00410501
“We’re only rescuing you from yourself, ma’am,” spoke Officer Howard earnestly, responsible for the check in. “What if, say, I ran up to Starbuccaneers just above us and Barista Wanda — or whatever her name is; I just made that up — Wanda, say, gave me a free coffee this morning, on the house just for being a cop. And then let’s say I take a couple of sips and then give it over to Officer Brendan, and Officer Brendan gives it to Officer Ferguson, and Officer Ferg — well I think you get the point. Pretty soon there’s free coffee all over town and Starbuccaneer’s is not making a dime off of it, business closed. So you see it’s dangerous, really dangerous, to offer stuff for free in a capitalist economy. Say, if we were in China or Cuba it would be different.”
“But we’re not anywhere,” Bermuda (Atlantis High Priestess) countered. “We’re right here. In Aisle of Palms on the Jeogeot continent. Neither here nor there.” Kind of like the Azores, she thought to herself.
“Well,” said Officer Howard back, taken aback a bit, “I don’t know about *your* user but *my* user comes from the good ol’ red white and blue US of A up there in the Americas, no communism in sight. Er, except for Cuba as I think I mentioned before. Anyway–”
“*Anyway*,” interrupted Bermuda, eager to get this over with and be locked inside her cell, safe from what she senses might be a growing mob. “I believe I get a phone call?”
“Indeed, ahem, indeed you do,” said Officer Ferguson, suddenly tired of lecturing the virtues of trickle down economies. He indeed got his coffee free from Starbuccaneer’s this morning from someone named Wanda, indeed shared it with Brendan who shared it with Ferguson and on down the line, everyone in town with their required caffeine high and no one else visiting Wanda this morning. Like the Loaves of Bread story from the Bible, Howard being a modern day agogo Jesus. Yet he still didn’t know he had that power. Too bad he didn’t also have the Savior’s power to resurrect himself because, after the decaffeinated 3PM afternoon break mob led by Jittery Joe was finished with him, he’d need it to continue.
“Let’s GET HIM!”
“YEAAHHHHH!!”
00410502
“Now stand back you dangerous lot, especially *you* Jittery Joe. NOW. I let Steady Susan and her twin Steadier Suzanna go because they were just up there trying to find a private spot to phone breakup with their boyfriends Bob and Roberto the Thompson Twins. But the REST of you are just as culpable as Joe in my police rulesbook. Jittery here is already on record saying he’s up to about 10 coffees a day, so its more understandable he loses control sometime in the afternoon. But the REST of you are somewhere between 3 and 8 cups a day I’m guessing.” General murmurs of agreement all around, even Jerky Jack in back who was actually up to 9. He didn’t want to highlight himself in the crime any more than the nickname already indicated. “So there wasn’t NO NEED for a mob scene… and a killing. No one knew that the late Officer Howard had the Jesus power to make many drinks out of one drink beforehand. And it was WRONG to assume he had that second and final Jesus miracle power to resuscitate himself after a snuffing to follow the first. WHO among you lousy lot thought that he was going to resurrect himself, hmm?” Hands went up one by one until all were raised. They’d read their Bible good. Only 2 miracles recorded and verified in all 4 Gospels. And the second logically followed the first they all assumed. They’d get the satisfaction of killing Howard, they felt, without the dire consequences normally associated with such actions.
“OKAY, then. Now here’s what we’re going to do. Tomorrow I’m going to temporarily let you out of this temporary pen,” and here Officer Brendan shook his head at the number of ’em, way too many to hold in their regular 2 cells which were occupied anyways. They had to be moved to the vacant house next door, guards at the front and back, guards to the sides. “Yes, you’re going home, then, and put on your Sunday best and we’re all going to march, together, down to the cemetery and honor the man whose life you took in the prime of his, well, life. Jittery Joe, you’re going to say some nice words in parting and I want each and every one of you to shake his widow’s hand and apologize for your dastardly wrong. Am I rigghhht?”
