Former Ficlets: An Archive

Like pretty much every other bit of user-generated content AOL ever hosted, Ficlets will be gone by year's end. This was a site devoted to ridiculously short fiction, limited not by word count but by character count. Stories could then be given a more normal length by writing a series of prequels and sequels - and Ficlets writers were encouraged to do this to each other's stories. To be honest, I really didn't like that part, because other writers took my characters in the "wrong" directions in their sequels.

Despite the fact that a glitch prevented me from logging on with the OpenID I used for my Ficlets, I was able to find them eventually and store them to Word. Here are three of the five pices I wrote for that site. The other two I will post later, fleshing them out into a proper story. New fiction on this site at last - what a concept!


Do You Want to Meet a Pirate?
by Karen Funk Blocher
© 2007 by KFB; published on March 23, 2007.

“Tell me a story,” the little girl demanded.

“What kind of story?”

“About pirates.”

“Do you like pirates?”

“Yup. Only I don’t know any.”

“Would you like to meet a pirate? Or would you rather just hear a story about one?”

“There aren’t any more pirates.”

“Yes there are. I know some pirates. One in particular.”

“A real pirate? With a ship and everything? Or do you mean the boring kind, that just copies video and sells it?”

“The kind with a ship and everything.”

“I don’t believe you. What’s the name of the ship?”

“Bad Wolf.”

“That’s a funny name for a ship. There aren’t any wolves in the ocean.”

“You’ve never heard of the Sea Wolf?”

“No. Can I meet him?”

“Her. That depends. Are you brave enough?”

“Yeah. Why? What will she do to me?”

“She might shanghai you.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Make you part of her crew.”

“That would be cool.”

“You couldn’t go home for a long time. No mommy or daddy.”

“That’s okay.”

“No tv. No iPod, phone or video game.”

“Well….”

“No computer.”

“I’ll think about it.”


The Secret Freeway
by Karen Funk Blocher
© 2007 by KFB; published on March 26, 2007.

(This one is based on a concept I've been playing with for decades - and I still don't know what to do with it.)

I first discovered the secret freeway in 1986, the same year I learned that the back doors of every Yellow Roof restaurant lead into the same parking lot.

This is how it started.

It was a little over 4 AM when I pulled into the “Yeller’s” at El Cajon, California. It had been our traditional stop, the place to get breakfast en route from the Cleveland National Forest rest area to Disneyland. But everything was different this time. Jill wasn’t with me, and never would be again. I wasn’t headed for Disneyland, and it wasn’t time for breakfast.

I needed coffee, so I stopped anyway. It didn’t help much. I hit I-8 again eastbound, thinking that if I could just make it to the Cleveland rest area, I could sleep there. It was pretty much all I thought about.

An hour later, I pulled off. It wasn’t until I’d parked that I noticed the snow, neatly plowed but starting to drift in the biting wind.

And the Ohio plates on most of the cars. And the I-90 sign.

I was ten miles from Cleveland, OH, via the secret freeway.


What It's All About
by Karen Funk Blocher
© 2007 by KFB; published on June 04, 2007.

“What is it about?”

“It’s about how we change in response to outside pressures.”

“Boring. What is it about?”

“It’s about three teenagers trying to stay alive.”

“Better.”

“This isn’t helping.”

“Let me see the manuscript.”

The next day: “It wasn’t about that at all.”

“What?”

“It’s not about people changing, or trying to stay alive. That’s incidental. It’s about alienation, Fox News, and the corruption of the Bush White House. Allegorically, of course.”

“No, it isn’t. Okay, the one character is alienated, but that’s about it.”

“Wrong. His friends are alienated, too, from their family and friends and a corrupt government. The government lies to the people, aided by the mass media.”

“There are no mass media in the story. It’s a fantasy world.”

“Your storyteller characters are the media. They are complicit in the government’s lies.”

“But I wrote that part before Bush took office.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s all right there in the story.” He looked at me kindly.

“Writers never know what the story is about.”

Rani and Karen - Together Again for the First Time

So are you done? Rani asks.

