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The Duke Of Bleakerton

7/10/2014

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Were someone to tell me that they knew of a society of critters so despicable that even the youngest of their offspring were unpleasant, I would think they were about to tell me of a town of serpents, reptiles, or insects or such. I would be wrong. No, that honor belongs squarely to the seagulls of Bleakerton. This I'd discover firsthand when I joined my dear friend T-Yay on a record-hunting excursion to the horrendous aforementioned township. Before I continue the tale of our  trip to Bleakerton, however, I think it best to give a bit of back-story for those who are not familiar with T-Yay...or Bleakerton.


T-Yay is a black Labrador, and manages the Record Emporium in our own beloved Xanadu Forest. He wears a black leather cabby cap upon his head, and a brown leather record satchel upon his shoulder. Within his satchel he carries always a handful of acorns, a compass, at least one bag of Skittles, and record albums of course (if he's returning from a successful mission). T-Yay's nose is so well-trained that he can smell quality vinyl from no less than miles away, which we in the forest are all very thankful for.


Bleakerton lies on the northwestern coast of Interterrestria, a dirty industrial community from corner, to corner, to corner. It is the only true port we have in Interterrestria, and it's often said in our forest that if it can't be grown then it comes from Bleakerton. Bleakerton and its filthy seagull inhabitants are the butt of many traditional forest jokes, but I won't share them here. 


On with the story: One day as I was flipping through the "new arrivals" section of records in the emporium, T-Yay asks me if I'll lock up when I'm finished, as he's just received word of a good stash of records in Bleakerton and needs to head there right away. I'd never been to Bleakerton and always imagined all the terrible things critters said about it were exaggeration, so I suggested I might join him on the journey; thought it might be fun. T-Yay did his best to dissuade me--for my own sake he was careful to explain--not that he wouldn't enjoy my company...but I was insistent, T-Yay gave in, we locked up the Record Emporium, and off we went to Bleakerton.


It was nearly a full day's journey, and I was tired when we arrived, though also a bit overcome with the sheer dinginess of the town--it was suffocating. If forced to describe Bleakerton, I'd say it was a cross between Oliver Twist and the 3rd ring of Hell. There were seagulls everywhere, of course, and not a single one I spotted seemed to carry the least bit of pleasantry in its expression. T-Yay told me we were headed to a district by the port often referred to as "Chicanery Row" by the locals.  I joked, "Let me guess, that must be the industrial district." T-Yay didn't laugh; just flipped through a notepad and reminded me to watch my step.


It was about this time I remembered I was thirsty, and ducked into a bowling alley I had just spotted--before T-Yay could stop me. I thought they'd most likely have soda, or at least something refreshing there to wet my lips with. I was wrong. They had no soda, nor any bowling balls, or pins...or even an alley. What they had there were several stacks of used mattresses, from wall to wall. Though the soiled mattresses did nothing to quench my thirst, they did disturb me enough that I forgot I was thirsty. I suppose in Bleakerton, one might consider that a successful venture. 


T-Yay tugged me back out of the "bowling alley" and gave me a long lecture about not wandering off. He said something to the effect of "things aren't what they seem in Bleakerton" at some point in the lecture, but it escaped me somehow when I had spotted Tom's Burger Stop. "Yes," I thought to myself, "that's what I need--a good burger. Surely this place will be what the storefront says it is." T-Yay almost grabbed my arm, but then backed off and sighed as he followed me inside. I suspect he remembered how stubbornly dense I can be at times, and knew I'd have to learn my lesson in my own foolish way. 


What I saw when we entered "Tom's Burger Stop" is a vision I've fought long and hard to remove from my memory--unsuccessfully I might add: as everyone else but me might imagine, there were no burgers there--no food at all, in fact. No, it seems I discovered seagulls have strip clubs too [If you've never seen featherless seagulls dancing in the most inappropriate ways, I highly recommend you keep it that way]. I was stunned and turned to T-Yay, who had sat down on a stool behind me, snout down, and paw upon his forehead. I remember clearly what he said to me as we exited the God-forsaken place: "Maybe now you'll listen to me and stop going into places I don't tell you to." I promised I would obey, and I meant that promise. I really did.


Though I could see no distinction between where we were and where we had been, I believe we had entered Chicanery Row not long after that--T-Yay told me we were almost to the place where we'd be staying that night. I spotted a large building with faded and flaking paint upon it that said "The Gulliday Inn." I turned to T-Yay and oh so cleverly exclaimed, "Let me guess: that is not where we're staying tonight."


Once again, T-Yay either didn't notice my humor, or maybe just didn't care for it: "Very good, Kev, maybe you're finally catching on. No, the place we're looking for is Uncle Tapa's Auto Repair--just a couple more blocks there to the left. And no, it's currently a motel; no sort of repairs are done there at all." Then T-Yay chuckled, presumably at his own attempt at what he considered a clever joke. It occurred to me that moment that humor is not a universal language. 


