sleepwalking
heading inside for more boos (part 2 I suppose)
—–
“We ended up at the exact same spot we began,” spoke Hucka D., suddenly finding herself back on the bed beside Barry. “Exactly the moment we decided to leave!”
Barry checked his pants but he was okay. This was no dream. Not really. Not any more than anything else they’ve experienced since this here photo-novel began, 37 in a series.
Then he forgot everything, the whole trip to Lordsburg/Shakespeare. It is as if the text at the bottom of the state never existed; no subtitles. Nor the top for that matter (Brilliant again). Only middle now. Barry DeBoy was on his own again, Hucka D. choosing not to take part in this reality. His mother as well. There was no reason for him to stay.
(to be continued)
00370302
It was always risky going back to the Omega continent, but I thought this hot dog perched atop a Wendy’s hamburger joint meant something. Wendy’s hadn’t sold the questionable commodity since the mid 80’s, yet here it is. In the present tense of Our Second Lyfe, Oriental style; thinly squirted with mustard.
—–
Barry X. Vampire felt he drove his dinner guests away with his impatience. He was anxious to start the next chapter of his book, his life in general. He stares past a nearby house of one of the guests, a nice enough guy named Stan Gunderson who he met at the market a couple of weeks back, toward the Dead Sea and what he’d always heard called Dead Dog Isle. He wanted to know why it was named that. Was it one of those false memories that seemed to be more common these days? He had to find out.
00370303
I’m going to do things a little differently this go ’round. The focus groundside will be Sunklands Institute, pictured here. Up in the air is where I’m going to be doing some experimenting. Point is, I’m back on Nautilus, and maybe even a better place than Fordham, than Rooster’s Peninsula. I won’t give out the location because it’s all still being set up — may take longer to solidify this time, or at least that’s what’s in my mind right now. It all pivots around Sunklands. Another Table meeting could be happening very soon.
The big Nautilus map back in skybox 02 is lighting up again: location of Lemont Sanford and Shelley Struthers renewing their wedding vows upper center (Uberto); Burro Alley and attached Slaashides community where Johnny Cage came from just up there in the left hand corner. And more in the middle… not Collagesity. Pretty sure of that. It’s all an alchemical roller coaster of a ride I’m still enjoying, even after a decade an a 1/2’s worth of involvement in Our Second Lyfe. I have more to mine here.
Nautilus is a way station.
alchemical research
Keith let me borrow his beach bungalow while he was out traveling (he said). I caught up with my reading more than my TV watching, since his set was shite — something out of the 50s, or 60s at best. Black and white, even. I could watch reruns of “I Luv Lucifer” or “Gulliver’s Island” (at best), or finish off my stack of romance novels with Satan sometimes at the center of the plotline. Here I am seen choosing the latter; self portrait of course, because I came alone, Lemont still looking for roles on the Omega continent Shakespearian in scope and depth. Good luck! I’ve even started my own novel, or I should say, my 5th novel, the other 4 already published under a pen name by Lonelyhearts Press up in Corsica Prime. I haven’t quite got up the nerve to tell my rather straight laced hubbie about those; kind of r rated and with lots of lovers on the side. This one is projected to start with an innocent enough letter from an imaginary boyfriend and perhaps wannabe husband. ‘Nother one. What is this attraction to the opposite sex I have? Or, better, their attraction to me? I have a Venus in Cancer and a Mars in Leo but that only answers part of it. I must protect myself — that’s what Keith said just before he handed over the keys to the place. “Find yourself here,” he said, boat already warming up at the dock. “Get away from all influences. I’ll give you some spending money.”
“I don’t *need* any spending money,” I protested. “It’s not like Lemont and I have gotten a divorce or anything.”
“Sure you haven’t,” Keith said, and patted my knee, making me wonder. When *is* Lemont coming back? “Edward is right next door if you need anything,” he added while walking off and leaving a couple of hundreds on the table up front. And that’s how we met. He really liked the letter; said it sounded exactly like something he’d penned. I was so pleased that… well, I’ll save it for later in the novel.
but the trees are flaming too
—–
Well I can certainly see why he’s called the Sandman, she thought. Better find Arthur, I mean, ahem, *Lemont*, down at the beach. But first… hair.
—–
“Oh I don’t want it cut,” she spoke upward to the dark, animalistic face hovering over her. “Just washed. I can’t cut my hair. My husband would be so disapproving (!).”
