This is the final episode of the repost project. I hope you've enjoyed
the story so far. This repost project came about as a recation to the
rather positive review from Draxon a few hours ago. With his assurance
that it wouldn't look too tacky, I corrected, remastered, and reposted the
entirety of Music-Box Angel, the first complete My Dear Marie fanfic.
With any luck, the story will reach more of you this time around, or, if
you've read it before, make things that were once foggy clear.
Without further ado, the final episode. Enjoy.
--Matt
C&C is welcomed with open arms! If you read, please send me a
comment or two. E-mail me at matt2518@gladstone.uoregon.edu.
For episodes 1-4, visit http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~matt2518/
For the sake of convenience in this text format, the two Maries
are known under different spellings. Hiroshi's creation is known
as Marie, while the human version is known as Mari.
Thoughts of the various characters are encased in [brackets].
Computer conversations are encased <like so>.
Words that are supposed to be crossed out (but would still be
readable) are noted -thusly-.
NOTE: This text was produced without the consent of the original
copyright holders, and, while it is intended as tribute, in some
areas it is considered an illegal work.
BACKGROUND: College student Hiroshi Karigari had a problem. He
was in love with a lovely tennis player at his school, Mari, but
couldn't express himself to her. So he decided to build a
duplicate of her in the form of an android he named Marie. Now,
he has to pass Marie off as his little sister to keep up
appearances, and things are only getting more complicated. The
ever-lecherous Tanaka, who also has a crush on Mari, has turned
his eye towards Marie as well. Can Hiroshi keep his secret? Can
he find true love? Has he built it already?
OUR STORY SO FAR: So, you're the type who walks in just before
the ending credits and asks the guy next to you to fill you in,
eh? Well you can fergetit, bub, 'cause this story's almost over.
For now, that is. Go and read Episodes 1-4 on my web page (listed
above), or e-mail me at my address (above) for copies. You'll
love it, trust me! (grin)
------------ -------- ------ -------- ------------
* * *
B O K U N O M A R I E
Music-Box Angel
Episode Five: Nous Sommes Du Soleil
The anime (c) 1996 Sakura Takeuchi/Goro Sanyo/Shueisha/
Victor Entertainment/Studio Pierrot.
Licensed by Victor Entertainment, Inc., Japan.
Released in North America by A.D.V. Films
under the title "My Dear Marie."
For more information, contact A.D.V. Films at: info@advfilms.com
Boku No Marie: Music-Box Angel (c) 1998 Matthew Johnston.
All Rights Reserved.
* * *
Sunday, 10:07 AM.
Hiroshi awoke suddenly, his head throbbing with sleep-
depravation and dehydration. He squinted and groped for his
glasses, which, upon finding, he placed carefully on his head.
Every action to him seemed overpowered, as if he was a titan
moving in a Lilliputian environment.
After a moment of blinking the sleep from his brain, he
managed to sit up and cough weakly. He wondered if maybe he was
getting sick, and then thought that he should be surprised if he
was, given the energy he exerted last night.
As the events of last night separated themselves from that
area of memory that could have been dream, remaining when the last
threads of dream had faded, Hiroshi reached into his desk, found
his worn notebook and a familiar pen, and wrote:
Sunday, 1998-04-17.
Early this morning, Mari and I talked for quite a long while. The
details of the conversations are still blurry, as I am just now
awakening from a short sleep. As this is more a record of Marie's
performance than any sort of personal diary, I will skip those
details for now. Sufficed to say, Marie's secret is known now to
another person: Mari.
Mari promised me she wouldn't tell anybody what Marie was, and
that she had a plan to keep Tanaka from remembering that he too
had seen Marie in her vulnerable state as an android, and not as
the human sister which is, quite obviously, the state I'd prefer
everybody to see her in.
