Xone

 

This is an amusement park, called the Time Atlas. The origin of the name is unknown, but it’s generally free of charge, and is divided into several magical lands, all arranged round a central hub: Time Town.

 

T I M E T O W N

 

THE TOWER OF COLOR

The Tower of Color is a guided experience through light and music, hosted by Dame Ewe and her real-life husband, Willy Ram. The attraction was popular when it opened, but the original script is lost, and reports have come to us that the music isn’t always provided to the standard which older guests may remember. The attraction has remained somewhat popular, though the once-thick crowds and long lines have thinned, and it’s easy to get a great view of the white wall in this single-room experience, wherein colored lightbulbs slowly change color, from red, through orange, yellow, green, blue, some color I forgot, and purple.

D A R K H E A R T F O R E S T

 

HAUNTED SYLVAN ADVENTURE

Older children like to frighten their younger siblings with stories about the Odd House where the [REDACTED] family once lived, and where their daughter Petunia was killed. We have re-created the Odd House as accurately as we felt prudent, and invite our guests to partake of the most famous, true-crime mystery that some say was never really any mystery at all. The (probable) truth of the case was more frightening than any of the theories alleged by believers in the supernatural -- but that shouldn't stop any of our guests from creating their own theories. 

 
 
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ANNE OF GREEN GIFT SHOP

It has come to our attention that some guests have been stealing candy by presenting their insurance card to one of the Green Gift Shop's elderly sales people, Annabelle. The Green Gift Shop doesn't take insurance. Annabelle is extremely old and has no idea what’s going on, so please don’t confuse her just so you can have free candy. There’s no such thing as a prescription for candy, and it’s not very nice to play on Annabelle’s good nature and old age. She’s only working the counter because her one-woman show, “Memories of Polk”, was closed after she shot that guest who said he worked for the Pinkertons. He was joking, of course... and he learned that playing tricks on Annabelle is not only cruel, it’s stupid.

 
 
 

 

MARCHWOOD TREEHOUSE

Drop your kids off at friendly Marchwood section of Darkheart Forest, the section designed especially for fragile children. In the charming Marchwood Treehouse, the television's always on and always playing the obscure French children's program Je ne sais pas.

The program focuses on a group of (at first) 99 bald, floating, fairy-like girls, rendered in watercolors and pastels. Each girl is wearing a dress of a different color.  At the start of each 15-minute episode, the Old Woman of the Elm comes by and asks the girls a question, on a random topic, apropos of nothing. They stop for a beat, and then begin to sing. The lyrics are always the same:  Je ne sais pas, or, "I don't know," repeated over and over. This is instantly confusing because there's usually more than one of them (so... "we don't know," I think they mean) but they sing to the tune of a different opera every episode. Flitting and leaping and fluttering without wings over changing but repetitive watercolor backgrounds, absolutely no information about the question at hand is ever obtained, or even hinted at.

When their song is done, the Old Woman of the Elm sighs, and croakingly intones the name of a color in French. The girl wearing that color then screams, or weeps; in one outlier episode, the "heliotrope" girl scowls and spits on the ground. Whatever form her outburst takeds,  the girl vanishes right afterward. In the next episode, that girl is gone, and no one mentions her.

On the 99th episode, there's only one little singing girl left (off-white), and she does all 15 minutes acapella; this time, the aria is tuneless and the backgrounds are all black and white photos of factories and frowning animals. At the end, the off-white girl faces the Old Woman of the Elm and whispers  "Porquoi?"

At this, the Old Woman looks directly at the camera and looks dismayed, a little shocked--presumably because now <em>she</em> doesn't know. The camera zooms in on a pronounced wart under her nose,  and freezes, and it is over that image the final credits fade in and out in silence. Most audiences report that the moment is surprisingly poignant, given how useless the rest of the series is.

Anyway, we got these episodes from the government of France, and they were free. They made us sign something, but whoever signed it didn't know what it said, and they threw it away. N

 

FIBERGLASS WITCH: AN ORACLE

She watches TV in her grotto, and she's always there. But if you look closely at the television it's switched off (which doesn't stop her from laughing at the jokes) or it's playing a bizarre and unreal program which, in this case, will tell you your fortune.

