00390601
“I’ve actually been watching him for days,” spoke the kid version of Shelley Struthers over to Marsha “Pink” Krakow on the opposite side of the giant spoon, apparently a native of the land who’s experience many changes down through the years she’s lived here. “He’s scared to go back into his hole. The cat scares him. I think the crocogator scared him before and now that he’s gone he’s got this new adversary.”
“You’ve spoke about the 1/2 alligator 1/2 crocodile being previously,” replied Marsha to all this, thinking: could this be my new 4th best friend? Leaping over sweets addicted Tammy? Could be. She’ll put some sticky ass cinnamon buns before her asap and see how she handles them. And her resulting sticky fingers.
“‘He has no name that we know,'” said the younger of the two, but she was just quoting another person on the subject of monsters. She can’t recall who.
“Sat on a duck, huh?” said Marsha, reviewing earlier info on the creature. “Hmmm. I *know* where the ducks are, but they’re in a tub way up high. I skinny dipped for the first time up there. Mountain Lake we jokingly call it because of the height, the elevation. And I guess because of the attached waterfall.” She thinks back to Ben, Levi, Arthur, Lelia, Kellyya and Tammy having such a good time that night, all 7 of them. All paired up except her. Then came Tom Banks. The photography/calligraphy teacher at Storybrook school. Best to veer away from memories by this point. She focuses back on Shelley, on the ducks, on the at least *manifestation* of a monster on them. This could be… no, she can’t go there. But…
“I felt his eyes on me, then they weren’t.”
Man… it could be, Marsha then concludes.
00390602
Despite being 2 1/2 years removed from the event, she still kept her clothes on in what they called the big bathroom, seen here taking a bath instead of her usual shower, just to mix things up. Her everpresent pink shirt and pants dry quick enough, plus she’s more concerned at this location today about properly cleaning and grooming her head and lower extremities than parts in-between, what with handy items she could rez through the sink like a cordless hairdryer (see above) and leg razor (see below). She could deal with the rest later in the smaller, private bathroom of the home she shares with 6 other people, including Shelley now, who just popped in one night after coming into Storybrook through the rat hole. Which they all did at one time, whether they remember it or not. Whether they *realize* it or not, Marsha Pink Krakow additionally thought. Conspiracies, pheh, she almost said aloud in disgust. Virgin birth, hmph. The things they teach you in church-school. And it’s within such stifling environments that a monster like Tom Banks could arise. Holding a rose when she first saw him. For Tammy.
Storybrook back then was a normal sized town with normal sized buildings and normal sized sinks and tubs. Before the coming of the map rat who was also a mouse, and certainly had a tale to tell, a giant tale indeed. He stayed normal and the rest of them — us (she thinks) — shrank down. Done with the head now, down to the legs.
She was actually glad she had leg hair now because it meant she was growing up. Basically a full blown woman at 15 1/2. One-half more year and she can be on her own, away from the rest, away from Storybrook potentially. Because she had her plans all mapped out, damn the blocking rodent. She was going to walk right past the monster into the real, normal world again. Her new friend Shelley did it to get here, she can do the same to get out. Inspiration. But whether to take the girl with her becomes a new problem. Or fellow friends Lelia, Kellyya… even Tammy, since if they kind of cooked the idea up together that night in last May’s August, despite the smacking, sucking; she can’t hold those noises against her 3rd bestie formerly 1st bestie forever, although she could bump her down yet again in the friendship tier and replace her with Shelley. Seems so long ago now. The new girl and her fresh perspective has changed *everything*.
(to be continued)
missing yellow
He peered out between eaters, afraid he’d become part of a sandwich.
——
“I wanted to show you this place,” she spoke down to fellow climber Shelley (kid), “because I believe in your unique power, coming from the outside so soon before and all.”
“There,” she said at the top, standing beside the 3 that hide a 4th. “Can you see?”
“See what?” spoke Shelley, also leaping off.
