Lucille stood there completely dumbfounded at the flashing lights and multiple live-streaming screens from various places throughout the world. She is already surrounded by various floating musical instruments stacks of memorabilia of photos, clippings of news articles, LP records, 8-tracks, and LP record player. She’s gamely making an effort to read something, but Wicked Willie can tell her attention is really on the large snake, who can be seen through several large thick windows in what appears to be an office setting off to her right where she stood. Lucille gestures with her right hand to that general direction while asking Wicked Willie “Who is that enormous snake behind that thick glass?” Wicked Willie responds “Privacy is not a luxury we will enjoy here….” Pauses a few seconds as Lucille continues to stare at those windows. “That is The Elapid, the big kahuna of these grounds”, said Wicked Willie.
A couple of fans blow the dusty air around. Already it carries a whiff of old age memorabilia odor, tinged with that musty smell yellowing articles give off. They mingle to create a totally new sort of odor, one part dingy, dank document repository, one part resource mineral rich cave walls, like an mining company has set up shop inside the bedrock mountain. All of this brings new awareness to Lucille as she stood there taking all of this at once.
Noticing Lucille eyes staring at the old age memorabilia Wicked Willie says “In the day those LP’s were the bloodline of every blues musician.” Suddenly, Mick Kolassa song fills up the entire glorious cave as the solid silver-plated large doors open up and the large snake wearing dark sunglasses slithers out in a very rhythmic motion to the musical notes of the song. As the song fades out, the large snake head dips to roughly 3 feet from Lucille’s face. The large snake gives Lucille a weak grin, as if to say Welcome to Yippee Ki-Ay.
Frozen in her stance, Lucille simply kept her eyes on the large snake, as he returns to a semi-coil position near a few phones and blowing fans. Lucille glance over at the large snake, he gestures with his head at her and nods to a chair in front of him. Dutifully, Lucille sat in it. He’s jabbering a mile a minute. Words spill out of his mouth, but she can’t understand what he’s saying. He seems to have his own language. She heard him use AI, AR, and VR all in the same series of sentences. Is this English or a Navajo code talker? For sure, Lucille will have to decipher these acronyms to learn all of this stuff, too? Who starts a new job that requires a new language?
One of the fans blow a big waft of tequila breath across the seat where Lucille is seated. She tries not to cough. The large snake studiously avoids eye contact. His antics looks like a frazzled starving college student cramming for a mid-term. He slams one of his phones down into its cradle. It’s an old rotary, like something from the seventies. Minutes later, he cradles the other one. This is a mixed blessing. Now all his multi-tasking attention is riveted on Lucille. They stare at each other. Lucille tries not to look panicked, but the truth is she is already feeling way over her head by now. She’s inside an enormous cave full of Rant. “I am the Elapid”, said the large snake while a very vibrant song by Carolyn Fe and dancing red and blue spotlights enlightens the surroundings…..TBC.