 )- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(

                     s$sssss$s gsssssg s$sssss$s         s$sssss$s
            s$sssss$ss$     $ s$     $xx$     $ s$sssss$xx$     $
             $     $  $     $  $     $ s$sssss$s $     $  $     $
             $     $  $     $  $     $           $     $  $     $
             $     $  $     $  $     $           $     $  $     $
             $     $  $     $  $     $ s$sssss$s $     $  $     $
             $     $  $     $  $     $  $     $  $     $  $     $
             $     $  $     $  $     $  $     $  $     $  $     $
            d$     $b"$"""""$"d$     $xx$sssss$sd$     $xx$sssss$
           d$T"""""T$b       d$T"""""$$b"     "d$T"""""T$b"
           `T^      ^T'       `T^     ^T'      `T^      ^T'
             `       '          `      '         `       '
                       )- doomed to obscurity e'zine -(
                     )- issue number 21 - may 22, 1997 -(

                  "i ain't a' marchin' anymore." - phil ochs

 )- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(

 "indescribably wet fellatio"
 by - styx

        i'd like to start off by saying that it takes just as much energy to
 hate as it does to love, and no matter which you choose to focus your energy
 on, you end up with the same result anyway; mornings with weird shit on your
 dick and a headache THIS BIG.

        it also takes just as much energy to write as it does to piss, and
 no matter which you choose to focus your energy on, you end up with the same
 result anyway; relief and a flushed toilet.

        "no matter how much you shake and dance,
         the last few drops end up in your pants."

        that was written in a bathroom stall in high school that i used to
 sneak smokes in after class.  a teacher caught me once.  mr. zimmer.  i was
 peeing at the same time i was smoking, and he said "turn around, boy."  and
 i did; a lit cigarette dangling from my mouth and a dribbling penis dangling
 from my crotch.  he didn't think i'd do it.  he said "pull your damned pants
 up!"  "takes too much energy," i said.  a three day suspension for public
 exposure.  not a word was mentioned about smoking on school property.  i
 asked the deans why.  "takes too much energy."
        
        and here i am, writing about it instead of pissing.  why?  here's
 why.

        an old, now defunct e'zine started by jamesy called MiLK was home to
 the most fantastic piece of writing i've ever read.  it was written by
 medicine man; issue #016.  what a specimen this guy was.  he said something
 in the file, and ever since then i haven't peed.

        he said "oog naga soog zee ma zan."

        thanks, medicine man.  this, the twenty-first issue of doomed to
 obscurity, is dedicated to you... wherever you are.

	 p.s. - medicine man, if you ever read this, send your full name and
                home address to dropdead@mindspring.com so i can come over
                and piss all over your sorry ass.  i've been saving it up
                just for the occasion!

       p.p.s. - jamesy, our wonderful html/cgi/whatever wizard, has put up a
                super-neat bulletin board on the www, dubbed "webegade," 
                called "obloid sphere," which was the name of his original
                bbs located somewhere near a corn field.  you can find it
                at http://www.dto.net/board/ - post, post, post!  it's the
                next best place to talk to your favorite dto writers
                besides irc, except on the obloid sphere, you can get a
                userlist and a .sig file!  thanks, jamesy!

     p.p.p.s. - DUMMERCON 3, the annual e'zine convention, coming soon!
                get up-to-date information at http://www.dto.net/dummercon/.
                if you don't attend we will pull a drive-by and pop a cap
                in your ass, fool, so don't front.  the dto crew has
                connections.

   p.p.p.p.s. - this issue has a lot of sex.

 p.p.p.p.p.s. - on with the show!  enjoy!

                                     ____
                                  ___|  |_ _
                               ___|  |  _______
                               |     |  |     |
 )- -------------------------- |  |  |  |  |  | -------------------------- -(
                               |  |  |  |  |  |
      doomed to obscurity #21  |  |  |  |  |  |  and all contents therein...
                               |  |  |  |  |  |
 )- -------------------------- |  |  |  |  |  | -------------------------- -(
                               |_____|  |_____|
                                     |___ _

  1.> "indescribably wet fellatio" -- by styx
  2.> doomed to obscurity #21 and all contents therein...
  3.> "shiny new car (typical generic love story)" - by zircus
  4.> "darkness" -- by creed
  5.> "smother" -- by eerie
  6.> "cry baby cry" -- by mooer
  7.> "god hates you" -- by jamesy
  8.> "elvis does it again" -- by squinky
  9.> "condiments chapter 101:  not so fancy ketchup" -- by murmur
 10.> "the chaos theory; thursday, july 21" -- by eerie
 11.> "regrets -- first blood, part two" -- by jamesy
 12.> "counterpart" -- by crank
 13.> "xyz, abc, & me" -- by mogel
 14.> "more from, and yet more from" -- by murmur
 15.> "herpes is forever" -- by puck

 )- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(

 "shiny new car (typical generic love story)"
 by - zircus

        i all at once recall the scary man.  the nutcase with the whistling
 nostrils.  such trauma never exposes itself until too late to be important.
 it was fictitious history 'til now.  recollection after repression.
 knowledge is death.

        on that night, he smiled.  a wide eyed lunatic smile which said
 "i'm-mr.-obsessive-and-there's-nothing-you-can-do-about-it."  i figured it
 was my pre-menstrual paranoia, and ignored his eyes, swimming in the
 vomitous froth of his sickening acne.  so ugly to the point of appeal.  i
 lusted for his potential to be the mad hatter in a three piece argyle
 forgotten nightmare such as this.  i never expected the actual ride,
 however.

        he introduces himself as sucriz.  a name to be reckoned with.  this
 man is dangerously wacky.  i want.  the usual hitting-on pick-up bullshit
 ensued, with tactical beyond-spastic strategic twists, and phone numbers
 were exchanged.

        he arrives two hours on time.  strange.  i am ready, of course.  i
 expected this.

        "how about a little ride in the car, cherry?  eh?  a ride in my car?
 eh?  would you like that?  huh, cherry?  i bet you'd like a ride in my big
 car.  i have a car, you know.  i bet you'd like to ride in it for awhile,
 eh?"

        a sexual moan, cutoff in the middle, is all i can muster.  this will
 be midnight, i just know these things.  midnight on rye.  midnight on rye.
 in car i am.  ride with him.  we drive and spin and shuck and jive down
 slurry bumpkin after swervy turnaround get down.  he drives well.  i admire
 his new tires.

        "how about a drink, cherry?  eh?  a drink?  some champagne?  eh?  i
 have champagne, you know.  champagne?  would you like some?  eh?!  i bet
 you'd like something to drink, cherry.  eh?  something to drink?"

        i drink.  much.  bumpkins become slurrier and turnarounds become
 swervier.  we needn't be careful.  this man has the world up his nose.  i've
 seen the likes of this before.  it's called seductive milkman syndrome.  i
 want.  i long to be sucked into this.  i half-moan again.  and drink more.
 and my world shimmers with crystallized bubbly spin-cycle craziness.  you're
 a great artist.  i admire your penis.

        "how bout a bite to eat, cherry?  i have italian at home.  eh?
 spaghetti cherry?  eat some.  eh?  would you like some spaghetti, cherry?
 eh?  i bet you'd like some spaghetti.  eh?  eh?"

        straight to the point with no holds barred.  i become under with
 zang and plutonium death crazy bells whistle.  he makes the noodles in me
 spin crazy-like.  i am not crazy.  i am craziER!  and he is at the center of
 it.  i want to fuck.  fuck because i'm crazy.  but i keep guard up.  not
 that crazy yet, just remixed.

        "i bet you want to season that, cherry.  eh?  parmesan?  eh?  i have
 some wonderful parmesan cheese for those noodles, cherry?  you'd like that,
 wouldn't you?  i know you're kind.  you want my noodles all covered in
 parmesan, just like that.  isn't it?  you want some, i know you do.  huh,
 cherry?  huh?  eh?  speak up now.  answer like a good girl.  eh?"

        upside down he looks stares with the phrase of the thinking "i could
 cut you" i get the gist he means to believe i'm fully under.  but not.   i'm
 not.  he... means... to.  i need him this very moment.  but a little
 parmesan first.  that couldn't hurt.  i moan.  not so halfway this time.
 he senses my clitoral topsy turvy and moves with the slickness of a brand
 new jcpenny raincoat.  first time used.  ever.  yeah.  i moan.  with hunger
 i moan.  i like spaghetti.

        "and what you will have to dessert, cherry, is this.  eh?  you know
 what i'm giving you for dessert, cherry?  eh?  huh?  here's some red rope.
 have some red rope, cherry.  looks tasty, doesn't it?  eh?  you want some
 rope, cherry?  eh?  whatta ya say, eh?"

        ooooh.  i am glistening.  look at me.  a sexual hungersome derelict
 me under hypersane.  i am completely that.  just his.  me and my food and
 rope.  all mine.  and my nutcase, too.  all for the taking.  no sense in the
 resistance.  i am his now.  bound and nothing else to do about it but cover
 up and forget once it's over.

        "you look good, cherry.  yeah.  yeah.  oh you look so good.  you
 know what, cherry?  eh?  i want to feed you some more.  how about a little
 music?  some sexy music?  would you like that?  eh?  i know you'd like that.
 music soothes the palette of the deepest hunger, you know.  you knew that,
 didn't you?  eh?  huh?  didn't you, cherry?  eh?"

        moan.  all i can muster is my representation of monkeys.  he likes
 monkeys.  i can tell.  he has pierced my brain with monkeys.  he would
 rather no other sound.

        "how about a little fucking, cherry?  eh?  a little fucking?  you'd
 like my fucking.  sex is food.  you know that, eh?  huh, cherry?  didn't you
 know that?  eh?  would you like a little fucking?  you wanna fuck?  eh?
 fuck?  fuck.  fuck.  fuck fuck fuck?  eh?"

        he is within my soul.  my vagina is a giant stomach, being fed with
 every emotion known to the human soul.  he fucks me.  much.  and my eyes
 spin with with insanity of a new acid cartoon, wet with the ink of madness.
 i am being fucked to the brink of madness.  and for once, i am truly happy.