“Precisely. Mean mad mustard,” Marsha uttered cryptically and then urged the younger girl to stand in her spot while moving over a bit.
light and shadow (The Z’s)
colours
“So tell me how you came upon this place, Shelley the kid. We can speak freely here. We are above the fray. No one comes up here except me, I’m thinking. I enable and then disable the climbing mechanism each time I use the yarn, the thread.”
“I noticed that,” spoke the observant younger child atop the giant cupboard, indeed safe from everyone and everything else in this space.
“You got past Zero,” spoke the older girl honestly about the rodent “guarding” this whole place, this Story Room as I called it previously. “I intend to do the same heading out.”
“Leaving?” said Shelley to Marsha. “But there’s nothing out there.”
“Ah ha! So you do know where you come from. You have memories!”
Shelley knew that she could leave but Marsha couldn’t. Simply because she was living and the other, well, the other was dead. Like Tammy, who she knew before as Frankie. Frankie “Beige” Brown, *1st* best friend to Marsha because Olive and Green weren’t around as much as they were. Different set of companions here, but Brown is the constant for Pink.
Must be tied in to those brown and pink donuts at the beginning of Constance’s Heart of the Island Trail. In a way we’ve never left.
“Don’t *you* have memories?” she decided to phrase her reply as innocently as possible.
—–
Freshly arrived at her newspaper job on a table below, Tammy “Beige” Brown, brush in hand, ponders what stories to paint this morning. Don’t start with brown don’t start with brown don’t start with brown, begins her mantra while, at the same time, eyeing that precariously positioned full cup of coffee over there. But then she always does, just tips it over to fuel the inspiration; handy prop indeed. The new boss she’s so trying to impress always seems to eat those kind up. Or drink them, whatever. She’ll change directions soon and experiment with new hues (and shapes and forms) but for now… being a neophyte… well… same old same old *SPILL*.
She looks down through the stain at the articles she could produce.
there is no Steamboat Kelly, only Leroy
She looks over at the back of Pumpkinhead and thinks: Pumpkin*ass* is more like it, pleased that she doesn’t have such a big rump. She turns her attention back to Tammy, focuses in on the information she is blabbering on and on about. Brownsvile. Cleveland. Steamboat. Marsha gathered she’d heard or learned something in childhood that didn’t hold a bit of water when she grew up, except for the fact there was a Steamboat Springs in Colorado in the same state as a conjunction of Leroy and Kelly, albeit in a county pretty far away in a pretty big state still. Tiny places, perhaps extinct. Couldn’t have been a factor in the mistake. Not *consciously*. “Tell me more about the Browns in Maps,” she decides to say in a pause. “How about that place called Brown’s Bench you mentioned earlier,” she starts her out on about the spot she lost the train of thought — started thinking about rumps. Rumpus Ridge, big ball of twine — LOST. What did it all mean? Oh, shoot, there she goes again. “I’m sorry, Tammy, I was blanking out again — nothing to do with your *excellent* subject. It’s just…,” and here Tammy begins again without warning, without waiting for an explanation from Marsha Pink Krakow on what she was thinking in her own head. Tammy was talking hers out loud per usual. She: more internal, thoughtful. She heard Bench and then Rose. “Biding his time, hmm,” she says about what she thought she just heard.
Leroy Kelly was a star running back for the Cleveland Browns in the late 60s and early 70s. But he had to wait for the retirement of Cleveland’s greatest star ever before he too could shine — not as brightly of course, because we’re talking about the one and only *Jim* Brown, perhaps the greatest football player of all time never mind greatest runner. Certainly most Ohioans would agree to this, Clevelanders or otherwise. Leroy had to sit on the bench, bide his time until the greater star’s early retirement at the age of 30, shocking the sports world, since he was still on top of his game, it seemed.
