are on automatically all the time. He has to will them *off* instead of on. So all the pictures above featuring him are actually reversed left to right from what anyone else would see.
Here’s another picture of Super Guy at the same bench we saw Benny Right Horn sitting at in the last post. “S” to “Ƨ”, you’ll notice.
And, in fact, the single path from the trailer, as Kevin A. finds out in continued experimenting, really leads here and here alone: the tomb of Max the Mad a.k.a. the Red Devil. The two parcels are inextricably tied together as one. Even the music shop opens up from the trailer side instead of toward the main part of Horns of Hatton. Very peculiar, seemingly, like a maze with only one solution for moving forward. Like *chess*. Kevin A. begins to believe he’s merely a piece in a larger game afoot.
Just beyond the tomb, a reconstituted Kevin A. then finds a portal to the next “space”. The in-between one.
Chickens, he thinks upon arriving. Always chickens.
this land is my land
“I will never leave here, Kevin Orchardsity.”
“Kevin A., please,” replies a pleased Kevin A. Spaced Ghost (Young) knows their full name(!). But Kevin C. and Kevin E.: left behind in gay ol’ Regaltown. However, the sky box… perhaps they could come here too? What’s left for them in Regaltown, really? Grey Scale and Chesteria are here. The conquerors with their grey to white elephants. Marcus Fox Smartville will show up soon too, maybe with Chicken Itza but perhaps not as well. Bullfrog seems to be here — somewhere. Aqua Dude?
“Aqua Dude?” Kevin A. decides to mouth out loud for his roomie.
“Hmm, what’s that?” Spaced Ghost was daydreaming of chicken. Juicy, delicious grey or white meat.
“I’m, er, just wondering. You said Bullfrog is here.”
“Somewhere,” admits Spaced Ghost, still 1/2 thinking of where to pick up a bucket.
“Well what about his partner? That inverting guy?” Does Spaced Ghost guess he is actually Aqua Dude’s arch nemesis Super Guy on the sly? But at this point Spaced Ghost decides to use his own one, true superpower that we know of and make himself invisible, which actually means he’s teleported to another, local spot found on the inworld map. He has a one sim 100 meter limit.
“I can set you up,” Cpt. Americus declared between bites.
deposed
She glances outside at the warped superhero still producing white or grey matter from his bucket. Like magic; another isolated superpower. But the meeting needs to come to order.
“Here here!” she cries, waving her monstrous red hands before the group. “We’ll have to start without him, ahem. We are — at the place Grey Scale can’t reach thanks to Cpt. Americus and, um, perhaps Chicken Itza — we’ll see. The chickens cluck, the cocks are eaten. Crows flies, uh.”
“We understand,” spoke aiding Norton Wise Turtle (alternately Wise Norton Turtle) from the corner, likewise nursing a blue-green martini. Nursing it to death.
“Fish Head!” she prompted. “Give us a report.”
“Water,” Fish Head bubbled and gurgled opposite Norton Wise Turtle. He also had a blue martini, locally called a Blue William, which he poured into his fish head bowl intermittently. “Fish,” he added just as gurgly. “Scale — working for.”
“Excellent. Good information. How about you Flat Tire?”
But Flat Tire Crow Flies hadn’t rezzed in yet. Just a colorful mist still.
“Never mind, then,” spoke the queen after silence. *Former* queen. “And then: Spaced Ghost. My old friend. One of my oldest friends.”
“I’ll never leave this land,” Spaced Ghost reinforced, having already nursed an empty wine glass. To death. “This land is my land and this land is your land.” He pointed around the room. “Each and every one of you.” He settles back in his chair. “If you so choose.”
“Thank you. Anything to add Wise Norton Turtle?” Norton Wise Turtle took the last swig of his drink and states, “That’s all. I believe we’re at The End.”
And he was correct.
h is for home
Roth Voomer never found his hands. But he found a home. Horns of Hatton. Although he lacked horns, the locals liked that he always had a hat on. The name Horns of Hatton, according to legend, came from the fact that original settlers had horns big enough so that hats couldn’t hide them, or else they poked through the hats and that became a fashion. So the Horns remained even though they had a Hatt-on. Others speculate that this only means some kind of Ur settler, perhaps attached to an Ur homestead, was part goat or ram, maybe also making him (or her) a Capricorn or Aries. Probably the latter (ram/Aries).
