A new position for me had been offered and accepted, and this was my first day. I continued writing around my work schedule. I asked for and gained permission to use work facilities for my writing.
My work location was a towering and modern white edifice, churchy in its serenity, very peaceful. The position was as a research assistant. Basically, I was staff to several teachers. I would go to the modern library and go through the ancient information which was stored there. Docents, librarians, and other assistants were in the library to help me find and understand my research and take it back to the requesting teacher.
For my writing, I used the facilities to create a gigantic digital white board. I found that I could speak to the computer and rearrange things on that white board. Two to three stories tall, it was a dozen feet wide. One of the women I worked for was a previous college professor who taught a creative writing class that I attended in RL. When she saw my writing board, she was immensely curious and complimentary, asking if I could make something like that available to others. Of course I could. I would get right on it.
Not so fast. She fast had a project for me researching a woman named Alice Fingersmith. I knew the last name. I’d read a book by that name and saw a television series based on the movie. I wondered if I’d heard right.
After going to the library, I asked the staff where to go to best start my research. Seeing that I was drinking kombucha, the male staff member, a tall and young fellow, offered to make me orange flavored kombucha because he thought I would like it. The female, who looked and acted just like Poppy from Mystic Quest (the RL Apple TV series), showed me where to find information on Alice Fingersmith.
Fingersmith’s information should be in a low, wooden filing cabinet. The cabinet was so low I needed to get on my knees to open the drawers and look in them. Finding the right one, based on last names, I pulled the drawer open and rifled through the files until I came to a place holder for Alice Fingersmith’s files. There were only small scraps of paper within. I drew a few out and then read them.
Poppy and the male staff member came to me. As he gave me my orange drink, she asked how I was doing. I told them about the files, showing them, and drank the orange drink, finding it very tasty. They were puzzled about why the file was empty as it was and decided they would request a search to see if others in the system had Fingersmith info or knew why information was missing from the file.
I’d been looking at the scraps of paper in the file. I realized the requesting teacher and Fingersmith may have been lovers. I thought the teacher would prefer discretion so I told the two to hold off. Then I took the papers I’d found and went to find the instructor.
Dream end.
Michael Seidel, writer 