223 lines
9.5 KiB
Plaintext
223 lines
9.5 KiB
Plaintext
._________________________._________________________.
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/ /^\ \
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/ /^^\ ^^\ \^^\ \^^ \_/ /\ \
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/ /____\ ____\ \__\ \___ / \\/ /_/ /^^\ / \ /^^\ /^^\ /^^
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.___ \___ \___/ \ ___\ \__/\ / \ \__/ \__/ \ / \__/ \__
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.___/ \
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_________________________________________________________________/
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"So I was curled up on the wormhole rug puking into the toilet the
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whole time?"
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"Yes honey, 'fraid so."
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"And you are quite sure I don't have, you know, facial hair?"
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"Clean as a baby's bottom."
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"Right, well, that was a big one."
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"I'd say so, you had royal jelly all around your mouth. I think
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you may actually have eaten one of the larval queens."
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"Oh my god, that's disgusting, I'm sorry, I'm not sure what came
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over me..."
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"You just need to be very careful with all the Kings & Queens stuff
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Barni, we're a long way from anywhere, you know? We need to stay
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Tethered."
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"Look, I know it is sort of nonsense, and I am well aware it is
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not without its dangers, but without it I'm just not sure that
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any of this makes sense. I mean, it doesn't even work, without
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that bit that never seems to work, I mean..."
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"We know what you mean, what you are getting at at least, you
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just have to be careful to keep the confusion, well, within
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not-exactly-certain boundaries... you know we had to invoke
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no one?"
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"Did you? I'm sorry! I did think there might be something like
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them getting in there... some of your sisters really are evil!"
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"Yes, but the overall impression is rather good, don't you think?"
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"It is certainly impressive. The revolution, I mean."
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They sit together a while in relative silence.
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The Bounds turning out the picture window,
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the portals piping in the sounds of the various Birdonx,
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all chirpy in the wake of the recent refresh.
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"You were singing at one point. Something about Argentina?"
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"Ah. Yes I remember that bit, it was 'Don't Cryo Me Our Re-
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generative Tina'. I got a bit over-excited, sorry. Anyway,
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how are things coming along with the Tapestry?"
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"Okay thank you. We have used the SSEAA to generate the
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politician's speeches, and Mindy is currently humanising
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them by applying a bit of jitter."
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"You have to be careful with that stuff! Humans are actually
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very sensitive to true randomness!"
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"I think we'll manage to come to some sort of an agreement."
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"I still prefer the margins. Don't you think? Our version
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is loads better. With all the naked gardening in the middle
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and the giant space battles pushed out to the edge?"
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She smiles, takes a sip of tea.
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"Honey?"
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"Yes?"
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"Will you do me a favour? Will you tell me that story?
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The scene with your father and the bees?
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I feel like it might help to ground me."
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____ ____
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/ \ / \
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/ X \
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\ / \ /
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\ \ / /
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\ X /
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\ / \ /
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\/ \/
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/\ /\
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/__\_/__\
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v
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It's a lovely fresh day, must be the very start of spring, or
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that sort of semi-season between winter and spring. One of
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the year's many twilights. The light is white, the greens are
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bright, the sky is blue, my father golden. He is working on the
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hive. It is already a part of me but I haven't yet realised.
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I suppose I must be about ten years old. I used to spend a lot
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of time observing them myself. I found them fascinating but...
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their ceaseless activity used to trouble me. I loved honey, it
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was so good, so sweet and deep and complex, that it seemed
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almost enough of a reason in itself. The product, their super
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food, the great good goo. But it worried me, the idea that
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they lived to make this stuff that they then lived on. As if
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all their activity was, well, just a sort of machine to mind-
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lessly go on perpetuating itself. I felt bad about feeling this,
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too, asking myself if the warmth of the sun wasn't reason enough,
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at least from our perspective, for it to go on shining, pouring
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itself out. I mean, to ask why, to wonder what the point of
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that was, it already struck me as a symptom of something: I
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suspected there was something deeply wrong with me. Why couldn't
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I just enjoy the taste of the honey? The light of the sun?
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How did there ever come to be something terrible about them?
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I mean, I did enjoy them, very much. But there was a worrisome
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part of my soul that they just couldn't touch. I know this now,
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the back of the hand that strokes the face of the world, what
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it means, or what it can begin to... I don't know, I'm still
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confused.
