“What you see before you is the Power of the 4. Let’s start with green, okay?”
“But — we’ve already *done* green, he he,” said talking dog Jack.
“Oh,” said Bill looming above them in his deep, lispy voice. “Alright. Then: blue. Okay? We haven’t done blue yet, have we?”
“Uh, I don’t think so,” says Fink, still human as far as I can tell. Much like *Susan*, but we’ll get to that. Su-san.
“Okay, great. I’ll just put a little gemstone in the slot representing green, and…
“… close enough. So are you ready for blue? This shouldn’t take as long.”
“Okay, alright,” agrees Jack.
“Sure, why not,” says Fink.
“Nice. So let’s begin.”
—–
“After retirement on that fated day of 3/1/22, err (checks his notes), we have no further contact with green and blue is to pay. So you approach blue, tell him who you *really* are and that you actually have a life *outside* the library. You tell him you’re a writer, a creator (by nature). You don’t tell him about the photo-novels but he didn’t ask either. He is *busy*. He was going to respond to your email but hadn’t had time yet. You must be patient with him. His story is not yet told. I suggest we come back to him in, say, 5 years?”
“*5 years,*” I exclaim. “But I need to resolve this *now*.”
“Oh.” Pause; deep sigh. “Very well. I’ll accept that blue’s story is done for now even though it really isn’t. Yes (smaller sigh), we should move on. To red.”
(to be continued)