To use, wait till the skulls stop spinning and the screen tells you to get ready. The Fiberglass Witch's Enchanted TV Oracle will scroll rapidly through futures which might be yours. Hit PAUSE when it feels right (not when you think you see a fortune you want) and you'll get your future told (no guarantees about accuracy.)


T I M E L A N D

 
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RESTROOM?

Welcome to Guest Services. It is staffed by one employee, a cow. Specifically, a "Complainer Cow" (not to be confused with a "Helping Cow" or an "Information Cow"). He complains. That's why we gave him a special desk. This confuses some patrons, so, to clarify:

Complainer Cow is only too happy to join guests in their chagrin, but a misunderstanding about the service he provides has been brought to light, one which the cow says is "utterly utterly utterly typical."

Recently, a guest was recording his day at Xone Park and happened to capture this challenging interaction with the Complainer Cow. He sent it to park HR, who forwarded it to the cow himself, who was outraged, and asked us to make the recording public so that "all the world will know what I have to deal with." 

We hope this addresses any questions or concerns you may have about the restroom. 

 

DR. TICKINGCLOCK

His name is Dr. Ticking-clock, And he’s got a clock for a face! 
His office is con-veniently located
Downtown, United States!
From depression, to love, to writers’ block
You’ll be safe in the hands of the ticking Doctor who's impossible to frighten, confuse, or shock, and he’s got a clock for a face!”

 

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One of our most beloved attractions is open once again! The helpful robot therapist, Dr. Ticking-Clock, is in his old office on the Main Thoroughfare in TimeLand, and he wants to help you by listening to your problems in a private consultation. He’ll give you advice along the lines of early AI computer-programs like Dr. Sbaitso, which dispensed randomly-generated, entertainment-purposes-only therapy. After your session, Dr. Ticking-Clock will give you a prescription for candy! Take it over to the candy store and have it filled!

Please note: Dr. Ticking-Clock is an android and is not giving you actual advice. This is for entertainment purposes only.

UPDATE: The android broke, and it is now an actor impersonating an android, but the essence of our previous warning still applies: he is an actor giving advice for entertainment purposes only, and is not qualified to give therapeutic guidance, as he is not a licensed psychotherapist.

ADDENDUM: It’s come to our attention that the actor who plays Dr. Ticking-Clock is, by coincidence, a licensed psychotherapist, but he’s not a practicing one, because his private practice never took off, which is why he applied for this job. It is only by the merest chance that it happened to be a job that involves pretending to be a therapist,  and we emphasize that he’s not acting as a mental-health physician. He feels it is his duty as a therapist to repeat that this is for entertainment purposes, because, he has said, as a therapist, he knows how damaging it could be for a guest to think he was speaking as a therapist. He has assured us that even if, during the course of your conversation, he thought of something he could say that would guide you to a happier and healthier life, he wouldn’t tell you what it was. He’s deliberately avoiding helping you because helping you would be unethical, as he is a mental-health professional. We understand that this can be confusing. Thank you for your patience.

 

T A R N A T I O N H O W L

 
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WAY STLAND

Stland. adj.

1. Cloyingly dystopian.

2. Patently hyperbolic in attempting to goad others into cannibalism or looting.

3. Excessively influenced by scarcity fetishism.

Example sentence: I like some of the Mad Maxmovies, but that one with Tina Turner was too stland for me.

Way Stland is a combination scenic adventure ride and roller coaster. Passengers are loaded into a car and then asked by a voice over the speaker not to ride in cars. As the locked car accelerates, the voice pleads with you to get out of the car, or the environment will suffer. A series of death-defying whorls and spirals and drops ensues, after which the passengers are sent through two full warehouses of wasteland scenery. Animatronic litter-beasties startle guests and announce that they are literally made of the guests’ own waste. Hostile aliens, who have already ruined their own planet, drop green slime on the guests from above, saying, “Let’s pee on them through this hole in their o-zone layer!”