I'm a bit surprised. Unlike Ariel and Kate, none of the Mâvarin characters have ever spoken to me before. But if there's one person from Mâvarin who would find a way to communicate with a world in which he exists only as words and pictures and a 34-year obsession, it's Rani. He's not here. I don't see him. But his words are alive in my mind, and after a moment I answer.

"Done?"

With your book. Have you settled on every word I say, killed all the clichés, made everything make sense? Are you done?

"I think so."

But you're not sure, are you?

"Pretty sure. I've tweaked that one bit with Barselti, and I've reached the end, and gotten the final word count."

And you're still worried that the dialogue with King Jor at the end is too pat, and you're tempted to go through the book once more, from the beginning. Well, don't.

"What if there's still stuff wrong, and I can fix it?"

What if you let your own insecurities keep you from marketing and selling your life's work, ever? It will never be perfect, because your subjective opinion will never let that happen.

"But is it good enough for a YA publisher?

How should I know? I'm a tengrem and a mage adept, not a literary agent. But I do know something about insecurity. You need to get over it.

"It shows, huh?"

Inside your head it's very clear.

"If you're inside my head, does that mean you know everything that's in the book?"

I know it's about us. The so-called Heroes of the Restoration. And I know which bits of it worry you. Why?

"Can you tell me if I got everything right?"

No.

"Why not?"

First of all, I don't have the time or patience. Second, it doesn't matter whether your book matches my life exactly. Maybe it matches some other Rani's life. Or maybe I was drawn into your head because the match is exact, but it still doesn't matter. It only matters whether it's a good book, and I can't help you with that. And finally, what makes you think the version of me taking in your head is any more real than the one on the page?

"So that's it? You're just here to badger me to stop tinkering and submit it?"

Pretty much. I was also curious about you.

"About me? Why?"

I dreamed someone was writing about us, and it wasn't someone from around here. I wondered why someone from another reality would know about us, or care. Now I know.

"What do you know?"

You just happened to latch onto events from a reality so far away that you can only deal with it as fiction. It's like Fayubi and his visions.

"Only less useful."

If you sell the books, it was worth it. So get to it.

"I'll try."

No. Don't just try. Do it.

"I hate when people say things like that."

I hear Rani's laughter in my mind. Yes, I know.

Heirs of Mâvarin: done and edited. The other books are ongoing. My next step, I decide, is to start researching the YA market, and get it out there.

Good, Rani tells me, and is gone.

Karen

Rani in the Tree: A Fragment

This is the scene I just cut from Heirs of Mâvarin. Enjoy. I still love the scene, which helps to establish Rani's character, the reasons for the hunt and the wayward tengrem's state of mind. But it delays Rani's confrontation with the tengrem for several pages, and almost everything here is accomplished by something else somewhere. Therefore it has to go. I think. This scene actually appears in the chapter as posted on this blog a year or two ago, but has probably changed a bit since then.

"Later This Somewhere" will be back in a week or so.--KFB

Cut from Heirs of Mâvarin
Chapter One: The Tengrem
by Karen Funk Blocher

A short while after Bil and the blacksmith passed beneath Rani’s tree, he again heard the clop of hooves from upstream, and tensed. Was it a tengrem, or a hunter on horseback?

As the sound grew louder, Rani strained to listen, and then relaxed. There were two sets of equine legs coming, and human voices hung in the air. In a moment another pair of villagers emerged from the woods onto the River Road. Like the first pair, they were arguing. The argument ran along much the same lines as that of Bil and Jord, but without the sister.

This time, as the hunters passed under his tree, Rani called out to them. “Ho, there!”

The two horsemen reined in quickly at the unexpected greeting. Then one of them looked up, searching out Rani on his high branch. “There you are! You shouldn’t startle a man like that! You’re Rithe Fost’s boy, aren’t you?”

Rani frowned at the word “boy,” but replied with dignity. “Yes, I’m Rani Fost,” he said. “I—I was wondering how the hunt is going.”

