"Passed Present, Know Future...(alt.callahan's Anniversary Story)"
Jeffrey Young
The sound of cars in the parking lot gains a bass rumbling that sounds
more natural than artificial, and a higher than normal wind blows
against the door, as if a large pair of wings were adding additional
force behind them.
The stranger walks into the bar. Whether by accident or by design,
the first time people notice him is when he crosses the Light of
Reality; just another middle-aged guy, not counting the long black
hair, a dark blue hat that seems like it's been run over by several
cars, and a grey sarape that hides his slim frame. He's not even
notably tall.
Slipping through the throng, he studies the folks about and around,
and finally makes it to the bar. The noise is deep, and yet there's
always plenty of time for Mike to get a round tuit for someone who
goes belly up. He's got a buck that looks as battered and worn as he
feels to pony up, too.
The question of whether Mike recognizes him or not is answered when
the bartender sets a Spiked Apple Juice -- four-fifths apple juice,
one fifth orange juice, and nothing else -- on the bar in front of
him.
The fellow does the difficult trick of looking up at Mike over his
glasses and under his hat. "Hey, Mike."
"Hello, old friend. Been awhile, hasn't it." Mike murmurs, quiet
enough that not even Tom Hauptmann can hear it.
"Sure thing." he says, an economy of words that Fast Eddie would find
hard to beat.
"There's never such a thing as a sure thing," Mike replies, "only a
thing that makes sense at a given time."
"Does it make sense for me to be here?" the stranger asks. "Do I
even have anything in common with the folks here? I mean, there's
always the whole 'friends we've just met' bit, but I see a lot of
folks who'd never spend a dollar for a drink and are hawking some sort
of wares instead."
"Pay 'em no attention," Mike says. "You've been away for awhile, and
we couldn't keep 'em out forever. What's more important, the toast, or
the crusty stuff that a lot of people don't eat?"
The stranger laughs. "Gotta take the sourdough with these wheat." he
quips, seeming to gather a bit more presence around himself. "All
right, Mike. I'm gonna go out there before I change my mind."
"You're still late, old-timer." Mike murmurs. "Should have been here
yesterday, but nobody else seems to have noticed either that I heard,
but maybe I was a little too busy behind the bar to notice."
"Uh-uh." he tosses over his shoulder. "This is when I made that left
turn and found myself in your parking lot. Wasn't a sign until then.
You didn't even have a working phone until the sixth."
"Details. Go. Toast." Mike says. "You need to."
And so he makes his way through the crowd in the middle of the room,
heading for the clear spot in front of the fireplace. He does a
curious thing, too; sloughs off the sarape with a practiced flourish
of grey fabric, and...
...hangs it over the shoulders of the blue unicorn in the corner.
The one that, if asked, explains the All About to folks.
The sarape fits rather well. The hat the 'corn wears is not
dissimilar from the one the stranger wears -- evidently they shop at
the same store. Underneath, the human male is skinny, looks younger
and yet older somehow, and is wearing business casual, with a long
overshirt that looks more like a labcoat in a way.
And when the long-haired stranger tips his hat to the unicorn, the
unicorn mirrors the salute.
He toes the line, and the hubbub in the room dies down a whisper.
----------------
"To acknowledging where we've been. Because if you shut your eyes,
you forget yourself."
Underhand. Off-center. Glass shatters anyway. >>>SMASH!<<<
----------------
The unicorn-cum-coatrack slides the fellow a spare stool to sit on;
from the look on his face, this one's got a story to tell.
"Thanks for the stool pitchin'. I'll try and keep the squealin' to a
minimum." he tells his benefactor.
"Times change. And time changes us. And time puts a spell on you,
but it's not a spell that makes you prettier after a fashion. We
start off in life not caring what we look like; many folks have
mortifying skeletons in their closet that involve running across the
lawn in one's birthday suit while a camera was handy."
"Age gives you wrinkles. Fine wine ferments. Bananas get spots. And
those of us who drink, order more shots."
Someone hands the speaker another drink, and waves off the dollar he
tries to pay for it with. "Thanks."
"We learn from our mistakes, but our mistakes leave their marks on
us. Some of them we can't see, but we know they're there. Some
lessons change us for the better. Some of them simply break what used
to be strong."
