Dreams of the Quill

“Love,

Is there nothing interesting in the world anymore?”

Marin shook her head and tapped the delete key fifty-five times. There was no point in consulting her boyfriend about this. He would present her a very simple answer: Jesus. He would counsel her to take up a life of prayer or something overwhelmingly boring like that. She sighed heavily, closing her e-mail window and opening up a web browser.

Maybe there’s something dumb to make fun of on craigslist, she figured, directing her browser to the San Francisco-based website. After an hour of browsing personals it became clear that there was no longer any of the traditional humor in the section. In the interests of fighting terrorism, everyone posted the same form personal with brief, unevocative descriptions of interests. One such banal personal might have been amusing, but page after page of them… it was enough to bore a girl to tears.

Marin sniffed and moved on. Maybe there’s something ludicrous to buy.

Randomly clicking around the “for sale” section, Marin stumbled upon books. One listing in particular caught her eye, maybe because of all the bible-thumping her boyfriend had been doing of late: “UNIQUE book ‘El’ - cursed?!?!?!!! can TALK!!! - $200.”

Now that’s ludicrous, thought Marin. A talking book. Two hundred dollars. With a quick keyboard shortcut, she brought up her mail program and created a new message.

“Love,

El is the god of the 2nd writer, right?”

Marin shook her head and tapped the delete key forty-four times. Her boyfriend supported that nonsense belief that Moses had written Genesis. She sighed and phoned one of her friends from back home.

“Hello, who’s calling?”

“Elise? It’s me.”

“Rin! Haven’t heard from you in ages! How are you?”

“Mmm, I’m decent. Starting to succumb to terrorism.”

“Don’t say that! You know they’re listening!”

“Who, the FBI?”

“No, those DHS creeps.”

“Don’t say that, they’re listening,” replied Marin with a wry laugh.

“Heh, same old Rin… so, what’s up? There must be a reason you’re calling me.”

“Yeah, actually. You were in my Bible class, and actually paid attention, so maybe you can refresh my memory—one of the pieces of the Documentary Hypothesis.”

“Oh! Yeah. Which?”

“That’s what I need to know. Something about El?”

“God. Second writer.”

“Great, thanks!”

“That’s all?” Elise asked, a hint of worry in her voice. “Don’t work yourself too hard, you hear?”

“Thanks, mom,” Marin laughed. “I gotta go now. Take care, Elise.”

“Bye!”

Marin put the phone down on her desk and clicked the link to contact the owner of this alleged talking book.