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The
Boundaries of Sanity
======================
(C) 1992
Aaron Turpen
Issue #: 10
Edited by:
Aaron Turpen
(AKA Thanatos)
Released:
07/03/92
=============================================================================
| The Boundaries of Sanity is a proud member of the Disktop Publishing |
| Association (DPA), dedicated to the art of paperless, tree-saving |
| publishing! You can contact the DPA's BBS in Birmingham, Alabama at |
| (205)854-1660(9600/N81) for the latest developments and outcroppings of |
| electronically published literature. Please support paperless publishing |
| THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE! |
=============================================================================
What's In Here:
===============
1. Special Thanks
A few words to our, ahem, sponsors?
2. The Editor's Soapbox
An answer to some peoples' question about hypertext and this rag.
3. Feature Story #1: Hermit's Reward
A vivid caption of a Hermit's life...and death.
4. Essay: Reality Check
A rather stark, but realistic view of the future.
5. Feature Poem #1: Her
A pixel-perfect picture of beauty.
6. Feature Poem #2: The Chair
His only friend is the chair he sits in...
7. Famous Quayle Quotes: Dan in Hawaii
Our Second Man fails the IQ test AGAIN!
8. Feature Story #2: Houlihan's Wake
The chuckle-filled obituary of an artist.
9. Feature Poem #3: With a Whisper
When schizophrenia begins to take hold of the fight for life...
10. Feature Poem #4: Your Fantasy Father
A chaotic ramble about fathers.
11. Feature Story #3: Rain
A woman's change for a fresh start severs connections too quickly.
12. About the Literature
=============================================================================
Special Thanks:
===============
If only we DID have sponsors <grin>.
A hearty thank you and you're welcome to Del Freemon, editor of Ruby's
Pearls, another great electronic magazine (see ad later on)! Thanks for your
help, Del!!
Also another hearty handshake for Joseph Ott, whose magazine, The Silver
River Sequential, though it's just starting, is doing great! Thanks for a
good job and your encouragement, Jo!
A big grin to all my friends at work who seem to think that I'm in the
big-time now! Hi: Brian, Jillynn, and Michael!!
I think that'll about cover it this time. If I missed someone, I'll
probably remember next month or I've added it in already. heh. One of the
wonders of paperless publishing is that fact that if you notice something,
even if it's two minutes before release, is that you can change it and not
have to re-print, reset, or any of that crap. You just ad it on and go!
If you haven't noticed, I'm in a gloriousely good mood for a Sunday
afternoon, I must say. And no, I haven't been drinkin'!
=============================================================================
The Editor's Soapbox:
=====================
A few people have been asking me some questions that I thought
important enough to address here. The most oft asked is "Why don't
you use a hypertext reader?" The reason, when I've finished here,
should be obvious. It would seem that most, if not all, of the
electronic publications are now running under Iris or a similar
hypertext viewer. This is good and very convenient for many users,
but I feel it limits the availability of the text too much. After
all, Iris only works for IBM users. What of the Mackintosh, Atari,
Commodore, etc. users who, because they are not on a "standardized"
(standard for the modem world) machine cannot read and enjoy these
publications?
I must clear a few things here before someone starts screaming
that obvious question "So this means nobody should use hypertext?"
That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that THIS
magazine won't use hypertext because I think it's unfair for me,
who has been advocating the Hacker Ethic so often, to suddenly
change policy. The Boundaries of Sanity is meant for everyone to
enjoy for free, so I don't charge money, I don't pay for
submissions, and I don't use hypertext. Because of this,
hopefully, there aren't many users who can't read the magazine. I
do use PKZIP to compress the files together, but I haven't run into
a modem-user yet who, no matter what machine he/she is on, doesn't
have an emulator or conversion program for this. And if all else
fails, I make it available on disk in a few formats and will even
print it, for a reasonably small fee (to cover paper, time, and
postage).
In the end, I'm just saying that the reason The Boundaries of
Sanity doesn't use hypertext technology (though it is a GREAT step
towards the future of electronic publishing) is because that
technology is, so far, too machine specific. If someone were to
come out with a reader that worked on several machine types instead
of just IBM or just Mac, etc., then I would probably consider using
it. However, this doesn't seem to be very likely. Just remember:
It may be a pain to have to go through the magazine line-by-line,
but in the end it works out for the best. Think of it this way:
I'm using a NEW version of hypertext technology! Every computer
comes with some sort of text viewer, right? I'm utilizing ALL of
them!
I hope I've answered a few people's questions. Enjoy this
month's issue!
--Aaron Turpen
=============================================================================
====================================================================
The Brass Cannon BBS -- 226-8310 (public node, 2400). Specializes
in messages (carries the RIME network), and quality files. Also
features an abundantly helpful SysOp and a friendly, occasional Co-
SysOpess. The editor frequents this board. (Avail. via ->BRASS) in
the RIME Writer's conference.
====================================================================
=============================================================================
Hermit's Reward
===============
(C) 1992 Chris Lynn
Trodding through the muck of the swampy sod behind the cabin
left his boots with a leeching layer of fresh and overripe mud.
