Living in such a state          taTestaTesTaTe          etats a hcus ni gniviL
 of mind in which time         sTATEsTAtEsTaTeStA         emit hcihw ni dnim of
 does not pass, space         STateSTaTeSTaTeStAtE         ecaps ,ssap ton seod
 does not exist, and         sTATeSt        oFOfOfo         dna ,tsixe ton seod
 idea is not there.         STatEst          ofoFOFo         .ereht ton si aedi
 Stuck in a place          staTEsT            OfOFofo          ecalp a ni kcutS
 where movements           TATeSTa            foFofoF           stnemevom erehw
 are impossible                              fOFoFOf             elbissopmi era
 in all forms,                             UsOFofO                ,smrof lla ni
 physical and                            nbEifof                   dna lacisyhp
 or mental -                           uNBeInO                      - latnem ro
 your mind is                         UNbeinG                      si dnim rouy
 focusing on a                       unBEING                      a no gnisucof
 lone thing, or                      NBeINgu                     ro ,gniht enol
 a lone nothing.                     bEinGUn                    .gnihton enol a
 You are numb and                    EiNguNB                   dna bmun era ouY
 unaware to events                                            stneve ot erawanu
 taking place - not                  -iSSuE-                 ton - ecalp gnikat
 knowing how or what                 3/23/94                tahw ro woh gniwonk
 to think. You are in                -tHrEE-               ni era uoY .kniht ot
 a state of unbeing....                                  ....gniebnu fo etats a

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

                            CONTENTS OF THiS iSSUE
                           =----------------------=                            

                                  EDiTORiAL
                                Kilgore Trout


                               [=- ARTiCLES -=]


              A SHORT PREMiERE TO SOCiALiSM AND DiRECT DEMOCRACY
                              Captain Moonlight

                   RUMMAGiNG THROUGH THE VACANCY OF A MiND
                                   Phadrous

                          MASTURBATiON OF THE SENSES
                                  Clockwork

   A RESPONSE TO "A LETTER NEVER SENT, or ALL i'D SAY iF i BUT HAD THE WORDS"
                                      A--

                               THE CONFESSiONS
      Excerpts from the Early Magickal Diarys of Frater Nemo est Sanctus
                                              
                              THE iMMORTAL SOUL
                                  Clockwork


                               [=- POETRiE -=]
                             

                                    LOVE
                                 Crux Ansata

                                KNiGHT iN GRAY
                                  Clockwork
                                  
                                 CONFESSiONAL
                               Nemo est Sanctus

                               MESSiAH OF DUST
                                Kilgore Trout

                                  TRiP KiTTY
                             the Dancing Messiah

                                    SHADES
              Dark Crystal Sphere Floating Between Two Universes

                                  RiNGFiNGER
                                  Clockwork
                                  
                      A LiGHT WHERE NONE SHOULD HAVE BEEN
              Dark Crystal Sphere Floating Between Two Universes

                       DiSSENT RiSING BENEATH THE MASSES
                                Kilgore Trout
                                
                                SWiNG WiTH ME
                                  Clockwork
                                  

                               [=- FiCTiON -=]


        MiKE DRiSKELL, ACE DETECTiVE:  THE CASE OF THE HOWLiNG MONKEY
                                   Griphon

                  A TWiSTED TALE or A TALE OF TWO REALiTiES
                                High Lord Spam

                    JiM'S ACTiON THEATRE:  THE TROPHY CASE
                                      Jim

                    JiM'S ACTiON THEATRE:  AGENT MALCOViCH
                                      Jim

                                SHARDS OF iCE
                                   KidKnee
                                   
       A SPORADiC ACCOUNT OF MY ACQUAiNTANCE AND APPRENTiCESHiP TO A MAN 
                      NAMED YAJI ASHUTHATH -- SECTiON 1
                                   KidKnee

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     Chaos has its own rationality.
                                         -- Robert Anton Wilson, _Nature's God_

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     EDiTORiAL
     by Kilgore Trout 

     It is time once again to feast your eyes upon a new issue of SoB.  Yup,
we're back for a third helping of your precious time, whether you like it or 
not.  It's been quite a wild time since the last issue came out, what with 
spring break and all, so just remember that what you are reading was real 
lucky to make it into your hands.

     One correction needs to be made concerning the last issue.  DR. GRAVES
AND THE BRAZiLiAN GOLD DiNNER PARTY was not written by Griphon.  I cut, I 
paste, I fuck up.  John Smith pointed that out to me, and so this is the 
correction that I promised him, since he did write it.  Too bad there aren't 
any Dr. Graves stories in this issue (I can just hear all of you people crying 
now.)

     The only complaint I have had about putting this thing together is the 
lack of feedback from the readers, if anybody reads it at all.  I'm sure this 
is due to having to call long distance in order to contact us.  Well, now, if 
you have an Internet account, I can be reached, so that should help up a lot 
of you.  That address can be found at the very end of the magazine.  I may be 
getting our own FTP site set up in the near future.  More on that in the next 
issue.
  
     As for articles, things really got hairy for a while.  Seems Griphon had 
a disk with a bunch of stuff for the magazine, and he stepped on it in the 
dark, thereby killing four articles that were really good.  But we managed to 
make a comeback, so this issue is still pretty respectable.  I guess we're 
just one unlucky bunch of guys.  But, as the old saying goes, "It's not the 
size of the wave, it's the motion of the ocean."

     Nah, it's the size of the wave.

     Have fun, and we'll see you in a month.

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     He's got a car bomb.  He puts the key in the ignition and turns it--the 
car blows up.  He gets out.  He opens the hood and makes a cursory 
inspection.  He closes the hood and gets back in.  He turns the key in the 
ignition.  The car blows up.  He gets out and slams the door shut 
disgustedly.  He kicks the tire.  He takes off his jacket and shimmies under 
the chassis.  He pokes around.  He slides back out and wipes the grease off 
his shirt.  He puts his jacket back on.  He gets in.  He turns the key in the 
ignition.  The car blows up, sending debris into the air and shattering 
windows for blocks.  He gets out and says, Damn it!  He calls a tow truck.  He 
gives them his AAA membership number.  They tow the car to an Exxon station.  
The mechanic gets in and turns the key in the ignition.  The car explodes, 
demolishing the gas pumps, the red-and-blue Exxon logo high atop its pole 
bursting like a balloon on a string.  The mechanic steps out.  You got a car 
bomb, he says.  The man rolls his eyes.  I know that, he says.

                             -- Mark Leyner, _My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist_

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     A SHORT PREMiERE TO SOCiALiSM AND DiRECT DEMOCRACY
     by Captain Moonlight

now doesn't that make you feel better?
the pigs have won tonight
now they can all sleep soundly
and everything is all right
               --Trent Reznor (of the Nine Inch Nails), "March of the Pigs"

And I say to my people's masters:
  Beware,
Beware of the thing that is coming,
  beware of the risen people.
               --Padraic Henry Pearse, executed by the British


     First of all, I suppose it would be best if I should state what I believe
a Socialist Democracy to be, so as to differentiate it from the corruptions 
most often pointed to by anti-Socialists.

     By Socialism I mean the money system, not the government system.  Often
confused with the Communist political system, in reality this is merely the
belief that economics should be worked, in the words of Marx, "To each 
according to his needs, from each according to his abilities."  In this way all
would get what they need, not what they can pay for, as the Capitalist system
now works.  This is different from the system used for so long in the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics and the Peoples Republic of China for so long in
that everyone is given what they need, instead of having everyone given a set
allowance for them to work with, giving some more than others according to 
their work (i.e. politicians naturally get more because they have the power to
do it, et cetera).

