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They just do. Maybe he attracts them somehow, or perhaps it’s something to do with the way his mind works, simultaneously perceiving at least two disparate halves of reality at any given moment. The most recent silly incidents both involve the internet.

“How can that be?” you ask in stunned amazement. “Wasn’t the internet destroyed at the end of the book when–”

A disturbance occurs: A small, fussy man gallops into the room on a charging horse. The man is vaguely reminiscent of Truman Capote, the horse is foaming with overexertion, and both seem upset about something.

            “Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!” shouts the man, and the horse gives a reinforcing neigh.

We must pause here to insert a humorous digression and a pointed question into the previous interruption.

Question: Why are English subtitles more fun than American ones?

Answer: Because in American films, when a horse makes that head-shaking, whuffling noise they make, the caption says, “Horse whinnies,” or something like that. Do you know what the English version says? “Horse nickers.” Now contemplate that for a minute:

Horse knickers! Horse knickers!

I think they are pale salmon pink with lace edging, and I’m seeing them on a large brown horse.

— This Digression has been brought to you by the Management.

 

As we were saying, the two most recent silly incidents both involved the internet, which is still active in the Alternate Universe, though by the end of The Life and Times of Halycon Sage it is deader than dodo doodoo. You don’t know about the Alternate Universe yet because you have not yet read the forthcoming sequel, This Book is Not Called “SQUID!”

The first incident occurred a year ago, give or take, when somebody told Halycon Sage he should nail down his website address, www.halyconsage.whatever, before somebody else took it, that being a thing that occurs on the internet. While taking the suggestion under advisement, he was in no big hurry because who else would want it? “Halycon,” is not even a word — it’s a misspelling based on Sage’s own lazy reading in the distant past. And why would anyone put it together with the utterly unrelated word “sage”?

Well, he finally got around to registering his address, and come to find out, as they say, it had been stolen by a diet doctor. A diet doctor! There was no mention of either “Halycon” or “Sage” at the site other than its address, and said doctor proved to be unreachable by any means, even though he was ostensibly selling a product. And this, my children, is how Halycon Sage’s website in the Alternate Universe came to be located at <www.halyconsage1.com>.

 

I see we have run out of time and you will have to wait for the next blog post to hear the most recent silly incident. We regret the inconvenience.

—The Management