dancing
00390301
I use to not be that way, she pondered, thinking back back back to innocence and childhood. Running a garden cafe while her Mom was busy making deliveries. Goofing off in back while customers waited for more service which usually never came. Served them their food and/or drinks, she thinks. Done with them — my time now. She had big plans and needed to dream about them a lot. She intended to own… a castle.
—–
“Lordy, child. What you thinking about *now*?” her mother complained, seeing that glazed look in her eyes again while she herself has to do all the work. “These cookies won’t baked themselves. Set aside those dreams and help me roll the dough.”
“I was thinking about… Bliss.”
“Child, you’re too young to be thinking… oh.” Gertrude realized she was talking about the cat and not religious or any other type, God forbid, of ecstasy. “Yes,” she says while continuing to sprinkle sugar on the first dozen, almost ready for the oven. “Well, Bliss is in a better place now, child. The Lord will take care of her.” Pause to set down the sugar. “The Lord will take care of all of us when our time has come.” She thought of more reprimands but decided now was not the time. The child was obviously still grieving a bit. Things like, “It was *just* an animal,” wouldn’t suffice here. Or that, “Sorry for your loss, move on,” joke she heard on one of her favorite British TV shows the other day. No — consoling will have to be the trick. And she *is* tired of doing all the work. She decides to combine the two needed outcomes. “Tell you what, when I start feeling down, little girl, I always find that working takes my mind off my troubles.”
“Oh, Mom. You’re just trying to get me to make those cookies.”
“True,” she admits, “that’s an added benefit. But the taking your worries off part is true as well. So what do you say? I’ll put this batch in the oven and I’ll help you.”
(to be continued)
TILEist bathroom
When she grew up, bad influences started popping up in her life. Like horn rim glassed, blue haired Sally here, obviously a witch. They even played a game in high school where one took the other’s name, just to confuse the lot of ’em, the rest of the class. The *dunces*, Sally called them.
“Why do you have to sit on that seat when you talk to me in here, Sally? It’s *disgusting*.”
“I’m not using it,” Sally defended her evil self. “Anyway, what if I was? I’m certainly being discreet. You can’t see what’s under this big black dress of mine. No one can, not even (local legendary mill worker) Wilbur on his shinyest, most glistenyest day in the month of May. I reserve that for personal use.”
Shelley ignored the lewdness; kept combing her hair, trying to get it perfect again. Last Thursday, yes. That was the last time it lay upon her head just in the right spots. She was becoming vain, and Sally was egging her on, comparing her, in an inferior way, to, say, pretty girl Ginger Granite who lives down the lane. Whose lane? Certainly not Shelley’s. Maybe Jennifer the novelist who lives inside the novels she creates later on. But those days were far ahead of her still. 29 combs, she counts. 30. *Still* not right. And 30 is her lucky, magic number. Unless it’s 31, it’s changed. She combs again. “Dangit!” she curses. 32, maybe. “Dammit!” she doubles down after this, giving up with the bird’s nest mess.
“When you grow up, Shelley, when you *really* grow up, what do you want to be? A novelist? You said that at one time. You’ll have to go from dairy writing (Sally purposely said diary wrong here) to actual writing. A woman of letters is traditional if unpublishable. Maybe (she gleans), maybe you can start your own publishing company someday. That way you can publish your own! (the insinuation being that no one else would publish it)
Shelley stops staring into the mirror, looks over at Sally still spread out on the toilet. What *is* she doing underneath that dress? She’s never seen Sally take it off — ever — although she doesn’t follow her home, say, and watch her undress. Even though that would be interesting, hmm. What kind of bra does she wear, what type panties? Hanes like mine? This makes her think of Michael Jordan and the Hanes commercials, which brings her back to Grant. Grant Hill. The Sprite guy. He should have been as big as Jordan, Shelley laments not for the first time, and certainly not the last. She imagines, yes, kissing him on the lips to say she’s sorry, the least she can do. Even if it is only a sports poster she hangs above her bed, just in case she needs it. But black, others blabber, is taboo. Redbirds and Blue Jays, some put it. Dunces, true. *Idiots*. Shelley and Sally can certainly agree to that. Why they bonded in the first place — two 1st class dolts for boyfriend or boyfriend wannabes, actually. And the girls circling all around them like demented crows or ravens aren’t much better; cut from the same cloth; unkind to say the least, murderous at the extreme. Look at poor Tiffany Jabber, dead through the head in her bed beside Jed. Tragic. And just because Molly thought he was cute enough to be her stud, no one else as suitable.
