Principia Discordia

Here's the story I've been writing there (Obviously, the interlude is recycled):

Writing.  This implies a story, yes?  Then I shall tell you a story.  It isn't a pleasant story, but in the end we must remember that it is only a story.  A little nightmare to brighten up our endless days, here in the Happy Place.  Well, then...Where to begin? 

We'll begin at the beginning.


I went to Hell in December of 1989. 

Sounds dramatic, yes?  At the time it was; time has taken all the theater from it.  Looking back, the road to Hell is very straight.  I walked that road, as millions had before me, in leather boots and harness, with a rifle in my hand.  There was a city, I remember, in Panama.  This city had an enormous sewer system, which had to be checked out, after the fighting was over.  There were concerns, you see, of holdouts and weapons caches.

What we found was a "doll factory".  I don't wish to talk about that now, I shall go into detail later.  Suffice it to say, there were armed men in the doll factory, and what followed was a chaotic, suicidal gun battle in that factory.  Perhaps a total of 14 armed men, blazing away at each other at basically arms-reach.  There's no need to explain that nobody could have possibly walked out of that room alive.  Instead, we ran, screaming back to the sunlight, without looking back.  This is important, so listen to me.  Listen to me.  Listen. To. Me.  In Hell, you never look back.

When we had reached street level, our officers - something that looked like our officers, anyway - told us to stop screaming, that it was over.  We were unable to do so, however, and before long we found ourselves loaded into a helicopter and sent back to Gorgas Army Hospital in the capital.  There, a psychiatrist, a Russian emigre named Ivan Petrov tried to convince Sergeant Murphy and I that we were in fact still among the living.

But we knew better.  Infantrymen know the score, and we knew that there was no way we had survived that fight.  But to make things easier on ourselves, we pretended that we believed him.  Private Guerrero, on the other hand, never stopped screaming, poor fellow.  I never saw him again.

Years spun past.  Desert Storm came and went, with all of its attendant horrors.  You really didn't see the war on television.  You saw green-on-black gun-sight footage that sterilized the war, that hid 300,000 blasted and screaming Iraqis.  Boring.  And that's the rub, isn't it?  Hell is boring  It is order, it is a place where the trains all run on time, and there is no hope of anything ever, ever changing.

In one of the countless years that followed, 1996 to be exact, I was injured during a training accident.  A stupid accident, a slip and a fall and a broken knee.  Though I healed, I was told that the army had no further use for me.  A crippled infantryman is no different than a horse with a broken leg...Except that you are disposed of with a medical board, rather than a gunshot.

I wandered Hell for a decade after that, through city after city, country after country...All the same.  All boring.  The grinding banality that is Hell.  Eventually, I landed in Tucson, Arizona, and took up my present occupation:  doing the devil's work, for a faceless corporation that you've never heard of, but that affects you in one way or another, every day of your life.  I like Tucson, it has very small sewers, with no room for doll factories.  Sometimes, the utility workers at the bar on Friday night will moan something about the ghosts of infants crawling in the pipes...We beat them and curse them until they leave.  Who wants to hear that?  In any case, it is Tucson, and their perceptions of events are not to be trusted.

An amazing thing: I ran into Dr Petrov here, in 2006.  He too had left the army, and was in private practice, consulting for the Veteran's Administration.  We met by chance, down in the legal district, and had a coffee.  I told him where we were, and he laughed.  "A Russian is in Hell from the day he is born", he said.  We have had many coffees since then.

Then, in 2010, we met an angel.  What an angel was doing in Hell is anyone's guess, but she too had a story to tell.

To be continued


On August 10, 2010, the angel came to town.  You could tell she was an angel because she was alive, in Hell.  True, her wings had been torn out by the roots some decades ago, and her halo had been stolen, presumbably by the grabby-girls in the legal district...But there was no mistaking that she wasn't from Around Here.

We met her at The Meetrack, which at the time was the premier pervert bar in Tucson.  On that day, the bar was dead...It was just the bartender, myself, and Ivan.  We'd been nursing drinks for the afternoon, not wanting to get drunk, but not wanting to be sober, either.

Then She walked in.  It wasn't that she was beautiful; Tucson has its beauties.  It was that she was alive...You could see it in her face.  She was, my guess, part Black, part Hispanic, part...Well, there was a blend of all humanity in that face.  She walked to the bar, ordered some Old Crow, and then walked over and sat at our table.

"Hello...", I began.

"Good morning, Frank.  Long time, no see.", she replied, as if I knew her.

"Um..."

"You don't remember me, do you?"

"I'm afraid not, Miss..."

"You can just call me Man Next."

"Man...?"  I was talking like an idiot, I knew, much to Ivan's amusement.

"Man Next will do just fine.  In any case, we have to get moving soon.  We're late already."

"Late for what?"

She looked me over.  "Man, those intelligence geeks really screwed you up, didn't they?"

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I am always up for any program, so I killed the last dregs of my Evan Williams, lit a cigar, and stood up.  Ivan followed suit; She slammed her bourbon in one swift gulp, then led us out the side door.

Out on the street, there was a body in the gutter, which looked like it had been on fire, at least partially.  Boring.

We got in the Jeep, and started driving.  She told us to drive to the City Center.

"But it's second Saturday.  The place is going to be mobbed."

She just looked at me, and said, "Drive."

Well, there's a saying around here...If you're going through Hell, keep moving.

I turned on the radio, for what it was worth.  We have the usual channels, here.  Country, classic rock ("All your favorites, all the time, same as every station in every city, and no this isn't an 'oldies station', no sirree!"), some vanilla hip hop (hip hop had something to say, back in 88-92, but They fixed that), that sort of thing.  I settled on the oldies, and got REO Speedwagon's I Don't Wanna Know.  There is nothing new in Hell.

We parked in the City parking garage, which is open for public use on the weekends, and got out of the car.  Without a word, she led us down to street level (Never park below ground level.  Trust me on this one.), and up the street towards the Hotel Congress.