 )- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(

 "darkness"
 by - creed

        gabriel had encountered a darkness stronger than death itself.  all
 was black in this horrible new world he had found.  he felt his flesh grow
 numb, and his soul underneath blacken.  a pungent stench surrounded him...
 it reminded him of rotting flesh, but not quite human... it reeked as the
 flesh of a long-dead beast.

        gabriel remembered his survival training, back from the junior
 militia down in guatemala.  it seemed like almost twenty years ago...
 (actually it was nineteen years and 239 days).  yes, he remembered what the
 american officer had told him that day:  "if you're in a situation where
 there might be chemicals in the air, take very short breaths, through some
 sort of filter if possible, and hold them inside for as long as possible."
 this would be the only way to survive.

        gabriel closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.  cold, thin air rushed
 into his lungs.  he bit his lower lip, tensed his muscles, and prepared for
 death.  as he sat there, waiting to die in the freezing black hole he had
 found himself in, he gazed, as if hypnotized, at the backs of his eyelids.
 it was amazing.  he had never actually seen the backs of his own eyelids
 before.  they were pretty dark.  in fact, he stroked his own eyes just to
 make sure they were actually closed.  actually, only his left eye was
 closed, as he had lost his right one in a staple-gun fight back in third
 grade.  remembering this, gabriel removed his finger from his empty right
 eye socket and continued to gaze, with his only good eye.  it was still
 really dark.

        gabriel separated his two dry lips and spoke quietly to himself.
 "maybe if i got a light i could see the back of my eyelid more clearly.
 damn, if i only had brought my lighter or something."  upon hearing this, he
 realized he was actually screaming at the top of his lungs.  he blushed and
 reached down to his right pocket to see if he had brought his cigarette
 lighter.  after fumbling around for a few seconds, gabriel again came to the
 realization that he was somehow lacking in body parts.  just as he began to
 recall the memory of falling asleep on the train tracks back in cincinnati,
 a bright light appeared in front of his face.  suddenly a tall, dark-haired
 man with blond hair was standing in front of him, gazing directly into his
 eyes.

        "lenny," he said, annoyed, "what the hell are you doing in the
 refrigerator?"

        lenny blinked, dazed by the recollection that his name wasn't
 actually gabriel.  this piercing thought had caused him to forget about the
 question he was just asked, so he continued to look confusedly at the man
 standing in front of him.  he was dressed in army greens, just like lenny's,
 except for the long pants and all the green-tinted garments.  lenny looked
 down at his shirt and noticed the enormous guacamole stain on his left
 sleeve.

        the soldier sighed loudly and walked away from the refrigerator
 without closing it.  lenny shook his head for the complete lack of
 consideration.  thank goodness he was there to close it for him, that
 careless jerk... lenny leaned forward to close the door in front of him, and
 with all of his might, he pulled it shut in front of him, sealing him off
 from the outside world once again.

        lenny had encountered a darkness stronger than death itself.

 )- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(

 "smother"
 by - eerie

        the first thing you need when you tell a story is a beginning.  bite
 me if this sounds obvious, it's not obvious at all, because yeah, sometimes
 you're in a beginning mood but sometimes you're in an ending mood, &
 sometimes you're in whore mode & all you do is wish you had any mood at all.
 maybe i should begin with that night, around 2 a.m., some party that i left
 when i found out that mia had been tripping pretty badly & ran away
 somewhere, trying to cope.  i had only taken two hits, i was walking empty
 streets, counting the prettily aligned houses with no lights on, nothing but
 an easy moon caressed with snowy black clouds.  my stomach hurt, i felt
 nauseous, i was alone & i couldn't help it & i took a shit next to the
 river, paranoid to a point where i crapped my undies, threw them in the
 water, wiped my ass with leaves, losing breath everytime i heard a car
 engine roar.  might have been the cops.

        where's mia?  it had only been a few minutes that felt like awful
 hours.  my stomach was revulsing against itself.  synapses in my brain were
 crashing against my skull in a much too mathematical way.  chemicals, mia
 said.  they rearrange it all, & your body then tries to get rid of it.  i
 wish i had counterparts made of plasma, she added, none of that electronic
 crap.  she reads too many comic books.  that would be a trip, she said,
 because the counterparts would try to control you like trying to set order
 within a starfield, & you'd hate it so much, your crazy algorithms would
 stance against that intrusion & my, your whole being would slip, slip, slip,
 you'd never stop slipping, never, until one wins & kills the other.  it'd be
 clash of the titans, chaos vs. order, not just white vs. black.  more like
 everything fights nothing, who wins?  most likely the fight itself.

        i don't remember what happened but there i was, in this guy's room,
 he said, you left the party?  i said yeah, i felt like erasing things, he
 said you're fucked up.  i had to fight against my body's will to throw up
 whatever was left inside my stomach.  on his walls there were tints of blues
 & reds, visuals & moving relievo, always close to opening.  this crack near
 where his head lied looked like a white cunt.  he offered me beer & weed &
 as i was breathing out a huge cloud of smelly smoke he rested his head on my
 shoulder & mumbled sweet cheesy things i didn't want to resist to, kissed me
 behind the ear lobe then set his hands curling on my cheeks, & my left hand
 was still holding the joint with its tiny red fire & its swirl of
 transparent blur.  i inhaled some more, then delivered some co2 through a
 kiss.  he didn't wait too long before reaching bare skin, but i didn't mind,
 i wanted some too, i even unbuttoned his jeans, & he unzipped mine, & i had
 nothing under so he figured, probably means he can get in, but i let him, i
 was wet & he was hard, & what more can you ask, i wasn't all that innocent.
 the fuck was average yet it felt good, i was on a down, alleviated with the
 sweet burnt organics so he pushed inside me & pulled & pushed, i didn't want
 to be too loud & i moaned scatteredly, his parents were sleeping on the
 first floor he had told me, ungh, push, pull, uuunggh, push, pull, drop,
 hhhhh, hhhh, my nails had made a little bleeding scratch on his right leg,
 hidden under all that hair.  it probably added to the excitement.

        how was it? he asked, & i smiled, feeling the sperm running down
 inside my belly & down my legs, & normally i'm angry at gravity but i didn't
 care & i soiled his bed contentedly.  thirty minutes later i kissed him on
 the forehead, sat down & pulled on my jeans.  he said something about my
 sweet piece of ass, & from the second i was all dressed up he pushed me back
 on the mattress & brutally kissed, assaulted me with lips & hands & half
 bearded cheeks.  guess i should have known better, maybe i should have left
 the place before his dick could recover, maybe i wanted more anyway, & so he
 got me half naked, on my knees, open wide, still moist from last time,
 sticked his thing inside again, he wanted to do it backwards, that was okay,
 i was tired of his face already, & the vaginal lips on the wall kept
 swallowing nothing, i almost wanted to lick them just to see if they could
 be warmed up.  push, pull, push, hhhhhhh, pull, push, unnnhhhh, pull, push,
 pull, the wall was such a pretty sight but then i threw up on his pillow, a
 full load of yellow/orange liquid half-ingested beer right where my left
 hand was, push, pull, hhhhh, push, pull, push.

        i was so exhausted i had to make an effort not to fall on the vomit.
 he knew i had just soiled his pillow, so why did he have to finish it?  he
 sat on his bed, with no expression on his face but bare male contentment,
 his dick still ungracefully spurting white stuff.  i didn't say a word.
 through his bedroom window there was a palette of dark blues.  i went
 outside, silently, my hand smelled awful, liquid was running down my legs
 under my jeans.  mia was in drexel park, laid down on the grass, admiring
 the greatness of the morning sky.  isn't it wonderful? she asked without
 even turning her face to look at me, & i said, yeah.  isn't life awesome?
 she asked, & i said, yeah.  so where were you? she asked.  i don't know his
 name, i said.  then she opened her back pack, asked if i wanted candy.  i
 wiped my hand on the grass, & ate a kit kat & a mars bar.  with her eyes
 closed, she looked completely out of all reality.  i would have kissed her
 if my lips hadn't been just used.  morning came.  things were good.

 )- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(

 "cry baby cry"
 by - mooer

        "get off the cross; we need the wood."

        he took me by surprise, assaulted me by the weak of my heart.
           
        i was weeping for a long, suffering time.  what i claimed as my small
 part of life, choked me, made me stand before a 6 story window, staring at
 the death of my body, which only wanted to share my heart's fate.  i was 12.
 only 6x2.

        i breathed.  breathed for the first time.  i could escape this way.
 inhaling the darkness made me taste my tears.  crying was only outside-like.
 it had no effect on the living my heart was doing.  living, like the other
 catholic school girls did. they actually thought christ cared.  christ the
 father.  christ, life was only so much.  who gave a fuck about the
 soy-saucey wine that made my stomach rumble?

        i opened the screen door.  one foot out.  6 stories of falling, i
 thought.  my choice.  i was less fearful of the drop than of my father's
 hand.  he beat me.  not my insides, they were too small.  he beat my
 outside, my arms, my back, my face.  how could he touch me so strongly?  did
 he not see me?  i never felt pain.  blank_____.  i turned into the
 floppy-no-joints girl, tumbling to the ground, never resisting.  i was
 broken.

        he touched my baby brother -- could i have some of the sweet blood
 that makes you so mad? -- my baby brother.  baby cried out.  pain still felt
 for him.  drunk with youngness, i yelled the loudest i ever have:

        "NO."

        he finally stopped his rage.  the father fell more than 6 stories.
 his intoxication was no longer because of the 20 million beers he had had;
 now, it was sadness. so, i leapt that day from my window; naked, only in
 clothes.

        he took me by surprise, assaulted me by the weak of my heart.

        i met a guy in my 17th summer.  he was my first sex.  i raped myself.
 my mind fucked my body.  his penis was only twin to the rage that died on
 that 6 story day.  i was so numb.  my beaten arms, back and face expressed
 the intoxication of rape.  denial only laughed at oedipus.  what had i just
 done?

        christ, the father.