She puts down the comb, picks up the mascara stick and starts messing with that, more successfully, she feels. Maybe she can be a cosmetologist when she grows up. But, no, destiny calls. “I’ll (apply mascara) *start* my own publishing company true (apply). But *only* (apply) after I turn down all the other publishers who flock around me, begging me to print through them. I’ll be a success, Sally. A star. Bigger than anything you’ve seen before. Bigger than, well (apply) *Rowling*!”
Absurd, Sally thinks, but nods her head. Shelley’s falling further into her web, making grandiose plans she absolutely can’t fulfill. Trouble is… well, we’ll save some of the success and/or failure story for later.
sunset
“Okay I’m here on the beach beside the TILE ball, Tom. I’ve got you on speaker so I can keep reading this interesting magazine in front of me. Perhaps clues in there, you understand.” Al didn’t really believe there were any clues in there. He just liked the articles advertised on the cover. All about Home — he wished he had a true home and not just continue to be a traveler of both time and space. He desired to settle down, like the old days, fast becoming the *good* old days.
After the reply: “About 8:01 PM it looks by the sun. Roughly speaking.”
Reply.
“No. No one on the beach except me. No surfers spotted, no one.”
Reply.
“It’s a pretty beach. Pretty long that is (*snicker*).”
Reply.
“No time for jokes, I understand. Jokes later.”
Reply.
“I’ll get settled in. I guess I’ll just bed down here for the night. Then start up the road tomorrow after I check out the beach more in the morning. Maybe I’ll get to interact with someone then.” Al didn’t doubt that his boss Thomasina was onto something sending him here. TILE was strong — he could feel it, as he does. ‘No orange, no purple, let’s make this shit happen,’ he recalls about the sacred manuscript. And here, supposedly, is the amender of such, the bringer of cow and a lot of other things. Won’t have any shorts left, Thomasina said. Al was looking for a little yellow naked fellow. But he was wrong on that.
(to be continued)
sunrise
Something weird was found the next morning. A wave that wouldn’t crash, and on the other side of the beach from the surfing ones. What gives? Al thinks.
Suddenly 2 killers appear from down the road. “Bang!” he shouts while trying to shoot them dead, quickly followed by “Dang! Forgot to bring the real one.” He’ll have to fight them by hand. Then the immense rolling noise stops and he instead stares straight ahead, wave gone. Mirage?
The killers wink out too. Killed the wave instead? Perhaps he needs more rest. Yes, that’s it. Head back to bed, Al. Back to the beach. You’re dreaming. Head back into yourself and then you can wake up properly. Tom in his head now, he realized. He’d had a rough night of sleeping.
