heart of the island trail
They left their familiars behind at the campfire, Mary and the 88s. We may catch up with them later. But first…
“Okay, all together with the magic donuts,” Wheeler commanded with the chocolate, Baker the strawberry. “One… two…”
Didn’t take long before she was somewhere else, being someone else. “Baker, w-where’d you go? Baker!? Suddenly she had to go, she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t shut the door for privacy. A little girl passed by.
“A little privacy?” she asked, making her stop and stare. Uncomfortably. “A little help?” She wanted the girl to shut the door and go away, because going away then shutting the door was impossible. “Little girl… your name please, little girl.” But then she recognized her. Shelley Struthers. From Hooktip. Just down the lane from her. Or up.
Shelley wasn’t suppose to talk to strangers, especially ones with long green noses and who smelled bad in the moment. Through the hat — different than the one Wheeler wore upon entering the woods in the heart of the island — she gathered she was confronting a witch. And it was strangely satisfying to see her obviously doing the thing that outhouses were made for. Gratifying indeed. She took in all the various, accompanying facial expressions. Why was this so fascinating?; like getting a mustard and ketchup laden hot dog with relish ta boot, she thought. So odd. The situation lasted a very long time, probably much longer than possible actually. The witch had been saving it up for just this special moment, it seemed.
“*Thanks* little girl, er, *Shelley*. Thanks a *lot*,” she managed after it was finally over, door still open. Then she realized she could have just “touched” it and shut it all along. In the heat of the moment, she forgot how Our Second Lyfe worked. “I’m *not* real here,” she muttered as a reinforcement. “I *didn’t* have to go to the bathroom — especially like that. I *could* have shut the door all the time. Heck, I didn’t even have to get seated. How’d *that* happen?” She looked up; Shelley was still there. “Well, move along… or speak or something. Don’t just keep standing there staring. Show’s over anyway.” She stands and finds she is clean down there, despite the lack of paper. Things were kind of getting back to “normal” in a virtual sense. And then her new hat was gone, replaced by the old. The girl extended her hand.
“You haven’t been here before, have you?” Wheeler shook her head and then grasped.
now
he bats right he bats left doesn’t matter
“That was some pitch… Pitch. Explosive, even!”
“Thank you. I tried hard on that. Bit of spit, admittedly, to cut down on the Lively. Return to dead ball era, where I was *king*.”
‘Of course you were, Pitch. And Buster was a marvelous shortstop back in those days too.”
“Damm right!” Both laugh then quickly compose themselves. Serious stuff now. Library. Saving Constantynople.
—–
There he was, in Special Collections again. Looking for himself. I’ll have what I’m having and all. Self service. He already had his eye on something.
“Can I help you?” reading room coordinator Swanie Rivers jumped in, trying not to flap her wings this time despite the head, the gum. Calm and cool, like a waterfall or attached stream. *Not* a volcano or any kind of lava flow. Blue, clear, ready for tubing on a sticky ass hot summer day. She’ll let him select something and then tell him. No f-ing gum in Special Collections! But… calmly, cooly. No wing flapping.
“What’s in that more crooked shelving, those ring binders over there?” Philip believes he’s seen it in a dream. Several times in fact.
“Oh, yes, that’s part of the Merk Coolie Brighton collection. He use to work here!” Swamie told herself not to get excited and shout in the room, even though no one is currently there except Philip and her. But… he use to *work* here!
“Am I in it?” he asked, throwing Swanie for a loop. A closed one. Not-what-she-seems cleaning lady Ross C. slides through the cracks in the front door to observe.
Philip pops his gum one…
last…
time.
blue
She was *so* upset with herself (!). All that weight lost, all that weight gained right back after her diet was over, 3 courses and the truth resumed, including, of course, pie. And where is her Vain and Artery Boy, her Robert of Matthew or Matthew of Robert… something? Probably not even going to bother to show up any more here at de FILE church, she ponders. Until I rid myself of this violet encasement. Drat! I have needs, my man!
She ends up just dreaming of his long blonde hair, his lopsided red and blue body. Maybe dreams are all she needs.
00390505
“Are we going to go ahead and sacrifice Willy Wonka, this *new* clown?” knife welding Preacher Stefan cried in the church immediately bordering the joker’s property, channeling the anger of Constantynople’s townspeople as a whole. Their buildings, their homes, had been called *junk*! Outrage spread through the village. Thus this meeting in the church they all loved. At least he didn’t pick on *this* particular low lying building, the most sacred in all the I’s land: St. Merry’s. “*I* want to speak,” said Pitch from the front, who was, after all, their default leader, the me closer to me than all the rest, being the same as Baker Bloch in essence. “Go ahead, dear,” urged wife Mary by his side. Always. Preacher Stefan acted fast before the townspeople were persuaded otherwise with a stab and accompanying spurt — right on Pitch’s just washed suit, blood splattered again so soon. Pitch looked down.
