Scratchy
“Oh… I’m full Duncan. I can’t eat another bite of this delicious yet weighty soup. So tasty, though.” He picks up his spoon from beside his empty bowl, intending to have at it again.
“I didn’t bring you here just to give you some of Sally’s leftovers. I brought you here to…” He paused.
“Yes?” George was digging out what he considered the best chunks now from the tureen (deep covered dish). Almost done.
“Talk about *us*.”
George starts eating. Not too fast… he wants to savor the flavor. Aunt Clare taught him that. But he was tired of snow or snow derived meals. Give him something crunchy but not with ice in it! “Well… go ahead,” he says between bites. “So good,” he reinforces.
breakthrough
—–
White as Heaven, he stood at the open door on the back of the windmill, watching from a distance. Black, he determined. And probably red as well. He should join them, make his presence known. What does he have to hide *now*?
He quickly hides his red hand from observation, a medical condition but also blood. Our Duncan Avocado. He was also looking for something. He’d lost his cap, perhaps in the woods. He was scratching his head, wondering where it went, but then realized this exposed his weakness to the white guy up the hill. He’s also on something, as in onto something. A box. Could this be… Borneo?
As the white guy approached, he thinks back to Scratchy (sim) and another weakness exposed. The inability to keep track of the one thing in life he is responsible for: George. “White as Heaven” was there. He had some advice to dispense. “You’ve been working on the railroad. I can tell (by your hands).”
Was it a labor of love? he thought after the brief conversation was over. Bart might know. If he wasn’t dead as well.
“Go to the Red,” the white guy essentially commanded. “The Old White Lady did. Your *ma*.”
He somehow got stuck in the windmill on his way over. Back to square one.
Later: Duncan’s soup disappeared and he knew he was in trouble.
(to be continued)
killings 02
The guys from Paper-Soap arrive.
“Watch out for that German! Hey, there’s another one, look out!”
Sam Drunker
“We don’t like your kind around here, you *hippies*, with your *peace* signs.”
“We’re *not* hippies,” Norris and Pietmond demanded in front of their parked, garishly colored van, trying to get their bearings in this queer place. Its wheels simply would not turn without them. “We’re gypsies.”
“And killing citizens right and left after you just entered the gates of town,” he continued his rant and attached deadly glare.
“They were *zombies*. They would kill *us* without thinking about it!”
“Nevertheless. Zombies are people too. Besides… you need a license in this town to kill zombies. Heh, I’ve been waiting to say that to someone for a long time. People around here don’t listen. But *you*…”
“Strangers.” Norris understood this must be one of the disgruntled Pro-Dead he’s heard about in the general Sunklands area. The reason they’re there in the first place. He nodded toward Pietmond, knowing they were on the right track. He produced the blue feather from his grey pocketbook. “Know anything about *this*?”
The farmer-lawyer recalls. His mind drifts back to that day in early May of last week’s July. He falls back but then springs forward, pitchfork in hand. He’s gonna make *them* dead. Then he can defend their rights properly, heh.
(to be continued)
mistletoe doorway
“Grapes?” he guessed while passing the stomping, pretty, beret bedecked lady.
“Raspberries,” she exclaimed back in a shaky voice, her legs and attached body going up and down, up and down. Soon all would be red and it wouldn’t matter. It was the first of many sightings for the girl in this as yet unnamed place. A place in Sunklands with Pietmond Boy and Norris roaming about it, perhaps zombies now but perhaps still alive. 1/2 and 1/2 would be another guess to insert here; eye for an eye.
On with the show…
They have quite the audience.
Always wanted to dance with a white girl, he wished to say but of course bit his tongue.
“Would you look at them down there.”
“Disgraceful,” the other agreed.
00300106
“Hey, a red and green balloon,” Duncan said later after the two disgruntled women left, tired of the spectacle. Duncan noticed. Moving quickly, he purposefully took their high falutin seats, daring anyone around to say anything. They didn’t like black people ’round these parts but Duncan had gleaned they were also scared of them.
“Never mind that,” the as yet unnamed raspberry beret wearing lady said, staring disbelievingly in the opposite direction. I know it was something blue and yellow but I wasn’t sure what yet. We’d have to wait until another night (night night!).
Later: Oh. Just the rising sun.
battleground boy
He stares down at the soup ladle he still holds in his red hands, understanding it is a mnemonic device. “George,” he utters aloud, having lost track of the one person in the world he’s not suppose to. Again.
But George was safely tucked in dreams right now, talking to red headed Marty about TILE while floating on his Lake. A boy of 13 to 10 back to 13, over and over. Right now: 13, 6 inches taller than the shortest version. “Duncan was fortunately looking the other way this time,” he says to the young boy, if not the youngest. “Toward the red and green balloon. We may not be as fortunate the next time. The raspberry lady guides.” He leaves it at that.
He sips his stale lemonade and is gone.
George wakes up, wondering who “we” is.
