[TBF GF[P BPHN by Phil Cutrara
[TBF GF[P BPHN the text read at the upper left hand corner of the frayed ancient scroll. The assignment for the class of aboriginal ancient text was to translate the scroll, and determine its date.

The first day of the class was still a couple of days off, and Jason Lassor had several more books to purchase for his class Languages of the World 404.

He decided to take this class because he had heard so much about Professor Kirt Wandergut. Every year before the fall semester he would travel to the Far East in search of ancient civilizations. This year his group of grad students had just got back from Jaluka a small excavation about 23 miles north of Aden.

In the Duquesne Caf?, Jason stopped to rest a while after his long day of shopping for books. It was ridiculous how expensive they all were, especially the language dictionaries for the ancient texts. He decided to see what was in the library that could help him with this much anticipated class.

The Duquesne library was one of the most unusual Jason had ever seen. You enter on the top floor, and there were four floors below. Most of the reference dictionaries were on the main floor, and they would tell you the origin of all the known words. Just for kicks Jason started to look up the first words of the scroll that would be his text for this year's elective.

[TBF what could it mean? The [ looked like a C and the others what they were, so adding an "A" for the vowel sounds the first word was CATABAFA. CATA usually meant by or down, if it was a "K" sound instead of a "C." Now what could BAFA mean...

Jason turned to the Bs in that huge volume. There to his amazement was the ancient Middle Eastern word that meant baffle. "Boy" Jason said to himself, "I hope the rest of the text will be as easy as this!"

The day of the first class had finally arrived and Professor Wandergut told the class how the course was going to be taught. He asked if any of the class had begun the translation. Jason was about to raise his hand when a young dirty blond hair girl began reading the first couple of sentences she had translated. There were a couple of things she said that did not make much sense.

It appeared that this text was a lot older than anyone had ever seen. It was written around the Era of Giants and the time of the Old Humans that lived for many centuries. One of the Old ones was talking about traveling through time, and knowing what was in the hearts of men.

Professor Wandergut said "Very good, Jean. I never had a student able to do so well with text as old as this one! But what we as a class need to do is to modernize the translation, so that everyone can find some interest in it. Let's begin at the beginning of the scroll and see how the class translates the text."

He then began with the first words that meant. "Life is a perplexing adventure where we can see what has been and what will be." Then he asked the class what would be a good translation for "JGRJG?" The students began plugging in the vowel sounds.

JaGRaGaJ was a new one for all of us. I heard some of the women in the class say the word meant "coming to form." But how could this fit into the context? Some of the guys around me began to say that the speaker was telling about time travel, and that when he came to another time he was like a ghost becoming solid.
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to be continued...