“Why aren’t you with the hunters?” Clif Wipan asked. “Then you’d know what’s happening.”
“Hush, Clif,” Suri Pelch said. “I expect the lad’s only trying to respect Rithe’s wishes. Such a nervous woman! Meaning no offense, young Rani.”

“That’s all right,” Rani said. “It’s true. She is.”

“Anyway,” Suri continued, “It’s not going well, not at all. I’ve never seen an animal as fast as that tengrem. We keep losing it, only to see it again as it circles back.”

“We think the tengrem is between here and the village,” Clif added, “so we’ve split up into pairs to try to surround it.”

“It hasn’t been on the road here,” Rani said. “Not in the last half hour, anyway.”

“I’m not surprised,” Suri said sourly. “It’s probably chasing my sheep while we’re all busy tromping around in the woods.”

“I’m sure that’s all the tengrem wants,” Clif said sarcastically. “It’s not trying to save the kingdom or start a kingdom or kill the mages or marry its pale queen, or any of that other contradictory nonsense it told us this morning. No, it came all the way north just to gobble your sheep.”

“The tengrem said all that?” Rani asked.

“All that and more, when we first confronted it,” Suri said. “None of it made the least bit of sense.”

“That’s right,” Clif said. “Then when we attacked, it pretty much stopped talking.”

“Pretty much,” Suri agreed. “I thought I heard a few words, but most of what came out of its mouth after that was growls and smoke.”

“And flame,” Clif said. He grinned. “Maybe it was getting ready to barbecue a few lambs.”

“Laugh if you like,” Suri Pelch said, “but I’m going to check on my flock. Are you coming, Clif?”

“We can take a quick look at your sheep as we’re circling around,” Clif answered, “but only because it’s on our way. Be careful in that tree, Rani. The tengrem could be anywhere. We don’t want you falling off the branch and into the monster’s jaws.”

“I’ll be careful,” Rani said. As if that could happen! He had never fallen out of a tree, even as a little boy.

Suri and the miller rode on, leaving the River Road just before the bend to take the path that led to the Pelch farm. Rani settled down for another wait.

****

Revised version:

A short while after Bil and the blacksmith passed beneath Rani’s tree, he again heard the clop of hooves from upstream, and tensed. Was it a tengrem, or a hunter on horseback? Rani strained to listen, and then relaxed. There were two sets of equine legs coming, and human voices hung in the air. In a moment another pair of villagers emerged from the woods onto the River Road. Like the first pair, they were arguing. Rani spoke with them briefly, but Clif and Suri had little news to offer. Rani settled down for another wait, hoping that the next horse he heard would carry his friend Shela. Whenever anything interesting happened in or around Liftlabeth, the selmûn Wanderer was inevitably involved.

Later This Somewhere, Part Three

Here we are with Part Three at last. Part Two is three entries down, and Part One just below that. As promised, I've enlisted a collaborator for this project. Please welcome Sarah Kishler, a hoopy frood from way back, whom I've met in person exactly once. She has at least a hundred times more theater experience than I have (I was in one of my mom's shows in 1965), so she's definitely the go-to person for this story. Knowing how defensive I can get about my fiction, I was more than a little nervous about collaborating -- but so far, so good. Thanks, Sarah!- KFB

The Jace Letters 2: Later This Somewhere

by Karen Funk Blocher and Sarah Kishler
© 2007 by KFB & SK

Part Three

Subject: Re: That Impossible Theatre
Date: 7/6/2013, 4:23:573122 AM
From: NotaBeach
To: JaceFace

Dear Jace,

Well, of course I went back, at night this time. The box office for the theatre – it’s called the Jubilee Palace – is hidden away in a close, sort of a cross between a courtyard and a cul-de-sac. I only noticed it the first time because I saw a couple in evening clothes walking in that direction. This time I walked past it twice before I found my way in. Even then, they didn’t want to sell me a ticket!

“I'm sorry, but the play is sold out,” the man in the booth said.

I looked around. The theatre looked pretty much deserted. “How about tomorrow night?” I asked.

