00500301 (When in Rome)
—–
Might as well give this so-called Abyss a try since I’ve managed to come across a key, lucky me. Not expecting much honestly, given what the game has had to offer so far. Entering…
Hypercube, huh. *Kind of* interesting. Resonant with some of my own stuff anyway. Desert of a story no more as promised by The Others? We’ll see. Passing through…
Iowa, *dangit*! Should’ve guessed. Different type of sand. One made of corn. Aw shucks, I suppose. And I lost my armor and weapons in the transition *sigh*. Must be a security thing. Have to fight off the locals by hand. Maybe procure some more weapons in a pillaged house or something. Here we go!… TBC?
00500302 (The Heartland)
Soon he’d forgotten he had weapons and armor in the first place and was instead doing a bit of light grocery shopping for the Kennedys down in the hollow who were both sick on Pill (highly contagious!). Backwards Iowa just did that to people, brought them back to Earth where they came from, made them care about people again because there wasn’t a lot else to care about in this corn invested place of a state. Jack the husband said he wanted Kaboom cereal which he was trying to find. Fellow sugar addict and loving wife of 57 years Marge said that she preferred Lucky Charms so when he located the aisle with the cereal he’ll pick up a box of that too. Both were blind to the fact that this high sugar intake left them vulnerable to diseases like The Pill, lowered their natural immune defenses. “5 dollars should cover it all,” Jack said while handing him the bill before he climbed back up the hill into town again but he was living in the 20th Century still so Karl knew it would take quite a bit more than that to buy the stuff they requested. Luckily more in-tune-with-the-times Marge slipped him another 5 as he was going out the door — still not quite cutting it but maybe getting close enough where he could cover the rest with the two dollars a boy gave him earlier in the day for fixing a flat tire on his bicycle. That’s when he discovered he could be kind as well as mean, a kind of first in his weighed down, ghetto constricted life.
As he was checking out, he overhead bits of a conversation from the couple behind him, something about Hy-Vee here not being the grocery store it started out as, and in turning into a large chain it had lost that small village feel which made it so special in the first place. “Not like Beaconsfield, no,” said the husband of the two, obviously having a memory of this place in his head. Beaconsfield, huh, Karl thought. He’d register the name in his brain as Carla the Clerk’s register ran up $11.92 in total for the cereal. Phew! Just made it. TBC?
00500303 (Transfer)
“Iowa??” Daniel eyes the red car wall decor mounted above Father Fecked sitting at the counter, knows where this is heading. Iowa?? he says to himself this time.
“Mountain in the Air,” Newt metes out. Knew he was going to say that, Daniel thinks. Roger Pine Ridge. Or was it Marty?
Turns out it was both.
——
“Roger Pine Ridge is sick on Pill. That malady is spreading throughout the state, maybe something to do with the corn I don’t know.”
“Or Hy-Vee in particular,” spouts Daniel, proud of his addition.
“Okay, *corn* in Hy-Vee, let’s say.”
“Alright.” Always has to one up me, Daniel thinks here.
“But patient 01 — or I suppose patient 00 is the way they put it…”
“Yeah?”
“Roger Pine Ridge.”
“Yeah I remember him from the blog. *And* the attached photo-novels.” Always have to tack that on after mention of his precious blog, Daniel thinks, or else Newt *could* get upset. Doesn’t always happen but he doesn’t want to take the chance. Gotta get to the bottom of this tonight. As in: bottom of the state.
“Right,” says Newt. “So he can’t sit in front of the Beaconsfield Hy-Vee, um, building, the original location. Can’t wait for Marty any longer.”
“I see.” Indeed he did. More than he wanted to let on. You see, his memory is excellent and he recalls what happened to Roger Pine Ridge at this location in the blog. “You’re… putting me in a place similar to the castle,” he reveals what he’s gleaned. “Wooden. So wooden I can’t smoke there either. And (he turns toward the 4th wall, looks for a camera), all because of a laugh? At my expense?”
“There’s the wind too,” Newt doubles down on the laughs. “You can’t smoke because of that either. Wood and wind.”
