THE SILVER SURFER PAPERS · LEAF THE FIRST
BILL OF FARE ABOARD THE
SILVER SURFER
wisdom sold at sea · master & entire crew: L. Fishman
MOORED WHEREVER WATER REMEMBERS YOUR NAME
Ship's rule: the captain never answers the question you asked. Tell him what you don't want to be true — he throws wrong answers overboard, one at a time, until what floats is nearly the truth.
GALLEY COFFEE free
Poured from a pot that has never once been empty. One honest word about your problem. Refills are the same word, louder, over the wind.
CATCH OF THE DAY one truth
Name what you fear the answer is. The captain guts it and throws it back — one wrong answer gone, forever. Payment before the cast: a secret, or a new fact about yourself, said to the sea.
THE FRANCIS SPECIAL truth + trouble
A clear bearing — what to do next, never why it works. Served with a squall on the side, captain's choice.
THE CAPTAIN'S CHART don't
Waters you haven't sailed yet, marked in tomorrow's ink. You will follow it. You will not be able to say why. He keeps it under his coffee cup and it is always a little damp.
Gratuity: time. However long you stand at the rail, the tide keeps its own accounts.
No refunds · every answer true · the ascended drink free
THE SILVER SURFER PAPERS · LEAF THE SECOND
❧ HEREIN ❧
The Grace Book
being nine small rules for the asking of favours
from a madman who is only real in water
✳  ✳  ✳
I.Landis is real only in water. A sea will do; so will a bath, a puddle, or a soup, if you are sincere about the soup.
II.Ask as often as you can ask with grace. Grace means you tried on your own first, and can say what you tried, without mumbling.
III.Grace buys clarity. Come graceful and the answer is plain as porridge. Barge in and the answer is a riddle — a true one, which is worse.
IV.Every answer is true. Water will not carry a lie; it has tried, and it is embarrassed about it still.
V.The first answer costs a truth of your own. Say a secret aloud, or invent a new fact about yourself. It is true now. Congratulations, or condolences.
VI.Each answer after the first arrives with trouble attached. The trouble is complimentary. Landis insists.
VII.Ask a fourth time and the madness bleeds: you learn a thing nobody should have told you, and you must act upon it, and you may not say why, and you will not want to.
VIII.Talking to Landis costs a scene. Elsewhere, meanwhile, things are happening. They are not waiting for you. They have never waited for anyone.
IX.Absent friends may be asked by letter. Radek answers plainly and for free — next session, after the courier has read it twice and understood it once.
"What don't you want?" is a graceful question.
— L. Fishman, at the rail