Newsgroups: gweepnet.yarn
Path: hotblack!mute
From: mute@hotblack.gweep.net (Josh Brandt)
Subject: Re: I remember it clear as yesterday...
Message-ID: 
Organization: GweepCo Cooperative Network - Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
References:   
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 18:02:56 GMT

In article ,
Tom Russell  wrote:
>
>He had reached the long reflecting pool in the center of the park when
>suddenly, he heard it....

"Franklin... Fraaaankliiiin..." The voice, hollow and sorrowful, floated
across the still water. Franklin looked up, glancing around at the shadowy
trees surrounding the pool. He didn't see anything, so he walked onward,
following the path around the pool and toward home.

He had walked only a scant few feet when he heard the voice again.
"Fraaaankliiiin... I am heeere..." He spun around, darting glances left and
right and over his shoulder. Seeing nothing, he turned back to head homeward
again, and that was when he saw here.

Naked she was, and floating. Above the pool, a woman hung suspended in
midair. There were no visible means of support, and, Franklin noted, she was
glowing. Her hair was floating about her head, as if from a gentle wind,
although the air in the park was still and dead. 

"Fraaaaankliiiiiiiiiin..." she said again. "Do not mock that which you do
not understaaaand..."

"What the hell," said Franklin, "is this? Who are you?"

"Fraaankliiiin..." began the woman, but he cut her off.

"Look, I know my own name already. What's the deal? Who are you?"

The floating woman looked rather miffed. "You have spent your life solving
the ineffable mysteries of the Universe... You have devoted time to
revealing that which should remain unrevealed. You have..."

"Yeah, right. I'm a writer. So what's the deal?"

"Well, stop it," the woman snapped, annoyed. "Why don't you leave us alone
already? It's a pain to spend your life manifesting--"

"Afterlife," Franklin interjected.

"Afterlife, whatever. Why don't you let me talk?"

"Sorry." He wasn't.

"Anyway, it's such a pain to spend your... _afterlife_... manifesting,
floating about, being outside space and time and generally mysterious and
unknowable just so some schmuck with a tape recorder can come and write up
your life story and some dreck about parapsychic trauma imprints and set you
up as a tourist attraction for the rest of eternity. It's not like I have
any choice here, you know, about being one of the spiritual host. I didn't
_ask_ to undergo the cosmic injustice of being murdered right as I had a
very important task to complete, now, did I? It's not like I'm ever going to
get it finished, now, either, being insubstantial and all. So why don't you 
just leave us wanderers of the ether alone? What did we do to bother you?"

"Um," Franklin said. "Can I get back to you on this one?"

"Just cease your trespasses upon the realms outside of space and time,
Franklin. Just give it up already, huh?" With a pop, the floating woman
vanished, leaving Franklin standing alone in the dark next to the glossy
black of the pool. He blinked several times and then, shrugging, headed
toward home.

Behind him, hidden back in the bushes, Gramps turned from adjusting a
complicated apparatus of lenses and lights to see his grand-neice Jenny, now
fully clothed, emerge from the cloth-draped projection booth to which the
apparatus was attached.

"How did it go, dear?" he asked as she adjusted her overalls.

"Not bad, Gramps. He's a tough cookie, but I think I put the fear of, um,
someone into him." She smiled winningly and stepped forward to hug her aged 
uncle. "Aw, Gramps, you're a genius."

The old man chuckled. "Now, now, Jenny. You'll make me immodest, and we
can't have that, now, can we?"

Laughing, they began to break down the equiment to take it home.
-- 
  Sweet ghost of light, I've lived too long    Robyn
             I die for you inside this song    Hitchcock
                                               mute@hotblack.gweep.net


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