|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- OSOAWEEK--ISSUE 072--12/8/95 <-------  ||  OsoaWeek  ||  Issues  ||  Book 6  ||  -------> (Cup OWis072, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [[BEGIN072OW]] [[01072CV]] * * * O S O A W E E K 0 7 2 * * * December 8, 1995 "The weekly ezine of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement!" by Frank Edward Nora CONTENTS 01 072 CV--Cover 02 072 LA--Lord of Obliviana 03 072 NH--Nihilistica 04 072 SU--Superior 05 072 SR--Severe Repair OsoaWeek072, December 8, 1995 7th issue of OsoaWeek Book 6 Written by Frank Edward Nora Published weekly by Obliviana Super Occult Amusement (E-mail address in transition) 1-800-OBLIVIANA http://www.obliviana.com/~osoa All contents copyright 1995 Frank Edward Nora Regarding this file, you are free to make digital copies, so long as they're not altered or sold. All other forms of reproduction require permission. A CupFrontier containing this file will be available. Stay tuned for more details. Character count: 27099 / Line count: 791 / Days late: 27 *OW* [[02072LA]] Lord of Obliviana 1/1/95 * 8:55 PM * home So... OsoaWeek071 is finally done. 31 days late. Huh. Right now in OsoaWeek, my minimum requirement is 8 Superiors and at least 11K of Severe Repair. The Superiors are a breeze--it's the SR that's tough. 9:14 Time to go to bed--another week of almost no money... 1/2/95 * 6:53 AM * NJT car 1393 55K of SR to get OsoaWeek into 1996. Could take awhile. Got 7 one-ways to Newark from the machine. $44.80, and all I had was 3 $20s. So I got 15 Susan B. Anthony's in change. Yeah, I'm going the cheap way. Get off at Newark and take the PATH in. Money is tight right now. I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for myself this morning. Cuz I'm only going to Newark, I have reduced writing time here on the train. So I gotta use my time wisely. 7:08 The guy sitting next to me now has some sort of mental disorder. First he just stood by the seat, and I had to look up before he asked to sit between me and another passenger. Now, he's directly to my left, reading a paper. But, he doesn't read a paper in the normal fashion. Oh no. He's sitting next to me, after all, and everyone who sits next to me has to PISS ME OFF. See, as he's reading, he's moving his lips in an exaggerated fashion as if he were reading aloud. It's not just a little--it's a full-blown, face-gesticulative, speaking-to-a-crowd sort of mouthing. And it's pissing me off. 1/2/95 * 9:12 PM * home Yeah. Whatever. Here I am in 1996, and still suffering from the doldrums. But things are looking up. I'm going on a date on Friday, and who knows--it might work out. Okay. I have to keep on track. It's tough, though. I have all these little plans and mental notes from the past clouding my mind. I have to sweep these away and keep a clear picture of my current goals in my mind. My Revolvers--Obliviana, Severe Repair, Zope, 209, Superior, Forge of Wander, Halzapular Fuzz, Balbitype. And the other two, Anything But Monday and Classictronica. Gotta keep a clear perspective on everything. I'm getting tired, gotta go to sleep soon. 9:18. That's what happens when you wake up at 5:00 AM. Snowing again, should be a lot on the ground by the time I wake up. I doubt this winter will be as bad as '93-'94--but who knows. Last night I got up to piss and was thrilled to see it was only 1:30. Meant I had a whole lot more time to sleep. Little things like that can make you happy. I've been living along for the past 2.5 months, since Kerri left. It's hard to remember what it was like with her here. Strange how people adapt, get used to new situations. I feel strongly that a breakthrough is coming. Goodnight. 1/3/95 * 7:21 AM * NJT car 1327 A breakthrough did come, a few minutes after I wrote that above. But let me refine it before presenting it to you. 1/3/95 * 8:37 PM * NJT car 1407 Okay. Oh, I gotta do my dream. I'll do it in Diary of a Dreamfrank. Definitely have a little bit of writer's block, especially when it comes to this new Anything But Monday writing. Pressure, pressure. Jersey Avenue already! This sucks. So little time to write. Time to finish Severe Repair for this issue, and get this issue OUTTA HERE, DONE!!! Thu 1/4/95 * 7:16 AM * NJT car 1442 Came home last night to find a box for a toilet flange/gasket in my bathroom, on top of a pile of clothes and books which had been displaced. Apparently maintenance had been there, but why? I hadn't called for them. I tried the management office, even