|| -------- -- -----  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 092--4/26/96 <-------  ||  OsoaWeek  ||  Issues  ||  Book 8  ||  -------> (Cup OWis092, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [[BEGIN092OW]] [[01092CV]] * * * O S O A W E E K 0 9 2 * * * April 26, 1996 "The weekly ezine of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement!" by Frank Edward Nora CONTENTS 01 092 CV--Cover 02 092 LA--Lord of Obliviana 03 092 NH--Nihilistica 04 092 HR--Hemisinister Review 05 092 SU--Superior 06 092 SA--Severe Repair Almanac 07 092 SR--Severe Repair OsoaWeek092, April 26, 1996 First issue of OsoaWeek Book Eight 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 1996 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. An Obliviana Cup containing this file will be available. Stay tuned for more details. ASCII Characters: 61376 / Words: 11298 / Lines: 1687 Days late: 18 *OW* [[02092LA]] Lord of Obliviana Mon 4/29/96 * 8:07 AM * Amtrak * Tarb 3848 30000, 209, 1:54 PM, 4/20/96 That was Saturday of last week, when I was driving up to Clifton to sign my new apartment lease, my Jeep turned over from 29999 to 30000. And, a few seconds after it hit 30K, the trip odometer rolled onto 209! I took it as a good sign. On Friday, April 26, I left work "early" (which means on time), came back to Princeton Junction, then rushed over to Keansburg for an arcade video game sale. There was weird weather--misty, on-again, off-again rain, an orange slash of sunlight low on the horizon, and lots of traffic. Going from Plainsboro to Keansburg, there are no major roads, so I went up the Turnpike to exit 11, then got onto Parkway south. I got there and Mike Etler and John Dondzila were already there. Dondzila is the guy who creates new games for the Vectrex--a most impressive feat. Anyway, the machine that stood out was a Tron in fairly good order. I bought it for $100 cash and we loaded it onto the back of Mike's truck. They didn't have much else worth considering--most of the machines were out of order. It's a shame, cuz they had Phoenix, Missile Command, Centipede, Super Qix, Zookeeper, and a host of other defunct classics. Dondzila wanted to buy a Splatterhouse, so I offered the guy $50 for it and he accepted. I told John he could pay me back with his Vectrex games. We loaded the Splatterhouse on top of the Tron, and went to Johns house, where his wife was a bit miffed at us lugging a used arcade machine into their house. We saw the Vectrex studio, and John demoed some other cool stuff on his computer. Then we all went down to Video Game Connections, and John examined, took apart, and cleaned the Tron machine with great aplomb. The next day I had to go to Mike Massotto's engagement party, all the way up in Oradell (not far from Clifton). I was an hour late, but it didn't matter. This guy who was married to this girl I sort of knew at Drew University was interested in my video game tales. I gave him a Classictronica Vol. 3. I smoked a cigar with Mike (a Las Cabrillas--cheap, but good), then I headed home. I stopped at the Paramus Park Mall, which was right there, and considered buying the Lord of the Rings books, since I want to start reading them. But I felt very uneasy at the mall, and I soon left. Then I went to my grandmother's house and continued to sift through my myriad possessions. This time I had to tackle my comic book collection. It took hours to figure out what to throw away, what to give away, what to store, and what to bring with me to my new apartment. I was back the next day, Sunday, sorting through more stuff. I cracked open boxes sealed by me back in 1991, and I was shocked and amazed and the garbage I stored--literal garbage. Nice little time capsules for the future me, I guess. I wen through one box, full of little scraps of paper, and it took me well over an hour. Mixed in with the receipts, greeting cards, and old bills were some gems--like production notes for my old publications, printouts of alternate logos, old business cards, etc. (One thing I'd like to do is find one of each of all the business cards I've ever had, mount 'em, and frame it.) As the day wore on, my brother was cutting the grass, and I took 11 boxes of ABM 4's to storage. Now the entire remnants of the ABM print runs are in my self-storage unit. The task of sifting through all my stuff is still daunting--so I'm thinking of taking Friday off to help facilitate a completion by May 18, the day I move into Clifton. Monday thru Friday last week, every day, I worked on a file called "Little World of Raceways", about the game of Obliviana. I made great progress, but I'm still grappling with the design of the game. This issue is already three days late, and my plans were to begin the test run of Obliviana starting with this issue. But that's not gonna happen. Another thing is, I am going to continue working on Severe Repair in this Book, Book Eight. So I gotta get back into it. I started going through the whole work--I wanna get a character and event reference for the whole thing, so I can chart an awesome course for the future. So this is what I have in my life--sifting through my possessions, preparing to move, continuing to develop the game of Obliviana, and getting back into Severe Repair. Obliviana Year Two is three-quarters completed. Come July 27, Year Two will be over, and Year Three will commence. And, as well, I expect that the test run of Obliviana will commence as well. 8:45 AM Had some good conversations with my grandmother this weekend. You know... thinking about those boxes sealed in 1991... to think of the state I was in back then... I was totally lost... I'm thrilled that I've risen out of that state... Anything But Monday died in the fall of 1989. But if it had succeeded, and, say, by 1991 was doing well--that is, making money, getting more distribution, getting a lot of press for us, etc.--would I not have been the same basket case, albeit with the need to suppress how messed-up I was? In other words, if I had gotten successful, I think I would still have needed to work through my problems--the main problem being the need to grow up--but I wouldn't have been as able to grow as I was in my circumstances as they were. I have to refine this idea. Basically, I was massively immature in 1989. 1990 thru the present was a time of great maturation for me. I've had to face a whole gamut of difficult situations, and face them on my own. Were I a rich whiz kid, I don't think I would have grown up as much. Well, I'm in the tunnel, and I'll be in Manhattan before I know it. See ya later. Tue 4/30/96 * 10:42 PM * NJT Car 1511 * Tarb 3858 Stayed late at work today. I called my answering machine and got a message about how I overpaid my WWW account somehow, so I called and asked a single crucial question--can I send in my updated site via an E-mail attached file? The answer was yes, and all of a sudden things looked a whole lot different. Nine months ago, when I first did my WWW site, America Online didn't allow file attachment to E-mail going into the Internet. But since then, they've added that feature. Back then. I had a hell of a time getting my site onto my ISP's server... I had to dial in using a communication program, and initiate an Xmodem transfer or something like that, and it was a royal pain in the ass. I think that this infrastructural nightmare was an element in my never updating my site till now. Anyway, I got inspired, and I put together version 1.1 of the Obliviana WWW site. It's still awfully vague, but it looks better, and includes the Nomads "Plankton" comic, which'll be a real beaut to