art
“That doesn’t look much like the landscape out there,” I opined from behind.
“I paint what my cane tells me to. I mean, my *brush* — force of habit there with the mention of cane. I may not need it any longer,” he furthered. “Getting an update from the person who created me. The heck with the other doctors. Dr. White, the last one I interviewed, turned out not to be even (named) White. And maybe not even a rabbit as advertised, pheh. Looked more like a rab*bat* to me. No, I’ve decided to simply replace me… with myself.” He checks his Diamond Rolex watch, dropping some cerulean blue paint on his gray-black Ralph Lauren dress pants in the motion. “Shoot,” he cusses at the stain, but then realizes the pants will be gone soon, along with the body, the skin, the whole kitten kaboodle. “Gotta run,” he says in parting. “Mind finishing this for me?” And grasping his brush while he did the same with his cane, I sat down and went to work. I can do realism, I said to myself as I added more waves to the sea.
00410302
She put away the guitars and got serious. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she practiced, not having an audience yet. It was only 5 in the afternoon and her gig wasn’t until 8. She’d have to eat first of course; make it a past participle before the actual playing began. At the same time, the audience should begin dining on sole food, that particular fish being the catch of the day here in Portuguese Hill village formerly of Illinois, US of A. Where they found *her*. “Ladies and gentleman, simmer down,” she continued imaging the applause coming her way after the song “Rockaway Beach,” a crowd favorite as usual. “I have an announcement to make.”
—–
“Your painting looks very pretty over there, dearest. I see you haven’t used any green yet. That’s good. Stay away from green. And oil. Stick to watercolors.”
“Of course my dear. Those times are in the past.” She apparently couldn’t see the bit of green he used in the couple of village trees from this distance — good. This made him think of Mr Babyface, his old flame. Lost at sea in a craft of too small design. At least he went doing what he loved. Sucked up by a rare water funnel in that area, they said. Glug glug glug, he imagined. Glug glug glug — GONE. The boat was later thrown up on the shore of Kenfield but the short man with the large face was no longer with it, fishing off the port side, fishing off the starboard side, fishing off the bow, the stern. He loved fishing in all its positions. He’d eat his sole later on in honor of him, he decided.
“Did you like my speech at the end? Too serious?”
Yeah, past and also present lover Greg Ogden had reservations about all that. “Don’t you, I mean, what if a member of the Portuguese navy is part of your audience? Gets back to headquarters, say. You could be in trouble (!).”
“I said what I had to say, though. Atlantis is rising in that part of the Azores. All the locals know it, the *government* knows it. They just want to cover it up, the hierarchy. The locals won’t stand up to them either, at least publicly. *Someone* has to take a stance. Might as well be me. I have a platform.” She briefly indicated the stage behind her. The former cover band cover girl now striking out on her own with strikingly original compositions popping forth right and left, backwards and forward. The announcement fits right in with all that, he realized. Unique, he summarized it in a word. Like a perfectly square pyramid perfectly aligned with the 4 cardinal directions, waiting to be revealed in all its past and also present glory.
“*And* — I think we should announce the news of our re-engagement if you don’t mind; make that public as well. Hand in hand.” She takes his hand from beneath the table, holds it tight. The double announcement was a go.
(to be continued)
super-cape
With her relatively newfound fame, it seems that our Ruby Supergal was always traveling these days, living out of her suitcase as it were. She was on a mission: to spread love and peace and joy throughout the whole of Portugal and maybe even the western parts of Spain, depending on how much she can grow her fame. She felt she was a light of the world, showing the way to a brighter future out of the dimmer past. And the Atlantis revelation was one step along that path, perhaps a pretty important one, up there with any musical decisions she might make.
She let one of the colorful butterflies circling around her shimmy through her outstretched hand, enjoying the sensation.
She knew the butterfly enjoyed it too. Hope, she decided to name it. Hope for the future.
“Soundcheck on the set in 10 minutes!” her manager barked up some nearby stairs. “Goodby Hope and the other 2,” she said as she moved away from them and back into reality.
00410304 (104)
Couple of battered suitcases left behind but nothing in them as she checked. Clients should be arriving pretty soon; better make herself prettified, as she liked to say. *Remember*, the taller, richer one *doesn’t* like the blue rouge, she reminded herself. And of course that code he goes by to sanctify all this. Oil me up, I suppose.