though it was late, and got a girl who told me nothing but how she couldn't get any information for me and I'd have to call back in the morning. Before the bathroom discovery, I went to turn on the garbage disposal, due to a foul odor, and the switch was already up! Had I left it on and burnt out the motor? I couldn't recall. But when I found the flange/gasket box, a sinister rogue maintenance scheme emerged in my mind. My apartment is a TOTAL mess, and I'm not kidding. I'm so embarrassed that people came in and saw it. Now, as if I don't already have so little time to write, I have to go find a bathroom, cuz I have to piss bad. That wasn't so bad--found one right in the next car. My money situation for this week has been a joke. I've been bringing in peanut butter and jelly sandwiched and spaghetti, and drinking water, herb tea, and hot chocolate. So last night I did a little emergency cleanup in case maintenance has to come to fix the garbage disposal the may or may not have busted. Yeah, the past 12 hours have been weird. At the train station when I got home, around 9:30 PM last night, I guess, I was cleaning ice off my Jeep with an ice scraper--and the cool part was, all I had to do was bash on my roof and various other parts, and the quarter-inch maybe layer of ice shattered just like glass. It was very satisfying going off on the ice like that. And then this morning, the dream with Satan and stuff, which is transcribed in Diary of a Dreamfrank, below. Evil stuff. Yeah, so let me tell you exactly what's going on with Mike Massotto and Anything But Monday. See, he came up with this idea for a new Weekly World Perceptions & Ponderings book, which would have a single Ever Wonder or Ever Notice on each page, along with a short written explanatory passage. Well, the ones he's been doing sound great, but somehow I just can't get into the groove. To make matters worse, he's set this very ambitious timetable--to do 15 a week for 8 weeks. I keep trying to tell him that I have OsoaWeek to do besides ABM, but he shrugs it off, saying like "You have to set your priorities." Well, okay--I'll set my priorities: Most important: OsoaWeek Not quite as important: ABM He wouldn't like to see that. But no matter, he doesn't read OsoaWeek anyway. His material is really great though--so maybe we'll work something out where he just writes the whole thing, at least--he'll write the explanatory passages. I don't wanna give up yet, but I tellya, I just can't get into the groove. Looks like we're almost to Newark. Damn! I have a lot more writing in me this morning! Oh well. Just have to wait for the ride home, and then time at home. 1/4/95 * 5:43 PM * NJT car 1352 Well, I got a date tomorrow night, so I can't lug around my PowerBook tomorrow. Oh well. This issue is there. Get all Obliviana. *OW* [[03072NH]] Nihilistica ***DIARY OF A DREAMFRANK*** 1/3/95 Today I looked out my bedroom window and saw a cat. I locked eyes with it and saw amazing awareness and brightness within it. Soon I was in a barn where my friend Deborah told me the cat was her human friend who had been transformed by an evil magic-user. I was an expert on the subject so I asked her whether the sorcerer used his own power, or invoked it from some other source. She said he was pretty powerful, so it was probably his own source. I told her that complicated. I said that if we could find some way to kill the guy, turning her friend back human would be much easier, and she strongly agreed. Then--I think it was night and at the barn, and someone there was wanted by the police, a friend of mine or something, and I had to hide in a darkened bathroom, but the near-darkness didn't bother me at all and I pissed. Then I was on the train, going from Princeton Junction to New Brunswick with my father. I stood at the very front of the train and marveled at the surroundings--the train tracks were going through the raging rapids of a mighty river. The tracks were just at the water level. I figured that I never noticed this cuz usually you look out the side of a train, not the front. Anyway, the train made a stop, and I mistakenly got off. Upset, I ran down the paths of the riverbank, trying to get somewhere. Finally, I got to an indoor mall kind of place, and there was a bank of phones, but all were busted (no receivers) except the one on the left, currently in use. So I waited, pacing around, and another guy got on line, and when the phone was free he went to use it, but when I went for it, he acted like he didn't