00440501
“Soooooo… youu headingggg (hiccup) backkk… todaayyyyyeee *weeeeeeee*?” he said in his drunky, sloppy way, suddenly spinning around as he spoke, almost toppling over. Typical for the morning. By afternoon he’d be popping the pills, becoming less slurry as the drug fueled words popped back out of his mouth more in staccato form, with consonants and vowels left out, soon to progress into whole words and even phrases and sentences. Word salad they become in effect, not slurry but just as incomprehensible and useless.
“Yup,” she uttered, coming onboard and up the stairs to directly face him. She wanted to know what he was drinking, wanted to smell it on his breath. Because she might need some too. Given what she was potentially facing today.
Vodka. And not a hint of vermouth to change it into her normal. She’d have to pass, pure being too strong for her liking.
“Well,” she said as he stumbles and falls. “Get to piloting… Cpt.”
“Right right right. Heading back, right. Riiiight *weeeeee*.” Another fall.
“You know — never mind. I’ll do it myself. Been there enough lately.” Still on the ground. “Yes, you just rest, Philip. It *is* still Philip? Right?”
“Right right (hiccup)… right,” he repeats, and then falls asleep on the spot, pills in his mouth as soon as he becomes conscious again at 12:01.
(to be continued)
00440502
Upon exiting the shuttle from the airport where the ship “landed”, she immediately turned to the harbour to see if she could spot the boat. She only saw a head sticking up but that was enough. Hooded, she observed. This was the one.
Now to find Tin and clear this up once and for all, she said to herself, trying to retrace her steps from a month back now.
(to be continued)
00440503
“Gotta light?”
“Lincoln!!” both occupants of the black car in the desert or at least the very arid landscape screamed in unison, their last coherent words.
—–
“Com’n Trevor. Time to go home.” And he dumped the lifeless body in the container, determined this would be his last Badlands gig. Ever. Retirement himself, if not in body, in soul. He had a old bunker picked out he could remake as a desert home. Even had a contractor on board for the remodeling process. Cliffside dwelling. Perfection. Half an hour tops now and done with all this. He got into the make-shift hearse and put the 4 way flashers on, Tiler Church straight ahead and then turn left and another left and then a right and then a left and right. And left, he believes. Then: done. Away from the grave and reborn. This old monkey’s about to acquire a leaf and turn into a new man. Adam. And he also has an Eve picked out. Mechanism, but it was the best he could do. They would manage. Box labelled Live Cargo should be arriving any day now down at the harbour.
—–
“What do you *mean* I can’t go home?!” shot back Fern, her business done here in The Aisles with Tin and all, with much learned and much to ponder about later.
“The Cpt.’s duties have ended,” he said plainly, not going into any details.
OD, Fern assumed. Or hospitalized or fired or a combination of 2 or all three in one. Well, something had to happen sooner or later, she rationalized.
“How long till you get another cpt.?” she asked, knowing she could pilot the vessel herself back to mainland if needed. But she had to obey protocols with this officer of the Navy, Army and Air Force in one. And perhaps the Marines as well, the oft forgotten 4th. She looked at the insignia. Hard to tell from them; designed that way due to the ’68 Force Bias Wars as they became known.
“1 day, maybe 2.” She looked at the many weapons about his body. She’d have to wait. He’d stand guard until the replacement showed up, she knew from his stance and former talk.
Finally time for that drink, she supposed. Time to visit Rose, one of ’em, maybe both of ’em before the day’s ended. She heads in their general direction from the harbour, letting her feet decide which is what and who first.
(to be continued)
00440504 (the end of AISLE 00?)
Despite having a microscope instead of a telescope, she was able to connected the dots that were the lights that were the stars in the cube pretty far away in the nighttime sky into a triangle with her naked eye. Naked all the way down, actually. Helped her work, helped her with the unaided magnification when needed. Like here. Damn that Edmund Scientific catalog order mixup! she cursed internally.
One emerged from the 3, she observed with her 20/5 vision at least: Emily for a Rose, backwards, she knew, from The Zombies song “A Rose for Emily,” perhaps even the source of her own name too like Rose T.’s.
Falling. Falling.
—–
“Where *am* I?? And… what’s that *thing* over there humming like there’s no tomorrow?” New Southern recruit Tom Morrow from Horns of Hatton shows up and explains everything. “Sit down,” he requests to begin. “This could take a while.” After saying this he just disappears from sight while continuing to talk. Convenient — time saving, even. Like he was never physically, bodily there in the present; simple reuse of an old photo a number of posts back; no avatar appearance for Tom Morrow needed (only spiritual). But, anyways, she has her back story.