as far as transfer time goes. But I've broken the ice, blazed a new trail, and I'm on my way to the true manifestation of Obliviana. Defining Obliviana is a challenge that's now center stage. I was shocked at how nebulous my WWW site still is... and I thought about registering Obliviana with the search engines, but I really want to define it as a specific thing. Very awkward right now. I need a shave. And... and I'm thinking of getting my hair cut short... I think that I'm just about fully disgusted with me long hair. Maybe I'll just get it a little shorter... like three or four inches... like last time, a few weeks ago... slowly working back toward short hair... cuz long hair doesn't mean much to me anymore, and I think it makes me look stupid. Great. I'm so fazed out I can't even think. Night train, all this time to write, and I'm burnt out from 12 hours of work. 11:15 PM Obliviana is what--an Internet game? Yeah... but I mean, isn't there a better way to define it? I mean, there's this friend of Peter Litkey's, Terry Bauman. He has a web page about teddy bears. So, you look up teddy bears, you find him. It's that simple! But me... what do you look up to find Obliviana? Here's another idea... Anything But Monday and Classictronica will both be separate from Obliviana, but on the same web site and all that. "The secret of the universe is in there, and also a bunch of hot chicks!" Just a phrase that came to mind... using the 209 angle... yeah... "A whole new kind of entertainment... Super Occult Amusement!" Thu 5/2/96 * 8:04 AM * Amtrak * Tarb 3866 Well, this issue is six days late now, and I don't know when I'm gonna be able to finish it, with all the stuff goin' on in my life right now. I guess moving is the big thing. I took the day off of work yesterday to continue tackling the problem of all the junk I have in storage. I've been throwing tons of it out. My goal is to have my new apartment uncluttered, with the rest of my stuff in one place--my storage in Iselin. Another thing in my life is the development of Obliviana the game. This is taking a lot of time and energy, so it's tough to focus on Severe Repair right now. And to top it all off, I got America Online back the other day, and I was talking to a girl for hours last night--and she even gave me her phone number! Who knows... my single days may soon be over! That's right! And I'll have America Online to thank for it! Jesus Christ, optimism. Ah, what the heck--maybe I should be optimistic--what does pessimism get you but less pain when things fail? And, how far does pessimism itself work to MAKE things fail? Just a thought. I'm always having these thoughts. Well, I guess that's what it's like when you're a friggin' genius--you keep on getting these thoughts... 1860 is a time so long ago, that there's no one alive today who was alive back then. The entire world population of 1860 is wiped out, replaced by an entirely new set of people. Unless you believe in reincarnation--in which case, you gotta wonder, cuz there are more people alive today than have ever died. That is, you count every man, woman, and child who's ever walk the earth and died, the number of people alive today exceeds it. I think. At least, I remember hearing that somewhere. So, where are all these new souls coming from? Or, as I have previously posited, are most people simply unreal, like puppets, not having a soul or awareness? That is, are they just illusions here for the benefit of those of us who ARE real? That philosophy could be dangerous in the wrong hands. Before you know it, you'd have a concentration camp for unreal people, most of whom would probably be the real ones! Or you could just look at the whole soul thing in a different light--each soul drives numerous people. This could be accomplished through a variety of means. One way would be time travel--when you go to sleep at night as person A, your soul goes back in time 24 hours and drives person B for a day, then person C, and so on... till the sequence is done and it slips back to person A, not having to time travel this time, cuz person A is ready for the NEXT day. Or, the soul's awareness could just be split, with each segment being more or less unaware of the others. Or, you might live each life as a single person, but then, after death, you time travel to someone else--meaning that that person sitting next to you on the train could be you twelve thousand years from now! How the hell did I get off on THAT tangent? Back to the issue at hand... Obliviana. 5/3/96 * 9:14 PM * NJT car 1471 * Tarb 3875 I had too much to drink! Yeah, I went to a bar after work with some co-workers, and I had like five beers. I don't drink very much, so it hit me pretty hard. I left the place about 7:30, went back to work to get my PowerBook, and when I was there, I was feeling pretty bad--maybe on the verge of throwing up. But I tied my button-down shirt around my waist, and slung my coat over my arm, and headed for the E-train. I sat down and was feeling quite terrible. I tried to relax but it was hard. I guess I was semi-conscious, cuz before I knew it I was at 50th St., and Penn Station is at 34th. So I got out and started to walk. I wound up at the new Virgin Megastore, and I wandered around in there for a little while. I managed to cut my hand (mildly) while walking past a display case. I didn't feel it much, though. Then I went back out onto the strange insanity of Times Square, and watch some Jesus freak do magic tricks and shit, all the while watching out for pickpockets. Then I got on the 2-train and got to Penn Station. With about a half-hour till my train, I called this girl I met on America Online, but I got her answering machine--her voice reassuring me that she was indeed a girl and a real person. I left my number, and then went to the waiting area. Now I'm on the train, about two hours after my last beer. If I had gotten off at Penn Station the first time around, I'd have been at the parking lot by now, and I really don't feel ready to drive yet. But another hour... I should be okay for the less than ten minute drive home. I'm feeling much better now and it feels great. I hate feeling nauseous and disoriented. I guess everyone does. But I did it, and what the hell--you gotta drink once in a while! Okay. This morning I wrote the three guys with weird gravity part of SR (up to the point of looking for the light switch. Last night I wrote the Daptin part up to the doctor laying out the situation. The three guys part is directly based on a dream I had last night, although a lot of the stuff was added, especially the item-girls. But the flying around, the banister, the mansion--all of it was in my dream. Yeah so I don't know about this girl online. I guess it's a good way to meet the ladies, for an anti-social sort like me. I don't think anything will com of it , but who knows. It's really weird for me to be drunk. I'm, usually so lucid... I tellya, I'm still out of it, but I'm past the worst part. I was really fucked-up. I'm no drinker, I tellya. Cigars are my drug of choice, even though I've been getting a little more into caffeine lately (via orange pekoe tea)... Yeah, no way could I drive right now. If I still feel this way when I get there, I'll wait before driving. No way am I gonna drive drunk. I know I'd wind up wiping out a four-year-old or two and get out of the accident unscathed, like most drunk drivers do. No--I'm way too sensible to do it. Either ya get pulled over and get fucked up the ass with violations, or wipe out a few toddlers. It's just not worth it. Wow. My time perception is way off! Like on the