Iowa (Gully Gee!)
It was a Warm Morning when the object crashed into the future site of itself. Early May I believe. THUD!!! The noise attracted the attention of a sore backed nearby hiker, walking in a different dimension but still able to hear because of the loudness. And then the straight line was manufactured backwards for close to a football field in length over 01 02 03 04 gullies. Alvin Straight. Motocyclone. Cylinder Rodman. We continued…
Warm Morning Crash Site: turn here!
reemergence of Gully from Gap
“Is Al derived from Alvin? I’m just wondering because we seem to be telling another Straight Story.”
“Dunno,” he says. “Guess so,” he acknowledges. “Tell me more; fill me in.”
“You met the Ratcatcher. You *date* the Ratcatcher. You talk about Beans, maybe Magika and Flip but maybe not.”
“The… wrestlers,” he says to this, picturing an intergalactic tour of 2 brave and beautiful lovers, free from the shackles of men. “We can add that in.”
“Ratcatcher is a reformed wrestler. Ditched Magika along the way. Ratcatcher acquired not one but 2 boys in the flipping back. Magika was jealous.”
“Word.”
“What were their names?” I said. “Grant and Thomas?”
“Of course,” he said, and moved on quickly to: “What about Mike, what about Pat? What about Lemon Free State? Have you figured out how Lemongrab 1 and 2 and 3 figure into this? How about Warm Morning, the crash site, the straight line leading into the site–?”
“Just what I was talking about,” I tried to defend, I tried to keep up. He was losing me. Over the Hills and far away by now. Misty Mountain Hop.
—–
He had to turn his world upside down to do it but he finally got in. She, of course, made it that way on purpose. He was in my control again…
Office of Thomas Boyy — Tom — one of the two as it turned out. Aka Hill, the Lesser. He had to visit her this time, she said, see how *she* lives and acts and presents herself. “See the difference?” she starts in her hovel of an office.
She apologized for not reading Al’s report before their meeting but said she’d been tied up this morning. “Maybe this afternoon,” she offered. Freedom again.
(to be continued)
Fredsanfordville
So he exited her office, upright this time, with a rescheduled meeting at 2:01 PM. Time to bum around the ruined city some more, maybe grab a bite to eat at that reopened bar down in John and Ted’s territory he’d heard about.
But fate intervened once more. John and Ted, having some choice words to tell him about their magical plank laying Sleeping Beauty who had reappeared in the meantime.
—–
“I’m the only person in this whole sim who gives a flying f-ck about what you have to say about the matter,” she said at 2:01 prompt, not waiting to fire the bazookas at him. He had to spill the beans. At 2 minutes and 1 second in he was done, Two Hills saga completed.
—–
“Gave at the office,” he said while passing by, forgetting his origins. I may have been wrong in flipping him around and bringing him back under my control.
Mountain Man
He put her in the corner by the stove while he stood in the opposite one. The sparkles indicated a presents, the here and the now. Aluminum can. She turned and kissed him full on the lips. How could this be? He was 2 dimensional, she was 3. Plus they were about 10 feet apart. Yet here we are, talking about it.
“Is this how you *met*?” Thomas Boyy queried from her desk in her hovel as he illuminated the scene. 2:02 now. He was spilling.
“No. We met a long time ago. August 2016.”
She counted it out. “That’s almost 7 years ago. And she hasn’t gotten old? This *toy*?”
Through him, I thought about slightly earlier. Woods. Platform. “No,” I said, going within. “Not old… besides the 7 year part.”
“No time for jokes here, young man. Spill more!” She checked her watch. Fate dictated they wrap up quickly. She was at the top of the mountain, him: the side; only halfway up still. It was an abyss in there. 31 to 32. Retired
So he illuminated some more, knowing that was the only way to get out of here in one pieces.
Thomas
The Big Boss had many disguises for her many clients. “Next!” she called to the one currently struggling to get over the front door. Fear of snakes, this Brunhilda had. So she prepared in kind. Copperhead the supervillain she becomes, nemesis of Batman and Superman alike, throw in a couple of Aquaman tales ta boot. Traveler of space and time.
“Am Iiiii nothinggg?” she hissed to start, setting the paranoid tone. She was still using the power of the mountain which she stood at the top of. Always. Her realm of control. For Al — Alvin — it was fear of psychosis. Let’s see, she mentally checks. Marvin is next, a bed wetter as a child continuing into jr. high, high school and college and even, every now and then, the present. Zappa’s “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” should do the trick. Sung by Zappa himself, along with daughter Moon Unit who calls the whole affair grody to the max, and wishes herself to be gagged by a spoon because of it. Have to pay her extra because of the child labor laws at the time, Thomas calculates between Brunhilda’s sobbings and moanings. She holds two big fake rocks in her hands and hisses even louder between them, making sure her face is in darkness yet the long, forked tongue is still exposed. She gathered that from a memory as well. Brunhilda sat down on similar stones with a copperhead wedged between them as a Piedmont teen, setting in motion the whole phobia thing. She faints at the sight. She’s done.
—–
“Next!” Softer, to her side: “Get ready, you’s guys.”