     By a Direct Democracy I mean that acts would be carried out by elected
workers as ordered by the People, as opposed to having semi-elected officials
tell appointed, and often related, officials what to do as they are told by
the bosses and other big-wigs.  Thoreau said, in "Civil Disobedience", "'That
government is best which governs none at all'", which is true.  With the system
here proposed everyone would do as they wished as long as it does not inflict
on others -- when something did affect others, an election would be held to 
decide the course of action best for the group, and officials *elected for that
specific task* would carry out the decision of the group.  No officials would 
be elected to rule the People, the People would rule the officials.  In each 
election there would be an extra blank on the secret ballot marked "None of the
Above".  This would be so that, if the People did not believe in any of the 
thus far nominated candidates, they could vote for "None of the Above", and, if
this was the majority, a new election would be held with all new candidates.  
No more of choosing the lesser of two evils.

     The main problem with government now is, as H. P. Lovecraft, who in the
later years of his life was a Socialist, pointed out, those who turn their
attention to helping the group, through public service or art or any other
vocation, are not rewarded, those who turn their attentions to personal gain
being those who profit.  With this double-standard none but those with no 
morals are rewarded.

     A semi-recent news report which I have before me now  ("Report:  World
Tightens Its Belt as Population Grows", Prodigy Interactive Personal Service,
7/18/93) states that, if the world's fish, meat, and grain were divided up
equally to all People of all nations, each person would have less than they
did four years ago.  This is supposedly due not only to population growth, but
also because less food is being produced than was then.  World grain production
per person has dropped eight-percent since 1984.  This is primarily because
more People are working in offices making useless gadgets than are producing
foods.  Don't you think those chemical- and nuclear-weapon plants would be 
better used trying to find ways to produce more food without poisoning the 
environment?  The land now being torn up in strip-mining for gravel to make 
pretty driveways and gold to make nifty little trinkets and other useless 
things would be better used for farming, don't you think?

     Confucius said that a perfect country would need three things: A strong
army, enough food for all, and the support of the People.  If one of these
things had to go, it would have to be the strong army, for without enough food
for all and the support of the People a government would fall.  If one of the
two remaining had to go it would have to be the food, for it is far better for
all to starve than to be without the support of the People.  Under a Socialist
Democracy all these would need to be, and would be able to be.   For one, 
People would most likely support a government which they themselves ran, and in
which they had an equal share of the power and were given "To each according to
his needs".  In a Socialism, a true Socialism, all would get their share of the
food.  And, with the support of the People, a Citizen's Militia or Army, 
similar to that of James Connolly in early-20th century Ireland, would be 
formed to protect the People from any who tried to suppress it.  It would be 
the duty of any Citizen, man or woman, to destroy any threat to such a 
government.

     In a Socialism there would be a great decrease in corruption, the plague
on all present government, due to the fact that all would be getting what they
needed.  The reason corruption set in in Russia is because Lenin died while the
country was still in the provisional government stage, and Stalin -- an assumed
name, Russian for Steel -- took control.  In the beginning of government -- of
any government -- a strong provisional government needs to form.  The task of
this government will be to oversee the conversion from the previous government
system into the new one.  If this provisional government were to become 
corrupt, the People would do away with it, as it would necessary for all People
to be allowed to own guns, to form a Militia to protect the Rights of All 
People -- by blood-shed if necessary.  If some were to not own guns -- for 
religious, among other reasons -- they would not be forced to, and those 
willing to fight for their Rights would protect those who would not, as it is
a basic Right of humanity to choose one's own path, while those with courage
fight for the Rights of all.  If avarice can be avoided, then a provisional
government will be able to perform the transition from one government system
to the other.

     In short, what the world needs most is a push in the right direction.  
Such a push was recently given in Mexico with the peasant uprising, which 
forced the government to pay attention for once.  But the governments are slow,
and several even bigger pushes are needed.  Thomas Paine said, in _The Rights
of Man_, "When it becomes necessary to do a thing, the whole heart and soul
should go into the measure, or not attempt it."  This is true.  A blood 
sacrifice is needed for Liberty.  A few brave men and women in arms, ready to
give their lives for those of others, need to step forward and give the 
government its medicine.  The most patriotic thing a person can do is strive to
do away with an oppressive government, one that exploits its own People and the
People of other nations.  As Padraic Pearse said, at the funeral of the Fenian
Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, "Life springs from death; and from the graves of 
patriot men and women spring living nations."

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     There's a lot of that (mutation) happening in the emu and ostrich world
because we're feeding them a lot more nutrition than they'd normally have.

                                           -- Lucille Hilliard, Ostrich Rancher

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     RUMMAGiNG THROUGH THE VACANCY OF A MiND
     by Phadrous

     Another damned clean sheet of paper.  I hate clean sheets of paper.  They 
have no personality, so the first thing you have to do is write some stupid 
cal like this at the top just so you're brain will work.  It's impossible to 
think for blank space.  Sometimes I so despise the idea of a new sheet that 
I'll cram one piece till it's illegible.  That's what this is, actually.  This 
article.  It's the compilation of some lame brainstorming I've had that's all 
been put down on scraps of pages that I fold up and keep in me back pocket.  
(So what you're reading came freshly from *my ass.*)  

     The best thing to write on, of course, is a manilla folder.  Use only 
pencil.  That way everything rubs off as you throw the folder around, and you 
just re-darken the stuff you like.  Yeah, manilla folders are great for 
writing on.  They can't hold paper worth a damn, but they're a wonderful 
medium.  Of course, you can't fold one up small enough to put in your back 
pocket (unless you want people to think you've got boils on your left buttock), 
but you can't have it all, you stupid bastard.  [Ed. note--notice the sly
reference to my story in Issue 2.  I didn't think anybody would read the 
thing.]

     School.  School is an odd thing.  For seven hours a day, five days a 
week, I am ordered *by law* to sit and look at girls.  Well, alright--the law 
doesn't mention the girls, really, but what am I supposed to do?  Listen to my 
English teacher, I take it.  If I did that, I'd never do this.  And why do I 
do this?  God knows or Nietzsche does.  No, I know why I do this.  It's not 
for *your* benefit.  If you get anything out of it, so much the better (and 
god help you especially if you've been reading that perverted but somehow 
likeable stuff about Dr. Graves.)

     Nay, the reason I write this is because I'm fucking tired of writing to 
please someone else.  I want to put down a few thoughts for the simple reason 
that I want to put them down.  Not for a grade.  Not for my SAT.  Not for a 
survey.  I'm tired as hell of being given a topic like why flamingos copulate 
in Coolridge's backyard.  I don't care a goat's bladder nor a dingo's kidney 
what a bunch of birds want to do on their spare time.  For Christ's sake!  I 
had points taken off of a poem that I wrote in class because it was AMBiGUOUS 
and had not TiTLE.  Now fuck me through the ear if I'm wrong, but don't most 
of the *good* poems take a bit of thinking to figure out?  If I wanted to give 
a concise, clear look at the PHYSiCAL OBJECT that the poem centered on, I 
would have written an essay.  If you want to degrade my poetry because they're 
shallow or they lack un-cheesiness, go ahead.  I'll help you.  But lack of a 
title...?

     When I go to school next year and they tell me to write about something, 
do you know what I'm going to do?  That's right.  I'm going to do exactly what 
they want.  I'm going to suck up for the grade.  If you think I won't, just 
watch.  I'll suck up for the grade, suck up for the job, the raise, the loan, 
all of it.  That's what society demands, that you give up your principles or 
starve.  You're a hypocrite if you go along with it, and you're stupid if you 
don't.  

