Dear Mother, Father, Carol, Sue, Uncle Rodney, Aunt Clarissa, and everyone at the Pineview Commune of Greater Appalachia,Good grief! It's been a very interesting month for me in the booming metropolis of West Salem Falls: cars occasionally pass my house (what a thrill! I wait all day for this, when will it get old? Never), I had synthetic wool carpeting installed, I bought beans at the general store (get a load of this one: a SUPER market!), and today I bought my very first Word Processing Machine. I know, I know. But it's very hard to figure things out in this humming urban matrix. I can't just walk out my front door and stop a friendly neighbor to ask them, "Hey! What the heck is a light bulb?"I tried, actually, but the woman who was passing by at the time thought I was attempting to know her carnally. I tried again at the Super Market and was met with derisive laughter. Someone suggested I "Google" it. I was escorted into the camps of the local defense, The Salvation Army. All of the officers appeared to be off-duty and none were armed, but I was cautious nonetheless and readied myself for interrogation. Instead they offered me a used Word Processing Machine for only $45, and pressed into my hand a business card of a man named Ezekiel (how funny because as you know, especially Mother and Father, my name is also Ezekiel!) who they told me would "hook me up." I was afraid this other Ezekiel would tether me to a loaded cart or something of that nature, but instead what he "hooked up" was my Word Processing Machine! And what wonders I have found since he did, on a place he calls the Inner Net.
I have a hard time describing what happened to my Word Processing Machine after it became "hooked up": Ezekiel tried to contain his amazement, though I could not contain mine, at the fact that I seem to have mistakenly bought a Word Processing Machine that comes equipped with almost twenty years of backlogged scholarly material. "Who put this on there!" I yelled to Ezekiel, who was in the kitchen fixing himself a cup of water from the steel stream, "Boil that water first to get rid of the bugs!" He suggested I Google myself, but when I started to, he said that wasn't what he'd meant. He stayed for hours, so flummoxed was he by the machine I had bought, giving me a tour of the Inner Net's most impressive library. I can't wait to share what I have learned with you!
Most fascinating to me was the documentary film museum Your Tube. A tremendous thing, able to capture actual footage from the past, present, and -- I didn't believe it either! -- future. Imagine, being able to see real cave men in their natural habitat! I don't know how they do it! But I witnessed it, and it was astounding. Better than any museum or zoo, though I missed the ability to purchase snacks to enjoy along wtih the entertainment.
Another gem that I would not be foolish not to report: did you know that these documentarians managed to find a real, honest-to-goodness alien here on earth? He is a comedian (the alien) but most definitely an extra-terrestrial first and foremost. Father, I am glad you built that moat around the cabin last October, because you're right: aliens DO have claws, and I remain unconvinced that this alien, though humorous, is completely docile. I came away feeling that this little documentary had taught me an important survival skill. A tremendous achievement!
Ezekiel allowed me to absorb these revelations in the washroom. When I emerged, pale and with eyes full of wonder, I bid him goodbye as I could not wait to read all of Your Tube and to view its dozens (even hundreds!) of documentaries. I was itching to see dinosaurs, pilgrims, and even talking animals who speak both English and Japanese, but Ezekiel told me that there were even MORE treasures inside my new/used Word Processing Machine! "Ezekiel," he said, "have you ever read a block?"
"Ezekiel!" I answered. "I use those to build walls around my herds of sheep! I may have grown up sheltered and old-fashioned, but please, I know what blocks are!"