Junkyd again
“How I got here? It was dark. I couldn’t see the road. No street lights in this place. I ended up in this there tree, one of my tires dangling beneath like an eyeball loosed from a socket. Ghouls below — dancing. Carcass roasting in the middle but it wasn’t an ordinary animal. A *human* animal. They said it was a sparkly pink cowboy, formerly. They talked backwards a lot.”
“Like Doug over there?” John the Mind Reader pointed in the direction of Doug over there.
“No, not like a German (Doug was German: Douglas Hinterbocher the 3rd or 4th, I never can remember). Like a mutant.”
“Fine Young Cannibals?”
“Kind of,” I answered to this. “Anyway, I eventually came to the attention of Thomas, short, at least at one point, for Thomasina I gathered.”
“Yeah, the Big Boss. I know her.”
“Of course you do, John. We all do. Pyramid.”
“Right. Dunes.”
“We all come from there.”
“I recall.” But John the Mind Reader *didn’t* recall that part of their shared hertory, all of ’em. It was a big ol’ blind spot, as he put it, mostly in his mind and not to others and where they couldn’t get to it easily, he figured, being the only Mind Reader in the village, or at least he believed. Not until Brunhilde Sarah Jennifer Lane, another sparkly one in fact. Shared presents. The Answer? Maybe.
“Gorman was one of the ghouls.”
“Oh. *That* explains a lot.”
“Sure does.” He shut up for a while after that, figured he’d revealed enough for now. He could still see the fire, the carcass, the smiles and grins all around, only a few with a full set of teeth, thanks to the rotten dentists around here, mostly old and displaced Tilists. Including Gorman. Knew about the evils of Sprite all along, as it turned out. Grant Hill, PHEH. What was up on that hill anyway? Another mountain?
—–
“When did she first become visible to you. This… *woman*?”
—-
“She said she came from a library.”
“Ahh. More *origin* stories,” said John to this.
(to be continued)
couched terms
“Hello, Tom? I’ve arrived. And there’s a sprite already here, just like you said there would be.”
(reply)
“Hold on.” He removes the phone from his ear, looks over. “Honey, what’s your name?”
“Morgan,” she said in an ordinary enough voice for a part plant person. He raises the phone again.
“Morgan, she said.”
(reply)
“Wrong place??”
—–
“And that’s what brought me here, to the tree, to the *mutants*,” he said to John the Mind Reader still sitting opposite him in the present, drinking his coffee, still enjoying the beans. “Spill some more,” he requested, leaning back, carefully sipping at this tilted angle. Sometimes just the mention of the word triggers the event, he knew. The others finally arrived, the lot of ’em, crammed altogether in a lime green truck with Dude on the side and Chevy Dodge on the back. Joker and Jester, Jethro and Bauer, Doug and Clyde (formerly Tin Tin and Clubby). Paired troublemakers all. Liars to the hilt. They say caffeine makes you so if unchecked by alcohol. And there hasn’t been a (wal)drop of beer wine liquor in this levee type of place since January. And then: Jackson Bloch riding tailgate, the strangest of them all.
But where was Ted? all began to murmur as they took their usual seats in the establishment set up near the lip of the Great Fissure or Fracture, your pick. “Right here,” micronized Ted said unseen in the center of it all, tightly clutched by his new master.
(to be continued)
the bed is a couch
She kicked off her leafy shoes and stayed a while in this place wrong for others but not herself. Alvin arrived with the rest of the greens just before the crack of dawn. Just what I need, she thought, staring out at it through unwinterized windows. A warm truck. Soon to be getting even warmer!
But where was the baby she use to clutch?
Thomas too
She was getting old quickly and she knew it. She sat up all night in her rickety swivel chair in her hovel of an office, pondering possibilities. Eureka!! she thought after sipping the last of the SODA before her at 6:10 while the sun was trying to crack on her dawned face. I’ll form a group. Better: I’ll form a whole *sim* that the group will control. You can’t manifest anything there unless you join. And it will all be set in the future, she continued to brainstorm with herself. People — certain people especially (she was thinking about) — would have a hard time finding it that way, a very hard time. “They’d have to take a special train, plane or automobile. One made of ectoplasm and not real matter, yess,” she hissed aloud, bringing back her snake aspect. She was on top of the mountain, a fulfilled pyramid, tip included. Pink Peak. Grant Hill had nothing on her. Because he was she.
“6′ 5″,” she revised later in the Amazon. Close enough.
I buried Paul.
And Ringo. And John. Especially John, though. Can’t be dug out. Will always remain in the Cavern where I first learned of them. SODA.
mine
The letter, however brief and simple, took her breath away. She clutched it to her chest while looking out at the beach. The penner: Edward, sweet cute next door neighbor of daddy wannabe Keith B., now far removed and roaming around the coastline of Africa last she heard. Her: Amazon. Here. “My Dear Valentine,” it started. “I love you with all my heart.” it ended. No middle, but centered through and through with a beating, pulsing passion. For a change. “I *love* it!” she called to her wannabe substitute lover. She’ll let him, she knew. But she has to tell Arthur first. Only in the novel, of course. She’ll write it all out just before it happens in reality. Or (this) *ir*reality. Nothing is real here. Right?
