Bloomsday in Three Acts. By TEFKAMS. Act II.

Upon waking, what did TEFKAMS do?

Woke Andy, who finished editing paper and saved several redundant copies for eventual transfer from digital to material storage.

And Coye?

Also awoke. Consulted bus schedule. Orchestrated transportation to campus. Provided English department printing resources. Entertained the trio with various stories, academic and otherwise.

Were TEFKAMS and Andy able to register for the conference?

No. Andy was the only official conference participant.

What was TEFKAMS reaction upon hearing this news?

Negligible.

Which of the three carried out the duty of presenting research and ideas?

Andy.

Was his performance successful?

Yes. The assembled host neither fell asleep, nor asked questions designed to discredit the answerer.

Were each of the panelists as successful?

No. The second of the series of presenters was asked a simple question, supportive of her argument. She proceeded to admit, little by little, that her ideas about FW sprang from her own (ordinary) family upbringing, and that everyone should have experienced the same sort of childhood. She spoke on and on, digging deeper and deeper into a quagmire of her own making, at one point loudly shouting out: “let me impose my normativity on you!” (Imposing one’s normativity on anyone, as you might guess, is frowned upon in academic circles.)

How did the trio react?

Andy: tried to keep eyes from bulging noticeably. Shook head in dismay, then settled back to enjoy the show.

Coye: doodled with abandon.

TEFKAMS: jumped up on the presenters’ table and performed a jig of extraordinary exuberance and volume.

What lessons did each derive from the experience?

Coye: bring more pens for doodling.

Andy: never read Finnegans Wake.

TEFKAMS: If people already suspect you are a fool (on account of reading FW), be not quick to open your mouth, lest you prove them right.

What transpired after the close of the panel?

Coye left TEFKAMS and Andy to their own devices. The pair attended more conference sessions, partook of lunch.

How did they take leave, one of the other, in separation?

Standing perpendicular at the same door and on different sides of its base, the lines of their valedictory arms, meeting at any point and forming any angle less than the sum of two right angles.

What sound accompanied the union of their tangent, the disunion of their (respectively) centrifugal and centripetal hands?

The sound of the peal of the hour of the day by the chime of the bells in the Austin tower.

And then?

Coye faced Andy for a riotous game of frolf, which included fording a stream, freeclimbing a rock wall, and dodging the discs of impaired players.

Who won this battle of wits and skill?

Andy.

Was it not Coye who emerged victorious?

He did, but his nefarious plot was later revealed and his victory annulled by the 611 College Town Frolf Gaming Board Rules Committee.

By what machinations did Coye unduly intervene in the fair play of the match?

Laced Andy’s disc with a poisonous pigment that steadily weakened this clearly-superior player even as it dyed his hands an unnatural hue.

Was this scheme efficacious?

It was. Andy’s commanding lead was suddenly sundered as the carcinogen was absorbed.

What took place after this disputed contest?

The two prepared for two-stepping at the broken spur.

Where was TEFKAMS?

The narrator has chosen to redact his activities of that afternoon.

What play of forces, inducing inertia, rendered departure undesirable for Andy?

The lateness of the hour, rendering procrastinatory: the obscurity of the night, rendering invisible: the uncertainty of thoroughfares, rendering perilous: the necessity for repose, obviating movement: the proximity of an occupied bed, obviating research.

What reason did Andy give for declining Coye’s offer of dancing with Joyceans?

That he was a danceaphobe, hating partial contact by immersion or total by submersion into the metaphorical streams of gyrating humanity. Also that he was quite tired.