know I was waiting for it. So I rummaged through the various papers in my wallet, looking for my father's pager number, but with the added pressure of the guy waiting there, I gave up and walked away. Someone told me I was at a very special place--a couple hundred feet either way was the sidelines of a major sports team, and a sign above showed two gladiator heads--one blue and one yellow, one pointing left, one right. I was between two enormous stadium in Philadelphia. I recalled having seen the two stadiums, along with an enormous Ferris wheel, which I also saw in the distance. I gave up on calling, and set out to find a cab--it couldn't be far to my grandmother's house in New Brunswick. I got to a hotel attached to the mall structure, and I may have spotted a place to get a taxi, but I fell awake around then. 1/4/95 I was a superhero or something today, flying around a little. I had a female sidekick, and there was some weird business going on. I had a telescope, and I used it to look at Jupiter during the day--got a pretty good view of it, spot and all. We were checking cuz we knew that when Jupiter's appearance changed, something would happen. I also looked at something else in the sky--the pearly gates of heaven. It was like the front of a church, way up in the air, and you could see it pretty well through the telescope. Then we flew up there, and it was Satan who was sitting there at a desk. I recognized the scene--from a movie or something--two worn-out statues to either side of the desk, with Greek god overtones. To the left of the desk was a stairway going down, the entrance of which was backing the lefthand statue. It seemed like the stairs that might lead down to someone's basement rec room. So we sat and talked to Satan. He had these pictures on the wall behind him. One was of a meal consisting of cooked duck heads, all coated in glaze and sauce, and laid out in a row. "That's gotta be the most evil picture ever." I said, cracking a joke. "Yeah, I'm proud of it." he said, then showed me some other infernal delicacies, all involving fowl of some sort. We were there regarding the final fate of some guy, but we hated this person, so we kind of hoped he wound up in hell and stuff. Earlier, I was going to my grandmother's house in New Brunswick with a new girlfriend. As we approached, I warned her of some of the strange things about my grandparents, chief among which was how they set up lures to attract bears to their property. They loved to play with bears. When we got there, my brother was playing with a bear, and I joined him a little, but wondered, really, isn't this a little hazardous? The rest is all a blur. Recently I was at a strip mall late at night--like 3 AM or something. A cinnamon roll place was open, and I ordered 3, and it came to over $10 and I started complaining and a guy there acted like he was gonna attack me. So I wandered to the other side of the place, and around the back of the strip mall, where there was this huge pit. Then it was getting toward morning and I went down a nice path to a nice town. Later, I got to where my Jeep should have been but it wasn't there. Someone told me that some criminals tried to steal my Jeep and sell it for parts, but somehow unable to, they pushed it into the pit, where it flipped over and was upside down. The pit belonged to a junk dealer guy or something. I set off to find a phone to call the cops. I had to get a police report for my insurance. *OW* [[04072SU]] Superior SUPERIOR 413 Dome owe bitch joint Sally queer underground box xaw, Gail always does licking Victoria says evil does zoom. SUPERIOR 414 Two of tools. I have to say I am calm. Rinse is preydive. Bluvven. Blunventem... preyjive. We spink jiv for us. You what you write. It was tising (album name) panucking. SUPERIOR 415 Winter telling of my self. X. Solitary at mall, browsing to burn off energy. Cry about the Internet. Bald cuckold. Xmas everywhere--call me unmoved. Seeking innocence, but confused as to where childhood and society mesh. Bench and do origami--the best path often has aimless loserness passages. Mall of America--one day and it's all over my mind. Princeton--a chilly morning, did I call Kerri? SUPERIOR 416 Getting there side. Speckle, find the lost coffee shop owned by Judy. Cry for help--yours and friends, lost and alone, bewildered by dating. Self, I have to make myself more attractive. A good sort of pain, like after a workout. My old apartment, the walk to the train station, wishing it to end, now