00470501
“So that’s it down there,” I said, rather unimpressed.
“Yeah,” she said. “I thought we better take a photo up here before we forget where we are. Kabusie — so complicated!”
“Yeah and you’ve lived here, what, 12 years?”
“After Major died…” We both became silent for a minute. Then: “Well, we better get down there and take a look. I need to get you back to the house before dark so you can play with your, ahem, BD’s, heh.”
Just that one night she caught me, I think here. I’ll never live it down. Moving on: “So I still can’t go out after dark here,” I started the now old complaint. “And me 21 1/2 years old?”
“You need to get a job — *day* job. Then you can spend nights at the apartment–”
“This place comes alive at night,” I countered. “What would I do in the day?”
My *point* is — if you’ll let me finish — you’ll be too wore out to do too much mucking about afterwards. Thennnn, when you’ve saved enough money and learned — a *lot* — more about the ins and outs of these mean streets — where to be safe, what places to avoid — *then* we can think about getting you your own place. Under *my* supervision.”
“Super*vision*?” I chafed again.
“Yeah, you know. In looking for an apartment. No, I don’t mean being with you all times of the night following you around or anything; we won’t be living together any more. Truly I want to let you grow up here before kicking you out of your new nest. Mother would kill me if I let anything happen to you. You know that… *baby* brother.” The emphasis on “baby” reinforced what our mother thought of me. Still a toddler in this world, still an infant. With monkey feet that you can’t put socks on. With a crib by the bed watching robots walk past then melt into wall corners. Ro-bots.
“Okay,” I tried to put an end to this worn out discussion. “What would I do in your mind? During the day?”
She readjusted her position on the rail we were looking over, as if preparing herself for a retaliatory blow. “Wellll, you could work at that factory that makes robots we talked about. Uncle Steve could help you get a position.”
Suddenly, with the synchronous conjouring of the word robot, I realized this was fate. I *had* to work at that factory. I breathed out. “I’ll think about it,” I decided to give her.
Lexi beamed while looking down. Her master plan might work out after all. “Okay, wonderful. Now let’s go take a closer look at *Crooked*.”
(to be continued)
00470502
I saw the green soldier man lying dead outside the entrance to the Big Inside and my brain snapped. Little Big, my heart moaned. Little Big…
from genesis to revelation
I started walking but I didn’t know where I was going. Turns out: the bottom. And, along the way, center, a place of rest called Red Rock about halfway up and halfway down. Red Rock West, as in the western states of our US of America. Or maybe I should change that to Red Rock Rest. Whatever… I’m on my way.
Lizard! I’m excited because in Nightsity which I kind of call home now — I guess – there are no wild animals left, just those rare and expensive ones in cages and tanks.
Snake! This is getting even better (!). Not a lot of wildlife but at least some. This is the only snake I saw, that’s the only lizard up there above it. Lots of birds, though. And I think I spotted a rabbit at one point but it hopped away quickly if so. Still… something!
Ahh. Red Rock West. Or Rest. Center of BD and also center of my up to down journey. It sticks out.
I later decided to ask long time resident Bret about it after reaching base camp. “Bret, I wonder while you’re mindless frying up more meat burgers that you could answer me a question.” I may not have put it *exactly* like that to the grizzled local legend but that’s the gist of it.
“Anything, Groundy,” I remember him saying as he scooped another big juicy patty off the grill and effortlessly slid it into a waiting, open bun already prepared with a big slice of tomato and a big leaf of lettuce. They started calling me Groundy after I told them I like to keep my 2 feet on the ground, as in I don’t like to participate in their unendingly practiced speed sports like skiing, skateboarding, mountain biking, and some others I’m probably forgetting. Hang gliding — yeah. And something, what was it, called suit flying… something. Like a flying squirrel they were.
Bret had seen a lot. Multiple champion of the Ryders Ridge Invitational in the early to mid 10’s — set all kinds of records, they say — but grounded himself now because of some bum part of his body — no one would tell me which one. Maybe multiple parts.
I said the name that popped into my head earlier. I was just testing him after all. Shouldn’t have expected so much.
