America

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Barmuda Triangle’

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M-A-C (26):’Barmuda Triangle’

Category: whatsit

Collection Date: April 13th, 1985

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Georgia

Collection Report: The MAC is not to be confused with the establishment where it was found, also called ‘Barmuda Triangle’: a tropically themed purveyor of alcohol with a stable of billiards tables. For each there is a triangular ball rack with a decal lining the exterior that depicts palm tree silhouettes against an exaggerated orange-to-violet sunset.

Only one is MAC-26, indistinguishable from the rest initially. The catalog’s attention was drawn when several patrons of the bar, all with the same profession of pilot, went missing. There was never any clue in the disappearances, not so much as an empty car where it shouldn’t have been or an article of clothing. Shortly after their visit, six men were simply gone.

Beyond their jobs they all had one thing in common, having played a game on the furthest table from the entrance, next to the jukebox wearing the hula skirt and the coconut bra. Presumably they all handled MAC-26, which was singled out as the culprit from one witness report by (REDACTED): a fellow pilot shooting the breeze and pool with his coworker but who did not go missing, having touched everything at the table but the rack.

The catalog was able to purchase the item from the owner with no fuss as a ‘souvenir’. It is not to be touched by anyone who has ever flown an airplane or helicopter.

Current Collector: Joanna V. Satellito, provisional senior rank

Notes from Collector: “I’m banking on one of those boys reappearing. Need myself a fourth husband.”

Current Status: active

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Declaration: Gibberish Mire (Finale)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

(estimated reading time: 53 minutes)

Where!?

Bick to Backering. Excerpted thim thes timed companyions further brainded than long-gated Wagonher. Kudd’s thirst chewse on helpupping Bonelyre Pinned und Crowize add just two L-swears askneaded. Butt in thair shees whizn’t arse inclined ass she umed. Backended to Wick snuffered taughaut aghen, lessoned lake treadwaters, downd lake drugging in whine.

Wagonher encompassed a pointy all-in belt, wagnered Knowrth the way to tavendor’s keyp, iffin it haddocked otherplatz on staggburred drunk ledggs. Theire might be founded and won ormbinous avoid: hole filled with punch that used to were the bodd of Hamsandcans Glammount. Asquerying locales how two reconvict themtwain was her gaol, a seedcret to be retilled in Pursuit of grown pease. Continue reading →

Declaration: Gibberish Mire (Part Four)

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(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 13 minutes)

Eviction Declaration

The coerced accord was signed, and in it a plan of attack. What none of them were prepared for was the degree to which mobilization of their military machine would make it clear that the experiment of Pilgrim’s Anchor was coming to an end. Should they succeed, in erasing the Bickyplots’ claims on Pursuitia and its inhabitants, the remaining Founders would then be free to attempt their Second Declaration, intended to return them not only to the American colonies, but to the exact moment they had left so they could resume their plans for a true revolution in a world they at least thought they understood.

If that happened, nothing needed left behind. So it could all come down, apart, and then alight on the wheels of war if it would be of any help in this singular assault. Everyone began to strip the stores, the walls, the cabinets and cupboards. They entered a kind of mania where they couldn’t stand to see anything with hinges closed. Anchor needed to spit up its contents, disgorge its secrets, and splinter inside out to make sure no rusty nail bent away from Bickering Hall. Continue reading →

Declaration: Gibberish Mire (Part Three)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 36 minutes)

Squatters’ Bill of Claim

Just as Hart’s message to her had begun to unfold into fresh shoots thanks to the magic of its green ink, so too did the political situation in Pilgrim’s Anchor find itself ripped open by growing pains. In a single encounter much of what had been settled fact for decades was upended. Now waterlogged powers desperately patched leaks. Curious stowaway rats searched for new unintentional passages.