     Censorship.  Helluva topic.  Constantly changes meaning.  The one thing 
that everyone agrees on is that they don't want it.  That's what they say, 
anyhow.  Me, for instance.  I don't want any asshole censoring this fucking 
zine, cause if they did I couldn't have damn well written this sentence.  
However, if (by some miracle), a bill were proposed to ban country music from 
the airways, I'd be all for it. It comes down, in my feeble opinion, to our 
basic greed.  The greed that makes us die for oil and our own way of thinking; 
kill to make us feel safe; rape, murder, anything.  But on the other hand, why 
not?  Because we all want to draw the line somewhere without calling it 
censorship.  I believe no music should be constrained.  Rap, country, and 
Mariah Carey can be banned for all I care because I don't consider any of that 
"noise" music.  But, of course, my method only works if I'm in power, and 
unless we talk about my car, I'm not.  Even then, Michael Bolton and other 
such nonsense can get at me as I switch the dial.  So now that I realize my 
double standard, I'm in fear.  Why?  Because the people who are in power see 
my music as senseless noise and my way of thing as unchristian.  Poor me.  
What if those in power decide to do away with rock 'n roll because it's 
Satanic?  I'd scream, "First Amendment" at the top of my lungs.  True, I 
don't want 2 Live Crew to sing, but if I want Ozzy to get off of his charges 
of inticing children "to sleep, perchance to dream," then I must also stand up 
and say that listening to "Cop Killer" is not an excuse to blow a man away.  

     Thus is born PCism.  The belief that everyone is entitled to a fair share,
and that the law must make sure they get it.  Whoever says he does not have a 
double standard is a hypocrite.

     Endings.  Easiest thing in the world.  Especially if I don't give a damn 
about you, and, my dear beloved readers, I don't even know who you are.  So, in 
light of the fact that we have no relationship, I leave you with a bit of 
poetry.  Not particularly good poetry, mind you, but it made me smile to write 
the first and to read the second.  Besides, what are you gonna do?  Tell me 
not to show it to you?  To that I give grazney shooms of lip-music, Brrr!

     SiGNATURE

     Tossed lightly upon page and hastily wrought
     I in a moment's thought may sign away my life.
     In truth it is a powerful omen
     which holds my life in it's scratchy lines.
     Such thoughtless promise it holds.
     It must be the most hidden power of my life
     but it still won't get me laid.


     And now, for the second one...


     Americans eat oysters but not snails.
     The French eat snails but not locusts.
     The Zulus eat locusts but not fish.
     The Jews eat fish but not pork.
     The Hindus eat pork but not beef
     The Russians eat beef but not snakes.
     The Chinese eat snakes but not people.
     The Jale of New Guinea find people delicious.

                                 -- Ian Robertson

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     Uncle Bill will
     Never will leave a will
     And the tumor is as big as an egg
     He has a mistress
     She's Puerto Rican
     And I heard she has a wooden leg

                                                                   -- Tom Waits

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     MASTURBATiON OF THE SENSES
     by Clockwork

     Godhead.

     So you begin your life in this barren desert of a state, or in what you 
thought was a barren desert of a state but really in actuality it wasn't even 
remotely close to being the big sandy windy tumbleweed infested ghost town 
that your acquaintances at the time told you it was, and everything is 
completely slapped and twisted around because of it -- your existence in this 
not-so-barren state, that is.  You wander around and trip and fall even though 
you walk with your head down staring at God-knows-what -- even though you have 
decided that this God thing is completely a rumor -- while at the same time 
running into things and locking yourself in dark sweaty moldy closets with a 
single bare light bulb that, when you flip the switch, doesn't work at all -- 
it is only there to piss you off.

     And you continue to do this for three years of your life -- three 
consecutive years watching the grapefruits rot around you, watching the black 
stains magically appear in your once dreamy beige carpeting, sifting through 
piles of melted pink shit too dig out a quarter so you can afford another pack 
of cigarettes.  That is what you do, and goddamnit -- you have decided by now 
to never capitalize the word god -- you enjoy doing it.  You enjoy living in 
this unidentified muck.

     But then the muck gets muckier when one of the two apelike creatures who 
roam around your house decides to go visit a zoo in the Everglades and never 
come back, because it found a really super fucking awesome parrot named after 
some city totally run by money.  You think to yourself, "What a poor choice of 
nameage," not realizing that the muckier muck is about to get mucked up when 
you start indulging your mind into the wonderful world of mindless research 
about mindless things.  You pull countless tricks out of your hat with the 
words Happily Done By The U.S. Government tattooed all over them, and at first 
it makes you laugh and giggle and smirk in amazement but then the laugh turns 
to gasps and the giggles turn to screams and the smirks turn to tears just 
because you see one simple three minute broadcast on television about yet 
another U.F.O. incident -- so you just sit on the edge of your bed and weep 
for all mankind.

     By now, another two years have passed and you have come to the complete 
and utter conclusion that your life is nothing but a large blobular mass of 
maggot infested lard left in a car for a month in 120 degree weather and 
that's all there is to it.  Day after day after minute after minute goes by 
until one day you are walking once again with your head down minding your own 
god-knows-what and a voice comes from behind you and sweeps by you -- because 
you either walk much slower or much faster than everyone else, and this time 
you were walking much slower -- and this voice, when formulated into some 
insanely idiotic language called English, says hello.  You wonder and ponder 
about who the hell in their right mind would ever say hello to such a 
repulsively looking guy like me, all the while turning your head to perhaps 
catch a glimpse of who the originator of the noise was, and who do you see?  A 
female.  A rather attractive thin female with light blonde hair flowing to the 
small in her back and tranquil blue eyes that grab your own eyes and an 
innocent smile revealing braces that didn't hinder the beauty at all, who just 
happens to be the girlfriend of just about the only person you really talk to.

     So you manage a slight smile and both of you walk on.

     Little did you know or perhaps even think at any point in time that you 
would both, after a year of helping her get over him, fall in love with each 
other -- after becoming best friends.  Little did you know or perhaps think at 
any point in time that she would simply materialize into your life and grab a 
hold of your arm and tear you from the mucked up muckier muck onto dry sweet 
warm sand where she continued to carefully gracefully softly clean every 
little bit of muck from you body with her own two hands -- even behind you 
ears -- and save your very own life from the unhealthy connotation of the 
muck.  Little did you know or perhaps even think at any point in time that 
after two years of being extremely close honest best friends that she would 
jump in front of you one day after smoking a cigarette in the center of the 
road and kiss you so deeply and beautifully on the lips that it stunned the 
hell out of you and left you in a daze for the next hour; not only that but 
you also dropped your cigarette -- that is power.  Little did you know or 
perhaps even think at any point in time that over the next few months your 
friendship would evolve into something more than just friends, and that she, 
this beautiful once lost innocent soul, would pick you out of all the people 
she has seen in her life to be the one able to spend undescribably joyous 
times with her.

     So now here you are saved from your own pathetic existence by a glorious 
woman, however predictable or clicheish that may be, and you now walk with 
your head up because you want to catch some of the glow that radiates from her 
face and smell the scent of roses that always seemed to somehow rise from her 
body and smell the scent of Head and Shoulder that she used to wash her 
overpowering hair and feel the energy being transferred between the two of you 
when you would stare into the eyes of one another.  You even capitalized the 
word God for awhile, because you decided you had respect for religion although 
you did not agree with it at all -- of course, that was silly of you.

     I need you to feel this.

     Then you are humming sweet nothings to yourself and feel this sharp 
ripping in your chest and see that a hole had been scraped through your skin 
and tendons and muscles and sternum into your heart and then out the other 
side, so you look behind you and see a large meaty chunk of your once spotless 
fulfilled heart squirming on the ground as it gets run over by all the 
passers-by and motorcycles and semi-trucks and pickup trucks and jeeps.  So 
you close your eyes and wonder to yourself just what the hell caused a chuck 
of your heart to end up on the pavement like that.  And after several weeks of 
flat unconscious denial you finally get it through that thick skull that you 
no longer have that glorious woman -- that for some unknown unseen 
unpredictable reason she decided that she wanted no more of you and that 
nothing was working out and that you were fighting too much and that she was 
unhappy and you were unhappy and that there was no way to fix it so she is 
giving up. And after thirty minutes of doing nothing but chain-smoking, 
drinking a stolen beer, and feeling the warm salty feeling of those little 
drops called tears just stream down your face you jump out your window and 
crawl down a strip of concrete, then wade through a jungle of weeds until you 
reach the closest civilization and run up to the back door of this guy you 
know and dump all your woes and worries and losses on him and getting him as 
lost and wet as you are.

