The Second Book
in the Award Winning
D-Bound Adventuring Series
Online
Table of Contents
Book II 9
Chapter 9 - Trade Secrets: Locked in Time
OK, so everyone knows that TOCs are where your clever authors (like me)
place corrections, errata, and all that other stuff that would involve
extensive rewriting of their story if not put somewhere but would be
too cumbersome to insert elsewhere. (What? You think a book
just “fact checks” itself and residual magical ambiguities resolve
themselves of their own accord? Oh, how I wish that were the
case, but it’s not.) So, anyhow, it would appear that I may have
maybe smoked a wee tad bit of K’fr while writing Minataur Tails.
And though I don’t condone that sort of behavior (especially in
others), the fact remains that facts be facts. And it’s pretty
clear in retrospect, after all the spells have cleared, the “magic” has
dispelled, and (most importantly) I’m off the K’fr (for good this time,
I swear), not all of the facts that seemed like facts at the time were
indeed actual facts in the way that most folks understand facts to be,
you know, as in truthfully verifiable facts that exist in the real,
mundane, non-magical world of their own freewill, volition, and
accord. But even so, if you look at it the right way (backwards,
forward, and upside down all at the same time, sort of like a wizard
might -- twisted inside and out), I’m pretty sure you’ll agree it makes
a sort of sense (then and now and quite possibly in the future, which
is exactly the sort of time shift ambiguity this chapter is all about
in the first place... or even the end place), so I don’t know why I’m
writing all this here, now, at this particular junction in time, but
then I sort of do.
You see, I feel the need
to clarify (unequivocally without qualification or ambiguity) that Ruby
is a real live human girl (an actual person) who just sort of happens
to play a character in a book. And however it may seem at the
time (now or in the future-past or in some past that you’ll read in the
future), it’s definitely not the other way around. Which is not
to say that Ruby doesn’t play the part of a character in a book (who
just so happens to be based on a real person, the one and
aforementioned Ruby) because in fact, she does... and is... and maybe
always will be... a character in a book who just so happens to be based
on herself -- immortalized as it were. Which when you stop and
think about it means I maybe had it right way back when I was writing
this thing the first time around! And it makes sense, after
all! Even with all that K’rf! Wow! I am good!
So clever in fact that I don’t even understand it myself at times (one
of those times being now -- only mere moments later). Anyway, are
we all clear? Like mud you say? Well then, that might just
make us even. But I’m just going to blame it on a strand or two
or residual magic that didn’t get properly stowed away. I mean,
you know how the effects from that wild-stuff sometimes lingers around
-- long after the party is over, you thought you’d put the cork (or the
Djinni, as the case may be) back in that bottle, and laid the
enchantment to rest. So anyway, give it a little time and I’m
sure the confusion will wear off... eventually. Or maybe it will
suit you (like it does me). If so, I pray you wear it well.
(And I know this TOC entry seems long, but trust me, for some folks the
chapter itself seems to go on, like, forever. Mu-ha-ha-ha!
Hack. Hack. Cough. Cough. You have been warned.)