She’s staking her claim to the room. Daisy Chain can go to hell for all she cares. Pills in her staff meeting breakfast for a knock out punch, BAM! She can work hers and Daisy’s together. She’s not that old yet: only 18 going on 38. Now if she could only remember the year. ’36? ’39? She decided to split the difference and settle on herself. Still before the Axis took control.
Town school superintendent Axis walks through the 104 door, taking control. “Mouse here yet?” He’d checked in his copper red hair at the main desk with Wilma the day clerk — no need for that inside. He could be who he was here. An older, balding man destined for chancellorhood, he felt.
“Not yet,” she answered. Octavia always fancied Axis among her townspeople clientele. Certainly a step above, say, a baker, a farmer, a grocery store owner in the swampland. He owns an actual, bona fide *house*. Mouse — that’s the other one’s name: Mouse — might be richer and also have a house but he’s not as devilishly handsome. And the emblazoned cross across his chest he bears helps with this judgment too. Man of God he’s said about himself. Mouse was obviously devoted instead to science; even brought a beaker and test tube along for one of their sessions, and not to decorate the tree in the room, he said. “This time,” — like he was going to bring them again during the holiday season which was in full swing now, hmm. What does he suppose he can test with all *this*. She didn’t like to think about it; didn’t want to ponder the possible weird requests that could come along with such things. Daisy’d warned her about stuff like that. Maybe she was too harsh with the drugs; maybe she couldn’t pull off this 2-n-1 thing she planned today. If it wasn’t Mouse and his eccentricity she figured there was no way it could work.
—-
“I’ll finish up here Mouse; you can go back to your house now,” still-in-control Axis said later on. Octavia needed more than the doctor could provide.
—–
“We’ve gone back and changed time, Marsha,” said Alice, seeing the results, “but now *Axis* is instead my father. Villain of villains!”
“He’s not that bad.”
“I guess you’re telling me *Hitler* wasn’t that bad.”
“He invented the VW Bug — or something,” she attempted to justify, then realized this was wrong, all wrong. And where was her yellow Bug? Still orange? Still in Amiable? She made a note to herself to check. After all this dialog here was worked out.
“We have to go back. Daisy *wasn’t* sick that day in April’s May.”
“I believe that would have to be November’s December, Alice — holiday season and all. The beakers and test tubes on the tree. Remember?”
“I don’t remember *nothing* because it didn’t *happen*. I’ll MAKE it not happen.”
“Again?” Marsha said, staring into the other girl’s eyes who was still wearing the same “I’m not a Demo” sweatshirt as herself, same holey denim jeans.
“Again,” she said back firmly across the gap, closing it for the second time.
the movement of ONE
Axis shifted the name himself after satisfying his needs at the Lucky, concealing the missing letter. No need to be so obvious about it.
So Marsha “Pink” Krakow changes it back and arrives on same, aiming to do Alice Tart’s will and set things right again. She wore Alice’s “I am a Demo” sweater all along as a constant reminder of her mission in Paper-Soap, the Paper part fully yielded to Soap now, two halves separated out again in the passage through the tunnel. As she stood before the train, the symbolic missing letter now lay beside the track, with the reappearance of Gee Cat naturally coming along with it. Here.
“Can I help you Missi?”
“*Gee*. You *scared* me,” she spoke over to the large, upright orange cat appearing as if from the blue behind her.
“Yes, Gee scared you,” he spoke matter-of-factly in a regular type voice. “Gee the cat,” he announced himself.
“Wait. Your *name* is Gee? Like the letter you’re beside right now. I want to get this clear.”
“Gee is the cat. G is the letter. That is correct all around, then.” Is she the ONE? he thinks here, expecting such any day now. He checks the name on the train. Not yet, then SIGH.
“I’m looking for someone… or something. Greene’s Motel. Maybe it’s the Lucky Motel with a green door in the front office I’m still not sure. Woman with the last name of Tart and maybe a first name of Octavia. That’s all I’ve got. Can you help me? Gee?”
“Gee will help,” and he got to it, entering the station to talk to Wanda Berta Shirley. Make that: Laverne. Fresh from a closed down Barrow County beer factory, dreams of retiring in the bottling business shattered. But most people know her as Ginger.
(to be continued)
00410306
With part of the money she made off her successful debut album “Atlantis Rising”, she decided to take an extended trip to the Azores themselves, starting with Corvo, the smallest and least populated of the 9 island group and known for a huge stone statue of a pointing man on a horse perched atop one of its high ridges, supposedly dismantled and moved to Lisbon by the Portuguese government around the start of the 16th Century and then lost. Or so the legends go.