E-train, where I was gone till two stops past my stop, I'm now at Newark whereas I feel only about five minutes have passed. Weird... Well, I'll have about three hours once I get to PJ. That should be pretty good. This morning I was late, and I was able to smoke a cigar while I was waiting for the train. At the bar before, I left to get cigars and I got a couple of dry H. Upmann's, which were pretty bad, but okay. There's a girl from work who was there, and I had a good time talking to her. She was definitely my motivation for going out. It was pretty good... the cigar made me feel a little more confident... last time I was at a bar it was with Kerri, where I fazed out and was effectively paralyzed... so I'm glad I was able to socialize and be somewhat normal... But let me tellya, alcohol definitely does not agree with me. I don't know, maybe that's a good thing. Or maybe it's just because I drink so rarely. It seems like a good thing about alcohol is that it exacts a toll upon you soon afterwards--you pay the price. Other drugs, I don't know. Never did much, except a little weed in college, which did nothing for me. I guess the whole subtext of drugs and alcohol is getting laid. I mean, that's definitely a big part of it, and it's gotta work. Could be that's why I sleep alone--and also why I'm the Lord of Obliviana and am gonna be some sort of billionaire by the time I'm 35. Yeah, I know I sound like just another insecure fuck with power fantasies to help me deal with my inadequacies. I mean, right now, I'll be doing backflips if I could just make a living doing Obliviana, let alone millions or billions. But I think if I ht the right Internet nerve, I could start raking in the big bucks... 9:54 PM I was just sitting on the toilet for a buncha miles. I don't know. I have to say, my perception of reality while drunk was really altered. I can see how hippies and stuff could be lured into the misperception that altered states are a good thing. But I don't think there are all these different phases of reality... there's one reality... and hiding from it always catches up to you in the end. I don't know about my ISP. I sent him E-mail from work, but I told him to respond to my home E-mail. And what does he do, but mail me back at work! Yeah... there are alotta ISP's out there... if one pisses you off, you can always get another... For those of you who are ignorant of the digital coolness of today, or so far in the future you're totally out of touch with the nineties repartee, ISP=Internet Service Provider. Yeah, I know there are those of you in the far future who are reading this. I am pretty sure that the world will survive for thousands of more years... and all this digital text will remain intact, long after every person in 1996 is dead... so wherever you are... the 2040's. the 2160's, the 2390's, wherever... let me just tell you that I'm cooler than you cuz I'm in 1996 and I know you wish you were here! Ha ha ha! Man, 1996... just think of what you could do back here, knowing what you know... well, y'know what? I DO know what you know, and I'm gonna do it! Yeah, I know I've gone over this supernatural, retrocarnation stuff before, but I really believe that one of my "past" lives was in the future. Call me crazy (many people do), but that's the way things seem to me! The train is now on the long stretch between Jersey Avenue and Princeton Junction... they say it's only ten minutes, but it always seems longer... I'll be at my Jeep in ten or fifteen minutes, and I think I'll be okay. I tellya, it does feel great not fearing I'm gonna feel like throwing up any second... This weekend I gotta really concentrate on my junk... last night I took a box of books to the Cranbury Bookworm and tried to sell them, but the fruitcake there only selected a few books and offered me $12, so I turned him down, cuz the whole idea was to get rid of the books and get a decent amount of cash--nothing unrealistic--I would have taken $40 for the box, but he just wasn't interested in all the typography books I had... oh well... he has a business to run, and if he doesn't think he's gonna sell a book, there's no reason for him to buy it... still, I was a little pissed-off... I heard once that the only way to really sober up is to breathe pure oxygen... coffee and showers and other remedies just don't work... but, since there's no way I'm gonna get an pure oxygen in the next five minutes, I'll just have to muddle through... I guess I'm feeling alright... Mon 5/6/96 * 6:00 PM * Amtrak * Tarb 3893 I have the ISP blues. Somehow, I can't get my WWW site to my Internet Service Provider, New Jersey Computer Connection. I don't know what's going on. All I need to do is transfer some files... but it seems that every way available to me is barred... and with all the other junk going on in my life right now... I have to deal with this too... I'm really stressed out. My finances are fucked-up, my apartment is full of junk I have to sift through, I got this girl from America Online to call tonight, and now I have this problem with my ISP. I mean, I created the first new version of my website in nine months last week, and it still isn't on the Web! It's pissing me off... so maybe I better put off dealing with it till after I've moved... Fuck it. I can't write right now. I just gotta relax. Wed 5/8/96 * 6:54 PM * NJT Car 1439 * Tarb 3905 Well, I just kind of resolved things with my ISP, and I feel kind of stupid. Turns out he was trying to do stuff for me that few other ISPs would do. He was trying to be nice, but in the process, he made me believe that ALL ISPs work in the same sort of way. All he had to say was GET FTP!, and that would have solved the whole thing. But him trying to stick his neck out, while well-intentioned, caused this whole problem--along with my ignorance on the subject. I can just see... sometime in the future... when Obliviana gets big... a headline... "I WAS FRANK EDWARD NORA'S ISP!"... a horror story about how bad a customer I was... Oh well, who knows. Maybe I'll stick with New Jersey Computer Connection. Whatever. So this chick online, she gave me her phone number and everything, but she hasn't given me a call back. Hey, if you screen your calls with an answering machine, what's the big deal giving your number out? I think she's just playing games, so I'm dropping it. She seemed like she might be nice, but there are a lot of folks out there who get their jollies playing with and manipulating other people. And I'd rather not be on the receiving end. Wed 5/8/96 * 7:53 PM * doctor's office, Metuchen * Tarb 3905 Well, here I am, waiting to see the doctor. It's just about a throat irritation, an infection. I took antibiotics, but the problem seems to be back. Damn hot in here. And I'm wearing my winter coat today! It's weird, the difference in atmosphere in this god-forsaken office from last time... now that I'm just off the train and in commute mode... I feel so much more comfortable, confident, present. You know, I called before and asked, being that I have a 7:45 appointment, what time will I get to see the doctor? And they said "no delay--you can even come in early!" Well, it's 8:00 already... so much for believing these jokers. Plus, as soon as I came in, it was "$10 co-payment--please pay me now". Very unpleasant. I shouldn't even have come here today, it's just that I'm still fighting this infection and maybe I need more antibiotics or something. CNN is on, and it's tough to concentrate on writing. I have to admit, the novelty of walking here from the train, then walking back to the train, is part of what inspired