CHAPTER 2 - FOUR GARDENERS

The lawn needed cutting on the eastern slope of Capitol Hill in Second Life. Well not actual cutting exactly, but a change in texture to reflect the changing seasons. Summer was over and fall was here, and as Chief Gardener Darno “Snarly” Tollfoote stood upon the lawn, he paused to take in the view of Capital City. At the foot of Capitol Hill stood Memorial Park with its famed statue of Mofo the Brave and Very Dead. Just across the park stood the clock tower of the Blimp Cartel. At each corner of the tree lined park was a subway entrance to the famed Capital Rapido which linked the capital to the Aerodrome and to neighboring towns and Sims. To the north was Beast Street which was lined with important government ministries and offices for such things as the Museo de la Secundo Vida, The Ministry of Antiquities and Dusty Relics, so recently in the news, and in the far distance he could see the Art Décolleté Times Tower which housed the fourth estate – powerful and influential the Sonogno Times of Second Life. The broad Avenue of the Sims crossed Beast Street and from the hill, Darno could see the Long White Hall, where the Blue Navy of Second Life was headquartered, and which Darno could see needed paint. In the distance, almost out of sight down Beast Street, and at its terminus about 4 kilometers away, stood the Detached Palace of the long deposed Monforte Kings.

The day was cold but the sky was bright with a high light covering of stratus clouds as was typical of skies in Second Life. Traffic had been busy earlier in the day as limousines and carriages whisked senators to important 4 hour lunches with first tier lobbyists, volunteer legislation writers, high class escorts, and intolerant bickering mullahs of the hundreds of competing faiths found in SL. But it was quiet now, with only an occasional bored and sore footed tourist dragging his family to the ‘must see’ sights of the capital, holding their little brownies in hand, with their horrid shorts and tee shirts with patriotic slurs and slogans, and wearing their large name tags that told pick pockets they were easy marks from the provinces.

Possum’s Hot Dog Cart had moved from the Capitol Building steps to the Memorial Park in hopes of catching some late afternoon snackers. Darno was a bit hungry having skipped lunch to attend the Gardeners Anonymous meeting at the Yellow Knights hall.

Darno returned to his work. He was looking for the right grass textures with a smattering of fallen leaves. He had an enormous library of textures and sorting through them was always a problem. As lead gardener he was expected to have a vast collection of textures but the collection was sometimes too vast. Many textures he had purchased, some he had made himself with an ancient version of photo shop, but most he had simply stolen off the internet and from video games while no one was watching.

He looked up at the maple trees and decided that next week he would start changing their textures as well. First a slight yellowing to the green leaves, then a bit more until the trees burst into a riot of yellows, reds, and browns. He loved this time of year.

On the southern slope of Capital Hill stood Chief Gardener Darno “Snarly” Tollfoote busy with sorting through his texture library and preparing for the change of seasons and all the work he must get done before the Governor’s Inauguration in six weeks. Why they held this semi annual event Darno could never figure out. Governor Linden was always governor. It was a lifetime office, but just the same, every two years, it was time for spectacle and amusement complete with marching bands from the School for Wayward Girls, twirling clowns from the Baffles Computer company, floats from such important organizations as the Rubber Goods Cartel and Cabal or Escorts Unlimited, as well as the famed parade of all Sims. All except the benighted sim of Clissa which had disappeared from SL much to the relief of its famished and unfortunate residents. Darno was a bit hungry and set off to Memorial Park where this time of day he was certain to find Possum’s Hot Dog cart.

On the western slope of Capital Hill Chief Gardener Darno “Snarly” Tollfoote was planting petunias in the planter boxes at the foot of the Capitol Building Grand Staircase. He had chosen Purple and Yellow petunias in keeping with tradition and being careful to avoid Purple and Black which were the colors of the old kings, now long gone. In just about 40 days the inauguration would take place on these steps and Darno was already planning for a new planting of flowers. Perhaps yellow nasturtiums or yellow pansies he thought. He stood as he finished the last pallet of flowers, took a deep breath and decided to get a hot dog. So he set off for memorial park and the vendors he was certain he would find there.

On the southern slope of Capital Hill Chief Gardener Darno “Snarly” Tollfoote had just finished berating Willie Squamata for failing to properly line up the fish heads in the little pots before adding the potting soil. He had told Willie over and over again, that the fish heads go into the pots before you add the soil and not on top of the soil. But Willie was always a bit slow and in this chilly weather he was slower than normal. As Darno counted up the fish heads and the pots he quickly realized that Willie was once again nibbling on the fertilizer. But, decided Darno, you could not reprimand Willie with more than one corrective action at a time, so he would let this pass. Besides Darno was a bit hungry himself so he set off in search of a hot dog from one of the little stands near the park.

Sandy Fram was proud of his job with Possums. They were a good company to work for and besides he got to eat his fill of Hot Dogs, which of course he did not do, because he had once visited the factory and after that he never touched a hot dog from his cart again. So he stuck to condiments. Sandy particularly enjoyed the ersatz sauerkraut on a bun with relish. He had never been to the sauerkraut or relish plant, but if he had ventured there he would not be eating the condiments either.

Only the Possum uniform bothered Sandy, but on a cold day like this, the steam from the boiling cauldron of dogs, was not enough to keep away the chills. Therefore the Possum suit was tolerable. However as a Pit Bull mix he would have preferred something more exotic like a Japanese Timber Wolf suit, but to wear that you had to work for the insurance company on Au Street. Well at least he didn’t have to wear a purple vampire suit like the new kids on the block – the Jumpy Juice vendors.

