|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- HADRIAN FOZZCOLT--CUP 3--"A FORMER LOVER" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Hadrian Fozzcolt  ||  -------> (Cup SRhf003, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Hadrian's apartment... "Bline Kaliaphant, I call to come into your world one last time." Hadrian Fozzcolt stated these words without fear. Soon, everything around him became a monochrome bright green, and he could feel himself being pulled in four-dimensional directions. The darkness that followed was like the horror of falling only much worse, but actually kind of pleasurable to Hadrian's sensibilities. Walking, walking, definitely walking. To a platform. A large cylindrical vehicle tilted up at about a thirty-degree angle. A pretty young woman, a blonde, greeted him. "Hail, Mr. Fozzcolt. Transportation is ready." she said, gesturing toward the vehicle. "Thanks," he said, and he started getting into the thing. Then he paused and faced the woman. "You know, this may be the last time I come this way. Curiosity has gotten the better of me and I have to ask--what's the deal with you and your friends here? Where IS here? What's this whole Teleportation Cylinder thing all about?" The woman smiled. "Wow. I don't know what to say. I always just assumed that you--and those like you--who travel these ways--would know everything about everything. I never dreamed that you might not know. Or are you just playing with me, perhaps..." "No, no. Not at all." Hadrian said, stepping down from the door to the vehicle and taking a step closer to the woman. "I really don't understand a lot of what's going on. I may have been more powerful in a past life, but right now, in this life, I don't understand a whole lot." The woman narrowed her eyes and looked Hadrian over. "You know," she said, "when you have a former lover for whom you have no animosity, but you cut off contact with them because such contact would be inappropriate? That is, once you have known a person sexually, it changes things. It makes things weird. I don't know if I'm making sense, and I am dying to tell you a bunch of things right now, but I think it might be better if I don't tell you these things." Hadrian paused. "No," he said. "Do tell me these things." The woman looked down. "I just want to get out of here and go somewhere else. But maybe if I go somewhere else, that wouldn't be good either." "What do you mean by that?" Hadrian asked softly. She locked eyes with him. "Me, seeing you as a possible way out. Maybe all of the people like you who pass through here are as clueless as you say you are. But they all act like they know... I don't know... that they should look down on my kind and not even take my kind seriously." -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----