00450101
Innocent looking enough, right? Vacant backlot for my Aisle of Palms virtual city of 4096 square meters area and 64 x 64 meters design. Wrong. It represents The Pit, a limit for development in My Second Lyfe. The Pit absorbs, the Pit devours even. Much like the Mystery Flesh Pit did to Rose/Emily over in the upper right central part of Maebaleia in a super city that seems to be receding in strength lately itself, with numerous large and small lots for sale dotting the area presently. Here: a different continent (Jeogeot). But same results on a more minor scale.
Q: So Aisle of Palms will not continue.
A: I don’t see how. I haven’t really worked on the town in 1/2 a year. Why keep it around?
Q: The Pit blocks.
A: Indeed.
In other news: Tibet.
00450102
“I caught a witcher, I caught a witcher!”
“What’s your name, boy?” said Gerald, ignoring the fact that he’d come up out of the water from a swim right at the end of the sitting lad’s line. But word would get around. The witcher caught like a fish. By a mere boy!
“Andre,” answered the boy about his name. “Andre the Dwarf, soon to be a giant among men, he he he he.” And then, rod in hand with line aimlessly dragging behind him now (he was very excited and forgot to reel it in!), he started running around the port streets and alleyways, spreading the word that he’d caught a witcher and the witcher wasn’t that tough of a guy after all. Soon fights would be challenged by the many drunken men standing about here there and there all over town. And worst: duels by the some of the most drunken and therefore most emboldened of the lot, also a pretty numerous group in this wine soaked place. No problem for Gerald of course, being the powerful witcher he was — unique in abilities even among his own kind. But it presented, how you say, bothersome and eventually wearisome distractions. He didn’t really want that now, wanted to live a life of peace and quiet. And alchemy. Gerald begins to wonder if he’d actually chosen the right location to retire in after all, long years of monster hunting finally behind him hopefully with the “slaying” of the Beast of Tousaint and the earning of the local vineyard (and dog) that came along with it. There was always Rivia to the north, his birthplace after all. There was always Merry Gouldbusk. And he also had other options. Through the alchemy, the vineyard leads the vineyard steers. The hypothesized spaceship may land here, providing yet another option. Escape to the stars, hmph. Gerald always shakes his head with the thought, thinking he may be going a bit mad for lack of actual work, the monster slaying he’s so adept and practiced at. The alchemy speaks, though, he knew. Mainly through the graytop mushroom trips he’d learned about through the Caed Myrkvid herbalist Pinastri. But still… real.
“Reel reel reel,” sang a chorus of men in the lower left central square of the town with appropriate fishing gestures, making fun of Gerald once again and one or more of them hoping for a fight most likely. “Reel reel reel,” they finished, and then started to laugh. “What are you going to do about our *singing*? Witcher?” said the most drunken and thus the most emboldened of them, pulling a pistol or rod from his pocket in a continuous gesture leading from the the fishing one. Not again, Gerald thinks, and promptly puts the man down with his own gun. I’ve got to find that boy, he thinks over the bloody body with smoking weapon. I’ve got to put all this nonsense to rest once and for all — have the boy make some sort of declaration to the fact that he *didn’t* catch me like a fish and he just made up a tall tale about the *accidental* conjunction of himself and the end of his line. But then he knew this exhibit wouldn’t fly and the damage had been done. Must be fate, he determined, spying another collection of drunken men just down the way doing that reeling-in gesture once more. Maybe this group at least won’t sing, he tries to console himself, readying his still warm pistol once more just in case.
But then the town surprised him by instead starting a different song by the band he was passing on stage to his left, a tribute progressive jazz folk rock outfit he quickly determined, detecting influences of both jazzy Steely Dan and folksy Steeleye Span within, throw in a bit of harder rocking Stealers Wheel stuck in the middle (part). He was, as it were, in tune with the town once more and through it the universe. Upper, Middle, Lower as one.
“Nice tune,” he said while turning away after listening a bit, enough to get the gist. Strangely calmed, he looked up at the 4 TILE colored buildings now in front of him and remembered it from that dream.
(to be continued)
00450103 (The Indicator)
—–
I was an expert on The Pit and all matters fleshy. They had set up a base of operations for me in an old castle surrounding the quarantined area. I looked for the promised local airport in which to land my orange PA-18 Super Cub Amphibian 1.2, bought on a lark day before yesterday’s tomorrow 5 years ago. Seems like it’s just the strip of land next to the castle over there. Oh well — it’ll be tight. Here goes!