     And all that just happened in the last year of existence, so by now you 
have decided that God is not God and not even god -- you are god -- and of 
course you tell others that you are god every once in a while but they don't 
believe you because when you say it you sound like you are not serious but you 
know you are serious.  And then one other day you decide that you are immortal 
because you are god after all and you can do any fucking thing you want to do 
as long as you actually believed you can do it.  And you prance and dance and 
slip some more while you walk around with your head bobbing up and down next 
to a girl who used to be your glorious woman but who is now only your friend, 
atleast for right now, and you have decided that life is not that bad or that 
it is really bad but who really cares because you are immortal and you are god 
so everyone else can cringe and laugh and piss and say whatever they please.

     And then a couple of days before some unknown entity who just happens to 
look act and feel exactly like you decides to sit down and type and type and 
type with his tongue about nothing but the thoughts that parade and slip and 
scrape through his head, you decide that you still have hope that this girl 
next to you will become your glorious woman again. So you approach this girl 
and place your hands so gently against your face and tell her that you are not 
giving up, but you are so sorry for all the unhappiness that has occurred 
because of certain things, and that all you want is for her to be happy so you 
tell her to be happy -- even though to the common man it sounds like a line of 
complete bullshit, but you are god and you know that you actually mean it -- 
and she smiles and says she really appreciates that.  So now you are still 
friends but good friends and on friendly terms and in decent moods and not 
dragging yourselves around and yelling and screaming at nothing for no reason 
to vent anger and frustration and hurt while this hope, this little golden 
glow sits in the back of your head and still unhealed heart, hoping that you 
will someday soon you will be able to feel her lips against yours and be able 
to wrap your arms around her and feel complete comfort and safety because you 
are protected by each other because you are bathed in the most beautiful 
valuable vital thing that anyone could ever get the luck of finding.

     And now here you stand.

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     Love binds, but it binds in freedom.
                                                                   -- Maharishi

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     A RESPONSE TO "A LETTER NEVER SENT, or ALL i'D SAY iF i BUT HAD THE WORDS"
     by A--

     I weep because I know you speak the truth.  My heart wails in utter
hopelessness.  I realize in despair that indeed everything must come to an end
as it always has, and I despise having to bear this horrid truth.  Even the
passion I am experiencing at this critical moment will eventually diminish, and
it fills me with a sense of abandonment.

     I fear that when you are gone, I will never again be fulfilled, not even 
by my emotions, for they can end as well.  Ansat, you _are_my_ definition of
perfection.  When we must depart, it will be with the knowledge that I am
leaving something that can never be felt again or replaced by something better.
I must either face numbness or allow the "leaches" to  feast  relentlessly 
while exposing me to fathomless depths of sorrow.  And even in the last 
situation, the leaches would probably burst and my precious sorrow would leave
me just like everything else.  Oh, Ansat, all seems so hopeless and unstable!
I agree that it would be a shame to confine something as beautifully intense
and free as fire, but the thought of existing without you sends me into a
frenzy (although I now know it is unavoidable).

     Well, my earlier passion and tear drops have ceased, just as I predicted.
To go on writing would only cause repetition.  I am not a master of words
(spoken or written), and perhaps words are not the best way for me to express
to you what I am feeling/thinking.  I hope my attempt is not completely 
unsuccessful.  I felt a burning sensation in my chest when I read "All I'd Say
if I But Had the Words," and the need to respond became unbearable.  Thank you
for sharing such private thoughts with me.  I love you.

                                         A--           

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     Feelings are not facts.  More often than not, they are a distortion of 
the facts or reality.
                            -- Louis Devanney, a high school Humanities teacher

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     THE CONFESSiONS
     Excerpts from the Early Magickal Diarys of Frater Nemo est Sanctus

            "Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, 
            for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven.  
              For nothing hidden will not become manifest, 
        and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered."
                                                 Christ, Thom. 6


     A good friend once told me that the thing about girls is that they don't
know what they want, and they need a guy to tell them.  I told him that he was
part right, women don't know what they want, but that guys don't, either. 
Anyone who doesn't understand this will spend his whole life getting something
from someone and being eternally dissatisfied because of their success.  You
may get her body, but you may lose their love and trust.  You may get her
virginity, but you've lost her innocence.  The one truest lesson any magus may
teach a striving adept (as if they ever listen -- I never did) is that YOU GET
WHAT YOU ASK FOR!  You will get it, but you will not enjoy it.  Remember that
Solomon asked for wisdom, and wisdom he received.  He received the knowledge
of his true will.  The will of the magus is the will of the universe, but many
a magus is scarred because he got his will.  Beware.

     Another friend recounted to me an S and M experience.  He told me that it
was painful, but still enjoyable.  He said he enjoyed it, but, in a 
particularly insightful statement, that the enjoyment was not "sexual".  In our
world, the chief sensual experience is said to be sex, but, in truth, any 
sensual experience may equal or surpass simple intercourse.  A vampire of my
acquaintance told me that to drink another's blood is the most incredibly
sensual experience he had had.  Why?  In our world, the standard is sex, and
sex is demeaned.  True sensuality is a purer path than the sacrament of vitamin
A.  Sensuality may open paths the brain had believed blocked, and pain is one
of the most sensual experiences possible.  Orgasm may be, too, but the modern 
"orgasm" tends to follow the pattern warned in the psychological texts on 
sexuality of the Kinsley era.  A nymphomaniac has never had an orgasm, and
flits from partner to partner seeking satiation.  A "frigid" woman has never
had an orgasm, and seeks failure.  A "normal" woman may believe she has had an
orgasm, and may simply believe sex to be underrated.  It is not, it is simply
not understood.  We expect sex to be a sensation of satiation in the senses,
yet sanitize our sensibility from submission.  Sex must reach the little death
of orgasm, where the I dies, and the psyche flees up to the heaven of release,
and, in the mystic ethers, enters a spiritual union with the soul of the woman
with whom you are embraced.  Pain and drugs can also free the psyche from the
"sex of the mind" (D.H. Laurence, I believe), and vampirism can unify the
souls in a fluidic flux of the "embrace."  Orgasm, in its pure, almost asexual
state may achieve the same goal, and it is the true goal of shamanism.  The
will of the magus is the will of the universe because the magus must realize
the microcosm that is his soul, and, in such realization, discover himself to 
be a smaller crystal of the universe's will.  Only by joining the crystals may
we see the structure that is GOD.

     I saw a pre-sunrise sky today, as I stood outside A--'s house, and I must
say that it was incredibly beautiful.  I got home before the sun itself rose,
and even through the window it was painful to look at, but the sky was 
beautiful.  Simply indescribably beautiful in its bouquet of reds and roses and
purples.  It is a pity that the sun itself has to ruin the effect.

     This is one of the beauties I would not have taken time to notice if not
for A--.  I wish it was in my nature to thank her.  I wish it was in my nature
to tell her a lot of things, like I think I love her, but, as the song goes,
every time I try to tell her, the words just come out wrong, but it is not in
my nature to say I love her in a song.  Just in my damn diary.  Maybe I can
write a sappy, idyllic poem.

     But no!  There is no place in this world for romantic sentimentalism.  A
sensualist is not wanted here.  I could just spend hours gazing on her body,
but that would be wrong.  She is not an object, as exquisite an object de art
she would be.  Sorry, I am braiding my train tracks of thought once more.  I
will extricate the second first, before it is too far gone.

     A-- truly is beautiful, as G-- dramatically testified, but my moral system
wants to close its eyes to the fact.  I love to look at her, to feel her touch,
and have her feel mine.  I would love to go shopping at one of the posh shops 
at the Arboretum that M--- and G-- and I walked past today, even though I could
probably not get in, let alone have the money to legally get the dresses out, 
just because I appreciate women's fashions, and the sensual, though not 
necessarily sexual, aesthetic beauty inherent within, and because I could 
appreciate the view of seeing A-- try them on.  Society would call me a 
deviant.   Hate me hurt me beat me kill me, I am one.  I am a sensualist, a
romantic, in a world that was so dazzled by the enlightenment that it allowed
its beauty to be lost in the garish fluorescent lights.  We in the shadows
hide from the light, but because the shadow of deception makes all so much more
beautiful than the light of knowledge.  Paul warned to worship the creator, not
the creation, much as Philo did.  Our society's disorganized technocracy based
on the worship of the hierarchy into which they chain themselves is the most 
abhorrent abhorrence imaginable.

