00470201 (explorers)
“We can’t go back to Holland again?” he questions, staring at the newest image on the screen.
“Oh Eddy, we can’t even get to the top of Mt. Sandraman without being distracted, much less another place in another world. Be here in the here and now. Be Free.”
“Let’s go!” he urged. But he stood still.
—–
“Oh look, the image is changing into something else we know. Wallytown. On (nearby) Fishers Island. Remember?”
“Of course I remember,” responded Shelley, still standing behind him in her finest cashmere bathrobe, still waiting on a decision. Where to go, where to go? Somewhere away from *here*. Or at least go to that hill that likes to call itself a mountain *within* here, pheh. She tires of being chained as an object. 6 6 6 is over. It’s now 7. Freedom.
But they stood still.
—–
Too late, Eddy. Too late. The dream Spider has arrived.
(to be continued)
00470202 (fear and loving)
“Great Shelley. Now there’s an alien involved. I *told* you we should have never left Sandraman.”
“And dandelions (!)” she added to her newly minted husband Eddy’s declaration, attention on something up front instead of ’round back. Opposites they were in many ways, light and dark. Eddy still enjoyed the triple form of the number 6 back where they came from, back over there around that hill/mountain in the distance you can still see from here. He never tired of it. Slave to it even, he was. Because he actually doesn’t have his own independence. Apart from Shelley. Minted; created. Like Albert/Douglas before him. Or actually after him, since the avatar named Eddy, D’aigle comes from an earlier photo-novel than the last one. Just after my retirement. Probably 33 without checking. Feels like he’s always been around now, along with his twin cousin Edward Daigle.
Freedom, she though about once more, stare remaining forward. Like seeds blowing away in the wind. 7 over 6 but still remembering where it came from. Never forget my friend, never forget.
(to be continued)
00470203 (the search for meaning (the flesh and the stone))
“I have a confession, Eddy, my Edward.”
He looked up at her from his bench position, his standard sitting place in their very tall, very narrow new New Island dwelling spot shaped like a ring. “Yes, dearest?”
“I went over to Fishers Island last night.”
“Umm… in your dreams?” Eddy asked of his lover, his *inventor* Shelley. Again the red haired version. Just to be someone different or try to be.
“Nah, in reality. I wanted to check out the location of the K2 lounge. The, ahem, *landlord* said it was gone now in the text accompanying her profile picks, along with the attached cafe. Yup — both gone as I checked.”
“But — you were here all night,” countered Eddy. “You mean? … that period between supper and TV time, that hour?”
“Yup,” she said again. “And I was over there long enough to join some kind of academy. I think it was run by witches because they gave me this costume for free.” She quickly donned it. “Cool, huh!”
“Hazel, I mean, PHEH, *Shelley*, this is bad. Really bad.”
No, he thought, taking another gander. Not bad. He came up with another word: evil. Really evil.
(to be continued)
00470204
He was putting the finishing touches on his patented veggie stew hot dogs when he looked forward through the wisps of steam rising from Forman George’s old grill and had a vision, as if on an invisible screen before him.
Another place with flowers besides these exotic ones from the Amazon (store) all around, making it smell like a jungle out here on the patio where he was preparing food for Shelley Marsha and his cousin also originally named Edward. “2 fer 1,” he whispered to himself and himself only, watching the vast field of them wave strong and free in the brisk wind as their imaginary scent mixed in with the others from reality. And then he heard someone running behind him, just like at the beginning of it all, his genesis. Now it can be revealed (sorry).
Common denominator: triangles. Slice to be more specific.
And then he simply forgot the whole hallucination ever happened, attention returned to those finishing touches.
“Stew dogs’ done!” he said proudly a 1/2 minute later, and then prepared the plates.
(to be continued)
00470205 (no more Happy Town)
There was a time when the Prince and Princess danced with joy all over their royal home that was a castle.
But that was before the coming of the proletariat, their offspring in effect. As transformed into King and Queen they now had to be chained to their thrones and deal with a troublesome 3rd. It didn’t sit well with them.
(to be continued)
00470206 (front and back)
Runaway.
She had to.