I’m going to find them, he thought outside, not being able to see thru walls yet. He *senses* them, and they probably do him as well, at least Marsha does, being more open to those kind of things. If they per chance lock eyes it could be over. Safe at home for now, though.
hard in the middle hard at the ends
They called the big room where they lived simply “Home”. For example: “I’m going Home now,” Tammy Beige Brown would say to her pleased boss with 5 fresh stories to print in his paper by 10:01AM. Then she’d hop on her bike — or, alternately (especially on sunnier days (disposition-wise)), hop on her hopper and head back to Marsha, Pumpkinhead (*not* Pumpkinass), Lelia, Kellyya (hmm, another L and K, like Leroy *Kelly* after all) and the rest, all collected in what outsiders would perceive as a doll house in the next big room pictured above. They thought of it as just a house, period. A home within a bigger HOME… as in home base from baseball, as in a place they could feel safe, superior catcher always stuck sitting on the bench, never graduated to a star himself. They were still in play, in effect, 9 on the field. No sin in Cincinnati. F-ing hard city to spell.
Let’s swing the camera around and look in to what these tiny dwellers of this realm called Story Room, after the paper and the articles within, or at least that’s a byproduct of this adjacent big room, perhaps. No one knows when the appellation started, or when they started calling this other, neighboring room something other than Home as well. It became WORK.
Marsha “Pink” Krakow was originally confused about Tammy “Beige” Brown getting a job at the newspaper there. “What newspaper?” she uttered, momentarily forgetting that she’d seen this very object many times from her supposed secret perch on top of the cupboard in this very room, the place she just took child Shelley in this here photo-novel, 39 in a f-ing long series it seems, infinitely harder to figure out than the spelling of Ohio’s 2nd city. “Not *at* a newspaper,” Tammy originally replied to Marsha’s question after procuring the coveted post. “*On* a newspaper. Then she realized for the 1st (?) time that it was both and said so. After a couple of days on the job she additionally explained that she sits down at her canvas (= blank page) and spills coffee all over it, which highlights the stories she’s suppose to write on any given day. Then she just copies them down (photography, she thinks at the time — she could just take *pictures* of the articles and send it to Leroy (Leroy?) instead of having to paint it all up — inferior art form she then tacks on in her head about it), and she’s done for the day, usually by 10 or 10:01 at the latest (so far). That’s how she found out about Steamboat — it was all in the story highlighted in the stain. Thus the spiel today, her 3rd on the job. Leroy was never the same as Steamboat. The nickname never existed, although the halfback could indeed steam his way through tacklers like a boat or something, approaching but of course not reaching the heights of the great, unsurpassable Jim Brown before him. He was fresh off the bench. He was picking up steam, quickly becoming a star himself (the article said). But he, again, was never named such. Despite the memories of childhood NFL broadcasts.
And those rooms beyond you can catch a glimpse of in the above picture, one may ask? Also Story Room for the moment, including the bathroom with the floaty toy ducks in the tub and the rezzable, handy objects in the sink like a hairdryer and a razor, along with working scales. But what of Storybrook?
(to be continued)
baddest Brown in the whole damn town
He came into the place and offered his services, saying he was the best in his business. The big boss asks, of what? Cartooning? Yes, that was it, precisely the job Leroy needed to fill. When big Jim *L.* Brown left several years later with his budding comic strip mega-franchise in tow, he took his name and also called the paper that because of the growing fame. “Brownsville Herald” it became from that point on. He: Leroy Brown. There was no other at the time so he was both the best and worst, you see. He could use both descriptions but chose the latter for street cred. Another employee named Jim Crochet Wedding Dress walks into a church and pens a famous song about the decision, expertly marrying word with tune in what turned out to be a long standing relationship indeed, enabling him to quit the roller coaster gig (see: 00390508 exactly one section ago) and work for another as well. Leroy was losing employees good and bad right and left. He needed fresh faces.
Just age eligible Tammy Beige Brown walks over from Home to apply for the post she heard through the grapevine (thanks Raisins!). That *name*, thinks Leroy when she introduced herself and her 3 monikers. She *must* be the new star!
—–
Tammy wished she’d never put away the canvas in favor of the camera. “Tom Banks at your service,” the company man introduced himself on top of the Brown part of the paper. “I’m here for the shoot.” She gasped as he raised his arm in greeting — old, forgotten memories kicking in — which made him laugh, certainly inappropriate for the scene, Tammy felt. Her palms were sweating, her face was twitching in the nervousness. Continued snickering. The laugh of one with no soul.