We went into the hotel bar, which was just as empty as the Meetrack had been...Almost.  A couple were sitting at a table.  Some hipster with long blond hair, and a tiny little woman...Not a midget, but less than 5 feet tall, and slender as a reed.  She also had a black eye, and her eyes were puffy from crying.

The Angel looked at us.  "You deal with him.  I'll take care of her."

Ivan and I shrugged, and walked over.  The hipster looked at us, and said, "What are YOU two geezers looking at?"

Ivan kicked him in the face.  He fell backwards in his chair, and I walked over and started putting the boot to him.  The Angel had the stunned girl by the arm, and was leading her towards the door.  The bartender looked up, saw Ivan and I, and got busy cleaning clean glasses.

After a moment or two, Ivan leaned down and spoke to the wreckage on the floor.  "You will never speak to her again.  If you see her on the street, you will walk on by.  Otherwise, I shall get my axe.  My special axe, with which I did all those terrible things in Moscow."

The hipster looked at me.  I just stared at him.  He nodded, and then let his head drop on the floor.

We walked outside.  The Angel and the young lady were nowhere to be seen.

"Well, that was passing strange", said Ivan.

"It relieved the boredom for a moment.  I have no regrets."

We thought we'd seen the last of Man Next, so we walked down to a gin joint on 4th Avenue to finish what we'd started that morning.

We couldn't have been more wrong about not seeing her again.  And when we did, we broke even Tucson's lax societal conventions.  Badly.

To be continued.


Knuckles once asked me a difficult question a few years ago.  He asked me once to explain a comment I made about once having been so scared so badly that I've never been scared again.  It's been gnawing at my guts ever since, and I can't stop dreaming about a calendar page...December 1989, to be exact, and that calendar page is huge, wait, no...It's not a calendar page at all, is it?  No, it's a stage curtain, and behind that curtain is an Awful Thing, something so awful that I had to take extra pills this morning before I could write it down.  Anyway, here goes.

Knuckles, I bet you didn't know that I used to be a musician.  I don't want to discuss the exact instrument I played, because I don't want this to devolve into a technical discussion about tuning instruments or percussion or muzzle velocities or any of that stuff. 

Anyway, I was down in Panama, on a tour, and our manager sent us to a gig in an old sanitation district, you know, some kind of rave.  We were essentially supposed to check the place out, see if it was going to be a potential regular thing, you know?  It was kind of embarrassing, but we got lost finding the stage, like in Spinal Tap.  Took forever, until we finally walked out of one of the tunnels into a large room that used to be a pump station, and that's where the audience was.

They were a strange bunch, Knuckles, they were really a kinky crowd.  They were all standing around tables, sewing bags about the size of baseballs into what looked like little dolls.  But they weren't dolls, Knuckles, they were something else and that's not really important, and I don't want to talk about it.

We looked at them.  They looked at us.  We looked at what was on the tables.

We started playing. 

I think it was a death metal tune, because all of our lyrics sounded like howling.

And just like one of those good gigs, the moment we started playing, they started dancing.  They danced and they danced until I guess they got tired and fell down.  I'm not sure, but I think one guy actually danced his leg off.  But it was like one of those bad gigs, because the audience started throwing stuff at us, you know, and we didn't even have chicken wire in front of us.  One guy threw something at me and it carved a great big Goddamn gouge in my helmet.  Another guy thew a bunch of stuff that hit Guerrero right in his chest.  He went down, kicking and cursing.  Thankfully, Kevlar flak jackets are good for dealing with beer bottles or whatever it was they were throwing.  Guerrero played a special solo, just for that guy.

But like all performances, this one had to end.  We were exhausted, and the audience had all passed out or something.  We walked around for a minute, and we saw what they'd been stuffing bags of "party favors" into.

We ran.  Some gigs are just too much.  But we sang an encore on the way out, Knuckles, you'd have been proud.  It sounded like Danzig and Ramstein's weirder stuff and maybe a little Rolling Stones, you know, Gimme Shelter.  We ran until we hit daylight, and our manager was waiting for us and he kept telling us to stop singing, the gig is over, but we couldn't stop singing, dude, it was very strange.  We kept singing and singing until they brought the Limo to take us back to the hotel.  No, scratch that, it wasn't really a Limo, only the government has Limos, it was a helicopter with some other band's logo on it, a big cross.  And we sang and sang all the way to the hotel.

I guess we pissed off our manager, Knuckles, because pretty soon I had a new manager, we called him Doc Petrov.  Murph and I had stopped singing by then, but some of the other guys hadn't.  As I understand it, Guerrero is still singing an aria, somewhere.  Anyway, Doc told me that they found the dolls - only he didn't call them dolls - and how did I feel about that?  I told him that it was a funny place to make dolls.  He looked at me, and - here's where it gets really strange - he started to cry.  Then he left, and one of the roadies took me to another room and gave me a vitamin shot that made me feel lots better.

Eventually, it was determined that I was fit to join another band, and life went on.  I stayed in the biz til a silly rehearsal accident broke my knee, and I was forced to find a straight job.  Rock n roll involves a lot of jumping around, you know, and there's no room for a man with a gimpy leg.  But I was a little different about things after that, man, I don't get scared anymore.  I get mad, or I start laughing, but I don't get scared.  And I don't like dolls much, you know?

But now I live in Tucson, and this town suits me.  This town knows rock n roll, Knuckles, it understands what Bob Seger meant, you know, back in his glory days.  Fact:  Nothing Bad can ever happen to you, as long as Bob Seger is playing.  I like Bob Seger, man, I like him a lot.  He knows Tucson, just as it knows him.  And he knows The Truth, Knuckles, The Truth that is the punchline to all of this rambling, the end of the shaggy dog story, the gotcha line, the end of a joke that sometimes still makes me laugh all night:

You can come back baby, rock n roll never forgets.

To be continued.

When people tell me they've been to hell, I'm generally not convinced. Dunno what it is, something in the eyes maybe. Or the internet equivalent, whatever that might be. Punctuation?

Your doll story, tho? I know you've been there. Even though it was nothing like that when I was there. They'd changed the drapes, moved it all upstairs, taken away the bullets and switched the laws of physics but it was the same place. Of that, I'm sure. That's why I'd never insult you by feeling sorry for you. You have my respect. They really pulled out all the stops for your ride. I got off light.