The World’s Gone…
… Mad for her.
Off to a rocky start but it will get better. When she meets Rocky.
(to be continued)
00470207 (center and circumference)
She liked to sit at this table in the apartment because it gave a view of the statues she so adored, especially Colossus, he he he. She typically and temporarily derendered a certain piece of metallic clothing to great effect. Oh, here comes Eddy. Better stop staring, ha.
—–
“I’m glad you started drinking without me,” said Eddy after sitting down and manifesting a glass of wine of his own. “Sorry about being late. But I was playing around with the marketplace and found some free versions of those statues outside I thought you’d like, including Colossus and Titan.”
Oh *goody*, said Shelley to herself, getting excited at the prospect of hovering above, walking below, and just looking from all angles at the giant effigies — in her own private space of course. Don’t want to start more gossip and rumors flying; Vortexville has enough of those already, she figured. Like those swirling around Old Ben and his Giant Womb Woman situated right smack in the middle of town for all to see, hmph. A little subtlety, Ben!
“But,” continued Eddy. “Unfortunately I also found out they all derezz after 8 minutes. Would have to pay a boatload of money for the originals. So all — sorry again — I got you was this camera for a L$1 at the same store. It won’t derezz, though. And you can take *pictures* of your beloved statues. You know I don’t like looking at that God awful black hole sun out there. We can sit and eat and relax at other tables around our pretty large apartment, ones that don’t face the west. Whaddaya think, huh? Camera.” He indicated the instrument of photography he’d placed in the middle of their table. Shelley looked at it… and then outside again.
“Okay,” she tries to brighten herself, a light bulb going off above her head, even. “Sounds good to me!”
As soon as they finished their last meal at that westward facing table for a while, she herself had logged onto the marketplace and bought 20 demos of each of the two available statues Eddy found. Good for 8×20 minutes or over two and a half hours apiece. Then she would buy 20 more pairs tomorrow if needed, ha. Can’t beat free! Even if there are other prices to pay, like time limits. The camera would remain unused for days, maybe years.
She’d rezz them out back behind the abandoned skyscraper so Eddy or anyone else wouldn’t see. Hers and hers alone. Until Ben walked up next Tuesday’s Wednesday. “Aa HA!” he said, staring up and recognizing a kindred spirit.
(to be continued)
00470208
She perused a photography book about New York while listening to Liza Minnelli’s “New York, New York” on the victrola. What was it about this double trouble big city that attracted her attention so these days? Was it her mother’s Douglas also known as Albert? A creation’s creation, she thinks, just to see what would happen. A star guitarist in both a rock and classical sense, culminating with a *little* gig, he he, on the circumference of the yin-yang symbol formed by Black Lake and White Lake known as Woodstock. *Also* in New York. Along with a convoluted tangle of interstates in Rochester called the Can of Worms, like Yoko Ono told Paul McCartney would be opened if she let him reverse the names Lennon-McCartney on even one Beatles recording. He requested this for perhaps his signature track “Yesterday”. She, being Lennon’s widow and thus 1/2 responsible for the decision, refused. Bad blood ensued, or badder blood. When his wife Linda McCartney died in ’98 she wasn’t invited to the New York City wake. New York again. They keep crossing paths.
City of Lights indeed. Unless it’s Paris.
(to be continued)
00470209 ( Rocky Kong)
Runaway Ronnies’s gotta keep reversing her tracks to see what went wrong.
The cut that runs deep. Bleeding. But that wasn’t quite it. Keep reversing Ronnie!
Ahh, a note. Similar to the one you wrote your abusive parents before.
A fallen King.
Well. I think there may be a way to erase this cycle of pain for good. Don’t you?
(to be continued)
00470210
“No sorry we *have* to keep it this dark,” Sherry says to the new stewardess Blush, ready to take the air and leave this forbidden dot on the map that is our world. Or so it seems.
“Him?”
“Yeah. Because of the boss. You know, The Boss.” And she wasn’t talking about Springsteen. Not yet. This was (about) New York not New Jersey. For now.
“Marty,” Blush specifies a name.
“Black Hole Sun, right.” Such a can of worms this situation’s become.