He shook most of it off at the porch and then scraped the rest
off on the edge of the wooden floor beams. He took off the
cumbersome footwear and laid it inside the door on the hand-woven
mat with his pair of house slippers. A small wolf spider glided
from under the rim of the mat and scuttled into a crack in the
peeling, varnished floor. The insect was quickly followed by the
flying heel of the blue, plaid slipper which slapped the floor
behind him. The owner of the slipper cussed at his lack of
reflexes to rid the arachnid from this life as he pried his foot
into the cozy, matted cotton, interior of the shoe. He shook his
head vigorously to purge his scalp of unwanted woodland creatures
and flora and ran a grimy hand through his hair. He strode like
a slumping cigar indian to his bedroom. The spider peered out of
his nook and then skittered across the floor and up the wall to
hide behind a picture leaning forward on it's wire.
Just a faint air of moist mists and mud was woven into the
man's clothing which he discarded onto the floor on the way to
the porcelain tub crouching in the corner of his bedroom. He was
left with the rustic smell of sweat and dirt that barely touched
his liquid nostrils. He turned the two knobs toward each other
to get the warmth that he needed on this chilly day. His toe
reached into the bottom of the yellowed basin and slid the
stopper into the sucking drain. A couple of taps to the top of
the plug and he wandered naked to the window to watch squirrels
sprint around the obstinate hills of unmelting white. He sniffed
his nose clear and wiggled his toes before he checked the level
of water in the tub and returned the knobs to their back-to-back
dueling positions. Droplets of still running water entered pool
as his legs did and then his waist after that. Soon all but his
head was enjoying the encompassing and probing water. Steam
gathered on his tangled beard to mold water baubles like
ornaments on a tree or dew on a web. He smirked and took the
sharp metal card from the arm of the basin. He looked at it
inquisitively and ran it down his wrist. The water turned a
cloudy pink. Then red. Then white.
The spider climber over his shoulder and looked
questioningly at the murky water then repelled down the side of
the bath.
=============================================================================
DISCLAIMER: The following is a view represented by the editor/publisher to
spark thought and debate. It is not necessarily, however, in the publisher's
opinion or view. This being a forum for thought-provocation as well as good
literature, the following essay was included on that note. The publisher
neither claims nor denies any of the opinions shown in the following essay.
=============================================================================
REALITY CHECK
=============
(C) 1992
Thomas A. Easton
Box 805, RFD 2
Belfast, ME 04915
207-338-1074
GEnie address: T.Easton1
You have surely seen a certain newspaper ad. In my
paper, the Bangor Daily News, it often runs on the page
opposite the comics, along with "Dear Abby" and the daily
horoscope. It shows a picture of a nineteen-week human
fetus. The caption asks, "Is this a choice, or a child?"
This ad ignores the fact that most abortions occur well
before this stage of fetal development in favor of an image
that must make almost anyone cry, "Oh, horrors! It looks
like a poor, defenseless, sweet, innocent child! It must
therefore be a poor, defenseless, sweet, innocent child. Of
course we must protect it!" It is sentimental button-
pushing of the worst sort. It takes unfair advantage of the
human tendency to see human life--especially new and
helpless human life--as sacred in and of itself.
It would be interesting to publish a different ad.
This ad would consist of a row of photos of such infamous
individuals as Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin, Jeffrey Dahmer, and
Saddam Hussein. The caption would ask, "What is so sacred
about a human life?" Certainly these particular men didn't
and don't see human life as sacred. And a great many people
would not consider their lives sacred.
Is human life sacred?
Go ahead. Ask the question. Don't try to answer it
immediately, even though your upbringing, your traditions,
your religion, and your political ideology all surely supply
you with an automatic answer.
Just ask it. Think about it. Consider possible
alternative answers. If we insist that human life is sacred
in and of itself, with no reference to other people's
attitudes toward it, without considering its deeds, we find
ourselves saying as a logical consequence that human life
deserves protection whatever the form it takes, whether that
of a fetus or that of a mass-murderer. We cannot
countenance abortion. That fetus in the ad is no choice,
but a child. It is even a child well before it looks so
human, when it is the merest drop of jelly in the womb.
This, of course, is exactly the conclusion the pro-life
people behind the ad wish us to reach.
If we say that human life is not so sacred, what
follows? Do we automatically approve of abortion? Of the
death penalty? Of mass murder?
Surely not. What follows is the thought that life need
not automatically, no matter what, be protected. We can
consider the value of an individual life in terms of its
costs and benefits to society. We can then compare the
values of different lives. In appropriate cases perhaps we
can approve the death penalty. We can consider the
prospects for a child, and perhaps we can approve
forestalling a life of suffering due to birth defect or
poverty or parental resentment, neglect, and abuse.
If human life is not so sacred, then it has to be a
choice. Yet it remains a human life. That fetus in the ad
is both choice and child.
"Choice" is not evil. "Choice" does not mean death.
It means evaluation, deliberation, and careful selection
among alternatives. It means freedom from any ideological
commitment to one single "right" alternative.
The freedom to choose means the freedom to err.