me to come today. I was gonna smoke a cigar on the way over from the train station, but I decided I didn't want them to smell it and ask me any stupid questions about it. Good, too (in examining room now), cuz it was only a five minute walk. Damn! That nurse shoved a thermometer in my ear and it kinda hurt! Health care is so demeaning. It's kind of like admitting that your body is this fallible machine... that you are not your body... that there is something else going on... but being represented in reality by such a thing... or is it... if you take good care of your body, it's a good thing... or... I'm going nowhere with this. Yeah, I'm messed-up these days. My writing is suffering. The stress of moving. And of trying to get Obliviana off the ground. And dealing with the WWW. And dealing with that chick online. But no more! I should resolve not to contact her any more (easy) and also not respond if she tries to contact me (difficult). It's cool having the PowerBook here in the examining room. It's like I'm above it all... not struggling with the strangeness and unpleasantness of it all. The doctor prescribed these ear wax drops, cuz my ears were full of cerumen (that's earwax, folks). It said on the bottle to use every six hours! Hahaha--no way was I gonna use them at work or on the road! I did it maybe four or five times at home and that was it. So now I figure the doctor will make some kind of comment about it, but fuck it. Yeah, I guess it all makes sense. When it rains, it pours. The whole cleaning up my mess thing, the developing Obliviana thing, the WWW thing, the girl thing, AND the medical thing. Yesterday I resolved to drop the WWW and girl thing for the time being, but I couldn't resist the WWW thing. And, if this girl from online contacts me, I'll probably get sucked right back into AOL chat for hours on end, like I've done twice already. But I don't want to. I feel this woman is bad news, even though everything seems very good--she's around my same age, Italian like me, into Macintosh graphic arts, intelligent, and all that. It's just this feeling I have... the feeling that she might be playing games, not only with me, but with a bunch of guys. I mean, if a person's a little off-balance, you can see them getting thrills by leading others on, then having complete control whether to respond to them or not. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, or maybe I'm preventing myself from the possibility of getting hurt, or maybe even more compelling, from the possibility of being played the fool. I don't think I'm being very interesting. It sucks, not being interesting. 8:21 PM and I'm still sitting here in the examination room. It's getting a little aggravating. My attention span is way gone. I'm ready to get outta here, fire up a cigar, and wait for the train home. 'Course I'll probably have a subscription for hundreds of dollars of pills, and I can't very well go into a pharmacy with a cigar! Damn! Then at Princeton Junction, I gotta take a taxi home, cuz I took the shuttle bus this morning. 8:24 PM. I was just switched to a different waiting room, and, I'm "next", you know. WAIT! Here he is! 8:55 PM. I'm back on a train! The doctor came in, examined me, said my ears were looking better, but that I still had to soften up that cerumen for a "cleaning" which could, he said, if the earwax is not soft enough, be rather "painful". Jeez... Anyway, he told me to gargle with Listerine, and thank god didn't prescribe anything else. I left and lit my cigar, and then place it semi-precariously on top of a payphone to get some Listerine at a pharmacy. Then I checked the schedule, and it said the next train was at 9:13. So I again placed my cigar in the care of a payphone, and went into a deli and got a bottle of spring water. I saw some decaf there, and I asked the generic foreigners for ice to make iced coffee, and they were all confused about something, and they confused me in the process. Anyway, the water was "wan dalla", I tossed a single onto the counter and was outta there. So I called my 800 number to check my messages (none) and sat back on a bench to enjoy my cigar. But not even ten minutes later a train came! I knocked off the burning tip of the cigar on the bench, asked a conductor if the train was going to PJ, then got on, barely-burning cigar in hand. What a crime! A somewhat lit cigar on a train! Anyway, it went out pretty quick, the little bit that was burning, and I placed in it my inner coat pocket. I must smell very cigary. Oh well. Very mundane evening. Sorry for being so mundane. So I still have this bug up my ass about this girl online. I know I'm gonna sign onto AOL and see if she's online, or if she E-mailed me. Like I said before, I won't contact her... but if she's online it'll be hard to resist an IM (Instant Message)... rationally I know it's stupid to continue trying, but the love-management part of my being is very grasping at any EASY possibility of love. I mean, this thing is already started... so it'd be EASY to ease into a relationship from here. So I guess I don't wanna miss this easy possibility for love... very distressing, this aspect of myself... Big turban sticking up in the seat in front of me. Dark green, like that trendy car color. Are there turban trends? Gotta be. Come on Nora, be interesting! Jesus Christ--what's wrong with me? Yeah, yeah... Well, at this point, no matter what happens with NJCC, I'll have all 91 issues of OsoaWeek Books 1-7 on the WWW before long. And then... sometime before July 27, I gotta have the game of Obliviana going... This issue is moving towards two weeks late. Two weeks ago, I was supposed to have the test run of Obliviana going. Now I'll be lucky to have a test run up by July 27! No--I shouldn't call it luck--I should call it willpower and determination. On the final stretch to PJ now. To think of it--only seven more weekdays of train travel, and then I go by bus from Clifton. I hope everything works out, with the new apartment and all. I can just imagine, this being me, what kind of disasters are in store for me. Ah, maybe I'm being pessimistic. Maybe everything will be okay. Maybe all these minor disasters in my life are my own doing, for some weird personal need for excitement. Yeah, I don't know. Now I have to decide if I should go to Clementon with John Dondzila on Saturday. It's a big arcade video game auction--which is great, except I have no money to spend on such things right now... unless of course I go home, open my mail box, and find my Federal tax refund in there. THEN I could go nuts and buy video games. But hey--this is me--and it's gonna be a struggle between responsibility and indulgence, as usual. Well, we're almost there. I can kiss another $10 goodbye for a taxi. But who knows... maybe the tax refund really WILL be there... Thu 5/9/96 * 8:09 AM * Amtrak * Tarb 3908 Well, I figured out FTP on America Online last night, and I updated my Obliviana WWW site. It's a pain, cuz you gotta do one file at a time. With the way I originally formatted OsoaWeek for the WWW, this would have been terribly impractical--we'd be talking maybe 600, 700 separate files! But I'm not going to do it like that--I'm going to have each issue as a single page--so there'll be 91 files altogether--a few hours to upload, but manageable. Thu 5/9/96 * 6:02 PM * Amtrak * Tarb 3911 I figured out how I'm gonna do OsoaWeek on the WWW, today. I'm gonna put internal hyperlink in at the beginning of each feature--this can be done using a macro, so it won't be al that tough. Then, I'm gonna make a single page that lists the contents of