00390401
After reading Bart’s own what they later called treatise, a proper study indeed, Lisa wandered around the town as if on drugs, unable at times to distinguish the true nature of reality. “What’s this?” she asked Wanda, now working at Neptune’s Stop and Go. “An orange? A Christmas decoration? *Wait*. Too early for Christmas, since this is… dammit, what time of year *is* it?? The 4th??”
“Always the 4th,” spoke Wanda, probably part of the trance or vision or whatever was going on with the intelligent yellow gal, having confronted the nonunderstanable, even to the super smart, which she borders on at the very least. The Abyss, others call it. The Great Void. “Wha-what do you mean by that? Wanda?”
“Go home, Lisa. Go back to your maw, your paw. Do you know where you live?”
She didn’t! “No!”
“Then Sylvester will guide you. Syl-VESTERR!” she called in an impossibly loud voice.
“I’m *right* *here*,” the tuxedo cat said, popping out of the same orange and green arrangement Lisa had questioned just earlier. He leapt down on the floor, extended his hand. “Come on come on,” he urged in a slobbery voice, a bit of spittle landing on Lisa’s red shoed feet. “Your mommy and daddy are probably waiting on you, probably wondering where you are.”
“Where — I am?” She stared at the proffered white hand.”
“Go ahead,” urged Wanda from the side. “It’s your only hope.”
Only hope. She grabbed the paw and went out the door.
The cat was gone. Bart appeared on a skateboard, did a nifty turn to halt the thing and come right up on her. “Jesus, Lisa. Mom and Dad were worried sick! Now why did you have to stomp out like that, like some kind of zombie? And where is my paper?! I have to turn it in tomorrow. Did you throw it in the trash? Jeez, Lisa, why would you do such a thing? Didn’t you like it? I know I’m not as smart and don’t read nearly as much as you — heck, I hardly read at *all*. But… hey Lisa. You all right? Can you hear me? Jeez. We better get you home, Lisa. I better walk you home. If I only could connect myself all up, jeez, I guess I could do that very thing. But, as you can see…”
Something was wrong, very wrong. Bart had scared Lisa to pieces with his words.
She wakes up?
extreme resonance
“Well I have to admit I’m *jealous* Mr. Z. You’ve done such a fabulous job here…”
“Aw *shucks*. T’wernt nothing.” His true face on the many masked backpack he always carries around identifies itself by turning slightly red here.
“And I’ve, well, I’ve barely touched the Temple of TILE. So jealous…”
Mr. Z reached over, patted his knee. “We’ll work on it… *together*.”
“Sweet of you.”
“But first I have to make a journey. Across the island, south side instead of north. I have to go see where my cousin is, the other Mr. Z, the one they specifically named and called Zimmy. Last I heard: with a Beech.
Al’s cell phone rang. “I have to take this,” he said to the historian living on the second floor of Crooked in the village of Constantynople who had just recreated, to the best of his ability, the famous TILE channeling room where a 3rd cousin to himself and Zimmy, Olive Oylstick (who we’ve already met in this here photo-novel at the end of section 01), gave the virtual and real worlds her uber-important manifesto. All the answers to the universe some say are in there. Trouble was, no one really knew how to properly decode the almost indecipherable document yet. Mr. Z was hoping this re-creation was a step in that direction, along with coordination with Al and his high connections, TOM we’re talking about here. Who is on the other side of the line with Al now. Let’s listen in as best we can.
“Yeah it’s a nice day here in Constantynople, thanks for asking. What’s on your mind, TOM?”
Reply. I thought I heard the word Jasper, which was confirmed just ahead.
“Oh. Sorry to hear about that, TOM. So, hmm, I guess you’ll be staying in the Waste now. Is that where I find you?”
Longer reply. Perhaps a minute or even two.
“For now, huh?” Al responds. “Seeing what develops in Jasper — not giving up on it. Okay, as long as I know where you are.” Then, glancing over his shoulder at the setup within, Al gives him some news that he thinks will cheer his superior boss up.
(to be continued)
Jasper Falls in the sim of Jasper…
… is no more.
Nauty is roaming the metaverse again in search of a home, pins just there there and there.
“I don’t get it. Do you get it John?”
“Not really,” he answers, watching the bull absorb the milk once more and become human, able to recite his abcde’s.
“Well… we better talk about it more in the next post. I haven’t got anything on, being a traveler again. How about you?”
“Bingo night at the club,” answered John. Nauty would have to speculate by himself, which he was good at anyway.