“Different play, and that's sold out, too,” he said. “We're sold out all this week.”

“Look, is there a reason you don't want to sell me a ticket?”

A woman entered the box office through a back door. “Let her buy a ticket,” she said, and flashed me a brief smile. “She's all right. We sold her one last week.”

“But why, Carly? What makes you think she's all right?”

“She's got the Look,” Carly said. “She's one of us.”

The guy at the counter didn't answer directly. He turned to me and gave me a long, searching look. “One for tonight, then?” he asked. “It's Brigadoon.”

“That will be fine,” I said. “What’s on tomorrow night?”

“Man of La Mancha.”

“Great. I’ll take one for tonight, one for tomorrow night, if that’s okay.”

The man glanced back at Carly, who nodded. The tickets were forty pounds each, and I’m not rich, but I handed over the money without regret. How could I not?

And it was worth it.

To answer your question, the theater was packed to standing room only capacity. The usher showed me to my seat in the second row of mezzanine. I actually had a great view! Don't ask me how I lucked into that when I bought my ticket at the last minute.

As far as the audience went, I didn't notice anything unusual about how they were dressed. They seemed to have more expensive clothes than I do, but that's no shock. I do remember reading somewhere that people don't really dress up for the London theater, though, so maybe that is a little odd. I guess I haven't been to enough “normal” performances in the West End to know.

Do you know who played the leads in Brigadoon? Of course you don’t, but you may recognize the names when I tell you. You may have even seen Robert Goulet on television when you were younger. He played Tommy, and he looked about thirty years old.. He’s not my favorite actor, but it’s remarkable that he was there at all, considering he’s been dead for six years. I scanned the program for any other names I might have recognized, but I only knew his, so I figured he was the only “big name” brought in for this one.

I couldn't have been more wrong. You should have heard the collective gasp of the audience on Fiona's first appearance– and then the applause that followed lasted for minutes. Goulet had gotten applause too, but this dwarfed his, in volume and duration. Everyone in the audience seem to be so surprised and delighted to see this actress that they had a difficult time settling back down so the show could go on. Of course, I was sure I was the only one there who hadn't a clue who she was. I looked in my program again and only saw the initials “SB,” which didn't mean a thing to me. I supposed she could have been someone very famous in the UK but not in the States.

It was only after the applause for “The Heather of the Hill” subsided that I worked up the courage to turn the woman next to me and ask who it was. She looked at me as if I had horns coming out of my head. “You need an introduction to the Divine Sarah?”

“Thank you,” I said, afraid that saying anything more would cause me to get kicked out of the theater or something equally terrible. But that was enough for me to puzzle it out. That was Sarah Bernhardt! I don’t know much about her career myself, but I understand she was the most famous actress of the 19th century. Her singing as Fiona wasn’t the best, but she gave the part real depth and feeling. And it gave me a clue into the nature of the audience, too – to instantly recognize a stage star who's been dead for almost a century? Clearly, these people are serious about this stuff.

I’ve been thinking today about having “the Look,” as Carly put it. I think it must be something to do with my having been in the time bubble. She can detect it somehow. Have you any thoughts on what there might be about me that a time traveler could actually see, and how they might see it? Whatever it is, I’m grateful. They’re obviously very secretive and security conscious about what they’re doing, trying to serve a very select clientele without the general public finding out about this strange theatre troupe and its anachronistic casts.

Tonight is Man of La Mancha, which I’ve loved ever since seeing the Quantum Leap episode about it. I didn’t much care for the film, though. I’m looking forward to seeing who they get for the lead roles in that one.

Beyond that, I really want to get to know more about this whole setup. Who is doing all this, and how and why? Do the actors know they’re working in 2013, with other players similarly out of their time? Are they living in 2013 for the duration, or going home after each performance? How do people get back and forth? I know we’re not supposed to discuss how you got me out of the time bubble alive in my past, your future, but knowing what these people do might help you with your research. Or am I wrong about that? In any case it must be a logistical and financial nightmare, organizing all these people from different eras, mounting full productions and still keeping the rest of London from noticing anything unusual. But I’ve noticed. I’m really glad about that! And as for David's autograph – I don't know if actors come back for repeat performances, but if he does – it's a plan!