all the issues. Then, for some features, I'm gonna make a contents page (like Severe Repair, for example). Well, I'm going to finish up this issue now, 13 days late. Not all that bad, compared to the days of 40+ days late... Oh yeah--I IMed that girl on AOL, and asked her if she got my phone message. She said she'd call me, but I don't think she will. So that issue is pretty much resolved. Oh well. Let me get going, so I can get this sucker done. GET ALL OBLIVIANA!!! *OW* [[03092NH]] Nihilistica ***OSOAWEEK SUPER STATS*** *ASCII CHARACTERS* BOOK ONE Total: 901690 Highest single issue: 99382 (001) Lowest single issue: 55828 (013) Average per issue: 69361 BOOK TWO Total: 808973 Highest single issue: 84266 (016) Lowest single issue: 52117 (020) Average per issue: 62229 BOOK THREE Total: 801724 Highest single issue: 90434 (030) Lowest single issue: 52217 (033) Average per issue: 61671 BOOK FOUR Total: 771386 Highest single issue: 141986 (052) Lowest single issue: 33230 (042) Average per issue: 59337 BOOK FIVE Total: 152577 Highest single issue: 38423 (053) Lowest single issue: 2156 (059) Average per issue: 11737 BOOK SIX Total: 559569 Highest single issue: 65873 (067) Lowest single issue: 20285 (071) Average per issue: 43044 BOOK SEVEN Total: 307320 Highest single issue: 91558 (079) Lowest single issue: 2318 (086) Average per issue: 23640 CUMULATIVE Total: 4303239 Highest single issue: 141986 (052) Lowest single issue: 2156 (059) Average per issue: 47288 *LINES* BOOK ONE Total: 24550 Highest single issue: 2863 (001) Lowest single issue: 1366 (013) Average per issue: 1888 BOOK TWO Total: 23526 Highest single issue: 2708 (016) Lowest single issue: 1390 (018) Average per issue: 1810 BOOK THREE Total: 22220 Highest single issue: 2414 (030) Lowest single issue: 1331 (037) Average per issue: 1709 BOOK FOUR Total: 21143 Highest single issue: 3369 (052) Lowest single issue: 909 (042) Average per issue: 1626 BOOK FIVE Total: 4625 Highest single issue: 1177 (053) Lowest single issue: 83 (059) Average per issue: 356 BOOK SIX Total: 15242 Highest single issue: 1786 (073) Lowest single issue: 604 (071) Average per issue: 1172 BOOK SEVEN Total: 8551 Highest single issue: 3229 (079) Lowest single issue: 90 (084) Average per issue: 658 CUMULATIVE Total: 119857 Highest single issue: 3369 (052) Lowest single issue: 83 (059) Average per issue: 1317 *WORDS* BOOK ONE Total: 151774 Highest single issue: 16589 (001) Lowest single issue: 9308 (009) Average per issue: 11675 BOOK TWO Total: 137258 Highest single issue: 14231 (016) Lowest single issue: 8860 (020) Average per issue: 10558 BOOK THREE Total: 138741 Highest single issue: 15606 (030) Lowest single issue: 9060 (033) Average per issue: 10672 BOOK FOUR Total: 132823 Highest single issue: 24070 (052) Lowest single issue: 5765 (042) Average per issue: 10217 BOOK FIVE Total: 27795 Highest single issue: 7072 (057) Lowest single issue: 378 (059) Average per issue: 2138 BOOK SIX Total: 103001 Highest single issue: 11950 (067) Lowest single issue: 3691 (071) Average per issue: 7923 BOOK SEVEN Total: 55553 Highest single issue: 16673 (079) Lowest single issue: 415 (086) Average per issue: 4273 CUMULATIVE Total: 746945 Highest single issue: 24070 (052) Lowest single issue: 378 (059) Average per issue: 8208 *LETTERS PER WORDS* BOOK ONE Highest single issue: 5.03838 (002) Lowest single issue: 4.80960 (010) Average: 4.94216 BOOK TWO Highest single issue: 5.19311 (021) Lowest single issue: 4.56422 (018) Average: 4.89520 BOOK THREE Highest single issue: 4.89893 (038) Lowest single issue: 4.61103 (035) Average: 4.77788 BOOK FOUR Highest single issue: 5.07966 (051) Lowest single issue: 4.63465 (043) Average: 4.80085 BOOK FIVE Highest single issue: 4.96183 (056) Lowest single issue: 4.24696 (054) Average: 4.54731 BOOK SIX Highest single issue: 4.53248 (078) Lowest single issue: 4.31857 (075) Average: 4.43341 BOOK SEVEN Highest single issue: 4.70653 (089) Lowest single issue: 4.35565 (091) Average: 4.52291 CUMULATIVE Highest single issue: 5.19311 (021) Lowest single issue: 4.24696 (054) Average: 4.70282 *DAYS OFF SCHEDULE* BOOK ONE 001: -2 002: -1 003: -1 004: -1 005: -1 006: -1 007: -1 008: 0 009: -2 010: 0 011: -1 012: 0 013: -1 Average: -0.92 BOOK TWO 014: +3 015: +2 016: +1 017: +2 018: +1 019: +3 020: +4 021: +4 022: +6 023: +4 024: +3 025: +4 026: +7 Average: -0.92 BOOK THREE 027: +11 028: +9 029: +12 030: +13 031: +14 032: +21 033: +24 034: +17 035: +20 036: +19 037: +20 038: +21 039: +17 Average: +16.77 BOOK FOUR 040: +26 041: +26 042: +24 043: +24 044: +21 045: +20 046: +20 047: +27 048: +31 049: +33 050: +40 051: +38 052: +38 Average: +28.31 BOOK FIVE 053: +44 054: +37 055: +30 056: +23 057: +37 066: +38 059: +31 060: +36 061: +30 062: +24 063: +17 064: +10 065: +3 Average: +27.69 BOOK SIX 066: +6 067: +19 068: +17 069: +18 070: +28 071: +31 072: +27 073: +37 074: +34 075: +30 076: +28 077: +29 078: +23 Average: +25.15 BOOK SEVEN 079: +38 080: +32 081: +25 082: +19 083: +12 084: +5 085: -1 086: -8 087: 0 088: 0 089: 0 090: -1 091: +1 Average: +9.38 OVERALL AVERAGE: +15.07 *FEATURES* AB--Antebellum (1, 27-31) AD--Actuality Destructor (14, 16, 17) AX--Appendix (1-13) CC--Classictronica (14) CN--Contents (1-39) CO--Catalog of Obliviana (1-26) CV--Cover (14-91) CZ--Classic Zope (27-33, 40-44, 46, 49-50, 52, 66) DC--Dashic (27-30, 32)...continued from TN DH--Dehumidifier (14-31, 34, 40) DY--Digital Superworld Youth (14, 15, 17) EF--How to Establish Your Fonosta (1) EM--Your E-Mail is Gonna Come (1-4, 6) FA--Fonosta (14)...continued from FW FE--Friction Enhancer (1-5, 12, 14, 16, 19, 27-30, 40) FW--Fonosta World (2-5, 79)...continued as FA HR--Hemisinister Review (1-33, 36-37, 39-51, 66, 69, 70, 77, 79) HT--Halfevil Times (1-33, 35, 39-46, 49-50, 52, 66) IB--Ibof (14) IF--In the Flowers (1) IS--Into E-mber Severe Repair (40-51) IW--Into E-mber Forge of Wander (40-52) LA--Lord of Obliviana (14-91)...continued from LO LO--Lord of Obliviana Revelry (1-13)...continued as LA MB--Assignment: Mystery Box (1, 4) MH--Masthead (1-13) NH--Nihilistica (1-33, 35-40, 43-45, 52-57, 66, 67, 69-80, 87-89) NJ--New Jersey (1-4, 14, 27-30, 32-36, 39-40, 44, 52) OL--Obliviana Primal (27-32, 39)...continued from TT OP--Obliviana Primal Beat (1, 4) SA--Severe Repair Almanac (27-31, 40, 53, 66, 79) SO--The State of Osoa (1-13) SP--Sneak Preview (1-13) SR--Severe Repair (1-52, 66-78) SU--Superior (1-91) TN--209 (14, 17)...continued as DC TS--Trick Sojourn (40-52) TT--Tourney Today (14)...continued as OL ZP--Zope (1-4, 14-33, 40-42, 44, 46, 49, 66) ***DIARY OF A DREAMFRANK*** 5/6/96 Today I had a really cool computer. I had it at my grandmother's house. I had a canister or something of hydrogen... I was thinking of breathing it in to make my voice high... or burning it... Anyway, I set up the computer for remote access, then went to Kay-Bee at the mall (a toy store) and accessed my files and games and screens on their computer. The store was a mess and there was no one there except my dreamfriend, but then we found the store employee kind of hiding. Later I used my computer to construct a moat around my grandmother's yard, and also controlled a valve which let water into the thing, like a river. I considered adding waterfalls and stuff, but that was a more advanced project. But my mother or brother or whoever it was who held dominance over the other side of the yard, complained about the moat, so I revised it in the computer, and physical reality was similarly revised. Then I met some kind of aquatic monster deity, who was also upset with me, but I wasn't scared, cuz I knew I could use the computer to keep him under control... Later on I went to see a computer nerd friend of mine... he had to start the day by connecting over the Internet to a live broadcast of a weird black-and-white stop motion kid's show from like Slovakia or something. Then he had to link into a few more obscure broadcast, opening them up as multiple windows on his computer screen, then he could get to work... *OW* [[04092HR]] Hemisinister Review ***MOVIES*** FARGO It's gotta be one of the best movies ever. This tale of strange crime in Minnesota is fully engrossing and wonderful. An absolute masterpiece. TWELVE MONKEYS A masterpiece by Terry Gilliam, rising to the level of his other masterpiece, Brazil. Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt are both excellent in their offbeat roles. The plot revolves around folks from the future trying to find out more about the plague that wiped out almost all of mankind by using time travel. A work of genius. THE NEW AGE An awesome work of cinema, grand and deep. LAMERICA An Italian film about Albania, which is actually shot in Albania, which is just about the worst country you can imagine. A young scam artist gets stuck far from the capitol city of Tirana and must find his way back to Italy with an enigmatic old man. Intense and very human. CLUELESS Very funny, very intelligent comedy starring Alicia Silverstone. NICO ICON Documentary about sixties underground star Nico. Haunting and hypnotic, seeing the cold, beautiful Nico fall from grace, finally becoming an intentionally-ugly violent psycho heroin addict.. BROKEN ARROW John Woo directs this action thriller, starring John Travolta and Christian Slater. You have to admire the pacing--this is a streamlined film, with all the fat cut away. This leaves it somewhat cartoonish, but it has enough appeal to remain likable. THE BIRDCAGE Homo has a son who's marrying girl with conservative parents, so homo pretends to be straight. The characters aren't very likable, and the whole thing just tries too hard and succeeds too little. *OW* [[05092SU]] Superior SUPERIOR 521 * 4/30/96 The way I manage my appearance and my desire for a hot girlfriends do not synch. There is a contradiction, an internal lie going on. I could make myself look better... and for god's sake, my unkempt hair, old, dirty clothes, stubble, and generally pathetic appearance IS the main reason I'm finding no love. It seems so simple... but it's a fact that I have shrugged off for a long time... so the answer is simple... I have to manage my appearance better... I have to get over the mental block preventing me from doing this... and maybe I need help... SUPERIOR 522 * 4/30/96 Inner conflict, ya hear it all the time. Late for work, knowing that deep down you're smiling. Bookstores of youth, science fiction and occult. Questing... wandering... even seeking in supermarkets, a spiritual mission... other things on hold, not as important... look at people in cults and new age type programs... a month or two into it, they think they have found the answer, they can't believe that they went through so much trouble in their lives, because the answer was so simple. They smile and look at the unenlightened with bittersweet condescension. While they themselves, a few months later, are back to their problems, the quick fix philosophy having run out of gas, as it had to... and they devote their brainpower to coming up with justifications and evasions... anything to avoid having to say to themselves, "I was wrong." SUPERIOR 523 * 4/30/96 Lyrically, were hotel, crimes of mischief, never get arrested. Torn away from TV, walk to her parents' house through a humid backwoods, what you're there. And you muse on Christmas while your wife is silent, just getting totally trashed and fucking someone else. No way are you ready to pretend, I said, and it was... the Middlesex Mall... spend an hour with your haywire mind... killing time, spending money, avoiding the self. All the malls in a day... what an idea... but is it possible? To hit all the malls of New Jersey in a single day? SUPERIOR 524 * 4/30/96 All the malls of New Jersey I can think of... Woodbridge Center, Menlo Park Mall, Princeton Marketfair, Quakerbridge Mall, Bridgewater Commons, Rockaway Townsquare, Livingston Mall, Short Hills Mall, Echelon Mall, Phillipsburg Mall, Cherry Hill Mall, Paramus Park Mall, Garden State Plaza, Bergen Mall, Riverside Square, Brunswick Square, Headquarters Plaza, (Flemington), (Brick?)... *OW* [[06092SA]] Severe Repair Almanac This issue's chapter of Severe Repair, "A Road Map of Arctica", introduces (or refers to) eleven new characters. Part of the problem I've been having with SR is how it has grown to unmanageable proportions. I have struggled to come to grips with what I have already created, and now... now I introduce new characters, storyline, subplots, etc. The fact that SR is a wild and uncontrollable thing is both good and bad. It's good in that it's robust, innovative, original, and just plain crazy (in a good way). The bad part is that I feel lost in a world of my own creation. Daptin Gone is the central character in Severe Repair. In this week's chapter, I delve into his past, detailing his terrible illness, and giving some background on his family situation. One thing I did at the beginning of SR was to develop the whole Agoopish/Aconck thing, and Daptin's role as Overwhelm Quality Scout, then started the story AFTER all those adventures. I think I should definitely detail Daptin's recruitment into Overwhelm Associates, and his experiences as Quality Scout. I also gotta spend some more time in Agoopish, which is a really rich and wonderful place. I just went back and read chapter 63, "A Train Park". Fucking brilliant! I don't know. I've been kind of depressed about SR, but after reading that chapter, which I wrote about four months ago, my faith in SR is restored! Yeah... SR fucking rules! "A Train Park" gave the most recent glimpse into the situation in Daptin's Land (via Bellicose Billion)--where Sleap Drassy and Red Archer Booze made constant orgy the law. And, the orgy is the only thing keeping Sleap Drassy from completing her plans to pierce the fabric of Gnoboslast, to finally discover That Which Lies Beyond. Meanwhile, Daptin, Bellicose, Agatha Petunia Wack, and Prince Ferrajalt are travelling a million miles on Twicvion Lane (which'll take about four-and-a-half months), to get back to Rillekon's Road, where Agatha can then get them to (or near) Daptin's Land. Yeah, I think that Book Six of Severe Repair is gonna go pretty good. I know that I both can't and shouldn't stop introducing new characters and storylines. As long as I continue to build on the central Daptin Gone narrative, Severe Repair will grow ever stronger and richer... *OW* [[07092SR]] Severe Repair SEVERE REPAIR Book Six, Chapter 66: "A Road Map of Arctica" "Mom, I'm really worried about this." "Daptin, always remember, it's better to face reality than to hide from it. If you have this... if you have something wrong with you, the worst thing is to hide from it. Come on, kiddo! We're gonna get to the bottom of things and find out where things stand. We're gonna face reality. And then... then we'll accept the way things are and go from there." "I don't wanna face reality." "Let me put it this way, Daptin. Imagine you're sitting on the railroad tracks, and you're really tired and enjoying the rest. Then you hear a train coming. You wish the train wasn't coming, so that you can rest some more, so you pretend that the sound of the train is just your imagination... or that it's on another track... or something. But no matter how