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Fiction

For the Horde: An End in the Beginning

O1 An End in the Beginning

Mar 12, 1945- France

Hello John:

 I just received two letters from you dated Feb 8 & Jan 10 and am always glad to hear from you. I’m glad that you enjoyed the magazines & Mien Kampf. I thought that you’d get a kick out of them. It isn’t very hard to get hold of a Nazi Bible, most every family was almost forced to purchase a copy. The one I sent was taken from a school house. We set up a C.P. in a small town and took over. There were many books and about ninety percent were recent publications in the true Nazi fashion- each pertaining to the manufacture of some product vital to the war machine.

 The people are like the weather- just as soon as they know the Germans are out they start to defame them to us. What a business!!

 I received several news paper clippings about the Fitzpatrick case but haven’t heard anything since. I was surprised to hear that you had to close the bath. I think that’s the first- at least in my time. Well the winter is over and lets hope the war will finish in the same manner.

 Well John that’s about all there is for today but don’t worry I’ll write again soon.

 Always,

 Tommy

We found the letter inside the 1938 Volksausgabe (People’s Edition) of Mein Kampf. There are three reasons books end up in a locked case or the Rare Book Room: price point, rarity, and size. The unofficial reason is booksellers cannot find a shelf on which it is appropriate to display a book. Not for personal reasons, but logistical ones. Shelving is not just about the alphabet, it’s about what a reader is searching for. This is why even the Great-and-Mighty Amazon opened brick and mortar stores. It’s about the search and those who are searching. It’s why Amazon is unsatisfying for booklovers. Don’t hate the truth, Bezos. (Bezos doesn’t care. He was never in it for the books, he was in it for the business. He is a successful business man. He’s a shit dragon.) Dragons are in it for the books, for the hoard, for their horde (if they have one). Hoards are organized for seekers. That’s how you know it’s a proper hoard.

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Fiction

The Grumpy Mermaid

Fae-Kin Legends: The Grumpy Mermaid

Origin: Sunflower Court during the third reign of Titania VI. The great bard Robin and his troupe included a legend titled ‘Unsatisfied Underfish’ in their Summer Solstice program as early as Titania VI’s first reign, however the records were destroyed in the Great Fire at Alexandria and the back-up files during the burning flood at the Arden Forest Archives later that year. The oral tradition was passed through the Fae-Kin tribes of Atlantis, and nearly all the Maui-sects of the Pacific region. A version of this legend can be found in human fairy tale collections generally titled ‘The Little Mermaid.’

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Fiction

CU42

The first thing they did was sound proof the Observation Module. Even babies with astronomical IQs are still babies. Babies cry, a lot. Dr. Johnson, the childless child psychologist who identified the ‘Johnson Quotient’, designed the enclosure. It was all clean lines and glass, not quite monochromatic but close enough for discomfort. If it were not for the location, it would be unfit for human habitation. However it was located the northeast corner of the last nature preserve. The last 300 square miles of unspoiled terrain left on the planet. The need for isolation made the location ideal. The location made the dome idyllic. A small number of staff would live on site for the duration of the experiment. Their living quarters were in the Observation Module. While Dr.Johnson’s design was ascetically pleasing, it was acoustically a terrible choice for housing 50 babies.

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Fiction

For the Horde: Prologue

Prologue

We prepared for an apocalypse. Some prayed for one, they hoped for it because the aesthetics would be pleasantly homogeneous afterward. They worked at bringing one forth. It was easier than cohabitating with eclectic personalities, the inconvenient poor, the dissenters. They put their faith in God and forgot the words. They forgot how to trust, how to care, how to love. They pointed to the sins of others as justification for their self loathing. They didn’t understand the words even as they screamed them, even as we screamed. With all that screaming, who had the opportunity to listen?

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