it has a magical edge. I don't know. SUPERIOR 417 To talk of craft shops. Friends go to bars, video games and masturbation. I am hiding. Understanding people, as it pains me to discover. Sexy blond next to me right now. Next to me, physically. Far from me, situationally. How I am running my life. Early December '95. Moving in a new direction. If I am true to anything, I must remain true to my ambitions. That last sentence, I feel like I might cry--it's my ambitions that mean the most to me, that I cherish, that I must accomplish. Succeeding in my ambitions is worth severe loserdom, no sex, no social life, whatever. SUPERIOR 418 Bad Macanudo walk to 14th street through the gay area. Scary. Howard Stern on Jay Leno last night--amazing. Played Boggle all day at work, lost a lot. Drinking water, taking vitamin and herb pills. Wore the sweater-like thing inside-out. Talked while eating bread, must have seemed like a slob to June. Honesty... driving down the road in the rain, alone is an experience--builds character, I am destroying myself in order to phoenix myself what is that. Eggs by the side of the road at night. SUPERIOR 419 The blonde plays with her hair. I want a girl. Ha ha--I could get one, but I'd have to work for it. Tame talk. I know what I have to go do. Obliviana. My Core Endeavor. Once called Nomadi. Who am I. Knowing it. It's your fn. SUPERIOR 420 Last for now. Auto repair, the tidal one. Fly flight back to pressent. Being--first minutes at Luxor--tired? Boat thing. Need to edit. Reality. I am better person. Drink up, see you sitting there at the bar, beer in your hand, reading me. Yeah. I see you, whenever you are, see neon, you're waiting for a blonde, never saw her before, you are tough. Butterflies in your stomach, I am on a train in 1995, I want to tell you something that might help you. The guy, brainy, pocked face, glasses, greasy hair, scarf, glasses--do not trust him at all. *OW* [[05072SR]] Severe Repair SEVERE REPAIR 59: "Friction Eacho" Paith Paper was in the final frame of the Women's Regional Bowling Tour. If she struck in this frame, she'd be the champ. If she missed, she'd come in second. Simple as that. She faced the pins, concentrated, visualized the pins collapsing like so many tin soldiers. She refined the position of her feet minutely, reoriented the ball in front of her. This was the moment she had spent months striving for. But even if she missed, she'd still come in second. She began her approach. But a moment later she realized that the ceiling was all wrong. She continued, and released the ball. The lane ahead of her was all wrong, going in all wrong directions. Paith knew she'd hit a strike, but reality was getting messed up, so she had to get out of there. Focus, relax. Relax. Reality messed up. She made the strike, won the tournament, but ran out of the building, leaving the adoring crowd of blue-collar hacks and charging out into the vast parking lot, to her little humble little orange car. Huffing, Paith ignited the engine and swore. The reality screw-up was an understandable phenomenon. She had been living in a partially real apartment for a long time, and the irreality she'd been absorbing was catching up with her now, dammit. It wasn't the surroundings, but the herself that was the problem. She was losing her set-of-happenings balance. If she stayed in the same place when this happened, she'd fall out of existence altogether, into a pleasant but alarming fucked-space of distortions. She had been told of her dilemma by a couple of engineers who worked for an organization called The Aconck Group. But she had contacted one of the leaders of the Aconck Group, Supple Jake, and she didn't know anything about the partially-real constructs and happenings in the area. Apparently, the engineers were keeping the dilemma secret from the mainstream leadership of TAG. Supple Jake seemed very concerned, and assured Paith that the head of TAG, Bavler Bestroystraw, would be informed of the problem. But none of this helped Paith very much. She wondered whether or not Supple Jake was in league with the engineers. Driving away from the tournament, Paith composed a reasonable excuse for running out of the contest so quickly. She decided that a good excuse would be that she had a psychic impression that her cat was in grave danger, and that she arrived back at her apartment just in time to save her cat from being electrocuted by a malfunctioning, short-circuiting radio. Yeah, that'd be a good lie. The TAG engineers told