|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- DEER EXPRESS--CUP 1--"PAITH PAPER" --------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Deer Express  ||  -------> (Cup SRde001, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 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 folks 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. -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----