Fate

Fate has descended upon the hour
Seek out that which is a vacuum of power
A place from which the new replaced the old
A place where the American stories were told

Find this place of a year past
Follow the breadcrumbs follow fast
I am telling you where this trail goes
Don't forget your glasses and your nose

Find the new philosopher-queen
In the room familiar to your year younger teen


             

I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!

-Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it.
-Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, Essays

Is this a game?
Is this a test?
Is this for a grade?

If you don't take action, you'll never find out...!

So, without further delay, 

blur the line between work and play
Read The Law
and be prepared
to say what you saw.

In the attempt there may be glory

but nothing else

unless 

you identify and read

the following story: 

TITLE CLUE

The sphinx exists apace
but apart from time and space.
He is a blank expression.
Wisdom in omission.
It's written all over his face.
Except in one place.

What is it?

AUTHOR CLUE

GO, G LO!

Once you've read the story carefully, you will have the key, but where is the lock?

In classrooms everywhere students struggle to see through the eyes of an author. In one classroom, though, they actually can. Find the reading glasses of the author who wrote I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, recited her work at a presidential inauguration, and famously said, "Nothing will work unless you do."  

These mystical spectacles  will help you see what's next.  Before you seek them, though, remember to get your story straight.