“Aww *damn*!”
“*Honey*. Not in *church*.” Laughter all around; bloodlust satisfied. Pitch had no pitch here.
“We’ll work on getting it out later,” she added toward the end, wiping up all they could in the moment.
chocolate
“Oh for goodness sake, Wheeler. Raise yourself out of that stuff. You’re going to drown doing that!”
“Mmmmmph… mmmmph,” she gurgled, mouth continuing to be full of goodness and sunshine. No more going back! “Mmmmmph. Mmmph.”
“*Here*. Let me help you.”
—–
“Gee Wheeler. You’re really stuck in there!”
“Mmmph. MmmMMMMMmmmph.”
00390507
Pitch woke up on the other side of the Heart of the Island forest in a mess. His head hurt. He didn’t remember what happened. Wheeler, he then recalled. She ate the wrong kind. She won’t be getting out as easily as me. He raises up a bit and looks around at the big pink doughnut he sits in, he *escaped* in. He dares to look over at the police box through the trees, envisions the girl entering it and encountering whiteness inside. *That* was his salvation. Little Shelley Struthers from Hooktip just up or down the lane. Uncorrupted. Able to resist chocolate and other sweets, no chewy gum for example. Just as pure as golden ticket Charlie before her. But what now? He can’t leave without Wheeler, he understands. She is still a part of him, despite the, erm. evil. No: misjudgment. He’ll have to go back inside. To the beginning!
“Let’s actually switch, Wheeler,” he says over when getting there just before the first bite, thanks to Shelley’s help once more. “I think I can handle chocolate a little better than you.”
“Heartburn, yeah,” Wheeler said, remembering her once in a while condition and withdrawing the object from her salivating mouth — just a bit.
“Here,” Pitch said, extending the pink one in her direction and ready to grasp the brown with the other. Can she?
00390508
Pitch eventually found Wheeler in another one of those Hana Lei lands, specifically designed for kids this go around. And that’s how our Shelley Struthers, now reverted to a child — at least temporarily — got involved.
“What happened to her face?” Pitch asked Shelley after they were able to separate away from Wheeler for some private talk. “It’s like, I don’t know, 2 things superimposed on each other that don’t belong.”
“Yeah, the blonde hair,” Shelley agreed. Then she explained that it went back to when Wheeler was underneath the chocolate all that time, lapping it up like some kind of deranged dog. “Must have done something to her complexion.”
“Hmm,” Pitch said to this. “Shouldn’t she, then, I don’t know, turn *brown* or something?” Not blonde, he additionally thought.
“Might not work like that,” quickly answered small Shelley, already wise way beyond her age. For she wasn’t really she in the hallucination. This is kind of combining several layers into one, smooshing them altogether like a club sandwich in a vise. Thus the picture of the faces in the carnival poseboard, I believe they call them. To illustrate or symbolize the change (another flattening).
But this might be better: Wheeler preparing to take a ride on the Olympia Looping roller coaster, drawn in by the 4 colors of TILE displayed all around. “TILE” she said to the attendant after he asked for her ticket. Jim Crochet Wedding Dress let her ride anyway, little voice in his ear telling him so. The Big Boss, or at least one of the Big Bosses, Wonka I believe. Or Wonky. Wonky like Willa, ha ha. OK, I’ll stop, Wheeler. So getting back to her (always her, never me it seems lately), she takes a ride, but she also calls over a companion. “Arthur, I need you Arthur,” she said in the message accompanying the teleport offer. “I need you more than ever.” Take in what happens when I trip the light fantastic, she added to herself. Because she knew she’d see stars; they were just that bonded by this point. She’d write all this up from the perspective of Edward later on, about 2:01 in the morning, she’s guessing. Always seems to be that or around that.
“What happened to your face?” he asked upon showing up.
“Never mind that, I’ll change before we start looping.” And he got in beside her, ready for a start. With her deformed mug still in place, she kissed.
“I love you Wheeler!” he shouted before the TILE colors even came into play: still on orange. All Orange, as it turned out. The rest was mere refraction from the whole.
