“All comes from Old Grey and all will return. The illuminating light guides. The caboose is the last to disappear but the last to emerge. Black and White, Yin to Yang. Welcome.”
Lichen was getting tired of the joke; knew Fern was prone to such overkill. Often brevity for comedy was best. Good timing, Lichen knew. Fern needed to work on it.
“So you’ve explained the picture in *some* detail — can I call you Fern still?”
“*Original* Fern,” said the wee doll person still standing on the opposite corner of the picnic blanket from her, spread out between them like a quilted chessboard. Another board you’ll notice.
“And that’s, er, why you like to be called a *doll* person. Because you come from Doll.”
“Doll-*y*,” the little person emphasized. “I *am* a Dolly.” Silence for a while with this as Lichen absorbed. She tried to picture the picture he or she described (she had aspects of both sexes, Lichen observed). This one.
“Do you remember Phil? I called and called at the observing patio but no answer from the cat. This wasn’t Phil — Philip actually. Instead Philip lay at the bottom of this small pool in the ditch district of Kabusie, dead in his car after a visit to the bar. Drunk. Had the valuable pure bred cat with him that he bragged about to his girlfriend just earlier but somehow the cat survived. Standing on the container he or she came in by the shore. Maybe a mechanoid — still studying. Maybe that’s why the transfer couldn’t occur. Philip couldn’t become the cat just before dying because the cat had no inner soul to speak of. Working theory mind you. He had that power. We *all* know he had the power.”
“Fern,” said Lichen. “You’re an absolute trip!” Was this comedy at its purest, absurd statement after absurd statement? High entertainment at the least. “Good work,” she exclaimed, thinking all this was made up. It wasn’t; that’s the ultimate joke.
“Philip?”
Sunklands 