Afterwards

by

Judy Malloy

In a series of conversations and parallel thoughts, Afterwards chronicles the relationships of three couples: the young couple Tina and Jerry, who are unsure whether to begin a serious relationship; Gunter and Gwen, who in their lives have at times between unable to separate reality from virtual reality; and Dorothy and Sid, who took decades to commit to each other and now are learning how to live together.

Afterwards immediately follows A Party at Silver Beach. In a time of global turmoil, it is a "musical comedy" encore to the cyber-epic Dorothy and Sid that began with the hypernarrative Dorothy Abrona McCrae

Those readers who wish to follow one couple should click on one color of squares in the interface, (an interface approach I first encountered in Cathy Marshall's work at Xerox PARC). Those who wish to weave together all three developing relationships should click on any square in the interface. Links bordered in blue have not been read. (note that in some browsers, it may take a while for the blue border to change. The couples' conversations also appear slowly.)

The work is multi-sequential in that the beginning is accessed at the top of the array, and the end of the array offers closure.

The structure is somewhat similar to the narrative data structure I used in Wasting Time -- which over ten years ago used slowly appearing text to simulate conversation and connected columns of words to simulate parallel thought patterns. (and was published in After the Book (Perforations 3) Summer, 1992.)

Judy Malloy