     There is nothing the society hates more than its Artists, for it shows how
unfeeling the rest have become.

     To revive a past topic, because my words went away from my will, I believe
pain to be every bit as erotic as sexual contact.  Of course, society tells us
pain is bad, because pain tells us we are being hurt.  When we realize that 
pain is not always a necessary alarm, we may feel it as a sensation, not an 
alert.  I think it is every bit as beautiful that I can feel pain as that I can
feel pleasure.  As Crowley says in one of Robert Anton Wilson's texts, all 
sensation is simply filtered through the brain, so why should it not register 
as beautiful.  I can feel!  I have life!  This should be all the feeling we 
humans notice.  Why do we hide behind our masques of how our "pain" connections
warn us that we are being "hurt".  A lover would not hurt you, and you must 
trust or you will hurt yourself more.  You will suffocate and die as your blood
turns to poison and kills every tissue of your being.

     Well, I've written too much once again, and I think I shall end now.  I am
just making myself as depressed as I can get, being with A--, even if it is 
only in memory and in hopes.  I am always on the edge of believing she will 
decide I'm too weird, or too scary, or I hurt her too much, or whatever, and
what I have will be gone.  My self hatred is only surpassed by my expectations
of how much others must hate me.

     I know myself too well.  I need separate vacations, before I drive all of
me crazy.

                                 �* * * * *

     Did you ever think about how you would choose to die?  Not in one of those
"I'd like to die old" or "I'd like to die in bed with a woman" kind of things
where you act like you can control synchronicity, but, should you choose to 
snuff it, how would you choose to do it?  I do.

     First off, I'd use poison.  I wouldn't use the kind of poison that fails
more often than not and are used to get attention, of course, and I wouldn't
use depressants.  I'd look for something that would burst my heart, like 
cooking up some of that speed I've got a file on.  I'd conceal it in something
and bring it out with my friends, maybe even to someplace simple like Jim's or
something where they are used to seeing my popping pills and guzzling caffeine.
I wouldn't want to worry anybody.  Sometime during the evening, I'd just take 
all the poison in a megadose.  If the people around look like they might stop
me that night, I'd excuse myself to the bathrooms and take it there, but then
I'd go back with my friends.

     What better dream can you have than to die in the company of friends?

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     The time has come for eternity.
                                                                      -- Squeez

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     THE iMMORTAL SOUL
     by Clockwork

     Not too long ago, in a not too distant place, a man called Socrates 
spewed forth a theory from his upper-level conscious which stated simply that 
the soul is immortal.  He demonstrated this by taking a simple, uneducated 
slave boy, and had the boy develop by himself a standard geometrical principle 
just by drawing a diagram and asking the boy questions.  From this, he stated 
that if the boy could tell him the principle without any prior known education 
in this lifetime, then he must have contained the knowledge somehow.  How?  
Well, he wasn't educated in this lifetime.  Perhaps he was educated in another 
lifetime, and the knowledge was recalled through the stirring of his memory by 
asking him questions.  Therefore, the soul contains all knowledge and is 
passed over from one lifetime to another.  Therefore, the soul is immortal.

     I agree with the man.

     (Of course, you say "Heh!  Who cares whether you agree or not?  You are 
only Clockwork, a mere mortal, and this is Socrates the Great.  How can you 
not agree with this man's words?)

     I can disagree with any man's words, no matter who he is or what it is 
about, rather easily.  And do not doubt the common man, for there is no common 
man.  And do not doubt me, for many a times I have stolen the words straight 
from those great artists' heads, sometimes before they had spoken it, most of 
the time without me knowing they had spoken it. I am a man of my own.  I do 
not allow others to implant thoughts or ideas for me to believe.  Besides, I 
-- and several people I know -- believe I am immortal.  So, ha.

     But, really.  Let me toss a few questions into the general air of the 
audience for you to grasp and attempt to answer as you wish...

     How do we learn?  What exactly happens when someone teaches you 
something?  Do you remember what you have been taught in the far past, or do 
you just imitate what was recently taught to you?  How are we able to 
translate another's movements into our own?  In fact, how do we learn how to 
move at all?

     Consider, please:  we contain all knowledge already, we just have to 
access it.

     How do we know what to say or do?  How do we make decisions?  Have we 
ever been taught how to make decisions?

     HOW DO WE LEARN EMOTiONS?

     Is a new-born child taught when something is wrong to cry?  Or are they 
taught how to breathe?  Perhaps those are recalled -- those basic "needs" of 
life -- 'Hey, I am alive now and there's something I have to do.  What is it?  
Oh, yes, of course.  Breathe.'

     How do we learn to fear?  Why do children fear things?  They aren't 
taught to fear the Santa Claus in the mall, are they?  And yet they fear 
sitting on his lap, or even going close to the guy.  Why do they fear the 
dog?  Why do they fear the cat?

     You might say they don't know what is it.  But then, why aren't they 
afraid of their parents?  Or food?  Or the wall or couch?  There is no one 
saying to them, 'Alright, kid, you are about to be born, so those are your 
parents and don't be scared of them, because their cool.'

     Of course, it could be yourself telling yourself that.

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     Let's all beat the shit out of Tony.
                                -- Someone in Phadrous' mom's Shakespeare class

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     LOVE
     by Crux Ansata

     Love
     Love is a lover's hands
     Clasped
     Around your neck.
     Love is the press against your windpipe.
     Love is the loss of air.
     Love is the knowledge that you could be killed
       -- and the trust that you will live.
     Love is the release of placing your life in another's hands without fear.
     Love is the snap of your neck,
       the mercy of death in a moment of trust.

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     "A beard, a beard!" shouted clever Nicolas.
                                    -- Geoffery Chaucer, _The Canterbury Tales_

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     KNiGHT iN GRAY
     by Clockwork

     Notes of new float down
     as she lays in slumber's way,
     lost in ancient times and colors past
     without a whim to breathe.
     From a distance not too far
     a lone shadow watches over her,
     causing Harm to cringe and flee.
     For with each look and soft sigh
     is wielded a beauty
     held only for the dreaming one.
     And after that which crouches round her
     is swept aside by him,
     the watcher looks once more,
     through eyes of teary gray,
     at the soul he holds closest
     to his own.

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     They  say love dies between two people.  That's wrong.  It doesn't die.
It just leaves you, goes away, if you are not good enough, worthy enough.  It
doesn't die; you're the one that dies.  It's like the ocean:  if you're no good,
if you begin to make a bad smell in it, it just spews you up somewhere to die.
You die anyway, but I had rather drown in the ocean than be urped up on to a 
strip of dead beach and be dried away by the sun into a foul smear with no name
to it, just _This Was_ for an epitaph.

                                          -- William Faulkner, _The Wild Palms_

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     CONFESSiONAL
     by Nemo est Sanctus

I look down at her, a little rivulet of blood drips from her, a beautiful red
   pierced flower.

I gently lap up some of the blood, another hot iron between us, my tongue
   wandering across her immaculate flesh.

I guiltily feel a twinge at the bleeding hole -- my fault -- where none should 
   be.  Not in one so young.

A confession -- told in all innocence.
A confession -- revealed in a moment of passion.
A confession -- taken so harshly.
             -- why should it matter?

I place the barrel between my lips and gaze down at the rosette between her
   breasts which it and I had opened.

I smell the acrid stench of powder, still wafting from the pistol and up to my 
   waiting mind.

I smell the acrid stench of burnt flesh as the barrel singes my lips, but I
   accept its justice.  She had not the choice.

What the hell.
What I loved was her innocence.
What I loved was already dead.