And I'm loving the new shit, too. Looking forward to more...

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on June 17, 2013, 09:43:31 PM
When people tell me they've been to hell, I'm generally not convinced. Dunno what it is, something in the eyes maybe. Or the internet equivalent, whatever that might be. Punctuation?

Your doll story, tho? I know you've been there. Even though it was nothing like that when I was there. They'd changed the drapes, moved it all upstairs, taken away the bullets and switched the laws of physics but it was the same place. Of that, I'm sure. That's why I'd never insult you by feeling sorry for you. You have my respect. They really pulled out all the stops for your ride. I got off light.

And I'm loving the new shit, too. Looking forward to more...

Thanks.  I'm pretty sure it's going to be the last thing I write on PD, though.  Not sure how long it's going to go.

I like the new chapter. Can't wait to see what Man Green has in store. :D

I dig it.

I think it's fantastic. And that bit about shitty radio makes it very relatable.
I don't even know anymore how many times I've been stuck in hell with no better options than REO Speedwagon.

I'm digging it, I want to see where you take it.

Wow, this is fucking superb! Are the pagans appreciative?

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on June 18, 2013, 04:04:38 AM
Wow, this is fucking superb! Are the pagans appreciative?

Nope.  I got a smiley from one, agreeing with one of us.

Then nothing.    :sad:

(Thanks, btw)

I posted in the thread, maybe it'll generate some kind of buzz. It's weird that NOBODY from there has commented.

February, 2011

"Pull over!", Ivan said, in an urgent tone.  I did so...I don't usually question things Ivan says, until after the fact.

"What's up?"

"That Man Next lady is back there."

"No shit?"  I backed the Jeep up.  Fortunately, Stone Street was empty.  Without ceremony, Man Next got in the back seat of the Jeep.  I put it in gear and started driving again.  After a few minutes, she spoke.

"We need to be at the corner of Pennington and Congress."

Okay, why not?  I made a right and headed over to Pennington.  There's actual parking there, so I pulled in across from the city courthouse...A dismal building that Ivan had once said belonged somewhere in Petrograd.  We got out and walked up to Congress Street.

"There is an art gallery opening occurring next to Monkeyburger", Man Next said, "In some deliberately shitty abandoned storefront."

"And we care about hipsters trying to look 'street'...Why, exactly?"  I was genuinely curious.

"Because they have been naughty.  Very naughty."

"How else would they act?  This is Hell."

Man Next just looked at me, without comment.  An appraising look, as if she were trying to decide if I was being facetious...But then, we were there.  It was deliberately crappy.  The inside of the storefront had gaping holes in the drywall, and there were unidentifiable stains on the parts that were intact.  Considering that legal district storefronts go for a song, there was no need for this, other than to convey the "starving artist" image that a certain type of person believes adds "authenticity" to their work.

Walking inside, we were treated to the usual hipster chic.  Brad pit hats, sweater vests, skinny jeans, the whole works.  One particularly ridiculous guy, many 40 years old, stood behind a table that had what looked like plastic jewelry on it.  Looking closer, I saw that it was bone.  This isn't too unusual.  The bones of cattle, coyote, and javaline litter the desert.

Man Next walked up to this person, and asked "Are these the straight goods?"

"You bet", the hipster responded, "dug 'em up myself."

"Why would you dig up bones?  There's bones all over the desert." I interjected.

"Because these aren't animal bones, Frank", Man Next replied, "These are the bones of Native Americans, dug up out of their graves, probably in the Santa Ritas."

"Wait.  This guy went and stole someone's bits, and made jewelry out of them?  What the hell?"

"Hey, now", hipster said, "I was getting in touch with my heritage."

"You little maggot.  You little ghoul...", Ivan broke in, "You are as Native American as I am.  Which is to say, not at all.  And even if you WERE, who digs up their grandfathers?"

"It is the heritage I have chosen.  You can't tell me what I am."

I looked at Man Next.  "So, what's the plan."

Man Next stared at the hipster.  "Do bad things to Tonto, here.  I shall return the remains to where they belong...Or at least give them some sort of burial."

The hipster puffed up his chest.  This was, after all, the legal district, and all you do in the legal district is talk.  That is what he believed.  His beliefs were incorrect.  Man Next disappeared with the bones, and Ivan and I delivered a beating, while the other artists looked on with disbelief.  They were fine; their art was merely bad.  It didn't involve grave robbing.  I overheard one of them say that she was glad, that Brad Pitt here had given her the creeps.

I turned to her, "Then find different friends."

Ivan looked up, "Yes.  You are judged by the company you keep."  Then he hit the hipster a couple more times, and we left before someone got around to calling the police.  Once again, Man Next was nowhere to be seen.

"You realize", said Ivan, as we reached the jeep, "We will need to hang out in a different part of town for a few weeks.  The police will not stand for this sort of hooliganry this close to the university."

"Small price to pay, Ivan.  Besides, how long has it been since we've been to South filth?"

"I think since the time we tried to liven things up at that radio station party.  But it should be safe by now."

We drove South.  Ivan was talking about something, but my mind was a million miles away.  I felt I should know Man Next, that she was somehow very familiar.  Then I dismissed it...She showed up, she asked us to do things we would have done anyway, then she left.  Angels, I seem to recall from Sunday school all those years ago, do that.

I also had a feeling that we'd see her again, and sooner rather than later.

I was right.

To be continued.

Pearls before swine, Roger. Happy you're X-posting here.

This is a story about people who need the shit kicked out of them and get it. Me likey.

Quote from: Cardinal Pizza Deliverance. on June 18, 2013, 08:53:39 PM
This is a story about people who need the shit kicked out of them and get it. Me likey.

There's going to be more to it than that, as Man Green's demands become more and more Old Testament.

Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 18, 2013, 09:16:50 PM

Quote from: Cardinal Pizza Deliverance. on June 18, 2013, 08:53:39 PM
This is a story about people who need the shit kicked out of them and get it. Me likey.