He dreamed that child Shelley owned a rocking horse she loved more than anything else in the world besides her cats and maybe *maybe* her Mom. Made by the same people, by the way, that created that TILE towel rack positioned beside the grown up version of her in that earlier post here. TILE rack, then, like Al had a ball. The mystery continues…
Swamp Shack Purple
It was still there, the chest that had caused so much trouble. A drifter had drifted in, seeing no one home, no one around (green dots). “Get a role in Our Second Lyfe!” her Maw implored. She: a ho. Well defined, worked 9-5 — PM to AM instead of the normal visa versa — came home and slept till 12, made lunch, watched some soaps in the afternoon (Soap!), then some game shows after that, then the news, then supper, another game show and 2 reruns of classic sitcoms, “Happy Days” and “Lavern and Shirley” I believe. She really identified with the character of Shirley, if so. Working gal with a *slight* drinking problem. She wanted to work in a beer factory like these 2 lower middle class Milwaukee gals; that was her goal. Ho-ing in Soap was just leading to that, like her soaps were just a lead in to the nighttime shows featuring, at the end, Shirley. Then it was off to work, usually after toasting her on-screen hero with her own favorite beer, Duff being the current fad, the famous Springfeld product of course. But, ironically, her Maw didn’t know anything about the Smipsons, reality getting mixed up and confused with fantasy, dreams with physical. Then one day, on her way to work at her most common post at the downtown motel, she found a book, marble on the front…
Her Maw always trailed off when telling that story. “I found you in a hole in the wall,” she always said about her 2nd child, 3rd by Mouse if you count Wanda. And where were all her sisters and brothers and half siblings? Some had perished in the Great War — who didn’t lose family members to that awful awful conflict? Last she heard Gloria was working at some beach. Maybe Wanda is there too, she pondered. Maybe *I* should be there too, then. The great threesome together again, the Trinity we called each other back in the day. Marsha and Bill and John and Peter and Isabella and Jason Foxchild the Third were always outsiders staring into this holy triad of siblings. They protected and consoled each other during the war. And, Alice felt, another type of war was coming. She needed to settle down.
So back to the chest. Borneo, she knew. One of the 4 sacred corners of… something. A hypercube, she’d heard, maybe from her Maw who learned about it through a client, a well positioned Soap resident with the money to uncover such secrets in whatever God forsaken land they hide, Iowa and its vast, empty cornfields necessarily included.
Borneo, she thought, trying to get a grasp on the thing, the planes, the edges, the corners. Yes, she’d heard about it through her Maw who learned about it through Robert (well positioned Soap resident) when she showed him the book. A photo lies within — one of her Maw. Robert kept it there. And now it’s here. And so is she. Soo sleepy…
00390306
She’d lost her landmark so she just teleported into the center of the sim. She knew her mother would be nearby.
“Lost again?” she said upon seeing Alice materialize about 15 feet away: 128/128 she knew; wasn’t uncommon for someone to beam in there. “Well come over and sit beside me and be found again, saved even. I want to tell you about–”
“Don’t start Mother. I’m not here for religion.”
Pause. “Then what are you here for? You know I’m working. Joe Smo due any moment. There.” She nods toward the horizon, pretending to see someone. “Office Johnston coming this way, along with Preacher Ben and Farmer Louis. All out for a good time, all sinners underneath holy cloth and whatnot — I don’t know, maybe the caffeine talking, child. So what gives? Money?”
“*No*. It’s not always about money.”
Maw takes a drag off her cigarette, still staring into the distance. “Where you staying now, girl? You haven’t been home–”
“6 weeks, I know.”
Maw takes a final drag, drops the half smoked cig to the leaf strewn cement and steps on it. “Don’t guess you’re going to tell me where you’ve been, hmm. Ashamed of your Maw, huh. Ashamed of what she’s become. Well, I have *dreams*.”
“I know, Maw. Lavern and Shirley. Just thinking about that this morning.” Alice tries to look where her mother is looking. Still nothing — no one there.”