Late Saturday night, I placed Marie in a perpetual sleep mode,
thinking that perhaps her self-knowledge and access privileges
would allow her both the realization of her situation and the
opportunity to correct it. Thinking there was little if nothing
else I could do, I proceeded upstairs, where I engaged in a
lengthy conversation with Mari.
After the conversation, we returned to the lab, where I found
Marie to be in a highly agitated state of nocturnal motion. After
a short struggle, Mari and I managed to subdue Marie, and return
her to the workbench.
I decided that I would have to recode her myself. Using a number
of routines I had devised for just such an emergency, and
employing for the first time a technique of programming
integration recently described in a recent issue of Doctor Dobbes'
Journal, I was able to extract the Hitomi routines from Marie's
drives, and to restore her libraries to a state of normalcy.
Mari proved invaluable in the recoding of Marie's libraries. As
she and Marie had spent much time together, and had shared a
number of experiences, I was able to successfully recode the three
-infected- augmented libraries 002, 007, and 102.
The Hitomi routines, reintegrated with a minimal MarieOS system,
is "sleeping" soundly on my workstation's hard drive. For all
intents and purposes, Hitomi is still alive. I remember the time
I put into those libraries, even after so many years, and I can't
stand to simply destroy them. In many ways, Hitomi -was- is as
alive as Marie. I don't have the ability to "kill" her. Mari
thought Hitomi should not die, and I am glad I defaulted to her
wisdom.
It is unknown at this time what I will actually do with Hitomi now
that she's "sleeping" on my workstation's hard drive. Certainly,
the notion of creating a body for her is tempting, though not
without its complications. While it is true that, at one time,
Hitomi represented my ideal, and, it seems, may still, I am unsure
as to whether I would be serving any meaningful purpose in
reactivating Hitomi in her own body. Given Marie's purpose (and
the change it has gone through), it would seem logical that
perhaps a male android would serve a greater purpose.
As a matter of fact, I am unsure whether Marie would accept a male
android, or any other android, for that matter. She has grown
quite independent, and may feel that she is strong enough
emotionally to find her own companion, rather than have one
created for her.
I suppose that the best way to find this out is to announce the
project, and gauge her reaction. Beyond receiving a direct
response, I am at a loss; I cannot know what is in Marie's mind
any longer. This previous episode has shown that sufficiently.
* * *
Sunday, 10:07 AM.
Mari hadn't slept like she had hoped. It seemed more like
her tossing and turning had been interrupted by a few moments of
slumber rather than the contrary to which she was accustomed. And
as wonderful as the sleep had felt, she couldn't keep her mind
calm enough to stay asleep for more than a moment. Each time she
awoke to roll over, she could feel her opportunities for getting
any sleep whatsoever rapidly diminish.
The sun peeked cautiously through her wall-length window and
the semi-sheer bedroom curtains that covered them wistfully. She
heard a bird chirping outside, and knew that the neighborhood
children were playing somewhere nearby. She wanted so much to
join them and just play like she was a child again.
"Yesterday, I was just fine," she noted soberly. She
repeated the words, more angrily this time. "Yesterday, I was
just fine!" A series of curses flashed in her mind, but a full
minute of continuous yawns kept her from saying them aloud.
In a fit of misplaced movements and overripe actions, Mari
grasped for her diary and a pen. She wrote:
Sunday, April 17th.
Dear Diary,
Yesterday, I was just fine! I can't believe what's
happened. You'd never believe it either, but I suppose I have to
explain before I get ahead of myself. Be forewarned, though.
This is not easy to understand. Or maybe it's too easy to
understand, and that's what the problem is. Anyway, here's the
story:
Yesterday evening went well. I guess that's relative to
what happened afterwards, because thinking of it now, it seems
completely terrible. Hiroshi got nervous and accidentally ordered
a White Russian. That's an alcoholic drink, and Hiroshi has no
stomach for liquor. I would have stopped him, but I thought maybe
he knew what he was doing. Okay, so I made a mistake! On top of
that, he ordered five more, but I think that the waitress had them
mixed weak or made them non-alcoholic, because she didn't seem
worried, and he didn't seem to get any drunker. That must have
been what she did. I should thank her for that. I don't know
what he would have done if he had been really drunk!
Anyway, he took forever to finish eating because he was
telling all these stories about his childhood. I have to admit
that he would have been a great friend to play with when I was in
grade school. I wish I could have known him then. Anyway, after
we got out of dinner (which Tanaka paid for -- remind me to thank
him for that), Tanaka decided to ditch Hiroshi and I and "take
Marie home" (that pervert! Never mind about thanking him). I
guess he might have guessed the same thing I did about the box
Hiroshi was carrying, but I doubt he even noticed it.
Tanaka dropped us off at the fountain park a block from
Hiroshi's house. Hiroshi seemed strange, not really nervous, but
whatever he must be underneath all that. He was quiet, I guess.
Not really at peace or anything, but definitely softer than
before. I think it was the water, or the leaves or something, but
it sounded like everything was being drowned out, but when he
spoke, it seemed to clear, but not too loud, you know? He didn't
yell like when he's nervous, or clam up like when... he's nervous.
Geez, I never noticed how nervous he always was until I saw him
acting normal. Weird. I hope we can talk normally more often.
Okay, Now here's the best part. Hiroshi, the cutie, he
gives me a music-box. He had it engraved, too, but I can't
remember what it says, and I left it at his house by mistake when
Tanaka and I left (but that's getting ahead of myself again). It
was something sweet, like "To You, My Love" or something like
that. Oh yeah, it was "To You, My Ideal." I should have figured
it out then, but you know how dumb I can be. And the song the box
played was so beautiful. I can still hear it now. It's one of
those songs you can listen to forever, the kind that just gets
prettier and sadder when it slows down. When my brother tried to
teach me piano, he played a song for me like that. The softer he
played it, the better it was. He called that kind of music
"distilled melody." I guess that's what this was. Completely the
opposite of that CD of Hiroshi's I mentioned on Friday. You know,
I wouldn't be surprised if Hiroshi had made that music-box
himself.
When I heard the song, I began to cry. I couldn't let
Hiroshi see me like that, so I walked over by the lamppost.
Hiroshi must have been really nervous or thinking about the music
-- maybe Marie wrote the song. Anyway, he stood up and walked up
behind me. I thought maybe he was going to grab me and kiss me,
but he said something about Tanaka not being so trustworthy, and
then he touched my shoulder and ran. I was so lost in everything,
I could barely feel him. You know when you've taken a long nap,
and you wake up and your body's numb and warm and you can't feel
anything really, but you know it's there? That's how I felt. I
guess it was the music, or maybe when he touched me that made me
feel like that. Sufficed to say, I was really caught up in the
moment. I was humming the song and walking slowly like some kind
of lovesick child. Yuck!
Okay, so maybe I am. Just a little.
By the time I got to Hiroshi's house, he and Tanaka were
downstairs. He, that is, Hiroshi was hooking up Marie to a
computer. That's right. She's a robot. I mean, an android.
Hiroshi's really picky about that. Something about how Marie can
think for herself. I guess it wasn't as much of a shock as it
should have been, because I didn't go nuts or break down or run
away or anything. I guess I knew Marie was in trouble, so that
kinda took precedence. I dragged Tanaka, who was acting weird --
he must not have been taking it well -- to the living room, and I
tried to talk to him. He told me what happened to Marie (a piece
of her insides fell out of her and she shut down), and then fell
asleep! The jerk fell asleep! It was for the best, though. I
was able to convince him that he had hallucinated the whole thing
later on. Bwahahaha! I'm so smooth!
Then Hiroshi came up and we talked, well, sort of. I went
off... I can't even remember all of what I said, but it was all
about how Hiroshi must have made Marie for sex. I can't really
remember clearly. I'm so tired! I wish I could have had at least
one hour or two of sleep, but no, I have to get like 20 minutes.
I guess maybe writing this will tire me out enough to get some
sleep this afternoon. Anyway, I asked to see Marie's room, and I
realized that she was nothing like me. Hiroshi may have tried to
copy me, but she isn't me. That's a good thing, right? I mean,
she shouldn't be like me. She wasn't raised by my parents, or had
my brother, or went to school where I did... I don't think she's
ever been to school... I mean, her being different is good. I
know I felt a lot better. Maybe it was because that means that
I'm not there. I mean, like when he goes to bed at night, he
won't peek into my bed and see me sleeping. Or maybe he still
sees me when he looks at her. Or
No, forget that.
But, after we talked, Hiroshi and I went downstairs to check
on Marie. She was up and about, but something was definitely
wrong. She was shaking and trying to tear the wires Hiroshi had
hooked up to her out. She was mouthing words like she was trying
to say something, but no sound was coming out. Her eyes were wide
open, but I don't think she saw us at all, or if she did, we were
just something in her dreams. Hiroshi and I had to push her back
down so she was laying on the table, and then strap her down. I
felt like I was working in a hospital. It was really scary to see
Marie like that. She seemed so afraid of everything. When we
strapped her down and Hiroshi sat down at the computer, he went
nuts. I guess something went really wrong, because he was going
completely crazy. He worked on the computer for something like
two hours straight, not even stopping to blink. When I asked him
what he was doing, he said he was feeding Marie new programs. He
said it would be too hard to explain, so I just watched over his
shoulder. He was working so hard and so fast, like it was life or
death. And then it hit me. When I -figured- found out Marie was
an android, I couldn't deal with it because she had seemed so real
to me. I was trying to make her just a bunch of wires and
computers in my mind, but she was real. She is real. She is
Hiroshi's sister, and his daughter. To him, she's everything.
And since she's her own person now, I wonder if she and Hiroshi
will eventually
Never mind.
Because Marie lost a few of memories in the repair process,
Hiroshi and I had to kind of reconstruct as many as we could.
There weren't that many lost, though, and most of them were either
with me or her. Mostly it was like unscrambling a sentence. The
memory would be like one long sentence saying how warm it was,
what everything looked like, and what happened. But anyway, we
got into an argument about how hot it was last Tuesday, and it
ended up being that he went on-line to check and I was right on
(he was about 10 too hot). Seeing him grumble an apology was
cute, but I felt a little sorry for him somehow. Oh well.
I need to go back to his house to pick up my music-box and to
check up on Marie. Maybe Hiroshi and I can talk then. And Marie
and I still need to have a nice long talk. I need to know what
her intentions are, because I think maybe I'm falling for her
brother. Just a little.
You know, he's a hero, I guess.
I mean, he saved her life, right?
Maybe it's just infatuation. That must be it.
I'm really tired now, so I'm going to sleep.
Good night.
* * *
Sunday, 4:32 PM.
"Oh God, my head." Tanaka rolled off his bed, catching
himself on his knees and hands. His room seemed so bright when he
opened his eyes that he groped around blindly for awhile before
finally finding the light switch. He moaned in pain when he
realized that the light was off. It was only the ambient sunlight
filtering into his room that was blinding him. With great effort,
he opened an eye.
His room was in disarray. This was normal for him, though.
His bed was unmade, but it never really had been. His floor was
cluttered, but it always was. He noticed he was still in his
clothes. Memory began to touch him with pricks of images. Soon,
he was able to piece together much of what he imagined his night
to have been like.
He scrambled to find his diary. After a few minutes of
fruitless searching, he decided his memories were too fragile to
let slip away with another moment of searching and took out a
piece of notebook paper from on top of his desk. After crossing
out the half-made shopping list, he wrote the following:
April 17th
Marie is a robot.
But she isn't. She's an android.
But I only dreamed that.
But she is. I could have sworn I saw it.
But she isn't because Mari said she wasn't.