“Yes, Officer Brendan,” they collectively muttered almost in sync with each other. But also each and every one was thinking: when did Howard get married??
That morning is when. To Bermuda herself. She reached across the table to pick up a magazine to read while he kept processing her record and he stopping typing and reached with his hand to grab it. 5 fingers interlocked with another accepting 5 fingers. Since Howard was a Justice of the Peace alongside being an Officer of the Law, they could tie the knot then and there, before the mob took action on one of ’em, maybe both of ’em. Another logical progression, but one that turned out to be very right instead of very wrong. Bermuda was set to inherit everything, including the patents.
(to be continued)
00410503
“Hey Newt! I’m over here! Just waiting for *you*. Keep up!”
“Be right there wife of mine!” he called from the table in the center of Amiable, having just finished his wine.
She spots the shadow as he walks over and understands they are still good, still on track to go sideways. She leaps down.
00410504
There’s pirates all over town doing who knows what, she thinks, and yet he’s always here at the pool, staring at the girls. I should probably report him.
—–
Some pirates are here to look for treasure, some pirates just want to hang around bars.
And as we’ve seen, one pirate in town sells parrots and one pirate *is* a parrot wanting to sell parrots. But neither making a good effort at it.
We should probably get back to the former. In her cell. Away from the mob. For now.
Who is this strange woman dressed as a pirate? thinks not-so-easily-fooled-as-the-policemen Michelle Roundup — or so she believes — peering in at the enigmatic expression on her face, blank in a way but also revealing so much. Pretty deep facial scars — checks with being a pirate. Tattoos, some of a lewd variety — also check. One of a treasure map, even, a big one covering most of the body as she personally found out this morning during the prerequisite cavity search — even took some pictures of the complex pattern, writing in her report that it could be related to the crime even though she highly doubted it. Which reminds Michelle: she needs to send the other in-house inmate John of Arc over to scrub off or paint over a curiously similar treasure map on the side of the Hole in the Wall bar. Here:
Does one somehow have something to do with the other? she ponders. She tries to compare and contrast in her mind — X marks the spot in both cases. Did so called *Bermuda* commission both, possibly? The computer lists her as a Victor, owner of Parrots for Pirates pet shop in town but gone missing for quite a while until her return just day before day before yesterday’s tomorrow (yesterday). Obviously this is not Victor. She explained it through a more gradual sex change involving hormones; described it as a Victor-to-Victoria conversion, as if the switch was built in to her birth name. Interesting, hmm. She rubs her chin with her free hand, the one not holding a billy stick. And why did she bring the stick to the cell in the first place? Then Michelle realizes why: she’s as culpable as the men. She stares into those eyes. No one, not male or female, could resist, she understood. The power of being both sexes in one? Yeah, we’ll leave that as a question.
(to be continued?)
stripes
“Yeah, this doesn’t seem to be scrubbing off, Michelle.”
“Don’t call me that, Murderer. Call me Officer Roundup.”
“Sure. But, um…”
“Option 02, I get it. Let’s go back to the station and pick up some white paint and some brushes.” But then, staring at the back of her heavily tattooed prisoner, Policeperson Michelle Roundup had an idea.
“John,” she said, making him pause. She’d always called him by one of his many crimes before, Murderer if pretty to really upset down to Burglar if only mildly so or not atall. Never the actual name. Before this; what did she want? “John,” she repeated, trying to phrase it in the proper way. “Erm, have you seen a tattoo like this by chance? A full body one? One that wraps around the whole body front to back I mean? Another treasure map is what I’m saying.”
Oh Jeez, he thinks here. She knows about them! What will he do?? How will he answer?? “You, um, mean on another person’s body.”
“Yeah. That’ll do.”
“Then: no.” Relief! He didn’t have to bring up the curse attached to the design.
