Professor Paisley in the Drawing Room at Dawn, Madam Greensward with a Joystick in the Solarium.

This is a spin-off thought from months ago. What are the real world names of everyone here? There was a meme regarding the idea sometime last year, but my flist seems to have exploded since then. There’s approximately two hundred people who drop in here and I can’t claim to know more than two thirds. That an anonymous someone has gifted me with Pro account status for a few months only adds to the smoldering curiosity that threatens to singe my dancing with little cinders of dissatisfaction. I can’t figure things out without clues.

ray donley

He brushed the hair from her face, sad, lost. Not the way he wanted to reunite, he thought. It was his invention that brought him here, his oddball basement contraption that blew out the power. She was suffocating in her highrise palace bloc. He found her wrapped in laser etched plastic, her eyes filling with blood. Corporate kicks for money. He fought for her, to reach her here. Her lovers hung at the door, otherworldly, black make-up smeared that he hates so much. It’s not as important now. Nothing ever is entirely what it seems. He brings a cup to her lips, hoping she will drink. Back home at the trailer park, the dismal rows of blank christ-shrine houses, his dog stands up and growls at the door. She blinks, unable to focus on what he’s handing her. “I thought I used to mean something to you,” he says. “You did, but now I know better. I saw how I was trapped with you, how I would never reach out unless I left.” He looks down to the coverlet. “That hurts, Simenne, that’s nasty.” She puts the cup down on the bedside table. “I’m glad you’re here. What did you do to my security? I can hear people screaming.”

He’s tall, tanned lean leather. A brush haired man with an inventive personality, fairy tales fall from his fingers. “No one’s hurt, they just think they are.” “You’re a wicked man, dearest. A nasty, wicked man. When does it wear off?” “When I click this button.” He thumbs something, a thick plastic square, and the ragged screaming stops. He smiles finally as someone swears, inventive and loudly. “Your name is always associated with the best of things.” She laughs. She’s the devils daughter. A slender girl with thick braids of long hair that cable down the bed to lose themselves in the crumpled sheets. He watched her grow up, her parents marketing her DNA traits by the time she hit fifteen. Her smile on billboards in every big city square. He was her story-teller, her connection to myth and history and modern networking. The dog is barking loudly now, drowning out the sound of the neighbors television.

“Tell them to leave” he says, and she does.

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