The pro-life people, of course, agree that a child is a
choice. However, they say that because human life is sacred
it is a choice we are free to make in only one way. Any
other choice, any error, means that we will roast in Hell
forever.
Abortion is a no-no. Once a woman is pregnant, she can
only choose to give birth. Some people even say she cannot
morally choose to avoid getting pregnant, as by using
condoms and pills. Each woman must stand up in the
squirting gallery and take her chance.
That is, we do make choices even when our beliefs
insist that only one choice can be made.
Do you, like many people in this world of ours, believe
the sacredness of human life is a given, something we cannot
question? Do you think that if we do, we are somehow
despicable human beings, the next worst things to a Jeffrey
Dahmer?
There are reasons to ask such questions and to reject
the comfortable, traditional answers.
Consider this quote from the preface to E. G. Nisbet's
Leaving Eden: To Protect and Manage the Earth (Cambridge
University Press, 1991): "We stand at a unique moment in
human history. Though unaware, we now manage the Earth. We
have the power to make or unmake the planet. We can see the
future. Before the battle of Sedan in 1870, the French
general, Ducrot, surveyed the end of what was called the
Liberal Empire, a great, prosperous state. His despairing
comment as he rolled up the map on his nation could fit us
all today: 'Nous sommes dans un pot de chambre, et nous y
serons emmerdes.' Our environmental laws and regulations
today, for the most part, are simply exercises in putting up
umbrellas as the first dollops fall into the chamber pot.
Yet it is by no means too late to climb out of the pot.
Perhaps it might even profit us to do so."
Consider that chamber pot, our world. In it, we are
"emmerde" in a thousand ways. One of the worst is sheer
human numbers. Some call it the worst because it aggravates
every other problem we face. Indeed, if it did not do so,
it would not itself be a problem.
How bad is the numbers problem? How crowded or
overcrowded are we? World population was about two billion
when I was born and five billion in 1987. It will be six
billion before 2000 and somewhere in the neighborhood of
eight to twelve billion by 2050. That's a fairly
conservative estimate.
This cannot be. It won't be--if only because the Earth
cannot support such numbers for long. Every year, we lose
agricultural land to development and fertility to erosion,
salinization, and desertification, even as we require more
food. We already face shortages of fresh water, not because
any less of this life-giving fluid is available, but because
we demand so much. We are exhausting nature's supplies of
fossil fuels and mineral resources, and there is absolutely
no way we could make enough available to give everyone on
Earth today a lifestyle resembling that of the developed
nations.
Yet if we can't, resentment over the inequities we see
in the world today--which can only grow worse as population
continues to grow--seems bound to lead to war, terrorism,
and burdensome migrations of economic refugees. We see such
things already.
It is very easy to see as well that by the mid-twenty-
first century, when the world is choked by perhaps twice as
many humans as it holds today, a bad crop year, an epidemic,
or even a failure of foreign aid could begin the collapse,
the Great Die-Off, when perhaps as much as nine tenths of
the human species will die.
In the space of a year or two.
The only growth profession will be mortician. With a
backhoe.
A thousand things could begin the catastrophe. One
surely will.
Disaster is inevitable because when Mother Nature steps
in to control overpopulation, she does not have a gentle
hand. Her rod is famine and plague. Perhaps she will use
sexually transmitted fertility-lowering diseases as natural
population control. We can see such diseases already, even
in the US; the big one is chlamydia, which works by scarring
the Fallopian tubes and preventing sperm and egg from
meeting.
Mother Nature is also already using AIDS, which tends
not to kill you until after you have kids, but it passes to
the kids and kills them young. We fool ourselves if we do
not admit that AIDS is now a raging epidemic worldwide, with
most new cases coming through heterosexual contact. Some
experts are saying that this epidemic could well depopulate
the continent of Africa.
And there are far worse possibilities, including the
infamous Black Death and a revival of smallpox, among
others.
That is, Mother Nature does not treat animal life--and
humans ARE animals--as sacred.
If we wish to prevent the catastrophe, we cannot treat
human life as sacred either. Only then can we hope to
prevent the deaths of billions.
What we need is a concept well known to the families of
recovering alcoholics. It is "tough love," the sort of love
that says, "I don't care how much it hurts, how mad it makes
you, how much it makes you hate me, I'm telling you what a
mess you're in, the damage you're doing to yourself and
others, and here's your ticket to the detox ward."
Those families will tell you that tough love isn't
easy. Delivering such messages hurts everyone involved.
But the pain is essential. If the messages don't get
delivered, there is no hope of reform. The patient is
doomed. So are the marriage and the family--the
environment, if you will--in which that patient lives.
The same thing is true of the relationship between
humanity and Mother Nature. If humanity doesn't wise up,
clean up its act, get detoxed, the marriage and the family--
the environment--are doomed. Humanity will be reduced
tenfold in numbers. Civilization will crumble.
We may even join other species in extinction.
How can we possibly prevent this catastrophe? How can
we protect our future?
As soon as we begin to consider one answer to these
questions--population control--we discover that the idea
that human life is not sacred in and of itself has plenty of
precedent.