—–
Meanwhile, in another part of Vortexville, Tessa practices her heart shooting skills to take down a lover. Soon the target becomes as large as a small boat to her.
“Die, die, DIE,” she says as she pops the stupid winged beings off one by one by one in the now spacious air within.
Blowing smoke from the end, Tessa then reholsters the six shooter beside the other already in her pants. She determines she’s ready for Kill. Arthur that is. As in crossing a line from New York to New Jersey. Her 3rd eye will absorb the return shot from the north. She’s trained for that as well.
(to be continued)
00470211 (brick)
“You’ve got to hide me, Roberts. Behind the secret wall with the dog. My girlfriend Tessa’s trying to kill me again!”
“Again?” questions Roberts, then uses her own magical 3rd eye to discover the truth. “Ahh. *Overlap*. Again — right.”
“Right?”
“Well. If you go back there there’s a fair chance he’ll absorb you, the 20 right and the 4 left, which are all wrong.”
“20 right and 4 left, er, wrong, yeah. Got it.”
“That leaves you with 5/6ths odds of your self surviving. I’m just telling you the risks up front.”
As an answer, Arthur Kill lays his own 6 shooter on Roberts’ desk, part of the deal. He’s desperate. He’s seen the Oracle map of New York into New Jersey, south into north, the opposite of what it should be. He knows he doesn’t stand a chance against *her*. These are certainly better odds than the Mexican standoff he’s facing otherwise. That damn eye (!). The only way to beat it is to find another eye. Thus: Roberts here.
Roberts inspects the gun and sees that it is the correct one. She presses a button under her desk. The door opens, Spider revealed to him once more. 2130, etc…
“You are free to enter, Arthur Stanford Kill.” She keeps staring at him intensely. He faced life and death if he didn’t do this but he also faces it here, just not with the odds stacked totally against him. Can he stay positive and not descend into negativity? That’s the ultimate question. His survival still depends on it.
(to be continued)
00470211
Ho ho ho, what’s *this*? Siri thought, riding through the ancient amphitheater toward it. I don’t remember this giant statue from my previous visit to Tousaint.
Then she recalled surrogate father Gerald telling her about the construction of what he called a “skyscraper” in this general location by the river. That must be it, she determined, riding down to the almost 100 foot tall object. Unbeknownst to him it seems, he was describing one of its construction phases.
Gerald’s view of it as of her previous visit (re-creation).
From a worshipper praying at its base, she learned the name of the prophet which this represents. Lebioda. Introduced to the kingdom by the grandmother of current princess Anna of Lea herself, he said, surprised that this lass didn’t get off her high horse and bend down and worship with him upon learning this bit of information. Stranger, he thought; *tourist* to this realm. And he spat on the ground in his mind if not in reality. His eyes betrayed his scorn of her, though.
Instead: “I’m surprised they roused enough drunken workers around here to get the job done,” the still mounted girl said down to him with a smirk on her face. He rose from the ground; probably would have slapped the girl if her cheeks were within reach for this slur against the good people of his kingdom. But she rode off untouched and unharmed. Lucky for him.
When she got back to the vineyard she asked Gerald about it, jabbing him as well, as is her manner. “I ran across your *skyscraper* today while riding around the countryside.”
“Skyscraper?” Gerald questions, not remembering that he invented the term in the first place.
“Yeah,” said Siri, that smirk back in place on her face.
Gerald honestly didn’t know what his surrogate daughter was on about. Because he simply was on another timeline where the finished statue didn’t exist. They talk together here but they weren’t together. A gap formed at that place by the river which was never successfully bridged.
A related statue in a different game — surrounded by true skyscrapers:
00470213 (1/2 way to Nowheresville (Tomasina))
“Stop beating, Hank. Stop. BEATING.”
Hank knew it was technically slapping so he didn’t stop. Until the gun came out, *POP*.
“Take that. POP.”
00470214 (somewhere in the lower central part of the virtual Our Second Lyfe continent known as Nautilus…)
“Hi. In today’s post we’ll be taking a closer look at New York state, filling in the corners and gaps. Okay, let’s start friend!