“Relax, child, I’m only the photographer,” and then remembered to add calligrapher as he moved toward her to prepare.
00390609
It was time for Marsha Pink Krakow to show Tammy Beige Brown the way out of this world, to see down on it all. “Over here!” she called, not worrying about the vile photography/calligraphy teacher hearing. “Quick! Climb behind me! Just sit on the thread and go go go go go!”
She got on just in the nick of time. Shelley the kid was already waiting at the top. Tammy was about to get initiated into the most exclusive club in all of Storybrook in all of its room-like forms.
At the top, Marsha cuts the cord (disables the climbing scripts) before Banks can figure out how to follow. They are above and he is below. Safe at New Home, but trapped. Only Bart the missing yellow can help. But Marsha knew this too, if only unconsciously. Or maybe consciously — we’ll see.
(to be continued)
without shorts he points
“(The whole sim) is probably called River because of the chocolate one in the Wonky Willa part.”
“Willy Wonka,” Shelley dutifully corrected. She understood Wonka. She just didn’t know about the chocolate factory and River until the return home from the beech “staycation” of her user Chet and his mate Phyllis (happy dogs!), the former who we’ve yet to see in this here photo-novel. Shelley thus only knows him by name. But I have an avatar in waiting…
“And then the Once Upon a Time part is 1000 meters below this river, the rooms I and my *best* mate Tammy live in,” Marsha continues. She goes over and hugs Tammy sitting on the next cube over, so glad she was that both are now alive, potential murderer, *former* murderer Tom Banks far below, cord cut as I said. No reaching them up here. First it was Brown and then Pink in that order, but no more. Story Room history has been altered. She sits back down between her 2 best mates, 1st to the right and 2nd to the left, tears in her eyes, tears of joy. Safe at New Home. She knows their proper order now. But there was more on this upper level yet to be dealt with. They needed an escape like they needed a hole in the wall. So, ever-watching behind the scenes, he made one.
Tammy spotted it first, producing yet another gasp.
(to be continued)
00390611
They came out of it but they were a mess; all mixed up. She had the body of Shelley still, true, but the clothes and hair of Marsha plus, on top of this, the gestures — well, gesture (*gasp*) of Tammy, formerly Frankie.
She erased the gasp by lowering her littler hand from her mouth. Slowly Sloowly. Don’t want to break anything this soon. She was in a different place, a different land. She looked back on where she came from.
The little devil in front of her approached, offering her some grody looking soup. “Patriot soup,” he said in a muffled kid’s voice, like he was wearing a costume instead of being an actual demon. “Straight from Wonderland.” He came ever closer, soup extended a bit more. He was right up on her.
“Oh why the heck not,” she said, and took the bowl and sipped.
—–
When she lowered it from her mouth, the bowl was suddenly a couple of feet more above the floor than when she started the sip. The body of Shelley remained, she realized, but it was the big body, the grown up one. Marsha still ruled in the clothes department. And the hair. And maybe the eyes — she wasn’t quite sure yet without a mirror; she couldn’t tell just by “feel”. And Tammy/Frankie was still somewhere within, a guiding conscience perhaps. “You must choose,” she thought she heard it say to herself, whoever *she* is. Shelley? Marsha? Tammy, even? The little devil who had retreated back upon the newest transformation eyed her keenly, cocking his head a bit and taking it all in. “You have… boyys.” He’d seen them before. Blue Berry Girl.
00390612
She was waiting on someone to tell her who she was, what her real name was, when she decided on her own. The hair makes the girl, she thinks. Thus I am Marsha Pink Krakow, standing proud against the evil of the world and living another day to tell others about and, together, finding out ways to deal with such *shadows*. Not monsters… as much as part of ourselves, ready to spring forth and surprise us if we ignore the signs too long. What were my signs? What were Tammy’s/Frankie’s? Push to stardom for me. Drumming. I wanted to be bigger than Starr and Moon, bigger than *Bonham* even (Led Zeppelin drummer who died, like The Who’s Moon — and Pink herself in that variant reality she just exited — way way too early).