I’d end this with my usual “(to be continued)” but we already have, also part of Tom Morrow’s explanation.
00440505 (the end of AISLE 01?)
I check to see when the next due date is on my Aisle of Palms rent. 1 week away. Decision time (again).
00440506
Q: Tell us a little about yourself. And how you got involved in the Mysteries.
A: Well, my name is Tom Morrow Jack Shepherde, and, yes, that’s like the LOST guy but with an extra e at the end, the 9th to complete the 3 and the 6.
Q: Cool.
A: Yeah, that’s part of the Mysteries too as it turns out.
Q: Nice.
A: So, you know, I came up here to the vineyard because I like the nice view from the hills. Figured I could, er, practice my video techniques in this cool setting.
Q: Nifty.
A: And then people, you know, my online GTA buddies, told me about the vine and that I should check it out. So I did. Just over there (he points). You can just insert that picture I took here if you wish.
Q: I will.
A: And, um, as you can see from this next photo — please insert again — I also found out that the vine glows at night, which my friends *didn’t* tell me about.
Then I found the ring nearby which was *also* glowing; just down there on a, um, culvert at the bottom of the vineyard (he points again).
Q: Tell us more about the ring.
A: Well, er, I connected it — eventually — to a marriage, like as in a marriage that took place at the vineyard. That was the symbolism that Rock* put in here. Or at least that’s what everyone — my friends again, my online chooms — were telling me. Then I started to have my doubts. I started thinking that the marriage in the vineyard was *my* marriage, as if I was the one getting married here. But not to someone else as in a human — not really. Instead: to the vineyard itself, the wine and so forth. And, ahem, Viney.
Q: Viney?
A: Ah, you know. (he lowers his voice as if this is just a secret between me and him) The vine.
(to be continued)
00440507
He was wealthy beyond anything he could have dreamed of now but he couldn’t help but keep thinking of his humble origins in that vineyard over in the hills north of Lost Sanos, before he became, as it were, LOST in the hustle and bustle of the city’s mean streets. Capitalism, greed took over. Lust for power. Money. A simple video editor of GTA V he was back then. First camera. Couldn’t even figure out how to add his own speech in for the longest time. But then the talking started, and it never ended. Deal after deal after deal, making his way to the top of the pyramid, stepping on the heads of his competitors along the way. Smushing down everything beneath him that needed to be dealt with in his path like accrued sedimentary layers of mud and preserved skeletons. He didn’t feel like he was standing on the shoulders of giants to get to this point. He *was* the giant, towering above the land of man, tall as Atlas. A man and also a whole world. In his head. He could see the circumference, could navigate the surface like a modern day Magellan to all ports of call here there and there to collect favors, debts, even bribes if necessary to keep the collective going forward. But more and more lately he yearned for that old, delicious glass of Pinot noir, his favorite, while staring into the tiled fountain from his favorite seat on the patio, and wondering how to actually produce sound from his lips. Ah, the good old days.
If only he could find his fountain pens he could write down the halcyon beginnings, but big bucks blocked the way once more in the form of an attache case full of dough here, lid raised so he could gaze in on his most recently acquired booty. And he also wondered why he converted his laptop into such.
“Gertrude!” he called on the intercom to his underling secretary, one of the beaten down, one of the ones trying to escape the pressure of the city and return to country origins in her own northern arcadia of the early 21st Century, Morro Bay I believe it is called, a place Jack also knew about; where they met, actually. “Bring me a computer in here pronto and, let’s see, let’s make it a 62 inch monitor this time.” Big screen needed for a big view of the world, he rationalized. His world. F- the pens, f- the fountain, *f-* the vineyard. His thoughts had returned to the normal ones.
—-
“Do you want me to remove the attache case to make more room for you?” she asked after bringing it in and setting it up, gazing down on his now even more crowded desk and also wondering why he converted his laptop into such.
“No I’m not finished staring at it,” he said brusquely, barely acknowledging her presence all the time. Return to normal as I said. She left without more words.
00440508
“My first real gig as an owner of a business actually came through the vineyard. I bought out the O’Neill Brother’s crop dusting business when 2/3rds of them died in that unfortunate fire which destroyed their family home, including the only 2 of the 3 who could actually fly a plane. Like me. Only later did I learn the true culprit behind the tragedy.”
“So… you knew how to fly a plane?”
“Yeah. Learned it from my 2 uncles growing up in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.”
“Interesting.”
