I have most excellent news about a certain lost pendant! I was underneath the bleachers, looking for old newspapers and lost wallets, when I found a most peculiar thing.

It had a red gem, and a silver lining, on a brown string. On the back was carved the name Quimby.

I had seen the signs around campus, and knew that @Luna's lost pendant had Quinn inscribed on the back. Hmmmm. So I looked closer, and saw that the pendant had a little hinge in it, almost too small to see, and a tiny little seam. Carefully, I pried open my precious oyster and inside it I found... Another pendant! It had a red gem, and a silver lining, and, oddly, was the exact same size as the first pendant. But on the back of this one was carved the name Quetzal.

Again, a tiny hidden hinge and almost invisible seam around the side and I carefully pried it open with my thumbnails, and out popped another pendant, identical to the last! Except this one carried the inscription Quenby.

Again and again I opened these pendants with the secret compartments. Qudeisha. Quillon. Quinto. Quincy. Queen. Quasar! My own name nested in this matryoshka madness. But no, oh no, I didn't stop there. Next was Quennel, then Quincy, Quintella, Quyền, Quince, Quynn (closer! but no cigar), Quintana, and then, finally, there it was: Quinn!

I've made arrangements with @Luna to return her pendant. It looks like it could be opened as well, but I've already 15 other identical Q-name pendants. I'm keeping my own, but don't really have much use for the rest...

Oh, and I think @Alice Sheehan was compelled to write because she too has been collecting lost things around campus, but was too afraid to come clean about it. I've seen her all around campus with her "lost object detector" and I'm sure she has scads of found objects all over her place. But I'm not here to gossip.

Oh dear, @Quynn, I'm sorry, but it turns out that for every Q pendant I opened, I stepped into a different reality. That means I'm 16 degrees off my true life course.

I started in the Quimby -- I must consider that my home base, since that was the original pendant I found. Then came Quetzal, followed by Quenby, Quillon, Qudeisha, Quinto, Quincy, Queen, Quasar (is it odd that the reality I started in was not marked by my own name? I suppose that's rather egocentric of me.), Quennel, Quincy, Quintella, Quyền, Quince, Quynn, Quintana, and then here, where I stopped: Quinn.

I've already delivered the Quinn pendant to @Luna... but that's the @Luna of this, the 16th degree reality, and not the original @Luna from the Quimby. No wonder she looked at me so oddly.

Which reality are you writing from exactly, @Quynn?

Perhaps if I can just start packing the pendants back inside one another, I can climb back up inside the reality chain, and leave these other reality containers behind like so many old socks. I mean, no offense to these first through sixteenth degree realities, but they're just not mine.

TTFN!

ps I'm sure this is all that @Alice Sheehan's doing. Or that other @Alice. Hmmmmmm.

Hauling myself back up the clamshell reality chain has really been maddening, let me tell you. If only I could have followed the exact order, I would have folded myself right up from where I came and everything would be back to normal. Sigh. But the lockets only want to fit in certain ways, and now I'm many universes off course.

It's like making my way down skyscraper stairs, and each new floor is a whole new world, with new costumes and script and scent-profiles. The tropicália universe of Quyền, the elephant house zoo with Queen, Quillon's aerie citadels...

When I close each pendant into the next, it's like a great shade is pulled across the sky, like pulling down the curtains at night. Is this where the phrase comes from? It's curtains for you! But the next new world always arrives, and I know the others haven't really gone anywhere. It's me that's moved on.

Oh dear. Crossing the Quince has become rather difficult. None of the other realities have been so inhospitable. Or bleak.

This is what I imagine a "demilitarized zone" to be like. Desolate and dusty. Burning TVs and razor wire and trenches. Endless grey skies. A hand-painted sign that says I'D TURN BACK IF I WERE YOU.

There hasn't been a soul in sight since I arrived. I've been skirting the edges of this highly uninviting border, looking for a way in, camping beneath the occasional dead tree, but there hasn't been a break in the scenery. Almost like an endless video loop. Not a gate or a guard house or a road or a trail. I suppose I could turn tail and open another locket, but then be more lost than ever.

Wait! There are shadows moving...

I got out of the @Quinto as soon as I could. I felt bad abandoning those poor kids, but I couldn't do anything for them there. They survive, just barely, by scavenging on their own world, or the @Quince, but only by being addicted to that horrible elixir. I would have just been dead weight, eating up their meager supplies.

So I opened the next locket. The Quetzal. And it couldn't be more different from @Quinto or the @Quince.

It's like the United Nations of parallel worlds here. I recognize people who must be denizens of the Quyền, in their tropicália fashions and bossa nova swagger; the gassy giants of the @Quennel; the resplendent royal robes of the @Quintana people... even the bobby sox and leather of the rockabilly Quincy world, being kept at a distance from the teddy boys from @Quincy II. The grass is green and the plazas are wide and the fountains are flowing and it's a beautiful day in the Quetzal.

But the most remarkable of all is the Quetzal himself. Or itself? It's hard to tell, but he's huge, like 15 feet tall, in a robe made of giant parrot feathers and a mighty staff and a helmet that makes his eyes sparkle like rainbows. He has a radiance that makes him look...godly? I've never seen skin like that. And everyone treats him like a god. You can't help it.

He's leading a special session of people from all the worlds. It turns out there's one thing that's worrying everyone. One thing that they're all afraid of.

And they call this scary thing the Quenby.

Following the battle of @Qudeisha, there was a long after-party in the Quetzal. Citizens of both Quincy and @Quincy II played alternating sets in a scorching battle of the bands, ska vs. rockabilly. There were no injuries, except when someone from the Quincy twisted their ankle on a stage dive. There were Queens of Tropicalia from Quyền, and laser shows you could see in daylight from the @Quintana, and elders from the @Quennel were giving rides in the pockets of their giant smocks as they floated over the surface in their huge, gas-filled forms. The kids from @Quinto really dug it. I wish @Quynn & @Quinn had been there to see it.

The Quenby seems to have been destroyed. Or at least dispersed beyond recognition. Noticeably absent from the festivities was the @Quince. We assume she's retreated back to her world. Tragic @Quince. And poor Quintella.

After my great journey, I was so looking forward to getting back to the Quimby. But now that I've arrived, I can't help but feel something's off. They say you can't step in the same river twice. That's what travelers say causes the "Larf Lag" when you get back to your home dimension -- it doesn't seem the same as the one you left and you get paranoid. You think landed in an almost (but not quite) identical parallel, but can't quite pin it down...

I'd never heard of the Unified Reality Border Police before. I didn't run into them on my way out, or on any of my transits between continuums. Are they new? Is this because of the reality accident that @Big Jim mentioned? Or is it what @jarvis saw on TV? Luckily they let me through, but it was weird.