Nailed it! Barely, phew! Now to find Baker Bloch the owner of this town and see what the deali-o is about the anomaly. Creature coming all the way under the oceanic plate separating Maebaleia from Jeogeot here? Highly unlikely. Probably an independent entity, hopefully smaller in scope.
(to be continued)
00450104 (Lincoln)
“Ahh, there’s me in the middle again. Surrounded by my 2 favorite men, Cary to the left and Madison to the right. If only it were still that way and I could choose and select who I wanted to be with in any one alternate reality, *sigh*.”
“I’m worried about you, Tin. I really am.”
“Why? Because I know who I am and what I want?”
“Maybe,” I admitted, thinking of my own insecurities. Sure I was a writer. But of what kind? What genre? The list goes on.
“Then you need to go away and think about what I’m telling you. Goodbye. Shoo now.”
—–
I first heard of Lizzy over in Rocky Boy toward the edge of the desert. Not *at* the edge. But getting there. Someone named Fern met me at Ten at Sunset during the afternoon soon to turn to night. Told me not to head back into Nightsity on my motorcycle. Told me to go east instead of west. Rocky Boy. Here I am.
I parked my motorcycle on the edge of the small, trailer dominated town, speaking of edges, intending to walk around and see what’s there. The pavement on the main road through it was heavily cracked and overgrown with weeds. Toward the middle of the place there was a garage business with an unlit E in the neon OPEN sign next to its office door, the only building I could find with a walkable interior. Seeing no indications of hostile forces, I go inside to check it out.
Devoid of people, but its lone TV was playing. Someone, some kind of influencer let’s call it, was talking about Lizzy and how’d she’d thrown her hat into the brain daze producing ring, starting with a murder most foul. Of her own doing. Listening to it, I somehow knew this Lizzy person, who, after all, I didn’t know about 5 minutes before, would never do this and that the BD was a fake, if it even depicted a murder. I don’t know how I knew, but it turned out to be correct. There was no body. There was nobody.
(to be continued?)
00450105
After the BD was over, the driver who was also the filmer decided to make the same loop over again to start another BD, this time focusing on the incredibly compact Tibetian city of Yajaing itself more than a drive into the city from another one called Kangding 2 hours, 44 minutes, and 20 seconds away through beautiful Himilayan mountains. Here are the two identical sections travelled, starting at 0:51 and 2:37:21 in the videos below respectively.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpZ-H3nqOMM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSHphBOAc1U
Continuing leads from FBI Agent Dale Cooper (see below), I saw it as an opportunity to study synchronicity through direct overlap. It may have paid off, because this TILE umbrella appearing on the first loop…
… was then removed by the second one, a time I estimate to be about 30 minutes later. Another highlighting of TILE, it seemed, becoming a theme for this here present photo-novel.
Agent Cooper’s advice seems to pay off again (!).
Gentlemen, when two separate events occur simultaneously pertaining to the same object of inquiry, we must always pay strict attention.
And this time — so appropriate — in his beloved Tibet he declared intense admiration for early on in the Twin Peaks series, even taping a map of it on the back of a blackboard to lecture about for others in his adjunct law enforcement department. And however confused they seem in the moment here, I’m sure they got a lot out of it. 🙂 And Cooper’s advice I quote above comes from the same talk.
Speaking of TILE umbrellas: back to the cyberpunk desert.
00450106
I see the Wall the Wall sees me.
—–
“Find anything?!”
“Gold!”
“Yeah, it’s out here!” the silhouetted man calls back from the distance.
“Just laying around! Like rocks!”
“Yuup!”
“So why aren’t there…?! I mean…!”
“Why aren’t there more people around, then?!”
“Yeah!”
“Because it’s fool’s gold you fool! fool’s gold you fool! fool’s gold you fool!
—–
Fern wakes up under the umbrella the color of TILE. Desert dreams. Badlands. There’s actually only her out here… and Billy, who doesn’t really count since he’s a 3-4 foot, chrome plated mechanoid. He observes with bright, electric blue, pupil-less eyes her awakening not 3 feet away, out of the shade and into the sun. If he stretched out in place, he could almost prop his shadowed, robotic feet up on her torso. “Hi” he metes out as is his duty, and adds a little glinty morning salute to his sunny smile. “Cereal and milk has already been poured in that order. Just like you like.” He winks and his smile also appears to glint like his arm did before. Fern checks her watch (not on her arm?). 9 o’clock. She overslept by an hour and Billy was ready at 8. Can’t blame him for the sogginess then, pheh. Just following orders. She makes a mental note, adding to those orders, to rouse her at the appointed time and not let her sleep late. But for this morning, limp Toasty-O’s Snakes and Ladders pepper and mint flavored breakfast in heavily colored red and green milk to make gray it is.