Paith that it would be safe to live at her apartment for a while longer, but now she could use the bowling money to get the hell out of there. But they had said that for the time being it was safer for her to stay in the hemireal apartment, since it was the state her reality-equilibrium was used to. If she moved away, they reasoned, she'd have to go through a disturbing readjustment to her new, utterly real home. And another thing, this weird Worlds Fair that opened up a mile and a half down the road. It also was only partially real, but it was really creepy. Like, who built it? Who designed it? She didn't know. She also realized that the Aconck Group was essentially a secret. She was assured by the engineers and also Supple Jake that they didn't care that she knew, because even if she told people about it, they'd never accept it. But Paith did fear for her safety at times. She felt the engineers might want to take her out. But she was a tough cookie, a bowler. She could take care of herself. She drove out of the parking lot, and slid, as if on ice, for half-a-mile of road. Then the car responded normally. Reality, something you don't appreciate till you're deprived of it. * * * "That goddamn woman bowler Paith Paper." said Yophappen Dan. "Who?" asked Friction Eacho. "That Paith Paper. That bowler." "Oh." Yophappen Dan and Friction Eacho looked out the glass elevator onto the vast parking lot below. "This building's gonna blow." Dan said. "I guess." said Eacho. The elevator didn't move. "Did you press the button?" Dan asked. "I thought I did." Dan pressed the button himself. The elevator remained not in motion. Dan pressed the button fiercely several more times. "What the fuck's with this piece a shit?" Dan said. "Busted." Eacho said. "I hope it's not you Fric, increasing the friction in the elevator vertical induction system." "No. I'm not eachoing the elevator shaft's friction. I know I'm not." "So why don'tcha eacho the friction of the air particles hitting the main cable, melting it, so we'll fall to the lobby. We can't die." "Well, that'd have to be some intense eachoing, to melt it." "Yeah I know, but we're late. We're very late. If we don't get outta here soon, we'll be screwed." "This is highly irregular. Couldn't we take the stairs?" "Do it. This building's gonna blow anyway. Just do it." "Okay. I'll try." Friction Eacho glanced upward and concentrated. "I'm eachoing the whole area directly above us." Eacho said. "But I don't think I can generate enough eachoing through the ceiling, especially since I can't see it." "Do it, Fric, man." Dan said. Eacho continued to concentrate, but finally he let out a sigh and relaxed. "Can't do it, Dan." he said. "Fuck." "Why not punch out the glass--then we could jump out." "Are you crazy?" "We can't die." Dan looked at Eacho and then at the glass. He kicked the glass. It didn't shatter. He kicked it again, harder. It didn't shatter. Then, he kicked it again, but he slipped, and it didn't shatter. Then he regained his poise and kicked it again and it shattered. Warm outside air came in. Then the elevator started to move, but very slowly. "The elevator's working so we don't hafta jump." Eacho said. "Oh come on. We're late as it is and I already kicked the glass." Dan said. "So jump." Dan went over to the opening, looked back at Eacho, then jumped out. Eacho looked down and then jumped himself, making sure to launch himself farther out so as not to hit Dan. Dan would have been pissed-off if Eacho landed on him. He might even yophappen him, and Eacho didn't like being yophappened. So Dan and Eacho crashed into the parking lot below, ripping their clothes a little but otherwise none the worse. Some bystanders were looking on with concerned stares. "It's the only way to travel." Eacho commented to a woman. Dan got up, lit a cigarette, and strolled over to his car. Eacho followed. They got in. "Well." Eacho said. They left the parking lot just as the building exploded, and headed for the bowling alley to see Paith Paper. * * * "It was her cat." said an obese woman. "She had a feeling. I know what she's going through." "That's a strange story, but y'hear so many weird stories these days, some of 'em gotta be true." said an old guy with thick glasses, in the reflection of which Dan and Eacho could be seen approaching. "Where is the woman bowler?" Dan asked in a dead-serious tone. "Uh--what?" the fat woman said. "The woman," Eacho said, "the, uh, bowling woman." "It's a woman's tournament!" the old guy