 )- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(

 "god hates you"
 by - jamesy

        yes, it's very true; god hates YOU.  you and your pathetic belief
 system.  you really think he said all that crap in the bible?  you really
 believe that if there was an all-powerful, all-knowing god he'd be letting
 idiots like YOU preach your hatred?  of course not.

        if there is some sort of creator of our universe, it is certainly
 not the one you envision.  i don't need any _book_ to tell me what to
 believe.  it's simple.  try to respect others if at all possible.  we're all
 in this little game called life together, why fight when we can love?

        i guess you missed that point, though.  you have your little pickets
 and your marches proclaiming, "god hates fags."  and "AIDS kills fags dead."
 well, great.  freedom of speech for you.  but, unfortunately for you, i have
 freedom of speech, too!

        _you_ are the greatest offender here.  you attack people who have no
 control of their sexual preference.  you throw your hatred at people who
 haven't done a single thing to you, and little to no influence on your life.
 oh, don't even _start_ with that sodom and gomorrah crap.  no one buys it.
 you're using a book (an outdated book, at that) to try to explain your
 hatred.  no, my fine feathered friend, the only NAZIS in this country right
 now are the types like YOU, that try to use religion to spread hatred
 towards others.

        - brought to you by your fuzzy pals at dto.

 )- -- -(

        there is a web site out there with the DNS www.godhatesfags.com.  it
 is ran by a loony fundamentalist who curses out christians who talk about
 salvation, says all us "fag-lovers" are going to burn in hell, yadda yadda.
 here's a fun excerpt from the page:

        "The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, engages in daily
         peaceful sidewalk demonstrations opposing the homosexual lifestyle
         of soul-damning, nation-destroying filth.  We display large,
         colorful signs containing Bible words and sentiments, including:
         GOD HATES FAGS, FAGS HATE GOD, AIDS CURES FAGS, THANK GOD FOR AIDS,
         FAGS BURN IN HELL, NO TEARS FOR QUEERS, SIN & SHAME NOT PRIDE,
         FAG=ANAL SEX=DEATH, FAG=AIDS=DEATH, GOD IS NOT MOCKED, FAGS ARE
         NATURE FREAKS, GOD GAVE FAGS UP, NO SPECIAL LAWS FOR FAGS, etc."

         since we here at dto believe strongly in feedback, i've set up a
 quick-and-painless way you can tell our friend at www.godhatesfags.com what
 you really think of him.  the above is a simple, ready-made form letter you
 can mail the guy.  please, take a moment of your day to go to:

                      http://www.dto.net/godhatesyou.html

        and enter your first name at the prompt and hit "submit."  hell,
 hit it two or three times.  it can't hurt.  this guy is certainly looking
 for a reaction, so let's give him one!  (like 50 messages a day in his inbox
 to start).  or, you could mail him yourself.  his email address is
 wbc@EPLEX.COM.

        and, if you're crazy enough to think anything this guy says is
 correct, please, take a moment to look over your beliefs.  homosexuality is
 not a "fad"; it's a genetically-defined preference.  people don't _choose_
 to be gay.  they just _are_.  and just like racism, hating people for
 something they cannot control is wrong.  you may not like it, you may not
 encourage it, but you must accept it.  it's been around since the dawn of
 mankind, and it isn't going anywhere.  it is part of our culture.  it is,
 finally, going to be understood.  and it's about time you understood it.

 )- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(

 "elvis does it again"
 by - squinky

        this is the climax scene in act iv of my yet unproduced script to the
 newest movie, "radioactive flesh".  in order for you to get the feel, you've
 got to picture the character of jake being portrayed by elvis presley, and
 marianne being portrayed by some dumb bimbo.  or patroclus.

         jake:  shoot, ma'am, it was just that... (with reserve) i was kinda
                hoping that you might to go out dancing with me.  sometime,
                that is.  don't have to be right or nothin', just some time.
                soon.

     marianne:  jake, lissun, if you're all gonna be asking me out and such,
                perhaps you should first call me by my name, 'marianne',
                instead of ma'am.  tarnation, make me feel like my mother
                with all your proper speak.

         jake:  sorry, ma'-- marianne!  it's just that i'm a little shy at
                things like this, and i didn't want to come on strong or
                none.

     marianne:  i reckon.

         jake:  so, how about it, marianne, you wanna go dancin'?

     marianne:  now jake, listen here.  you're a nice boy, and i like you
                very much, but sometimes there's this thing called
                circumstance.

         jake:  oh.

     marianne:  now, circumstance dictates in a lot of situations, and this
                here happens to be one of them.  i mean, if i wasn't in where
                i am, i'd surely date you, i surely would.

         jake:  another fella, huh?

     marianne:  something like that.

         jake:  he's not going to be upset that a youngin' was out asking you
                for your company, was he?

     marianne:  well, i reckon he probably would be.  see, he's a very...
                what you call... sensitive individual.

         jake:  why's that?

     marianne:  the kobek entity is formed in the nineteen-seventies,
                becoming a conglomeration sometime around the age of two
                years.  forced through rigorous mental tortures in the next
                thirteen years, it becomes a functioning controller sometime
                around the age sixteen.

         jake:  whut's this?

     marianne:  the kobek entity fixates upon the location of artaud, circa
                1949, moments before death.  the kobek entity splits itself
                into thirteen different drone robots which function in only
                two dimensions: height and time.  the drone robots pass into
                1949 and capture the brain of artaud moments before his
                death.  the reanimation techniques the kobek entity prefers
                are based on the ground-breaking work of herbert west.  the
                major drawback in the technique is the need for absolutely
                undamaged tissue.  kobek extracts the brain before artaud
                dies, and immediately moves the brain forward in time to
                august, 1996.  here the kobek entity has set up the
                laboratory in which the brain of artaud is dully placed into
                the body of a woman.  first discovering the idea in a novel
                by heinlein called _i will fear no evil_, the kobek entity
                follows through with its hideous and horrendous plan.  artaud
                is reanimated within the body of woman, to serve the lechery
                of kobek.

                        A SAMPLE OF THEIR FIRST CONVERSATION IS AS FOLLOWS:

                       kobek:  mademoiselle artaud, it is you I am wanting.
                      artaud:  tell me why.
                       kobek:  the inability to function as a heterosexual
                               within the confines of feminine stupidity has
                               driven me to the extreme measures.  you are
                               the only brain i want to fuck.
                      artaud:  every time a man or a woman has an orgasm, i
                               dissipate a little more.
                       kobek:  your sanity will return, mademoiselle, once
                               you find yourself within the trying opium
                               addictions and stomach pains and debilitating
                               illnesses that plagued your other form in the
                               past.

                artaud continually refuses to give in to the demands of the
                lecher, and eventually finds herself banned to another
                existence.  during the night she is in kobek's dreams,
                serving only as a sex-drone.  as the rhythmic thrusting
                continues on and on, throughout the rem state, artaud screams
                out in agony "all writing is pigshit!" and other classic
                catch-phrases such as "for i was inca, but not king!"  during
                the day, while the kobek entity traverses through the waking
                world, the artaud creature is banished forever to haunt art
                of an insidious making.  trashed movie scripts, books of
                modern poetry, and the corpus of ben jonson is where she
                spends most of her days.

         jake:  wait.  i reckon i don't understand much of what you just
                said, but i do reckon that i heard some talk about haunting
                trashed movie scripts.  you ain't artaud, is you?
				    
     marianne:  unfortunately, yes.  the only feeble amusement i might but
                get out of this entire endeavor would be the purging, once
                more, of my soul.  each work of abysmal art that i wander
                through strips me a little of this penetrating blackness that
                i can not and will not be able to escape until finally i die,
                if such things are but possible.

         jake:  you wanna die?  why don't you just a' kill yourself?

     marianne:  well, it's not that simple.  my existence is no longer a
                corporal one.  it's... different now.  i function only in
                imaginary states, trapped within a body not mine own, and
                other horrible things you can't imagine and i will not name.

         jake:  recent studies have shown that the epistle of st. paul to the
                romans is the key to death.

     marianne:  oh?  it has been a long time, almost sixty years now, since
                i've read st. paul.  i can't remember if they let me have it
                at rodez.  rodez is a complete blur of identity and agony.

         jake:  st. paul tells us that sin is death, and that if we have
                faith in christ, we live forever.  so, the inverse is, if we
                sin and sin and sin, without faith in christ, we die.  we
                will die.

     marianne:  i see.  and how exactly do you propose that i sin?

         jake:  let's fuck.

     marianne:  ok.

 )- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(

 "condiments chapter 101:  not so fancy ketchup"
 by - murmur

        it's a big and muddy mudplot in the middle of the scenic cesspool
 and so that's where the feisty little mudmen go on saturday mornings to play
 their feisty little mudmen games.  they play mudball and mudstick and
 mudarse and they do it all in a very scenic and feisty way such that the
 farmers are shocked and enthralled and get super hard-ons all at the same
 time.  then those farmers go back to their farmhouses where they have eight
 wives and forty-plus children and have lots of sex.  birth control and
 television haven't reached these parts yet, you see.  but the mudmen have.
 sometimes they will bring the hammer of doom.  the hammer of doom is a very
 exciting thing if you are a mudman, because it is the hammer of doom.
 nobody really knows what the hammer of doom is or what it does or why
 exactly a mudman is so made happy by the hammer of doom, but nobody really
 understood rock and roll in 1954, did they?  no, sir.  they did not.  and
 they still don't.  and it pisses me off.  goddamned conservative sons of
 bitches.  we really don't need to put up with this bullshit.  if we want to
 listen to cannibal corpse and then fuck our brains out with the use of
 narcotics/virgins/staple guns, we should have that right, and no short fat
 bald man in a leisure suit is gonna tell me any different by jumbo, by
 gumbo, by okra, by alabama, by the grace of the god of the southern states,
 and may they all burn, burn, burn, mercilessly into the ground so we can
 come through with the condos and the condoms and the condiments.  i mean,
 maybe some condos and condoms and condiments are less fancy than others, but
 so long as you have shelter, sex, and food, who really cares?  the mudmen,
 that's who.  that's why they're comin' after you.

        moral:  celebrate!  celebrate!  dance to the music!