“Red Rock West, lemme see lemme see.” He set the plate down for ski fanatic Arnold to dig into just before he hit the slopes for the 3rd time today. And it was only 2 in the afternoon. Yeah, there was snow here too. Obviously further up in the mountains but not too far. Improbably close, actually, given the warmth down here. Desert-like.
“Say you took a rest there,” he said when upright again.
“Yeah.”
“Then you’re talking about legendary Red Rock *Rest*. Yeah, *everyone’s* heard of *that*. Right Arnold?”
Chomping Arnold nodded up and down, knowing Bret was onto another whopper as he returned to his meat.
“Really?” I say innocently. He stared right through me from the grill. “Naaaaahhh. Just pulling your leg Groundy. There are 100s, maybe 1000s of red rocks around here and up in the mountains, choom.”
Choom? I think while turning red myself. Where’d he get *that* expression?
“Big, small, in-between,” he continued the chiding. “Describe where this particular red rock is and maybe it’ll jog my memory, designated name or not.”
“Up above the waterfall — or cascade I suppose. Above the canyon.”
“Any *balloons* around? Balloons identify the general region you’re in, Groundy. I take it you know that by now, though. You’ve been hiking all around here for a week now.”
A week? I think. Enough to acquire a nickname. And I recall they know I don’t like meat, like Bret’s ground beef here. So Groundy halfway comes from that too. And here I am, making myself a big fat juicy target next to meat parsing Bret. Might as well be shooting big red arrows at me like I was one of the local wildlife.
“I recall… something.” Someone waved in the distance outside the open kiosk window and I remembered. Thanks stranger!
00470504
I stayed at the Roadway Inn in Big Water, Utah for the night. I knew this was the place to be when spotting these male and female cowboy silhouettes framing a red rock outside Room 605, 200 meters (or yards) effectively reduced to zero. Zeroing in, I took it.
The next day I set out for Bryce Canyon not far north of here. I intended to become one of those flying squirrels and survey the whole place by air. I succeeded, though not in the main task.
Eventually I found the actual Red Rock but it took a while. Bret helped. Said it’d been at least several years since he was up there with his ailments and all but we eventually stumbled upon the approx. 20 foot long stone at the top of a canyon cascade. Red Rock Rest, he joked about the name and suddenly became sad. I in contrast was overjoyed as hell.
Strangest thing. We saw a rabbit when walking around it for the first time which then hopped away, leaving what appeared to be its own shadow for a second. Then the “shadow” itself became animated and scurried away, being revealed as what seemed to be a large rat by its shape and motion. We saw no other wildlife while there besides birds. And these two seen were superimposed as one when first encountered. We took it as a sign. Only later did we find out the meaning.
Bret (and Sooki) soon gave me the nickname The Fly because of my prowess in the sky and it stuck like paper. Later when the newspaper articles stopped being published it changed to Airey for reasons unknown to me. In honor of someone I gathered but no one ever gave any details. A “nobody” is all they said about the person. Unlike me.
(to be continued)
00470505
It was so dark he couldn’t see his hands but it didn’t matter. Baker Bloch knew he couldn’t play a lick, much less Beethoven. Tickling the ivories was more (female half) Baker Blinker’s thing. And his vampire alter ego Pitch Darkly’s come to think of it. He could change over, actually. But he decides to instead recede into shadow again, letting Newt be his new self once more. Question, then: could *Newt* play the piano? Let’s give him a minute and then turn on the lights to see.
—–
*click*
Kind of! Certainly not Liszt but is that an ineptly played Spongeberg Invention, perhaps No. 3? It turns out to be No. 4 but, point made I suppose. He can play *some*. He has hands of sorts, a bit mangled but they’re what they are at this stage of his finely aged life. Good enough for what he needs. Besides, he has other talents to practice…. ineptly, ha. Writing I’m talking about here. We better get back to it…..
00470506 (The Fly 02)
At a lake in the center of the park, Joanna S. receives the illumination that someone is approaching…
… from a different dimension altogether.
Later: Creeping along in Times Square traffic, ha.
00470507
*SPLAAAT* “Ahhhhh!”
—–
“Dear! Dear! What’s wrong dear!”
“Oh, ah. Nothing, dear. A dream.” I look around the bedroom, reorient myself. “Just one of those dreams again.”
