(Vic Socotra conducts field research at the Hotel Roma, Taipei, Tawian, in the delirious year of 1980. God only knows who the photographer was, 42 years ago that alcohol-soaked afternoon. We were worried about a PRC invasion.)

Editor’s Note: We get Letters to the Editor at Socotra House, and we publish them as they come in as a public service. This one is different- it is as convoluted as some of the less obscure non sequiturs uttered routinely by the rest of the Fire Ring contributors. Those (of course) are stipulated by Funk & Wagnall’s definition of “inference or conclusions that do not follow from the premises or evidence.” As an exemplar, our Character here in the Writer’s circle has had the callsign “Splash” following him around since the unfortunate and initially inadvertent disposal of a $14 million dollar twin-engined supersonic jet. The actual event featured a silent but sudden electric jolt of adrenaline. That followed an unusual sharp ‘BANG’ sound from the left lower floorboard, a screeching communication on the cockpit intercom then followed by a somewhat more definitive jolt from the activation of a Martin-Baker ejection seat. That drama preceded the musical tinkling of a shattering canopy and the unearthly sound of the creaking of the parachute harness accepting weight in the two green straps that disappeared upward from his shoulders. You could craft a decent callsign out of any of these events, but his then-squadron buddies felt the sound of the jet impacting the blue waters of the approaches to Subic Bay, Republic of the Philippines would be the best one to follow him around the rest of his life. So far, it has.

– Vic

Author’s Note: One of my longest readers asked me recently how/why I named characters like Marlow and W.
I feel duty bound to share my reply with you, my shipmate Vic.

-Marlow
> “Marlow came from Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ novel character (and Narrator) ‘Charles Marlow.’ This merchant marine was the sailor that the Captain sent up the un-named African river- I think it was The Congo- to find the ivory trader Kurtz. Marlow was also Conrad’s main narrator of his later ‘Lord Jim’ and ‘Chance’ novels.
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> Conrad’s ‘H of D’ Narrator said this of his Marlow: “yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical […] and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze.” I myself am still working on this later part 27+ years later.
> ‘W’ was a natural follow-on to her prior GF initial’s identity. ‘W’ is wife while GF is ‘Girl Friend.’ I try to shield my actual living subjects from being too easily identified. For instance, in a mischance of authorship, character ‘Kilo’ was initially and only once identified as Kilo Sierra (for Kid Sister).”
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