I could not be there for her at birth -- no one's fault.
I could not be there for her deflowering -- her fault.
Our blood shall run together in death.

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     Within every evolution, there must be revolution.
                              -- Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky, _Worlds in Collision_

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     MESSiAH OF DUST
     by Kilgore Trout

     Groundlings stumble
     on the pavement
     with cracking bones.

     I shove my fist
     into a pocket,
     the keys metallic and cold.

     Wrought with suffering,
     their eyes reflect
     the horrible loss of soul

     that has stalked the black
     hearts of mortals
     since the invention of language.

     My steps become uneven,
     faltering along the
     sidewalk.  Who can save me?

     She listlessly limps
     towards my crouched body.
     Rotting hands grasp at the lapels

     on my jacket.  "Do you
     see the Queen of The Dead?"
     Eyes of ivory betray.

     The shell I inhabit
     slowly withers away
     and ceases to be.

     They surround the lifeless
     husk.  I sense 
     their baneful presence.

     I possess the knowledge
     to replenish.
     Cannot they accept their fate?

     Metamorphosis occurs.
     The sky's hue diminishes
     into blindness.

     Lips move in unison,
     chanting the forbidden phrase
     that harvests my existence.

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     To know that you know what you know and that you do not know what you do 
not know is the beginning of true knowledge.
                                                                  -- Confucious

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     TRiP KiTTY
     by the Dancing Messiah

     TRIP KITTY
     VIGO MAXIMUS
     SAYS "Do moRe DrUgs!
     Drugs Drugs Drugs Drugs,
     Drugs DRuGs drugs DRUGS!
     Drugs Drugs Drugs DRUGS
     DRUGS Drugs DrUgs Drugs!
     I LIKE 'EM!
     I LUB EM!
     YOU WaNt More UB 'EM!
     TOKE 'EM UP UP UP
     TOKE 'EM UP!  Meow!
     You're how old?!
     Drop a Hit!  Hit!  hIT!
     HAPPY BIRTHDAY
     ANYWAY!
     Holy Shit!  Shit!  shit!
     I'm A STONED IMACULAtE
     KITty And Man Am I FuCkInG Stoned!"
     Stoned Kitty!
     Stoned Kitty!
     Ra Ra Ra!
     Toke'm Up!
     Drop A Hit!
     Trip A Bit!
     Caw!  Caw!  Caw!
     I'M A CROW, A CROW!
     Cuz God Saiz SO!
     Not A Kitty,
     Tripping Pretty,
     But A Bird Tripping Hard Core In A Kitty Cat Skin.

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all its contents.  We live on a placid island of
ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we
should voyage far.  The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have
hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated
knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful
position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from
the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

     --H. P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     SHADES
     by Dark Crystal Sphere Floating Between Two Universes

     Late at Night,
     As I Walk those Ancient, Misty Streets,
     They Watch me.

     They do not reveal any trace that They are there,
     Just a glimpse of Something as I turn sharply,
     A Dark Shadow moving ever so slightly.
 
     I have long since ceased to Fear Them,
     As they have been my constant Companions these Dark, Lonely Nights.
     They simply Watch and Wait,
     For They Know The Time Will Come.

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     Some of those that work forces are the same that brought crosses.
                             -- Rage Against The Machine, "Killing in the Name"

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     RiNGFiNGER
     by Clockwork

     This little piece of twisted metal,
     bent several times into a clump with ends,
     used to rest calmly on my fourth finger.
     Now there is a naked hole where it once was.
     What used to be the symbol for my heart
     is now used to mindlessly scratch and scratch
     the table top,
     right after it scratched my hand.
     Dreams and thoughts and feelings and smiles
     have been bent and distorted,
     and will soon be dropped beside the curb,
     to rust and be washed away,
     down that storm grate right over there.
     But that naked hole --
     that will stay.

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

There are sacraments of evil as well as of good about us, and we live and move
to my belief in an unknown world, a place where there are caves and shadows and
dwellers in twilight.  It is possible that man may sometimes return on the 
track of evolution, and it is my belief that an awful lore is not yet dead.

     --Arthur Machen, quoted in "The Horror at Red Hook", by H. P. Lovecraft

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     A LiGHT WHERE NONE SHOULD HAVE BEEN
     by Dark Crystal Sphere Floating Between Two Universes

     A Light where none should have been!
     Amidst the bracken of that Poisoned Glen
     I saw It, Burning with the Unhealthy Light of Aeons Undying --
     A Light where none should have been!
     Amongst the Trees through which no wind blows,
     In that Valley which no sane eyes must look upon --
     A Light where none should have been!
     And of what Evils that lurk There I must not tell,
     Such Evils which no man must know --
     A Light where none should have been!
     For such Things do exist at the Boarders of That Which Man Knows,
     And in those Regions which are seen not but in Dream --
     A Light where none should have been!

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

There comes a flash now and then in any book, shining so intensely on one
particular scene, that you know it must be something that he author actually
saw, and that the light is from sheer truth.

     --Lord Dunsany, _Patches of Sunlight_

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     DiSSENT RISING BENEATH THE MASSES
     by Kilgore Trout

     a new renaissance has arisen from the ashes of the old
     the players toil in dank shadows
     screaming voices fall on deaf ears
     their words, raw and unfiltered
     they aim to tell the blatant truth
     no euphemisms, no political correctness
     life is the topic of discussion
     and anything in it is for public display
     some condemn them for being too truthful
     they say innocence should be revered, not discarded
     these innovators of a new information age
     perceive knowledge as being free and unbridled
     from selfish interests and the minority who rules the majority
     laboring under the scrutiny of searching eyes
     pens concealed under heavy jackets like lethal weapons
     hidden beneath the surface of mainstream culture
     the cries for a new order are never heard
     yet their effect reverberates in every circle

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     "You want mustard?"
     "This tastes funny," he says.
     "How bout I cut off your hand, fry *it* up and slap it between two bread 
slices.  How would that taste?"

                                                    -- Philip Brooks, "Audubon"

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
                                                                               
     SWiNG WiTH ME
     by Clockwork

slide the knot around over under and through and swing swing up and down
around around down and up over the limbs and through the leaves to the
blue white painting painted with sweet breath that streaks through your
hair flopping and flapping with each up and down around around down and
up by the back and forth of your legs and feet and head and chest and
push and pull forward and back and touch the painting with your toes
down down and miss the ground and up up and touch the painting with your
back down and up and down and back and forward and back to where you
started from

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     I'd like to keep out hard-core pornography if at all possible, since I 
don't want to be labeled as the next triple X king of cyberspace.  Sex is okay,
as long as it's not JUST sex, see?  Of course, if something is really, really 
sick and disgusting, we might just take it.  Up to us.  Doesn't really matter.
I'm contradicting myself again, aren't I?  STOP DiGRESSiNG, DAMMiT!  Ok.

     -- taken from Kilgore's brainstorming file to Clockwork about starting SoB

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     MiKE DRiSKELL, ACE DETECTiVE:  THE CASE OF THE HOWLiNG MONKEY
     by Griphon

     My name is Driskell.  I'm a dick.  A private dick, with few friends.  Why 
so few friends?  Like I said, I'm a dick.  Being a dick makes it hard to get 
friends, especially when you're a real dick.  I take being a dick very 
seriously.  I'm the best dick I know.  Anyway, let me tell you about this case 
I had the other day.  I call it "The Case of the Howling Monkey."

                                   * * * * *

     This broad walked into my office sipping on a black cup of coffee and 
swinging her buns this way and that.

     "Cinnamon bun?" she asked.

     "No.  What can I do for you, Toots?"

     "How did you know my name was Toots?" she asked.

     "That's what a dick calls every girl with a name tag with the name 'Toots' 
on it," I said.  The name tag was from a dive in the lower part of town, East 
Rec Swimming Facilities.

     "Oh.  Well yes, Mr. Driskell, you can do something for me.  I need a 
monkey."

