|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- PECULIAR LATHER--CUP 4--"TOTALLY KILLED" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Peculiar Lather  ||  -------> (Cup SRpl004, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = "Hey look--there's that electrical substation over there." Tanner said, pointing. "You remember what Clezakrehahd told us about it last month?" "Hah! Oh yeah." Martin said with a chuckle. "What?" Minion asked lazily. "You don't wanna know--it's major bullshit, eh." Martin said. "I don't know..." Tanner said leadingly. "Oh come on Loblolly--don't tell me you actually believed any of Clack's story!" Martin said. "Hey look Martin--Clack was just retelling a story someone else had told him." Tanner said. "You don't... you don't think Clack has half enough imagination to come up with a story as bizarre as that? Do you?" "Well, maybe he got it from a major bullshitter with a great imagination." Martin said. "Goddammit what is this story?" Minion said, propelling his chair forward in little bursts while still sitting on it. "Minion, believe me, you don't wanna know." Martin said. "Yes I god-frickin do!" "It's pretty amazing--but I might believe it." Tanner said, somewhat brightly. "You see those train tracks going into the plant? Like, y'know, where the fuck are they going? I mean, there's no trains there, I don't think. I never saw any there. But--" "--probably it was, y'know, there were trains a long time ago, but they shut it down or something." Minion said. "Yeah well, whatever." Tanner said. "So anyway, Clack said these friends of his friend crawled along the rails 'cause one of them had a dream about it, about crawling along the rails, and he said they wound up in like, another universe or something, in a weird city or something." "Yeah, then what?" "Well, he said this friend of his saw some weird shit they brought back, and when they were drunk, he got them to describe where they had went--this unearthly city." "Oh Man! Great true story, coming from a drunken bastard!" "But this stuff..." "Fuck the stuff!" "He said the stuff was not of this world." "Who said?" "Clack's friend." "Clack's fulla shit!" "I don't know..." "Well let's go then!" "Fine by me." Tanner said, eager. "Hey! Here comes Lee!" Martin said, walking forward toward the street. "No that's not him." Tanner said as a little orange car passed them. "Fuck! ... now Tanner, this story--it simply isn't logical. Train tracks do not lead into another universe. See?" Minion said. "I don't know..." Back in the present, Tanner got up from his bed, walked across the room, and turned his hotpot on, so that he could make some tea. The rainstorm outside was still going pretty good. He looked in the mirror above his dresser and wondered how to deal with this alternate past. He realized that unless he did something soon, he might get overwhelmed by the other past, in effect erasing his real past. Or another thing could happen--he could have two presents coexisting--one for each version of the past--which would be an alarming phenomenon. The memories of the events which transpired in the intervening year in the alternate past were very fuzzy. The only concrete recollection he could focus on was that day, about a year earlier, when he discovered Agoopish. The Melter Pluto album he'd been listening to, "Totally Killed", ended. He put it back to the beginning and started it again. Then he flopped onto his bed and continued to concentrate. He remembered that he and Minion and Martin kept waiting for Lee Frockweary, but then gave up and called Tanner's dad for a ride home. Tanner's dad couldn't get there for an hour, however, so they decided to try to crawl along the rails into the electrical substation, just to prove that Clezakrehahd was full of shit. So they walked over and started to walk along the rails, not seeing the point in crawling. But soon they got to a point where the rails went under a fence and they were forced to crawl to get through. For a few hundred feet they were crawling beneath the structure of the substation. Then, all at once, they came to a point where there was a huge chasm underneath the rails--something which didn't seem possible for the geography of the area they were in. So they continued, carefully crawling across the rails, toward the other side of the chasm, which they could see in the distance. Needless to say, they were pretty shaken up, even panicked. But they crossed, slowly but surely. As they were crossing, Tanner's feet got stuck between the rails, and he had to slip out of his shoes and let them fall into the chasm. Finally, they got across, to the ledge next to the chasm, which was about twenty feet wide. The train tracks got all gnarled up and destroyed as they reached the wall at the end of the ledge. There was no sky to be seen, but even so, it was not wholly apparent that there wasn't a sky. That is, there was no ceiling or roof to be seen. It was like there was no angle from which you could get a good view of the sky. -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----