Sandy

Beneath the Orange Sky

I'll get back to the other stuff eventually, but meanwhile here's a special treat, cross-posted from the Outpost. With closure, even!

Into the Land of Shadows

Vicki of the blog "Maraca" is responsible for this week's Round Robin topic, "Shadowland." This is going to be my most ambitious RR entry to date, not so much photographically as, well, you'll see.

Beneath the Orange Sky
by Karen Funk Blocher

They rode toward the mountain side by side, Rona Sable on her horse, Apple, her grandfather Seth on Chub as usual. The oncoming sunset did not pause in its approach, unlike several of the cars that passed them, heading toward the city as the two horses left it behind. While they were still on the long, flat highway, Seth played his favorite game with Rona, asking her questions about stars and planets, brains and botany. Rona answered dutifully, but she was not in the mood for it. Her whole body throbbed with tension, not just from the long ride, but with anticipation. She looked no more than seven years old, but today was her thirteenth birthday. Tonight after sunset, her impossibly youthful grandfather would finally tell Rona the secrets that had been withheld from her, all her life up to now.


Once they reached the base of the mountain, Seth lapsed into silence. They directed the horses carefully along the narrow shoulder, lest they miss their footing in the gloom. Ten feet to the right, the drop was at least a hundred feet, and increasing with every step.


"How far are we going?" Rona asked after a while. "This is getting dangerous."

Her grandfather did not answer immediately. Then he said, "Yes, it is. But for now we're riding only as far as the first vista point, another three miles or so."


Sunset was starting to fade as they turned right onto the looping drive of the Frog Mountain vista. A couple sat on the wall between the paved parking and the drop toward the valley below. Rona knew her grandfather would not want to tell her anything interesting with strangers around, so she wandered along the stone wall, taking pictures with her new camera.

"Point the lens this way," Seth said in her ear.


Rona aimed her camera in the direction her grandfather had indicated, over the wall onto a path that went past of couple of mature saguaros. Beyond the cactus, and over the foothills themselves, the LCD viewfinder revealed a light in the sky, arcing over the blue, like a cloud but not a cloud. Rona glanced away from the camera, but her naked eye revealed nothing.


When she turned back, the couple were getting in their car. "Finally," her grandfather said. "Now, look that way. See the mountain over there, where there's still an orange glow? That is where we are going."

The more Rona looked, the less sense Seth's statement made to her. "From here? Tonight?"

"Yes, from here. Look, that's the way down, over by the two saguaros. Take Apple's bridle and follow me."

Rona protested even as she obeyed. "But why from here? That mountain is down beyond the airport. Half the city is between us and it. And it's getting dark."

"It won't get dark. Not quite. And now that we've passed the boundary, we're not where you think we are. There is no city, until we reach that mountain."

"But--"

"Wait and see," her grandfather said.


Five minutes later, the switchback they were following turned suddenly onto a disused section of road, where no road ought to be. Below was a flare of light, but it was not a set of headlights. The sky ahead of them was more orange than before, and the ghost of a full moon was in the sky, although Rona knew it should only be a half moon. By its light and the distant orange glow, she found she could see every pebble, every bramble. The horses plodded along the dark pavement.

"Welcome to the Shadow Kingdom," her grandfather said. "While we're here it will never be daylight, but it never quite gets dark, either. "Look behind you."

Rona looked. Behind her should have been the looming mountain, but instead she saw a valley and the twinkling of lights. A yellow glow fringed the horizon, and a much brighter glow above that seemed to hold back the night. "What's that? It almost looks like, I don't know, a bomb or something."

Seth shook his head. In this strange light he looked slightly older than usual, perhaps a year older than his students at PCC. "It's the interface between the world you knew and the one we just crossed into. It's not visible from the other side, except sometimes through a camera lens, when the two worlds come together at dusk. But on this side it's the primary light source. You won't see the sun again while we're here."