Think about it. The countries with the highest
population growth rates treat women worst. They bar women
from education, owning property, voting, deciding the
conditions of their own lives. Efforts to help these
countries control their population growth by supplying birth
control devices and by funding development have not worked.
But educating and empowering the women has. Once women know
what they are missing and once they can make their own
decisions, they frequently say, "Not tonight, dear."
Not surprisingly, the men get a bit annoyed at this.
Yet the men do not disagree that some human lives are more
valuable than others. They just think the more valuable
lives are male lives.
"Three girl babies in a row. Feed 'em to the dogs and
come to bed, dear. Gotta make a boy this time."
"Get lost, bonehead."
You don't need contraceptives and abortions to say no.
On the other hand, the contraceptives and abortions
certainly help.
There are, of course, other possible answers to the
questions of how we can prevent catastrophe and protect our
future. To my mind, each answer demands that we accept that
human life is not so sacred. Human lives can be rated
against each other. Some human lives are more valuable than
others.
#
Most human-population experts believe that the best we
can do in the way of population control is to stabilize our
numbers. The minimum projected final world population,
under the most optimistic of assumptions, is in the
neighborhood of eight billion, reached in the second half of
the 21st century.
A world population this large or larger poses another
very awkward question: How do we take care of them all?
The simple answer is: we can't. We don't have the
resources. Not food, not water, not energy, not minerals.
Not without enormous technical achievements that seem quite
unlikely to happen in the necessary time frame of less than
a century.
We will therefore be forced to ration our resources.
Political realities will force the rich nations to give
up some of their wealth, to share. If they refuse, there
will be war.
There may well be war anyway, because no one could get
enough to satisfy even if all the world's wealth were shared
out equally. Currently that wealth is concentrated in the
hands of perhaps a quarter of the world's population, the
people of the industrialized nations. The people of these
nations are by no means equally well off, but even the
poorest among them are wealthy compared to a peasant of
Bangladesh, for instance.
Rationing will surely mean something more like tough
love. Imagine if you will two heavily populated, famine-
stricken nations. Call one the Kingdom of Doom; its women
are property; the birth rate is high; it makes no effort to
control its population; indeed, when foreigners offer
contraceptive technology or education, it accuses them of
attempted genocide. The Kingdom of Doom has real-world
parallels.
Call the second nation Tryingia. It too has a high
birth rate, but it is trying desperately--and successfully,
albeit slowly--to bring this problem under control.
Tryingia also has real-world parallels.
The rich nations see these two nations and their
problems and ask, "How can we help?" The conventional
answer is to supply food. But feeding the Kingdom of Doom
will only guarantee further population growth and ever-
larger future generations. The next famine, or the next,
when enough food to help simply cannot be delivered, will
kill far more people than the current famine would if it
were allowed to run its course. Furthermore, if this
current famine were not relieved, the people of Doom might
be so reduced in number that their own soil would support
them for decades to come. If they learned from the
disaster, they might be safe forevermore.
What happens if the world feeds Tryingia? This
nation's population problem will not get worse. In fact,
considering their success to date in reducing birth rate, it
will get better. Foreign aid will therefore not be wasted.
If the world has enough surplus food to save only one
nation, the choice of which nation to save seems obvious.
What we see here is an example of triage. It means
using resources where they can do the most good, not where
they will be wasted. It has been called "lifeboat ethics,"
because you can't put more people in a lifeboat than the
boat will hold or it will sink and everyone aboard will die.
It is better to save some than to lose all.
We can see the same concept in medicine. In fact,
triage is a medical term, drawn from the battlefield where a
"triage officer" would choose those casualties likely to die
no matter what help they received, fill them full of pain-
killer, and park them out of the way. He would then set
aside those likely to get better on their own and route to
the operating room only those who would recover if and only
if they got prompt access to the limited medical help
available.
Some people are talking about trying to control the
high social cost of medical care by bringing triage into
peacetime medicine. Expensive treatments such as heart
transplants, they say, should be reserved for those who
would gain the most benefit, the most years of life. The
young, in other words.
We are bound to see this idea spread. Government
health programs and even insurance companies will limit
their coverage to basics and high-impact procedures, saying
in effect that if you want more, you must pay for it
yourself.
We may see welfare agencies saying to applicants,
"Before you fill out the forms, step next door and have your
tubes tied. We'll help you with your problems, but you will
not make those problems worse. Not on our nickel, anyway."
We will undoubtedly see physician-assisted suicide
become both accepted and popular. Dr. Jack Kevorkian
brought this possibility into the public eye by loading the
gun, showing his patients how to pull the trigger, and
handing it to them (figuratively speaking). He did not
himself kill them. On the other hand, Kevorkian did not
invent physician-assisted suicide. There have always been
physicians who would shorten the suffering of dying patients
by withdrawing treatment, by making sure the patient had
enough of a drug such as morphine available to take an
overdose, and even by administering overdoses. Kevorkian's
efforts, and the publicity surrounding them, will first make
his limited, arm's-length approach acceptable. Indeed, a
bill proposing to legalize physician-assisted suicide went
before the Maine State Legislature early in 1992. If such
bills were to become law, it would surely not be long before
terminal patients and the families of incompetent patients
were asking the physicians to pull the trigger themselves,
and the physicians were agreeing.
