|| -------- -- -----  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 11--"STRAIGHT TO THE FARM" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  A Road Map of Arctica  ||  -------> (Cup SRrm011, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = "Hi. Daptin Gone." I said. "Abigail Trouncer the Cot." she said with a smile and I raised an eyebrow and motioned for her to sit as I did, and she did. "So, you're thinking of joining the, uh, cast of Hull TV, huh?" "I guess. My friend Gail told me a little about it. It sounds kinda neat, but I just don't know about it yet." I nodded and we had a little awkward silence that was made flirtatious by her eyes. "So, uh..." I said, awkwardly grabbing her bio page from Comma's massive desk and looking down at it, "Trouncer the Cot... that's uh... that's some name." "Yeah it's my stage name. Stage SPELLING, actually. No one can pronounce my name when they see its real spelling. Here..." and she fished through her little purse and extended her driver's license to me. I took it and read her name: "Abigail Tirnciarivecotnie". "Wow." I said, handing it back and shaking my head. "I'm not even gonna try." "Well," she said, taking it back, "It's 'trouncer the cot', that's the right pronunciation. Old Church Slavonic." I nodded, raising both eyebrows. "So... so you changed the spelling... so that..." "Yeah. I figured I could change it, but I like the way it looks spelled like that. And it gets people's interest, they just have to ask me in what way, shape or form I'm a cot!" I laughed and nodded, and there was another of those great awkward silences. "So." she finally said. "You guys get free tickets to Letterman here?" I laughed again (laughter is a good release for sexual tension I guess) and said "Nope. You might think, but we don't. I guess the Letterman Show is just this kind of annoying thing to us." "Really, why?" she asked, kind of seriously, and I regretted that she didn't get the gist of what I was saying. "Well... you know... all the tourists and assorted thrill seekers hanging around out there hoping to catch a glimpse of some glamorous celebrity... and Dave's various shenanigans like shooting watermelons from cannons and shit like that, closing the street, and..." "I don't know, sounds kinda neat." she said. "Yeah, I guess it is, a little." She nodded, and we stared at each other. After a few moments, she said "Do I know you from somewhere?" I smiled a nervous smile and felt flushed. "Um... I don't know... you ever been to Agoopish or Aconck or Gnoboslast or Rillekon's Road?" Heck, it couldn't hurt. "What are those, clubs?" "Um... yeah... you ever been to those clubs?" She smiled. "Never heard of 'em. I'm from upstate. I don't get to Manhattan very often." "No?" "Uh-uh." So I kept talking to her and we were getting along pretty well, and we shared that we were both seeing people, and that kind of made things more calm, and she said how she was staying on her parents' farm in Delhi, a town upstate, while they were on vacation, and how she was going up there with her boyfriend and if me and Bonnie (my girlfriend) wanted to come up for the weekend. She said she'd really like to talk to someone from Hull about Hull TV cuz she had this really strong hunch that she was gonna get involved. I told Abigail I'd call my girlfriend, and I got Abigail's number to call her about it just as Comma came back in. "I hope Daptin gave you a good PR speech for Hull." Comma said, and Abigail nodded sweetly. I left, lunging for a phone as soon as I was out of sight and called my girlfriend. Anyway, to make a long story short, I managed to convince a skeptical Bonnie to go to the farm with Abigail and her boyfriend. She asked me the boyfriend's name, and I realized Abigail didn't mention it. So I ran back to the office but Abigail was gone. Comma smiled at me and held out a scrap of paper. "She left this for you. She said she was going straight to the farm, whatever that means, and that if you're going you should follow these directions and get there tonight, or else call, she said you had the number." I nodded, took the piece of paper, and glanced at the directions. I had a weird feeling about this... -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----