There's going to be more to it than that, as Man Green's demands become more and more Old Testament.

It's off to an awesome start. :D

Quote from: Cardinal Pizza Deliverance. on June 18, 2013, 09:24:25 PM

Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 18, 2013, 09:16:50 PM

Quote from: Cardinal Pizza Deliverance. on June 18, 2013, 08:53:39 PM
This is a story about people who need the shit kicked out of them and get it. Me likey.

There's going to be more to it than that, as Man Green's demands become more and more Old Testament.

It's off to an awesome start. :D

Thanks.

Damnit Roger, just seeing the words "doll" and "house" in a thread you started kept me from reading this steaming pile of fucking awesome.

When I see it here, I love it because it's great writing and it hooks me right in.

When I see it there, I love it because of THIS:

Quote from: Cardinal Pizza Deliverance. on June 18, 2013, 08:53:39 PM
This is a story about people who need the shit kicked out of them and get it. Me likey.

Quote from: Don Coyote on June 18, 2013, 09:49:03 PM
Damnit Roger, just seeing the words "doll" and "house" in a thread you started kept me from reading this steaming pile of fucking awesome.

It's only comedy, Coyote.

I love this, and I am amazed that none of the board regulars will TOUCH it.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on June 19, 2013, 07:28:03 AM
I love this, and I am amazed that none of the board regulars will TOUCH it.

Then it's time to ramp up the horror a notch or two, isn't it?

It's like the tea party.  I just wasn't doing it hard enough.

Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 19, 2013, 03:07:37 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on June 19, 2013, 07:28:03 AM
I love this, and I am amazed that none of the board regulars will TOUCH it.

Then it's time to ramp up the horror a notch or two, isn't it?

It's like the tea party.  I just wasn't doing it hard enough.

YES

DO IT MORE HARDER.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on June 19, 2013, 04:43:35 PM

Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 19, 2013, 03:07:37 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on June 19, 2013, 07:28:03 AM
I love this, and I am amazed that none of the board regulars will TOUCH it.

Then it's time to ramp up the horror a notch or two, isn't it?

It's like the tea party.  I just wasn't doing it hard enough.

YES

DO IT MORE HARDER.

LIKE A 1000 LB TRIPHAMMER

I have removed this from PJ, due to imminent ban.

I'll move it to apple talk in a couple of days, and continue it, because I like it.

Good, because its awesome.

Seconded!

Thirded.

As a matter of fact, I'm going to speak for the F5 crowd and call it unanimous.

I think we should ALWAYS speak for the F5 people, THEY NEED A VOICE.  :evil:

Working on this today.

Sometimes, the devil talks to you.  He isn't some red spandex-wearing clown with a pitchfork, of course.  Sometimes he's on the TV.  Sometimes, he's the guy next door.  And sometimes, he's in your head.  When he talks to you, he doesn't lie...On the contrary, he tells you horrible truths, things that are not false, but that you didn't want to know.

"Your liberties are an illusion; you have only the rights you can seize.  Your freedom is encompassed by the area between 'chattel slavery' and the point at which you stop fighting.  For most people, this area is very small."

"Might makes right."

"There's nothing to be done; you can't save everybody.  In fact, you can't really save anybody."

"All the others are doing it.  Swallow your ethics or be buried alive by the competition."

"What someone doesn't know won't hurt them."

So, yes, we hear all of this in Hell, each and every day.  The props of hell, the weird stuff like those infantry boots with someone's feet (and nothing else) still in them that march around the outside of the Calvinist church all night leaving bloody footprints, that's just window dressing.  The train that goes through the city at night, that train, with the shuttered cattle cars and no engineer, well, that's just for show. 

The real hell is knowing that there's no such thing as justice, and still trying to pretend that there is.

So you can safely ignore the horseman statue, when it breaks loose and starts clanging down the legal district at night...Well, not safely, I guess, there's just nothing you can do about it.

What you CAN do, Man Next tells me, is to not listen to what the devil has to say.  She says that, yes, those horrible things ARE all true, but only as the default state of humanity.  You CAN have justice, if you're willing to go through the exertion of obtaining it.  You DO have rights, if you're willing to FIGHT.  You CAN be better.

While she's talking, you can SEE this better world.  It's right there, just outside of your reach.  Ivan says Man Next is here as part of our punishment...Giving some sort of contrast or means of comparison by which we can appreciate our lot, and despair.  What can I say?  He's Russian, they think that way.

I don't agree.  Even in Hell, everything you do belongs to you.  What happens TO you is a different story, but you are judged on your actions and your words and the company you keep, not the arbitrary lethality of Hell.

So when Man Next came back around, I was ready to go.  Ivan didn't think the same way I do, but he was in, too, on account of extreme boredom.

Which, of course, didn't last.

To be continued

Fucking goosebumps!

This is truly fucking excellent. MORE and FASTER please.

Edited to remove copyrighted names.

Story will continue.

 :banana:

January 21st is a very special day in Hell, sort of a New Years holiday.  On that day, all the dead rise...Not as zombies or anything, mind you.  They all just wake up in their beds that morning, as if nothing had ever happened to them.  People waking up in this manner are disturbed for a short period of time, and it's considered polite to leave them alone until they shake it off.  They never remember any details of their time in death, it is as if that time never existed...One moment they're being killed, etc, the next they're waking up to their alarm clock.

What can I say?   It's Hell.  You don't get out that easily.  So far, Ivan and I had managed to avoid this.

And the 21st of January was coming up fast.  Ivan and I usually stay drink from the night of the 20th until we pass out, so we don't have to listen to the screaming of the newly-risen.  I can't blame them, I just don't want to hear it; it's creepy.

So on the 19th, we were trundling our load of goodies out from the liquor store, when I noticed a sticky note on the dash of my car.  Inside my locked car.  I pointed this out to Ivan.

"Perhaps", he replied, "They've come for you at last, and there's a bomb in the car."

"Good thinking.  Save the booze."  Ivan pushed the cart over to the other side of the parking lot.  I opened the car and got in.  No kaboom.  I grabbed the note.

"It's on the 3rd floor!  That's where it happened!"