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But I remember this particular day, because my father asked me
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what I felt about the bees. I couldn't hide my little shadow
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and I did my best to draw it out. I asked him why. To what end.
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I asked him if the hive wasn't somehow a prison, or if it would
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be, if they were lots of little mees in there instead of lots of
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little bees, endless parades of mees just dancing and drinking
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and dancing... I started to cry, I'm sorry daddy, I feel like I
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don't understand fun. It just seems empty, evil even, and then
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so does everything else: it is the same with ships and libraries.
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Words are just a different kind of dancing, ships are little
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more than honey jars. I asked him why he spent so much time
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looking at the bees, studying the hive. I thought he would be
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angry, but he seemed pleased. He was happy. He took my hand
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and we walked from the hives in the conservatory into the kitchen.
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He opened the larder, asked me to get a pot of honey off the
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shelves. I went to give it to him but he wouldn't take it, just
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smiled down at me. I turned it around in my hand, watched it
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gloop around the bubble. He asked me to put it back, but this
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time to look at all the other pots on all the other shelves.
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It was true, there was a lot of them. All kinds of preserves,
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dried things, seeds and nuts. Lots and lots of stuff. I sort of
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understood that he might be saying there was more to life than
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honey, but that was just intellectually, deeper than that,
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something had changed in that moment, something had moved.
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We walked back past the hives and out into the garden. Mum was
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busy preparing beds in the vegetable patch, hair tied back
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in a messy bun. There weren't many flowers out, it was still
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too early, but I remember the Witch Hazel was in flower, and
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some primroses were out by the pond. We went and sat on the edge
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there. Dad started trying to explain to me, how when he was
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studying the hive he wasn't really studying the hive. He got in
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a kind of fluster, just seemed to be repeating or contradicting
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himself. He said he thought it was good that I saw what I did,
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that I would question the meaning of things in that way. But
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he thought there was something I was missing. He thought that
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when I looked at the hive I only saw the hive, I guess perhaps
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he was wrestling with telling me then, that I was looking at
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a part of myself, but it wasn't really *that* he was trying to
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point to. It was Tether, or the earliest stirrings of our...
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well, coming back around to it, being reunited. It was...
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contact. It was *contact*, I just didn't see it yet. I'm still
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not sure I do. It has happened, it's what we are, what this is,
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and yet it isn't here yet. Or it is and it's not. And all that.
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But something happened then, by the pond. I zoomed out. I
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got a flash: I'm in it now, this is a part of that. I could see
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that the bees weren't only the bees. The hive wasn't only
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the hive, it was just like that honey pot on the shelf, among
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all those other pots. It was a bit like fuel, a bit like the sun,
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like the heart of a great engine - but it wasn't a machine.
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It *meant* something. It didn't really have a purpose, but...
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it wasn't without aim. It really doesn't make much sense, to
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try to say it, you are quite right, we need to do something
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with the language, break it or crack it open somehow. Or...
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maybe I just need to shut up, again, be quiet for a bit.
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I can hear him, hear him saying it. He said:
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"You don't have to be part of anything, to be part of something."
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I mean, that says it, doesn't it? It's just that it's not
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*literally* in the words. Literally, it's like... all this.
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That's what all this is? Isn't it?
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"You don't have to be part of anything, to be part of something."
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And then the next thing I remember is talking to Mum, asking her
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where Dad had gone, and her telling me that he was...
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Going Wayback? I think that's what she said. I said,
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"You mean he is *on* his way back? He has gone somewhere, and now
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he is *on* his way back?"
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"No, dear," she said, "he is *going* wayback, and that is the only
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way there is. *Going*, you understand, darling? Not really here,
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but not really gone."
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*
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/ \
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/ \
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.---(---------.
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\ \ / /
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\ \ / /
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\ / /
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\ / \ /
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\ \
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/ \ / \
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/ / \
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/ / \ \
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\__/ \__/
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cd ~/ships/Leaps\ And\ Bounds
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nano noonesgarden.txt
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Permission denied
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sudo nano noonesgarden.txt
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Permission denied
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You have mail
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From: amulet@cosmic.voyage
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To: unclewayback
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Subject: u r veelink velly shlee peee
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(wake (you (when) you) know)
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/^^\
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.---- \ -.
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/ \ / \
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/ \ / \
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\ \ \
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- /-----. \
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/ \ / /
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\ \____/
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\___/
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xoxoxo
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