Pitch just stood there at the bottom beside Jim, wondering what happened to Shelley as he watched blue turn into red turn into green turn into yellow to end the looping. All grown up again and gone? he wondered. He’d find out soon enough (here come the cars).
I’m going to figure this out.
Why was he painting the roses red? It should have been white to cover up his mistakes. Yet Willa Wonky died and he has blood on his hands… and arms and chest and face and so on. No going back. He ate the chocolate.
An image flashed in his mind from the past. Wheeler did too! Or was it Shelley?
Anyway, suddenly everything switches with this and he’s painting red roses white instead of the other way around. Willy Wonka lives!
Joker
“Amos T. Sandman,” I spoke from the side. “I kind of figured you’d end up in a circus.”
“Welp,” the colorful dancing clown replied, “I had no religion to preach any longer what with the demise of the Cheesers. What else was left for me? I have subjects; that’s the important thing. Right Fluffie, Spoilsport, Clyde?” he spoke to the various clowns around him presently. He danced in a circle (acknowledging each one?) toward the central top hat on a trunk, the cane, the cards.
“Turn it over, Baker,” he seemed to request about the mystery one before him. “See what *your* next subject is. I bet it’s not an ace. That’s already been done; that would be heading backwards.” He danced back forwards. “Or sideways or something, black and red, clubs and spades, doesn’t matter.” He picks up the cane besides the cards to augment the dance in spots. Then the top hat itself upon a next whirl. Then, a final twirl and swoop, the mystery card itself, which became all cards when turned over, instantly halting the charade. He had shown his true face.
Phyllis
“‘No purple,'” I said from the side, quoting from the introduction of the world famous manifesto, *her* manifesto. “Yet you sit on purple.”
“Um hmm.” She nodded.
“Is this, then, about the boyy?”
She contemplated an answer for a second, then: “Yes, this is about the boyy more than anything else. And why I chose to avoid talking about the subject, the color. The gurl too, obviously. If–”
“Lisa,” I clarified, then regretted interrupting her flow. She was, after all, a master channel. So all the TILists say that count. But this was beyond (the) four. Hard to tell how many could keep up if all this was made public. Which was, I suppose, my job.
“If only (another pause), for a contrast. Say, priceless versus highly priced, very high indeed but still a certain amount — not infinite.”
“The boyy is a pure channeler,” I dared. I had to know.
Again the pause. She was in the spotlight, as it should be. Making shit happen per usual. “Pure as in 2 separate from 1. Let me illustrate.” She shifts her weight slightly on the latex ottoman, making it squeak but pleasantly, I noted. “Where *I’m* from there is a city of the land that is as central as a heart. Named for the founder of our great land. Brightonia is its name. Yet eventually, as a center must find a circumference to become circular and all encompassing and also reflect in on itself, a 2nd great city was formed, not as big or important as the first but still two. A balance; a sidekick if you will. Necessary: a role assigned. This is the boyy. And from those 2 come all else.”
‘The great scribe Nauty of Naughtilus has taken credit for the boyy’s channel. Is this correct?”
Pause. “All things being equal: yes. The pen was neither red nor blue.”
“Describe the gurl’s role.”
(to be continued)
00390512
She doesn’t think about it much these days except perhaps when she’s on the john, with a better view of the thing. F/A-18C Hornet BA v. 2.2-8, she learned and memorized for those who’d inevitably ask about it upon hearing where she lived. “No, no one was hurt,” also usually had to be said after a follow-up question, those that didn’t remember the details of the crash. “Yes, we’re fine,” sometimes had to be added.
They were on vacation at the time, more properly, a “staycation” — 1/2 and 1/2 (here we go). Chet stayed home at night to look after the dogs while Phyllis spread all her creative stuff out at the Holiday Begin motel in Myrtle. Chet drove back and forth each day. Chet was always dressed for the holidays so it didn’t have to be a full time thing for him, or at least that was his rationale for the 1/2 and 1/2 deal instead of just staying put with her at the beech, a 35 minute drive. Plus the dogs, he’d always say. But, in truth, he was delving deep down into the mythology of Willy Wonka, strangely called Willa Wonky in those days in late August Mays, before the advent of videotapes and widespread distribution. “It almost wasn’t made,” he said after arriving one fine morning — well, all days, she recalled, were superb during her stay. 70s for a high; not too hot, not too chilly. Nary a rain cloud in sight. Just perfect. Room temperature.