"How long will that be?"

"Until you come of age."

"What does that mean? Until I'm eighteen, or twenty-one? Or worse yet, until I look twenty-one? That could take decades."

Seth smiled at her. "It won't be like that. It's the sunlight that slows down our aging in the other world. Here you will finally start to age normally. And no, we're not waiting for you to reach some arbitrary age or stature."

"What then? Am I supposed to go and prove myself in some way, so I can be admitted to some strange tribe? Or engage in ritual dreaming? Or kill a deer with a stone knife? Does this world even have any deer?"

"Mutter's Grey deer. And no, you don't have to hunt them, although some do. You're here to complete your education."

"I can't do that at home?"

"Haven't you guessed? This is your home, the land of your birth and birthright. The things you need to learn, you can only learn here. Your mother will teach you."

Rona stopped dead. "My mother?"

Seth smiled at her. "Of course."

"But isn't she dead?"

"Did anyone ever tell you that she was?"

"No, but I kind of assumed...."

"You know better than to assume things. Observe, hypothesize, and test. But in this case you don't need to. I had a message from Mana, just last week. She's looking forward to seeing you again."

"Truly?"

"Truly," Seth assured her. "Now come on. It's time we were riding again. The horses see this road as well as you can, and we've a long way to go."

Full of wonder, Rona climbed into the saddle, and rode on into the endless orange twilight.


Fin.

The Children in the Shoebox: an Experiment

While we're waiting for the collaboration on "Later This Somewhere" to take off, here's something I'm writing off the top of my head, under the influence of E Nesbit and Miss Mullock.

The Children in the Shoebox
An Experimental Faerie Tale

by Karen Funk Blocher
© 2007 by KFB

Part One
Once upon a time there were three children who lived in a shoebox in the cupboard. Their names were Mattie, Maggie, and Maddie. I expect you think a shoebox is a very odd place for three children to live, but it was their home, and they were used to it.

The shoebox was in a cupboard, as I have said; and the cupboard was in a pantry, and the pantry was in a little stone house in a grassy clearing in the Deep Woods. The house belonged to a witch, and the Deep Woods belonged to the King, but he wasn't around much, just once a year to smile and wave and hunt the same magic deer who never let him come close to catching her. She was really a princess in disguise, and the King knew it, so he wasn't as ruthless in trying to trap her as he might otherwise have been. He kept hoping that one year the princess would get tired of being a magic deer, and let him take her home at last.

Meanwhile the King let the witch live in the woods to look after the deer and the children, who were his cousins once removed on his mother's side. They were part Faerie, enchanted to remain in the miniature form the Good Folk sometimes preferred. In this size they fit in the shoebox quite well, with three tiny beds lined with the down of baby robins, for indeed their beds had started out as a large bird's nest. The witch, who was a decent sort, really, had cleaned up the nest so that it was quite habitable and pleasant, and not at all smelly.

Every morning the faerie children would fly out of the cupboard, whose door the witch thoughtfully kept open except at night, for protection, and outside into the meadow for bath and breakfast. The little stream that ran through the clearing was shallow and only a little dangerous, as long as they stayed in the inch-deep water at the very edge. Breakfast was nectar from flowers and tiny millet-cakes the witch left out for them. They didn't actually see the witch, for she was invisible; but they usually remembered to sing out a "thank you!" to her, especially when she came up with something extra special to eat, like honey-buns or a tiny omelet.

Afternoons, the faerie children might go racing with butterflies, or make forts out of sweet grass, or visit with their friend, Princess Doris, the deer. Doris was secretly in love with an enchanted skunk who lived in the hollow of a nearby oak tree. Years before he had behaved very badly toward the witch's sister, which is a very foolish thing to do. He was sorry about it, but not quite sorry enough yet, in the witch's estimation. So the deer waited for Prince Roger - the skunk's real name - to be sorry enough for the witch or her sister to let him go. Another year, Doris thought, or two, and he would probably be quite reformed enough for them, and for Doris as well. She probably couldn't live happily ever after with a fellow who still went around insulting witches and princesses and thought it an all right thing to do. But the children thought Roger was quite fun to be with, and usually pretended that his smell didn't bother them at all.