This is precisely where many people see a serious
problem. They say that once we accept such things as triage
and physician-assisted suicide, we accept that some lives
are worth more than others. As soon as we deny--or even
question--the sacredness of every human life, we set foot on
a "slippery slope" leading immediately to euthanasia for
hopeless medical patients such as those in coma, victims of
Alzheimer's disease, anencephalic newborns, and others.
Soon thereafter we define the seriously retarded, the
incurable insane, and career criminals as undeserving of
life. Euthanasia solves those problems too.
Are there too many high-school dropouts? Does society
need only educated citizens? Then make everyone take exams
to move on from elementary school, junior high school, high
school, and college. Those who flunk--regardless of
dyslexias or family problems--are given a little pink pill
and a body bag. If you need a precedent to make this idea
thinkable, consider Japan, whose high-pressure educational
system drives many students to suicide. If you fear making
mistakes, well... the world already holds too many people.
We can afford to waste a few.
Perhaps, say those who fear the slippery slope, we will
extend our definition of "undeserving of life" to include
the homeless, the poor, drug addicts, Gypsies, Jews, Blacks.
Pick your targets, folks. Buy your brown shirts and
swastikas at the booth on the right.
I do not advocate snuffing out the poor or the
homeless, dropouts or minorities. The thought of mistakes,
of waste, horrifies me. Yet we do need that "tough love"
attitude. Social and medical triage make sense. Physician-
assisted suicide and euthanasia, both restricted to require
the consent of the patient or, where that is impossible, the
consent of the family or legal guardian, seem quite
reasonable.
They are especially reasonable because the problems
that led us into this discussion are not about to go away.
They remain. They promise to contribute to an enormous
catastrophe, that Great Die-Off. And they demand solutions.
It is unfortunate that those solutions do look so
threatening. It is even more unfortunate that most people
seem to believe that the best way to stay off the slippery
slope is to pretend it does not exist. The best way to
guard against extremism, they say, is to refuse even to
think about the problems that can lead to it.
But closing our eyes to our problems, refusing even to
consider such questions as whether some people are more
worthy of help or life than others, or whether all human
lives are equally sacred, does not help. It is far better
to strive to understand the problems, the possible
solutions, and the implications of both problems and
solutions as fully as possible. Only then can there be any
hope of devising safeguards against extremism in time to do
any good. If I do not fear the slippery slope, that is
because workable safeguards against extremism are easy to
envision.
Whether we like it or not, the population problem seems
all too likely to lead to some or all of the measures I have
mentioned. Without safeguards, the solutions could all too
easily become problems worse than the problem they were
designed to solve.
The only alternative will be to stop multiplying, to
stabilize and even reduce world population by restricting
the human birth rate. Unfortunately, the record to date
does not make such an obvious and sensible solution seem
very likely.
Are there any other solutions? Population is a problem
because we don't have the resources to go around. Expanding
the resource supply must therefore also help, at least for a
while.
How do we do that? People have been talking for years
about mining the Moon and asteroids, tapping the sun's
energy with orbiting power satellites, building habitats in
space, and even colonizing other worlds. The sad truth is
that the sort of space-based economy that would make such
things possible seems even further off than the population
crisis.
The need to control our numbers is therefore
inescapable. If we cannot do so, triage and worse will be
forced upon us.
=============================================================================
=================================================================
Ruby's Pearls is another electromag which features short fiction
and sattiracle humor. It is available from the DPA's BBS as well
as several prominent BBSs in this area. HIGHLY recommended by the
editor of this magazine, it is another free electronic
publication. The filename is RUBYV??.ZIP. The IRIS hypertext
reader is required for viewing this publication.
=================================================================
=============================================================================
Her
===
(C) 1992 Aaron Turpen
We'll start at the bottom
And work our way up
To explain the wonder of
This little cup.
In which beauty has chosen
To reside and sup:
Feet, O so dainty,
Small and precise
Carefully curving in the ankles
They lightly hoist.
Upwards comes curves,
Calves so roundedly choice.
Then knees and thighs
So smooth and strong,
And connected to hips
Which flourish like song.
Smoothly tapering into
A waist so perfectly sarrong.
A flatt little tummy,
The widening ribs
Accentuate her bosom
Which could never be fibs.
Rounded and pert
They softly add bids.
Squared shoulders so light
And magically soft
With arms so daintily hung
In a perfect harmony of oft.
A neck, slightly curving inward
To connect with her loft.
A face of perfect beauty I see
With passionate lips
And soulful, sweet eyes
Of spiritual lifts.
Evened with a small, pert nose
And cheecks so red-lit.
Her hair all beautifully rippled
With tints and lights
To drive you insane as you see
Her skin in like.
The wonderous beauty I describe:
O WHAT A SIGHT!
=============================================================================
==================================================================
Cloud 8 -- 756-5100 (14.4K USR HST) or 756-1630 (16.8K high speed)
Specializes in Sound Blaster and high res. .GIF support! Carries
the NaNet (North AmeriNet). EXCELLENT files and a helpful SysOp.