Shortly after the staycation was over and all were back home together again (happy dogs!), he found the virtual chocolate factory, not come across before because it wasn’t attached to the search word “Wonka” he had been using in his Our Second Lyfe research. Then he found more in the same sim: an ode to a TV series called “Once Upon a Time” he’d strangely not heard of, despite its relative popularity as well as being created by some of the same writers involved in “LOST’, one of his favorites. He, per usual these days, sent Shelley in to explore further.
Upon teleporting into Chet’s earmarked spot, Shelley thought she saw a giant rat’s tail quickly slither into the hole in front of her. She had to follow; rules of the explorer.
She walked past the thing (just a *mouse*, she tried to calm herself, despite its enormity), trying to hide her fear and staying away from it and its food as much as possible.
Just by it, the walk turned into a sprint to finish. She was inside.
“I have a tale to tell, I have a tale to tell!” the mouse called after her. But didn’t follow. He smelled a reptile in that direction: danger.
stranger
Suddenly, miraculously, she had shrunk down, her weight even closer to Zero now as she’s checking. Crocogator watched from atop one of the floating ducks in the distance, somewhat disappointed the tale hadn’t gone on. But Story Room calls. Residents.
The world becomes solid. The curtain closes slightly more, just a slither.
Suddenly we are in a different place altogether.
Hmph. How’d I get over here??
00390514
Something had happened. She seemed to have grown a little again upon waking up. She couldn’t turn off the lamp beside her. She stared at cow patterns on a shower curtain.
Probably asleep still — yes, that’s it. Mysteriously, no walls in the place she decided to bed down for the night, so no secrets. She could hear everything being talked about below.
“Well guys, I’m off. Wish me luck!”
“Luck, Wanda.”
“Tammy,” Tammy corrected.
“Right,” said Doris Lelia. Wearing pink on the green couch and turning a bit red. Kellyya on the flowery chair had said nothing yet, per the script of course, or so she hoped. She (the actor playing Kellyya) didn’t exactly remember her next line. She’d have to improvise. But director Bob “Tom” Wassleburg (Wassleburg?) seemed to like improvising in a role. Not all the time of course but sometimes, if the mood calls for it. May get away with the gaff. Unlike poor Alice Flowchart (Lelia) back there.
“And how about *you*? Kellyya isn’t it?” Tammy didn’t know Kellyya as well as Lelia, who she went to school with. “Aren’t you going to wish me well on my first day of work?”
Kellyya remained silent. The actor playing Kellyya figured that jealousy would explain the lack of a good luck wish. *She* hadn’t had a bonafide job in years. And her confidence suffered for it.
“*Anyway*…” Tammy turned from the two, one on her good side and one on her shit list now. Without another word she walked out the door which didn’t exist and got on her bike, intending on riding into the next room which was also the next town. Storybrook. We’ve been here before.
“Maybe I should take a hopper today,” Tammy contemplated aloud from the bike seat, looking over at the green blue red yellow in a row and forgetting about Lelia and Kellyya for the moment. Such confusing names!
Aah yes, better! She’ll show up to work in *such* a good mood, heh.
00390515
“My buns are hot,” uttered Tammy “Beige” Brown sitting on the oven. She gasped. “My buns are *done*.”
“Tale over, yes yes,” spoke Marsha “Pink” Krakow from the table in front of her. “How did you get home so soon? Work over already? It’s only 10:01 in the morning.” She stares ahead, like everyone else here except one. Evil out there, she knew. The one who didn’t stare out beyond the 4th said something to her. “*I’m* suppose to be Martha in this scene.” She rewords the same to Bob “Tom” Wassleburg offcamera (except substituting Pink for Martha), who just throws up his hands in exasperation. “It’s *Marsha*… stupid,” seethed the actor playing Marsha at the table. “We can’t let that one just *stand*. Can we?”
And so they knocked her over and additionally beat the crap out of her, scene over.
tale end
“How are your buns? Did they get good and done?”
“Sticky but delicious,” answered Tammy “Beige” Brown, Marsha’s best friend if it weren’t for Lelia, Kellyya. So: 3rd best friend. She sucks the cinnamony glaze off her fingers, irritating sound sensitive Marsha. Maybe Joey from marketing is her 3rd best friend after all, Tammy downgraded to 4th. But she’ll get over it; she always does.
“Welp, you better save some for work,” suggests Marsha. “You *are* going to go to work today? You didn’t forget?”
“No no no (lip smack; sucking). Just, let’s eat one more,” she spoke to herself. She scrutinizes the interior of the lunchbox, moistened digits hovering above. “*There*. You also seem to have my name on you this morning.” 3, Marsha counted. She’s down to the last one. Can she resist? Sucking; smacking. 4th it is.
Sunklands 