Roth was sub vice deputy in charge of mainland marine. Basically what this means is that he had to take care of the local whale. Up in the air it was, always flying in circles around his provided house. His home in the trees. The Queen instructed him to feed the picky, carnivorous whale every two weeks, but not one of the local villagers. Go over to Tipton for that, she said with a laugh, and pointed northeast. So every couple of weeks, Roth had to take a royal vehicle over to this town about 5 sims north and 4 sims east of Horns to club or stab or shoot a couple of locals over there and bring them back for food. The Queen said Big Blue — the name of the whale — didn’t like bones so he’d have to de-bone the bodies before offering them up. She provided the royal dungeon underneath the palace for this kind of activity. Roth always had trouble de-boning the hands, but this was because it always reminded him of his years growing up, his father, his brothers. The War Against the Savants took his hands but not his head nor heart. And now the remaining 2 out of 3 natural assets had also found a resting spot, perhaps a final one. Treehouse.
Ahh, he misses the old Queen a bit. But he’s met the new ruler (Grey Scale), although he can’t quite remember her name (Grey Scale). If only he could think of it — right on the tip of his tongue (Grey Scale). Ahh, oh well. But nothing has changed much. He’s heard rumors that the whale may be in danger, but dismisses them as just part of the instability of change. But he doesn’t yet know how intensely Grey Scale (Grey Scale — that’s it!) hates the color blue, especially something big and ever-present. You can see the flying whale from about anywhere in town.
“Hi up there.”
ghosted
Hucka Doobie was chatting to pass the time. “You know you’re colored about the same as a chicken, Baker Bloch. Maybe you should think of becoming a chicken man yourself. By that I mean opening up a restaurant, perhaps a chain. Maybe you should begin to think up a name. Blochbuster Chicken? You could even steal some signs from that old, defunct VHS tape renting outfit, the one that went belly up.”
But Baker Bloch was still thinking about his father instead of chicken, although the 2 will always be connected now in his mind. Banished back to Regaltown. Could this possibly be the end of the Horns of Hatton tale already?
Hucka Doobie studied his worried face. “Aah, still thinking about dear old pops. He’ll be fine. Kevin A. too — Kevin Orchardsity, all three of hisselves. Come on; cheer up. The Queen’s story can continue on without the King and his tomb, without Spaced Ghost’s trailer.”
“But the parcel was called ‘*Ghost* land.’ Fate.” Baker Bloch sighed. “I just feel — something will always been missing here.”
“And then Cpt. Americus accidentally jumping in the watermelon tub with the *real* Queen (!) Awkard indeed! But I don’t think the Queen was present at the time. By that I mean she was AWOL.”
“AFK,” corrected Baker Bloch.
“Um, like the chicken, then.”
Baker Bloch expressed confusion, then realized: “Oh, you’re thinking about KFC. No, it’s like the former president. AFK. They’re talking about renaming the whole of Bay City after him.”
“JFK, then. The (former) president, I mean,” responded Hucka Doobie. “John Fitzgerald Kennedy.”
“Yes, you’re right — that’s it.”
“Well there you go. Something else to think about. Another Ghost.”
“Everybody in the country laughed about it,” [Carolyn *Kennedy* Crusey] said. “There was no city out there.”
Who voted Mor the mayor? No one, she said.
“That was just purely for something to put in the paper,” she said.
How did it change from Bay City to JFK City?
It was shortly after the assassination, she recalled. Across the country, people were renaming all kinds of things after the late president. Plus there was another guy out there at the time named Kennedy, (no relation to her or JFK) who came up with the idea, she said.
I wondered out loud if they’d hatched the plan while drinking at the bar. It wouldn’t be the first piece of Alaska legislation born that way. Maybe that was how Mor was “elected.” Maybe they dreamed up the dome city, too.
“We never did find out what happened,” she said
Mor eventually moved to Anchorage and started spelling his name with a second “o” and an “e,” she said. She couldn’t remember why.
The last newspaper clipping to mention the city was a 1973 story about Alaska ghost towns. It called Bay City “an alleged village” with a population of 0 in the 1970 census, that might have been renamed to “The City of Kennedy” after the late president.
“But,” the article said, “there’s nobody left to verify it.”
the power of one
“It all ends with the chicken,” Grey Scale responded to the still defiant Queen before her. “No Mor,” she insisted.
“But…” She shook her head in continued defiance, “you’re no more president of this here South than I am. It’s a technicality you’re talking about, a *loophole*. It doesn’t really exist. It won’t stand up in a Court of the Land. Neither mine *nor* yours.”
“I am president,” put forth Grey Scale Kimball in a matching tone of finality. “The loophole, in my opinion — in my *decree* — was set up by fate. You state that *you* set up loyalist Spaced Ghost on that property called ‘Ghost land’ due to fate. I am saying to you in solid return that, although this is *technically* true — another loophole in a way — it was also fate that I discover the traitorous move. Trailer traitor,” she finished for now.
“So lemme get this straight,” the Queen shot back. “Lemme get this straight.” Her eyes were in the air now as she had assumed again a state of high haughtiness in line with her royal position. “*You* were elected head of the Council over in Regaltown.”