He explained that these are not blocks, but bogs. Surely, I explained, I know what bogs are, since the tsetse flies destroyed Pineview's cranberry harvest last year. He insisted that he was talking about something else: a book written in the first person with literally zillions of pages, telling the story of a family that spans generations, written by a young man named Gawker Media who lives in New York City, New York. I am enthralled: how does Mr. Media find time to work on this book all day, every day? Some of his prose is extremely well-developed (I think the book is called Keep Calm and Carry On, which of course is a World War II morale-boosting reference, but there's little about the war itself, so far. I'm only a few hundred pages in), other pages are indecipherable. He seems to know many languages, and there are lots of people who release their images to him so that he can build characters around them. He must have tremendous influence, especially since I'm over here in West Salem Falls and he's all the way in New York City, and I still managed to find him!"How do you search out these fascinating people?" I asked Ezekiel, and he showed me another massive text, the Face Book. Ezekiel explained that, a long time ago, a prophet named McZuckerberg built a domain with fertile farms and lemonade stands and invited most of the country (he said "the world" but how is there room? How can the lemonade stands sustain them? I think he means "country") to live there, and once they moved in, they got sucked into their Word Processing Machines and turned into characters in McZuckerberg's book of words and pictures! Ezekiel kept mentioning a place called South Park where an instance of this was particularly noteworthy, including a massive battle called Kippordry (Mother, being home-schooled I must blame you for not informing me of this war! Major Kippordry lost every single one of his infantrymen and was cast into isolation-- Custer pales in comparison!).
Ezekiel, despite knowing of the mystical and ruinous powers of this tome, had himself become one of McZuckerberg's minions, and had the audacity (I pity him) to ask me to sign away my human form! I told him "no" very strongly, and spit in his eye to show my displeasure. He vomited, and that was that. I noticed a picture of an extremely fetching young woman sitting to the left of what Ezekiel told me were lyrics to a folk ballad called "Soul Sister" (about the Underground Railroad). I called out "hello!" but she couldn't hear me, as I had not submitted to McZuckerberg's political strategy. "You have to join for that," said Ezekiel, and when I pleaded for an alternative he offered up something called OKQP. It appears to be some sort of a barter pen, where one can write a bid for a woman's hand in marriage. Which is just what I need!
I relented and allowed Ezekiel to photograph me, feed the photo into the Word Processing Machine's gears, and type out some introductory offers (right now I have six alpacas on a lovely young woman in East Salem Falls who appears to come from pirate stock -- apparently pirates are extremely popular inside the Inner Net, OKQP in particular, and this woman, whose name is DontCare4Drama (a pirate name, sounds like), has spent a great deal of effort emphasizing her lack of willingness to discuss trading her booty. I took this to be an honorable sign! To be fair, if it is gold or diamonds, I would ask her to share her dry goods with me after we had wed. Of course I described the alpacas in great detail). She does not wear a bonnet, which is base, but she has many ancestral pirate tattoos and professes an interest in decency. Of which I have so much!
Alas, I must close this letter and attempt to "Google" the nearest horse-driven carriage to post it, but not without professing my true reason for writing: I am not sure you were aware that our ancestry has roots in Australia (Father, could this explain the missing chapter of your great-great-great Uncle Fardigran's family?), but amazingly, we do. And not only that, but a woman named Mrs. Lena Morrison A Widow (ironically, she actually seems to be a widow -- perhaps in Australia they have premonitory powers and named her this because they could see that she would become a widow? I can't wrap my head around it!) has, incredibly generously, made an oral will naming me (ME! Ezekiel! Could it be some mistake? No! It was addressed to me!) her sole heir. The point, loving family of Pineview, is that we will never want for anything ever again. The point: 8.500,000 US dollars. The period doesn't make sense in the context of the figure, but since the missive was awkwardly translated (written by her doctor, it seems she was too ill to write it herself), I have no choice but to assume that this means we have just amassed over eight million dollars. Ezekiel helped me draft a response, and now all I have to do is wait. Think of it: two (at least) more cranberry bogs to replace those that were demolished by the tsetses, the sturdiest burlap gowns for Mother and Aunt Clarissa, and perhaps several thoroughbreds to guide the plows.Oh, I am beside myself! I will visit shortly to gather my alpacas in order to purchase my bride, just after I finish Keep Calm and Carry On. I feel I'm nearing the end, some of the characters are beginning to really come together and I think I've gotten a glimpse of a plot. Wonderful stuff, but I can't wait to come back. As you can see, I'm still with you in spirit.
Your "curious traveler,"
EZEKIEL
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