I watched Doug wind his way through the magazine racks and leave the store, the I started pawing through the hemp knapsack I drag with me everywhere. I keep a Moleskine pocket notebook and a click Bic pen with me at all times, just in case of inspiration. And to aid a lapsing memory. I [...]
I’ll be honest. I loathe fiction. So when my friend Doug shoved me into a corner again (figuratively speaking–more like he wiggled a paper cup of cappuccino at me so hard the froth spilled across his fingers) and demanded that I write some fiction, my usual response was to laugh him off.
Communities gather and disperse. This is inevitable, an organic law of Brownian movement. The original dispossessed had forgotten or overlooked the other communities that preceded them, communities bound by dial-up bulletin board systems and older communities connected by ink and paper. Each generation of dispossessed forgot or overlooked the previous. Each glowered down at the [...]
Continue reading about A fable of a forum, part 3 (conclusion)
The forums grew. Fragments from some merged with fragments of others. Across the wide, black plain of the Internet glinted the lights of the various communities of the dispossessed. Mosaics rearranged themselves or were rearranged. Restructuring happened forcibly or accidentally or deliberately. Mosaics grew in bursts, slowly or quickly. Survival was not guaranteed.
A fable of a forum, part 4
The cycle of rebirth extends even to the electronic world. Forums rise from their own ashes, sometimes growing through their pains, sometimes repeating the pains. The staff may change, the faces change, the names change–or not. No matter. The cycle continues.
Continue reading about A fable of a forum, part 4