“First up we have the village of Malone in the upper eastern part of the state which produced former vice president William Wheeler who served under Rutherford B. Hayes and succeeded Henry Wilson in that post. But not *this* post, ha. Okay, I’ll cool it with the inept humor. Wheeler Malone Wilson: the full name of the primary female of our blog succeeding, in her own way, Baker Blinker. She claims to hang out with Rutherford B. Hayes in some kind of time machine situation who she calls R. “Booger” Hayes and also says is the first president of the United States never to be its president. Moving on…
“… to Owls Head just beyond Malone, formerly known as Ringville.
“Oh look. Here comes Wheeler Wilson in the flesh to join us. We were just discussing your middle name.”
“Malone?” she asks while walking into the scene.
“Yes, as in reviewing the corners and gaps left in New York to end the current section also known as New York. Here, have a seat beside me.” She rezzed a chair next to the fern.
“Thank you.
“Well… did you mention the ‘fo fo fo’ chat of basketball legend Moses Malone, predicting a 4-4-4 sweep for his Philadelphia 76ers in the 1983 NBA playoffs and its 3 projected series? Off by one.”
“Making it a Baker’s dozen sweep, yes. No I haven’t mentioned Moses Malone. Do you want to talk about Malone town’s Chasm Falls next to Owls Head-formerly-Ringville or do you want me to?”
“444 doubled up, even,” she starts again without a beat. “Its cemetery a chasm itself, one that everyone eventually has to fall into. Those who wear the owls head rings when entering are doubly damned or at least doubly troubled.”
“Moving us to the next county over and its Coopers Corners just below Palmersville,” says cap wearing Carolin. “In the lower eastern part of the state we have Coopers Corners again, a location that actually masks the first in our country’s official geographic database. 2 Coopers.”
“That must have been the one just found you told me about,” says Wheeler.
“It is (!).”
“Cool.”
(to be continued)
00470215 (enter The Destroyer)
“Psst,” Wheeler whispers over to Carolin after commenting on the 2 Coopers. “What’s Spongeberg doing here?”
“Oh,” said Carolin, looking over at the couch where he was sitting, just biding his time it seems. “I was going to use him in this particular scene instead of you. Then I thought since we were talking about your name and all and your prominent role as chief female in the blog, I’d just have you enter instead.”
“Oh. Well, what’s he still doing here?”
“Oh, umm, well. Umm… I guess he must still be pertinent,” she realizes. “He’s, er, a resident of this area after all, along with that being his last name. “Spongeberg Resident!” she calls over, jolting him awake from his micro-nap. “I’ve decided to have you in this scene after all. Come over here and join Wheeler and me. I assume you know Wheeler.”
“Everyone knows Wheeler,” he said distantly but moving closer in his cool, sauntering way after managing to get up from the couch. “Especially me.” He was upon them.
“Hi Wheeler.”
Carolin waves for her.
(to be continued)
00470216
He exited the stylist with a haircut so bad that Google Street View decided to blur it out. Which gets to Spongeberg’s next point…
“Minoa was like a bad haircut in that the stylist had to go, the designer. So I moved you to Fordham up on the beige ridge above us, placed you in a corner there. Eventually this led to Eddy in the current photo-novel, child of Hermon who is also a monster created by another, the CREATOR in this case. Stylist is another word.”
“Snip snip here, snip snip there,” I said to this, thinking of a lion. Thinking of *the* Lion. Gurdjieffian.
I am the stylist he speaks of, I knew by now.
“What couldn’t you fix about your creation, Wheeler? The hair. That jagged, ragged black awful hair.”
“I tried. I really did.”
“By making his face your own. Like staring into a pool of water.”
“Right. But he changed, became independent of me. Through New York.”
“Through *Black Lake,* New York. Old Gregg.”
“I guess,” I answered, thinking of another bad haircut.
“Eddy might be different,” Spongeberg continued. “So also says New York. 2 Coopers as it turned out.”
“Me as Shelley,” I noted. The red haired version, just to mix things up.
And so we’ve come back to the second…
… which is actually the first.
Spongeberg hee-hawed about it and then took his leave from us, also ending this section.
Sunklands 