The editor frequents this board.
==================================================================
=============================================================================
The Chair
=========
(C) 1992 Ken Marrott
A velvet kiss upon his hand,
Sudden movement to uncharted lands.
Open arms of soft cushions wrapped themselves around him,
within the quiet room.
His thoughts all gone, sheltered by the comfort of the chair.
Lonely and sad, but not feelingly it.
He sits.
Being alone in the world, is often followed by fear,
but not for him.
This is the boy, trapped in the arms of satan's play.
"A Puppet in evil's game," they say, so they ban him to the chair.
Fantasie's last adventure,
A silent night and a glowing sword, lashed out upon the world,
--in laughter and in glee--.
Taring away his fear, when they force the chair to call his name.
No this chair is not the end, nor the beginning of a new,
Eventually he'll see a fresh chair,
one not so comforting, one of few, but many.
He will pay for sin on the auction block,
He'll miss the light of day.
He'll receive the shock of life,
From the next chair, to call his name.
=============================================================================
==================================================================
The Game Room -- 222-0619 (2400 BPS) has been online for over two
years. Sports files, messages and fourteen active doors! Friendly
SysOp and a nice layout. CALL!
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=============================================================================
Famous Quayle Quotes: Dan in Hawaii
====================================
"Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is IN the
Pacific. It is part of the United States that is an island that is right
[PAUSE] here."
Dan Quayle, Hawaii, September 1989
=============================================================================
=================================================================
The Silver River Sequential is another electromag available for
download as SILVER??.ZIP (replace the "??"s with an issue number)
from several prominent BBSs. HIGHLY recommended by the editor of
this magazine, it is another free electronic publication. CHECK
IT OUT!
=================================================================
=============================================================================
HOULIHAN'S WAKE
===============
(C) 1992 Willian J. Slattery
I see that you're a stranger here. To help pass
the time, if you will buy me a beer, I will be pleased
to tell you a story. It's a sort of legend in this
place, you might say. The story concerns our friend
Houlihan, the recently departed Houlihan.
Houlihan was a portrait painter by trade. If you
walked in here, for five dollars he would paint a
picture of you standing at the bar. If you came in
with some friends, he's paint them standing at the bar
with you. Five dollars for each friend.
Five dollars sounds like a small amount to pay for
having one's portrait painted. But the truth is that a
portrait by Houlihan was not a very good portrait and
almost all the work on your picture had been done long
before you walked in. Houlihan painted the pictures
days and weeks in advance, leaving blank ovals for the
faces. For five dollars, he would paint your face in
whichever oval you chose.
Now when I say that a portrait of you by Houlihan
was not very good, I don't want you to get the impres-
sion that the man was inept. Not a bit of it. If you
were a white man with blue eyes, a white man with blue
eyes is what appeared in the picture. The white man
with blue eyes in the picture might not look much like
you, but it would certainly be the likeness of a man
who might be you.
Now if there was something strange about your
face, if you had no nose, for example or four eyebrows
or something of that nature, naturally Houlihan would
have to charge you extra for painting these features
in. And if you were not a white man with blue eyes,
there would be an extra charge for changing those
particulars to, say, black skin or brown eyes or hazel
or something else peculiar. But if you were a blue-
eyed white man, your picture was practically done when
you walked in.
Houlihan had another business besides portrait
painting. He was an artistic handyman, so to speak.
He repaired and repainted holy images for the people of
the village.
Well.
After a day's work at the bar, Houlihan usually
went home to his small cottage nearby, sometimes very
much the worse for the drink. Most often, if he was in
this condition, he would fall instantly into his cot
for a sleep. But not always. Sometimes when he got
home he might find an effigy or image or crucifix or
some such holy item sitting on his table waiting to be
fixed. The presence of a saint, or virgin, or angel,
or seraph or cherub or whatever the thing was, meant
that some local soul wanted the figure worked on and
improved.
Now often in his cups it would strike Houlihan as
a humorous thing to do to have a bit of sport with the
sacred item, whatever it was. So before retiring
Houlihan might paint a large epoxy smile on the face of
Himself as he hung on the cross. Or he might paint red
mesh stockings on Mary Magdalene. Once, feeling par-
ticularly raffish, he (one blushes to recount such a
thing), painted a lecherous leer on the face of the
archangel who came to Mary to tell her that she was
with child. Mary, looking pious, looks up at him
rapturously. There was a diaphragm with a hole in it
by her knees on the ground.
Harmless, but potentially offensive stuff, as you
can see.
One evening after a particularly bibulous night
here at the pub, Houlihan came home and did some rear-
ranging of the snakes at the feet of a plaster Saint
Patrick that had been left on his table. "Patrick
Banishes The Snakes From Ireland" was carved into the
base of the statue.
Well, perhaps, "rearranging" is not quite the
right word. What Houlihan actually did was, he painted
over the snakes wriggling around on the ground
entirely, and turned them into emerald green grass.
Then he painted out a letter "S" in the word "Snakes"
and changed "Banishes" to "Beats" and so the words now
said, "Patrick Beats the Snake from Ireland." With
some glue and a section of broom handle, he fashioned a
single snake, ten or fifteen inches long and rigid,
emerging from the robes of Patrick at an acute angle to
the floor. Patrick's hand that had formerly held a
Bible was redone. The Bible was removed and the broom
handle-snake was placed in it. Not content with this
bit of ribald whimsy, Houlihan painted this epic
protuberance so that it did not look like a snake at
all but rather like a large and engorged penis. Oh, it
had veins and was a bit purple and actually seemed to
throb with life.
When Houlihan completed this fanciful work, he
fell into his bed and slept a profound sleep, fully
intending to repair the results of his artistry in the
morning before the owner arrived.
But, alas, poor Houlihan slept late that particu-
lar morning due to the awful amount he had drunk the
night before. Also alas, Duffy, the parish priest,
who had left the plaster Patrick for repair, did not
sleep late. He arrived at Houlihan's cottage early in
the morning and walked right in. Seeing his beloved
saint in this shameful condition upset him something
terrible. So offended was he that he removed the broom
handle from the front of Patrick's robes and beat the
sleeping Houlihan to death with it.
At the coroner's inquest a few days later, good
Father Duffy stood up and confessed to perpetrating
this impetuous little murder. The magistrate, and a
fine upstanding Catholic magistrate he is too, that's
him playing darts over there by the telly, respectfully
told Duffy to sit down and shut up. He listened
carefully to the evidence in the matter and ruled that
Houlihan's death was a suicide inflicted by person or
persons unknown.
Father Duffy presides over this small parish
still, loved and admired by us all. In fact, that's
him just coming in now.
Why yes, thank you, I don't mind if I do. I have
time to tell you another legend if you can afford it.
=============================================================================
With a Whisper
==============
(C) 1992 Ken Marrott
With a whisper...
The voice of reason is dead...
and the thoughts of haven in my head...
dissipate into dread...
dread of peace, and harmony...
fear of life, and that of death...
Fighting for a future...
losing to the past...
Fighting with a struggle...
deeper than the rest...
living for the people...
that whisper in my head.
=============================================================================
Your Fantasy Father
===================
by Mike Omputter
Your fantasy father
Never goes outside
The scent of his cologne drives you crazy
And you're starting to feel lucky
You must run, with no time to plan.
=============================================================================
====================================================================
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=============================================================================
Rain
====
(C) 1992 Ken Marrott
The rain beat down upon the windshield of the ford. Heavily
leafed trees lined the highway, there branches drooping low, some
even touching the warm black-topped road. Shaded, to the point at
which no light touched the macadam surface, by the deciduous trees
of oak, elm and walnut the road wound through the state in a ribbon
of asphalt. With hypnotic slashes the wipers, scraped the blasts
of precipitation from the windshield.
A late august night had brought rain, a surprise even to the
meteorologists who had predicted it. Knowing that even though the
rain was falling in large proportions, she had to arrive in Nolton,
by noon. So againest the blast of wind and rain she trudged on
through the night.
The hill top community had lured her to it's grasp, when she
first saw it. Its civic peoples, had spent much of their day in
Nolton, trying to impress her in the most hospitable ways.
Candies, house plants, and flowers had been given to her by many of
her new neighbors. By the end of the day they all suspected, that
she would surely buy the little white house at the end of the
street.
Flowing from the speakers, the voices of the Indigo Girls
filled her mind, and their smooth caring tones eased the pain from
her pores, like infection squozen from the flesh wound. Filled
with thoughts, her mind seemed to find and struggle against a
groggy stillness that leapt from the corners of her eyes, pouncing
on reality.
"Finally a curve," she sighed as she rounded the bend. Along
the silent highway, the erie shadows remained squirming along the
road in front of her. "A new car, a new house, a new job...Things
are coming much to fast, but I can take it," the words like a
tangible sense permeated the interior of the car, breaking the
stillness into shards of unwavered thought. Thoughts of home, life
in general, and Brad escaped into the air.
As the cassette found its end, and made a click as it pulled
tight and pushed the players heads back, her thoughts became those
of home, her family and the ones she already missed...
Just as she reached the door, the phone had rang. Struggling
to put the key in the lock, then eventually stumbling through the
door and throwing the groceries on the couch she had reached the
phone just in time to catch the click of the receiver on the other
end. "Must have been mom," she said to herself, as she pressed the
eliminated "one", then the rest of the number.
"Hello," cracked a voice on the other end. Barely audible
over the static of the line.
"Dad! How are you?" her voice echoed into the mouth piece of
the receiver.
"Fine, your mother just tried to call, thought we'd save you
the phone bill," the eldered voice, sincere with love and genuine
concern.
"Well, that's okay, I have some good news, have mom get on the
other extension," she diplomated to her father.
"Judith, pick up the line in the kitchen!" the muffled shout
still able to be heard across the phone-line.
"Are you there Mom?" she questioned
"Here Love," came Judith's reply, giving new meaning to
parental compassion.