“Rumors of a beer factory (being built) up in Barrow County, I’ve heard. Could be moving again soon, child. But what do you care? You don’t have any friends here. Not any more. Who did they lock up last week, the psychic children and all. Wanda? Gloria? Wait — they’ve been gone a while from me. Beach combers. Well — at least *you* stayed.” She thought about Alice’s recent absence from her side again. “Kind of I suppose. Soo…”
“I’m glad of the factory, if it’s true.” Alice really was. She wanted her mother to fulfill her dream. And business had been slow here lately, she knew, what with the law enforcement crack down. Crack came first, along with the rest of the hard drugs. Then it moved to prostitution and liquor, perhaps in that order. The officers were still loosey-goosey on the whoring but it had already scared most of the men away, her regular clientele and such. Bob the Baker — hadn’t been by in a week. Joe the Smo — wait, I made him up. Dennis the, not Menace — no, a farmer. Wait…
“I came here because of Robert,” Alice uttered while I was still spacing out about nonsense, making up names, making up games the made up names play. Tennis for Dennis, golf for Rolph, archery for Yvette Archer (Archer, Y.). “Robert, huh?” Maw finally responded, thinking about lighting another one. “Robert Johnston I suppose.”
“*No*. Not *him*. Robert Leferber.”
“Is that how you spell that? I mean…” her Maw quickly backtracked, “… pronounce that?”
“Robert Lefarber,” Alice tested. “Robert Lafoger, Lafager, Lafageux. Damn those French names.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about, honey.” Another cig from the carton, quick in the mouth, quick for a light.
“*Anyway*, the guy who owned the swamp.”
Maw almost swallowed her just lit cig. “*Matthew*??”
(to be continued)
the coming of the robots
1st: Robert Matthew. Or Matthew Robert, whichever. Like Shelley and her horse before him, came down from Beatrice, via a rowboat in his case but, later, some say a duck to match his yellow. Or a yellow horse, whatever. Anyway, here he is, arriving from the north. Invited by Constantynople Prime Minister Baker Bloch himself to solve some obvious town issues. Too much human stuff going on; it’s becoming a weakness, maybe even part of a curse. Like Robert’s old Soap swampland he fortunately sold to a gullible man from Mark Twain, Florida.
“Town hall, please.”
“Right, then left through the tree, hehe, huhu, hooo.”
He watched him walk away, then: “Did — did I do well, Tom?”
Reply in head.
“A white aggie, eh? Best one yet!”
0100111-011-1000
“You already have *7*. And you want to buy more??”
“Just one, Sweetie Pie. A slither of a craft. Minnow it’s called.”
“It won’t fit. It won’t fit! Especially since you bought that jetski last month. Close the blinds, hmph. I don’t want to see them any more for a while; I want to be *blinded* to them for a while.”
“As you wish.”
And so begins the solo journey of Robert Matthew or Matthew Robert in the 8th, purchased the next day despite the wife’s protests. Intending only to take a 3 hour or so “spite” cruise, it ended up being for the rest of his natural life, which was practically infinite in scope and length. This, early on actually, really really early, brought him to Constantynople in his new “fishing vessel”.
“Where am I?” he exclaimed after landing softly on the sandy shore of the place. “I’ve got to find the person in charge!”
“Robot Dreams” continues
“I’m looking for information on Ted Bear, his current whereabouts,” spoke Suzanna Oh 2345 out of the side of her mouth which she didn’t possess. The little robot at the bar looked knowledgeable. And, most importantly, one of her kind. He probably wasn’t stationed here like that, at a centerpoint of gossip, for nuttin. He had dirt. Spill, she requested after sliding up beside him… or her, actually. Molly OU812. Make me at least one small mound at the bottom of a hill. Bigger than ant size, maybe anteater size. Something I can really dig into. But most of this was implied.
“Ted Bear. Just checking…” the smaller robot sputtered out.
“He use to own a small island in this sim. Say: islet.”
“Islet,” the small robot complied, still checking her database with a corresponding lowering of surface functions.
“No, I mean, let’s call it an islet. Very small.”
“Smaller than… me?” Still checking behind the scenes.
“No. Ted Bear is bigger than you so that does not compute.”
“You?”
“No, you. Ted Bear is bigger than you.”
“You?”
Pause. “Oh, sizes right. I’d say between me and you. Teddy bear size, but to the max.”
