|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- A ROAD MAP OF ARCTICA--CUP 6--"FIGURINE DREAM" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  A Road Map of Arctica  ||  -------> (Cup SRrm006, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = It was... a Saturday. I... I was supposed to call Ann from work about going to Figurine Dream at the mall at South Street Seaport to get some "statch" work done for the Hull Gang chess set, which was my idea. Figurine Dream is this awesome idea... I think the one at the Seaport is one of the first... they have this full-body scanner, where you step onto this pedestal and stand perfectly still while all these scanners and things input you in 3-D into this Silicon Graphics computer... and then you get to preview the model of yourself on this screen, and see if you want it "printed" out on this "object printer" thing. It's so cool... there's this layer of plastic resin or something, and a laser inscribes it, and wherever the laser touches, the liquid becomes solid... then it lowers that layer, and starts working on another one. And after a few hours, voila!, a perfect little figurine of you! So I figured we could put together a chess set with all the people from Hull... with Comma as King of course... they have three object printers, with three different resin colors (brownish, bluish, and greenish)... we decided to go with the brown and the green, kind of a nature theme, good juxtaposition with the heavy techno theme of our lives. I went down there with Ann and Brandy this past week and checked it out... Brandy got a scan, but the printers were down. The scan alone cost $29.95! The figures range from $19.99 for the smallest to about a hundred for the largest. So our chess set is gonna cost us at least a grand, but Comma likes the idea and says he'll chip in for part of it. When we were down there I bought a few bootleg videos... of "The Cable Guy" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". Ann and Brandy think I'm crazy paying $10 for a shitty bootleg rather than spend $8 to see it in glorious cinema. But who has time to go to the movies? "Cable Guy" was alright. Kinda cool to see Jim Carrey in a darker movie, a movie that's at least ambitious, at least trying to do something more than be a backdrop for Carrey's "genius". With all these thoughts ringing in my mind, I got out of bed, naked, and headed for the bathroom to piss. Looking down at my body, I marveled at it... so frail... so real... if I jumped out the window, I'd be killed... I know this probably doesn't sound like something that should excite me, but it's like... like the feeling you get when you're out all day in the heat in oppressive clothes, and finally come home and strip them all off and take a shower... all of my invulnerability and superstrength and power served as a security blanket... but life is boring when you know that no matter what happens, you'll just keep on ticking... I had my HUMANITY back... and it felt wonderful... But what if I DID die here? What would happen? Would I be whisked back to the Warhome, the whole thing having been as a dream? Or would I indeed be dead, faced with whatever afterlife this world has to offer? I didn't know. I also didn't know how long my memories of my "real" life would last. As I pissed, I realized that I was fully aware of everything... my induction into Overwhelm... my introduction to Agoopish... my mission for the Caxopy sisters with the Cup of Coffee... the Goodbye Popcorn and being erased from existence... my salvation by Ultra Occult Entity Obfuser... Wreckage Mallie's gun kemig call that ruined and crashed the universe... and the fall into nothingness, where I reached out and created a Land of my own... my resurrection of Red Archer Booze after Prince Ferrajalt killed her... to getting booted out of my own Land by Booze and Sleap Drassy... to my meeting up with Agatha Petunia Wack... back to my apartment at Greatwall, back to the Cup of Coffee... then Ferrajalt walked in... then I got the psychic plea from Bellicose Billion... and we went off to save him... and wound up a million miles out on Twicvion Lane... and made Warhomes out of the buttons in Ferrajalt police uniform... to the endless days and weeks of driving along... of masturbation and frustration... till finally I reached out and made a new life for myself here... And I smiled as I shook the leftover urine off the end of my penis, as it came to mind a whole mindfuck, of all of that maybe being a fantasy, with this new life being my true life... living with two sets of memories is mentally stressful... but I like not knowing... I like being unsure... I like being human again. -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----