|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- CARNE'S MOISTURE DETECTION FRIEND--CUP 6--"AIRPORT CHOCOLATE STORE" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Carne's Moisture Detection Friend  ||  -------> (Cup SRcm006, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = -O- CARNE: My Moisture Detection Friend bought a subscription to a magazine from an alternate reality. He got two issues, and then... nothing. I've been helping him investigate the phenomenon, but we haven't had much success. And he lives in fear of government agents breaking down his door to confiscate his alternate reality contraband! PACER: Yeah, the world is weird. Weird stuff like that happens sometimes. -P- CARNE: It is a peculiar kind of otherworldliness that my Moisture Detection Friend possesses. We often invest an image of otherworldliness in other people, and at times that assessment is wrong. It is based on our innate hunger for otherworldliness. PACER: "Otherworldliess"--how many letters does that have? CARNE: Um... sixteen. PACER: I knew a girl once who seemed pretty otherworldly, but she turned out to be a psycho, and not much more. CARNE: Well you see, that's just what I'm talking about! That "other world" we are so much in love with is actually right here--and our inability to see it is the impetus behind all of our problems. PACER: Yeah man, this girl had problems. She thought that people were just piles of leaves--like you get in Autumn--piles of leaves that just transformed and became people. Weird, huh? CARNE: Well, it could be that she was a psycho, but also, maybe she was just putting on an act so you'd leave her alone. I know how you obsess on women. PACER: Yeah, that's what I thought. But a long time after I stopped talking to her, I'd see her lying on the ground, hugging piles of leaves and stuff. So I think she may have actually had some genuine problems. -Q- CARNE: Yeah, hello. I am talking to you from an airport chocolate store in Iowa or something. Can you hear me? My Moisture Detection Friend would love this place! He would totally suspect that time travellers from the 1970s were all around here. PACER: Carne man, I can barely hear you! What are you calling from, a walky-talkie or something? CARNE: Almost! It's one of those newfangled anti-satellite phone systems. Ytterbium, I think they call it. Instead of satellites, they bury transmitters deep in the earth's crust, allowing you to call from any point on Earth--even Iowa! -R- CARNE: Wow, Pacer's not here. That's weird. I knew he was planning on trading Wacky Packs with my Moisture Detection Friend, but it's one of those stupid science fiction holidays today, like "Square Root of Pi Day" or something. I thought he'd be celebrating it. Maybe I should check out some depressing malls, being that it's a weekday afternoon. Or I could go to a gardening store and think about monorails. Yeah... that's a good plan... -S- CARNE: My Moisture Detection Friend helped design a strip mall. He included a hatch at an interior corner which inexplicably led down into an underground entertainment area, with monsters, pirate, robots, and all that kinda stuff. They kicked him off the project, but last week the strip mall opened, and damned if they didn't have that hatch and all the stuff he designed! PACER: Wow. And they didn't pay him anything? CARNE: No--but he didn't care. They like sent their lawyer over, all worried and everything, but he just laughed and said that the fact that something like that was actually built was more than enough payment. PACER: So there's no sign on it or anything? It's just like this hatch in the middle of nowhere? CARNE: That's it! But they must have spent hundreds of thousands of dollar on the entertainment center it leads to. PACER: So it's free to get in? CARNE: Yes! There's nothing barring you at all! You just climb down the hatch, and there you are! PACER: So people must be getting to know it by word of mouth and press and stuff, huh? But how do they make money? CARNE: Advertising. The place is full of advertising. PACER: That's not so bad. At least they don't have those Japanese animation booths, where you insert $200 and it automatically spits out a DVD anime adventure starring an anime version of you, and your friend, if you got one! And if you want to see the next episode, you gotta pay another $200! CARNE: Well... they do have those. But they only charge $175. -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----