“*Great*, THANKS.”
“Have you packed your bags?” Newt asks, understanding time doesn’t exist here, not in Cedar Creek, not in Nawt Vaya either, anywhere in Our Second Lyfe. Maybe not even in Iowa.
“No. I mean: yes; what the heck: yes. I’m packed. I’m ready to go. Am… I already there?”
“Yes.” TBC?
00500304
“I can’t believe that worked! I CAN’T be-lieve that WORKED!! Ahh hahahahahahaha!!! Trapped in the STONE he is, back at that cursed woodwinded place. My replacement HO! Suck-aaaaaaaaaahhh!!!” Roger Pine Ridge does a little jig on the spot, then approaches the big painted rock, lights a fag located conveniently (along with a lighter) in his pants pocket, draws deep, and then blows a prolonged stream of smoke right in HER face. The cursed astronaut who set all this in motion in the first place. “WHIT-SOOOON,” he spat out, satisfied to no end with the tobacco and the revenge.
Sounds behind him. He turns.
“MARTY!!! Where you been???” He was holding a woodwind thus still Paul, still dead. TBC?
00500305
“It’s one of your more successful collages, Baker B., it really is. “The Shining Pepper Project.” People should have been paying more attention to your work back then. But who’s fault is that?”
“Yeah, I know. What could I do? Copyright restrictions.”
“Well, *now* you’re doing something about it. Finally.”
“About Paul,” says Baker B. to Daniel, much much later when the transfer mistake was finally rectified. Baker B. couldn’t have known, but the part time job created so that he could focus the other half of his standard work day on his art trapped Daniel in a kind of hell. No smoke no smoke, the wood the wind! But now the truth is staring at him right in front of his face.”
“When did the switch occur?” says Daniel to Baker. “5 to 6 I heard. Kansas and Kentucky?”
“Reverse that and you’re correct.” TBC?
00500306 (Hand’s down (zooming in))
https://www.morningagclips.com/head-heart-hands-and-health-a-short-history-of-4-h/
https://ozarkshistory.blogspot.com/2010/12/white-river-development-association_18.html
00500307 (Hand’s down 02 (continued zoom into just discovered Arkana-Arkawana circle from angle))
00500308 (pinpointed center (ASU-“Mountain Home” library))
“*Very* clever, ya’ll,” Daniel calls into the air, talking to the spirits he credits all this weirdness for instead of me. “*I* walk into the library that fateful day, ready to start a new chapter of my life. Oh I’ve been there many times before.”
“You have (!)” I said. That’s how we became friends.
“But not like this, not as one of the actual employees of the place. So I walk in, walk up the stairs and visit the admin offices to finish out my paperwork. So *excited*. Yet so scared. I’d thrown away full time employment at the, er, college to work on my art in the afternoon. This has now been reinforced to you.”
“To me reinforced this now has been,” I reiterate. “Through the blog, through the photo-novel. Through the *maps*.”
“Yes. Good. I’m getting the hand [sic?] of all this, Baker B. I really am.” And they’d yet to talk about the girl with the library eyes, the one who stood so small under a lamp in the corner when all this went down. Noodle, we could continue to call her. Although that’s not her real name. Time machine.
“Hold on, Mr. SPLAT, ha. I can even show you ascending the stairs. Continuation…”
“Look how happy I am — perfect.” But he still wasn’t talking to me directly.
00500309
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_D._Robida
In the afternoon of February 4, 2006, Robida’s vehicle was seen about 1,500 miles (2,400 km) away in Arkansas, where Jim Sell, a Gassville police officer, initiated a traffic stop at the Brass Door Restaurant parking lot. After talking with Sell for about half a minute, Robida opened fire with a 9mm handgun, killing the officer. He turned onto Arkansas Highway 201 headed south and continued to Arkana, Arkansas, where he fired at Arkansas State Police Sgt. Van Nowlin. Police pursued him and laid spike strips; although these flattened his front tires, they failed to stop the car. Robida fled for about 18 miles down Arkansas Highway 5, where he turned south and drove into the small town of Norfork. In the middle of town he lost control of the car due to the front tires, spun out, and hit two parked vehicles.
