GwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwD T h e G R E E N Y w o r l d D o m i n a t i o n T a s k F o r c e Presents: "Literal Dribblings" by Seth Sometimes (Otherwise knows as Seth The Man) Isolation. The world is very different now. I've been here for three months, totally alone, no one, no two, and no three people every being near. They told me. They told me I would feel this way, that it was natural, and not cruel. I believed them. I believed every single word that dripped out of their mouths. I Believed them. AS I look back, I see why I Believed them. I see the horrid sense of it all. Isolation isn't bad. Isoalation isn't good. Isolation isn't even anywhere in between. Isolation is. Period, no more. The Isolation that I endure is not true lonliness. It isn't even sadness. Oh, at first it was, at first I was lonely, sad, and angry, but now, now, I am too lethargic to feel strongly about anything at all, if they opened the box (that is what I have come to call this...place..) I doubt that I would go running out. Infact I would probably simply stare, and calmly walk away. I don't like it here, but I remember there, and decide that I didn't like it there any more. My isolation is my life, my life, my death. The Visit. "Hello" I said. "Hullo" I answered. He looked familiar, tall, lean, and pale, but I couldn't place a name. I couldn't believe I was doing this. I shouldn't be here. This is too dangerous. Why am I here. I shouldn't be here. He won't, can't, know me. The strange man just stood there. I stared at him, but didn't open the screen door. I just kind of stood there staring at horribly familiar man in my doorway. Emotions skittered across his face, he looked as if he was being pulled apart from the inside. I couldn't remember anything. It's as if someone was systematicaly going through my mind and erasing parts of it. Could this be a bigger mistake than I thought? Oh god, let the pressure at my temples be the stress, and not....something...else. I need to get out of here. "I, I'm sorry. I must have the wrong house...uhm, thank you..." He says he has the wrong house. I don't believe him, something about him is too familiar to just let him walk away. "You look bad, come in, sit down. I'll get you some water" "No....no I must....go...thank you" I ran. The pain. The pain, the pain was unbearable, I had to get away..."Ugh" He ran away. For no reason at all he ran, who was he? why was his head moving like that? I watched him run. Then I finally pulled my eyes away from him and went back to my work. The Chair. The glow form his monitor flickered across his sweating brow. This was it. He was almost there. Six years of almost non-stop coding. This was IT. This cost him his family, his friends, his job, and at the end, his life, but it was worth it. Almost three thousand gigs of source, all done by him, every character of every routine, typed in by him. Him alone. No one knew, no one would know. Here was the absolute. Here was something so amazing, so heart stoppingly frightening. Here was intelligence. He had done it. Alone. He knew he didn't have long to live, but it didn't matter, just three more key strokes and he could die in peace. All these years, so obsessed that he lost all. He was absolutely alone now, but he liked it that way. He didn't need to live to transfer the program. It could do that on it's own. All he had to do was hit three more keys. Then he could die. No one would find his body. He was nowhere. But just three more taps and he would be revered as a martyr, a god. Two more. One. Just one more, and all he had to do was hit the key. He sat back, and the chair which had held his ever failing body, finally gave out. He hit the floor and his already weakened body just..broke. Author's Note: Please excuse any grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, etc. I wrote each of these just straight, no pause, just like a mental vomit onto my monitor. The first one was done after reading "Real-Time World" by Christopher Priest, and shares the basic emotions of the story. The Second was done after reading "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty" by Harlan Ellison, and carries the premise of that story to some extent. The third was written during reading "The Gods of Mars" by Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann, and Michale Swanwick, and has nothing whatsoever to do with that story. All of the above stories are well worth reading and can be found in _The 1972 Annual World's Best SF_ and _The 1986 Annual World's Best SF_ both edited by Donald A. Wollheim. GwD Command Centers- Chaos (806)797-7501 SysOp-Seth Soemtimes (Mission Control) GridPoint (405)920-1347 SysOp-Transderm-Nitro (First Conquest) Federation Slayers' (806)798-8168 SysOp-Big Red Fed The Starchy White Boy BBS (803)###-#### SysOp-Fastjack (Moved to South Carolina, number available soon) Light My Fire (806)795-4926 SysOp-Ailanthus The Snake's Den (806)793-3779 SysOp-Diamondback The Siege Perilous (806)762-0948 SysOp-Longshot Brazen's Hell (301)776-8259 SysOp-Brazen (Eastern Outpost) Club Baby Seal (817)429-4636 SysOp-Zippy (Penile Implant Site) /---------------\ copyright (c) 1994 by Seth Sometimes of GwD Inc. :FIGHT THE POWER: GREENY world Domination Task Force copyright (c) 1993 by Lobo: GwD : All rights reserved the guy in the green broken chair \---------------/ GwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwDGwD28