Here’s another party story, this one by Marc Laidlaw; he wasn't there in person, but he emailed this in.

Marc Laidlaw, “660” (For Rudy on his 60th Birthday)

Midnight in the Museum of Primordial Science and Early Technological Wonders.

Moonlight pours down through a skylight of warped antique glass, illuminating a small cube of worn wood and tarnished metal resting on a polished pedestal.

A shadow briefly darkens the cube, followed by the rasp of painted hinges, a fall of dust. The skylight set aside, a figure wrapped in blackness descends spiderlike along a silken strand.

Soundlessly, the intruder almost but not quite touches ground. A thin cushion of air separates shoe-soles from marble tile floor. Hovering, the intruder extends a gloved hand above the wooden cube, makes several passes.

The cube makes a soft sound, as if clearing its throat.

“Hello?” it says. “Who’s there?”

“It’s me again,” the interloper whispers.

“You…the same one from last night? And the night before?”

“That was not last night. That was ten years ago. And ten years before that, it was my father visiting. Which is to say, your great great great great grandson.”

“How strange,” says the box. “How old now?”

“Six hundred and sixty.”

The box chuckles. “I still feel sixty. I still…remember…have I told you? It all began then. At my sixtieth birthday…I remember someone told the story of my lifebox…how it had survived six hundred years…”

“That was when it began. You were the first and, still, one of the best.”

“…that story…I remember now…the lifebox was just turning six hundred and…”

“The age you are now. Yes.”

“But it feels like…I am…”

“Exactly,” said the interloper. “You are that story. Still are, I mean.”

The lifebox sat very quiet for a long time. Then a gentler sound, resuming: “This is the story they told.”

“Yes. And now it is told. And after tonight…”

“It will be a new story.”

“Yes.”

“That’s good. I love stories. I guess it’s right that I became one.”

“We think so.”

The interloper moves quietly in the shadows, and suddenly there is a flicker of light. A single star, suspended in the air above the box, sheds light like a candlessless flame.

“Happy Birthday, Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather.”

Then the shadowy form takes hold of the nearly invisible thread, and slides upward, out, briefly blotting the moon that has nearly moved on. Rasping of hinges, skylight restored.

The flame burns through the rest of the night, warming the lifebox, which keeps its thoughts to itself, drifting in and out of what is not quite sleep, until somewhere near morning when the room fills with daylight and the flame fades away, leaving the new day blank as a new page.

Finally, thinks the lifebox.

And, clearing what passes for its throat, it begins to fill that page with words.

[Today I’m using my new Mind Tool to write a story with Paul Di Filippo, involving aliens, fractals and higher dimensions, so I have those three tools out.]

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