 )- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(

 "the chaos theory; thursday, july 21"
 by - eerie

 [ editor's note:  it may be helpful for the reader to note that the prior
   installment of the chaos theory was released in dto #13, quite some time
   ago.  the main character had been confronted by cynthia, who has grown
   increasingly less trustful.  after waking up the following afternoon and
   growing restless once again, he goes over to annie's.  they spend the day
   in the city, go out to dinner, and go back to her apartment.  that night
   he and annie have sex.  the story continues from there... ]

        it was four in the afternoon.  i had just woken up, near coughing
 under the pelting heat.  the bedsheets were laid randomly, half on the bed,
 half on the floor.  i had an awfully hard time sleeping because of the fire
 trucks setting noise on the streets near while i was in this deep oniric
 delirium.  there probably was a fire in the neighborhood.

        i quickly took a shower, vaguely remembering that i had to set things
 straight with my technically-girlfriend cynthia.  annie, as usual, was away.
 i was hesitant about leaving without locking the door, but i didn't have a
 key, & even if i had one, she could have had forgot her keys.

        so i waited, naked, in her room, for her to come back, & in the
 meantime i watched everything i never had a chance to observe.  among other
 things, i found pieces from the fan, on which annie probably cut herself
 because there were a few droplets of blood here & there, on the floor near
 the debris.  i went to the kitchen, looking for a broom, no luck.  however,
 i found some paper towels, which i used to clean up this corner of the room.
 some of the broken parts were pretty sharp, as a matter of fact.

        when she got in, seeing me without a cloth running from her room to
 the kitchen to throw this stuff to the trash, she laughed & called me a
 pervert, then came closer & kissed me lengthily.

        "i took a walk.  (pause, breath.)  wonder if this heat is ending up
 anytime soon."

        i nodded like i had no clue.

        "i gotta go now, i..."

        i was feeling bad about telling her i was going to see cynthia.  she
 laughed, though.

        "you gotta see your girlie?  well, go!  i won't force you to put up
 with me all day!"

        "how can you have such an attitude?"

        "what do you mean?"

        "if i knew you were gonna see your boyfriend, i...  oh well,
 nevermind."

        "you think i'm jealous?"

        "i..."

        "maybe a bit.  but i know that no matter what, whether i look crazy
 or not, you're always coming back."

 )- -- -(

        i was heading for third avenue when i heard a familiar voice behind
 me.

        "hey!  i know you!"

        i turned away.  it was melanie.

        "hey, you're around here pretty often lately.  what are you doing?"

        "uh...  nothing special.  i came to check out this... person i know."

        she laughed.

        "person i know my ass!  still, it's weird that i'm meeting you here.
 & you're not alone, i saw your girlfriend...  cynthia, not long ago."

        "really.  she had work today.  what the fuck was she doing here?"

        "no clue, she was walking.  i only saw her quick.  maybe it was
 someone else."

        pause.

        "& how's your novel doing?"

        "i've got the fifth chapter done.  actually, i was coming back home
 to write another one, but you had to get in my way & prevent me from
 consummating my muse just right now."

        (loud laugh.)  "don't worry, i'm sure you'll find your inspiration
 waiting for you when you're back at your computer."

        "we can only hope!  where were you going?"

        "the bus.  you too, i guess."

        "yeah, so i can get around getting home."

        though, i wasn't really that eager to go home, wondering what kind of
 masochistic need i had to leave annie's cruel sweetness for cynthia's dumb
 conjugal life.  well, i finally got to the apartment on 67th street, where i
 saw my girlfriend, sitting on the couch, bearing no such thing as an
 expression on her face.  i wondered if she was going to shout me out of this
 place or get on her knees begging for pardon.  she did neither.

        "listen to me carefully."  

        "yes?"

        i was bearing a vaguely repenting look.

        "okay.  maybe i was a little too paranoid lately."

        "hm."
	   
        "but maybe you did just as worse with this i'm-not-sleeping-over-
 -tonight thing."

        "hm."

        "so i'm gonna -- forget it.  (she spoke louder, in this tragic tone
 i always feared.)  & be more...  careful in the future, & to..."

        "yes."

        i swallowed down some saliva.

        "but, SHIT, don't you ever do this again!"  tears were dripping
 alongside of her cheeks.  i didn't know what to do.

        "DO YOU LOVE ME?"
	   
        i remained silent for a few seconds, feeling small.

        "LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU.  DO YOU LOVE ME?"

        "YES, I LOVE YOU, CYNTHIA!"

        i didn't know where that sudden burst of anger was coming from.
 neither did her, i believe.  i had the feeling i had broken something that
 couldn't be fixed, & that nothing would really remain the same.  i
 approached her, caressed her hair.  she put her hand in mine, & with the
 other one dried her tears.  it was so obvious that my relationship with this
 girl was nothing but a succession of generic love scenes, endless fights, &
 much, much sex.

        much sex, ending every fight, including this one.  i must admit i
 liked this for a while, but this routine was killing me.

 )- -- -(

        she was laying down on my side, fragile, close to fall into pieces.

        "it's been a while since you said that you love me."

        "i'm sorry."

        "i've always been so nice to you..."

        "it's done, cynthia.  just like all our other fights."

        it was seven in the evening & i was immensely hungry because i hadn't
 eaten of all day.

        "i promised josianne to go see her tonight, she really wanted to see
 me.  (pause.)  tomorrow we could do...  something?  some kind of... make it
 up?"

        "yeah."

        she kissed me tenderly.

        "i don't wanna lose you."

        i almost cried myself.  as i'm writing this down, she's gone & i've
 finally eaten.  i don't know what to do, what to say.  maybe, tomorrow...

 )- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(

 "regrets -- first blood, part two"
 by - jamesy

        i'm an asshole.

        there.  i said it, and i mean it.  i'm an asshole.  i'm not in denial
 anymore.  i'm an asshole.  i'm really an asshole.

        i've been an asshole for a long time.  see, i've always lashed out at
 people, but there's a big difference between lashing out at people who have
 hurt me greatly and lashing out at people who resemble something or someone
 who hurt me greatly.  one is natural, one is being an asshole.

        i want to explain to you why i'm an asshole.  i'm not trying to
 justify being an asshole, i know it's wrong and i know i want to change.
 but change is hard.  change takes a long time.  i want you to understand why
 i'm an asshole so when i am an asshole there's a chance you will be
 forgiving.

        long ago, i wasn't an asshole.  i was a quiet child, i kept to myself
 for the most part, and i was incredibly lonely.  i had few friends, and the
 ones i did have hurt me a lot, both physically and emotionally.  it wasn't
 until high school that i broke out of my shell and became outgoing.

        during this time, i also learned about computers and became a
 computer geek.  i called all the local bbses, blah blah blah.  but i wasn't
 really an asshole then, at least no where near the level i am now.  so
 something must have happened, and i've figured out what.

        no matter how much influence friends have had over me in time, no
 matter how fucked up relationships i've had were, there is only one thing
 i can easily attribute every problem i have with.  during my junior year of
 high school, my mother's current boyfriend moved into my house.  i never got
 along with him, and i still don't, for the most part.  let me quickly give
 you the low-down on this man so you might have a better understanding.
 before he moved in here, my mother was strongly liberal in all her values.
 now she's semi-racist, mostly conservative.  bob has 13 children:  two from
 his ex-wife, 11 others scattered around the united states.  most of them
 he's never met.  and he's never paid a penny in child care for any of them.
 he drinks.  he sits around and watches tv all night.  he works in a muffler
 shop, that is, when he works at all.  "hard work" and "making a decent
 living" are probably the only values he has.  he envies me because my
 parents never made me do all the shit labor he had to do on the farm he
 grew up on.  the only normal conversations i've had with this man are about
 football.

        now, perhaps the typical person could have survived this type of
 situation normally.  but i doubt it.  all the fighting, all the drunkenness,
 my mother coming into my room at 3 a.m., plastered, crying on my shoulder
 saying "he hit me, he hit me!" ... no, i don't think a single person could
 come out of this with all their personality traits unaltered.  what changed
 with me was the way i deal with morality.

        i consider myself a very moral person.  what that means is i have a
 set of rules for myself, and i try to the best i can to follow them.
 sometimes i fuck up.  but, for the most part, i stay on that path.  one of
 them, obviously, is not to have 13 children and not support them.  most of
 what i consider morality is really survivalism:  i don't drink, i don't
 smoke, i don't do drugs, i don't have unprotected sex.  most of the other
 things most people consider morality i don't follow as strongly.  i've
 stolen occasionally, and stealing from those who have everything i don't see
 as that sinful, especially if they never notice.  hurting someone who has
 hurt me is the way i cope with things, and i don't see it as 'wrong'.
 however, now i'm in the habit to hurt people who have beliefs or feelings
 that others who have hurt me have.  that is wrong.

        why do i do this?  well, i think it all comes to bob again.  i
 understand now that bob has been the root of all my problems.  i would have
 never fought with my mother if it wasn't for bob.  i would have never been
 kicked out of the house if it wasn't for bob.  i would have never grown to
 be the person i am if it wasn't for bob.  granted, there are many factors
 that work into this equation, but he is the catalyst for many, if not all,
 of the negative aspects of my personality.  i vigorously attack anyone who
 has any belief that even remotely mirrors his.  homophobia.  sexism. 
 racism.  granted, i would attack anyone with those beliefs anyway, but not
 at the passionate level i do now.

        but it gets even worse, because i attack people who don't have
 dreams, or don't think, because he doesn't have dreams and he doesn't think
 about his future at all, at least not in any reasonable way.

        the bottom line is, i am a giant ball of hate because of this man.
 i was a passionate person before him, and i will still be a passionate
 person after he's gone, but all this passion inside of me, all this hate for
 him, has been manifested into a hate for everyone.  i have hurt many people
 who know nothing about me and have had nothing to do with me.  i'm also
 afraid.  i'm afraid there are more like him out there, and whenever anyone
 emulates any of his traits, i want to destroy them.

        now that i know what i am, maybe i can deal with it.  somehow.  i've
 hated for a long, long time, but now that i know why i hate and what i hate,
 maybe i can deal with it.  i can't kill him, but i can channel my feelings
 in a different way so as to not destroy everyone around me.  it will take a
 long time, but i think i can do it.  but for now, whenever i scream and rant
 and rave at you, remember that i won't be like this forever.  i want to
 change, and i will change.