“How about in general?” Michelle Roundup intuitively followed up. “Like a drawing of such a body? Or a painting? Oh — photo,” she then realized. “Have you seen it in a photo or a series of photos?”
Drat! Now he’ll have to actually lie. Certainly he can’t admit to stealing Officer Roundup’s camera behind her back. Burglar becomes the worst nickname in that case!
“Iiii…”
In the hesitation, she sensed something else, something new. The camera! Missing for a couple of hours yesterday. She thought she just misplaced. But, upon thinking about it, it was there on her desk, then next minute: not. Then *placed* in almost the exact same place a bit later in the afternoon. He knows about the treasure, he knows about the X! The inability to scrub this one off was a sign, a portent.
—-
She acted really smart. She didn’t accuse him of the theft to his face. After all, he was already in custody for several other, more henious crimes. He can’t go anywhere.
There were a couple of possibilities in play, she thought as they walked back to pick up the paint and brushes to finish the job. First, he’s just a desperate perv wanting to look at some pictures of a naked girl. Two, he was gathering information about, I don’t know, the location of an *actual* treasure. Three: maybe he just stole the camera to take pictures himself and then saw the photos already on it. But indeed he knows about them. People just don’t turn that red for no reason. What’s black and white and red all over has a new answer beyond newspaper and embarrassed zebra. Actually I guess the latter still applies, she finished her joke.
(to be continued)
00410506
Michelle returned to the graffiti on the side of the Hole in the Wall bar, but not with paint. Instead she chose another art form to practice today: collage. John of Arc was left back in his cell. She decided she had to do this on her own — for now.
“What are you doing, Love?” spoke Sparrow in his smooth, pirate voice to her side, always peering down this direction from his perch in front of the bar. “You’ve dissected public property, Dearest.”
“I’ve *confiscated* public property. *Dearest,*” she spoke back harshly. And she almost had it before the interruption. She was mapping out the differences in the two treasure maps she had found this week, one here and one on the body of new prisoner Bermuda, aka Victor Ratt the owner of Parrots for Pirates, as we’ve already reviewed. Charged just yesterday for not charging customers for his/her goods.
“Almost all treasure maps have an “X” (at the end of a dotted line),” offered devil’s advocate Sparrow. “Almost all involve a pirate ship; almost all involve dragons or octopii or some strange watery creature.”
“*No*,” says Michelle to this. “The patterns are just too similar. You have the islands with the 2 palms trees in both. You have compasses in both, although I don’t think it centers on the compasses.”
“Again–” started to counter Sparrow once more.
“I know I know,” interrupted Officer Roundup. She exhaled deeply. She kept staring.
“Well let’s review, then,” Sparrow continued to help from his observing perch. “With — Triangle isn’t it?’
“Bermuda,” said still staring Michelle.
“Bermuda, right. Well, Ms. *Bermuda*’s treasure map began at the palms.”
“Right right,” cited impatient Roundup. If he’d just *shut* *up*, she thought… but still, he may be able to help, being a pirate and all. And what of silent Hook so far? Always peering into that *2d* version of the ending treasure. Nothing to add in the real world.
“And what part of the body, hmm?”
“The… calf. Yes the calf on the back of the leg. Then it winds up” — and here she traced the upper progression with her billy stick — “and passes the pirate ship; *first* in the graffiti, with the palms being second in that case. And then the dragon or whatever.”
“What part of the body are we up to?” spoke Sparrow.
“We’re circling around the rump, yes.”
“And the X at the end?” Sparrow’s eyes became wider in anticipation. Michelle caught the look.
“*Not* where you think, Perv.” Back to the map, back to the X. “At the ribs, actually,” she realized aloud.
“*Welll*,” said Sparrow to this, looking over at Hook in a knowing way. Hook just kept opening the chest, peering at the treasure, and then shutting it and repeating the action. Over and over. “I think we *both* know what that is.”
Michelle kept silent for a minute, brain wheels spinning. “Adam and Eve?” she finally outputted. “The *rib*.”