(to be continued)
00390404
He plucked a particular pin from his body and began to write. Red ink to start, but it might turn blue before the end. Depends on which side wins control.
“Ay Caramba I’m a Mouse!” he pens at the top, which he knows the boy’s arm and hand, also with pen, will follow. Skip one line, then: “Only purple. Let’s make this shit happen.”
Skip two lines, then:
00390405
I was born a boyy. My father became more famous than me. Some say he was a God. But not *the* God. I don’t think. I looked up to him. His head was in the clouds, at times I couldn’t see. I would grow up to
be him[the first of many crossouts in the document] meet him. I was a boyy than grew up to be a mann. And what of dogg you might ask, the opposite ofGodGodd. I have no answer to that I only have a katt. Ratt. That was next.I was born a mouse.
Bart put down the pen, still red, still bleeding from his hands. It hurt to write. He felt he wasn’t any good at it. He thought of the mouse in the film, Zero, the true hero. He was sent to bring the bull back to his father. The bull was him, he realized. He picked up the pen.
The mouse walked by the katt, not knowing what it was. The katt took chase. The mouse ran around the corner.
Encountered spaceWas from space.
Bart thought about space for the first, real time, his true home. He saw stars. Starrucca. Starlight. Gravity called. He was sucked in. Aerial then grounded for life. He was perpetually in trouble. Often only Lemmy the tree came to his aid. His father once had a fight with it, lost his head. The boyy watched: a knife and a net. Dressed in pink, which was the style for boys of the time. His sister walked into his life wearing blue. “That’s crazy blue,” he said when she did.
He was grounded for life because of the film and because what Principal Skinhead saw that night, after the show was done, after all the people had dispersed to their individual dwelling units. Bart standing alone, no tree to protect. No shorts. He puts two hands over his parts and turns red.
He was even sent to prison for a while in his late 20s for killing a man in Defiance. He’d lost his way. Sucked up by the Great Black Swamp, as prophecy foretold.
(to be continued)
And so on the 5th day…
barn raised
Backpack loaded even more down than usual, Mr. Z sets off for the opposite coast, Southside some call it, more private than public as “Northside” here is more public than private.
He drops down beside the yellow ickle who bids him farewell and says he wishes he could go as well. Mr. Z points out that he’s a figurine and not really an avatar able to move about or he’d gladly take him along, if only to help carry his heavy pack. “Thank you,” the ickle said to this, happy to be even thought of.
Below Constantynople, he quickly encounters elephants where once was an empty Abyss, and not too long ago. Despite a tiger also being in their mix, he safely makes his way to the ridge in the distance that marks the boundary of Myrtle’s property, the highest point on the island despite being only about 15 meters above sea level.
Finding the Passable Property Corner (PPC), he successfully bypasses the ridge to entering Myrtle’s public part.
Damn. Forgot to close the outhouse door, she thought while staring at it from the single room she lived in, which Mr. Z. subsequently has to walk by to get to the house.
Cow, eh? How appropriate. He ignores the lingering smell while skirting, sights set on his goal.
00390408
She checks her nails to make sure they made it through the teleport okay. “I’m glad you didn’t give away my location, Myrtle. That’s very sweet of you — protective almost.” As stated in the last photo-novel, Xia knew that Myrtle loved her. It was all games beyond that core truth.
Myrtle smiled through the relaxation. She needs this after Mr. Z’s visit! Float in Xia’s sky tub, albeit with clothes on because she was ashamed of, to her, “cow-ish” body. With Zimmy still nowhere to be found. Because he was she. “Think nothing of it,” Myrtle said, floating a little closer to the dress, those legs, those… eyes. Deep pools of God stuff — if only Xia would put that hand back on her dress so she could see them. “Are you going to sit on the edge all night or are you going to come in with me?” She splashed a little water in her direction in an attempt to get her wet to begin. Only her toes now. She needed it all.
She is mine, Myrtle thinks, splashing some more, coming ever closer. Mr. Z can’t have him back, damn the whole TILE angle. “Damn the whole TILE angle!” she said up to Xia, who replied with a, “Damn right!” and jumped in if only to obstruct the view again, soon to be enveloped by arms but, as usual, rejected. She was saving herself for Zimmy. Games.
And then Chet came into her life and Myrtle was still an afterthought.