And Marie was there. I remember her waving.
She's so pretty, so child-like.
If it was a dream, it was pretty messed up. I remember seeing her
naked (And oh my! I hope it wasn't a dream with a body like
that!), and seeing all these machines like a movie. And Hiroshi
was the mad scientist.
Maybe it was a dream. I mean, it was like I was in a movie. But
it was so vivid. Dammit! Why can't I be sure?
I don't want to out and announce that I think Marie is an android.
If I'm wrong, they'll think I was crazy or something. I better
just play it cool. If she isn't, then I have nothing to worry
about. If she is...
And what if she is? Can't I love her all the same? I mean, it's
not like it's a complete disaster to be in love with a machine.
Love is better than all that. Besides, she's just as cute as
Mari, and a little easier to deal with. Mari's got that whole
history thing. I've tried too many times with her, but I can try
again with Marie. I've learned from my mistakes. I bet I can get
her in bed in another month. Or two. A month or two.
Definitely by August.
Winter vacation, and she's mine. All mine. Robot or not.
* * *
Sunday, 4:41 PM.
Marie took the time to write in her diary for the weekend.
She hadn't had the opportunity since Friday night. She felt an
extreme urgency when she wrote, and it prompted her to write every
detail she could remember, from Saturday morning when she lost her
memory, to when she woke up to Mari's smiling face. The entry
totaled 58 pages, and left her with only three pages in her diary.
She wasn't overly surprised; she usually kept a detailed diary,
and had learned that year-long diaries usually lasted only a month
or so. And she realized that her weekend was less than normal.
After the diary entry, she wrote a short paragraph, as a sort
of final entry. She wrote such a paragraph in each diary she
finished, as sort of a summary. She also enjoyed the light sense
of drama she instilled in them, as if maybe they would be turned
into a television show or radio drama.
She wrote:
I love Hiroshi, but I cannot have him. He belongs to
another, and beyond that, I'm his sister to the world. I must vow
to be his sister, and love him as one. This leaves me with a
dilemma: either try for Tanaka, or try to find new friends.
Tanaka is not really an option, and staying alone seems
impossible. I want to love somebody. Maybe I should try going to
school. I could get into any college -- passing the exams
wouldn't be a problem. The question is, do I go to the same
college as Hiroshi, or a different one. And what do I want to
study?
An answer formed itself almost immediately, but she hesitated
before writing, not wanting to change her format so quickly.
After rationalizing that it would add a proper sense of drama to
the ending, and smiling as she did so, she added:
I think I'll study music. Hitomi would be proud.
Marie closed her diary, and placed it with the others in a
cardboard box under her bed. She added a diary to her mental list
of things to buy on Monday while Hiroshi went to school.
* * *
Sunday, 6:57 PM.
"I'll get it!" Marie was quick to respond to the doorbell,
much in contrast to her brother, who seemed to have been hiding in
the laboratory all afternoon. When she opened the door, the whole
of reality seemed to rush past her ears.
"Hello, Marie. Feeling better?" Mari smiled so pleasantly,
Marie felt her heart pause. Even a few hours without being able
to talk, to voice her feelings about the last few days... Marie
felt herself preparing to cry, and nodded deeply.
"Much, thank you. Did you get any sleep last night?" Mari
looked down and saw two large grocery sack in Mari's hands.
"Not really. Is Hiroshi awake yet?"
"Yes, but he's busy in the lab at the moment. Why don't you
come in? I'll get him for you."
"Thank you." Mari stepped in and set her sacks down. "I
must confess, I'm here for kind of a selfish reason." She took
off her left shoe, then the right. "I wanted to thank Hiroshi for
the music-box, and to get it back, so I was going to fix dinner."
Mari smiled again, so beautiful that Marie's lips tingled. She
licked them discreetly. "Is that okay?"
"Yes..." Marie murmured. Realizing her dreamy state, she
shook her head clear. "Yes! That's a wonderful idea! Let me
help you. I need to thank Hiroshi myself." Marie picked up a
grocery sack. "Let me help you with these."