He washed Fern’s bowl without water, using the sandpaper hand attachment #4 to do the job. Ceramic would hold up under this finer abrasion, he knew. But what happened to all the water? He had produced soo much of it with his endless waterfall toward the end of photo-novel 44, the last installment in our series and also perhaps perpetual it seems. At least I don’t see an end anywhere in sight using my future vision. I’ll switch it off now; back to the present.
After being unable to sand out a particularly persistent stain in the required time according to his inner clockwork, Billy cusses in his peculiar robot vernacular (“Nuts and Bolts!” I believe it was) and throws the bowl into the gorge next to them and proceeds to fashion another from the local clay. Will take him all morning, Fern reckons. Time for her to explore the hills around here without being followed everywhere. She’ll enjoy the isolation.
In the middle of the desert which was also its edge, she soon comes across this military grade helicopter, not so much landed here as crashed — both at once. Philip Stevor was working on one of the broken landing wheels presently. She approached, recognizing the figure. But why was he *here*? In the desert? Outside Nightsity?
“Cpt.,” she said about 10 feet away, unnoticed in approaching the chopper and addressing him the way she always did. He drew his gun as he stood up and spun around. Not drunk this morning, it appears, Fern thought. Impressive! Must have done a required stint in rehab.
“Oh,” he said, relaxing and putting the gun away. “It’s you, phew! So many bad things out here in the Badlands. Guess you came here through the portal — don’t mind if I keep working on the chopper while we talk, I hope. Gotta get out of here asap. I can take you with me. If you’re also stuck out here in the middle of nowhere for reasons still unknown to me.” He turned only his head now while the hands were still busy with the wheel. “Are you?… stuck?”
Was she?
Was I?
(to be continued)
00450107 (420 (Mercury is Paradise))
—–
“Off by Tin,” said Fern to this, knowing Mercury was instead actually Poison to the alchemists of old. Like her.
(to be continued)
00450108 (Red Arrow (Coming back to Earth))
“This one’s gold. Annnnd (grunts while reaching into the wagon for another one)… *this* one’s gold.”
She pauses in her work to look around the Badlands business. “Jeez, looks like they’re *all* gold to me, huh.”
Her boss comes out of left field and tells her it’s quitting time.
“Do I come back tomorrow?” she asks expectantly, wiping her hands on her jeans before inserting them into its pockets.
He also looks around at all the rocks, gauges the height of the piles, their diameter, whether more rocks can be added to them right now. “Mmmmm. We’ll see. Stay close to your phone in the morning.”
“Oh. Oh okay.”
He stares at her pants, then decided to add: “I’d recommend washing your hands before leaving, err–” He stops; he can’t remember her name; he decides to continue like no awkward pause occurred. “Anyway, ahem, some of these, um, rocks might contain uranium, uh hmm. Not enough to kill you or anything (hardy laugh here). Just as a precaution. Soap’s on the sink in the bathroom over there.” He exits back to the left after pointing in that direction. Fern is alone. No call in the morning as it turns out. Another day off to enjoy the desert sun and wind. Maybe even a dust storm midday to break up the monotony. Out of sunscreen, though, with no money left to buy. She’s hoping for rain.
(to be continued)
00450109
“I feel like I’m out of my depths with these channels, Panama. Feel like I don’t even have a foundation to stand on anymore.”
“I hear ya sister.”
“So I’m turning to you.” She turns in the water. “Just like wet can turn to dry given enough time in space and distance.”
That blasted alchemical text, Panama knew. But it worked.
Lexi reluctantly hands over the keys to Ralph.
00450110
“Had to leave my clan too,” I say in response to her own angst. I could certainly identify.
“Ah yes, I remember. The Baker Family right?”
“Then I came to Nightsity, saw my chance to escape.”
“Second Lyfe?”
“*Their* Second Lyfe. Not *My* Second Lyfe. Not any more.”