 )- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
 
 "counterpart"
 by - crank

        as you enter the house, you look around and it's familiar although
 you've never been here before.  there are three young boys - brown hair,
 brown eyes - watching television in the first and rather brightly lit room,
 but you pass them by and walk towards the hallway across the room to the
 left.  the children ignore you.

        at the finish of this particular hallway, there are two doors.  one
 is at the very end of the hall, where a linen closet might go, and the other
 is directly to the right of that door, on the other wall.  both are locked.
 you stand facing the door at the end of the hall, thinking.  it's coming
 back to you, but slowly:  the reasons why you are here.  you quickly slide
 your right foot around until you activate a switch set into the wood floor.
 a rectangular panel opens in this first door, at about eye level.

        looking carefully inside this panel, you notice a string strung
 vertically, and it can be seen neither where it ends nor where it begins.
 you reach in and tug on it.  a hollow 'whoosh' sounds to the right, and you
 spin towards the other door.  the bottom half of it has been sucked into the
 top and there is no trace of what had once been.  on your knees, you crawl
 through the space where the bottom half of the door used to be.

        inside, in what dim light still reaches not only down the hallway but
 through the missing part of the door, you see a large blue contraption.  it
 looks vaguely similar to one of those yellow inflatable pool rafts, except
 that it doesn't seem to have been inflated with anything.  there is also a
 balloon tied to the back end of it with piano wire.  it bobs delicately at
 the end of its metal harness.  dragging the boat-like structure behind you,
 you exit through the halved door.

        positioning the boat in the hallway facing the first door, you adjust
 the angles until they are precise.  they cannot be less than perfect.
 stepping with first your right, then your left, you manage to find your way
 into the boat and sit down.  through the thin vinyl bottom can be felt the
 hardwood floor beneath.  the wire/balloon structure is exactly a foot behind
 you and perfectly aligned with your spine.

        another 'whoosh' and you realize you're traveling upwards, through
 quite a large hole that has recently appeared in the ceiling.  there exists
 no fright.

        as the boat finishes its ascent, you look around to see you've come
 into what seems to be an attic.  there is an elderly man ten or so feet from
 you, mumbling to himself.  he is wrinkled and decayed looking; head thrust
 downwards, hands busily kneading one another.  you remain seated in the
 midnight blue boat, and are not surprised to find it in motion again a few
 moments later.  the man stays perfectly still save his butterfly hands and
 chanting lips.  you pass him as the boat takes you forward and slightly to
 the right, then turns ninety degrees towards the left and begins down a
 flight of stairs, hovering slightly above them.  the old man fades from your
 hearing, and everything else fades from your sight.

        am i fucked up?

        did i ever matter to you?

        would you kill me if you could get away with it?

        your eyes slowly open, burning from the backsplash of white light
 from the room behind you.  you cannot hear the television they watch, nor
 hear the boys themselves, but it is still on and they are still watching it.
 you're not sitting in the boat anymore, as you last recall, but there now
 exists the knowledge of how to retrieve it.  as you begin to attend to the
 necessary steps, moving your right foot on the hollow floor, you realize
 everything around you seems to have grown.  no.  that's not right.  you have
 shrunk.

        you rewind, and listen to the old man's mumbles.  the gloves, of
 course.  why didn't you remember that?  quickly, you free the blue
 contraption with the balloon from its wall and glide effortlessly through
 the ceiling.

        to your immediate left is a table.  on the table are two white
 gloves.  they fit your hands even at your reduced size.  the old man is gone
 now; in his place a woman, just as old, mumbling what sounds to be the same
 as what her counterpart was saying.  you ignore her as the kids ignored you,
 and relax as the boat swings forward, to the right, ninety degrees left, and
 down...

 )- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(

 "xyz, abc, & me"
 by - mogel

        last week an imaginary team of fragrant top-level professional 
 researchers discovered that the ultimate insult was the highly debated 
 term "legface."  one of those imaginary researchers called *me* that.  
 well, yeah, they're imaginary.  i made them up just now.  in actuality, 
 no one has ever declared that the ultimate insult was "legface" - i just 
 chose that word.  it was all in my head.

        but here it is!  researchers!  there were five of them and all
 five of their names start with the letter "c" and all of them smell like
 roses.  i just made that up.  the smell of roses is a complete coincidence,
 though.  charles, who you will learn about later, in fact, was trying to
 smell like cough syrup and not like roses, but something went terribly, 
 terribly wrong.

        the five researchers were highly interesting... because i made them 
 that way.  the most interesting one, out of the five, in my opinion, is
 craig.  it just so happens that he's exceptionally gay.  he tells people
 that, in fact, when asked.  "i'm exceptionally gay!" -- just like that.  he,
 too, smells like roses, but that's because he runs a flower shop.  he tells
 funny jokes, too.  in fact, craig is the very person who called me a
 legface and would lead the world to a utopia -- he did it when i bought
 petunias.

        craig's good friend, carrie, was turned into an official researcher
 for giving him the finger after he donated five thousand dollars to
 greenpeace.  he soon had wild sex with her, but that was by accident.  she
 turned out to be a stripper from alabama, but this was also an accident.
 or, she was an accident, more accurately... at least that's what her mother
 told her.  sometimes carrie likes to spout random facts that make people
 want to beat her into a bloody fucking stump.  or at least ignore her.

        "each time you exhale, global warming extinguishes another species!"

        camaricara is a native from the zulu tribe who doesn't speak a word
 of english and can't count higher than five to this day.  he's one of the
 researchers.  i made him ultimately become a researcher of an odd set of 
 events that led him to craig's flower shop so that he could by flowers for 
 his pet fish.  he happened to be in america because i made him attend
 university of pennsylvania on full scholarship.  he was accepted in 1978,
 but it took him ten years to hitchhike to to philadelphia just so he could
 go.  it was a brisk summer in '88 when he arrived.  he was called a legface
 after stiffing a cab driver.  he didn't have any money, by the way.  he was
 from the zulu tribe.  they fish very well.  he had a ten-year-old dead fish
 with him in his pocket.  he doesn't like to eat fish, he likes them as pets.
 he also likes cough syrup.  that is a foreshadowing.

        the fourth researcher isn't human.  it's actually just the remains of
 a half-incinerated dubbed copy of candlebox's self-titled album.  it was
 insult enough.  hee hee!  get it?

        charles just pulled me aside and told me this story isn't funny and
 that i should just end it here.  hey, fuck you, charles.  i made you up, 
 legFACE.  you know what?  just for that, i'm going to make you have no 
 limbs.  and now you're as ugly as dennis rodman.  hahahaha!  originally, 
 i had wanted charles to be a harvard graduate with a phd in information
 science, but now i'm re-writing him to be a high school dropout  that 
 works as cerkit's secretary at voicenet.com, an internet service provider.

        the researchers all met together by accident, of course.  this whole
 story, in fact, is a terrible accident.  you shouldn't even be reading it.
 needless to say, the five researchers didn't expect any of this one bit.
 they're wondering right now just where and when they met and if i'm even
 going to tell anyone at all.  oh, and the candlebox cd remains was 
 questioning if this story has any point at all.

        "69% of all statistics are wrong!" carrie growled, as the five 
 researchers entered charles' flower shop.  he recognized her, of course, 
 beause he had sex with her.  you always recognize people you have sex with.

        it was valentine's day, the day that everyone shows their
 unconditional love by buying a lot of gifts for their lover in exchange for 
 other gifts.  i was in the flower shop, too.  i was there by 
 coincidence.  i was buying petunias for my girlfriend, kaia.  needless
 to say, craig looked perplexed.

        "we're having a deal on roses, legFACE!" he shouted at me.

        "whatever," i said and left without paying.  fucking weirdos.

        incidentally, kaia once knew a man who was born with a leg instead 
 of a face.  that's crazy.

        completely coincidentally, this exact conversation was repeated in
 thirty-seven other places around the universe.  murmur's cat, scottie,
 just watched one of them.  i once tried to pet murmur's cat, but it bit
 my finger.  the same finger that touched bjork's toe.  the same finger
 that has felt the breasts of ten different girls.  the same finger that
 has picked my nose.  the same finger that has typed on computers for a
 lifetime.  the same finger that belongs to a complete fucking idiot.
 that's me.

        sorry about the tangent.

        camaricara whipped out a bottle of cough syrup and began to drink it.
 "oofbunflglrf... zheeflee, hniggi?" he thought to himself with a hardy 
 laugh.  in the distance, charles noticed the cough syrup and had an 
 amazing flashback of a dream of about a story his friend wrote while 
 on an lsd trip about being trapped in a nazi concentration camp while
 just a child.  he identified with the main character.

        this flashback was very important.  it seems that all child had to 
 drink was cough syrup in order to survive.  the really bad tasteing 
 kind.  the child decided that the only way to remain sane would be to 
 make himself believe that the cough syrup was just a normal part of 
 life.  he meditated.  he became one with the cough syrup.  dxm was his 
 friend.  he formed emotional bonds with the syrup.  then, a week later, 
 the clid finished the bottle... he soon realized what he had done!  he 
 drank his only soul mate!

        this is when everyone woke up.  charles was thirsty.

        this string of bizarre coincidences created a cosmic vortex inside
 of craig's mind.   just then, amazingly, craig discovered that he was
 gay.  not only was he gay, but he was really, really gay!!!
 exceptionally gay, in fact.  on finding this out, he realized he could
 do whatever he wanted!!!  anything!!!  he no longer had to work in the
 bounds of normal society at a flower shop selling roses in mogel's
 stupid story.  he could do much, much MORE!