I drove over and picked up Ivan, and we loaded the booze.  I showed Ivan the note.

"This means something, Tovarish."

"Yeah?  What?"

"It means you are being left notes by a crazy person, Frank."

"You bastard!"  I burst out laughing.

We drove back to the house, and unloaded the booze.  I turned the radio on, and lighted a cigar, waiting to hear the latest installment of The Green Hornet.  I love that show, and it's no wonder that it's stayed in circulation this many years.

But the Green Hornet didn't come on.  Instead, as the tubes in the radio warmed up, I heard a scratchy recording of some religious show.

"...And that's the TRUTH, friends!  That's why everyone who goes to Tucson never comes back!  It's the prototype of hell!  God's blueprint, a working model for something larger he built somewhere else!  That's why all that weird stuff happens on the border of the zone!  It's the devil trying to get out!  He uses people to..."

I turned the dial.  Another freak trying to explain why he's in hell.  Boring.  The channel I selected should have been the football game.  Again, it wasn't.  This time, it was Man Next.

"Frank!  You and Ivan have to get out of that house!  Right now!  Meet me at..."

The house exploded.  Bits of the house, along with bits of Ivan and myself, decorated the landscape for probably a block in every direction.  And that's how we missed our New Years party.  We were decidedly unhappy about that, when we woke up two days later.

To be continued.

This is getting downright weird.  No wonder I like it so much.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on July 02, 2013, 05:34:49 PM
This is getting downright weird.  No wonder I like it so much.

Yep.  From hipsters to tube-driven radios playing The Green Hornet.

Whoa!  :aaa: Awesome!

I woke up screaming.  I believe I mentioned that happens.  I had vague memories, half-forgotten dreams, mostly of some distraught lady in a spacesuit earnestly trying to explain something to me...But she kept fading in and out of existence.  One part I remembered was her telling me something about a series of space stations placed in orbit in 1948.  Rubbish, we were still cleaning up the mess in Germany and Japan then...Well, dreams.  They don't have to make sense.

I got dressed and went out to the car.  Instead of my old Ford, there was a late model Hidashi Kami in the driveway.  I tried my key, and it worked.  Shrugging, I put it in gear, set the automatic pilot, and started thumbing through a report as the car drove me across town, while the cloud memory stereo played the songs it detected would fit my mood.  Ah, yes, a bit of Lady Gaga.

The report dealt with the latest problem we had in the fighter wing at Davis Monthan.  I was confused for a moment.  Didn't I work in an energy company?  No, no...Defense contractor.  That's right.  Anyway, they had this hotshot pilot, Marie somethingunpronounceable.  Arguably the finest fighter pilot that ever lived, better than Frank Luke or the Red Baron.  Problem:  She refused - threatened to resign her commission, in fact - to fly during the daytime.

I picked Ivan up at the coffee shop, and handed him the report while the car drove us to the Air Force Base.  We had just turned onto Golf Links Road when we saw her standing on the side of the road, looking impatient.  Not the pilot, I mean, but Man Next.  I pulled over and she got in.

"What now, Ma'am?"  I asked.

"Now you keep going where you were going, if you please."

"You're the boss."

"I am?"

"Well, yeah.  An angel in Hell is pretty much gonna call the shots, the way I see it."  Ivan just smiled, still reading the report.

"Wait.  You guys seriously think you're in Hell?"

"What else could this be but Hell?"

"There's a number of other things it could be, Frank.  For one thing..."

She stopped talking as we pulled up to the gate.  As I expected, the guard didn't even look at her.  He examined Ivan's and my credentials, then allowed us to drive on.

"This is a very sad case", Ivan said, with his nose buried in the report.  "A fine talent, and they are about to cashier her for her quirk."

"Well, that's up to us to determine, isn't it?"

"Well", Ivan responded, "It is fairly important that we not allow actual crazy people to fly around in fighter planes.  But I shall give her a fair hearing.  But that's not what's really on my ass right now."

"So, what's bugging you?"

"Our friend in the back seat.  She knew we were about to be killed.  How?"

"Simple, really", said Man Next, "You are helping me.  There are those who wish me to fail.  Anyway, here we are."

We left the car to park itself, and went into the headquarters of the unit to which this Marie woman belonged.  We were greeted by a major.

"You guys aren't going to ground her, are you?  She's the best I've ever seen."

"Now, now, Major, you know we can't talk about this."

The major led us to a smallish conference room.  Sitting at the table was a pretty young female officer with pilot's wings on her uniform.

"Good day, Marie.  I am Ivan, this is Frank.  We are your case officers.  Our associate here is Man Next - don't ask - who is here in an advisory capacity."

The young lady looked at us nervously.

"We aren't here to crucify you", I said, "We simply need to understand what is going on?  Why will you only fly at night time?"

The young lady stared at the table.

"I hate to sound harsh", said Man Next, "But if you DON'T tell us what's wrong, you will never fly again.  If you DO tell us what's wrong, you may very well go on to a very long career flying the F-28 fighters you love so much."


"It's him", Marie replied, beginning to cry.

"Him, who?  Is someone giving you a problem?" asked Ivan.

"No, no.  It's my boyfriend.  He's in the air force, too, and he's stationed here.  So I can't fly in the daytime."

"Why on Earth not?"

"Because if I fly in the daytime, he will see me flying.  And I might make a mistake or something, and then I won't be perfect for him."

"He demands you to be perfect?"  I asked.

"No.  No, he keeps telling me I'm already perfect, that he'd love me no matter what."

"Then what is the problem?", Man Next asked.

"I love him.  I have to be perfect for him.  But I'm not perfect.  I'm damn good, I know that, but I'm not perfect.  And if he sees me fly I won't be perfect for him.  He says none of that matters, but it does.  To me."

"I see.  You may now return to your duties.  We shall return later today to talk to you and your commander."

The young officer left the conference room with tears running down her face.  I imagine she was thinking that her career was over.  And maybe it was.

Man Next looked at her watch.  "Guys, I have to go.  But I'm going to say this much...If she's not seriously mentally ill, don't ground her for being in love."