“Isn’t it? Anyway, Martha — the owner of the vineyard at the time — said to come by every week to douse the vines with a special herbal pesticide she concocted herself, just like those O’Neill brothers did before me, and be sure to leave by 3, or else take a break at 2:45 and don’t resume until 3:15. Else — and the first time she mentioned this she made a throat slitting gesture with her hand and mouth, which of course I took as death. 3 o’clock — death; keep that in mind. But at the time I just took all of this as part of the peculiarities of the old woman and didn’t believe the stuff she was telling me. After all, she had a special recipe for pesticides, you see — a weird-o. But I still didn’t fly at 3. No use taking any chances, I figured. She later revealed that 3 o’clock at night would be bad for me too but didn’t mention it at first because she knew I’d only fly the plane during the day.”
“Why did you call yourself Jack Sheepe in those days?” he asked, thinking of the hanger and its sign. “Instead of Jack Shepherde, like you are now — like the LOST guy? But, let me guess: because you view yourself as a *leader* now, and not a follower. You changed the name to show this.”
“Correct. Do you even need me here? Sounds like you could have done this interview by yourself (!).”
“No, I need you here,” he says with no humor. “Now. Let’s talk about the move to the big city, how that came about.”
“First there was a detour. Through Christianity.”
00440509 (LOST no more (therapy))
“Eat Jack Sheepe power you loser!”
—–
“When I started mowing down pedestrians with my souped up riding lawn mower made from discarded plane parts, I knew I had to change or else face the consequences, like felony charges. That’s when I decided to become a leader rather than a follower. Else the pent up anger would keep resurfacing. I had to find my true potential.”
“Good, Jack. Good to get this out. We’re making so much progress today.”
“Well thanks, Clyde. Nice to see my big bucks I’m forking out to you are finally paying off, ha ha.”
“Riight. So let’s go back to the beginning (again). The vineyard. When did you return?”
(to be continued)
00440510
I popped in the BD and then decided against watching it as a hooded figure came up to me in the metro train and asked me for money.
Then low and behold, in the BD I quickly replaced it with — starting where I left off in it from the last viewing — there the same hooded figure was again only a couple minutes in, an NPC type I’d never seen before tonight in my now many many hours of watching these kind of virtual videos…
.. and then *again* almost exactly 1 minute later, as I’m rechecking. This 3rd time I saw him tonight he turned around on the sidewalk in front of me just upon reaching a passageway to his right left, which I subsequently went through. He seemed to be indicating it to me through the actual maker of the BD if that makes any sense. This was one of those channeling events — in the channel district of Kabusie after all.
There, to my complete shock, I found a totally different world within, a Back Rooms to Cyberpunk 2077 as it were, zowie! This was obviously the thing he wanted me to see with my very own eyes.
Soon I was back in Lexi’s apartment trying to explain what I’d discovered. After finishing my excited description, she said at the window she so loved; not blinded any longer to the landscape beyond:
“So. You found the Big Inside, huh? WOW.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
“Sooo…” She eyes the completed pseudo-flathead style robot dog she named Ralph on the nearby table. “Our work can truly begin now.”
(to be continued)
00440511 (7 to 6 revisited)
“It’s okay,” he says, peering in. “They’re actually all blue.” He turns toward me. “No choice.”
“Let’s go, then,” I said, and picked one. Any one. The slide begins.
And: out.
00440512
He sat down on the toilet even though he didn’t need to go to the bathroom. Mechanism, you see — no inner fleshy workings of that type to maintenance. He needed *oil* yes. Oil to think. Because he was lost. Lost in a forest that had inexplicably, to him, turned white. Too early for snow he knew. Maybe some kind of virtual blight? But here he is, trying to cogitate with the limited power he had left. Suppose to meet someone named Fern here who would take him to an isle named after food. 2 isles actually, she said, a 2n1, she described it. Breakfast… and some other type of food he couldn’t recall.
He also couldn’t recall how to contact Fern for help. She was not the same core as him; he had that at least. Something about flesh again. Yes, he went into the bathroom to think about flesh, hmm. The bathroom and its toilet would help him remember.
If he just had his trusty oilcan he could squirt some in his left right ear and the gears would begin to spin properly up there again. But he lost it somewhere in this forest, too confusing with its whitewashed nature to retrace his steps to that tree stump he left it by.
*Sally*, he then recalled. He could ask his *wife*. His better, mechanoid half. Yes, of course. Sally. Speed dial so he didn’t have to come up with the number. He could ring her up in his head they were so close. Almost the same brain workings.