(to be continued)
off to a flying start
We have a sign…
… and are directly tied into our neighbor’s road system to the south in two places. Super nifty!
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of downtown from the sign, we find a parallel Michelle Roundup examining another object. Just ribs now. But soon…
“Should be ready by the christening,” spoke mastermind Red Dead Beardy Head, a pirated version of himself from another open world game.
“But… how are you going to get it down to the sea?” she logically asks about the still skeleton of a thing.
“Don’t need to.” He turns and points up toward the circling seagulls. “Space.”
00410508
One needed parts and the other ran a salvage yard so it seemed these 2 characters pirated from other lands should get together.
“Flying ship, eh?” said one to the other. He turns. “What do you need? A propeller?”
“A crew, actually,” said Red Dead Beardy Head who we just met in that last post here, throwing a monkey wrench and all into our dialog. Building a space ship he is. Looks like a sea ship. Might be both. “I want to re-crew-t you.”
“Me?” Nick turns back to the bar, thinks about ordering another mug of Carribean White Rum from green haired Marcia with this. We’re from different lands, he ponders, *rival* lands. “You’re talking crossover here, you know.” He let the statement hang in the air, then: “You understand the consequences.”
“Yup.” One of the two parrots on his shoulders said, “Crossover, *squawk*” and the other said, “Consequences, *squawk*”.
The 3rd reddish parrot on the barrel beside him said nothing, biding his time. He was waiting for Nick’s 3rd line. It never came; Nick got up intending to leave this small parcel next to a road on the Corisca continent, never to return. Then he realized that Red Dead Beardy Head was the one who had to leave the property to properly end the scene, since he was the visitor. Embarrassed — turning red himself — he sat back down.
“Forget where you were, *who* you were?”
“Yup.”
(to be continued?)
00410509
“I came here looking for ship parts. Maybe even a whole ship. Instead I found an X. X marks the spot.”
“You’re in over your head,” she said back, the first female salvage related person he’d met. And the 1st person of color, period. She rezzed in to help, to be truthful. RDBH had the perfect angle for an opening shot. He didn’t want to mess it up.
“Or a spot marked by an X,” he changed the wording of his former sentence. Now that she had come he could look down.
Ah yes, a bunch of stuff named Mare: cigarettes, beer, ‘nother different kind of beer. “Why are you running an, er, eatery stand? Salvage person.”
“I have to make ends meet,” she said plainly, matter-of-factly. “Else how could I offer goofy looking scavengers like you such good prices, eh?”
RDBH looked over, took her in better. Pretty face. Jewels on head and body. Attractive. But the prices were still too expensive. More than one way to skin a cat? “What’s your name, dear?”
“Pearl. Black Pearl most call me. To differentiate from other types of pearls: grey, white, so on.”
“Black Pearl,” he parroted back, making the birds on his shoulders share a smile. He seemed to have heard the name before. But where?
(to be continued)
Thieves Landing (perfect time machine (pair of cards))
“No. *Not* like Blackbeard. It’s Red Head Beardy… shoot, let me start again. It’s Red *Dead*–”
“Why don’t I just call you Redbeard, eh?” she suggested with an interruption, hand laying on his chest. Red hair also there, she then realized, running her fingers softly through it; red hair all over, actually. “Or how about just Red?” Again, he’d heard this before. He’d turned in his hair. At a motel, he’s picking up. To be more myself, he thought.
“Oh *okay*.” He rolled over while taking her hand, looked straight into her pretty green eyes like doors or phones. “*Black*,” he playfully chided with a return name. “Now about that ship?”