We nodded.  Man Next walked out of the room...Ivan and I looked at each other, and ran for the door.  Sure enough, there was no sign of Man Next in the entire length of the corridor.

"If we are going to ground her, perhaps we should also ground ourselves, no?", Ivan laughed.

"Yeah, this is pretty weird."

We summoned the car, and drove across to the logistics hangars.  Walking into the hanger, we stopped at a desk manned by a truly beautiful young lady.  She looked like Nina Simone with the build of Jayne Mansfield.  Ah, to be 25 years younger.

"We are looking for Captain Mancini."

"Just one second, sir, and I'll get him."  Funny, she didn't say she'd see if he was available.  Word must have gotten around.  A few seconds later, Captain Mancini came into the room.

"I am Frank, Captain, and this is my colleague Ivan.  Could we perhaps have a word in private with you, say at the nearest smoking area?"

"Yeah, sure.  Sure.  I know what this is all about.  You're going to ground Marie."

"Not so hasty, Captain.  We have to decide that, yet...But we need straight answers from you."

We arrived at the smoking area.  Two airmen were there, finishing their smokes.  The Captain looked at them and jerked a thumb over his shoulder.  "Screw."  They left.

"Now", he said, "What can I tell you?"

"Tell us about Marie."

"Marie is the finest pilot I've ever even heard of.  Ever.  She belongs in the air."

"We know this part.  Tell us of Marie the person, not Marie the pilot."

The Captain looked glum.  "She's a mess."

"Explain."

"Well, we're in love.  Really in love.  She feels she has to be perfect, or I won't love her or something."

"Is that true?"

"No, of course not.  It's crap.  I'd love her no matter what."

"But she doesn't believe this."

"She's terrified, I can tell you that much.  She calls it 'dancing', you know."

"What?"

"Flying practice or actual combat missions.  She calls it dancing.  It's what she loves.  I mean, besides me."

"And she feels that she has to be a perfect 'dancer' for you, and a perfect girlfriend to you, for the sake of the 'dance floor'."

"Exactly.  Precisely.  You can't ground her for that, can you?"

"No, Captain", I said, "I don't think we can.  It wouldn't be right...BUT", I said, as a look of profound relief crossed his face, "Some accomodation must be made.  This requires thought."

We got back in the car and headed back to the fighter wing.  Walking inside, we asked to see the commanding officer, Squadron Leader Horst.

"So", said Horst, frowning, "You're here to ground Marie."

"No."

"What?"  He seemed schocked.

"No.  She is by all accounts a genius at her profession.  She has a psychological issue that we do not find dangerous at this point.  I request and require that you allow her to fly again - at night, and only at night - until we conclude our investigation."

"Well, boys", the Squadron Leader said with a wide smile, "I think we can work something out."

We walked back out to the car, and headed downtown.  It was time for a drink, to enjoy while we hashed this out.  We pulled into the Meetrack, and headed inside.

Something was wrong.  The entire inside of the building was dusty, and a woman in a spacesuit - the woman from my dream - was standing beside the bar.

"You have to understand", she said through her speakers, "The explosion from the wreck went both ways."

"What, the explosion that killed us?"

"No!  No!  THE explosion.  It went forwards and back, it was an acci..."

She was gone.  The bar looked normal again, and Scoob, the bartender, was looking at us like we were ghosts.

"What the hell!"  He hollered...Then, quieter, "You guys just appeared."

"We are like unto the ninjas of old", said Ivan, "We come and go as we please, and none see us."

"This requires bourbon", I added, "Bourbon is stealth fuel.  Don't question it."

We sat down to talk, but mostly we got drunk.  It was all too weird, even for Hell.

But it was going to get a whole lot weirder.

To be continued.

OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS

The woman in the spacesuit... goddamn CHILLS.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on July 02, 2013, 07:33:50 PM
OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS

The woman in the spacesuit... goddamn CHILLS.

I kinda fell in love with Marie while I was writing this.

Woah.

Forwards and back...

You're doing it again, Dok.
And I couldn't be happier.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on July 02, 2013, 08:04:29 PM
You're doing it again, Dok.
And I couldn't be happier.

I'm enjoying the crap out of it.

And again, bonus points to whomever can figure out what the inspiration for Marie and her problem was.

Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 02, 2013, 08:08:35 PM

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on July 02, 2013, 08:04:29 PM
You're doing it again, Dok.
And I couldn't be happier.

I'm enjoying the crap out of it.

And again, bonus points to whomever can figure out what the inspiration for Marie and her problem was.

No clue, so no bonus points for me. Curious, but KEEP THIS GOING!

I like weird. Love the story.

Quote from: Nurse Enabler on July 02, 2013, 10:08:35 PM
I like weird. Love the story.

:)

I have no idea what is going on, but I ache to find out.

Quote from: Don Coyote on July 03, 2013, 02:27:02 AM
I have no idea what is going on, but I ache to find out.

Unlike LOBB, I know precisely what I have in mind, this time.   :lulz:

"So tell me, you Russian freak", I asked, "What are we to do about our young lady?"

Ivan raised his head off the bar.  "Marie?"

"How many other young ladies are we responsible for?"

"Well, it's very simple.  I have filed the paperwork, and asked for funding to conduct more tests on her."

"You'll never get the funding, not these days."

"I know.  And thus our temporary orders stand.  Marie will fly at night and only at night until the paperwork unsnarls.  Which should be about 5 years after she retires."

I laughed out loud.  "You sneaky Russian bastard."

"You say that as if it were a bad thing."

Still laughing, I slid off my bar stool.  "Come on then, we have to go to work."

We staggered out to my Studebaker, and poured ourselves inside.  On the dashboard was another note, wrapped around something.  I took it, and found the note was wrapped around a key.  The note read "Hotel Congress, room 309".

I showed it to Ivan, who laughed.  "Someone is having you on.  The Hotel congress doesn't have a 3rd floor anymore, other than a loft.  The third floor was destroyed in 1934."

"Remember the last note?  It said something about 'it happening on the 3rd floor'."

"Shall we go now, or shall we do our job?"

"Work first.  Then we'll go look into this."