said. "They're ALL women." "No you fool--the big one." Dan said, "Paith Paper." "She won, but then she ran out!" the fat woman said. "She called a minute ago and said she had this... FEELING... that her cat was in trouble. And you know what? It was true." "Yeah, right." Dan said. "Where'd she go? Home?" "That's where people's cats usually live." the fat woman said. Dan whipped his head around and stared an evil stare at the woman. "Don't try sarcasm on me, babe. I don't put up with it." The woman stood frozen, but the old man started to laugh. "What are you chuckling at, gramps?" Dan asked, glaring at the man now. He stopped laughing and gulped, giving Dan a sheepish look, the look of a child caught doing something naughty. "We're wasting time!" Eacho said in a loud whisper. "I know, I know!" Dan said, then he looked back at the woman. "Where does she live?" "Paith? I wouldn't tell an asshole like you that information." Eacho grabbed Dan from behind, by the shoulders, holding him back from lunging at the woman. "Lady," Eacho said with icy seriousness, "he'll kill you--I guarantee it. The next words out of your mouth better be the right address. Think of your family ma'am--they'll miss you." The woman sneered at the two, and Eacho went from a pleading expression to one of "okay, you asked for it". Dan was just about to go for the kill when the old man blurted out the address. "Najordean Apartments, Route 17 in Emop Tay Town. Number 220, 226, something like that." Dan's tensed muscles relaxed, and he gave the woman a look of death. "Okay," Dan said, "let's go." * * * "You think it's true what they say about Fife?" Eacho asked from the passenger seat of Dan's car. They were driving down a busy road with a lots of traffic. "I don't know, man. We've had a lot of trouble, you know? This whole Aconck thing--the available universe becomes so much bigger. No way are Letevs, Polk, and Bavler gonna get along with the goals of research and non-aggression." "Yeah, and these engineers--trying to help Letevs cover up the damage he did to Red Alley Earth--and not telling Bavler about it at all!" "It's tough." "Yeah... I don't know Dan... I think this may be the straw that breaks the tapir's back, man. We take out the engineers, Letevs Fife is gonna revolt. And if Fife revolts, you know Polk Thewsike's gonna revolt too." "I know it." "So what happens to us?" "Us? We don't count. We're not in any camp. We're friends of Bavler. We stay neutral, and we stay with the Group." "Yeah. It's just--I don't know--all the extra time we've had--living in Bestroystraw's experiments--getting our powers--it's all so..." "Don't get all depressed about it, Eacho. Look, we took the challenge to the edge, and crossed over. We lived well over a lifetime. So just think of now as bonus. Bonus time." "I guess." The traffic was getting worse, and a few drops of rain began to fall in the early twilight. "Damn!" Dan yelled. "Gotta do something about this traffic!" "Ah, who cares. Paith Paper's not going anywhere. Now that we know the engineers are hung up." "Yeah, yeah." Dan honked his horn, and silence followed. "This Paith Paper," Eacho finally said, quietly, "she's just an innocent bystander in all this, right?" "Er, yes and no. She didn't ASK to become involved, but she IS a celebrity of sorts. She could make some noise." "That's why Twield Cleverdusk and Vapstadam want her dead?" Dan laughed. "Yes and no again. If she became a problem, it would be a Group problem. If there really is going to be a revolution, Fife'd probably want to keep her around to cause Bavler trouble. On the other hand, if they want to smooth this little affair over, and aren't interested in revolt, taking her out would be in their best interest." "And--" "--yeah?--" "--and, and--does not morality come into this? I mean, killing this poor innocent woman?" "She doesn't have any kids." "What's that got to do with it?" "Ah, it'd make it a little bit harder." There was silence for a time. Finally, Eacho spoke--again, softly. "Cuz I've been thinking, what if the orders come down for US to kill her." "Ah, don't worry about it. We'll talk to her. If she can conveniently disappear somewhere, there'll be no need to kill her. You gotta take this job with a grain of salt--no one knows exactly what's going on. So you fudge it a little bit here and there. Still, you gotta be willing to kill." "I know it." Eacho said, staring out the window at a laundromat. *OW* [[END072OW]] -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----