Congratulations on Following the Clues!

You’ll rise from bed early today. It’s been a strain for you to climb out from under the sheets before noon for a long while now, since before you'd even lost your job.

But today you’ll be in the shower before the sun rises. You’ll spend the twilight hours shoveling Cheerios into your mouth and watching music videos on VH1 until they start their reality programming and you know it’s time to leave your apartment.

You decoded the map last night. It was difficult, but not too difficult. You recognized the landmarks and the “green crossroads of north and south under shade of the rising sun” it mentioned had to be Laurelhurst Park. Your day will begin there.

You’ll begin by walking calmly around the park, trying to suss out the clues. They were layered in poetic references (which were, in fact, cleverly parodies of T.S. Elliot’s The Wasteland, not that your drunk ass picked up on it) but you know South-East pretty well, so ere long you'll found the cigar box in the cleft of a tree.

It'll take a solid five minutes and two dozen rocks to get it out of there. You'll even stop for a smoke break half way through, but once the box is free you'll open it up with all the tredipdation you felt during your first sexual experience.

Inside there will be another piece of paper. It will simply read “follow the white rabbit” with a sketch of the street corner outside of Powell’s to the side. You’ll pull out your cell phone and scroll until you get to Greg, the English Major™.

Greg was a guy you fucked for a week and a half before you left on amiable terms. The sex was good, but you didn’t click energy wise. So you parted ways. The two of you occasionally hung out, but of late you haven’t called him. This will the first time you’ll have spoken to him since The Breakdown™.

When he answers his phone it’ll be clear you just roused him from sleep. “Hello?” he’ll mumble, barely awake, into the mouth piece.

“Greg.”

He’ll recognize your voice immediately. “Jesus, Marly. Are you all right?”

“Fine. But I need your help.”

“Fuck. What’s wrong? Do you need money?”

“It’s tough to explain, and no. I need your brain.”

There will be a moment’s pause.

“What time is it, anyways?”

“10:42,” you’ll resepond without looking at your watch. “AM.”

“Fuuuuck,” he’ll moan. You’ll hear a few more muffled curses, like he just tucked his head under his pillow before turning back to the phone. “What?” he’ll mumble brusquely.

“What does ‘Follow the white rabbit’ mean?”

There will be less than a minute’s pause. “It’s either a reference to The Matrix, or Lewis Caroll’s Through The Looking Glass.”

You’ll nod on your end. “Thanks.”

Then you’ll hang up, hoping he rolled over and went back to sleep, just as puzzled as you are now.

You’ll drive to Powell’s and then slowly move out from the store in circles trying to find parking (heyo!) and then you’ll trudge the quarter mile to the store proper.

When you arrive it will be, as it always is, a marvelous cavalcade of books stacked to the ceiling. But you, normally distracted, will surge with purpose through them until you come to a copy of Through the Looking Glass nestled high on a top shelf.

You’ll need a ladder to get it down, but once you do you’ll immediately notice a piece of paper jutting from the top of the book. You’ll withdraw it once more, your fingertips electrified with the sensation of the paper.

Breathless, you’ll barely remember to replace the book before you unfold the sheet.

To Be Continued!

Congratulations on following the clues!