|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- OFFICE COMPLEX--CUP 17--"PINBALL" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Office Complex  ||  -------> (Cup SRoc017, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = "So how could we revive this Earth's system?" Hate asked. Injure smiled in frustration and shook his head. "The right event-whastion could resuscitate part of the system, and if it's the right part, it could set off a chain reaction which would totally on-line this Earth again. From there, Aconckwise, it's fortyjult." "So what the hell does that mean?" Ferrajalt asked. "It means, Prince, that we might be able to make things right by doing something, but we have no idea what that something might be." Injure said. "Oh." Ferrajalt responded. "Okay now wait a minute." Emily burst out. "Why did you say this happened again?" Injure regarded the girl. "I don't know the cause of the domino-wave--it could have been anything. The Unreal 64, another company like ours, has been doing very dangerous things with reality, so it was probably them. I also definitely read the signature of one of our former associates, a guy named Daptin Gone, in the pre-wave ifo-flow. He could have been working for them. I've heard rumors in that regard." "Also," Hate added, "it's well-known that Aconck--our interconnection of Earths--has been tried before, around 500 years ago. They suffered a total collapse as well. And they never recovered." "Okay." Emily said, turning to Dolthethmen. "Okay. Dole, you know what you told us. You said you might have caused all this." Dolthethmen looked down, tears welling up in his eyes. "Let's hear about this!" Injure said in his nerdy manner. Dolthethmen frowned and shook his head, as the events of earlier in the day ran through his mind... Dolthethmen handed the cashier a five-dollar bill and a one-dollar bill. The cashier gave him two quarters and a nickel. Dolthethmen grabbed the coffee and the bag of nacho chips and the magazine and the gum and walked out of the store. He walked out of the store and into the phase of the fuzzy weekday afternoon. His car was gone. No, the car wasn't gone. He was mistaken. He'd parked at a shopping plaza across the highway. Now he had to cross the highway to get back to his car. He looked down at the crap he just bought. He looked across the highway where he could see part of his car from behind a cement partition in the parking lot. The traffic on the highway was getting heavy, and Dolthethmen reckoned that his adroitness would be dampened by the coffee and the chips and the gum and the magazine. So he opted not to cross the highway just yet. Looking to his left and then his right, Dolthethmen went right. Here on this highway, the parking lots of the stores, shopping plazas, gas stations, and movie theaters blended together. So you could walk along from lot to lot. But it was behind the stores and the plazas where it was cool. Because it's quiet back there, and remote, and abandoned--but someone or some car might appear at any time. Also, there were woods behind this highway's establishments. But Dolthethmen didn't feel like going behind the stores. He wanted to walk down the highway and maybe get to an arcade to play pinball or get to a movie theater to go and see a movie. It was as this walk was in progress that Dolthethmen thought these things: Here is reality. Right now it seems to me that I am walking down the highway. This is a fact, that to me right now I seem to be walking down a highway. That such a fact can exist is heartening. For so much of life is unexplained, and there are so few facts. It is hard to understand what is really going on. But in the scope of what I understand to be going on, there are things which are plain, such as the idea of cars. As I understand it, cars are devices built by people, used to go from place to place. But other things in life, such as the progressions of situations, are not so understandable. But, like cars, these unclear phenomena are observable. So through reasoning, some possible explanation can be reached. And, though this explanation may be invalid, if it is a possible explanation, it can serve as the first level of basis in further examination. In this way, at least as a sketchy proposal, reality can begin to be understood. -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----