At any rate, we managed to make our way safely to "Uncle Tapa's" and as we neared the entrance, T-Yay cautioned me to keep silent the whole time and to follow his lead. I nodded in acknowledgement. T-Yay pushed open the door and the little bells strung along the side jingled. Moments later, the fattest seagull I've ever seen wobbled his way to the counter, scratching his backside and mumbling something I'm likely glad I couldn't understand.


T-Yay slid a slice of bread out of his satchel and placed it on the counter. "I'll be needing a room just for tonight, Lalo--preferably one with a lock on it."


While I was silently considering whether "Lalo" was his actual name, the disgusting seagull (he also stank of something rotten, though I can't imagine what it'd be) spoke: "Two slices."


"Very well," T-Yay replied and placed another slice of bread upon the counter. 


The seagull snatched the two slices of bread off the counter and told T-Yay, "I don't know your friend, he can't stay here." T-Yay nudged me, likely sensing I was about to open my mouth, and silently placed another slice of bread upon the counter. The seagull snatched that one up too, and said, "I don't think you understand me; this isn't about money. I don't know your friend, and people I don't know...don't...stay...here," tapping his shoddy wing upon the counter with the last three syllables. 


T-Yay stepped just a bit closer to the counter and calmly said, "The kid's got pumpernickel."


"He does, does he?" asked the seagull with a raised brow, then pretended to not be impressed by this. T-Yay nodded to me, indicating I should go ahead and place a slice of pumpernickel upon the counter...which I promptly did.


The seagull looked at me coolly and said, "Two slices."


T-Yay raised his voice and interjected, "Lalo, this is pumpernickel we're talking about. Be reasonable."


Lalo was not the least bit intimidated. "Very well, three slices. Wanna keep talking?" T-Yay shook his head gently, and gestured for me to place the additional required slices of pumpernickel upon the counter, which the seagull snatched even before I'd let go of them. "Second door on the left," Lalo ended, "and don't oversleep." 


Though I feared what our room might look like, I was anxious to get to it so that I could open my mouth and speak to T-Yay again. The room did not disappoint; it was much like what my fears imagined it would be. I was a bit surprised, however, that there were actually covers on the bed, though they were just crumpled up in a ball on top of the bed. No matter: visions of the soiled mattresses at the "bowling alley" from earlier had already assured me I'd be sleeping on the floor that night. I was also surprised that there was a window in the room, which turned out not to be a window; rather curtains hung upon the dingy wall, as I discovered shortly thereafter. 
 
I could find no way to make myself comfortable in the room--not emotionally or physically--though sheer exhaustion did eventually afford me a bit of sleep. In the meantime, T-Yay had curled up on the floor too, and eased my mind a bit by explaining much of the confusion surrounding Bleakerton. I had already gathered that Bleakerton would have a worse crime rate than any city I could name, but T-Yay shed light on that too. It turns out that though the framers of Bleakerton's constitution allowed for the passage of laws, any form of law enforcement within the township was strictly and wholly forbidden by the very same constitution. One could commit a crime, but there was no way to punish them for it. 


This is the reason T-Yay gave for the Bleakerton businesses not being what the storefronts said they were: basically, since crime couldn't be punished, the seagulls realized of course they could just take whatever they wanted at any time, including homes and businesses. If Uncle Tapa, for instance, decided he no longer wanted to do auto repairs, he need only round up a few of his friends and they could take over the laundromat (though it likely wouldn't have been a laundromat anymore by the time they'd gotten to it). Even if Uncle Tapa decided to turn it back into a laundromat once again, there'd be no point in changing the signage, because it would be only a matter of days before another group of seagulls would come and take the laundromat from Uncle Tapa, and he'd have to find more friends and another business to steal. Absurd and confusing, I know, but it was a comfort hearing T-Yay's voice ease me into a state of sleep. 


TO BE CONTINUED (I'm too tired to finish the story tonight, but will try and wrap it up in the next day or two. Please check back soon if you want to read the rest of the story). Thank you for being there. Kev oxox



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"Tick-Tock Doc & The Passage Of Time"

5/28/2014

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On the far northwestern corner of the township of Xanadu (my home town), and bordering the lush greenery of Lemmington, there is a small valley (more properly, a glen) that has come to be known as "The Passage of Time." 


Within this passage, there is a small river (more properly, a creek) that has been named "The Small Hadron" which cradles the most rustic laboratory I believe anyone could ever have seen.  Our friend Doc-"Tick-Tock Doc" as he's often called-lives inside this rustic laboratory, of course.


Tick-Tock Doc is a Reddish Egret, a whimsical scientist, and was once a failed clock-maker.  He is from the "old country" as he has told me, but no one seems to know where this is (we have no such township in Interterrestria), so we just imagine it is some tropical far-off place likely south of our mystical kingdom. Doc comes from at least three generations of highly skilled and successful clock-makers, two of them he has spoken of: his father, Berto, and his father's father, Isak. 