        "let's do RESEARCH!" he yelled to the room full of strangers. 
 charles, who was still trying to make it to the front desk, apparently
 hadn't adjusted to being limbless yet.  i guess i snuck it on him too 
 quick earlier.  he was fixed on camaricara's cough syrup and became quite 
 enthusiastic.

        on a related note, it was learned twenty-five years later that 
 it's a natural trait for innovators in the field of research to love the 
 taste of cough syrup.  no kidding!

        just as charles flopped near, camaricara finished the last of the 
 cough syrup.  charles threw himself onto the floor (which wasn't very 
 far) in deseration.

        they all had no place to go, so the idea of research was 
 suddenly quite appealing.

        ten years later a report was issued declaring "legface" as the 
 ultimate insult.

        this report's conclusive data was highly debated in congress.  it
 is mearly a coincidence that one of our characlters, charles, has many,
 many scarred memories that charles has as a child without any legs.  we
 all know that research work is never personally influenced, of coure.
 it is also a coincidence that camaricara was called a "legface" by a
 philadelphia cab driver.  indeed you'll also find it coincidental that
 craig called *me* a legface.  there's nothing but coincidence in the
 fact that the first time the word "legface" was ever spoken, i said it to
 murmur & shadow tao in the back of juke's van.

        it is, however, definately *not* a coincidence that you're 
 reading this.  you are reading this for a very clear and defined purpose.

        in a memorable speech in december of 1998, carrie told an 
 audience of three thousand: "research is iportant for understanding the 
 world around us, you know."

        soon after that they all died of a severe case of stupidity.  

        if only i could be so lucky.

 )- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(

 "more from, and then yet more from"
 by - murmur

 [ some time during the first week of april, 1997 ]

        so, across from my dorm is where the old science center used to be.
 now, what they're doing is they're gutting the whole thing and using the
 frame for the new center for liberal arts, where faculty will have their
 offices, etc.  should be a really nice addition.

        in the meantime, though, we have to put up with some of the most
 absurd shit in the world.  the construction crew, for a month, has had these
 barricades along the curb so only THEY could park right in front of the
 building, even at night when they're not around.  and last week, they cut
 down a tree for some unknown reason and they've basically roped off the
 entire area, forcing people to walk around the library to get from place to
 place.  now, i'm not lazy, but when i'm running late, i don't like running
 around a building i'm not used to running around.  fucking unskilled
 laborers.

        this entire campus, in fact, is caked with ridiculous amounts of
 bureaucratic bullshit.  we live in the nicest dorm on campus, each room
 equipped with air conditioners -- air conditioners that we CAN'T USE because
 they have the master switch turned off at the physical plant.  my room has
 been hot all fucking winter and i couldn't even turn the fan part on.  i
 call to try and figure out when they'll turn the switch on (it's spring now,
 after all) and i'm told the person to ask is on vacation.

        it seems nobody is exempt from nonsense around here.  i signed up for
 a may term class and was informed it was closed, even though i was a junior
 and the course was in my major, because the demand from graduating seniors
 was so high.  half of them don't need the class and half of them will have
 literally *already graduated*.  yet i couldn't get in.  well, turns out that
 i open up the mailbox yesterday and there's a form they want me to sign
 verifying i'll be in the class.  i say sure! and send it back.  apparently,
 they never bothered to tell me about this.

        perhaps the reason i got in has something to do with another
 completely fucked up concept around here.  they've instituted these more or
 less pointless annual class dinners, and the dean's office sent us email
 saying that we should r.s.v.p. for the class of '97 or class of '98 dinner
 if we hadn't already done so.  well, i emailed the person i needed to and
 said i'd be happy to r.s.v.p., but noted i hadn't received an invitation
 initially.  she called back to confirm and my roommate talked to her; turns
 out the reason i was never sent an invitation for the class of '98 dinner is
 because i'm not a junior, i'm a senior.  i had no idea.  wheeee, i'm a
 senior in college.  i'm even showing up on these lists of seniors so faculty
 can speak on their behalf for some sort of something.  whatever.

        i forgot about the class of '98 dinner and didn't go anyway.

        the registrar's office, by comparison, is one of the most efficient
 on campus.  last year we were watching monday night football in the dorm and
 an explosion went off outside.  security showed up pretty darn quickly; the
 hall director, a couple of ra's, and security all raced up to the third
 floor.  the explosion was on the ground outside.  some things i'll never
 figure out.

        don't even get me started about financial aid.

        the thing i really don't understand is, if this is an institute of
 higher learning, if this is where we "prepare for life", then why can't they
 fucking RUN THE CAMPUS PROPERLY?  why is it that when one dumb bitch
 complains about working easter sunday (her job is sitting at a desk and  
 doing homework, effectively) they decide to shut down the entire science
 center at 6:00 on *friday*, yet still have it open from 9:00-5:00 on
 *sunday*?  why is it that the *one* food service alternative we have closed
 down over easter weekend, forcing us to spend money we don't have because
 the business office has sucked it all away?

        if not for the faculty, this school would be no better than any
 other, and even at that, the faculty is only superior in certain
 departments.  in far too many ways this is less like an institute of higher
 learning and more like an institute of bullshit.  and here's where we're
 supposed to prepare for life.  brilliant!

        i'm certainly not a big supporter of our basketball team, but
 congrats to them on winning the ncaa division iii men's title.  guess what?
 half the campus didn't know for a good week and a half.  a campus this
 fucking small, and people having no idea.  and it's not ignorance, it's
 simply that nobody put anything up congratulating them.  i used to think
 that athletics in part really brought this campus down, yet one of the stars
 of the basketball team was co-valedictorian of a pretty large school near
 peoria.  i'm now quite convinced that it's specifically *football*, with
 incredible assistance from the music and theatre departments, that brings
 down the average test score per student...

        i suppose it's okay here, in central illinois, even though we have
 what i feel to be far too many morons for my taste for the amount of money
 i'm forking over to this place.  the fringe benefits?  we have the fabulous
 ADLAI STEVENSON GRAVE in town.  and the DAVID DAVIS MANSION.

        and there's a severed head somewhere, too.

        college is fun.  if you don't drink too much.  fucking drunks.  i
 already know too many people whose college careers are completely dictated
 by drinking and smoking even though they used to be completely free of that
 in high school.  drinking in moderation is one thing.  there's no such thing
 as smoking in moderation.  that's one of the evils of college.  people start
 to "experiment".  you don't need to experiment with fucking nicotine to know
 that it FUCKS YOU UP.  give me a break.

        it also amazes me that with the exception of my room the only
 things i'm liable to hear blasted in the hall at any given point in time are
 ac/dc, metallica, and no doubt.  i really honestly thought college students
 were more open to things than this.  and no, muds don't count.

 )- -- -(

 you are in your dorm room.  there is a refrigerator, a phone, a computer,
 a cd player, some discs, and a pack of cigarettes here.
           
 * smoke

 you smoke a cigarette.  you cough.  you lose seven minutes of your life.

 * open fridge

 inside the fridge are two cans of keystone light and the bottle of icehouse
 you ripped off at the chi party.

 * drink icehouse

 you don't have icehouse.

 * get icehouse
           
 you have the icehouse.

 * drink icehouse

 you drink the icehouse.  since it was cold before and warm again and cold
 and warm again and now it's cold again it doesn't taste all that good.  but
 you get a nice initial buzz.

 * compute

 i don't know what "compute" means.

 * minesweeper

 you are playing minesweeper in your dorm room.  beginner, intermediate, or
 advanced?

 * advanced

 you play the advanced level.  you lose almost immediately.

 * look discs

 you have ac/dc's _back in black_, ozzy osbourne's entire catalogue,
 metallica's black album, and five tori amos discs.  wait, you also have _the
 doggfather_ by snoop doggy dogg.

 * take metallica

 you have the metallica cd.

 * play metallica

 you start singing along loudly with james hetfield:  EXIT LIGHT!  ENTER
 NIGHT!  TAKE MY HAND!  WE'RE OFF TO NEVER NEVER LAND!@

 * go bathroom

 you are in the bathroom.  you can piss, shit, wash your hands, wash your
 face, or just look around and make an ass of yourself.  there is shaving
 residue in two of the sinks and newspaper scattered on the floor by the
 toilets.

 * shit

 you are on the crapper.  there is a chicago tribune sports section and tempo
 section on the floor, along with your school paper.

 * read tempo

 you are reading the tempo section.

 * read hagar

 you read hagar the horrible.  you laugh very loudly, making a further ass of
 yourself.

 [ fatal error ]

 )- -- -(

        college is so fucking weird.  we literally do have guys come to the
 labs every night and spend three hours mudding on FOUR THOUSAND DOLLAR  
 MACHINES.  it's better than hunting for porn, i suppose, but whatever trips
 your trigger.

        i like it anyway, no matter how fucked up the administration is, no
 matter how bad the food is, no matter how stupid our floormates might be.
 i mean, some of the metalheads are my better friends!

         don't fucking miss out on it if you haven't gone, and if you're
 there, don't waste your time away drinking cheap beer and smoking.  please.

         and for god's sake, if you're going to be a theatre or music major,
 understand that you're not a fucking troubadour, and chances are that you
 have no concept of actual honest to god humor, and referring to yourself as
 "MANLY MEN" is about the STUPIDEST FUCKING THING IN THE WORLD.

        and if you're going to be a jock, WASH YOUR FUCKING BROWN-RIMMED HATS
 ONCE IN A BLUE MOON.  if they fall apart, it was meant to be.

        and if you're going to be serving me food, GET THE FUCKING ORDER
 RIGHT.  there's something wrong about people who are accepted to a school
 that costs $20,000 a year that CAN'T PROPERLY OPERATE FAST FOOD.

        and if you're going to live next room over from me, you better expect
 a non-stop barrage of MUSIC YOU HATE.  HA HAHAHAHAHh AHAH HAAHH AHAHA HAAHA

        HAh AHahAH AHAHha AHAHAHAH AHA HAHAH

 )- -- -(

 [ early morning, may 22, 1997 ]

        what in the fuck was i thinking?

        this is what the system has done to us, boys and girls; it's degraded
 our best minds into bickering about parking inconveniences.  i have the
 minutes from three separate student senate meetings this year to prove it.

        we have reached a level of such unparalleled comfort, surpassing even
 that of the silent fifties, that we simply can't recognize when the truly
 important things around us are entirely fucked up.