“Lets… talk about something else, humm,” she said, depressed about clan chatter, the lack of Home. She downed the rest of her second beer in one huge gulp. I started seriously wondering if we were going to sleep together tonight — in the same bed. 10 o’clock at the Sunset but morning, not night. Lincoln wouldn’t be arriving for 12 more hours. 10 was waiting for him.
—–
Panama and I slept in separate beds that night, got up the next morning, knocked out power to the entire town of Rocky Boy attracting the Raffin Shiv renegade nomads that Panama sought revenge on for stealing her valuable wheels that day in April’s May 6 or 7 months ago, killed 17 of their gang there without so much as getting a scratch on us, buried their bodies in makeshift graves, even had time because of our efficiency for 17 makeshift, very quick services involving a lot of spitting on graves to rub the death part in, yada yada yada. All in a day’s work for good ol’ Samaritan mercenary V(al) here. But while we did this, the other part of our deal, the reciprocal act, was instead enacted by a party coming out of left field: the stealing of the Kang Tau AV and, most importantly, the goods within. Good news: they wanted to negotiate a price for it. Bad news: well…
—–
“There they are,” said Panama, indicating what lies behind her. “Annnnnd I’m outta here.”
Aw, *f-ck*. The Why quadruplets, I thought as Panama moved out of the scene, Act 1 of 2 of her Cyberpunk 2077 story completed. Why why why? WHY? I said to myself, counting them off. Oh well. I’ll deal with Doris and Dolores first, split up the burden; maybe I’ll make it through that way.
“Morning ladies,” I tried to say as brightly as possible, approaching the nearest pair. “Hear you have a package for me, all tied up with a bow or something, ha.”
“You”ll have to talk to Diedra over there about ties,” spat out demonic Doris. “And Debra next to her is the bow person of the group,” hissed devilish Dolores to her side. They stared coldly toward me, no emotion in their faces except maybe stark raving rage. Or nothing at all — hard to tell.
“Looking for something else,” I quickly recouped, my skin crawling from their voices, their stares. “Information. What’s inside the package.”
“Better,” gurgled Doris and Dolores at once; ahh, synchronized hell. What’s worse than this? Quadruple hell that’s what. Good I split them up into pairs. “We’re interior,” these 2 continued in their foul way. “*They’re* exterior. Whattaya want?” Would they ever become unsynchronized, dammit? Can’t stand much more!
The asking price — so ironic — was Panama’s just won back Thornton Mackinaw “Warhorse” vehicle — go figure. All that slaughter and risk for nothing. Should have focused on the Kang Tau AV first. Hindsight is golden of course. And I got to know Panama better for all this. We’re pals, we’re a pair. We’ll probably even sleep together given enough time. Is this… why I left *Their* Second Lyfe? Unconsciously, of course. Couldn’t have known about Panama and her bewitching ways ahead of time. Act 2 of 2 will tell!
00450111
“I need to have a talk with you, V. Panama’s not my type. I don’t *want* to sleep with her. I actually… have my eyes set on someone else.”
“Jonny. How long’s it been?” I say to the person inside of me, the person I’m wedded to as much as any soulmate lover. We’re not lovers. We are One. “Roller coaster?” I tried to pinpointed.
“Yeah. Roller coaster. Had a fun day back there. Thought I’d end it while we were still on top.”
“Yeah, noticed you weren’t with me after we started careening down to the bottom again on that last big hill.”
“The biggest!”
“Yeah.”
“Good times.”
“Good times, Jonny. So… are you back?”
“Define: back.”
“Welll.”
“Just kidding, kid-o.” Jonny’s affectionate nickname for me, since he’s, I don’t know, like *150*. “Take the red pill and let’s try that scene (from the last post) again. Let me take over. I want to demonstrate my point.”
“And then you’ll take the blue one,” I said, reinforcing the pact we made before. Red on my side, blue on Jonny’s side to return control back to me. He’d been proven a reliable ally on this arrangement.
“Sure, sure. Just like before, chum.” He even gently punches me on the shoulder to reinforce the partnership, the unity of cause. I don’t feel any punch of course, all this being just virtual hallucination.
“Now?”
“Now. Before the inspiration is lost.”
I had a couple of reds handy in my back pocket. I pull one out. “Okay. Here goes (swallow).”