     "The pet store's down the street, kid.  If that won't do, I know a guy 
who needs some money really bad.  He wouldn't mind letting you see his--"

     "No, no.  You don't understand.  I need a golden monkey."

     "Well, he's tanned.  I don't know if he's tan everywhere--"

     "No, no, no.  A statue, Mr. Driskell.  A statue of a golden monkey 
howling."

     "Oh.  Gotcha.  Well, I can help you.  Was it stolen?"

     "Yes.  A burgler broke in last night."

     "A burger.  Hmmm.  That's why I eat only hot dogs.  Something not right 
about cow flesh being eaten.  Cow spirit comes back and haunts you.  No, I 
don't think I can help you.  I'm not much of a sorcerer."

     "Burgler.  Not burger, you twit.  Burger.  One who burgles."

     "Burgler?  Oh, I thought... nevermind.  I can help you find your monkey, 
ma'am."

     "There's one more thing."

     "Yes?"

     "I think it was another private eye."

     "A dick took your monkey?"

     "Yes, and he left this bone where I hid the monkey."

     "And where was that?"

     "In my pussy."

     "What?"

     "My stuffed cat, Iris."

     "Oh."

     "Yes.  You see, I woke up this morning and went to get Iris and the 
monkey when I saw that Iris had a bone where her monkey had been."

     "Was Iris smiling?"

     "What does that have to do with anything?"

     "Well, seeing as how the burgler boned your pussy, I should like to know 
whether your pussy enjoyed it."

     "No, she didn't.  The bone was too big and stretched her out.  I had to 
plug her up this morning so she wouldn't leak all over the place."

     "That was sensible.  Do you have any idea who the dick that boned your 
pussy was?"

     "I think it was Fred Gunther."

     Fred Gunther was a small dick who took small-time divorce/cheating/spying 
cases.  He was a stupid dick, and I often wanted to choke his chicken.  I 
hated his chicken.  "Best meat this side of the state," he'd say.  To me, it 
was a waste of feathers.  Somebody choked his chicken, though.  It spurted out 
white crap all over the office.  Gunther got real excited.  started breathing 
hard when he heard about it.  Stupid dick.

     Anyway, I took the case.  The first place I thought I'd look would be the 
office of Gunther, near the bay.  Our city was the regular type of city where 
a dick like me lived.  Kind of like New York, they have a lot of dicks living 
there.  Or San Francisco, where dicks are really loved.  Ours was a bit of 
both.  A few dicks, and a few men who loved dicks.  I loved dicks, and I loved 
being a dick.

     Fred Gunther was a man of little prominence and less of a soul.  When I 
walked into his office, he was smoking a Cuban cigar and sipping on a glass of 
white wine mixed with a little grenadine.  He offered me a seat.

     "No thanks," I said.  "This will only take a minute."

     "That is what I say to my wife.  She always makes it last longer, 
though.  Please, come closer."

     "Does she tell you that, too?"

     "What?"

     "Nevermind.  Listen, I came to see a man about a monkey."

     "What kind of money?"

     "A gold monkey.  Used to be in a pussy named Iris."

     "I'm sorry, Driskell.  I don't know know anything about monkeys or 
pussies."

     "Your father never had that talk with you?"

     "What?"

     "Not important.  I got a tip that you know where that monkey is.  You 
better come clean, boy."

     "Are you threatening me?  You know what they say about a man that 
threatens others..."

     "Yeah, I know.  And I'm telling you that I developed slow.  It's not the 
size, its how you use--"

     Gunshots poured through the window like rain, except these were bullets 
of hot lead that could kill, not drops of water that inspired musicals.  I 
rolled under the mahogany desk of Fred Gunther and drew my pecker, a small .38 
caliber pistol.  A local women's group sued me for pulling out my pecker in 
public.  Said it warped their daughters' minds.  I told them I rarely used it, 
but they told me I only displayed for a shock value and called me a flasher.   
I told them I was a dick.  Anyway, I pulled out my pecker and told Fred to get 
under the desk with me.  He didn't answer.  I grabbed his jewels and pulled 
them under the desk with me.  Two rings, a pearl necklace, and a brooch.  He 
had some great jewels, but no monkey.  The gunfire stopped, and I pulled 
myself out from under the desk.  Fred Gunther was dead, excessive bleeding 
through three large holes in his chest.  I called the police.  They came down 
to his office and arrested me.  I told them my pecker could never put holes in 
Fred like that, but they said it had been a lover's quarrel and that I needed 
to answer a few question's anyway.

     I spent the night in the slammer.  The other inmates were looking at me, 
knowing I was a good dick.  Two guys offered me cigarettes, one a stick of 
gum, and one told me I'd bend over or else.  They must have heard what went 
down at Fred's.  Toots came and bailed me out later that day.

     "This is coming out of your pay, Mr. Driskell."

     "Gunther didn't bone your pussy."

     "What?  How, how do you know that?"

     "I'm a dick, ma'am, and I know how a dick works."

     "Then who took my monkey?"

     "There's a sex-change doctor on the East Side; he might know where your 
monkey is."

     "Dr. Brian Klipp?"

     "Yes."

     "Why would you suspect him?"

     "The holes that were put in Fred were put in by someone who knows how 
dicks operate, and how to operate on dicks."

     "But Dr. Klipp isn't a dick."

     "He was, though.  One of the best dicks in the world.  Now, I think he's 
knocking them off."

     "Well, yes, of course he might be, I mean his profession and all, but I 
really don't understand the connection."

     "Trust me, ma'am.  Every dick has a healthy fear of that man.  There has 
to be some reason."

     I left Toots and went to see Dr. Klipp.  His receptionist made me fill 
out some routine paperwork.

     "Mr. Driskell, would you object to someone else having your penis?  A 
woman?"

     "Look, sweetheart, I'm on the job.  No time for that here."

     "Oh, no.  I don't want it.  There's a woman, though, that put in an order 
last week.  She wants a penis, Mr. Driskell, and I was just wondering if you 
wouldn't mind giving her yours."

     "So, I thought, Dr. Brian is running a brothel as well as a fencing 
operation and is using a sex-change clinic as the cover.  I was about to 
arrest this bimbo when Dr. Brian Klipp sauntered out.

     "Mr. Driskell, how marvelous to see you."

     "I bet.  Hand over Toot's monkey."

     "I'm sorry, all operations are final."

     I pulled out my pecker.

     "Give it back or I'll give you this."

     "Well, well, Mr. Driskell.  What a charming little tool."

     "Eat hot lead, sucker!"  I shot Dr. Klipp six times with my pecker.  I 
was spent but happy.

     "Now, baby," I said, turning on the receptionist, "are you going to tell 
me I can't have my monkey?"

     "No, sir," she said, fainting.

     I ransacked Dr. Klipp's office.  The only things in there were memories 
and members.

     "Damn.  Where is that monkey?"

     "I had it all along."

     "Toots?"

     "Yes, Driskell.  You are a fool.  Brian is my husband.  He wouldn't give 
me a real monkey, so I told you he took my golden one.  I knew you'd kill him 
for me.  Now, I can give myself any monkey I want.  And, you know what?  I 
want yours."  She pulled out a pecker bigger than mine.

     "I bet you took Gunther's chicken, too."

     "Yes."

     "I thought so.  I even bet you're the one who's taking the lives of other 
dicks."

     "Yes."

     "Well, you're not getting this dick."  I pulled out my pecker and shot 
her before she could react.  "Like I told Gunther; it's not the size of your 
pecker, it's how you use it."

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     Crucify, torture, condemn, scourge us:  your cruelty will avail  nothing.
     It  only draws others to us.  The more we are destroyed by you, the  more
     numerous we become...
                                                                  -- Tertullian

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     A TWiSTED TALE or A TALE OF TWO REALiTiES
     by High Lord Spam

Here I sit in the bowels of my mind.  Study the thoughts of small mice and cans
of CRISCO.  Who can tell the difference between children and weed-eaters?

Time to move . . .