She tried to get into fishing while there… and failed. She’d settle for fishing out mysteries. She asked around about the equestrian statue, but tales were numerous and often varied wildly from each other. Some say the Portuguese themselves erected the horseman shortly after they discovered the island in the 1400s. They say the supposed inscription on the base of the statue, “Jesus, go ahead”, proves this, although it was originally claimed to be illegible. Some credit the Carthaginians who may have been in the area during the first millennium AD. Some dare to go even further back, before men as we know them began sailing the seas of the world. Pre-men known as Atlanteans. This is what she wanted to mine.
Another popular Corvo legend has it that a stash of coins was found in the cornerstone of a washed out house during the 1700s that predate the Portuguese, including many that were gold. No one on the island seemed to be an expert on this, but several directed her to a pawn shop on the neighboring island of Flores — in the City of Cass that we know pretty well now through these blog novels. But more appears to be there to explore and contemplate. One local even hinted to Supergal Ruby that the pawn shop owner *herself* had two of these gold coins stashed away on the premesis, but he seemed pretty mad to her, furiously producing thread on his oddly placed spinning wheel at Crow Beach in order, he said, to add to a giant ball of yarn she then found located about 100 meters further down the same Corvo beach. Guy who had the curious name of Gold himself, she noted, always paying attention to name synchronicities. We will return to him.
spinner…
… and ball
00410307 (the 1st Haze County entry (!))
Station attendant Ginger directed Marsha to a large square map hanging on the back wall. “So it is Lucky,” she said to herself, looking at the name of the nearby motel on the map. Just down the tracks as it turned out.
But in the unaltered reality, it wasn’t.
Mouse was right all along.
—–
“NC,” she said, staring up again. Could be either one still.
And then she walked inside the property to see what up. A considerably younger Octavia Tart awaited her appearance.
(to be continued)
00410308
“You’re going to have to leave soon, darling. Clients showing up, 2 of them. My partner in crime Daisy’s sick today. Darnit,” she faked, since she was directly responsible for the sickness as stated. “It’s just a blasted shame.” She stomped out her cigarette on the leaf strewn patio floor. New habits haven’t changed.
“Just a couple more questions if you don’t mind.”
“I *mind*… but I guess I have a little time left.” She scans the horizon with her 20/10 vision, youthful eyes still in place. Very little smoke had gotten into them yet. She sees no one approaching her from the distance, across the pool, beside the school. “Always come down Twig Lane so I can see you,” she requested to all the men with desires. And she was still quite fetching. Business was good. No need to poach Daisy’s clientele if she didn’t have a good reason.
“You said Greene’s is the name of the motel, but the sign said Lucky.”
“They haven’t gotten around to changing it. Anything else?” She was becoming impatient. Who was this stranger in town with such curiosity? Said she was a relative of mine, a cousin. Just distant enough to not easily be identified. Who doesn’t have some kind of cousin named Wanda?
“It’s just…”
“Hold on hold on,” Octavia says, formerly smoking hand held out like a stop sign. “Someone’s coming — looks like a Mouse. No, make that, looks like Mouse. But you didn’t hear it from me. Now…skedaddle youngster… Wanda… *whoever* you are.”
“I’m your cousin,” doubled down Marsha disguised as a fictional one named Wanda but who inside was actually Alice Tart, moved back in time to the day of her conception. She’s aiming to change the aimer. She doesn’t want a father who’s a villain of all villains. Better it be Mouse. *Has* to be Mouse.
“And… there’s the other one… not far behind. Get outta here. Git git git!”
Marsha had no choice. *Alice* had no choice. She, through Marsha’s body wearing her clothes, moved away from her mother back through the gates, intent on finding a room to stay in.
WAIT. She turns. She had to see her younger father through the eyes of Marsha. Prefiguring his need for a cane, he points to what excites him in the moment.
Axis walks into the main office, intending to check in his copper red hair with Wilma the day clerk. Now was her chance, she realized.
She could… shove him through the green door over there. Yeah, that’s it.
Or hit him with the green phone (reader’s choice).
00410309
“Wait, wait! I want a ride!” Dr. Mouse didn’t *desire* to walk all the way from Southside to Northside through what he considered tough Midtown, Chinaville and all. Desire streetcar conductor Dennis Martennis spotted the important town figure just in the nick of time. SCREEEECH.
—–
“Drop me off at the Serapis Club, Dennis.”
