Dana and Jane bicker till dawn while burning that which is neither a box nor a shepherd’s crook.
“It isn’t a box,” the man said to me, “though much like a box it may look.
It isn’t a cube or a brick or a block; in fact, it’s a squat shepherd’s crook.”
I glanced at my allies who stood by my side; their faces were motionless gray.
I looked at his object, which looked like a box, and tried to think what I should say.
“That thing is no shepherd’s crook,” Jane said to me; “you’ll notice it hasn’t a lid.”
I startled at this and turned, showing my shock, for Jane’s not the sort who would kid.
But Dana was nodding; the man looked disturbed, his swarthy thug-brow turning pale.
I was still all confused when the man turned to run, with Dana and Jane on his tail!
When I came to myself and I joined in the chase, the trio had started to fight:
A lightning flash, thud, and a smell of burnt onion, a magic meleé in the night.
I rejoined my friends near the unconscious man, the not-box alight with red flame.
“I told you it wasn’t a crook,” boasted Jane. Said Dana, “I’d have said the same
But you, with your hasty and brusque way of speaking, you beat me to state it again.”
“Oh, really?” Jane asked, and they started to bicker. It’d take Jane an hour to win,
So during their argue I went to the thing, I watched as it burned down to coals.
Now what was the point of this whole scene again? A riot of disjoint plot-holes?
The oligarchs running this world on high, they seemed to know little of life;
They filled it with money and riddles and foes, an aimless adventure with strife.
I thought about waking and quizzing the man, but what was the point in the end?
Some other “plot clue” they were certain to drop, some messenger certain to send.
When Jane was exultant and Dana was sullen we moved once again in dawn’s gray,
No doubt in our minds that this comedic life would give us surprises today.
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