As Doc tells it, he originally came to Interterrestria in the hopes of expanding his family's clock-making business, and stumbled on to the glen where he resides to this day. After settling into "The Passage Of Time" and building his laboratory, he soon became aware of a problem he could not have foreseen: namely, time and seasons are not observed, counted, or even believed in throughout the land of Interterrestria. One can imagine the great difficulty in selling clocks to a world in which the population doesn't keep time, nor believe in it.


Never one to be deterred, Doc, set out to work at a furious pace--but not making clocks, rather developing equations and experiments he would use to convince the population that time is real and that they would, therefore, have a need for clocks (which he could happily provide for them, of course!). To this day, he's failed to convince even one Interterrestrian inhabitant that time is real and must be observed. He has sold a few clocks (Casey the Cardinal from our sacred garden wears one of them round his neck when he ventures off to the sacred pub-my song "Gardenista Stomp" explains why this became necessary), mostly to kind critters that appreciated Doc's enthusiasm or found some sort of artistically pleasing quality about his clocks.


Eventually Doc settled on making mead in order to supplement his lack of clock-selling income, and to fund further research into the proving of the existence of time. His mead is stunningly fantabulous, I must add, and, in fact, how Doc became a friend of our sacred garden. You see, our garden is the only source of natural, organic honey in the known lands of Interterrestria. 


I once journeyed out to Doc's laboratory in "The Passage of Time" to deliver him some honey, and was fortunate to catch him in a sociable moment: he was "testing" his latest batch of mead, and of course, I was obliged to "test" it with him. We stayed up the whole night discussing various absurdities, but some useful good did indeed come of it once I decided to mention his dream of selling clocks to Interterrestria.


"I'm at my wit's end," I recall Doc saying at one point; "I've done all the math, all the experiments-my equations are flawless...how can they still not believe in time?!"


I'm not sure how much mead we'd consumed at that point, but I recall suggesting to Doc boldly that he was taking the wrong approach to all this-that he'd never be able to convince Interterrestria of the existence of time.


"Whatever do you mean?" Doc asked, ever so slightly agitated.


I continued, "Well, I think instead of trying to convince everyone to change their way of thinking, it might be better to come up with a clock that better suits their current way of thinking-make a clock they can use, you know."


I had Doc quite intrigued at that point, and he refilled our flagons with the stunningly fantabulous mead. "Go on, tell me more," he said.


Pausing for a few seconds to enjoy all the deliciousness Doc's mead had to offer, I went on, "As you well know, around here we just sorta do things here when we do them, you know-when they occur to us. Everything being based upon perception and imagination, we have no real schedule-nor a need for one."


"Yes, you people are stubborn about your perceptions," Doc interjected, and increased the angle of his flagon's tilt. "Strange critters, indeed. You have any actual ideas to overcome this?"


"Well, how about this?: what if, instead of a clock that measured seconds, minutes, and hours, you made a clock that measured events--yes, that's it! An event clock!?"


I do believe I saw Doc's eyes glow a bit after my last statement, and for certain they were wide open. "Fascinating. Do tell me more."


I continued, "Well, instead of numbers to measure the hours, what if you had symbols or icons that would indicate an event or activity? You could make each clock custom-tailored to the individual-a special order sort of thing. What if someone gave you a list of activities they're likely to engage in-and maybe add a few of your own surprises-then build a clock just for them based on that?"


Tick-Tock Doc grinned, and I could tell the gears in his whimsical mind were turning furiously. "I do believe you're onto something here," he said. "But what about the order of events?"


"You see," I answered, "We don't really need an order of events here in Interterrestria, things just sort of happen when we want them to-it's all based on the individual's perception. You could even design an element of randomness in the clock so that sometimes it moves forward, sometimes backward, sometimes not at all...now that's the sort of thing critters here would love!"


In all sincerity, and almost heavy-hearted, Doc asked "So the critters here would love a clock that dictated a complete lack of order to them?"


"Yes," I said enthusiastically. "We love our mystical land because it's fun and senseless. A clock that told us what event to partake of at any given lack of time would be so fun...a clock that could do that would be certain to be a hit. Why, I'll bet if you made such a thing, you'd never be able to keep up with the orders!"


It took another flagon of stunningly fantabulous mead to completely convince Doc to pursue the idea, but he did eventually give in. And that, my friends, is the story of how event clocks came to be. One is hard-pressed to find a residence or business anywhere in the known regions of Interterrestria that doesn't have one these days. Most critters still refer to Doc as "Tick-Tock Doc," but it's now an honor rather than an insult to him. Indeed, his father Berto, and his father's father Isak would be so very proud!


KeV
oxox

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    KeV Atomic

    Garden-dweller of Xanadu, reporter of Interterrestrian mischief, lover of imagination.

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