“That’ll be 55 dollars either way,” hissed the stylist. They didn’t click, she knew. Best to cut ties early before more energy drain. She can find another stylist later on. Anyway, Arthur *would* be happy. “Don’t change a thing,” he often speaks about her appearance, always making her cringe inside a bit. He wants stasis; she wants change. Yet he kind of controls her, she admits. She’s aiming to change that. The stylist must be more of his working.
“Credit it to the house,” she said when leaving, which caused even a bit more confusion.
——
“Why don’t you get out of that duck outfit and put on that cute, black bathing suit I bought you a while back.” Or was it purple? he thinks to himself, not being able to clearly picture it in rehearsal for some reason. Dark, anyway, he resolves the issue for now.
“Ohh… you know how easily I burn. I’ll keep these on.” She settles back into her chair, pats her hands on her covered knees to reinforce her staying put point. Eating away at the control. One nibble at a time.
Arthur settles back too, resigned to their current attire. “Soo. Tell me more about this Sandman.”
“Oh he’s rich.”
“Yeah, I gathered.” He looks around. Sand everywhere… at every level. Desert oasis he has here. An oasis from… Second Lyfe.
“We met through Edward. At that party his friend threw. One of those nights you were away. How’s the quest to find the ultimate Shakespearian role going by the by?” She hadn’t asked before on purpose. Arthur trusted Edward, she knew. As much as he trusted Keith with her. They were wedded in his mind. But Edward was certainly different from Keith, despite the friendly neighbor persona. Edward had designs. And she was stringing him along. All for the art mind you, she thought. The newest romance novel. I want to make the 5th different from the 4th which is different from the 3rd, etc., improvements and refinements all along. Edward is my sculpture, my newest muse even. I’m still married to Arthur certainly, she keeps pondering. No change there, whatever happens.
It was here she remembers she was married to Lemont. Not Arthur. He stares over at her, waiting for her next lines. Control.
(to be continued)
00370306
“What are you guys fretting about? The fire? Did something burn down here?” Then she realized, in her intuitive way, that *they* burned something. Evidence, she gathered. What were these cactus fitted military birds on the edge of Lower Austra on about? Japanese, she understood. If only she’d remembered to bring her translator. Maybe next time, cause there can be. Unlike for Baker Bloch Keith B., who is, for some reason, banned from the premises. He got too close to the truth, she thought. They wanted me to see instead.
“So you *are* her,” she suddenly understood, tuning into the language. Took some time but she’s there. They think I’m someone else, she gathers. But I’m *me* — always.
I don’t think I like this pose but it’s all about balance, I then additionally gather. Someone else was good at that. “We welcome you (back),” she also translated. But it was only this bird; what about the others?
They’re burning something else now; a ritual.
A golden girl arrives, one that will lead them into the next millennium of great change and turmoil and, ultimately, complete harmony of opposites through love.
“That golden girl,” says the one, ” is you.”
Shelley wakes up.
recorder
He watches from afar, noting that she may have Winona Ryder eye. Didn’t she just visit a local hair stylist several days before? He knows she did, although not with the results she wanted. The results *they* wanted? It was a question he had to be asking at this juncture in our story.
—–
Back up to “normalcy”.
—–
“Where you been?”
“Oh just riding around the sand.”
“Hmm.”
downtown again
“Oh I want *something*.” They’d walked right past the haircut place without speaking. Arthur knew better now. And the tattoo parlor didn’t offer a temptation any longer. That was yesterday’s story — sorry; forgot to record. So today — tonight — was the next store up, but nothing seemed to be for sale; all a jumble.”
*This*,” she decided despite the seeming lack of ability to purchase, which Arthur then pointed out again. “This,” she reinforced. “We can find the original creator. Not your bitch,” she read. “Not yet.” The neon cat in the moon seemed to be staring at it too, convincing her. She just had a dream about one.
“How about the fingers making the heart over there,” Arthur tested.
“Nah. Lame. *Gushy*.”
“Hmm.” He’d been uttering that a lot during their, was it a vacation? I guess it had to be. Or a second honeymoon after renewing their wedding vows. Edward might clarify. If we could find him.
“Ahh, got it,” she then said after checking. “All this stuff is by the same creator.”
“Hmm.”
“Just stop it. We’ll have to come back when it’s set up.”
“Just what I was thinking.”
“Next store up?”
He looked at his watch. “Not until tomorrow.”
“Oh *phooey*.”