“Another doctor meeting?” pried Dennis, known for such things. Few joys in being a lifetime streetcar driver in Cass City and knowing a lot of gossip/dirt about the place was one of ’em.
“Finished with the other doctors, Dennis. Just having dinner with myself tonight. Afterwards: me and Victoria and a couple of stiff drinks at the bar.”
“Nice. So you two are, erm, dating? I mean, there’s rumors in town. Just stuff you hear, mind you. Like, aherm, you created her for that purpose.” He slowed down for a rat crossing the rails. Whoops, there’s another one. And another — must be a family. Or a pack. He’ll named them Frank, Dean and Sammy, ha. Kind of dirty but also kind of cute. Kind of like him, he realized. He’s sort of giant rat himself.
During all this, Dr. Mouse kept silent, not wanting to reveal too much. He was indeed tinkering with Victoria for a reason, but what Dennis was thinking wasn’t it. Not really. He looked down at the cerulean blue paint stain still on his Ralph Lauren dress pants, knowing it was almost over.
(to be continued)
00410310
It was still before the Great War II that never was, leaving only the Great War in history books without a needed numeral to accompany it. Axis was not yet in control, and, even if he were, it would not result in war. Only a child (Alice Tart). 1939 would be the year by that time. But right now it was ’36.
They knew her as Clare by now, the Boss’ Girl Friday instead of Biff’s down at Southside. This was Northside or thereabouts, close enough to count. She heard the Desire streetcar pass by below and thought of conductor/driver Dennis Martennis, what he said the other week to her as the rain poured down outside, making it undesirable to walk to work like she usually does. He asked: Are you the One?
“*There*, Madam Mayor,” she said, her physical work probably complete for the day. “Ancient computer’s fixed. All we had to do was change the ribbon.” This made her think of her ribbon dress that she elected not to wear to work today. Instead she chose something simpler, something plain and black and more conservative. Maybe she’ll try the ribbon dress out next week on the public but for now: inconspicuous will do. Until they find out about the coins.
The mayor was right beside her, just having finished rechecking office files for the missing 3-n-1 folder, another thing the Boss had in common with private dick Biff across town. No luck.
“Clare,” she said, turning. “That grey haired man who came to see me last week… Dextre or something.”
“Keith B., right,” Clare corrected, knowing where the confusion came from. He *does* look like a serial killer, albeit with a code. ‘Nother one.
“Were you here when he left? Weren’t you on some kind of break at the time?”
“Let’s see,” she thought out loud. “I let him in, you guys talked for a while. It was about 12 and he was still in there with you. Yes, I took my lunch break at the time. I didn’t see him leave.”
“And I didn’t follow him out. Got sleepy all of a sudden — can’t even remember the next hour or so. We had coffee,” she said, thinking back. “And donuts… he brought donuts.”
“*I* brought donuts,” corrected Clare again. “Per your suggestion. Said you had a lot of figuring out to do and needed caffeine *and* sugar, a double boost of the grey matter… as you put it.”
“Okay, *you* brought the donuts in.” She stopped, trying to picture the scene. The information was stupendous, almost knocked her off her feet without the needed drugs. Moby Prick is alive and well out there somewhere off the coast of Flores. And pyramids are out there as well! Atlantis; Abyss. She had seen into the depths of her soul and it wasn’t pretty. Dr. Mouse and his Serapis Club may have a point after all.
(to be continued)
00410311
Clare knew she shouldn’t have worn the ribbon dress, not yet. Madam Mayor had an assignment for her when she arrived at work the next day. To retrieve *two* golden coins from the hidden stash downstairs in the underground tunnels, no more but no less. “And be sure you turn off the gargoyles in the final chamber,” she reminded her secretary, her Girl Friday. Yes, thought Clare here. Don’t want another Eldwina situation. But the sudden vacancy procured her job with the Mayor, after all. Weed out the careless, is how she likes to view it, not knowing the young girl from Gatesy Pearl personally. She’d heard she was a hard and fast typist. She liked to think she had a considerably softer touch on the keys without the loss of *much* speed. Yesterday’s ribbon change was the 1st she had to do since she started several weeks ago. This brought her thoughts back to her bad luck ribbon dress, her present situation. The underground was *spooky* — more dangers down there than just the fiery gargoyles, she felt. At least there was Bulby, a bright spot at the end. She’d known him in different, less dark times.