        every so often i stop and ask myself why in the hell i'm putting
 myself so dramatically into debt for an education at this university when i
 could have gone to the one down the street quite probably for free.  perhaps
 i'm asking the wrong question -- maybe i should be at harvard or berkeley
 instead -- but the answer is simple enough:  i'm learning a whole hell of a
 lot.

        what good is a major in history?  i'll tell you what good a major in
 history is.  sit in on "the civil rights movement" here at illinois wesleyan
 university with dr. paul bushnell, in an auditorium filled with some
 twenty-five or so all-white students mostly from the suburbs of chicago,
 watching footage of marchers being beaten back in selma, alabama in 1965.

        fuck psychology.  i don't need some false science to tell me what the
 fuck is going on when a vietnam vet comes into my history of the 60s class
 and tells me that the film _full metal jacket_ was sanitized for mainstream
 american audiences.  anyone that's seen that film, if you can believe it
 was sanitized...

        what in the hell is our problem today?  what the fuck is wrong with
 us?  we're a completely unmotivated generation.  every so often we get pissy
 about the minor inconveniences like getting an A- instead of an A or having
 to walk an extra three blocks to park, yet with hundreds of people dying
 every day in zaire (or is that the congo republic now?) WE DON'T GIVE A
 GODDAMN.

        my parents lived through the fucking sixties.  chances are your
 parents did too.  they saw what the fuck happened in the fifties, when they
 were likely born, when they first played little league, when they first did
 whatever the fuck spoiled six year-old kids did in the fifties.  and they
 saw what happened in the sixties.  they might have missed the grateful dead,
 but there's no way in fuck i'll believe they missed the democratic national
 convention in chicago in 1968.  or bobby kennedy getting shot.  or richard
 nixon being elected president of the united states.  they were there.  and
 they know it.

        and they know that it's not this generation x or whatever the fuck
 the goddamned marketing executives want to call it that's bringing this
 country and this entire western civilization and finally the whole damn
 globe down.  it's the values they instilled in us, the values of horrendous
 amounts of apathy.

        that vietnam vet, jim kinsella, had one word to describe this
 so-called generation x or apathetic generation:

        irresponsible.

        and he's so correct.  he's oh so correct.  but what the hell do you
 expect when you offer william jefferson clinton to us?

 "it's hard to be patriotic when our president is just a tubby bitch."
                                                               -- w. n. clark

 )- -- -(

        oh, but for a cause.  for a unifying cause.  for a unifying cause
 that will nonetheless still allow us to retain our personal identities, one
 that will not turn us into mindless zombies, one that will not, when it
 suffers setback after setback, force us into open armed conflict with a
 system that excels at quashing open armed conflict.

        the civil rights movement never managed to reach all of its goals.
 why not?  because the liberal whites of the north were supportive up until
 the point when it came time for them to fork over the cash to make real
 equality happen.

        if it doesn't affect me, i don't want a part of it.  that's the
 american way.  covertness, apathy, and the american way.  richard nixon
 wasn't even superman in his age; he cared too much.  i was going to try and
 present an example of a modern superman, but, unfortunately, i don't care
 enough to think one up.

        i'm ready to finish my third year of college, and i find myself angry
 and cheated and dejected that i've wasted so much of my life in the pursuit
 of jack shit.  if i can't even make a small difference to the world in
 general, then what the fuck do i matter?

        whereas i'm increasingly becoming an idealist, i hope i don't
 entirely lose my sense of pragmatism.  i don't accomplish much by dying in
 1997, now do i?

        in that same history of the 60s course we had a bizarre class session
 with our professor, his brother, a sociologist who specializes in sex and
 marriage at bowling green, another history professor from our department,
 and dr. jim miller, who among other things is a political theorist and was
 one-time editor of the rolling stone encyclopedia of rock and roll or some
 such entity.  at some point dr. miller quoted one of his associates, dr.
 lynn hunt, a historian of the french revolution; and although the exact
 quote is lost on me at this point, the essence was that nobody is willing
 to die for anything here, today, america, 1997.  the same almost assuredly
 applies to canada and england and france and sweden and finland and china
 and japan and australia and the vast majority of the globe.

        no, i'm not willing to be a martyr, not today.  because my death
 serves no purpose!  and you can't convince me it does!  or will!  at least,
 not yet.

 )- -- -(

        as a _defining_ _event_ of the sixties, we were presented with, of
 all things, the movie _a hard day's night_, featuring four young men from
 liverpool, england.  beatlemania as a defining cultural phenomenon?  sound
 bizarre?

        it's not.  this is why i have somehow managed to feel justified in
 the limited work i've done on behalf of music today.  i truly believe that
 the power of popular music is sufficiently immense to change the world, as
 it did in the sixties behind such individuals as bob dylan, phil ochs, and
 john, paul, george, and ringo.

        above and beyond that, however, i still truly feel a longing for a
 cause.  the environment isn't my cause.  gay rights isn't my cause.  both
 are very important causes, but neither, unfortunately, are of sufficient
 pull to me; this is part of that whole "not in my backyard" sentiment that
 runs amok in western culture today.

        i'm sick and tired of it all.  i want to fucking do something.  and i
 don't know what.  i'm a political science major that has next to no faith in
 our political institutions, and i'm a history major that can't believe that
 the generation preceding mine, the one to which my parents belong to, the
 baby boomers, the generation that has finally put their first president in
 the white house -- i just can't fucking believe that they're willing to let
 this country go to shit.  i still have too much faith in people to believe
 that this society has reached the point where nobody gives a rat's ass about
 anything and nobody ever will.

        nonetheless, if a popular movement is going to get started, it's
 going to have to get started by this generation.  a gentleman named adam
 werbach is old enough to have become president of the sierra club, one of
 the world's foremost pro-environmental organizations, yet he is
 sufficiently young that when landing in the airport after his flight from
 washington where he had the guts to call for a harder line from
 vice-president gore

                    they wouldn't let him rent a car.  he wasn't twenty-five.

 )- -- -(

        someone out there, i've got to believe, gives a rat's ass.  someone.
 somewhere.  maybe several of you.  i hope to hell you do.  i hope to hell
 you don't want to spend the rest of your lives sitting in a motherfucking
 office somewhere rattling off insurance quotes or struggling through various
 sundry computer programming jobs for multi-million dollar software
 corporations that are all about capitalism gone mad.

        of course, maybe i'm wrong.  and when the next depression comes (and
 the next depression _will_ always come -- i'm a history major, and i do know
 these things) we'll just all be screwed.

        if you're out there, let us know.  one day, we're going to find that
 if we're not working together, our asses are collective grass.  and i don't
 really relish the arrival of that day.

        hot damn, mom, hot damn, dad, i'm an activist!  a good for nothing
 rabble-rousing communist!  i'm probably a nigger-loving, jew-loving queer!
 beat me, boys!  beat me, silly!  with your billy clubs and big
 do-as-you're-told southern arms!

        even after thirty years, we're gonna fucking come back.

 )- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(

 "herpes is forever"
 by - puck

	herpes is forever.  the immortal repeated this phrase to himself as
 he woke up to find that his particular case had come out of remission for
 what must have been the zillionth time since he contracted it early in the
 fourteenth century.  he eased out of bed, giving his legs time to adjust
 to the seven hundred and twenty pounds of flesh he had managed to accumulate
 over the years.  when they finally locked in support, he lifted them:  first
 the left, then the right, and in this manner ended up in the bathroom.  he
 tugged a little chain, a naked lightbulb flickered to life, and his eyes
 woke up to the artificial light of another day.  another saturday, he
 lamented to himself, another day of life.  he opened up the cabinet over the
 sink and fumbled around for his medicated salve.  the immortal sighed as he
 twisted open the cap of his nearly exhausted tube and squeezed a dab of the
 medication onto his finger.  he pulled his sweaty boxers to his knees, sat
 on the toilet, and tediously applied the salve to the newly formed blisters.
 as he rubbed the creme in, he noticed the word "necessarily" written on his
 hand in blue ink.  "necessarily," he said aloud.  "today will be a good
 day."  today the immortal had a date.

        if one was to hop off of the 208 at the davis street bus station in
 evanston, illinois, the first thing one would see would be a woolworth's, on
 top of which sat a row of apartments.  in the window of one of these
 apartments, one would notice a sign that read "fortunes told, palms read -
 necessarily williams, psychic - call (847)933-9446."  it was in fact this
 sign that first caught ripco's eye as he hopped off of the 208 early that
 saturday.  he hardly noticed, however, the eyes of an immortal peering at
 him from the next window over.

        the immortal had finished "dressing his wounds", and was now occupied
 with watching a man in a thick brown robe entering the woolworth's below.
 the man looked vaguely familiar.  vague took on new meaning in the
 immortal's case.  thousands of years of life, perhaps even millions, had
 given birth to a whole array of new emotions, completely foreign to any
 mortal creature.  just as the ant, with its one day life span, could feel no
 sense of "nostalgia", any ordinary creature could not possibly fathom the
 degree of absolute vagueness which overcame the immortal upon seeing this
 man.  the immortal moved away from the window and began to pick out an
 outfit for his date.  it had been years since he had been on one, six
 hundred and thirty, to be exact, and he wasn't quite sure how to properly
 dress himself.  after flipping through various items, he settled on a pair
 of tan slacks, a white button down shirt, and a brown belt with a brass
 buckle that said "alfred's steak and barbecue" on it.  he modeled the outfit
 for the mirror, then tucked in his shirt and buckled his belt.

        the immortal suffered the long thin staircase of his apartment
 complex and quite suddenly emerged onto the sweltering streets of evanston.
 "sweltering," he said aloud, as sweat produced two transparent spots around
 the armpits of his white shirt.  he rounded the corner onto church street.
 as he disappeared behind the red bricks, the man from the 208 walked out of
 woolworth's and onto the very spot the immortal stood in only moments
 before.  ripco took a wadded up receipt from his pocket, and studied the
 words that had been inked onto its back.  "czech biter, 227 davis, apartment
 three".  he rolled it back up, slipped it into his pocket, and sat on the
 pavement to await czech's return.  two small boys eventually found their way
 over to the odd looking stranger and stood staring at his robed form for a
 few minutes.  ripco looked up at them, forced a smile, and stood up.
 "better to wait inside, eh?"  he turned away from the children and opened
 the door to the stairwell.

        as he walked down the hallway towards apartment three, the door to 
 apartment two swung open, almost knocking ripco to the floor.

