Preface to the Second Edition

     I'm not even sure if I can call this a "second edition", given the entire-ass new book that's been bolted on. I never intended to re-release Sable, but I’d already promised Marchant* I would transcribe her autobio, and, well, now she’s fuckin’ dead, completely dead, and I’m alone again, but with clean water and a mellow view.
     I’ll miss you, Sable.
     But what do the people want, mm… Explanation. Statistically speaking, if you read F6D the first time around, you’re equally very dead. A rounding error. I didn’t bother to check every building in Grand Junction before leaving, so let’s take Monticello as an example. I saw it had a population around 1,900 twenty years ago. Now back down to one. So if humanity peaked at 8.5B, that leaves us with 4.5M, mm, maybe way less. After all I don't know if 1/1900 is optimistic. Furthermore I don't have a clue how many people read the book the first go around. 10,000? That's probably too generous. Still, there may be just a handful of you plastivores out there; you are who I'd most like to reach with this update. I hope you're still checking the Archive when you get internet.
     Oh me? I'm doing pretty well, thank you. Sable wasn't exactly a memoir, but anyone who emailed me may recall I was writing out of Grand Junction, Colorado. I finished up the book less than a year before people started wandering and dropping.
     One thing I want to call attention to with this edition is the inclusion of myself and Ms. Marchant in the Appendices. I thought it would be cute to follow the original style. I'm still sticking with the pen name; it's a joke I've inherited from my younger self at this point.
     No, it's not a joke; I really love copper in all its forms. I still wear this bracelet I've had since ever. I hope you find a chunk of the stuff somewhere and just feel the coldness sometimes.
     Oh, and whoever was saying that N.B. is "nota bene", you're out of your fuckin' mind**. That's actually exactly what I wasn't going for, observing carefully. DFW said he wasn't writing a "metafictional titty twister"***, and neither did I. It's um, set dressing, you know? All the detail and stories within stories; it's just there to convey emotion and character. More Mitchell than Danielewski, yea? And then... my character came to life and saved me from starvation.
     [glancing side to side, nervous] Shit, the metafiction's getting too deep. Gotta bail. If you ever find yourself heading south from Provo, just stick on highway 6 for like a week until it turns to 191 and you pass Moab, Canyonlands, etc. There's nothing much down here but beauty, but it drew me and Sable, after all.

     10km SW of Monticello, Utah, between Abajo and South Peak
     Aug 19th, 2042


[*] I still cannot bring myself to call her by either her given or acquired first name; it’s so weird; I’ll never be over it.
[**] It's "no-body"; I came up with it when I was sixteen, ok? But I'm going to stick with it, even though I'm now a character going by his real name. Is the me who writes the same one documented in SBD? Just sitting back down at this laptop for half an hour of solar powered drafting a day already has me feeling like Cuprate again.
[***] I'll always remember that.