(to be continued)
Big Red Machine
She could of course still summon him when needed, like during meditation. Not the meditation itself for the need but what usually came after, another afterthought of sorts, the byproduct of two souls being one. If she falls, he falls, so intertwined are their individual pieces by now. Which will inevitably happen: all things spring up and all things fall back, product of the clocks and the seasons. Always blue yellow blue yellow to go along with green red green red, if you will. A complete TILE is the only way to revolve in time. They had understood this ages ago, back when they were still kits, still in the box yet to be correctly assembled by the mother, the father. They’d tried once before, but left out some parts and the whole thing fell to Hell, a screw missing here, a joint missing there. But when they finally followed the instructions the way they were suppose to be: perfection. A girl and a boy both. Adam and Eve reborn. “I will call the female X,” the mother said, approved for such things. “And the boy: Z,” the father said, looking down on his own and then glancing over at what the wife had done, seeing it was good too. “We have done well Myrtle. My Myrtle Beech.” Sand was in his eye; he was dreaming but it was still real, just as X and Z, later Xia and Zimmy, were real. One could absorb the other if needed for protection. X could move up to Z and Z down to X. But given the circumstances of Constantynople and the arrangement at the top of the Kidd Tower, it had to be this way: Z to X. Mr. Babyface stares from his staring chair, understanding this. “Xilted,” he says, knowing it was behind him as well and no longer Zebrasil now two floors above in the alphabet. The Gods have spoken.
“Zebrasil,” he said, staring up through the transparent canopy of the bed and thinking of top vs. bottom and bottom vs. top. “Xilted,” she said in turn, pondering the same. There were degrees to it, well 3 that they could count in the current game. The 4th would represent the Null, the Void, the Absent; the return to home. Nothing to keep them apart. They were just on the surface still, first base yet to be encountered. No sin in Cincinnati.
00390410
“Okay, I’m heading to the other side of the island now, Dancing Chuck, love of my eye, apple of my life.” No answer per usual. Chuck didn’t have a speaking part in this here photo-novel, 39 in a series. Philip didn’t expect one of course. As long as he did his job in the way he was manufactured to do. “And take care of Flip Flop Fish up on the second floor and the roof, will ya.” Philip always used both locations to describe FFF’s whereabouts, since he was stuck between the two, tail projecting above the roof and head and main part of the body below. Caught as much as a fish in a net, ready for filleting with an appropriate knife. But this never happened. Philip needed his energy and knowledge too much. Or maybe it was a she; he’d have to check sometime. His (or her) name I believe was… Limey. Very interesting: because quite similar to Bart’s handy tree outside his bedroom window he used to escape the house and watch the cow film in downtown NWES City, the one he reviewed in what turned out to be his now world famous addendum to the TILE Manifesto. But Philip was probably aware of this connection too, what with being a world famous figure himself, a world *creating* figure, actually. 1/2 lemon and 1/2 lime, hmm (if so). The plot thickens.
On his way up to Constantynople and the library he intended to visit to see what had been written about him within, he stops by the town’s assimilated airfield for a drink at an attached bar. This was the same establishment fully formed and approved alternate or doppelganger Shelley first met her original self and compared notes, desired eating habits to begin. “I’ll have what she’s having,” the doppelganger tested, finding it good but she would have added a bit more salt to the fries and ketchup to the chicken. Her first real meal, though. How exciting!
“I’ll have what *he’s* having.” It is happening again.
00390411
Philip watched Philip’s head turn big one last time before turning and leaving him behind at the base of the bridge.
“You stay here,” he said to his double just earlier, looking down on him a bit from the middle. Only the big head drew them even. “Storms’ a brewing: hurricane season, let’s say. You go back and take care of Dancing and Flip Flop just in case.”
“Just in case what?” the double asked.
“You know what,” Philip answered himself, or about as close as he could get. But the big head — eye to eye, then. Something about his doppelganger having answers that he didn’t. But no time for that now; the decision has been made. He turns…
Mr. Z watched it all from a nearby chair, perhaps unnoticed in the heat of the moment. He’d seen it all before. His own double.
Mr. Z, aka A.B. Normal, paused at the top of the bridge, realizing he had encountered his own doppelganger heading in the opposite direction: toward that island storm.
00390412
And so he’s come full circle, staring at a wall screen that shouldn’t be here. Constantynople should be integrated into the rest of the island by now. Yet: segregated still; central importance not realized, not understood. Myrtle’s urgings to her neighbors remained in the future, hidden in a probable reality, perhaps never to see the light of day and, if so, perhaps just falling on deaf ears, as she was once deaf to the situation. Yet she saw CROOKED (in the future), she saw the light, thanks to the Abyss and Axis. She turned.