We drove down to the distillery...Which, to the eyes of police and revenuers, looked like a candy store that didn't do much business.  We'd place the orders for the bootleg whiskey, then there'd be time for this hotel nonsense.  As we pulled up to the candy store, I took my heater out and made sure it was loaded.  You can't be too careful in this line of work.

I was also sweating like a pig.  The man that invents air conditioning for automobiles will be a very rich man, indeed. 

But when we got out of the car, there she was.  Man Next was strolling down the sidewalk towards us.

"Just what do you think you're doing, gentlemen?"

"Ordering some bootleg hootch, of course.  How about you?"

She seemed impatient.  "You dumbasses.  You aren't gangsters."

"Ouch", I said.

"That hurts", Ivan added, "I feel like my professional standards have been called into question."

"Why the hell can't you guys remember?"

"Remember what?"

"Who you are, you idiots!"

"Well, we are in Hell.  I imagine memories would fade after a time."

"You are NOT in Hell!  Wake up!  I've been trying to tell you this for months, but you make it so hard!"

"Then were are we?"

"You are in cracked time.  You are stuck between...Oh, shit."

She shimmered in the desert heat, then sort of folded up, and winked out of existence.

"Well, that is something we do not see every day", Ivan said.

"Tucson."

"You make an excellent point.  In any case, I think perhaps we should go to the hotel now, rather than later.  Something isn't right."

I shrugged, and got back in the Plymouth.  We drove over to the Hotel Congress, humming a Glenn Miller tune. We walked inside, and up the stairs to the loft that is the sole remaining portion of the 3rd floor.

In the loft, however, we found a set of frosted glass double doors in the West wall.  An odd place for that, because there's nothing on the other side of the wall but roof.  I opened the door...And saw a long hallway, much like the second floor, with rooms on either side.  From one of the rooms, outdated Jazz music was playing.

I looked at Ivan.

"What do we have to lose?", he asked. 

We walked down to room 309.  I caught a faint whiff of smoke.  Not like cigarettes or even wood burning; it was a very unpleasant, though faint, acrid odor.

I unlocked the door and pulled my heater out, and then opened the door.

To be continued.

I love the UN-explicitness of the chapters, how the cracked time has been implied up until now.

I'm having a lot of fun with that.  How their jobs, their cars, their clothes, etc, change every time they turn around.

The room was a disaster area.  The bed and dresser were smashed flat by some sort of metal capsule that filled most of the room.  Wisps of smoke were coming out of it where the capsule had breached.  It looked more or less like a rather crumpled metal egg.  Standing next to it was the lady in the space suit, which was plugged into the capsule by some sort of cable harness.

She turned to face us.  "Oh, thank God.  You've finally arrived!"

We took the scene in.

"What the hell IS all of this?", I asked.

"We crashed.  I've been waiting for help ever since...I tried to call for help but my brainmail is down.  I knew if I was going to get any help, it would have to be from people in your time."

"Our time?  Is that a time machine?"

"It was.  We crashed, and sustained catastrophic damage.  The explosion reached at least my time, because the backup team hasn't come looking for us."

A voice behind us:  "This explains a great deal."  I turned to see Man Next standing behind us.

"Who's this 'we'?", I asked.

She gestured to the other side of the capsule.  I edged around it, and looked into a canopy.  It looked like the cockpit of a modern fighter jet.  The rear seat was empty...And in the front seat sat another suit, with it's visor smashed in.  A mummified face stared back at me.

"Rob's suit was damaged in the accident.  All the years caught up to him at once."  The woman started sobbing.

"When did this happen?"

"In your terms, 79 years ago.  January 21st, 1934.  It lit the building on fire."

"Ah, the mysterious Hotel Congress fire", Ivan said, "That led to the capture of John Dillinger and his gang."

"It did more than that", the woman said, "It changed history, it split the universe in half."

"What do you mean?", asked Ivan.

"When Dillinger was caught, as best as I can tell, somehow events he would have influenced caused some very major differences in history.  Your second world war wasn't averted, as it was in my reality.  But the universe hates a paradox, so it 'repaired' itself by splitting into two timelines...And the explosion went back in time as well as forward, so there's no telling what actual events differed."

"We suspected as much", Man Next said.

"NOW who is 'we'", I almost shouted.

"You and Ivan and myself, and the rest of the team", Man Next replied.

"What are you talking about?"

"I've been trying to tell you this for months", Man Next replied, "You aren't gangsters or military psychiatrists or any of that other garbage.  You are physicists."

"We are?"  Ivan seemed stunned.

"Yes, you are.  You volunteered to enter the zone, knowing you'd get stuck.  We didn't expect history to overwrite you every few hours."  She turned to the woman in the spacesuit.  "And how does this split in the universe explain the zone?"

"For a few dozen kilometers in every direction, you have a zone between the two realities", the woman said, "Where the 'damage' so to speak, is shunted from each reality.  This is why bizarre phenomena occur here."

"And the zone is permanent?"

"Unless it is repaired", the woman said.  "If I have enough help, I think I can make the two realities collapse into one steady state, a single time line."

"What happens to the other timeline?" Man Next asked.

"They will sort of merge together.  Nobody will even notice...Except here in Tucson."

"What happens here?"

"You cease existing.  Tucson will never have existed.  It sounds awful, but the truth is that nobody here, not you or your friend, actually exists.  Your lady friend there will of course exist, because she isn't actually here"

"I feel like I exist.  And what do you mean she's not here?  She's right in front of us."

"No, I'm not", Man Next said, "What you are seeing is a projection of a forcefield modeled on me.  It's why I never stay...The equipment is brand new, and we're having heat issues that shut it down."

"So, we do not exist?  And our new friend Marie?"

"Also not real.  Sorry."

"But you can fix this?"

"Not for you.  But the universe will be put right."

"I think I can help", Ivan interjected.

"You can?", the woman asked, looking hopeful.

"Yes."  Ivan drew his pistol and fired into the control panel of the time capsule repeatedly.  There was a squeal and a hiss.  The woman in the space suit opened her mouth as if to say something, and then mummified right in front of our eyes, in perhaps 3 seconds.