"Do we ever learn to stop learning? Only when we close our eyes to
the world around us. Only when we believe we know it all do we start
learning nothing about the people who mean the most."
He heaves a heavy sigh. "Those who do not remember, are doomed to
repeat their mistakes. That's written on the wall of many a military
academy, and written on the back of my eyelids some nights."
"Look up more. Remembering there's a sky above you not only gets you
some extra sunlight, but also has a fair chance of giving you back
your sense of wonder when it comes to turning that blob of cloud into
an airplane -- at least until the real thing goes soaring under it."
"Look down more. When the holes from the 'shovel ready' recovery
efforts are right under your nose, some accidents can be prevented by
just being aware of your surroundings. That goes for finances,
doubly so."
"And perhaps... most of all... remember to visit home sometimes.
Once in awhile. Once in a decade. Because those things that made
you, while they will not unmake you, they will remind you of your
humble beginnings if you've grown, or the strength which made you if
you have lost your way."
He downs the drink in one long pull.
"To the mirror's reflection, ficton near, not far, and which never
stopped being dear. To alt.callahans, the one, the only. Where
you've been, I'm not so sure -- where you're going, I never doubt."
And he steps sideways, handing the empty glass to the unicorn in the
corner; reality blurs, and when you unblink, Taldin is now wearing the
stranger's clothes, and a younger version of the fellow is sitting in
the spot occupied by the mystic equine. He doesn't seem that much
changed, what that Unicorns are immortal, but maybe there's a little
bit of extra sadness in those eyes, and his mane is just as silver and
blue as ever.
----------------
"Happy twentieth anniversary, those of you who remember, or may have
heard of where we came from. Nice to know the Place is still here,
maybe not the same as I left it, but the more things change, the more
things remain constant."
>>>SMASH!<<<
----------------
When any other glass smashings have subsided, the old-timer looks to
his younger self; the one that typed those words in cyberspace so long
ago now.
"There are a lot of things I'd love to tell you to do, or not do.
You're wise, you're stronger than you think, and you'll have
adventures along the way that take you places you'll never expect to
go in your lifetime. You do find love. You'll lose it, too, more
than once. You succeed more than you fail, but you fail when someone
needs you the most. You'll leave your friends behind, your past
behind, and you'll recross paths with friends become strangers, if
only because you lost touch."
"You'll lose your touch for awhile, too. You won't forget I exist, or
they exist, but you'll walk down a road where I can't follow. But
you'll remember sooner rather than later that the path of good
intentions is paved with asphalt, and boy will you make an asphalt of
yourself a few times."
"But that's life. You live through it. You'll survive college.
You'll live to see thirty, and while you've grown up quite a bit,
there will always be moments here and there where you remember how to
be childish, not always with the best results."
He laughs at an old memory, come to surface within the myriad and far
larger set of mental archives. "Still got that business card?"
His younger self pulls out a battered card. Holds it up. "Don't
forget to apply to that one. It's been a longer, stranger trip since
the last time we spoke. But don't worry. It works out."
"I'm not done with my journey yet, kid." Taldin-the-older says to
Taldin-the-younger. "Dunno when I'll stop in again, since I have a
novel to work on this month. Oh yeah. You're that much closer to
realizing that dream of yours, by the way. But as usual, you keep
sidestepping -taking- the thing you want the most, because you still
don't think you deserve to be happy."
He gestures around the room, at the crowd. "Look around you.
Everyone here comes here to share their joy, and pain. When you
learn that your joy is their joy, and your pain is their pain, just
refracted through a different set of circumstances, you'll understand,
sooner or later, that giving up the things you want in favor of
letting someone else have it their way is exchanging your wish for
theirs. Your life for theirs. Your joy for theirs. So you end up
takin' down a whole lot more pain than pleasure. You haven't found
this part of your path out just yet, but here's some very strong
advice for you, when the choice comes up:"
"Dance."
This, of course, garners a look of puzzlement from the kid who lives
in 1989, on a cold upstate New York college campus, on a computer that
runs slower than some people's iPhones. Who thought he was going to
be single for the rest of his life and die alone. Who flirted with
suicide more than once in a short time span, and in the end, found
this Place, the writing of one Spider Robinson, and things got
better.