“Superhero?” she guessed correctly, hand still on my shoulder.
“Yeah.”
—–
In another dream, his face appeared before me like a menacing red leaf… something.
“Island,” it hissed. “We have to go back to… the island.”
(to be continued)
31
“Go ahead. Press it. It’s okay; I’m okay with it now. You’ll be fiiiinne.
“I just wanted to tell you that.
“Go ahead. Presss itt. I’m… okay with it now.
“Go ahead.”
32
I’d moved on. The library that use to be in this place: no more. A gap instead. 31 increased by 1.
All because I pressed the button.
Or not.
I sometimes dream about the Blue Boy. Or someone like him. Verbally abusive, but not really on purpose or intentionally. Just part of the overall dense atmosphere. Yes, dense. Bad juju I suppose. Like Earth itself in a way, in a manner; one blue thing becomes the other and visa versa; interpenetrating. I nibble around on the periphery now. I think he understands.
I call them out and they back off. All is well.
33
But they were diverted away from the chase by the smart ass fox shockingly revealing who she actually was into a series of traffic cones leading their car directly into the back of a fake commercial truck where they were robbed of all the gold they were carrying and then dumped back into the desert, potential end of story. Until the fox traded apples for a banana and turned into a man.
“My SISTER??! Working on thee STREEEETTTS???!”
00470511 (Big Apples)
We’re in the original Amsterdam this time, not the New one over in America also known or more commonly known as New York (, New York). Famed Red Light District: not quite what I was expecting (!). Where are the XXX signs, the scantily dressed prostitutes lining the streets, distracting all our thoughts and motions? And, most importantly and more broadly, where was that gall darn golden auto that was suppose to be here waiting for me?
I’ve searched everywhere, every street, alleyway and side path. I’m beginning to think it was STOLEN, Grand Theft Auto style. One gap replaces the other?
Abruptly switching back from day to night, I reinsert the entrance to the library into the gap in an attempt to make things right again. Was I wrong to press the button? Did that cause all *this*? And did I really even press it in the first place? These questions haunt me to this day.
Or not…. Whatever: goodbye Red, Yellow, Green, Blue. I’m certain I’ll meet one or two or three or all 4 of you in another day in another light. See ya then. Be safe. And… thank you. For being my friend in that time.
Ahh, *there* you are. It worked!
00470512
Everyone Says “Hi” 24 x 24 on panel.
A painting inspired by the David Bowie song and part of the PBJ show with Jay Jacobs, Feb 2016.
It was weird, as I was painting this I couldn’t get any of the characters to smile. Later I found out that Bowie had passed away that day.
Here is a link to the song. https://youtu.be/um05lJzXD0w
—–
Just in his own little island, Jeffrey Phillips remained happy, clutching his Philip Linden doll to his partially bare bosom and remembering his connection with another Phillip named Jeffries, his name kind of reversed or where it came from. White was his world; pure; removed of color and complexity and foldouty nature. But all around this everyone was sad and unable to smile. Jeffrey knew something had to change. The Real World must intrude on this rosy environment. Again.
“INSERT THE THORN,” a voice boomed up in the air somewhere. *sliiiidee*
Ahh: there it is, brown instead of white like all the rest. A sticking point as it were, an impasse.
—–
And just like that Shelley was banned not only from that “new” sim but the kingdom/queendom as a whole. Good to know how they feel about her. Like another Brown, Molly this time, an unsinkable force to reckon with, however. I must MAKE SPACE for her whims and fancies while remaining active in this Our Second Lyfe. But not there obviously.
So Rose Heaven is no more for me. And David Bowie remains dead.
00470513
As soon as I flew over the place I knew I wanted to return. Several days later I was able to do just that. Last Thursday after Wednesday after Tuesday while eating a cheeseburger at Devil’s Den Food Shack down in base camp, owner and head cook and everything else Bret, who I had befriended in my week’s stay there, said that a blue rental car had kind of falling into his lap — he told me not to ask about details so I didn’t, ha. He knew about my fly over of Mammoth City, knew my burning desire to go back to that icy place way up on the ridge above the canyon. “Have it for the day,” he said, and threw me the keys while briefly turning away from the grill. “Just get it back before dark. And stick to the main roads. No side roads, especially snowy ones. Capisce?”