00370309
After 36 successful romance novels about Edward and a lot of others, she was rolling in cash; could literally make herself an angel in the floor with it. But she was no angel. Demon instead — she knew this deep down in her heart, despite what surrogate father Keith B. told her back at the beginning of section 01. She’d sold her soul; ground angel she was in the end. Worthless.
—–
After waking up and reviewing the dream, she decided there was only one thing to do. Tell Arthur about Edward. No, not the *actual* truth. The reality in the novel, 5th in a series. If she did, maybe she could nip what was coming — blooming — in the future in the bud. She had to pull a Barney Fife.
“There’s someone out there in the dunes — do you see it, Arthur?”
“Mirage,” he waved it off. “I’ve seen it too. Then it disappears if you stare at it enough.”
Sure enough, Shelley watches the illusion fade to wavery nothingness. She turns, tired of facing the huge mountains of sand. She’s in the present. Arthur turns with her.
“We haven’t been to that island over there.”
“No. But I sensed you have a point to make. You hardly touched your dinner.”
“You know I don’t like vegetables.”
“Not the point.” He sighs. Sandman, he thinks. Must ask about Sandman.
“I—” Pause.
“Yess?”
“I… write.”
(to be continued)
Sandman
So many books. But so dusty. I’ll just do a little cleaning while I’m here then get down to some serious reading.
But she ended up having a serious discussion with a local on the subject of sand, quartz to be specific, the value of such for scrying to pinpoint. At one point she asked how he knew so much about it, and he turned away, disappointed. He thought they were talking friend to friend…
… but then realized it was very dark that night — no moon — and the party below was quite loud so that would explain why she didn’t pick up on the voice, which was quite distinctive and, let’s say, smoky. Like quartz itself. “Let’s put it that I understand the present,” he decided to say. “Presents actually.”
“Like Santa?” she attempted to joke. Soo close. He revealed himself.
—–
“You’ll never *guess* who I just met up at the library.”
Arthur didn’t want to guess. He wanted answers. He had been reading if Shelley hadn’t. Novel 5. What is a cheese being? he kept asking over and over until it dawned on him like a truth sun over the horizon. Or moon, hmm. He reversed course and drove toward it instead. He decided he didn’t want answers. It’s just cheese, he said to himself. Don’t overreact.
“Who?”
flavors of favors
Thumbs in his pockets to make him look cool (for no one), Sandman contemplates his next move.
Bank sounds good. Not a sand bank like he’s standing in but a bank bank. Just over there, Kera being its name. He needs some money to fund his defense. Because he will get sued over this. Might as well dress him like a man in black for preparation. Reno.
—–
“Reno,” he says to the teller of the day, who then gives him $499,000. Because if he had said that other prominent Nevada city he knew it would break him, his town, his sim. Sinsity — Middletown. It was coming. And he was just being dragged along in its wake like everyone else he knew and loved and cherished.
Pockets filled — he couldn’t even stick his thumbs in them any more — he gave now upfront Vanilla a kiss to say both thank you and goodbye and went his way. This was standard procedure these days, more Middletown meddling. What would the price be even next week?
(to be continued)
00370312
How appropriate, he thinks. A big purple cube-like thingy has manifest just outside my front door since I lasted visited, sign of The Void of course.
Anyway (he turns), this is the last of my stuff, Nautilus continent home cleaned out. Couldn’t afford it, you see, with the upcoming court battle looming and paying for legal fees, etc. But I know who my real foe is now.
It seems like yesterday I was standing on the back porch with Shelley, inviting her to my sand paradise sim. She came to the party with Edward, who was somewhere just below with the rest of the still raucous crowd, even at half past 1. She explained, fairly early on actually, that her husband was away and he didn’t mind Edward taking care of her in his absence — trusted him just as much as he trusted someone named Keith who was a kind of surrogate father to her, I gathered. Also revealed that she was a writer, which interested me greatly. I happened to be a friend of a friend of one of the upper echelon of Lonelyhearts Publishers over on the *Omega* continent — caught her with a lie on that: she claimed Corsica Prime for the location, where her husband was, actually (she then admitted), looking for roles as big as his ambition and ego, she stated wryly. I’d even heard about one or two of her books, although I couldn’t remember her attached nom de plume. “Jennifer,” she said. “Jennifer Lane.”
He turns back from the memory, red handtruck and hauling the final boxes down to the boat in his mind now. 1st pre-hearing at 7:45 tomorrow morning; gotta give about an hour for prep on that as well. He’ll have to do with around 2 hours sleep, he figures. He can catch up with the dreaming this weekend. Information, pure information. When he can interpret it, pheh. Like last night with the avocado.
hearing
He stared down at her place, trying to take in what he’d just heard. The Void wants to negotiate a price, she said — or hissed.