Taldin-the-elder pats the shoulder of his younger, perhaps wiser
self. "Don't worry about it. Take one day at a time. One crisis at a
time. One problem at a time. And never give up."
"Is it worth it?" the younger says.
The elder laughs, a quiet, half-musical, half-bittersweet sound. "Live
through it and you'll find out. That's all any of us can ever do."
And with a tug of the sarape free of his younger self's shoulders, the
eighteen-year old Unicorn sits in the chair again, ready to greet the
next curious stranger.
Taldin-the-present, however, flips the sarape around his own
shoulders, and likely before anyone can stop him, steps out through an
X-window.
"Oh yeah. You owe Sudrith a cookie!" his voice floats back through
cyberspace.
-Taldin the Blue Unicorn
Mostly-retired Lurker and Eternal Callahans Patron.
Margo
Wes Struebing
<jeffrey.ta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>"Passed Present, Know Future...(alt.callahan's Anniversary Story)"
<snip of wonderful history(?)>
>
>-Taldin the Blue Unicorn
> Mostly-retired Lurker and Eternal Callahans Patron.
My compliments to the elder Taldin and present, as well!
Well met!
(and I hadn't found the Place 10 years ago - why do I remember your
name?)
--
Wes Struebing
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America,
and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples,
promising liberty and justice for all.
Homepage: www.carpedementem.org
linkedin profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wesstruebing
PhoenixWench
Welcome back! I do remember you, though I was far less active then, so
you might not remember me. Back in the late 90's I was just Sylvia, or
slywlf, though I have a new persona these days. BOYC?
PhoenixWench
kittent
wrote:
>
> read more »
"Oh. My. Gods." kitten ignores the tears that are dripping off her
nose in Real Life(tm) and raises a glass to Taldin, and Nick Chopper
and Jilara and Eric the BFG and all the other people who were here
back in 1989 and in 1991 and in 1996 and all the times in between up
until now.
"bright blessings, Taldin. bright blessings, spider and jeanne and
mike callahan. bright blessings to you all..."
*CRASH*
Susan Davis
>
> "Happy twentieth anniversary, those of you who remember, or may have
> heard of where we came from. Nice to know the Place is still here, maybe
> not the same as I left it, but the more things change, the more things
> remain constant."
"Taldin! Good to see you," says an older and somewhat different-looking
C-Hawk, as she steps through a window of her own. "And everyone else, as
well. It's been a while, and I've had occasion to reflect on everything
that's happened in twenty years lately, and choices I might have made
differently.
"And yet... life is good. And about to get better." She lays down a
fistful of coins on the bar, collects a brew, and steps to the chalk
line. "To life!"
*glug*
>CRASH<
--
Susan Davis <s...@sue.net>
David
<futab...@yahoo.com> typed:
Now that is something I can enthusiastically drink a toast to.
<<<<<CRASH>>>>>
--
David
No email replies please.
You can do very well in speculation where land or anything to do with
dirt is concerned.
Susan Davis
>"Oh. My. Gods." kitten ignores the tears that are dripping off her
>nose in Real Life(tm) and raises a glass to Taldin, and Nick Chopper
>and Jilara and Eric the BFG and all the other people who were here
>back in 1989 and in 1991 and in 1996 and all the times in between up
>until now.
C-Hawk returns the toast. "I wonder how many of us from Back In The Day
will wander back in for the occasion, or two or three years from now when
it's twenty years since the first RealSpaces. But it's good to still see
the place still standing."
--
Susan Davis <s...@sue.net>
Tom the Alien Cat
wrote:
Tom the Alien Cat (tom tac) says "Bravo! What a good story." and
hopes both Taldins hear him.
And hopes to see them both again sometime.
tom tac
"Time wasted with friends is not wasted."
Clothahump
> On Fri, 6 Nov 2009 11:16:49 -0800 (PST), Jeffrey Young
> <jeffrey.ta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> "Passed Present, Know Future...(alt.callahan's Anniversary Story)"
> <snip of wonderful history(?)>
>> -Taldin the Blue Unicorn
>> Mostly-retired Lurker and Eternal Callahans Patron.