        "oh my god, i'm sorry."  necessarily williams was a large black woman
 who wore tight beaded braids.  she had on a long dress covered with moons,
 stars, and runes.  her mind stuttered as her eyes took in the strange man
 standing in front of her, but she quickly excused herself to the stairwell.
 "i'm sorry, i'm in a rush.  if you're here for a reading, come back around
 two."

        czech didn't mind waiting for necessarily to arrive.  if he had
 acquired one admirable trait in his hundreds, thousands, millions of years,
 it had been an unsurpassable degree of patience.  he stared at his menu,
 wondering where they got their name, "roxy".  "perhaps," he said aloud, "it
 is the owner's name."

        "can i get you something?"

        "hmm?"

        "can i take your order?"  the waitress wore blue jeans, a t-shirt, a
 green apron, and a name tag that said "tawdry".

        "actually, no.  i'm meeting someone."  the waitress looked at czech's
 enormous body and mused as to the imagined appearance of his date.  her
 expectations were well met as necessarily came running through the door with
 the grace of a swan.  a large-headed, bloated, vomiting swan.  "ah, and here
 she is now.  necessarily!"  czech waved his hand to catch her attention.
 "give us a few minutes."  the waitress went back to the kitchen, and
 necessarily joined czech at the table.

        "i'm sorry i'm late.  my eleven o'clock appointment came in late, and
 he wanted me to toss together a tarot reading at the last minute.  then, on
 the way out, i almost ran down a monk.  heh."

        "not a problem.  if time were of import to me, i wouldn't have waited
 fifteen years to ask you out for lunch."  the two settled into their seats
 and flipped through the lunch menus.

        "czech biter.  such an interesting name.  what is it?
 czechoslovakian?"

	"you're the psychic, you tell me."

        "no, seriously.  i'd guess you look russian, but it's such an odd
 name."

        "well.  your guess is as good as mine, to be honest."

        "ah.  just a case of odd parents?"

        "possibly."  the waitress took their orders, and returned shortly
 with two philly cheese steaks, no mushrooms.  when necessarily excused
 herself to the bathroom, czech sat staring at his plate.  the immortal
 differed from normal man only in his immortality.  his memory suffered the
 same rate of decay as the normal man.  he was embarrassed that he didn't
 know his name's origin, but he didn't even know his own origin.  he
 remembered small pieces of life from long ago, but most of his mind was
 taken up with the events in the past fifty or sixty years.  were there more
 like him?  he had vague recollections of dealings with another.  oftentimes
 he wondered if he was a god, or perhaps the god.  no.  the creator would not
 suffer himself to senility.

        "you're gonna stare that sandwich to death."  necessarily slid back
 into her chair.

        "oh.  sorry.  i lost myself for a minute there."

        "so tell me more about yourself, czech.  we've been neighbors for so
 long but i barely know you.  do you work?"

        "yes.  i do computer networking downtown.  not quite as interesting
 as your line of work, but it pays well."

        "well, whatever works for you.  do you have any goals, czech?  any
 dreams?"  necessarily had a way of getting directly to the point.  she had
 picked it up through years of palm reading and tarot reading.  since she  
 didn't charge by the hour, the quicker she could shove customers out the
 door the better.

        czech closed his eyes.  goals.  dreams.  they seemed so foreign to
 the immortal.  deep in the recesses of his mind, he felt a certain tugging.

        "i have one goal."

        "what's that?"

        "i'm not quite sure.  i just know i've got one.  heh.  that probably
 sounds pretty dumb."

        "well, not really.  i sense you're hiding from something, though.  i
 picked that up from the first time i met you."

        hiding.  the tugging grew stronger, and czech put his hand to his
 head.  "hiding.  a man my size would have a hard time hiding from anything
 with eyes, don't you think?"  czech let out a loud laugh that drew the
 attention of everyone in the restaurant.  "how about you?  any goals?
 dreams?"

        "nah.  i get by on other people's dreams.  suits me fine."

        "sounds like a plan.  so, do you date much?"

        "i gave up on dating a long time ago, czech.  you?"

        "the last time i had a date was in the 14th century, in england.  i
 got a venereal disease."

        "ouch."

        two hours and two philly cheese steaks later, one psychic and one
 immortal emerged from roxy's and back onto the streets of evanston.

        "come on, big boy.  are ya going to walk me home?"

        "gee, i'm not sure.  it is an entire ten feet out of my way, and i am
 so pressed for time.  the doctor says i've gotta take it easy, with all this
 weight, you know."  the doctor.  czech loved going to the doctor.  he got a
 real kick out of the doctor's frantic concern for czech's life.

        "this may sound stupid, but have you always been a big guy?"

        "i don't think so.  i do remember deciding to 'let myself go' after
 that date in the 1300's.  after this afternoon's, perhaps it's time for me
 to shape up again.  i've got time."

        necessarily laughed out loud.

        czech and necessarily held hands as they walked up church street to
 their davis apartment complex.  across the street, through the large bay
 windows of a barnes and noble, faces stared at the odd couple traipsing
 down the road.  czech's shirt was almost completely drenched with sweat, and
 necessarily wore a wild smile.  they disappeared into the stairwell and
 stood close in the hallway.

        "would you like to come in for a while?  i could make you a cup of
 coffee."

        "it's tempting, but i have a reading in a few minutes.  stop by later
 tonight, though, and i'll make you one myself."  necessarily flipped through
 her braids and unlocked her door.  "thanks for lunch."

        czech fumbled through his pocket for his keys, but as his hand fell
 on the knob he noticed the door was slightly ajar.  he slowly pushed it open
 and walked in.  the lights were already on, though nothing seemed out of
 place.  he unbuttoned his shirt and peeled it off of his sweaty body.

        "czech biter is a big fat slob."  ripco stood up and flung off the
 white shirt that had been carelessly tossed in his direction.  he pushed
 back the big brown hood and flared a wide toothless grin at czech.  dusty
 thoughts began to uncover themselves in czech's head.  just staring into
 ripco's face was enough to flood czech's mind with memories of another life.

        "i thought so.  i knew i recognized you."

        "czech, my old man, you've really got to start writing things down.
 it makes this all so much easier."

        "i've been hiding.  that's what i've been doing.  i remember now.
 it's been a thousand years, hasn't it?"

        "not quite.  more like seven or eight hundred.  and i must admit
 you've been doing a nice job of it.  you're all out of shape, i hardly would
 have recognized you, except you got careless and ordered a phone line listed
 in your real name."
        
        "my memory.  i forgot what i was doing.  i came to evanston fifteen
 years ago knowing only that i was an immortal.  i had forgotten there was
 another.  i had forgotten about you."

        "well.  like i said, you need to start writing things down.  you
 remember what happens now, i trust?"

        "yes, i do."  czech sighed.  he eased his heavy body on to the ground
 into a kneeling position about a yard from ripco's feet.  "go ahead, ripco.
 i've been found."

        ripco inched closer to czech's massive body.  he lifted his right arm
 and held it up to the sky.  slowly, carefully, he moved his arm down until
 his right hand was an inch from czech's shoulder.  with a rushed swoop, he
 patted his hand down until it met czech's bare flesh.

        "tag," he said.  "you're it."  ripco stood back and allowed czech
 room to stand.

        "not as humiliating as i remember it," czech said as he lifted
 himself to his feet.

        "well.  i went easy on you this time.  i get ten years to hide,
 right?"

        "i'll give you fifty," czech replied.  "i want to stick around here
 for a while."

        "ok.  i'd advise you to lose a few pounds in the interim.  it might
 make running around the globe a tad easier on your system."  ripco sat down
 on the floor and pulled a snickers bar out of a pocket.  he began to gnaw at
 it with his gums, letting chunks of it dissolve past his lips.

        "you're lucky," he said between gobs, "you've kept your teeth.  once
 ya lose 'em, they don't come back."

        "yeah, well try living with herpes.  it's forever, ya know."  czech
 began to laugh.  "ripco, you look like a fool in that robe.  why don't you
 stay here with me for a while?  i can get you some clothing and maybe a job
 at the book store."

        "nah.  i'm not ready to stick myself back into a routine just yet.  i
 want to travel around the world a bit more while you're looking for me.  i
 think i've found the perfect hiding spot.  and i like the robe.  some guy on
 the bus told me it was 'bitching'."  ripco tossed the empty wrapper on the
 floor and walked towards the door.  "and write it down, for god's sake.  i
 don't want to be hiding for an eternity because you forgot you were looking
 for me."  czech nodded.  "i'll see you, big boy.  come and find me in fifty
 years."  ripco pulled his hood back on and spun out the door.

        czech sighed and went to the bathroom to apply more salve.  "herpes
 is forever," he repeated to himself again, fighting off the urge to
 violently scratch the blisters.

        after a bath and a walk around the block, czech returned to his
 apartment.  he contemplated knocking on necessarily's door, but decided to
 wait until evening to be sure she wasn't in the middle of a session.  he
 took a pen and paper from his desk and scratched down a few words.  he then
 sealed the paper in an envelope, on which he wrote the words, "open in fifty
 years".  he dated the envelope and stuffed it in the back of his desk.  he
 sat by the window for an hour, watching the people get on and off the
 busses, their faces nothing more than fleeting images to be lost in a giant
 memory as it ate up the years.

        the immortal yawned.  he removed his pants, slipped into a new, dry
 pair of boxers, and laid on his bed to stare at the ceiling.  he thought
 about reason, he thought about purpose.  a light went on in his head.  a
 purpose.  so simple.  so obvious.  he thought about necessarily, he thought
 about ripco, and he thought about the cure for herpes that he was now
 determined to discover.  what the hell, he thought.  he had time.

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