00300108
He stares from the rock while listening to rock. *His* rock. Can he actually listen to what The Mann says this time?
From this perch, he’s looking for the plane or at least the boat, but they weren’t that easily spotted. Pink’s tulip plane may be totally out of sight (man). The small Maebaleia battle boat may *just* be visible, he determines. Another floater. Another 6 inches. If he could just fix the engine and move it away from here all would be well. The boy might be his.
—–
It was time for Zach Black and Lena Horned to leave this place. The Maebaleia red white and blue battle flag keeps flapping and slapping, ouch ouch ouch. Duty calls; Nautilus continent tour aborted. The red hand scratches.
Lena Horned takes one last float like the boy and is gone.
redding
“I could just ram this smaller grey boat crosswise through those bigger black and white boats over there and end this.” Josh Richardson: professional insultant.
Called back to Maebaleia? Tour aborted? Fern Stalin better hightail it out of here in her own, much larger vessel. If she could only get the darn thing started. “Turn baby! Turn!”
—–
We’re losing characters right and left in this new photo-novel. We’re up to 30, W. Should I call you W still?”
W: “Sure”. Small pause. “Whatever rings your bell.”
“Bell, right.” He’s remembering. And Clare, the other head, the one actually attached to the body. Better find them, talk to them about TILE. Before the boy returns. But her house next to the snow and granite, Tennessee and Kentucky schism chasm is gone. And Clarksey is a bit too far away to use yet, both in space and in time.
*huff huff huff*
“It’s a conundrum, W.”
“You set them up. You knock them down. You’ll push through. Find me,” she ends.
more black and white
After visiting Blue-Yellow and attempting to watch his sun rise, I hop on a passing trolley and head downtown…
… soon reaching THE Cave. Or at least A Cave.
It strikes me that it would be wrong to keep calling this character Axis-Windmill in a town created by an actual German. So we’re going to go with a new one. Not reverting to Windmill Man — too easy. Bronze John looks on, trying to gauge, trying to help. He was so successful with the Beatles with an A naming.
The Beatles are such archetypes, penetrating many synchronicity systems.
All bands can be related to them. For example, Pink Floyd are the psychedelic Beatles, Firesign Theatre are the comic Beatles, and The Residents are the bizarro Beatles. Frank Zappa with his Mothers strongly reacted to them; the Rolling Stones…
I was told by fortuneteller Esmerelda a while back that the answers lie in a cave. In the related collage, cacophony musician Charles Ives pokes his head out sideways, wondering if he’ll have anything left to say. He’s sorry about Cowell, he speaks through the entrance, the mouth. He’s sorry about Connecticut and Danbury and the clashing of bands. Connecticut forgives, but he’ll have to make them laugh, make them suckers instead of seekers, and get small in the exchange. Thimble Islands’ General Tom Thumb might know, if he’s paying attention. Misery becomes Mystery (up to date).
I wonder about New York’s Central Park in the Dark, and the Unanswered Question. I think back to the Amazon jungle and the Indian who becomes a Spaceman, search fulfilled; “aliens” found — this would represent the end of the 4th. Concord (Sonata)… maybe that’s next. Oh, and Karl finding the waterfall (Rainbow) and reading the scrapbook and discovering a new ending, leading him to set aside the old life and the attached house and move on. I thought about Charles Ives today in perusing my table of tiles, wondering if I’ll get the chance to tell anyone about it besides the wife and a best friend. It’s pretty remarkable.
Here is where I’ll be reborn, or at least acquire a new name.
“Who are you?”
“Helmet Newton?” he or she answers as a question.
Scratchy 02
“What does it mean, W?”
“You’re such a funny person, asking so many questions.”
“Stairway to Heaven, I’m guessing. End of Up(pelin).”
“So many…”
——
Anyway, this was Heaven, White as.
Better get back to George.
—–
*There* it is (!)
200 Motels: A Space Oddity
“We’re closed,” she states levelly to Duncan while he says nothing, just peering in a store to see what’s there. We’d be closed to you lot anyway, she thinks while continuing to sweep, not paying him any more attention. Long… and dusty… road. Where’s your raspberry girl, she additionally thinks a few seconds later. Word’s gotten around.
Since she doesn’t have a name, some have just started calling her Annaball or Annabell as a joke, and always in white with the attached, mocking graffiti, like this one here on the northwest train tunnel of town. Always the crossed out “a” corrected with “e” — John Lennon would not be proud. A white girl should not be messing with a black man in any shape, form. This was a warning to all the Annaballs or bells of the world: stay in line; stay in your color.
Three glowing white nuns, white angel in background to reinforce the Heaven aspect, pray for their souls as they watch the heathens up front, also praying.
But not for forgiveness. For enlightenment. How to marry black and white in this town full of bigots and make it work. Two words (again): Helmet Newton. This is the place.
dualities (no fire)
He was playing Schumann under the gun, this Franz Wagner. Raspberry Girl, aka Annaball or bell, was in the background getting limber on the bars and warming up for her shooting. And what a night it was (!).