Once in the kitchen, the pair fairly flew through the
preparations of Mari's best dish. As they chopped and sauteed and
prepared, the talked. The conversation didn't wander into any
heavy territory, but each could tell the other was simply waiting
for the right moment to let loose on the subject. There was a
pressing against their words. There was something right about the
want, but something wrong about the environment. So they waited.
Eventually, they did talk, and the pressure exhaled from
their lungs. They apologized and talked about concerns. They
hugged and promised to never do *that* again. They laughed and
agreed about Hiroshi. They revealed about themselves things they
had kept hidden, and kept hidden still a few more secrets. The
pressure slowly replaced itself with comfort. Marie smiled, and
Mari smiled with her.
"So, we're sisters in a way," Marie mused.
"I suppose we are," Mari replied sweetly.
"So this is between sisters?" Marie stepped closer.
"Is what?"
Marie kissed Mari on the cheek. It was short, but loving.
When she opened her eyes, she saw that Mari was blushing. She was
holding her cheek, and stepping away slowly. Marie felt something
welling in her, something a little darker than the comfort she was
feeling. She hoped her boldness had not destroyed what such a
long and honest conversation had created. She hoped she hadn't
shown too much of herself, or worse, something that wasn't there.
But then Mari smiled, and nodded. "Yes, that was. Between
sisters, I mean." She turned back to the kitchen to get their
glasses. "Thank you," she finally added.
* * *
"Dinner's ready!" Marie called, fairly indignantly, from the
top of the stairwell. From the darkness and the gentle hum of the
lab, she heard a struggling, "Coming!" and smiled. She saw,
moments later, a staggering Hiroshi rubbing the sleep from his
eyes.
"Were you *sleeping* in there?" Marie teased. Hiroshi
frowned and tried to speak, but a yawn prevented him. Marie
clapped him on the shoulder and made a point of dramatically
"helping" her brother to the dinner table. Hiroshi seemed amused
until her saw Mari. Marie felt his shoulder tense up, and his
posture straighten almost immediately. Marie, had she not been as
strong as she was, would have probably been tossed to one side by
this action. As it was, she took three steps back and to the
side, and silently apologized. She noted that she'd have to
properly apologize after dinner.
"Mari... Did you...?" Hiroshi gazed at the extravagant meal
on the table, then looked back at Mari.
"It's the least we can do to thank you. Marie did a lot of
the work. I mostly supervised."
Marie interjected immediately. "That's not true! It was
Mari's recipe, and all I did was chop the vegetables. This is
Mari's to be thankful for."
Hiroshi stiffly sat and took a sip from his glass. The water
seemed a little strange, but he figured that it was mostly from
his draining experience last night than anything else. As he put
the glass down, he felt a little more comfortable. [Maybe I'm
finally gaining some self-confidence,] he pondered.
Dinner went well for the most part. Hiroshi complimented the
meal repeatedly, and both girls rushed to place the credit on the
other. Invariably, Mari blushed, and Marie giggled. It was a
comfortable, almost cozy atmosphere, something they had not shared
before. Hiroshi remembered his plans, and spoke.
"I was able to recover Hitomi's routines."
Marie started at the announcement.
"I'm thinking about constructing a body for her."
Marie blinked, and after a moment, realized she had dropped
her chopsticks. She turned to Mari, who chewed thoughtfully,
slower than normal. After a long silence, Mari spoke.
"I think that's a good idea."
Hiroshi smiled a little, and continued to eat. "What do you
think?" He asked Marie between bites.
Marie couldn't answer except to say a small, "I'm not sure."
The atmosphere changed for the rest of the meal, but slowly it
crept back to the warmth that existed before he so abruptly
changed the subject. But the warmth seemed strongest between
Hiroshi and Mari. Marie smiled inwardly at the progress, and
hoped it would continue even after his ever-so-slightly spiked
water wore off.