—–
Sally woke up with a ringing in her head, cursed the extra glass of diesel wine she had before bed, then realized what it was, *who* it was. “Hello?” she spoke to no one around.
“I’m in trouble, er…” Long pause.
“Sally,” Sally said, understanding that he *was* in trouble if he forgot her name in the moment. Lack of brain power, lack of oil most likely. Where *is* he?
“I don’t know,” he spoke back, understanding her thought. “Somewhere white. The trees… are white.”
She intuitively remembered the “blight” starting in upper right central Maebaleia, in the middle of that new super city developing there. “Hold on,” she thought back. “I’ll be right over.”
(to be continued)
00440513
It was right here where his ship landed years ago, perhaps 5 now, which would be about 42 or 43 years for him I suppose, given the 1 : 8 1/2 year conversion between Earth time and Our Second Lyfe time. Volcanic Zebrasil-Ichelus was and is the island, a well known landmark (infohub) to old timey Our Second Lyfe residents like me and perhaps like you. His robot parents were destroyed by hostile native glytches shortly after arrival but he survived by hiding in the bushes situated just here there and there, his littler body not detected by the marauding mutants, diminutive themselves but bad of eyesight. Then, not too long afterwards, vacationing adventurist Sugar Demossville, a brightly hued, small dinosaur who ran the eponymous Sugar Shack over in nearby Big Woods at the time, scooped up his little robot body found on an inner tube in the offshore water (glytches don’t like water, he’d found out in the meantime; too late to save his parents, though) and took him back home to the mainland with her. Since Sugar was red and green herself, just like Billy’s safe haven inner tube, she deemed it fate that he join her in the woods and live out the rest of his natural mechanical life there with her. But it was Sugar herself who died first from a stimulus induced heart attack brought on by one too many pieces of pecan and cherry pies at once several years later (2? 17?), freshly plucked from 2 of Big Woods’ many pie trees and too delicious to resist gluttonously gobbling down that fateful morning in late April’s May despite the warnings from her 2 doctors not to double up on the sugars like she did with her physicians. She was survived by mate Donald the Thong, a man-sized, almost naked duck to complement Sugar’s woman-sized, totally naked dinosaur — very tall but still within range, let’s say. He couldn’t deal with, let’s say again, Billy’s hypersomnia where his constant sleeping blended day and night until he couldn’t tell one from the other. “What time is it?” he’d ask now mate-less Donald. Then 5 minutes later, “What time is it?” “Five minutes after you asked the last time, little Billy,” Donald originally said to things like this but patience gradually wore away like his clothes did before (thanks Venus!), soon leading to harsh replies like, “You’re *clockwork*, Billy. You can’t tell time??” Time for Billy to be sent away himself, not to the Land of Death like Sugar thankfully but still regrettably to a robot orphanage over in Lesters Best, with many similar stories of eroded owner patience in the air, mostly for other kinds of conditions but with one in particular sounding very much like his own: that of Sally’s, who turned out to be the love of his life and the light in his eyes, particularly after the brain meld. What fortune, what fate! (once more!). He would never be left in the dark again.
Billy revisiting his “homeland”.
Billy staring over at his red and green inner tube, his safe haven until Sugar rescued him from this hellish landscape which took the lives of his parents (additional note: the glytches have meanwhile been rounded up and taken care of).
00440514
Frank Lynn cut off the radio in disgust. “Aw man, this car is like our country in that it’s a *wreck* and deserves to be towed away.”
“Oh, Frankie, Frankie,” countered one time lover Wanessa, having a different view on things. “Just because you don’t like what The Man be trying to tell us, the good Lord above us all, he still knows what’s good and best, don’t you worry. Don’t you worry a bit about this here country. We’ll be fiiiiiiiine.” She paused, then came up with what she thought was a winning line: “We’re saving *babies* after all.”
Frank looked over, sensing a divide between red and blue, as if an impenetrable white line was drawn between their car seats, passenger and driver. And she had control of the wheel now. Can they resolve it? Tow hook secured, the car moves up and then away from the scene of the crime, where Frank first heard the results. Like a big red cube dropped on us all. And not just one.
Here come the aliens?
00440515 (once more: the 7 and the 6)
Looking down from the damn dam rail into the still blood stained rocks below, I thought of changing Tennessee into Kentucky again and be done with it.
But then, raising my head and seeing the city-scape still beautiful in the sunset through the gorge in front of me, I turned away and started walking again, contemplating the red (technology) and the green (anatomy) and how to balance the two and not give up hope. Sanity don’t leave me yet!
00440516 (zombie)
Happy belated Halloween!
—–
Sunklands 