"What the hell have you done?", Man Next screamed.

"Well, it seems that I do in fact exist", Ivan said, "And that our traveller friend was the dream."

Man Next began to shimmer again, and disappeared as she started to speak.  Heat problems again, I suppose.

Ivan and I walked back to the stairs, the frosted glass door vanishing as we closed it.  We headed down to my souped up Chevy Nova, and got in.  We had a deal to close on a hot new band, and we were going to be late.  I fired the beast up, and we drove into the darkness, another perfect night in Hell.

My god, I love this.

Quote from: Waffleman on July 03, 2013, 06:35:40 PM
My god, I love this.

Nobody has yet figured out where the fighter pilot scene came from.

:lulz:

I thought it was obvious.

Haha. I have NO idea.

Quote from: Waffleman on July 03, 2013, 06:40:29 PM
Haha. I have NO idea.

Lady Gaga (referenced her in that chapter) wrote a song called Dance in the Dark that was recorded on The Fame Monster album.  My wife listens to it, she thinks "decent pop".  I listened to it and thought of a female fighter pilot who only flies/fights at night, so her boyfriend won't see her doing it, in case she screws up.

My head is kind of weird like that.

Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 03, 2013, 06:43:56 PM

Quote from: Waffleman on July 03, 2013, 06:40:29 PM
Haha. I have NO idea.

Lady Gaga (referenced her in that chapter) wrote a song called Dance in the Dark that was recorded on The Fame Monster album.  My wife listens to it, she thinks "decent pop".  I listened to it and thought of a female fighter pilot who only flies/fights at night, so her boyfriend won't see her doing it, in case she screws up.

My head is kind of weird like that.

:lulz:
That's brilliant!

Quote from: Waffleman on July 03, 2013, 06:52:34 PM

Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 03, 2013, 06:43:56 PM

Quote from: Waffleman on July 03, 2013, 06:40:29 PM
Haha. I have NO idea.

Lady Gaga (referenced her in that chapter) wrote a song called Dance in the Dark that was recorded on The Fame Monster album.  My wife listens to it, she thinks "decent pop".  I listened to it and thought of a female fighter pilot who only flies/fights at night, so her boyfriend won't see her doing it, in case she screws up.

My head is kind of weird like that.

:lulz:
That's brilliant!

I was just reading an interview about it, and she was talking about having sex with the lights off.

That interpretation strikes me as kind of prosaic, know what I mean?  Everyday.  Boring.  Hell.

Yours is better. :)

"Cracked time" sounds like my mp3 player. Now I'm going to think of this every time it goes from a recent show download to Billie Holiday.

Dok: Makes your electronics all spooky and shit.  :) :) :)

Great ending, Dok.  Great story in general.

Thanks for writing it.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on July 03, 2013, 07:11:07 PM
Great ending, Dok.  Great story in general.

Thanks for writing it.

I've been sort of having fun between the three series (you guys have only seen two; the other one is still kinda gooey), playing with the idea that The Matrix was a great concept, but someone spilled Keanu Reeves all over it. 

I really like the idea of having weird shit happen that seems supernatural, like the fight scene at the beginning of the Matrix where Trinity runs on the wall, etc...And then peeling back the vinyl on how it's really happening.  The problem with The Matrix was they made two more movies.  Also Keanu Reeves.  And that brat with the spoon.

Anyway, that's kind of where my head has been for the last 6-7 months, and I'm having a great deal of fun writing about it.  I'm also glad people seem to like it.

Loooooooove this. <3 God damn amazing, Dok. I wish it were longer. It would make an amazing comic, too, with everything changing all the time. Makes me wish I could draw.

Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 03, 2013, 07:27:57 PM

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on July 03, 2013, 07:11:07 PM
Great ending, Dok.  Great story in general.

Thanks for writing it.

I've been sort of having fun between the three series (you guys have only seen two; the other one is still kinda gooey), playing with the idea that The Matrix was a great concept, but someone spilled Keanu Reeves all over it. 

I really like the idea of having weird shit happen that seems supernatural, like the fight scene at the beginning of the Matrix where Trinity runs on the wall, etc...And then peeling back the vinyl on how it's really happening.  The problem with The Matrix was they made two more movies.  Also Keanu Reeves.  And that brat with the spoon.

Anyway, that's kind of where my head has been for the last 6-7 months, and I'm having a great deal of fun writing about it.  I'm also glad people seem to like it.

Your head is awesome. I cracked when Ivan pulled the barstool out at the end. Totally did not see it coming  :lulz:

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on July 03, 2013, 09:22:12 PM

Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 03, 2013, 07:27:57 PM

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on July 03, 2013, 07:11:07 PM
Great ending, Dok.  Great story in general.

Thanks for writing it.

I've been sort of having fun between the three series (you guys have only seen two; the other one is still kinda gooey), playing with the idea that The Matrix was a great concept, but someone spilled Keanu Reeves all over it. 

I really like the idea of having weird shit happen that seems supernatural, like the fight scene at the beginning of the Matrix where Trinity runs on the wall, etc...And then peeling back the vinyl on how it's really happening.  The problem with The Matrix was they made two more movies.  Also Keanu Reeves.  And that brat with the spoon.

Anyway, that's kind of where my head has been for the last 6-7 months, and I'm having a great deal of fun writing about it.  I'm also glad people seem to like it.

Your head is awesome. I cracked when Ivan pulled the barstool out at the end. Totally did not see it coming  :lulz:

Best part is, it also ENDS the series, because the vinyl came off completely.  :lulz:

WHOAAAAA

That was FUCKING AWESOME

And TOTALLY unexpected! PERFECT! I got the running chills when I was reading it. That was GREAT.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on July 03, 2013, 10:30:22 PM
WHOAAAAA

That was FUCKING AWESOME

And TOTALLY unexpected! PERFECT! I got the running chills when I was reading it. That was GREAT.

Thanks.  I expected it, as the tombstone says, but not so soon.   :lulz:

That was amazing. Looking forward to the next story.

Really enjoyed - but dman I need to re read this in a few days to catch all teh references!