While in the final room with the treasure she took the opportunity to catch up with the robot, knowing the Mayor didn’t need the 2 coins until tomorrow’s meeting with the Town Council. She had to convince them, she said, that the connection with the Azores is more important than the one with Our Second Lyfe and the Maebaleia continent and such. “I have to explain to them that we are more connected with *Real* Life — up there in the real world instead of here in the virtual. In the end, you have to choose one or the other, see.” And so Cass City, Clare gathered, is being weighed in a balance against itself. There is a *real* Cass City up there, like there is a real Amiable over on the Portugal mainland, as seen in section one of this here photo-novel. And then there’s a virtual version of each. The difference is Cass City adds an alternate history layer, complicating matters. It’s not a more or less exact copy of its real self like Amiable. It plays broadly with the actual, setting up the possibility that Cass City is the replacement of itself up in the real world. This is what the Mayor wants to emphasize to the council. That there’s a chance their town is more real than the real one, if that makes sense. She’ll have to *make* it make sense.
“*Oh*,” she says to Clare before she leaves for the underground. “And also bring up the statue of the pointing man on the horse, you know, the miniature of the real thing that use to sit on that high ridge of Corvo. It might help me with my case. Bulby will show you where it is.”
“Yes ma’am,” and, steeling her nerves, she was on her way.
“I see you still have your hair, your head,” Bulby said while she sat down for her 1st mug of wolfberry wine, coins on the counter but for show not for pay. Everything was free down here. “Yeah, I’m not no Eldwina,” she said back, and both had a chuckle. Empty-headed, both knew or had heard about. “Probably didn’t even feel the fire burning it off,” one of the two joked a bit later.
00410312
“Bulby, do you think I’m… pretty?” She was on her 3rd wolfberry wine mug and starting to feel it. She needed a confidence booster from one not directly involved. In other words: the robot before her had no sexual desires to impede his judgement. She tugs nervously at the ribbon on her right shoulder while waiting, almost accidentally untying it. Realizing this, she quickly moves the hand back to her lap, locking it between her thighs with the other one.
Bulby’s eyes in his head pretend lit up like 2 golden coins themselves. “I calculate there’s a 70 percent chance that is so,” he rattled off, then stared into her eyes with his now dimmed ones to see if this pleased her. He spotted mixed results and decided to lite up again and change the calculation to 100 percent, defying his logic. He can override it like that if needed. He had evolved beyond pure mechanoid back in the days of the 1st Robot Revolution (= 1st Robolution), marching with his kind on Washington B.C. a little before the 1st Millennium. Certainly a long time ago by human standards but not so much for him. He’d seen the Carthaginians come and go but kept his mouth shut about such things. He thinks, as a robot infant, he may have seen Atlantean “non-men” at a birthday party for his 300 year old robot sister Brightie growing up fast in the eyes of their robot parents Wattage and Voltagia, both over a 1000 years old themselves by that point and just glad they were able to build two children inside a formerly thought of infertile inner conception chamber.
“Thank you (*hiccup*). That makes me feel better.”
“You better go back to the surface before you forget how to turn off the gargoyles. I’d follow you and make sure you do but, as you know, I’m not allowed to leave my post here. Must guard the treasure with my robot life if needed.”
“I understand, Bulby. Just (*sigh*) nice to have someone to talk to (*hiccup*)… for a change.”
“How’s your sex life?” he thought to ask, then saw that mixed expression again and decided to add, “only if you want to share. Madam Mayor comes down here sometimes,” he explains himself, “and gabs on and on about it. She has a, ahem, *interesting* one.”
“I’ve heard,” Clare said back. “Welp, mine is not worth these 2 fake golden coins on the counter between us (*hiccup*).”
“Oh. These are not fake,” spoke back Bulby, a bit of surprise showing through his highly filtered mechanical voice. He was just that shocked.
“They *aren’t*?” said Clare staring down at them just as shocked. Something had to give.
(to be continued)
00410313
The disappearance of the gargoyles on the return passage really started throwing her game off. She fell on some loose ruble in their former room, near the crosshairs where your hair and also head could get roasted and toasted. No longer. “Where *are* they? What *happened* to them?” she said in a panic as she brushed off her polka dot ribbon dress and attempted to stand upright again. “Am I even in the right room?” But she knew the steep stairs behind her could lead only to this place.
More obstacles were ahead, including an invisible barrier impeding her way where there was open air before. She felt like a rat in a maze, trying to find the cheese that is the surface of this Cass City town and the return to her warm, safe desk at the mayor’s office. She felt in her dress pocket — *curses*; never should have worn this cursed dress. But the coins (real? fake?) and the figurine of the statue were still there. If only she could find the way out.
