From: "Jeffrey 'Taldin' Young" <Jeffrey.Young@mri.com> Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Re: Post Toast - a story by Spider Robinson Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 16:58:46 -0800 Message-ID: <199603300058.QAA16304@mri.com> Fictions and facts, facts and fictions, and what's truth is what you put into it. Believe hard enough, maybe it'll happen. Wait long enough, and maybe it'll come. Moments crystalize, sometimes; ..this is one of them, and all of them at once. Taldin's sitting quietly on the other side of the fiction, watching the close of a circuit, the spritz of an electron, the glow of phosphor behind a glare screen, all coalescing into words (weirds?) and pixels (picks-alls), in his field of vision. He finds the recounting of the recounting in his e-mail box, from his oft-deleted news-feed of the Place, and a slow smile creeps over his features. Followed shortly thereafter by a misty look in his eyes. He gets to the end, pauses a moment in long thoughts. Hits the 'Reply' key. ----------------------- << We're back. Thought you said we were historizing? >>, says Sudrith, noting where the Light crosses the Shadows in which the Unicorn and his dragon-friend walk. "Yeah. We are. Shush." << To which? Are we coming or going? >> "Not sure. But I certainly can't keep quiet.", he says, trying to figure out what to say, how to say it, and even how to explain. << Just be yourself. Unless you don't think that's good enough. >> "As always, old friend, you have a point." << No, that's your job. You're the Unicorn. I'm only the dragon. >> "Hah. You're my special dragon." << Why thanks. Shouldn't everyone be special? >> "In their own way, in their own time.", he ripostes. People by now have started noticing them, what with the Shadows, fickle as they are, ebbing around wherever conversation moves. << You're on. >> Taldin looks around abruptly, noting a few (moren' a few) eyes on him. "Hi.", he says. Someone's left a drink by his old chair by the fire; the ice hasn't even all the way melted. "Thanks, whoever you were.", he says quietly, and downs it, chucking the glass into the fireplace. "To All the Callahans Places.", he says quietly, in the aftermath of the toast by the Master himself. >> crunch!!! << "We've been given a blessing, and a terrible responsibility; to take care of ourselves; this is the blessing of Life, and to quote Goldman, 'Life is Pain.' So, by induction, sharing pain is sharing life..." "..and yet sharing one's life is what brings joy to lots of folks." He brushes his long blue mane back with a hand. "So. What's joy?" "Dishwashing liquid!", someone calls out, followed by laughter. "..the ability to turn pain into pleasure?", someone else quips, eliciting a few snickers and a few more smirks here and there. "Maybe. I don't claim to know the answer, or I'd be one-hundred-percent happy all of the time. And I'm not. And neither are very many other people. Life's full of problems, and pains, and pitfalls, and tragedies. But you also find it's full of happy times, and good things, and chance luck(good and bad), and ways to make it a better place just by being there." "Life is." , he says, echoing words he believes in, hasn't spoken for more than awhile. "..anything else is a bonus." He nods. "Okay. I'll try again, try harder. Part of the magic of the Place is the people, good, bad, ugly, (someone whistles the theme to a spaghetti western obligingly) and otherwise. I'm part of that magic, too. But ONLY IF I want to be." "Spider, bless his soul and keep his pentip going, reminded me of all that. His shoes are hard to fill, and nor would I want to do so; but what I do believe in is what he thinks is needed best; to look out for your fellow sentinent (and quasi-sentinent), and to -trust- enough to let your troubles go where the air is condusive to resolving them. I'm here now because of that, and because of him, and because of you." "To wit; you exist, therefore I am. I think." He grins. "See you 'round, folks, or rather, in whatever shape you choose to take. I'll try and avoid the political ram-fit-(alter)cations in the future. And concentrate on what needs to be said. Rather than on what I'd rather not heir." -Taldin, the Blue Unicorn. Eternal Patron, stops infrequently, no tickets sold while on board. PS. Best way to reach me is still by e-mail. I'll be watching, but not too closely. I'll even try and let you know what's going on in my life now and again. *chuckle* ---------- "True beauty comes from within, and unfolds over a lifetime of spending your life in observation of it all. Appreciate the now, the yesterday, and the tomorrow, for they make up the wisdom of experience." -Jeffrey 'Taldin' Young - taldin@mri.com <--My view only, my company's account.