—–
“Funny that you’re 6 foot 5, Edward,” she said afterwards. “Just like my Arthur.”
“Let’s not talk about it,” he requested, and then kept on reading what was directly in front of his nose.
00380312
She checked the TV guide in this limited satellite viewing of a place but nothing else came on until the sun rose up at 6. 5 more minutes. Edward was finished with the 1st chapter of the book both in reality and irreality. They needed to unwind after all the excitement, thus the cartoons. Bugs Bunny, Ren and Stimpy, and then the most controversial to end. Adventure Time. “Too Young”. Lemongrab was a trip! He makes a mental note to look up more on the character after their excursion into the sea today. Goal: Galapagos Islands. Or Azore Islands, whichever appear first on the screen. If the latter, however, they’d have to watch out for Keith, make sure he didn’t see them together. Shelley was dressed in her usual sun blocking duds which were the same as scrubs. Loose fitting. Ducks all over the top. When she appeared in them after Adventure Time, somewhat nearsighted Edward thought they were lemons and that she’d donned the outfit as a joke. But it was just her usual for maritime adventures.
An image reappeared on the formerly static filled screen. Crack of dawn, yea! Now they can continue watching themselves. There they are out on the beach, choosing one of the 2 available boats, her “boys”. Edward or Arthur? she pondered in front of their noses. Both the same length if slightly different shades of gray. She could have both! She climbs in one then climbs in another. Yes, these will do fine.
(to be continued)
German
He finally thinks to go inside somewhere and tell someone about the accident, the terrain shift. Paul is dead! it appeared. And Ringo. And John. Especially John, it seemed, deeper in the dirt than the others. He’ll remain in the Cavern now, trapped in the past forever and ever… And the future.
“Can I speak to the manager in charge?” Newt said to Sue Anne the counter attendant of the moment.
“How about the owner?” She indicated Evelyn Hart (“Rag Doll”) to her right, his left.
She was already pondering possibilities, seeing his own name above his head. Newt, she thinks. Odd — peculiar. Like the sim I — I mean, everyone here in town… controls. SODA. “Order something,” she decided to request, staring straight into his eyes over 01 02 03 04 gullies. “Some kind of drink. A soda perhaps.” Would he? Did he know the ultimate secret?
—–
Afterwards, he tried to isolate everything associated with the mysterious crash she talked about. 309 prims total in the linked objects, including this wagon that just happened to have formerly appeared in Squared Root City over in Nautilus, a town now defunct as we know from the last photo-novel (37). He recalled he use to be able to sit on these steps. Here:
https://bakerbloch.com/2021/11/21/00300301/
Whatever happened to the younger guy with the pure white hair? he wonders, thinking back. And then remembers the truth, the transformation.
(to be continued)
00380314 (German too)
Newt was now exploring another mystery in the same general Jeogeot/Sunklands area: a new-ish and obviously unfinished city called Moon that strongly reminded him of a former one, again from the same continent, named Gold. Hot from running about the pretty big place — almost a sim in size itself — he took off his Axis Duster Coat and aired out his armpits on a handy bench, eyeballing the scene from this fresh perspective.
Hmm, a car covered in pink diamonds. Seems to be a clue.
—–
And another one just up there! he spots remotely, peering all around.
flashion show
“Welp, we finally found her. Our Sleeping Beauty. Clockwork eye’s a dead giveaway. Right Ted? Ted?”
“Oh yeah, we can’t find him,” John the Mind Reader remembers about his wastelands partner-in-law, as they call each other sometimes — always there; force of habit to think he’s by his side per usual. “We can’t find Ted,” he reiterates with a sigh. He stares at the teddy bear the Ratcatcher still clutches tightly but doesn’t make 2 1’s out of 2. Lime green has a way of blinding you like that. Witness the truck that pulled into the Last Drop the other day. Final meeting of The Gossipers.
“Well… anyway,” he continues only to himself, “I’m going inside, Ted’s rad peepers helping me out or not. Must work fast; report to Al due tomorrow whatever the circumstances. Here goes (!)”
He spots the red doors leading to the stairs going down…
—–
Not what he expected. Sisters’ act! Of sorts.
And there’s Ted across from me, he thought. Finally! “Hi Ted!”
yes we cancan
Uncovering this owner created “Shell of Venus” upstairs where she can, among other things, dance the cancan, I knew our lovely, unassuming Shelley Struthers had found a type of home or safe space in this old, established Second Lyfe theater for her and her boys (Edward and Arthur?). The name Flashermans sealed the deal. Here is where she can reveal herself for who she is, what she has become. Shakespear’s Silver Nuggets got nothing on her… or her adopted sisters Gloria, Anja, Mona, Betty Boop, Betty Boo, Alessandra, and Batty Casey (new one).
She points to the nearby Atoll Sea with this particular kick. Directly south, 2D meeting or mirroring 3D.
We haven’t been here in a long time. 5 years I suppose.
The former site of Omikron City, starting in Astarte.
Sunklands 