“See, this is the problem, Daniel. As I’ve shown, Arkana is only 3 miles west of Norfolk. So how could this Robida creep flee *down* Highway 5 for 18 miles, then turn *south* — not north even — and drive into Norfolk. Something is off in this description. And I think I know what. The (Arkana-Arkawana) circle. Arkawana is 18 miles from that turn off, not Arkana. I checked.
“The circle… is… warps?” Could be, Daniel realizes, given all the other weirdness in this small area of the great state of Arkansas. Truth.
“We need to go in that oh so central library, see what they got. I know it’s *our* library in a way, more mine than yours in the end but you get where I’m coming from.”
“I do,” admitted Daniel. He’s all on board with this. Art only goes so far without writing never mind music. Art and words together, like in a photo-novel, yes. He’s getting the hand of this.
“And just from this wikipedia page, there’s more…”
On February 7, 2006, Jack Thompson, a disbarred attorney, commented on the incident, describing… the killing of Sell as a “suicide by cop homicide” inspired by Grand Theft Auto.[11] Police later dismissed the “suicide by cop” theory when it was discovered that Robida had fatally shot himself.[12]
Thompson claimed to have spoken to a New Bedford detective,[13] who “repeatedly” said Robida’s friends had said “he played the Grand Theft Auto games”. No further details have emerged, but the following day the Bristol County District Attorney rejected the video game link after examining all the evidence collected from Robida’s apartment and car.
“Who just showed up in Iowa in this here current photo-novel? (K)arl from Grand Theft Auto, and the main version that would have been current at the time (GTA:San Andreas). We need to get back to him, see how he’s doing. We got sidetracked in Beaconsfield. Now that you’re okay and back on the correct timeline, we have to follow more his story.” TBC
00500310 (1 Pink)
POP-POP. “Huh, *whaaatt*?” Noodle stops trying to brake the Grand Theft Auto car she stole to set all this in motion. Because it was braking itself. Flat tire. 2 of ’em! How could this be happening??
The negatively oriented, vaporous pink creature escapes out the back just like a steady stream of released air. The cause! And also, maybe, just maybe, the solution. Plastic Beach. We move forward instead of backwards in the related Gorillaz series of videos. Or perhaps both in one, blue and red together. Time machine as well as song machine.
Murdoc removes his mask and emits a gasp as he looks around from his landing spot in the chaos.
All the band members have been reassembled here on the oh-too-familiar, blood red beach except one, the most important one now, the driver of it all.
(*Expel*). There she is! Tucked safely inside giant Russel’s mouth all along. Thank the God’s pink heaven.
A coral topped, scaly skinned Godzilla type monster rises out of the ocean determined to end this abominable mountain of pollution in the middle of absolute nowhere… again.
Let the lasering commence! TBC?
00500311 (circling around a center (Shakespeare never sleeps))
“(The ASUMH library entrance is) 7.00 miles from Arkana, 7.00 miles from Arkawana with the WA left behind in the attached, sad sad Robina crime spree story. Concrete (WA) again? Might be pressing it there.”
“Silver,” listening Wendell Biff Carter attempts an explanation of his own. “Silver = seven; you pointed that out before.”
“Could be,” admits Shelley, still on the bench, still beneath and hiding under and even within Noodle looming o’er her. Always.
“It’s good you didn’t come out from under the lamp,” Biff tries to summarize their talk so far.
photo-novel 32
“I was too little then. Wouldn’t have worked.”
“But later, I mean… when you were able to turn around and face the music. Miss Ouri had taken over *everything*.”
photo-novel 47
“Oh… right. But not quite everything,” she corrected for Biff, her manager, her… friend? Let’s go with manager for a while longer. “There was my saving grace,” she said. “I escaped through the island newly formed off the coast of mainland. (The) 4 (Apocalyptic) horses reduced to 2….”
—–
“What happened to your husband Arthur anyway?” Biff begins a related topic, bit of jealousy in his tone along with a bit of hope. Could it work between them? Nah — and he tried to shove that thought out of his head. “Last I heard: Oceania.”