—–
She couldn’t find the free one in the inventory she had in mind, goofy looking but oh so reliable and roomy despite the odd shape. She decided to just let him have her own (The Black Pearl). On one condition: she goes too. Wherever this mysterious “X” spot is. He said there’s buried treasure to be found in the past there. 150,000 American dollars, which translates to roughly 5,000,000 dollars present day. “We just have to go there and find it in the center of the X, buy gold with it, and then come back here to cash in and spend — I’ve got it all mapped out. We’ll have to land in Mexico and take a smaller boat to the opposite shore. Or maybe just swim if the distance is not too prohibitive across the channel. How’s your swimming skills?”
“Let’s take the boat,” she said, dismissing the swimming part, not wanting to grease herself all up before going into town, this Backwater place, he said.
The name had been changed from before to protect the innocent.
00410511
Soon after leaving Aisle of Palms, the pirate ship ran into choppier waters rounding Thailand, encountering unexpected waves of stretch marks in trying to stick to the prepared dotted line of their journey. But this was only prognostication derived from the leg, with the actual voyage into space and not sea still lying ahead of them. Keeping with the body analogy, The Black Pearl was about to set sail for the fabled or perhaps fantastical Islets of Langerhans, said to dot the Pancreatic Sea in considerable numbers and whose shores are protected from harsher elements by huge ribs of sandbars, or so the legends go. The parallels to all this in space could only be guessed at (islets = asteroids? etc.).
Hopefully the sea and its islets haven’t been removed from the body in question and the dotted line they’re following turns out to be more akin to this, ick. In other words, the chest had been opened and the buried treasure within removed. Like coins in a gold bullion, maybe the islets themselves are this trove. We’ll work on it.
Barfly Sparrow has a secret.
“Hold *still* Prisoner Bermuda or whatever your actual name is while I take this final shot.” Officer Michelle Roundup had started at the end and worked her way back to the beginning. As shall we.
There. The Black Pearl is now in Aisle of Palms.
00410512
“I found the ship at a golf course sim which was closing up — got a cheap deal on it for that reason. Plus it was a mess, all cracked up on those rocks over there as you can see from the photo.” Black Pearl provided a photo to Red Dead Beardy Head much like the one below where she is finagling the deal with a woman named Libra Neptune who, of all places, had ties to Saint Dennis. So it seems like she has the power to manifest such realities. I, the writer of this here blog and attached current photo-novel, had no idea the Black Pearl ship would be here too. A gift, we can call it, ‘nother one.
“How ’bout Davy Jones?” said Red Dead still beside her in bed, although it was a different night than before. Plans had advanced. The restored Black Pearl, ready for space as it would ever be, parked in the vacant lot in back of downtown. They were staying in the captain’s cabin, testing it out. Well stocked with Caribbean White Rum — good start.
“Not needed in this story,” she replied plainly about Jones, knowing what he was referring to. *Her* Black Pearl was different from Sparrow’s. This was from a woman’s perspective.
—–
They were walking into town for a morning drink and a bit of breakfast when Black Pearl spotted her walking below Parrots for Pirates.
“Libra??”
00410513
“I hear the perch is good here.”
“Don’t be silly, dear. They don’t serve fish this early. These are *landlovers*.”
“Oh.”
“So… *Libra*. Is it still Libra? I mean, since we’ve been walking? It was Libra about 10 minutes ago and I’m just wondering if the name still sticks.”
“You can call me such but, admittedly, I go by many names.”
“Yes, I’m seeing the bigger picture now.” She looked over the parrot dress, which Libra aka Atlantis High Priestess aka Bermuda aka Victor/Victoria redonned shortly after being released from jail by Officer Michelle Roundup. Some sort of pirate convention in town; they figured they would need the cell soon enough. Assign a hefty fine for the crime and move on.
“Where is our waiter?” asked impatient Red Dead Beardy Head. That man over there in the other room had been staring at him all the time. Is that our waiter on a break — taunting me? he wondered. Turns out it was.
4 handed Keat Owens, waiter/chef by day, private detective by night. He’d learned to sleep with his eyes open but he needed to wake up now and go to work again.