—–
“This was not the night it was,” corrected W here, coming out of the background. “You can (still) only shoot zombies in this town and zombies are identified by the German war helmets, spiked or non-spiked. Probably something someone came up with in a bar, inebriated halfway to Hell, perhaps through a drugged drink.”
I stopped playing in the Middle of C. W zoomed in; Raspberry/Annaball-bell had projected out of sight, perhaps zooming herself, through the ceiling and into the sky via built up centrifugal force. Who knows what can be read and studied in this black and white town full of bigots, zombies and some other stuff. “Helmet Newton might know,” I said my thoughts aloud to her, “if we could identify the Hell who he was.”
“She,” W inserted. “Don’t forget the ‘she'”.
He continued…
00300114
“We just wait for the pianist and the dancer to come out of there and then we pounce, understand people?” He gobbled another pretend goober, waiting for affirmation. “Yes,” answered Iffy Ziegler to his left after a beat. “Suppose,” came Belinda Zoomer’s vaguer reply to his right after 3 more. She wasn’t use to taking orders from a man, especially *this* man, this Chef-Inspector Petty, preparer of fine gourmet dishes by day, sleuthing out criminals from the underbelly of society by night. This was dusk. Almost time to move in. He downs the last imaginary peanut, throwing the imaginary bag it came in over his shoulder and into the tall grass and weeds behind him. Nonchalantly — all in one movement. He wanted to impress the young’n’s here with his moves, his cool motions. Cool motions paired with cool emotions. If someone was paying attention to him, giving him what he wanted. Iffy and Belinda ignored the cool move. He was becoming hot; he tugged at his collar as if trying to let steam off from within. The music inside, the *racket*, finally ended. What atonality to end his life! thought Chef-Inspector Petty here, watching the last bits of the Sun’s hateful sphere finally descend below the horizon. He checks the opposite direction: the blessed Moon, he imagines further, seeing it full and red and white as night. He howls at it (in his mind). The heat recedes, sun fully gone. A moment of crisis fully averted now. “Get ready,” he says, calm and collected. The door to the dance studio opens…
00300115
He was zooming in on the real-as-life bell now and not the imaginary sun. So dark, so *Axis*. We’re suppose to forget about the war, he can hear his father’s voice echo in his brain now. Yet the bells continued, the wedding of black and white over (“No go, no go!” the people demanded). And so here it is still, sitting outside the church like a leftover piece of Hell. Damnit, Zoomer, he thought, why aren’t you moving! The footsteps were getting closer. 4 beats now since the doors opened, letting the pianist and the dancer loose in the nighttime world again. Vampires? Chef-detective Petty thought. That’s at least one thing we need to eliminate. No more waiting. Zoomer wasn’t turning but he did. Iffy had turned three beats ago, make that five. Probably because he was best at his job. John Lennon isn’t proud: beats turn to beets and we’re back to square one. In Idaho.
“I da ho you’re looking for,” confessed Raspberry Girl/Annaball-bell to him back at the station after intense scrutiny and pressure. He was about to bust an important chain in the City Gang bunch of women of the night. Weakest link…
(to be continued)
reversed 02
She was trying to close up and then he marches in here. The new guy in town, she’s heard. No one knows his name yet. He sits down. She keeps mopping, keeps to her closing tasks. He waits for her to speak. She waits for him to talk. No… one… knows… her name.
“Wagner?” he finally guesses. “I heard there was a family of Wagners in town, one who runs the bar by the big bell. He indicates the sign to his right on the counter. “Bell’s Kulturcafe… I assume that’s you?”
“Marilyn,” she decides, thinking about the first name of another ditzy blonde. Two of ’em in fact, one also a Munster. But not that type of monster. Reversed.
“Marilyn… Wagner, then?” he keeps pursuing.
—–
He finally got that lower alcohol Bell’s beer that he wanted but not much more. He knew she was Marilyn and that’s about all. Maybe that was enough for tonight — wine wasn’t doing him right these days; downing it like it was water and he was a new Jesus but not in a good way. Beer would slow him down and Bell’s was just right: still very tasty. *Must* be a connection with that bell just outside. Or just over there. Or just around the corner. *Downtown* anyway. He tries to get his bearings so he can wheel around it in his mind more. He *could* ask for directions — surely she would give him directions.
“And CUT!” shouted the director behind the camera. “Let’s film that scene again, and this time let’s go with black and white. More noir.”
—–
Turns out Bell’s bar was kind of on the opposite side of downtown from that church bell Chef-Inspector Petty was contemplating about in that last post here, so maybe no connection.
downtown [insert name]
spikey
“We’ve got to keep an eye out on that [black guy] walking over there, Virus.”
“Rrrrrrr–rough!”
“Good boy.”
—–
“Just black and white,” The Mann determined about some lips in another 0117 post to end. “No pink.”
Sunklands 