“Fit (still checking) into a 3 by 3 foot box?” She was just making chit chat really at this point while computing deep down, where it counts. 02345 x 812 files counted now. Only 812 to… *done*.
“3 x 3 box,” Oh 2345 pondered aloud, but then OU812 interrupted.
“I have all the information needed. You can stop talking now while I do. Ted Bear lived here from 2020-2022 on an 20 x 22 foot islet near the center of Moomit’s bay. Conditions for entering: you had to bare something, could be a small article of clothing, could be all of them. Ted Bear was clinically insane. He was quarantined. I will pause now to let you ask questions if you wish. I have all the information.”
Suzanna Oh 2345 looked around. The music was blaring — no one else could hear them. No one even at the bar presently, not even a tender. Must be on break, perhaps a big bathroom one. With her supersonic ears Suzanna detected several flushes earlier and some other noises. An upset stomach could be the problem. The tender could have, yes, tended himself, imbibed himself, didn’t cut off himself at the limit normally assigned to others. He wasn’t a good tender to himself.
OU812 waited patiently, hearing the whirring of Suzanna Oh 2345’s inner workings indicating she was thinking. Suzanna Oh’s thoughts shifted to a question, changing the sound slightly, raising it up an overall pitch or two. More focused thinking here.
“Baker Bloch, the owner of the blog–”
“Yes,” anticipated OU812. “He was there. Took off his hat so he could enter. Wheeler Wilson or Wilson Wheeler too. She had to take off more. Ted Bear set up an islet next to his islet so that Baker Bloch could be with him forever and ever. He turned into a bobblehead, top making up 9/16ths of his body’s total mass. But then he was saved.” OU812 stopped here, calculating the many possible meanings of that word. Backed up? No, that wasn’t it.
“Describe the interaction with Wheeler Wilson more,” Suzanna Oh 2345 requested.
(to be continued)
FILE and TILE apparently have a close close relationship
In the TILE Church of Neptune, she read from the good book of Matthew, by memory of course, since she was married to the lout.
“And yea, some say he came from the North to fabled Constantynople, like a slut on a horse in the water. Some say from the South, like a pole cat, slithering along inside the night sky like a dove or train. To those who say East or West we abhor you, ignore you, blank you in the streets, hold you contemptible in court. There is only FILE… not rank. I do not even capitalize a single letter of the latter, yet the former is shouted from the streets, the towns, the continents, the whole world. Even if, yea, it is only 31 sims of length in an up and down manner. The 32 was lopped off, like an early retirement. We pray to gods for the time to make up for it and, yea, the gods deliver.”
“She’s in good form tonight,” said Sally Spear to Sarah Shake one row down from the front to make it an even 6, counting the 4 filled on the other side of the aisle. It was bad luck to sit in the 7th, which represented the missing sim. “Keep a gap between you and the gods,” Suzanna Oh 2345 said another time (paraphrasing). “Like the good and great and wonderful letters of our TILE have gaps between them to protect the singular entity, some 1 and some 2. To those who say 3 or any other number we abhor you.” (etc.)
Like Laura and Clemenesta behind them, they were staying at the Foxy so-as to be close to church and emergency worship sessions, etc. Because definitely their soul needed to be saved, they felt. Jesus let them down — was cut off — because he and his clan were missing the 4th, the yellow some say, others: green. The 4th is the shadow, the thing not wanted to be dealt with. Yet all 4 embraced it; began having private TILE meetings in the old Video Days Rental building where it all started, over in the Black Diamond part of town. Never mind that the place now sells tattoos. Definitely part of the magic! 100 lindens per week rent well spent, especially split between the lot of ’em. A secret door connected the 2 parts.