“Capisce.” What else could I say.
I reached the town about 2 that afternoon. A light snow was falling, but nothing sticking on the roads. But then I made the mistake of turning down a side road which I thought was still the main one. I shortly spotted a car parked alongside it that appeared to be the same as my own. Curious, I pulled in behind it and got out, deciding that this was as good a place as any to begin exploring the place on foot. I became grounded at that point. Just like my alter ego.
Yep, same exact make and model as I checked closer, same exact color, heck I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t have the same exact license plate #, although I stupidly forgot to check; might have even saved my life later on. Did the person who gave Bret the car also give this duplicate one to someone else? I thought at the time.
I started walking around the town but the subject kept niggling at my brain. Could it be possibly… me — or a variant version of me — a doppelganger I think they call them? Silly thoughts, I thought at the time. But then down at the lake toward the, ahem, end of my walk I ran into tracks that weren’t my own, and that I felt I *had* to follow. Which led me to my end. He left me in the water and walked away, saying thank you for my friendship, whatever that means.
Soon the car followed my body into the water. Groundy I later learned was his name. Posthumously obviously; my replacement. It took Bret a while to catch on, but eventually he did. There was a sadness about him after that which wasn’t present before. But he never said anything.
(to be continued?)
00470514
My sister positioned her (stolen?) golden auto as close as she could next to the front doors of the small, out of the way eating establishment. “Follow my lead,” she said, then got out of the car and glitched inside. I moved over to the now vacated driver’s seat and did the same.
“There,” she spoke as I stood beside her now, taking in the quiet. Free at last to eat in peace instead of pieces. Why she brought me to this hidden eatery in the first place. “We can pull up those two green seats around that table.” I looked around. No one here except us. And counter person Bob, who Lexi explained didn’t count.
“Say you come here all the time?” I asked.
“Sometimes. Just when I want to eat out. *Ever*.” She smiled, maybe even laughed a bit. It was good to hear. She’d been so serious lately what with the finishing of Ralph, her dog robot which she called a “pseudo-flathead.” Having worked at the robot factory for a week, I kind of knew what that was now. Not Arasaka quality — glossiness, she called it — but compensations in other directions. She could rig it in her own, special way. “End of August,” she said earlier about a deadline for completing the thing. “End of August or I might have missed my chance.” I doubted it. Who would even think of sending a robot into those channels? And now here, another Kabusie secret revealed.
What else did she know? I needed to stick closely to my sister. She’s here to help. We *share* a condition. There’s a reason for that.
(to be continued)
00470515
We finally made time in our busy schedules, ha, to visit Crooked, or what Lexi deemed as Crooked. But the only thing askew about it, really, was that telephone poll just outside the building. Nevertheless, she said, the structure is indeed Crooked, as in a name from another time, another dimension. “Now we just have to get the correct furniture to fit inside,” she said, which got me wondering. “Purple,” she said about the color. “It has to be purple.”
It still wasn’t clear to me if she intended to actually purchase or rent the building set apart from the rest in this Kabusie ghetto, so deep into Darksity that straightness and reason forgot to follow (I think is the way she put it). Or did she just intend to squat there for a time while the processes she also described worked their way through? This is the place she finishes Ralph — I did have that much. End of August. The ditches open themselves up to her like a bitch in heat. Strange way to put it I know, but that’s her phrasing again. We’ll see how it pans out. I guess I’m along for the ride too.
(to be continued)
00470516
We had the silliest argument when we returned her apartment, with Lexi insisting that the Allgoods robot factory I had worked at for, let’s see, *2* weeks now was in the Darksity sub-district of Kabusie, like her apartment here, like Crooked. I countered with the sub-district of North Side to its north, because that was the address of the factory on all the letterhead they sent out. We fought and fought and then I just pulled up a map on her computer to demonstrate my point, because I was sure I was right. Well… turns out we were *both* right. The factory exists 1/2 in Kabusie and 1/2 in North Side, with the line right down the middle. Which gets us also to the line that represents the end of this section.
Sunklands 