—–
For a moment, she appeared in their midst, naked as a jailbird, even bringing a bit of Kabusie canal water along with her which pooled down below her feet. I thought it was a mirage at first, but then I stared at the tattoos, remembered what they said and represented to her, the roses, the firetruck, the spiderweb, that *cat*. No mirage this Lexi Alvocado was — straight out of the city and into the desert, Panama nowhere to be Scene. Tattoos like that don’t lie.
I could feel myself stirring down there. I wasn’t sure I wanted to lose control again this time. Which of course — doofus — V or Val heard, being One with me. What gives? he says way down there, but aware of the stirrings not his own, the thoughts. Okay okay, I say back in my head to the other part of myself. I’ve proven my point. Take the blue pill, he pleads. Get out of there before it’s too late. But what do you think? I say back. Beautiful isn’t she. Better than Panama, eh? So go with Lexi. We’ll get along *so* much better later. Take – the blue — *pill*, he insisted from within. Okay alright, I say. I had two in my back pocket as well. Wait… one. Always forget how that works. I pull it out, I swallow. Yeah, before it’s too late. The arrangement, etc. etc.
The pill begins working its magic. She acquires her regular garb to stem the stirrings, cut them off even. She was Jonny’s type, I said in my head while making my way back to the surface. But she wasn’t *my* type.
—–
Then *I*, baker b. of the Baker Family of Our Second Lyfe avatars, took over. Neither one, the Mary Anne and Ginger of Cyberpunk 2077 as we could call them, were my types. I put the patch back in my pocket to end the game before it even began.
00450112 (associations)
After being left alone in the Badlands desert without a male to ogle them, our two Mary Anne and Ginger type girls decided to play a game within the game around a warming campfire to pass the time. After all, Lexi had been summoned and Panama was already there. Just around the corner. She could return. So she did. Sister act. Act 2 of 2 can wait. Still point in the middle.
“It was right around a campfire much like this that the legend of the Burning Man began,” started Panama, wise to desert ways being the nomad she was, an outcast of the city. “A man we only know as Edward D., dancing up a storm to summon… well…”
“Me?” Lexi guessed. It could be so, Panama thought, but she pretended not to hear her and continued. “Soon, very soon, others remembered a rock with a depiction of the scene, along with the glyph 01 + 02 – 03 = 00.” Lexi repeated it to make sure she heard right and Panama nodded. “It all added — and subtracted — up — and down — to zero.”
“Hmm,” said Lexi. “Burning Man,” she summarized.
“But wait, there’s more. If you go to this rock at 3 o’clock at night you’ll find him again. The Burning Man, burning away inside a fire much like this one. You smell the flesh searing right off of him. Or so they say. You can follow him, burning away like a fireball, streaking across the desert…
“… then collapsing, the screams finally silent as the fire keeps consuming.”
“Wow,” says Lexi. “That was a good story.”
“Wait. There’s more. So move the clock back to daytime — return. There’s only a dummy there, not even charred. An Arasaka robot, a crash test dummy, or so it’s been described to me.”
“Uh *huh*.”
“And *that’s* the end.”
“Great. My turn now.” Lexi already had a follow-up and was eager to get at it. “City this time now obviously — where I’m from.”
“Right,” says Panama.
“But burning man again, but in a different way.”
“Oh?” says Panama. “How?”
“Penis burn. Or some say balls. Crotch malfunction. But — get this — Arasaka again. Interesting, eh?”
“Eh?” says Panama.
00450113 (clash)
“It was not just me in the Back Rooms. There were others, but we all had our own little cubby hole in the place. There was Jack to the right of me, Monkey below. And I believe someone named Marshall or Marshill above, although I can’t quite place the face. Jack’s (sigh): hard to remember too. And Monkey always wore that space suit so I never saw his face either. Come to think of it…
“… *I* didn’t have a face.”
“Oh sure you did,” I encouraged. “You were Shelley. Trapped in the Back Rooms along with your boyfriend Edward D. Trapped as trapped can be. Part of that Flesh Pit actually, as it turned out. It’s *everywhere*.”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m trying to tell you to leave this place, this Aisle of Palms. Heck, go to the *real* Aisle of Palms (road) in that salty sea village in California. Follow Strevor’s footprints in trying to find his own true self as Trevor up in that video game in the real world. Try to *escape*.”
It was not cold. It was warm, warm as hell. She didn’t need any of Fern’s heavy garb for this one. Or gab. She was on her own, lower than brilliant but certainly not plain. It was a quandry, a conundrum. Should I stay or should I go.
