Endtown by Aaron Neathery for August 12, 2013

The Koala’s out of the bag now.

Linda: “Soap! Soap! Where can I find soap!”“Also, oops…”

good as long as it goes .BlessedBe

A bit off topic: why do we still get the nightly link to vote for the original Endtown when its site at moderntales.com no longer exists?Also, was there anything on the original moderntales.com Endtown site that wasn’t migrated over to here?Thanks!

If you want to build properly, you better start from the bottom up.

Sorry for including first generation. I will do better in the future.Sincerely and Respectfully,JusSayin

Linda makes her first friend in Endtown.And her second.They both wear coats. Coincidence? I think not.

How cool would it be if Maude’s husband was repurposed as a transporter, and Petey has been carrying it around. Hey, Mr Hopper isn’t using his body anymore, just how good is Mallard? JusWildlySpeculatin

Wow, open mouth insert foot…..

Standby Angus, here comes another one….

Alas, there won’t ever be a time when Linda can stop paying. No matter what, there’ll be some who won’t forget…

Over the weekend things got a little absurd on this post. Here’s a collected version with the last half being another addition. Enjoy (hopefully).

“Let Them Eat Cake – an Inspector Kowalski mystery.”

It was hot. Damn hot. I’d broken two mutant eggs and put them on the sidewalk to cook. Breakfast would be ready in another 5 minutes. But, before I could place the third strip of bacon next to the eggs, a dame walked up and blurted out “I need your help!” It’s always the dames. I looked at her heaving chest, her towering beehive hairdo and her 3" long blood-red nails. “Lady, you need a lot of things. What’s biting you?” “It’s about the cake!” “Cash only, Dollface! I don’t take cakes outa the goodness of my heart.”

My name’s Kowalski. I’m a koala.

The Dame said “You sure have an attitude!”

I replied “You ever seen an angry Koala, Lady?”The Dame paused. “You’re right”, she exclaimed breathlessly. “In your line of work, that would be a bad thing, ’cause an angry koala sure would take the cake!”

Another cake reference.

“I’m trying to track down ‘Mr. Hopper’ “she continued. “He was very important to me.”

“Is he a kangaroo?” I asked. I once knew a Mr. Hopper but I wanted to make sure. A lot of folks changed their name after coming to Endtown. For some it was a way to identify with who they are now. For others it was away to make a break from the past.

“He ain’t nothing but a hound dog.” She replied. I looked down at my breakfast. In the few moments we’d been talking my eggs went from sunny side up to hard cooked. The bacon needed turning. I looked around for my spatula. We’re a mile underground and our lighting is artificial. You’d think they would have better control over the intensity.

What’s your name, sweetie pie?” I was getting tired of the cake references.

“Trudy.”

I got angry.

Linda, first you must forgive yourself..and then suck up to Maude like crazy!oops, that may be a poor choice of words..

AUHA. It’s all coming out now.

In Linda’s case, the running is more of a matter of self preservation. If this shouting match continued much longer, others could know about her past which would mean she wouldn’t have much of a future.

Linda may end up going to the clock tower but I suspect it would be more to reflect than to jump. If she talks to Angus, she may learn about Holly, which may lead her to the hospital.

I did miss it. Busy. Will check it out.

Okay, read it here we go.Linda ran around the corner hearing a noise. She thought someone else may be listening.As she rounded the corner suddenly…………she woke up in a room alone. A single figure in the chair in front of her. She could feel her arms and legs were tied.Good knots she thought.“Who the hell are you” she demanded.There was flicker of light then………….

Linda is running to her apartment. She just remembered she left the stove on all this time.

Linda has seen what her people do, and she can’t forgive it either.

Linda would be found out one day anyway. this way she got it over with, or let the cat out of the bag. People only know what the norm is by what they see and how history is presented. At 17 years old, had been told that the topsiders were the good guys. She probably didn’t suspect anything different. Even if she knew that killing mutants was wrong, peer pressure to conform would have been all it would take for her o join the other kids in comparing mutants to animals. Even 50 years ago people questioned if animals had thoughts or feelings. If it took us this long for Most of us to hate cruelty to animals, if you were forming who you were after an Apocalypse! that might seriously intrude on your reasoning. And she may have been in love with a zealot for the cause.

It would take a large group therapy of Many sessions for mutants to understand what we grasp right away about a teen who was just doing what she had been told was right.

I hope this will blow over without Linda killing herself or Jake J. or all of End town killing her. I hope she finds a strong guy maybe, who will stand up for her. Or a group of friends. seems unlikely tho.

I have really enjoyed “the Koala Mystery”. It’s so fun when spontaneous stuff like that happens.

Maybe someday, Linda…maybe… But definitely not today.

Look at it this way…Linda fell into a situation she never intended to get into—-who knew the world-as-she-knew-it would come to an end and leaving two struggling groups hostile to each other? Linda wound up as a Topsider. She could have gotten out of it by mutating—-she did get out of it that way—-but would anybody not as crazy as Flask volunteer for it? She had to survive…which meant going along to get a long…and, if she didn’t, I’m sure they would’ve made use of her in some other way.#And not just Linda. She has a child, a son. It wasn’t just her survival—-it was his, too.

Robert NowallThe curious thing was that Flask initially rejected the idea of mutating and was planning to kill herself. Then she tried to do one last good thing, fell in love and decided that mutating to be with the man she loved was worth it. She really wasn’t that crazy back then. It was only after spending some time down in the pit that she snapped.