|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- TO VIXENWAY--CUP 4--"GLANCED OFF" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  To Vixenway  ||  -------> (Cup SRtv004, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = She spun her miraculous lasso and aimed for a part of a railing on the UFO's underside. She had to steer toward some particularly sharp and nasty rocks to get a good shot. Seconds away from painful impact, she let the lasso fly, and it found its mark. She moved her left hand from the handlebars and grasped the rope. But there was too much slack. Her bike died right at the moment it crashed into the rocks. She shut her eyes tight, clenched her entire body, and waited for impact. It happened a split second later. Ouch. A regular human would have been splattered like a bug. But Fluffy was a goddess. She survived. But she was knocked silly, bruised, cut, and similarly injured. She lay there for a few moments, absolutely dazed, when she began to move across the rocks. She still had a tight death kinda grip on the rope, which had been pulled taut by the movement of the UFO, and was now pulling her. Before she could get her bearings, she slammed into and glanced off another jutting rock. Ow. Her eyes were full of tears as she looked up at the UFO that had her in tow. Every new moment brought a militia of little rocks, stones, prickly weeds, etc. assaulting her lovely body. She frowned and cursed as she began doing what she had to do--climbing hand-over-hand up the rope. She could have let go of course, but after wasting her bike and getting beaten to a pulp, she kind of figured it was a goal worth attaining. It was slow going, and her body rang with pain. Huh. She thought of the many discussions she had over the millennia over the nature of the godbody. Of the relationship between pleasure and pain. About how they were one and the same thing, just on different ends of the same continuum. Of how gods must endure the possibility of pain if they hoped to feel the ecstasy of pleasure. Not that there was a choice. This was the way it was. Immortal, never dying, but still able to be hurt. And she couldn't remember ever being hurt worse than this. Ever so slowly she made her progress, hand-over-hand. Then as the UFO pulled her up a hill, and she pulled herself up one more torturous tug, she ascended. As the hill dropped down below her, she was in the air, hanging straight down from the UFO. Seeing another hill approaching, Fluffy redoubled her efforts and climbed faster, just clearing the next hill. And soon, she got to the railing her lasso had caught, climbed over it, and fell, exhausted and limp, onto the platform. Peering through black, puffy eyes, Fluffy smiled as she saw the hills and rocks passing by below her. Then she turned and looked at her new surroundings. A big platform, with stairs leading up to unknown places. But she was in no shape to travel. So she rolled over, reached into her jacket, and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the camp-in-bottle was still intact. Lucky she stuck it in her jacket before she went to sleep. She unscrewed the lid and moaned in pain as she rolled onto her side and poured the orange liquid onto the wooden boards of the platform. "Please work." she groaned, and it did. A flash and puff of smoke and it was there, a fresh campsite. She got up on all fours and crawled over to the tent. Once inside, she stripped off all her clothes--an extremely painful job--and slid inside the sleeping bag. Almost immediately, she passed out. -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----