The Trailing Edge

         " I have foreseen a time when cities of glass and steel towers supplant our forests. Fear not! A new place will be created where our trees will be reborn, to live in their paper form, and we will remain their guardians. We will be known to the world as Librarians." -- The Unknown Works of Grand Druid Athelstane First Librarian Athelstane stood on the double yellow line in the center of 42nd Street, outside the New York City Public Library, staring westwards. An uninterrupted view across the City to the Hudson River. The streets were empty, no people, no cars, no trucks, passing by. COVID-19 quarantine in effect. She raised her staff, chanting in an unfamiliar language. The upper curve of an enormous yellow orb appeared at the far end of the street, floating over the Hudson River. The orb rose upward filling the space between the skyscrapers until hovering a woman's height above the horizon. A yellow glow emanated from the orb, reflecting o...

Previous Chapter The guys finished the car and invited me out to look at it. They had done a fine job -- the Nissan gleamed. Ben was comically soaked, so Warren helped him with the process of showering and changing into dry clothes. Now that Warren, Trevor and I were back full-time in our own clothes, we felt free to pop them into the washer and dryer that we kept outside (formerly camouflaged) under an eave. I didn’t offer to do this for Ben; there was an excellent chance that the machinery and detergents would shred his hand-stitched garments, so until Gerry arrived and offered him an alternative wardrobe of standard 21st-century washables, we hung his wet things out to dry. If they weren’t done by the time the sun went down, we’d just bring them back in. All I got from Warren -- all I had time for, really -- was a quick horizontal shake of his head as I met his gaze with the silent question of whether anything interesting had been found in Ben’s pockets during the change. Af...