—–
Shelley was touching up his shape again when they heard it coming out of the tunnel. A bike, but a real one this time, a chopper they call them up in the real world I believe. Aztec Warrior? We’ll see.
mountain majesties
In the southeast corner of Sandman’s sim, where its lone tunnel winds through we just saw that chopper exit from, exists what some call the Purple Uplands, or Uplands anyway, its landscape dominated by 4 same sized, purple banded, hexagonal towers which move up and down through slotted holes in unpredictable patterns. Some say The Void lives here, and indeed I was able to find her/him/it easily enough in a mine located beside the corner-most moving tower. Snow covered, it appeared — I believe the only object here so adorned. A bit of winter in an otherwise hot desert land. Conifer trees instead of palms.
Okay, a couple of oaks here in additional to firs, and maybe the snow is just different shading on chopped wood. But the indication still stands I believe. This is one a-hole of a place, cold as Uranus in comparison with the rest. Shelley walks inside…
She stands before it now, walking around it, examining every side and corner. A big red button is the only marked thing on its surface, much like a New Mexican police intercom has such to call in the military when needed. Like we saw conspiracy theory mongerer Tank Bazooka use earlier in Lordsburg vis-à-vis Hucka Doobie aka (or so they say) pop/surrealist artist Charles Nelson Blinkerton, returned from the dead and inhabiting her old 102 hotel room on the strip. He felt like he was in over his head on that one — again.
Knowing something needed to be done in additional to what already had been, she presses it. Sirens fill the air.
(to be continued)
party continuation
“You better get back to your Edward, Shelley, and I should get back to my packing.” Because even at this early stage he knew it was no good for keeping the Nautilus residence. 1st thing to be boxed was his pride, his ego. $499,000 dollars is a lot of money but he figures he’ll need just that to save the downtown area from the military. Because the alarm *will* be sounded, somewhere and sometime soon. His personal Sandsim police force will be usurped. Suspect 102, as they called her/him/it, must be found and interrogated for the cause.
“I only ask one thing, *Jennifer*,” for he already thought of her as a cash cow and not a real person, “is when you find it — press the button. That’s all I ask for free lodging, food, haircuts, pedicures manicures, anything you like from any of the shops and other locations. Look where noone thinks of looking. They’ve made sure I can’t be the one…”
“… to do it, yes,” spoke Shelley. “So you’ve said.”
“I’m warm weather, Shelley — I meant Shelley back there, sorry. Remember that.”
“Hmm.”
She’s weighing her options. She can’t bring Edward — that was made clear. It would have to be Arthur accompanying her (speaking of ‘hmm’). She’d forgotten all about Lemont, the actor behind the character, when making the decision. “Sold.” She extended her hand for a shake. Too bad he didn’t have a vanilla hidden in his back pocket to meet it with. Just for a joke, mind you. But she was too precious for all that. She *was*… the golden one, the one to make the change. He could see it in her eyes, all umbrella-y and such at this particular angle in the night’s light. All the books in the world resided there. No need for a library, although that’s where he’ll meet her later and reveal himself again.
00370316
“Where have you *been*, Shelley? They’ve taken everything — all the downtown — except for this uppermost store. I don’t think they know how to work the stairs to get here.”
“What’s happened?” she tried to ask as innocently as possible. Because she is fresh off from pressing the big red button up in the Uplands. We’re back in the present present.
“The *military* is what happened, Shelley? Where’ve you *been*?” he pressed. Continuation.
Shelley talked Arthur into going inside before it was too late. “Buy the biggest and the brightest for me,” she said about the displayed diamond quartz rings, knowing it would be the last thing she could credit to the house. “For our renewed vows — you never got me another one, you know.”
Fate; synchronicity. The military reached the top of the stairs just as they were leaving with it. They brusquely brushed past them and entered the store, shooting up everything they could see. $499,000 was a lot but not enough to save everything downtown, as it turned out. Sandman had his dark dark wish fulfilled: traitor to his own kind.
(to be continued)
00370317
They had opened the book, they were reading the script. Their brains had become like one, minds fused. They read together, one with the left eye and the other the right. Coordination. Military people at the top of it this time. Eastwesterners.
They read about Archie…
Biff Carter withdrew the book from the camera, stared into it, smiled.
Sunklands 