—–
“Hooray, he’s back!” cried the standing yellow porch ickle upon seeing him enter the square. But Mr. Z was not nearly as enthusiastic as when this first happened over 2 months ago, shortly after Constantynople itself was formed. Now it just seemed old… and tired. He says goodbye to the excited ickle, arms still raised in joy, and lumbers up to his 2nd floor apt. pondering next steps. Zimmy, if only I’d found you in Southside, he thinks, head in hands, about ready for a good cry. Now I am still alone. The tears begin…
dream ended
Welp, my stay on the island of Constance didn’t last as long as I hoped it would. Leaving in a week. Immediate neighbor called my town there *junk*. Another neighbor has blocked it off with a big screen. Shame. But where to next? Maybe take a little break from virtual land ownership, rent smaller places for a while? NWES City remains an option, a strong one. Perhaps the most logical one. Just like I’ve done before. But playing around with this “island-state” certainly was fun, I’ll say! Our Second Lyfe is soo mutable.
I’ll take the redecorated CROOKED with me wherever I go. And I can keep exploring the island from a distance, without all the involved money. I’ll regroup elsewhere. Though it might take a while to get back to this finely balanced point. Goodbye Myrtle and the rest! Let’s see what happens this week to tie a bow on the process.
machine, big and red
She turned her back on him while riding, so disgusted she was of the situation. Leaving! We just got here! And so many more fish stories to catch. “What about Philip?” she protested from another angle. “What *library* is he going to find all the whoppers that have been written about *him*? Hmph.”
But of course Pitch, being who he is, had another pitch to deliver. They moved downstairs to continue the game…
00390415
“Why from the Abyss,” she answered the hot dog guy, trying to guess the ambiguity. The Christmas look and the green nose didn’t win him over. “Gracious goodness I’ve forgotten the name of this festive thingamabob growing out of my nose,” she said just earlier, talking about it before he did, they all did (in her mind). “Not mistletoe — that’s for hanging *above* your head, not *off* it, ah ha ha ha ha!” Did the laugh convince?
“Well it looks like a big long booger,” he said crudely, and then asked if she wanted relish on her big loong dog. Disgusting. Why did she come out of hiding in the first place? To deal with lowlifes like this beach bum? This nobody? “Where you from? Woman?”
—–
Where indeed? There were *elephants* in her Abyss now, another sign she had to go, along with the rest of the avatar family. Zimmy is obviously Jimy. Jimy Z., gone as sure as Zimmy since he was also dead. Only the symbolic Liverpool plane remains: big red machine, twitch of the Morgan, lumber for a Bench. Red as Rose, another archetype and more obvious. Red Star becomes Old Red Star and is banished from the game he so so loves. They bring in a Foster boy and he turns out to be just as legit as any of ’em. Conception is an error caught between the legs. Perez just is. Geronimo! (and he died) Griffey had a Junior who took control. One through eight complete. Visible compendium. No need to worry about the zero and the nine. They were enough by themselves to carry the team through any troubles, ride it to victory. Never mind who pitches what. What’s the pitch, Pitch? Didn’t matter. They were enough. Biiig lumber.
She went to talk to Willy Wonka in the past present future to give him a piece of her mind, dodging big piles of elephant doo all along the way. They met at the south end of the property, where we’ve been before, CROOKED in clear sight through an opening between palm trees and rocks. “You *don’t* understand,” she complained while indicating. “Those are *historic* buildings over there.” “That *junk*?” he reiterated, trying to think of new and more effective ways to derender all that for his fancy smancy artsy fartsy photos. “It looks like, I don’t know, a giant kid ate a whole bunch of tinker toys and legos and then threw up.” “*Moard* *Ling*”, she kept defending. “You’ll never hold a candle to him… Wonka.” It took a while but she had learned to respect the prolific prim creator, stuck in the past but with lessons to teach. Sometimes the past is better, at least in part, in ways. This is what she learned from Constantynople, soon to be no more here. She was about to have her last pass through it. She spotted the purple garbed guy — another *former* after all, another one living in the past. Why can’t he *see*?
It could have been different.
I’ll have what I’m having
And so we end in a bar, Wheeler serving herself with tag-along 88s keeping guard. Usually this is the way you can tell it’s Wheeler and not someone else, say, Baker Bloch or Bracket Jupiter (and so on). She realizes the resonance with the hat and increases its tips two-fold, least she can do for poor, dead Zimmy. Mr. Z. One and the same. Putting that to rest we can move on…
Sunklands 