"Well, to keep it short...I..I got a new job," she leashed out
into the phone, in uncontrollable excitement. "and, I start
tomorrow, so I'm off tonight. I don't think I'll make it for the
holidays..." even though rushed, her voice filled their ears with
pleasure. --It's surprising how when you don't see someone every
day, that the enjoyment of their voice can change the whole
world.--
"Well dear, we both accept the fact, that you are an adult,
and that you should be a free person. So good luck, and remember
that we love you," came the voice of her father, speaking for the
two.
"Thanks, I knew you would always care, but well it's getting
late and I still have some packing to do so...," her hint didn't
take long to sink into the receiver and travel to the other end.
"Okay, we love you...bye," came the voices of despair, and her
heart fell into her stomach when the receiver met it's base
"Bye," her final word, slipping into the unconnected line, and
dyeing before it reached a destination.
Making one last phone call, she found that leaving was harder
than she thought it would be. Brad had been her best friend, a guy
with a brain and a body. The body see drooled over, and the brain
that kept her company, when she was depressed or alone. Though
they never had a relationship beyond that of friends, she long to
be with him. Often she fascinated about being with him, but
despite all the clues she wouldn't ever believe that he wanted just
as much of her.
The phone call to Brad, had been short. Cut off by his heavy
emotions that lingered in the still room. He didn't want her to
go, and couldn't seem to let her. It had lead to a conversation of
life and death, and everything beyond. The final words of it had
told her who she really was, and a little more about Brad... His
words kept flinging themselves against her conscienceness, as if
trying to break out of her mind and scream into the night.
Escaping to the patio, with a cup of hot cider laced with
cinnamon, she thought about Brad and the things he'd said...
"I Love you," his voice echoed in her head, like a
mimeographed picture, faded and distorted and very much imperfect.
"Love me, how can he love me," sipping the cider and thinking
aloud as she sat on the concrete bench of the patio, which had
often been something of a past time, a place to go for sanctuary,
a place to escape to...
The cool breeze blew across her face, that of an angelic
creature. Soft toned, in a modest tan, a gently carved nose that
melted to it, in an essence of belonging. Her ears lined parallel
to each other, twitched at the breeze as to say "go leave I don't
want you here," but the breeze never stopped. The gentle zephyr
laid it's kiss upon her lips, a kiss surely more passionate than
not. A lonely stillness dug into her heart, one that dragged her
from her cocoon of sleep and lead her through the misguided events
of her day, and silence was all that was left.
The mustang, which had been part of the "New" Alison, had
shown her she not only had to live for other people, but for her
self as well. A new job, meaning new beginnings and new fortunes.
Packing what was left of her meager life into one small
suitcase, she loaded it into the car, waved a hearty good-bye to
the neighborhood and slowly backed out of the drive way...
The ford swerved far to the left, but not in time. The pickup
slammed into the side of the mustang, throwing it across the road
in uncontrolled turns. Meeting the windshield with a crack,
Alison's head hung low and limp. The early morning air, seemed
still and quiet.
--With the horrendous screech of metal, their heads turned
into the light. All that they were doing slowly faded from thought
and there loose hands dropped the prevailing weight of their
burdens. They, the Mother, Father, and Brad, sat in silence each
in a different world, not together but tied to each other by one.
An echoing emptiness in a lost section of their minds, where they
found traces of her being, but so vague that they know she was
gone.--
The dull-drum beat of the rain screamed her name upon the
windshields of the funeral precession and the mortified love,
between parent and child, and that of lovers lingered in the still
august air.--
With the loss of a loved one, there is always
the relinquishing of tears but none as in
comparison to those that fall from heaven....
Rain...
=============================================================================
About The Literature:
=====================
"Hermit's Reward" was written by Chris Lynn, a long-time contributor to
this magazine. Chris witholds all rights to his work, including copyright.
"Reality Check" is from Thomas A. Easton, who holds a doctorate in
theoretical biology from the University of Chicago and he teaches at
Thomas College, a small business school. He has published non-fiction books,
textbooks, computer software, as well as three novels. He also has a monthly
book review column in the SF magazine Analog. Two of his novels have been
optioned for filming. Dr. Easton witholds all rights, including copyright,
to his work.
"Her" was written by the editor, Aaron Turpen, in a stupor of lone-
liness. He witholds copyright to his work.
"The Chair" is from Ken Marrot, a new author to this magazine. He has
seen fit to donate several poems, which will be appearing in later issues.
Mr. Marrot witholds copyright and all other rights to his work.
"Houlihan's Wake" was sent by William J. Slattery, who will appear in
later issues with even more of his fiction. He witholds copyright to his
work.
"With a Whisper" is another poem from Ken Marrot. He witholds copyright
to his work.
"Your Fantasy Father" is another poem from our continual donator, Mike
Omputter. As with all his works of poetry, Mr. Omputter declares his work
to be public domain and holds no copyrights over it.
"Rain" is a short story from Ken Marrot, who also donated a few poems to
this issue. The story was titled by the editor, as Ken left it untitled.
Mr. Marrot witholds all copyrights to his work, however.
=============================================================================
For information on contacting the editor, Aaron Turpen, please read the
included files AUTHORS.DOC and BBSADS.DOC. Thanks!
=============================================================================