Sandy was proud of his heritage and his genealogy which he could trace all the way back to the Yellow Revolution when his ancestors, the Pit Bulls of Rhoda, joined the Clan McLlroy and stood with Mofo The Brave and Very Dead in the Battle of Fumis Bay, when the New Model Army proved of no value in fighting heavily armed knights. Mofo, the clan, and all his ancestors had been wiped out that day, and the Yellow Revolution almost failed. All the models were destroyed as well. The tragic demise of Gissie Bundchen was still honored to this day in the Festival of the Fallen of the Runway at the opening of fashion week in the Sim of Paris.

Sandy noticed that one of the hot dogs was about to make a run for freedom. It had been hiding at the bottom of the cauldron and had only occasionally popped to the surface to glare at Sandy. The hot dog had been hanging out at the edge of the pot for the last half hour, a sure sign that it was about to escape. Sandy stood ready with his two pronged hot dog gigger just in case. Sandy had once been slimed by an escaping dog and it took a week of hard scrubbing with a pumice stone to get rid of the congealed grease and broth. The ugly smell had lingered for months, but Sandy would never have noticed it because he positively reeked of hot dog stink. Occupational hazard they called it.

Punky Pugilist came bounding up the stair of the Rapido Underground station and into Memorial Park. She was dressed in her white starched Blimp Captain’s uniform and her best friend Peete the Parrot was perched on her shoulder.

Peete the Parrot was a Cappuccino Monk, and had taken an oath of silence. Which annoyed Punky, but since Peete had a vocabulary almost exclusively based on expletives and swear words in 29 languages, it was sometimes best that she not talk at all. The rest of Peete’s vocabulary consisted of ring tones for the Baffles Computer me-Phone products. Peete knew perhaps 400 ring tones, and when she started calling them out chaos and confusion was sure to follow. So Punky had resigned herself to Peete’s silence. Except for Peete’s one real problem she was an excellent companion. Peete was a sleep talker. But after several years of living together Punky had learned to sleep through an endless variety of insults, slurs, and curse words as well as ignoring all ring tones – even ring tones on Punky’s me-Phone.

“18, 19, 20, 21, and 22,” said Punky as she exited the subway station. Punky was a counter. She always counted stairs. She could not help it. The shrinks at the Blimp Cartel, which employed her as a senior pilot, had a name for it but they never would tell her what it was called.

The Blimp Cartel Clock Tower read 2:33 and Punky knew that the famed Tinker Bell would soon sound the time.

Punky stopped to take a look at the bronze statue of Mofo the Brave and Very Dead. Mofo, was the hero of the insurrection, the Yellow Revolution, and the overthrow of the monarchy remembered Punky. Mofo stood in a pose called recumbent. In one hand he held the bloody adz and in the other the Concordat of Abdication. The Concordat was the Declaration of Second Life Independence, which every school child memorized and then immediately forgot. Punky strained to remember the stirring words, ‘When in the life of avatars, after the King has proven himself a dim light, and a witless nincompoop, the body politic unites, and in its unity it must divide the body royal into small parts…” remembered Punky. Poor King Seersucker Monforte, known as “Monforte the Diced” had been on the receiving end of Mofo’s adz.

However Punky was now on a first name basis with Bradford Cananticle Monforte IV, Royal, Dauphan of Second Life, Associate Professor, and famed historian, and recently elected Head of Anti-Monarchist Party. Punky was one of the few avatars in all of Second Life who could call him by his nickname “Muffin,” because she had helped in the rescue of the old royal from the evil plot of the Druids to restore the monarchy. The Druids failed to realize that Muffin considered his entire family history as proof that the Monforte’s were not fit to rule anything. Muffin was proud of his Monforte’s heritage but was very frank about the fact that his ancestors were bloodthirsty, hideously inbred, and simply too stupid to rule anything but a cribbage board. And then they would cheat if you were not really careful. ‘Never gamble with a Monforte,’ was a well known aphorism throughout Second Life and it was not intended as a complement.

Punky had skipped lunch and she was very hungry. Time for a hot dog she thought as she bounded across the square toward Possum’s Hot Dog cart.

“Hi Sandy,” said Punky. “What’s good today?” Punky had been spending a lot of time at the Blimp Cartel Tower and Headquarters during the last two months and she got to know Sandy quite well.

“Got a live one for you Punky,” said Sandy as he tried to corner the suspect hot dog. The fight was furious but brief. The hot dog was fast and smart. Sandy was perhaps not as smart but he was much faster.

“Gimmie the works,” said Punky as Sandy placed the wriggling hot dog onto the bun.

As Punky prepared to take a bite she saw the most amazing site. Four identically dressed avatars, so identical that they shared stains on their trousers, and dirt on their hands, approached the hot dog cart from four different directions.

“I’ll have a dog, hold the kraut,” said Chief Gardener Darno “Snarly” Tollfoote.

“I’ll have a dog, hold the kraut,” said Chief Gardener Darno “Snarly” Tollfoote.

“I’ll have a dog, hold the kraut,” said Chief Gardener Darno “Snarly” Tollfoote.

“I’ll have a dog, hold the kraut,” said Chief Gardener Darno “Snarly” Tollfoote.