I looked down at the box which contained my new CyBook. It had been sitting unopened for three days since it was delivered on the 1st of August. It would have arrived slightly sooner but there was some confusion between Bookeen and Alex as he first tried to send it to Panama instead of Pennsylvania. A feeling of uneasiness settled over me while holding the FedEx package which was strange because the past few days had been quite remarkable.
Starting with the delivery, which came at 2:02 AM on the 1st. Being an insomniac I was currently up to the melted butter scene with the lobsters in Leonard Part 6 on my DVR. After being startled by the screen door slamming and a screech of tires I paused Cosby's magnum opus. It was several minutes before I worked up the courage to check the door. Once certain no one was around I opened it to find the package stuffed between the doors. It was only then that I finally swallowed the strawberry I had bitten into just prior to the interruption.
While preparing to open the box the phone rang and the Caller ID showed it to be my sister's mobile number. Leaving the box on coffee table I proceeded to answer the phone. In a nutshell she and a coworker had been out consoling a friend at the bar till close and she had managed to lock her keys in the car (Sadly, this is a common enough event that I keep a spare set at the ready) thus needing my help.
On arriving at the bar I found my sister and a coworker, a rather cute petite young lady with short dark brown hair, a mischievous face and clothes that told she was a fellow Mike Patton fan.
As to how I wound up still being with her for the next two days, part of it involved the fact that she lived closer to my house than my sisters and naturally I drove her home. I spent some time chatting and drinking coffee* in her apartment as well as exchanging phone numbers for a 'proper' date before leaving just to discover that my car was dead. In a chivalrous act on her part she invited me to spend the night to avoid paying a premium calling for a tow truck at that hour. And while romance was certainly in the air we both did the gentlemanly thing and passed out on the couch shortly after daybreak.
Both Misty and I slept late and realized that by the time we awoke it was evening and my regular mechanic was already closed, not to reopen till Monday. Any tow truck agency would do, but the cost savings and the opportunity to spend more time with Misty left me eager to accept her offer to spend the weekend together. She even had a change of shirts for me in the way of an oversized (undersized for me) Josie & The Pussycats t-shirt she kept as a nightshirt.
We went on to discuss books, music and movies. Watched episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (she too collected them) and a House M.D. marathon. Interspersed was the occasional ordered meal in the way of pizza or snack in the way of leftover pizza. By bedtime the following afternoon we found ourselves deeply engaged with one another in a not so innocent manner, however we reserved ourselves to light petting and gentle kisses till we were asleep. Which seemed only appropriate considering we still hadn't gone on our first date.
After our goodbyes were spoken and the tow truck driver was prepping the car it turned out that the neutral safety switch for some reason had been engaged and the driver was able to start the car and send me on my way with only a few dollars for the call.
At home I found a message from a former client offering me a full time position at a new branch they were opening. Returning the call I was to find out it was within a few miles of my home as well as that they were preparing to order the systems and servers for the facility that week and could I come in that day to discuss things given I would be the SysAdmin. After a shower and change of clothing I left to spend the day finding out the details of my new employment. With a new girlfriend and six figure salary I celebrated the rest of the evening with a couple beers and by going to bed early.
When I woke up the following morning is where we get to go back to the box. I pulled the strip on the side and removed one box from another. Cybook Gen3 read the new box, in which I was presented with a third, albeit plain white box to open. In this box I removed the Cybook’s cover to finally be presented with its foam wrapped goodness. Removing the wrapper I was to discover an odd tag attached to the protective film covering the screen of the Cybook which read;
Expérimental
____________
Couleur
This, needless to say, excited me. So after charging the reader off of my computer's USB port I turned the Cybook on for the first time. A bright flash and the feeling that the air pressure had plummeted and recovered in a fraction of a section caused my ears to pop. When my hearing and vision recovered I was left stunned for several seconds. The room, in fact everything including my hands had turned into a fine grayscale, devoid of any color or even pure white or black. I looked dazedly about. At the grayscale coffee table. At the grayscale television. At the grayscale walls and floor and my grayscale arms and body. I slowly became aware that color now radiated up at me from the screen of the Cybook. At the top was a beautifully rendered black and white matte painting of me looking stunned with a color floral design and gold illumination bordering the edges of the art. The text itself was deep black in a lovely serif font on a light cream colored background and read;
Quote:
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Quand je recommençai à voir et à entendre, je demeurai plusieurs secondes abasourdi. La pièce, en fait tout dans la pièce, y compris mes mains, était passé en échelle de gris délicats, sans aucune couleur ni même de noir et blanc pur. Je regardai, hébété, autour de moi. La table basse en échelle de gris. La télévison en échelle de gris. Les murs et le sol en échelle de gris, mes bras et mon corps en échelle de gris. Je me rendis compte progressivement que de la couleur irradiait vers moi depuis l’écran du CyBook. En haut se trouvait un portrait de moi en noir et blanc, magnifiquement rendu, en transparence, l’air stupéfait, avec un motif floral en couleur et une enluminure dorée qui bordaient le dessin. Le texte lui-même était d’un noir profond, dans une police sérif ravissante, sur un fond blanc crème léger, et disait
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In an act of panic I turned the Cybook off, to be greeted by the same jolting flash and wrench of my aural faculties. With reality back to what was normal for me (perhaps not for others) I was left in a cold sweat unable to comprehend what had just occurred. And the phone rang.
To be continued if...
And you know the rest of that statement.
*Just think of tea, but brewed with beans for you Brits…
[My thanks to YGG for providing French translations for me]