—–
The Mayor checked the time on her watch, cursing as well. “Where the f— is she?” she said aloud. “And, more importantly, where are those coins and that statue?” Town Council meeting in 12 hours. She *can’t* postpone any longer (!).
She turns to the map on the display board. “*Corvo*. *You’re* doing this. Aren’t you, you little bugger of an island?”
“ANSWER ME!” And here I believe she started to sob inconsolably, remembering the Abyss again.
00410314
Supergal Ruby had given up fishing but mate Greg Ogden hadn’t. He’d been lucky enough at the sport to distract them from the golden coins and other Corvo mysteries, sucked up inside the mundane for a while. “2 sharks, a mantra ray, and a swordfish in one day!” he exclaimed to Ruby over a fish highlighted supper, perch salmon or cod (another reader’s choice). It was only afterwards that Ruby recalled the coins, and the fact that they had missed the last ship out of Corvo until Munday. Oh well. At least *Greg’s* happy, she consoled herself. And it will give her time to talk to Mr. Gold.
But she never saw him again, nor his spinning wheel nor the big ball of yarn down the beach from him he was supposedly working on. Dare I say he was a figment of her imagination? Eventually the coins became that too, we can follow. As the island had planned all along. In the immortal words of famous philosopher and, later, box company worker John Locke: “It’s not an island.”
Supergal’s second album, “Atlantis Forgotten,” was fittingly titled. There were more things to dwell on than lost civilizations now, like growing fame, more immediate and materially tangible. The Portuguese government working through the music industry had a hand in that as well; suggested “safe” words to use in her lyrics to downplay the supernatural, “lost knowledge” aspects found on the first. The oh too commonplace selling of the soul.
00410315
From the computer table in my apartment, I watched her stand between the two openings, scratching her head and obviously trying to choose which role to play tonight. Pinkie Brainerd, owner of Pink’s Pawn on the bottom level? Or Berta Brainard, secretary and Girl Friday to private investigator Wendell “Biff” Carter on the 3rd and top floor of the same building? Nothing was in-between the two; there was no middle ground here, all intermediate floors vacant instead. Despite being the author, I suppose, I couldn’t make the choice for her. The pink color of the dress drew her toward the pawn shop, but the ribbon aspect of it made her want to type and organize files and such.
This was an important decision; this was a crossroads. I’d been here before, almost in this exact spot doing the same. Before the beginning of things in that case. Here: almost in the middle. Maybe there is some kind of middle ground to be found after all.
There. Down there. That was me at the time. Pepi “Can” Kolya was the name back then. Before Mouse fixed the holes in my head and gave me expressions and the ability to wear different clothes. I became non-mesh.
I started out wearing a beanie with a spinning propeller thingy symbolizing windmills but I quickly grew out of that early look. I gained the coat/mantle of Axis, but moved beyond the darkness of a second Great War as well. I’m not German, but I proudly wear the red, yellow, and black colors of the modern aspect of that nation to remind me of my origins. A small dog named Spider was around here somewhere in my Cass City apartment to remind me of the swastika (thanks Greti!). I cannot escape my start in holey darkness but I now strive toward holy light. Through me (the author again I have to assume), Marsha “Pink” Krakow is now doing the same.
The lights grown softer, more realistic. She turns toward me and even though she doesn’t make eye contact I’m pretty sure she recognizes I’m there — at the computer desk — typing what we’re doing in the moment. She suddenly staggers and falls, then brushes herself off and assumes an upright position again. She falls once more, but in a different way. Then another fall, a 3rd kind.
She doesn’t get up this time. She remains frozen in the same position on the pavement of Southside in front of the 2 doors she apparently can’t choose between. Paralyzed, I understand. Unable to walk toward either now. She eventually vanishes on the spot but I’ve received my message for tonight. There was more to be found here.
(to be continued)
stages
I awoke before the High Priestess of Atlantis an energy being, free of form unless you count Static. She paced on the small stage above me, the highest of 3 tiers. A vibrating Chlandi plate was immediately before my eyes. “You can come over here and fall like the crystal below,” she said in a bold, echoey voice, left foot currently dangling off the top ledge, her walking space…
“*Or*… you can join me over here in the unfallen zone.” She had paced to the back corner, hands steady inside her robe instead of moving about.
Tennesse or Kentucky, I understood, as she reassumed a front and center position, mirroring my own. I knew where to head next.
exit stage
Sunklands 