"Interesting! Merry Christmas!"
"Hi!"
"Hello. Have we met?"
"I don’t think so. Nice tape-recorder tattoo. Did Grape design that?"
"Uh, yes."
IT WAS A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS PARTY, the best one of the season so far. I stayed up all night, moving from room to room, conversation to conversation, covering as much territory as possible while sampling a vast and delectable assortment of expensive solids, liquids and vapors. Unfortunately, I was due back at the Mangrave Institute by noon, so at 5 a.m., I said goodbye to the many fascinating people and left the chilly Northlands behind. At 6 a.m., I broke through the frozen mountains onto southbound Interstate 5 and straight into a big raw burning red sunrise at 100 miles per hour.
In no time at all, I was sitting with Pettigrew and Kostas in the Mangrave Institute’s basement, listening to the party conversation, rendering glyphs all afternoon and editing them well into the night. Pettigrew seemed unusually calm.
Around midnight, the editors rolled up their sleeves, and I noticed that they both had fresh, matching "Mangrave Institute" tattoos on their right forearms. Almost matching, that is — while Kostas’ ink was a staid, deep blue, Pettigrew’s glowed, oscillating from green to red and back again.
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