>
> My compliments to the elder Taldin and present, as well!
>
> Well met!
>
> (and I hadn't found the Place 10 years ago - why do I remember your
> name?
--------------------------
The elderly Turtle Wizard leans over to Wes and whispers, "Taldin is the
guide through the Allabouts. That's probably where you became familiar
with him."
Straightening up, Clothahump raises a glass to Taldin. "It's good to
see you back, old friend. Our paths didn't cross all that much in the
past and I'm poorer for it. Here's hoping you stay longer and keep
posting with class like that!"
CCCCRRRAASSSHHH!!!
Desideria
<jeffrey.ta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>"Passed Present, Know Future...(alt.callahan's Anniversary Story)"
>
>The sound of cars in the parking lot gains a bass rumbling that sounds
>more natural than artificial, and a higher than normal wind blows
>against the door, as if a large pair of wings were adding additional
>force behind them.
>
>The stranger walks into the bar. Whether by accident or by design,
>the first time people notice him is when he crosses the Light of
>Reality; just another middle-aged guy, not counting the long black
>hair, a dark blue hat that seems like it's been run over by several
>cars, and a grey sarape that hides his slim frame. He's not even
>notably tall.
>
Desideria smiles at the stranger through her tears, and raises her
glass to him.
"You grace this Place and the folk herein, kind sir!"
She drinks her glass down.
"To where we've been, and where we're going.
I still love you all!"
***CRASH!!!*
Desideria
Hanging Jester
news:hd3asr$3p9$1...@news.eternal-september.org:
The jester scrambles to join in on that toast.
***Crash!***
~ Jester
Hanging Jester
495b-9734-6...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com:
> "Passed Present, Know Future...(alt.callahan's Anniversary Story)"
>
> <snip>
>
> -Taldin the Blue Unicorn
> Mostly-retired Lurker and Eternal Callahans Patron.
>
***Crash!***
Please come back soon.
~ Jester
Alan Ralph
> "Passed Present, Know Future...(alt.callahan's Anniversary Story)"
>
>
> -Taldin the Blue Unicorn
> Mostly-retired Lurker and Eternal Callahans Patron.
MonTemplar waves hello to Taldin. "I'm also celebrating 20 years of
being online. And I have the dentritus stored up on my PC (now the
fourth in line since I first connected to the Net) to prove it!" :)
"Like you, I've been on quite a journey lately... and yet, now I'm
starting to realise that there are whole new opportunities opening up
for me... just need to get myself organised and minded to go pursue them."
He tosses a few pound coins to Mike to add to the blue unicorn's drink tab.
-MT.
John W. Vinson
<jeffrey.ta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>"Happy twentieth anniversary, those of you who remember, or may have
>heard of where we came from. Nice to know the Place is still here,
>maybe not the same as I left it, but the more things change, the more
>things remain constant."
John the Wysard, who's been here what feels like a long time, has a sudden
flush of Newbieitis at seeing Taldin back in the Place.
"Thank you for coming by, and for the eloquent post! You'll of course always
have a welcome here, as long as there's a Callahan's Place!"
<<<<CRASH>>>>
--
John the Wysard JVinson *at* Wysard Of Info *dot* com
Wes Struebing
wrote:
(leans back to the turtle...) You're probably right!
(adding his toasted mug to the fray) <<<CRASH>>>
The TheatrElf
news:87p9f5lhv7tt71l1b...@4ax.com:
> (and I hadn't found the Place 10 years ago - why do I remember
> your name?)
His DNA is writ in the bones of The Place; it was his summoning
that raised The Place from the printed page and wove it into
Usenet.
You see, The Place was just Spider's IDEA: Taldin gave it life.
"To bridging the Future through the Past!"
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<CRASH!!!>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--
Xjahn
The TheatrElf
http://manormaniac.blogspot.com/
If you do that you have a chance of dying
The TheatrElf
> Jeffrey Young:
L'Chaim!
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<CRASH!>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--
Xjahn
The TheatrElf
http://manormaniac.blogspot.com/
The early worm gets the bird.