To the Founders Pursuitia never looked smaller. Their first instinct was to retract into the tortoise shell of Independence Hall. Papering over the exterior to a mad degree, the building now looked as if wagons had literally circled it with their canvas. No doubt they were furiously at work, perched over writing desks, forcing themselves to vomit up new corkscrew legal clauses that would extricate them from this perplexing bottleneck bind. Continue reading →

Declaration: Gibberish Mire (Part Two)

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(estimated reading time: 44 minutes)

Leaflets

Almost every young hand was in the Jefferson Drafting Library, toiling away with writing instruments. Franklin pens were the best choice, if you could ignore the occasional zap, but there were not enough to go around, leaving only old fashioned quills, sometimes from anatimals and sometimes the diaphanous backbone-like stents found in Pursuitian worm mantles.

Even Kidd was there, behind a student’s desk of her own. She would be by far the slowest at producing leaflets, but the Founders apparently thought every five would count, though they might taker her half as many hours. Continue reading →

Declaration: Gibberish Mire (Part One)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

The signing of the United States Declaration of Independence… has gone awry!  As it so happens the declaration was too powerfully worded, and effectively declared independence from the realm of Earth.  The signing founders, and those legally considered their property, and a Native American tribe roped in as well thanks to an old treaty, have been transported to a strange new land where trees write upon their own leaves and owl-eyed worms march about in the shapes of men.

Twenty years on the Founders are desperate to return to the war they never started, and have enlisted their mixed-heritage children as an army to help them fight the Bickyplots: thirteen shambling horrors with colonial inspirations of their own.  Here the written word is magic, and a new declaration might undo everything, but what of the children who have fought and journaled so hard to build their own lives?  Find out in this, the second of the Declaration duology.  (Here’s the first!)

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 30 minutes)

(estimated reading time for entire novel: 6 hours)

Declaration

Gibberish Mire

by

Blaine Arcade

From the Bickering Hall Retroactive Deed

In finding this land most hospitable we, the Bickyplots of Bickering Hall, must conclude that such a plainly-stated welcome indicates an intrinsic desire for proper mastery and dominion. So it is that we declare, on the standard of the furthest distance that can be spied by the tallest amongst us, Impestle Hissmidge, allowed the luxury of tippied-toe, all of this land surrounding our port of entry is called Evidentia and is our sole property. Continue reading →

Mysterious American Catalog: ‘Literally Figurative Lightning Rod’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (25): ‘Literally Figurative Lightning Rod’

Category: whatsit

Collection Date: October 29th, 1995

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Massachusetts

Collection Report: Reported and logged by its current collector, this MAC is an antique lightning rod with a thick patina. Its midsection bears an oddly shaped bulge that, when viewed from certain angles, resembles a fist deploying the middle finger. It was installed where it currently stands, on the roof of the collector’s compound, where it serves both its intended function and its anomalous one. Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Bindlestiff Call’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (24): ‘Bindlestiff Call’

Category: whatsit

Collection Date: N/A

Collection Location: N/A

Collection Report: This rumored MAC has only secondhand accounts, many from those who are known abusers of the Horseshit Protocol: anglers of the one that got away. According to these rumors, the MAC is a gift shop wooden train whistle, little more than a tan rectangular prism.

Blowing on it summons various bindlestiffs, hitchhikers, hobos, and vagrants out of the woodwork, none of whom claim to have heard the whistle, and were merely ‘passing through’. Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Saw Bank’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (23): ‘Saw Bank’

Category: doohickey

Collection Date: April 1st, 1967

Collection Location: Wall Street, New York

Collection Report: After a bank raid, and just prior to thirteen suicides from the roof of the (REDACTED) building, in which all those who died had not a single bill or coin on their person, this item was found tipped over on the sidewalk.

M-A-C (23) is a cast iron mechanical bank depicting two lumber workers sawing at a log. The coin slit is positioned just behind the blade, and the lever is the ‘falling’ round of wood on the front. When a coin is deposited and the lever pressed, the figures saw back and forth briefly. Continue reading →