“He’s still there. Playing the role of Godzilla or sumtin at Point Nemo which is the furthest location away from dry land in the whole wide world. He literally followed his lucrative paying roles to the end of the Earth, as far away from my loving arms as he could get, *sigh*. I guess all he has left now is either turn around and come home to me or go off to a different planet altogether. The louse.”
Ah HA, I think from beyond the wall. Explains a lot!
00500312
https://gilligan.fandom.com/wiki/The_Honeybees
“Don’t worry, this particular 3 piece girl band will never make it out of Oceania to acquire mainland fame and fortune, despite their obvious talent. The *Mosquitoes* will make sure of that. Stamp them NONEXISTANT. *Not* a rival.”
“Thanks Biff!!” he can hear them collectively exclaim in his head, Shelley even giving him an appreciative kiss on his cheek. No, make that *lips*. Now to test it out in reality.
—–
Groovy tune this “You Need Us” is, thinks smoking and radio listening Wanda from her mainland bed in a different TV series altogether. But I wonder why The Mosquitoes went with an instrumental? I can imagine the 3 part singing now… TBC?
00500314
“Karl”
“Karl!”
“KARL!!!”
He finally turns away from the corn. “Yess?”
“Time to go home.”
00500314
“Do you think I’m beautiful, Horace?”
“Duuuh, *I’m* not Horace,” she imagines the graffiti face behind her saying in a fumbling, bumbling voice.
“Sure you are. And you play drums. Just like me.”
“Deeer, *no* you don’t.”
“Sure I do. Ever heard of a little album called ‘Demon Days’? Check it out. Drums, guitar, singing, you name it. I can do it all, Horace on the wall behind me. I’m *brilliant*. Just look me up in New Mexico.” But then she knew not to say more about that angle.
“Duuur, Mexico?”
“Close, very close,” she decides to answer Horace’s misunderstanding of her words. “Anthony,” she pinpoints a fake location, on the opposite side of the state from where she was thinking before. Touching Mexico, yes, but actually in NM and TX both, a 3 ‘n 1 she could hide in 4 years if needed. She knew the dual city would confuse and confound the less nimble brained Horace if he did any follow up research, which was doubtful anyway (she continues to imagine).
“Deee–”
The me in front of 2nd Phase Noodle breaks in here to reminds her that she needs to cut her bangs to see better, no matter how cool this early look be.
—–
There?
00500315
“There he is. Horace the drummer, just like Noodle, er, Shelley said. And, aww, he’s depressed a lot of the time. Poor guy.”
“This must be before he grew his mustache,” offered Daniel from the side, still chipping in when he can. “Or maybe he’s already shaved it off here.”
“Depression will do that to you,” I said back. “Make you change your appearance thinking that’ll help your mood. Usually doesn’t. Only a passion for the essence of life again will heal those wounds. Got it!” I suddenly realized, figurative head bulb lighting up. “Something happened to his band!”
“And he can’t release those pent up emotions, hmm.” Daniel studies the illustration again. “He’s trying to think of sunnier times. Through the meditation. But the depression is major in scale — overwhelming.”
00500316 (Sphinx (riddle me this))
The silver swirling all about him coalesces into a tight, glinty circle around his wrist. The water changes, becoming lighter, airier. He can breath again! Maybe, somehow, he won’t drown in these murky Desert Reservoir #3 waters beneath the Book Cliffs he was thrown off of with severely slit throat and seemingly 0% chance of survival just minutes before — not just yet anyway. Still at the bottom. In response to this, the band starts pulling him up through the water toward the land of the living, upwards upwards. 4% 16% 64%… suddenly 100% chance he’ll make it, a pendulum swing of unfathomable proportions.
Then he’s back at the top as if nothing had happened, daydreaming, wondering what to eat for breakfast. Lunch? Maybe both in one. Whaddaya call that? Lukfast, that’s it. Just as improbable.
Soon an old beggar he gives money to in a nearby village hands him an old wooden key as a reward. And this is where we came in…
Sunklands 