much you evade the truth, if you don't accept the reality of the situation, you're going to be killed by that train! So the sooner you face reality the better!" "But Mom, I'm only fifteen! My life is just beginning. I don't want to die!" She moved her hand from the steering wheel of her car to Daptin's shoulder. "Come on, son. Lidrainen is the best doctor in Arctica for this kind of... condition. If anyone can help you, it's him." Daptin broke out into tears. "It's just... I was finally having a good time in school... I have some... some really great friends... and... and I just started going out with Phaetha..." Tears came to the eyes of Olga Gone as she gripped her son's shoulder harder. "Daptin... I'm not going to let you go... I've been by your side for fifteen years, and I'm not about to let go now." "But mom... if it is true... if I am going to die... there's nothing you or anyone else can do to save me..." "Never give up! We can never give up! There are medical breakthroughs all the time, honey!" "And there are people dying before their time all the time, too!" * * * "Daptin Gone..." said Dr. Ponce Lidrainen, leaning out of his office door. He was a tall, good-looking man with green hair just like Daptin's. Slowly, Daptin and his mother rose from the couch they were spending their agonizing wait on. With effort, they entered the doctor's office. He closed the door behind him. "Daptin, Mrs. Gone," Lidrainen said as he sat behind his desk, "I have completed my survey of your health, and it doesn't look good. I was... I was fairly sure that you had The Dreab, and now I know, in fact that you do." Olga Gone started sobbing, but Daptin was numb and dumbfounded. "I don't want to hold anything back. I don't think it serves any purpose to play games with people. Daptin, you have a rare strain of The Dreab known as Hizzing's Disease. Have you heard of it?" "Um..." Daptin said through near-paralyzed lips, "I think... I don't know..." "It was named after Elfecorse Hizzings, an explorer and agriculturalist in Early Mobathy. He... committed some egregious acts of violence and terror against the native inhabitants of that land, and he was stricken by a painful and drawn-out malady. The legend had it that it was a curse cast on him by the natives, in punishment for his deed. Now we know otherwise of course." Daptin and Olga stared at the doctor wide-eyed. "But I digress." he said, then he looked down. "There's no easy way to put this to you Daptin..." The doctor looked up once again and caught the stony gaze of Daptin, and the look of pathetic youthful horror made him want to curl up and die. "Daptin... Hizzing's Disease is the worst strain of The Dreab. It is a viral infection that slowly destroys all of the body's function, over the course of several years. There is no known cure for it, and very few treatment options available. So this is what I have to say to you--barring a medical breakthrough--or a miracle--you might live for another three years, most of that time in terrible pain." "Oh god no..." Olga whined. "Let me... let me set it all out for you. You have a choice. And this... this is not something you have to face right now, but I want to tell you everything. Under Arctican law, it is permissible to perform a mercy killing under certain circumstances... a diagnosis of Hizzing's Disease is virtually guaranteed to be accepted by the courts. Personally, I don't advocate this course of action. If you hang on, it's always possible that medical breakthrough... or miracle... will happen." * * * Three men were falling and drifting, whipped around in the caprice of a chaotic gravity, the outskirts of the city all around them, the place lost and destroyed, and they knew every minute could be their last. Like leaves in a blizzard, the three felt the terror of uncontrol, the nighttime landscape a sickening nightmare in their current plight. A light drizzle drenched them, and it was the slashes of yellow light in the sky, persistent, not lightning, not sun, not moon, that horrified them. They all wanted to talk, to say SOMETHING in the midst of the likely end of their days, but they couldn't manage it in the terrible weather. Then the mischief of nature gone awry slammed them into a mansion, and all three had a tenuous grasp on a slick, time-worn marble banister. "Can someone get a grip!" yelled Pearce Monancahol, a huge man whose yellow hair was matted with moisture, covering his eyes and most of his face. "Use your fingernails... anything... if one of us can get a grip... the others can hold onto him!" They all groped for some hold, but the banister was totally smooth, with no possible place to grab onto. They were flailing wildly, and if not for the temporarily lack of gravity--which they knew could run out any second, they would have been sure to fall off, either to their death on the ground below, or back into the air, to face certain death eventually. This slick banister was their best hope on life. "No good! No! No!" Duncer-Haxun moaned. He was thin, with dark skin and oily black hair, which he risked falling by wiping away from his face. "Wrap your limb around it!" shouted Perspective Quartz Mahoney, who was hugging the banister with all his might. He was bald with sunglasses, and had a huge nose. "If you can hold on... it would work even without friction... like chains... like links..." All three did as Mahoney suggested, and they managed to get a relatively firm hold on the banister. And then, the weather let up for a moment--a little more gravity, but not too much, and a drying wave of dry heat. "Just hold on!" Mahoney wailed. "Whoever lives here--they're bound to see us sooner or later!" But he peered into the lighted windows and saw, in rooms with orange-brown run-down walls, that the place was deserted. "All gone!" said Duncer-Haxun. "They must have evacuated--wherever we are, it must be really bad here." "Dammit!" Mahoney screamed, and the weather whipped up again, drenching them with wave of blackish water, antigravity tugging them upward. "Girls!" yelled Mahoney, and all of a sudden, his sunglasses, Darnalt Knocking Salt, flew off from his face. At the same time, Pearce's belt, Challen-67, undid itself and met the sunglasses in midair. And, from out of Duncer-Haxun's jacket pocket, his lighter, Prefer Joanie Hugging, zoomed out and met the belt and the sunglasses. The three items linked together--the belt wrapping around the stems of the sunglasses, the lighter snapping shut on the belt. The belt was in a loop now. In a swift motion, the three items flew among the men, and they all caught hold of the belt. In the blink of an eye, they were carried up to a balcony and dropped there, as the three items, spent of energy, clattered to the ground. "Pick 'em up and let's get inside!" Mahoney yelled in panic. Each man desperately grabbed his item, fearing that the weather might act up worse, and scrambled into the mansion, through a broken door frame. "Let's get away from this opening!" Pearce said, and they all ran into the hallway, starkly lit with electric light. They spotted another door, looked in and saw that it had no windows, so they raced into it. The room was dark, the only light coming from the hallway. But they slammed the door shut as soon as they entered and were in total darkness. All three collapsed with fatigue and tried to catch their breath. "I can't believe..." Duncer-Haxun said, huffing heavily, "I can't believe... we made it..." "We got the girls to thank." Pearce said weakly. "Yeah," said Mahoney, "they had it in 'em. I just hope they're all right... what an effort..." They