“Shelley,” she speaks aloud to emphasize the affirmation, “you and your Doodle-Bug Hair Blonde had its run and, not failed, but didn’t quite cross over the finish line. I am that finish line. I represent death conquered, shadow conquered. And Tammy/Frankie too, wherever she is inside, conscience or not. She is there. And you are too, Shelley, because you provided me the body I now inhabit. I will always be grateful. But I am Marsha… Pink… Krakow.”
She feels two drumsticks manifest in her right back pocket. She will be more humble this time around, more conscious of others’ dreams and desires and not just blot them out with her own bright wannabe future. She will take this golden opportunity to be the best she can possibly be — not a drummer this time around, although that talent may increase too just by proxy, but simply a person, a human being. That’s what it’s all about, Marsha thinks here, not waiting on anyone any longer, knowing who she is. She can make this world what she wishes it to be. She can manifest: joy.
not yet
https://hyperallergic.com/842222/who-did-this-to-basquiats-old-manhattan-studio/
Doodlehedz can still see underneath the Pink. She hasn’t given up hope.
additional River scenes
“Are you going to light a candle for him, Archie?”
“Nah I’m just checking out his junk.”
“Awesome. Soo. Do you not like Freddie Mercury or something?”
“Of course, dude. The guy that wrote ‘Stairway to Heaven’!”
“Ummm.”
—–
“I’ve let you down, Robert. I’ve become a big fat blueberry again.”
Robert looked over, didn’t see a blueberry girl. He saw himself. In another for a change. “I… forgive?”
“No this can’t be forgiven what I’ve done,” she insisted. “I want you to just go ahead and puncture me. Stab me with your stabby thing. Just get it over with. I need to be dejuiced.”
Again, Robert didn’t see anything to “dejuice”. Just a woman, lonely, bad self image, needing a change, trapped in a job with, overall, negative energy pervading. Kind of like…
“I’ll remember your smile,” he said, again surprising himself with his empathy. “You were, an ordinary person to me at the time. No crazy. I was tired of crazy, see. The looks in the eyes.”
“I read from your collection,” she said, wiping her eyes of tears, wiping her nose a bit, shoving back the black hair from the blue-purple face. She was tired of her hair. She was going to get it cut, maybe dyed again. She wanted to be someone different. “I read about… me.”
—–
“I know who you are. Just go ahead and do it. Change. Admit the similarity.”
“Cold in here,” she tries to deflect, then gives up. “Oh, o-*kay*.”
—–
“Where did *this* come from??”
“Relax Bulby,” assured calm Tronesisia to the left. “We’re waterproof.”
00390615
And so we end with a waterfall which turns into a new river, replacing the old. Clean to filthy. Clear to chocolate. The overarching sim of River has been redeemed and revitalized from the top (4000m) down. In other words, the Void has spoken.
“Hey,” says Tronesisia to her quickly drying robot companions, prying her vision away from surfboarding Bart on the falls — couldn’t pass up the opportunity. “Check out the little clockwork people coming out of the building over there. Wonder if they have anything to do with this?
“Let’s go over and make friends.”
“Oh boy,” says my hot ass computer, ha, supporting 4 avatars in 4 separate windows at once.
00390616
“Such an interesting light show, Al.”
“I thought you might like this spot. Sarah.” He turns, leans in for a kiss.
In Coyote Canyon in the middle of these Western Hills of the 1st Bellisseria continent, Mid-Hazel prepares to die, as she’s done the past 100 years it seems. But, as visiting Herbert Glenn Gold speculated earlier in the present photo-novel — fast drawing to a close — this time it might be for real. Pre-Abyss Absorption here I come at long last, she might be thinking in the picture below.
She is not alone at her wannabe death bed trailer.
Hand in hand, the couple walks toward Opaque Lake in decreasing darkness.
Wait a minute: *pumpkins*??
Sunklands 