The one thing that bothered the children about this life was that it got to be rather dull and lonely after a while. Doris and Roger were very nearly adults, and sometimes acted more like animals than people. The witch was invisible, so if she was even around they usually didn't know it. And the King, jolly as he was, seemed a little awkward around them when he came through every spring. "It's the politics," Mattie explained one year, and Maggie nodded wisely. Maddie didn't really understand this explanation, and wasn't quite sure the other two did, either. But she didn't say so.

The fact remained, however, that the three faerie children suffered, just a little, for lack or a mother or father or playmates aside from each other. Then one day, everything changed.

Well, really, only one thing changed, but it was a very important change. Someone new came into the Deep Woods.

Maddie saw the girl first, in the second clearing over from the stone cottage, on the left. She was sitting on a rock, dressed in a frock the exact color of buttercups. She was reading a large, thin book with a paper cover and colorful pictures on every page. Maddie, who knew her alphabet and more besides, flew close enough to read the words on the cover. "The Amazing Spider-Man," it said.

Careful not to be seen, yet, she flew off to find her brother and sister.

Later This Somewhere, Part Two

Two months without an entry! What a slacker I've been on this blog! Of course, the truth is that I've had a busy time in the rest of my life, securing a new job after First Magnus crashed and burned, and getting serious work done on Mages from Mâvarin. I've hesitated a bit on this new Jace and Sandy story, not knowing which direction to take after the opening installment. The most promising plotline I came up with seemed to be the theatre angle. Unfortunately, despite the many amateur plays and revues my mom wrote, directed or appeared in as I was growing up, I'm no theater expert. So I've enlisted Sarah K., who is, to help me write this serial, starting with Part 3. - KFB

The Jace Letters 2: Later This Somewhere

by Karen Funk Blocher
© 2007 by KFB

Part Two

Subject: That Impossible Theatre
Date: 7/4/2013, 05:41 PM
From: JaceFace
To: NotaBeach

Dear Aunt Sandy -

Wow, you really do seem to have stumbled into another major time anomaly of some sort. If I could, I would fly out there tomorrow and help you investigate. As it is, though, I have an interview for a summer internship, which promises to be far less interesting than a play that features out-of-their-time actors. And I have about $16 in my purse and $27 in my checking account to get me through the week, so I couldn't afford the trip anyway, even if I weren't busy here with the summer thing and my ongoing appearances as Gabby, getting ready to rescue you in my future, your past.

I am therefore counting on you to keep me updated on any other weirdness you come across over there. Are you planning to try the theatre again by night? I really think you should. Maybe the renovation stuff is to keep people away in the daytime. I mean, I can't imagine that someone would go to all the trouble of bringing actors from other times, rehearsing them and staging a play, all for just one night. I'm no expert on plays and such, but that sounds like a very expensive thing to do. On the other hand, maybe whoever did it has plenty of money, using the old cheat of investing in the past of stocks that you know do well in the future. Even so, it seems like logistically, it would be a lot of work for a one-night production. Maybe you happened to catch the last night of a longer run? Was the theatre full or empty, or something in between? Was there anything weird about the audience? Were they wearing mod clothes or leisure suits or silver jumpsuits?

You asked whether it's possible that your seeing actors from the past and future could be an aftereffect of your being in the time bubble. To be honest, I don't really know, but it seems unlikely to me. How would something like that work, exactly? More likely, you're just more observant than most people about time displacement, having experienced it yourself. You may even have picked up on the time anomaly subconsciously, when you happened to walk by the theatre.

I suppose that you may not want to get involved in another time travel mystery, considering that you almost died the last time, but a theatre full of actors who happen to be the wrong age doesn't sound dangerous to me. If you do go, be careful, and I'm sure you'll be fine. And if you do see David Tennant again, try to get me his autograph, will you? Thanks!

Jace