were silent for a long time while they continued to recover. "So where are we?" Duncer-Haxun said, finally. "Ah, who knows!" Pearce responded. "With the way we were mistreated out there... we could be just about anywhere." "I think we're in Tog's Villa." said Mahoney. "I think I caught a glimpse of the stadium back up there somewhere." "Tog's Villa--then... then maybe this house has a link to the underground system?" Pearce said. "No doubt." Mahoney said. "People this rich... their basement is sure to have a link. But we have to get down there first." All of a sudden, the gravity in the room, which had been all right, started to subside and then change. "Dammit!" Mahoney yelled. "Try and find a light switch, someone!" They felt around the walls, searching for a switch to no avail, when the room became dimly-lit by the light of a flame--Prefer Joanie Hugging had flown out of Duncer-Haxun's pocket and lit herself. "Aw Challen," Duncer-Haxun said, "come on, don't overexert yourself!" But the feeble light was enough for Mahoney to locate the light switch and snap it on. The gravity disruption subsided, and was almost back to normal. Duncer-Haxun picked up Prefer Joanie Hugging and said "Thank you, but reserve your energy. Please." And he put her back in his pocket. In the light, they could see that they were in a recreation room full of arcade video games, their screens all blank. The lower panel of one machine was ripped off. "What's this?" said Duncer-Haxun, kneeling down to examine the opening. "Hmm... it leads back into an opening in the wall..." "A slide to the underground!" Mahoney said. "A great fantasy of children... having a secret exit from their parents' domain... and rich brats usually get what they want!" Mahoney knelt down beside Duncer-Haxun and peered inside. "Let's go," he said, "while we still have gravity on our side--I don't cherish the thought of climbing UP a downward slide!" He crawled inside the opening, followed by Duncer-Haxun and Pearce. Behind the wall, the tunnel made on sharp right turn, then one sharp left, whereupon the slide was revealed, in the dim light of a nightlight. Without saying a word, Perspective Quartz Mahoney seated himself at the top of the slide and pulled himself forward, till he was sliding on his way. The other two did the same, speeding downward in the innards of a long-abandoned mansion... hoping reality would still be there when they hit bottom... * * * At home, things were too normal for Daptin. Same old TV shows, same old dinnertime. The doctor had left him with a feeble attempt at hope--something about double-checking the results of the tests with some special lab in Baskonontana--that there was always a slight chance that the tests were in error. But Daptin knew... he knew that if a dozen tests all pointed in the same direction... the chance of them ALL being in error is astronomical. He ate dinner and, like the rest of his family, tried his best to pretend that nothing was wrong. But inside him, he could feel his inner identity changing, metamorphosing like a butterfly. The idea was that if he was going to die anyway, he would have great freedom, since he had nothing to lose. No more school, that was for sure. He'd go back to get the stuff out of his locker, but no more. He'd heard of terminally-ill kids still going to school to retain some level of normalcy in their lives, but he could never understand it. What sense does it make to learn, when all you're gonna do is die with that knowledge, never having used it? After dinner Daptin retreated to the basement and set out a road map of Arctica on the floor in front of him. All the wonderful places to go! He was sure his parents would lend him the money to go on a grand journey, by air and rail and bus, before his malady began to claim him. The doctor had told him that he would have from four to six months of decent time left before the Hizzing's Disease would start to seriously disable and torture him. So! Six months of wonderful travel... followed by a brief period of pain, and then... at any time... he could say the word, get a lethal injection, and drift off to sleep forevermore... When he thought of being euthanized, he found it strange that he didn't care that much for himself, but rather felt horrible for what such an act would do to his mother, his step-father, and his two half-sisters. His real father was long dead. Died before he was born. If he hadn't been in the media, Daptin figured he never would have known anything about him. His name was Janniter Gone, and he was this weird consultant kind of guy, "the man who made things happen". He was hired by various corporations, police departments, high-profile individuals, etc. when they had some intractable dilemma. Somehow, he always seemed to make things work out. There were suggestions, in the various news articles, that he had some sort of supernatural ability. Gone was a fairly common surname in Arctica, but still, it seemed an awfully strange coincidence that both his mother AND his step-father also had the surname Gone. Daptin wondered, if his father had a different name, if he would have wanted to take it as his own. But as it was, it seemed that fate had hammered the name Gone into him. There was one article about Janniter Gone in a magazine called "Sameday" that tried to probe into his past, intimating that he had something to hide there, that being the reason that no one knew anything about where he came from. They also opined that his death--a heroic rescue of kidnapped children from a building immolated in flame--was staged, that he was still alive, somewhere. Daptin's mother had contacted the reporter, who had actually come over to the house when Daptin was 3 or 4, and he expressed great remorse over the story, saying that he was very insensitive to the possibility of hurting people who were connected to Janniter Gone. Daptin's mother was Janniter's secretary for about a year. Toward the end of that year, they had an affair for about a month, and the next month, Janniter was killed, after saving the lives of a dozen children... going back into the burning building to search for more kids--he didn't know that there weren't any more--and he never came back out. The fire was of such an intensity, that there was no possibility of finding any remains. So Olga Gone and Janniter Gone were never married. She found out she was carrying his child less than a week after the tragedy. She hid her pregnancy from the media so that she wouldn't become some sort of throw-away celebrity. When she contacted the "Sameday" reporter, she insisted he keep the secret, and he obliged. She was rather surprised that he did keep the secret, since Daptin did look a lot like Janniter. But at that point, years after the death, there was little continuing interest in Janniter. So Daptin stared at the map, wide eyed and innocent, dreaming of his grand pre-death journey. And then a tear came to his eye when he realized that death would be an even greater journey. For a moment, Daptin felt blessed to be such a magnificent traveller, but in the next moment he faced reality, and realized that he'd rather live as a normal kid than be any sort of weird traveller. But then, faced with certain death, the whole travel angle might make things more bearable... Suddenly he saw something out of the corner of his eye and looked up... some sort of animal was running away from the basement window, at the top of the wall. All he could see was a big bushy tail as it slipped away... orange, like a fox... *OW* [[END092OW]] -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----