I was thinking of Virginia Woolf's immortal protagonist, Orlando, and suddenly and very sadly realized, the last we hear of her immortal protagonist, she's in the 1920's. Well, I commenced to rolling up my sleeves and writing a sequel as it were. Indeed, I attempted to continue to foster that humor by emulating the same sort of rambling and inconsistent narration I came to know and love. Just as Orlando ultimately is a witty satire that makes fun of social rituals and literary styles, blending genres and what not, I attempted to do the same. Enjoy.

But alas, the little we’ve collected of this next epoch is difficult to piece together. More than a couple experts have claimed Orlando went “rather batty” at this point. Indeed, what happened to Orlando, now she finally found such peace and completion? Perhaps, like they say in America, Orlando went to pieces after the business of her life seemed to close down.
Nevertheless, Shel was forced into following her all the way to New York and he could only watch like a wallflower while she raged with the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, debating each in turn at various alcohol-fueled parties, particularly with the former about the past and how Jay Gatsby got it all wrong by allowing the past to destroy rather than improve him and help him grow.
At any rate, it wasn’t long until Orlando found herself in a drunken brawl that ended with her forced to defend her honor and prove her courage by partaking in a duel with Hemingway where live rounds were included! Neither parties were hit, indeed the only real casualty of the morning was Fitzgerald, who sullied his trousers and gagged and retched in a rose garden beside the golf course upon which the duel had occurred.
Curiously, once Shel finally managed to track down Orlando, finding her bellied up at “The 19th Hole” with Hemingway, laughing away of their earlier argument, he demanded “What in the world has come over you?” Orlando’s only response was to stare out the window, watching the golf course, repeating, over and over again, “I’m the goose, but I ain’t got no grass.” Indeed, there’s still debate amongst most scholars upon what in Heaven’s name type sustenance Orlando was referring to -food, Mary Jane- as she apparently picked up the latter habit upon one lost weekend with Pablo Picasso.
At this point most experts agree, it was Shel who demanded she get in his taxi and sober up so he could take her immediately to the airport back to bleak old England. For he firmly believed it was the Fitzgeralds, and Hemingway, and Stein, and even New York itself that was causing this raucous behavior in our hero, but one piece of evidence tells a different story. For, one page of Orlando’s journal was found in the very hotel room she stayed when galivanting with The Lost Generation as it were, and although much of it is smudged with ashes and otherwise indecipherable, the phrase, “What now for the goose? Is curiosity gone? Who are we, without work to be done? The Oak Tree must live…” Alas, unfortunately, that’s all that was comprehensible from her journal, every other page found was splattered with “All work and no play makes Orlando a dull boy, no girl! but at least we have Pan Am’s plane log to tell us she did indeed fly back to boring old England with Shel. As a matter of fact, some experts contend she stole a horse from a local farm and rode it like the wind, leaving Shel rather shell shocked, I dare say!
Subsequently, she rode back to the home of her youth where we imagine she must’ve gone to visit those catacombs of her ancestors, perhaps she even searched for the oak tree. Nevertheless, none of this is known, but what is known, is that she once again found herself in a deep sleep! Ten, twenty, seventy years of sleeping! Indeed, she woke up in the 1990’s with Nirvana blaring on the boombox and Pearl Jam hosting Saturday Night Live!
According to the local music connoisseurs, hearing the first few chords of Smells Like Teen Spirit put Orlando in quite the tizzy. Indeed, she immediately went for the egress for to call her horse only to find all was industry; high-rises, skyscrapers, cars and planes, everywhere and everyway. Now, you might imagine this scared our heroine but no, she was only further inspired! And what a guitar she brought home to her flat that afternoon! T’was a Jaguar, the very same model Mr. Cobain himself was shredding and smashing up on stage so often for so many nights.
Now, I’m not quite sure how but Orlando managed to learn the guitar, write a full-length album -which was recorded upon one fated day at Sound City- secure herself a record deal with Smyth Records and hit the top of the charts in The UK all in the span of one inimitable week. What shall I say about her lyrics? Pure poetry it was. Mostly, she sings -or screams- about all being dull and mundane and done already and art being overrated anyway and having nothing to live for and oh! so much more! Oh, and don’t get me started on her first MTV video. For, she was elegant, charming, courageous and muscular, all at once! Yes, the first half of the video she strutted around like a prince, all in red royalty duds, when suddenly, she becomes subdued, picking flowers and tearing up at the sunset while the native peoples look bafflingly on at her sentimentality. In the last minute of the video she’s a housewife trying desperately to clean up and get ready for company, and take a guess who shows up! That’s right, none other than Mr. Nick Greene and oh my gosh, he has a rap group based in L.A. and they’ve got beef with Biggie and Puff Daddy and so many others! Let’s just say Orlando is more than bemused during dinner.
It must’ve been soon after when Orlando found herself in Hollywood, preparing for a role that put her in Victorian times and during dress rehearsal she becomes suddenly, inexplicably weepy and her old friend’s line “the inexhaustible variety of life” never has sounded truer and sweeter as it starts speaking itself over and over in her mind. But when Orlando hears of the invention of the internet, at some late-night casting party with some super rich executives, and all are talking about how the aforementioned will connect us and provide us with everything we could ever want at our fingertips and Orlando simply laughs at the absurdity of the claim. I believe it was Gérard Depardieu who surprised everyone declaiming, “Those little phones are gonna give us all tumors!” Oh, if the effects were only so mild.
About thirty years later, and Orlando’s listening to Noel Smyth from Boston, working as an influencer on YouTube during the COVID 19 epidemic and so she has to wear a mask despite being alone and outside on a sunny day and she’s not allowed to suggest that it might’ve come from a lab and there’s an orange man in the states running for president who claims he could kill someone on Fifth Avenue and that wouldn’t hurt him in the polls and Orlando muses he’s probably right and she can’t help but wonder why the most ludicrous ideas are shaping policy from both far fringes in America and the UK while the commonsense majority cowers in corners at the potential for being outcasted or canceled or and the thought police are out policing and Orlando is just amazed at our mental and physical decline and she can’t help think about The Time Machine by H.G. Wells...
Anyway, she’s recently vanished. That’s right, no one has a clue. No, fair reader, I have no idea! Indeed, she didn’t say where she was going but I have a feeling it has something to do with finding The Band of Gypsies and being a roadie for Noel Smyth from Boston. I hear he's playing another concert at The Burren.