00410514
She was just standing there watching the waves crash when it flew out of them, hitting her in the thigh region and wiping that smug smile of satisfaction right off her face.
“OW!” she exuded with suddenly bulging eyes and down-turned mouth, body reflexively bending over in the sharp pain. “Damn thing hit me!”
“What’s that??” called Derek from the front of the boat they came on here from the mainland. Maebaleia is the continent again now, and Funnel is the sim. The island they landed on shouldn’t be here according to the map; drew their attention. It was all leading up to this.
“A can!” she shouted back over the continuing sound of turbulent water. Would it suck them in if they tried to return now? Was the sim aptly named because of this?
“Can?!” shouted Derek.
“Yeah! In the leg!” She picked it up after examining the mark it left, pain already easing off a bit. Unpopped, with pop still inside. Of course she dare not open it until the fizz settled down. Could take days. She was smarter in the ways of canned drinks than Newt apparently.
“Jimmy! Frederica!” Derek called to the people standing above them on the height of the islet. “We need to leave! Sarah’s hurt!”
“I think I’m okay!” said Sarah to this. She looked down again; no blood still. “Yeah, I’ll be okay! One of those bruising the ego more than bruising the body moments!”
“What happened?” asked Jimmy, standing next to Derek now but looking over at Sarah. She was upright again. She looked okay.
Frederica came up next. “Yeah, what is it?” she added. Jimmy was about to take a photo of her, a perfect spot, a perfect snapshot.
“It’s Sarah. She said something hit her in the leg.”
“It’s a can of pop,” she said, hearing every word despite the decreased volume of the talk. “It just, well *popped* me.”
“W-where did it come from?” questioned Jimmy. He looked out at the sea, the now strangely calming waves. They’d forgotten all about Tom. Tom came with them from the mainland. Tom was no longer there.
Satisfied Sarah was okay, Jimmy and Frederica returned to their former positions but the moment seemed ruined. Something about those 2 palms really bothered Jimmy now; he couldn’t focus camera or thoughts. He kept thinking about that thigh. He envisioned: a ship.
00410515
“If we discover a new land in the ship I think we should call it Redlands. After our current hangout. Whaddaya think?”
“How about *Black* instead. Er: Black Nation, say.”
With his quicksilver mind from all that pirating business down through the years, Red Dead Beardy Head thought of a compromise. “*Well*,” he started the new pitch. “Since red and black are both card colors, 50-50 for each, how about a card game. Say: Poker.”
Black Pearl laying beside him had to smile. He certainly was honoring both him and her with the name. But she couldn’t help countering with: “Black Jack. I say Black Jack. Fits the card part. 50-50 on the cards.” But my color up front and on top again, was the implied meaning.
“Okay, got another one. How about, say, *Hearts* — Heartsland. Like our two hearts are joined beyond just playing poker.”
“Awwww. How *sweet*.”
“Red on top, I know.”
“Yup,” she returned crisply, knowing the game was on again. “Spades,” she countered logically. The game of Spades, like we have the game of Hearts. Except, let’s see if I remember, *spades* trump everything; a black suit trumps everything.
“Okaay, but if I remember correctly (thinking quick again), Black Lady and Black Maria are variants of Hearts (game). So *if* we find new land, how about we stick with Heartsland — but the capital or the town we found there or whatever will be called Black Lady. I mean, Black Pearl of course.”
“Make it Black Maria and we’re good,” she finished the negotiation. Maria was her mother’s name as it turned out. Good to honor ancestors in a new land. Remember the past and roots while at the same time moving forward beyond them.
Heartsland, slightly changed to Heartlands, stuck. But Black Maria turned out to be Valentine.
(to be continued)
00410516
I feel like I have failed them, thought Atlantis High Priestess (etc.) into the sacred flame from her space, communicating with the Beyond. They’re heading toward Shangri-La but don’t understand what they’re leaving behind, Black Maria and so on. It will happen, she knew.
Valentine
Sunklands 