* * *
Sunday, 9:43 PM.
"Thanks for letting me stay for dinner." Mari's voice nearly
lost itself in the light breeze that floated past the front steps.
Hiroshi, sitting next to her on the steps, smiled and leaned back.
"No, thank you. It was nice having a guest for dinner for
once." He looked at her, but she didn't return the gaze. She was
looking up at the sky. "It's a really clear night tonight."
"It's beautiful." She blinked, and Hiroshi saw the
reflection of the porch light swim in her eyes. He wanted to get
closer, but...
"You should write her another letter."
"What?"
"Hitomi. Write her another letter." Mari was still looking
up, her eyes still swimming with the light. Hiroshi looked at his
hands and saw they were trembling, but only a little.
"All right," he announced finally. "I will." Hiroshi wanted
to say, "for you" as well, but he didn't know what she would say
to that, so he bit his tongue.
It was a long moment before either one spoke again.
Marie smiled as she finished drying the final remnant of the
meal's dishes. It was nice to get them out of the way. On the
whole, the evening had been quite a success, though she still
didn't know whether to back him on that project or not. She did
miss Hitomi, now that she was fully alone in her mind again. She
wondered what it would be like having a little sister as well.
Looking out the window, she could see the lowest of the
horizon-bound stars. She knew that, for each star she saw, there
were billions she didn't. She sighed and wondered if there was
somebody on a planet out there looking at her star and wondering
if he was alone.
"Are you any good at astronomy?" Mari seemed fixated on the
stars, but Hiroshi could hardly blame her; they shone vividly in
the cloudless night sky. Even though they were in the city, it
seemed they could see all the stars tonight.
"I'm okay. I studied it quite a bit when I was younger."
"Which star is that?" Mari pointed up at the sky, her arm
fully extended, like a child might do. Hiroshi looked up and
tried to follow her gaze upwards.
"Which one? The big one there?"
"No, silly, not *that* one. The little one under it."
"I can't see it."
"Here, follow my arm." Hiroshi leaned and looked up her arm.
From just inside the doorway, Marie looked outside at her
brother, and his new companion. She smiled, satisfied in a number
of ways, melancholy in as many others. Hiroshi wasn't struggling
against Mari's cautious kiss, just as he didn't struggle against
Hitomi's. Marie sighed lightly at the familiarity of it all. She
wondered if all history was that circular.
------------ -------- ------ -------- ------------
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
This episode serves more as an epilogue than a full-blown episode,
and it's yet another little experiment/exercise of mine. The
lateness is a result of obvious -- a lack of free time -- and
perhaps a little lack of inspiration. I must admit, this story
drained me, but I feel very satisfied with the work as a whole,
and the experience as a whole. I'm also proud to have written
this story, and to have finished it; this is, truth be told, the
first story I finished in *any* capacity.
Again, I'd like to thank Jim Nutley for pre-reading the first (and
rather different) draft of this episode. He drove me to re-write
some scenes, and add others. Because of him, I was able to finish
this episode (and thus the story) properly. Mad props to you, mi
amigo.
I'll be taking a some time off from the Boku No Marie universe to
work on something different (see below for details). But I will
be back, whether you like it or not, with a little ditty I like to
call "Academia Robotica". Now, to the issue of this episode:
Diary Action: The -slashed- text is intentional, in case you
missed it above. Also, any other grammatical mistakes are a
product of my attempt to keep the diary a "work-in-progress"
medium. That is, things aren't perfect the first time out, but
are rather a snapshot of a person's thoughts at the time.
My New Project?: I'm currently working on an original series
called "Okaeri, Kaori-chan!" ("Welcome Home, Kaori!"), a romantic
comedy/drama about love, music and dark, terrible secrets.
Episode 1 (of a projected 8) appeared on December 1st, with the
second episode making its premier on the 20th. Episode 3 is due
by January 7th.