From time to time Osgood Finnegan would return to the Orb, dreaming about the many secrets it must contain. But he was very busy. Craftsmen from around the world were taking notice of his inventions - which by now were beyond number - and he began to collaborate with them. In order to work together they needed some means of communication across great distances, a problem that kept them occupied for several years. By the time they'd solved it, Osgood had outgrown his workshop; he had outgrown his town; and he hadn't even thought about the strange Orb for a very long time.
The Orb was the spark that had lit a flame inside his mind, but that flame was burning steadily now under its own power. It was a flame that would burn brightly for the rest of his days. It was no longer important whether the Orb was what it was supposed to be. And so, as far as anyone knows, it was forgotten.
Osgood continued his career well into his old age, but one day he abruptly removed himself from public life and simply vanished. His journals from the period record that he was embarking on what he called a Great Work. But what that Work was, or whether he completed it, is a story that no person know
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May 19th, 2011 at 1:41 pm
Careful use of the word ‘person’ in that last sentence, I note. I’ll bet a certain clockwork container of many secrets might just know something about that, or might just be something like that.
May 19th, 2011 at 2:04 pm
The Book is awfully well informed, which practically goes without saying, and it’s quite precise in its use of language. Of course we don’t know how it defines words like “person”… or, come to think of it, “spinach”. Maybe it could use a glossary to help us straighten these things out.