Then one day the door went away and Laura and Clemenesta were alone, no robots around. It was just them all along; they had awoken as if from a dream. Newton.
original Robert
“Black Diamond and Marwood, huh?” he spoke from the illegal 7th to fellow pew sitter Blue Berry Girl after everyone had left. Neither had been seen in these here photo-novels in a while. “Blue and yellow blue and yellow blue and yellow,” she rattled in return. They knew they had to do it to save NWES City as a whole. It was a start anyway, the *conception* of the thing. “Kiss not kill,” she had requested earlier, fairy wings aflutter in anticipation. She’d lost some weight, maybe enough for it to work, magnetic attraction and all. She’d overlook his lopsided legs and arms in turn, the blue and red split, and focus on blonde — yellow again. The uniter of the hemispheres. If this didn’t work then: maybe the spherical blue berry torso would return and everything would go to rot, town lost. Jesus use to save. Now it’s up to them.
“Your place or mine?” he finally relented, imagining in his head what would turn out to be reality a little later. It seemed good it seemed right. “Right here,” she said in turn. “Split the difference.”
“Okay.” And they got to it.
before and after
Hi me!
Minutes later, being the narcissist he was, Robert was still staring at himself as two strangers in town came up, asking for directions to a local bar. Laura and Clemenesta were already there.
(to be continued)
00390313
“‘I look like a prettier Jesus.’ Love it. Do you recall?”
“No,” replied Clemenesta, not as convinced as her partner Laura about the ineffectiveness of Christianity in comparison to TILE. Or FILE.
“Back behind the church. Underneath the neon sign — practically neon itself with the day-glo. And then there was something else behind it, away from the dumpster.” Laura tries to make out the words in her mind but can’t. “Nah, it’s gone.”
That dumpster is sin, thought Clemenesta here, drawing a line. I do not accept the eradication of the rank in total favor of the FILE; I will not accept that. Nor the things written upon it. “Who’s prettier than Jesus?” she decides to word her skepticism. “You?”
“*All* of us, maybe,” replied Laura, waving her arms around the bar even though no one else is there — oh, here comes someone, she then sees. Two young people walking in. Probably tourists in town what with the look in their eyes. Maybe from the hills.
“I think it’s *one* particular person you believe is a prettier Jesus,” spoke Clemenesta, acting like a maw now, which she was. To Laura, who was her daughter. “I think you know who that is. You worship *her* — try to weasel your way out of that (!).”
Laura thought of the 7th, and what *could* happen there if one allowed it. The pew was all set up. The gap between humanity and God filled. Blue and yellow blue and yellow blue and yellow. And from it the green and the red, in that order. Or so most Tilists say; there are some who put red over green as they do 6 over 7. But they are in the minority: every 6 out of 13 or so.
“Maw,” she finally relents. “The FILE is everything. The FILE saves, just like TILE saves. Jesus, the rank, can be cast aside now. It is *his* will, even. Yes, I went ahead and said it. It is his will,” she repeated. Clemenesta kept giving her that look (“the eye”). She would not be won over that easily.
Harking back to the neon cross, Laura envisions Jesus sacrificing his central s to saves to be done with it.
(to be continued)
FD hair:permed loose ringlets
“Comes in every day about this time and does a little dance. Says he feels like he’s sprouted wings he’s so free. I think it has something to do with what goes on in that church about every day this time. I’ve heard rumors. And, well, I’ve plain out heard — rag breaks at the dumpster, you know. Something’s going on, and not quite religious, not even for those Tilers over there.”
“It’s this town,” offers Gloria to Wanda, working on their 3rd beach of the novel. Or quickly getting there, beach about a 100 meters away from here still. Hurricane season once more, though. Water will come to them. “I haven’t quite figured out how to word it…”
“Novel; unique,” says bartender Wanda to this. Robert finishes his dance, dramatically opens the front doors of the place, waves to the winged statue outside, and strides away in his powerful manner, like a king from a throne. Left not right; toward the ocean. Because he’s through with religion for now. Until Monday’s Wednesday, which is tomorrow. Happy days all 6 or 7, whether you count renegade Munday or not. He has that option.
mayor
He remembers that island, small in size but big in passion. Alysha. How did I measure up so short?