The speaker-voice then tells the guests that they must colonize another planet, by turning the car into a rocket-ship and using spotted owls and other endangered animals for fuel. The ride launches back onto a roller-coaster track and zips and whorls about before slowing to a halt.

NOTE: We understand that some of you have been jumping out of the ride and  living in the dystopian dioramas. One of you keeps yelling “Help us make babies so we have something to eat!” to the guests as their cars shuttle by. We appreciate the aesthetic merit of the utterance. But many guests find it  extremely morbid and confusing. If you must live in the Way Stland full time, we ask that you refrain from contributing original dialogue to the ride’s soundtrack or storyline.

 

Graveyard of lost gold

The cemetery where gold is somewhere buried thought to have stolen its central tale from a sort of archetypal western that was never made--but of course, Xone Park learned too late, and after a minor but irritating lawsuit, that in fact we stole it from a really well-known one. How is it possible to steal from something you're not even sure you saw? Ask the judge who ruled against us, he had a really fruity way of putting it, anyway, point is, we're not supposed to encourage you to dig around in it anymore. 'Course, we can't stop you either. 

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Crimson Desert

The Crimson Desert is returning to Xone Park this November, with all of its original content in tact, including controversial attractions like "Hug the Whore of Babylon." The Crimson Desert dates from a brief time when occultism was gaining widespread acceptance as a perfectly normal thing to build theme park rides around, and, in the spirit of that time, we've altered, really, nothing--except that the famous postcard, pictured above, used to be $6.66, and is now free.  

 

Whore of Babylon

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Meet & Greet: 

 

Heya heya heya… Yes: it’s really me. Ho-Babs herself, in person. Gotta use the gizmo to talk, see locusts comin’ outta my god-forsaken mouth every time I open it.

I’m famous as hell, want my autograph? You want it, the cost is one hug.

Don’t be nervous, I always go easy on first-timers. It’s a skill everybody oughta learn, amirite? You gimme a hug and I’ll give you my autograph. And I do accept virtual hugs–but in that case, better make it a double.

There it is, that’s my autograph. It’s hard to fake, ‘cuz see that letter it starts with? That’s a Triple-U, it hasn’t been invented yet. You’re lucky to be lookin’ at it. So, here’s lookin’ at you! Take a selfie, fine with me, just remember, I don’t smile, and I don’t say cheese, but I love ya like you were my first. Awright, now move along, Gorgeous, there’s a line. Ho-Babs gotta get back to work.

Whoa-ho-ho, I felt that all right. You know what? You’re a natural!

Authentic Autograph of the Whore of Babylon

Authentic Autograph of the Whore of Babylon

 

THE THREE SISTERS

ESCAPE TO MOSCOW

 

Xone Park proudly unveils its immersive multi-player “escape game”, themed after The Three Sisters, the five-hour Russian masterpiece about not going to Moscow.

In this adaptation, you and your team try to wriggle out from under the existential weight of your lives. But in a thrilling twist, you realize you must escape…  your own belief in the possibility of escape! MIND BLOWN YET??

Your mission: You all want to go to Moscow… really, that’s all you’ve ever wanted. So, as long as none of you board the train for Moscow, which leaves in an hour, you all win. Make sense so far? That’s great, but not so fast!  Every team member must express a desire to go to Moscow, and then each must begin to sabotage the others, openly, and with everyone’s complicity.

If even one member of your team makes it to Moscow, every one of you has a brain hemorrhage and becomes a drooling vegetable (because your whole paradigm is based on not being able to go)

If nobody goes to Moscow, everybody wins!

Using guilt, insincere seduction, and embarrassing public displays of hope,  try to make everyone wish they were someplace else… then convince them they can’t leave. Do you have what it takes to solve moral and emotional conundrums , pack, AND unpack at the same time?  Only one way to find out! Help your parents sabotage you at crucial moments in the game… and awkwardly avoid mentioning the parallels with real life.

Your teammates are there for you… in their typical, limited way. Chuckle dryly  with your friends as you struggle to outmaneuver your profound character flaws… the ones you’ve always known about but never faced. It’s all about teamwork.