“Yes.”
“Then since Regaltown is the old capital of the South, before the coming of the grey and white elephants, then your power is transferable to Horns of Hatton because the Head of Council there was once the same as the Head of Council here.”
“Still is.” Grey Scale continued to mirror the fixed position of her foe standing before her. Her *defrocked* foe. She pointed to herself. “Me.”
The Queen waved her monstrous red hands in the air and stomped about the floor a bit, uttering cusswords I won’t repeat here mixed with such words as “unbelievable,” “unfathomable,” “unconscionable.”
“Duly elected,” broke in Grey Scale in the middle of all this. “DU-LY…” She motioned for the Heart Queen to simmer down. “ELEC-TED.”
And that was basically the end of it. Spaced Ghost’s illegal trailer on the west edge of town derezzed and owner banished back to Regaltown. The Queen’s mutinous club gathering at Cpt. Americus’ Between Land cabin on alternate Tuesdays and Thursdays dispersed. No scripts allowed to run at the King’s tomb; no more worshipping of the dead, of the past. Grey Scale had found an opening, an *Achilles heel*, and taken full advantage of it. She was ensconced.
Beaver
But Kevin A. stayed in Horns of Hatton even though the trailer was lost. He seems to have another place there. Another ensconcement.
Open up that mouth and let’s take a look at those teeth.
Granted
Kevin had a nosy neighbor with the initials SCP who liked to peer through his windows at times. So he covered them with clouds.
The addition confounded and confused his easily confounded and confused pet Red Panda Fox Cat Man, rescued on December 13, 1874 (AL) from insidious gypsy witches on a swollen steamer just off the coast of Fiji. Or was it Ireland. More on them soon.
Like many residents of Horns, Kevin A. had a strange, nay compelling fascination with chickens. He often slept at the dinner table so that he could more easily enter their fowl dreams and frolic amongst them at times. He thought the eating of cocks was borderline cockamamie and often mentioned this to his “Kevin brothers” C. and E., munching and crunching away on either side of him. He sometimes arranged the carcasses in ritual poses also learned from witches to more interestingly translate between fair wake and fowl sleep (Fairmount and Fowlerton).
Which reminds me that he must fill up with gas and air today across the street at Wolfy’s, fuel and tires running low on his new 1955 Porche 550 Spyder Convertible purchased from Marcus Fox Smartville day before Tuesday on what he considered a sucker of a deal, curses be damned. Only 50,000 lindens plus 5,000 for shipping. Stamp it: BARGAIN.
He is established here; he really cannot go back to Regaltown. I’m not so sure about Spaced Ghost, however.
—–
“I wonder what happened to Kevin, Spaced Ghost?”
“Kevin who?”
tv not tv
Chesteria poses in front of one of Grey Scale’s new statues in town. “Go ahead and get in the water, dearest,” requests snapping Grey Scale.
“Alright.”
“Ohh. So cold!” she protests.
“Believe me, you’re still red hot,” returns her ruler and lover, watching the water soak into the clothes. “Hold on!” *snap*.
For Grey Scale, it was about reinforcing colored over black and white, Letters over Numbers. The former ruler is sad, but she’ll get over it.
—–
Aliens.
And chickens.
Cousin Tr-opp
“Whatever happened to us, Grassy?”
“Whatever happened to *you*.”
flashback friday
The Zindra continent has been through a similar (North-South) war, pondered Grey Scale, leaving Chesteria behind for now. I can pattern my strategy after that. There’s even a direct character link between the two. Dixon 01. Or was it Dixon 02? Anyway, both are dead now. Or are they totally alive? One way to find out: visit the old homestead.
—–
“Dixon? Dixon Klancaster?” she shouts back on the ground.
But both Dixons were indeed dead, having been one and the same. Snowwhite Well appears on the landing outside the squatter home, old and withered now. She’s basically turned into Maw herself, mother of the two. But formerly: married to the two. It was complicated.
“Whatcha want? Tithes? You a tithe collector? I’ve gaven my fair share last month. Now, run along, tithe collector. Or do I have to sic my *chickens* on you. She turned toward Gander, the largest of the bunch. “Been a while since you’ve tasted human flesh, Gander eh? Fondness grows in absence they say, eh?”
“Listen,” bargained Grey Scale. “I don’t want any of your money.” Not yet, she tacks on for herself. “No I’m here to speak to Dixon.”
“Dixon?”
“The former warrior. The vet of the Trojan-Durexian Wars over on Zindra.”
“God *knows* I know where they were *fought*, foreigner. Everyone around here knows. We all lost peoples.”