—–
“Thank you for the huge bowl of patriotic soup bowl, Herbert. It does cheer me up, warms my heart. Whatever was left of it after the Abyss Absorption.”
“AA,” said Herbert Glenn Gold to this. He remembers it more by the initials. He only learned the meaning of the initials at age 17, after all the really spooky visions of the event had faded along with his imagination. Spiders, spooks and goblins he dimly recalls through the Age of Newton that had taken control since. Hard to go back to Jasper once it’s done and you go through the secret, basically invisible door. To adulthood — manhood. And I mean that for everyone. Because of the whole Newton angle. The giving of the big bowl of soup was the equivalent of giving a teacher an apple for, hopefully, good favors ahead. A is for Apple after all, and an A++ is a really big one — full of steam, it seems. He had done good, he felt. He deserved what he wished for. Promotion. Alysha back. The works.
“I recall — you like the initials,” said Mid-Hazel, about ready for the big reveal. “Helps to cope with the reality. I wish I had that luxury.”
“I only wish you the best moving forward,” Herbert Glenn Gold said rather naively, rather transparently. Mid-Hazel, in her almost infinite wisdom thanks to, ahem, AA, could see through it pretty clearly, unlike the bottom of an opaque lake. She notes the (anti-)name as a good place to take a rest and maybe a picnic in the afterlife — nice ring to it; easy to remember. Sometimes she desires not to see bottoms. If man (everyone) was meant to view that man would have been born with eyes on his fanny (etc.).
“I’m… dying, Herbert. No no no: no pity.” Herbert fakes a gasp then stifles a yawn. He’d known about this for days, almost centuries he felt. The Big Reveal dragged on and on… and on. This was about the 100th, nay, 1000th time she’d said this to him. And still she keeps on keeping on: doesn’t change much in appearance when he returns. Why does she keep telling me this? he wonders.
But then he takes another gander. Big, goofy eyes this time. Sewed up mouth. He recalls way way back. Yes, this was an original form. He’d only seen it in pictures. Just after AA, he realized. Maybe the old hag was really dying; not crying wolf again.
Opaque Lake, Mid-Hazel thought, staring at the golden figurines before her. Pre-AA here I come!
00390316
Lisa got permission to view the film because she was in a class for special children and was doing a project for it. Eventual title: “How Milk was Born.” Bartholomew, *not* being a special child and thus not in the same class with the same privileges, didn’t get the same permission. But oh did he watch the same film, over and over again, 5 times in total. He snuck out of his bedroom every night at 10:45 with the help of Lemmy the Magic Tree that was once a mortal enemy with a net and a knife. Lemmy had grown up to be a friend, putting childish rivalries away.
“Lemmy, come over here again,” Bartholomew requested, and a branch was extended, big enough to hold a boy his size and allow him to drop to the ground safely. “Thanks Lemmy,” Bartholomew said at the bottom, loud enough for the tree to hear through his “ears” but not loud enough to alert the parents, usually preparing for bed by this time or already in it. The tree rustled its leaves in answer and Bartholomew was on his way through the backs of lots and down alleys full of cats and rats. On to the 88.
First night:
“*Bart*. What are you doing here??” And so on with the reprimands for a while, which were dampened when Lisa learned that her little brother desired to create a report on the film too, and that he’d show those stuck ups at school he can make something of his life. “I’ll… help,” she finally relented. “Shhh, the movie is starting,” said Bartholomew to this, more eager than ever to be a success.
Lisa only went that one time, thinking with her superior brain that’s all she needed. Bartholomew attended the whole week up until Friday night when the regular people in town would be able to go and he might be caught and told on. So that was Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday, happy days indeed.
(to be continued)
00390317
Got it! said Bart internally at 12:37 on Friday morning after Thursday night. TILE is related to FILE! And so it began.
Sunklands 