(to be continued)
00450114
I may have found a home in upper lower right left central Nautilus, continent that is, search at least ended for now. It could be enough, despite being only a room and access to a “collective” basement called The Crypt, spookily enough. Maybe there’s a reason the rent was so cheap!
The candy sentry is still present from photo-novel 25 when the Mosses — Fern, Lichen and, ahem, Redd, the red one — lived here, still looking out for intruders on his land. My Candy Shoppe didn’t make it the last time, existing for only a couple of weeks before deletion. But I have a different plan this time. Maybe the sentry can’t see *in*, as in the house he looms outside of and stares away from. I join the appropriate group so that I can rez objects and set up in my room there, also placing my newly bought barrel in the cellar. Let’s go with wine. Superb; somewhat costly but not too costly, especially for the quality. Gotta start somewhere I figure, and middle is often the safest and wisest choice between upper and lower.
We’ll see if I can stay longer this time.
(to be continued)
00450115
Once my eyes were opened to TILE in the city…
… I started to see the sacred 4 colors everywhere…
… not only in buildings but in people’s clothing, the arrangement of fruits on a market counter, the list goes on.
I went to the library to study more about alchemy to try to understand the phenomena. 3 aisles over, in the 600s according to the Dewey Decimal System, were the wine books. Being an owner of a wine making business I should logically be over there more, studying those old dusty tomes instead of these ones in the 100s. But the winery, thanks to my trusted right hand man Barney Basil-Fawlty, the majordomo who’d been there for decades, basically ran itself without my help or input. And anyway, I *did* have an alchemical lab set up in the cellar of my new house, my crypt as I call it. It just didn’t produce any money unlike the vineyard proper. That was about to change. Thanks to the gold.
Ah ha! This more modern alchemist Karl Young seems to recognize the phenomena too through what he calls a mandala. Another lead! Might be here the rest of the day. Probably should get a message to Barney so he won’t worry about me. Make sure someone walks Chomp, and so on.
(to be continued)
00450116
Look at them. Hard at work. Whatever they’re doing. Alchemy alchemy alchemy, he then thinks. That’s where the real work happens. Must get back to my lab in the cellar to test out some stuff. Let’s see, I bought a new pestle at the marketplace. Will try that in an old mortar first, or, what Young might call, a marriage of male and female forces to create the hermaphroditic whole. Can’t wait.
Just because it’s a pretty girl doing it doesn’t make the activity any more hygienic, he thought while passing the grape stompers. I’ll have to ask Barney if there’s any other way to do this. “What you’re name?” he asked, thinking she might be unemployed soon. “Pricilla Plum,” came the answer. “Well, that’s a plumb beautiful name,” he quickly shot back. “Just like you.” She titters while still stomping away. What a grating laugh, he thinks while walking away. Now where was I? Oh yes, the lab.
“Bob, Carol, Ted,” he addresses each individual at the table before him, eating heartily on a meal between breakfast and lunch. Let’s call it luckfast. “Do what do I owe the honor?”
“What do you mean? Witcher?” said either Bob or Ted, reader’s choice.
“Gerald, please,” insists Gerald over his more formal name.
“Yes, of course,” said Ted. Pretty sure it was Ted this time. “Gerald. With a D right?” then said Bob opposite him. “And not a T as more commonly spelled.”
“Spelt,” insists Ted, making Bob grin.
“That’s right,” says Gerald about his name.
Carol between them begins to titter in a way not unlike the grape stomper before, making Gerald visibly wince. “Don’t you see fellas,” she followed. “*Gerald* has forgotten where he lives. *Again*.”
Now hearty laughs from all 3. Gerald realizes his mistake. This was not his vineyard. He had gotten confused in the maze of Beauchamp streets and exited the wrong gate. It wasn’t the first time. In a dream of alchemy he was, ever since the library.
“Down the path over there and take a right at the bottom of the hill,” said Bob between laughs. “Just ask one of your workers if you get lost again, ha ha ha.”
“Ho ho ho,” echoes Ted. “And, ho ho, ask them where *I* live, he he he.”
“Hu hu hu,” goes Carol. Gerald had had enough. His cheeks red from embarrassment, he spots the indicated path and was on his way again. At least he remembered their names, he tried to console himself in the moment. The Fishers, known for their fine caskets (of wine). Not *his* vineyard but theirs.
Sunklands 