“I’m sorry,” backed down Grey Scale. “I didn’t know…”
“Anyway. He’s dead. Dixon. Both of ’em. I married ’em. Shortly after the war. But the bees and their massive beehives got them in the end. Not a bayonet stinger, a *stinger* stinger. Irony perhaps — I’ve heard that word applied here anyhows.” She takes a better look at the grey figure standing proud below her. “You a woman of words, sister?” she inquires. “Maybe you can help me with some words I’m trying to read in a section of this here book. ‘Moby Prick.’ You may have heard of it.”
Grey Scale Kimball was up on the landing faster than a fly on wheels. A chance to analyze her favorite book with someone (!). But she quickly corrected elderly Snowwhite Well on something before entering. “It’s *chapters*, not sections. I should know, having read or attempted to read so many of the latter lately.”
“Fine with me, woman of words. Now — inside before the chickens peck at your tail feathers, hehe.” She swats Grey Scale on the behind and sends her reeling inside.
hot spot 01
Benny Right Horn stopped while answering his brother. “Grey Scale’s got her countered at every move. It’s about revealing deception and dissipating pain. I’m starting to BELIEVE.”
“Don’t do that,” implored still swinging, still synchronized Jer Left Horn to his left. “Just don’t.”
—–
Where is the 4th? formerly Campbell O’Pine (Opp) pondered nearby, staring at the constantly swinging-in-place, red-yellow-blue cubes. Where’s Grassy?
What have I lost?
—–
“I’ve tried everything,” despairs the Heart Queen deep in her lair a little further north, very near the the actual left horn of the crown. “I’m going to hide the city as a last measure. I’m going to invoke the Horns of Hatton, but not through the King this time.” She pauses to think of possibilities. “But where are my 2 needed sons? Are they still — *in play?*”
—–
“I’m going to end it,” Benny Right Horn mutters while descending.
hot spot 02
She hears him approach, then stop. “Ahh, my heavier, more favorite son has arrived. I knew you’d –” *pop*.
She turns to see what that noise was, then gasps. “You *didn’t*. You *didn’t* just *do that!*”
“I’m not in play any longer Mom. I’m going to fess up to my weakness and beg my former wife for forgiveness. You’ll have no power over me any longer.” Then, throwing the horn to the ground, he left — out the front door this time. No secret passages between horns. No possible reinvoking the Horns of Hatton. It was over for the Heart Queen, plain and simple. She had played her last card.
no men
“Ice cream for you today, my ruler?”
“Not today, Jer,” Grey Scale Kimball replied while walking by. “Maybe tomorrow. You just stay there in that here ice cream truck till we’re ready, tehe.”
“Will do, mum.”
—–
“Let’s take another shortcut,” the Horns of Hatton ruler expressed while staring beyond the end of the path, where the stones run out.
“Let’s go through the front door instead,” replied Chesteria A. Arthur. “She’s had enough of being sneaked up on lately, don’t you think?”
“Wonderful.” Grey Scale is turning out to be a wise and thoughtful ruler, ready to bend her will through sound feedback if needed. But Chesteria also knew when to get back in line. They were soulmates through and through.
—-
“You’re *right*, Chesteria my love. Look: my statues emitting both colored and non-colored waters. She *has* acquiesced. We can move forward together to defeat the North.”
—–
“We can move forward together to defeat the North,” the Heart Queen finished her 2nd surrender speech (as it will be later called). “I look forward to fighting side by side in many battle victories.”
One after another, they pricked the symbolic white fish on the hearth to make sure it was dead. And it was, through and through this time.
section’s end
“Personally I don’t like to look at the thing,” she spoke, facing way from the map. “But there it is. The Maebaleia blue galleries of lore. Notice — and I’m not going to turn around for this — that Cassandra City near Bluestocking is closest to The Moon here.”
“I know,” cooed the staring Heart Queen, thinking back to the previously examined map on the second floor of the House of Truth. “Barracuda. Just like in ‘Moby Prick’. Gypsies. Karoz! I’m remembering. He was there!”
“He has been disguised as (similarly blue-green) Tealy for the current run of Collagesity photo-novels,” admitted Grey Scale. “Waiting to reveal himself.”
“Now’s the time!” requested the queen.
“Not quite yet,” tempered Grey Scale, who was still in charge despite the niceties. The Heart Queen, like Chesteria before her, was learning when to keep in line; bend her own will. “Don’t cross Grey Scale,” urged Chesteria as newly appointed executive advisor. “She knows what she’s doing. Despite the purse.” They both had a laugh about the yellow handbag after that — so unfashionable, both agreed. Doesn’t really go with any of her earrings, for example.
“Then… when?”
“We have to determine the identity of Tillie, the accomplice. She may be Baker Blinker, the wife in Our Second Lyfe. Or she may be…”
“Wilson?”
“Very close.” Grey Scale turned to the Heart Queen. “Very close.”
Sunklands 