     Flying through the air on the backs of lizards to the country of Iran.  I
meet with my secret agent, Abeeb Mohammed-Ali.  We talk in the phone booth at
the local corner 7-11.  He tells me that I am being followed by a pack of
Hunters from Antarctica.  So, I ran.

     I hid in an alley and waited for the psycho-monkeys wearing the penguin
furs to appear around the corner.  Then I saw them.  I ran.  They ran.  We all
ran.

     I stopped and whipped out my SPAM ray.  They had SPAM-rays too.  So I
threw my SPAM-Ray at them.  They smiled and so did I.  We sat and had SPAM
sandwiches, roasted marshmallows, and CRISCO oil.  After that I pulled out my
trusty SWISS-ARMY knife and drove home.

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     He who grasps, loses.
                                                                      -- Laotse

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     JiM'S ACTiON THEATRE:  THE TROPHY CASE
     by Jim

     The grubby security guard grabbed the boy by a tuft of hair.  He was short
and fat, but he was strong.

     "Let go of my goddamn hair!" yelled the boy.

     "You want me to let go?" questioned the guard.  "Ha ha ha ha."

     The two worked their way down the long hall toward the front of the 
building.  It was an old building, and the long, dark halls seemed frosted 
because of the condensation on the tiles.  Eliot wondered if the guard had 
seen Saul dart into the classroom when he surprised the boys.

     "You goddamn rent-a-cop.  I'll walk, lemme go!" screamed Eliot.  He was
tired of being half-dragged by his hair.  The meaty hand squeezed hard in his
hair and then released him in a convulsion.  The fat officer was trying to
scare him.  It wasn't the first time he had dealt with security.  Jumping
buildings was an every night thing for him and saul; security was just a 
hazard!  Eliot hoped that Saul might think of something.  The guard pushed the boy
into a chair and proceeded to take out his dime store revolver.

     "Tell me what you're doing here, pal," he said as he pointed the gun
limply at Eliot's knee caps.  

     "Why don't you call the real cops and put your fuckin' gun back in your
cheap holster!"  Eliot wouldn't give his type the satisfaction he looked for.
In his opinion, he ought to pull some damn Clint Eastwood stunt and feel like
some fuckin' hero.

     "Look, kid, you're in big trouble as it is.  Why don't you make it easier
on yourself and answer my questions?"

     "Go fuck yourself!"  Eliot sprayed this as much as he could, trying to hit
the guard's face with his saliva.

     "You stupid cock!"  The guard rapped the boy in the teeth with his gun,
and blood squirted from his lip as if it were squeezed out of a ketchup bottle.
The pain of being hit in the mouth gripped Eliot's face, and he let out a
whimpering scream.  Saul could hear this even though he was still in the other
half of the building.  The school divided in two by a playground which ran like
a courtyard inbetween two great chunks of building.  Two long hallways ran like
bridges between the chunks, one on the first floor and one on the second.  It 
was a spectacular building.  It was old, and sound pierced the walls and 
echoed through the building.

     Saul worked his way to the first floor and down the long hallway.  Near 
the end he could see Eliot in a chair being handled by the guard.  He was 
circling the chair and slapping Eliot in the head with an open hand.

     His gun was not in its holster, but it wasn't in his hand, either.  He 
was playing some game with Eliot, trying to make him go for the gun so that he 
could pull out another, probably stuffed in his pants, and put a bullet in him.
Eliot wasn't dumb; he just sat there still as a rock.  Saul crept closer now 
and stood in a shadow not fifty feet away from the guard.  

     "Go call the police, asshole!"  Eliot was angry.  The pain didn't hurt 
him anymore.  Saul could see that he was bleeding from the lip and both 
nostrils as well as from the left eye.  The wounds framed a crimson wave down 
Eliot's face, and he almost looked as if he had been skinned.  The guard 
reached in his pants and pulled out a badge.  He was P.D.

     "Well, take me in, asshole!"  Eliot was seated now, and this last demand 
sounded more like a child's voice after punishment.

     "Looking like this?  Yeah, right.  I'll be the one getting booked."

     Saul crept up closer now.  The guard's back was to him, and he saw the 
concealed gun sticking out of the top of his pants.  Auto-pistol, large framed.
Slowly, Saul worked his way closer to the guard's back.  Eliot could see his 
partner.  Steadily, he reached, and simultaneously, Eliot jumped.  Saul drew 
back gripping the pistol, and Eliot slid across the floor, scooping the 
revolver off the ground.

     The guard, stunned, lost his balance and tripped to the ground clumsily.  
Saul opened up with a shot which shattered the trophy case set against the 
wall.  Glass sprinkled the ground, and trophies tumbled off the shelves onto 
Eliot.  One particularly large award, shaped like a football, only larger than 
most, connected with Eliot's head.  His vision went black and his body limp.  
Blood trickled from a crack in his skull.  The guard dropped like a snake 
towards the bleeding boy.  Saul, confused, pulled on the trigger, pointing in 
the guard's vicinity.  The chair which housed Eliot's interrogation splintered 
at the top and blew back against the wall with great force.  The guard gripped 
the revolver loosely and naturally pulled the barrel toward the new intruder.  
Saul felt a jerk at his arm and spun, crashing to the ground.  Blood pooled 
out across the tile floor, and he could see a clean spray on the wall behind 
him.

     The guard saw the boy clap to the ground and pushed off the floor in an 
effort to pull himself up.  The glass from the trophy case stuck into his 
palms like knives.  In seconds, his hands had become useless.  The guard 
screamed as he drew to his knees.  His gun slid smoothly across the floor, out 
of reach.  Saul groped across the floor, slipping in his own blood.  Eliot lay 
unconscious, losing vital fluid from the crack in his skull.

     Saul pushed across the floor, trying to make his way to a classroom.  The 
slippery blood made the task difficult and slow.  Lights shined through the 
front windows of the school, and the door splintered into pieces as armed men 
came rushing into the front hall of the school like water filling a basin.  
The thunder of police stomping through the halls crashed into Saul's ears.  
The officer, now on his feet, stopped plucking the glass from his palms in 
time to see beams of light flash across his torso.  The police lights shined 
onto one of the "intruders", a bleeding child lying at his feet.  A few 
officers opened fire.  The guard felt his back rip as a bullet tore into his 
right shoulder.  A few more rounds shattered the spine as well as most of his 
ribs.  The officer's organs were torn to a mushy pulp and spilled out of the 
gaping tears in his torso.  This lifeless body fell slapping onto the cold 
tile.  The hall was covered in red liquid and almost looked as if it was 
painted that way.  The intruding officers felt the pulse of the limp boy lying 
by the trophy case.

     "Get an ambulance!  He's still alive."  Another took a close look at the 
dead security guard.

     "Ohhh fuck.  He's P.D.!"

     Saul had made his way into a classroom, and, in spite of the pain flaring 
from his arm, he managed to pull himself to his feet.  He worked his way to a 
window, and opened it quietly.  Luckily, the police hadn't surrounded the 
building, and this side of the school was clear.

     The cool night air seemed to soothe Saul's face as he slipped through the 
window and ran for the wooded area next to the school.  Each step shot pain 
into his arm, but he carried on to the nearest tree.  He sat himself gently 
against the trunk and took in long breaths of air, cooling his lungs.  The 
pain in his arm was dying away, and the wound seemed to be pouring blood more 
than ever.  The air wasn't cool anymore but cold, and Saul pulled his jacket 
tightly to his body.  He felt drowsy, but he knew he had to get help.  Trying 
to get to his feet, his left leg slipped, and he lost balance.

     "Maybe I'll just rest a minute," he thought.  
 
     Saul closed his eyes, and he sat in comfort as he realized how tired he 
was.  Slowly, he drifted deeper away from the conscious world.  More 
comfortable than he had ever been, Saul grinned as he drifted into sleep.  
Slowly, his grinning face relaxed into blankness, and his lifeless neck tilted 
forward from the weight of his head.

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     If you do not do your own thinking, someone else will do it for you.
                                                                      -- Orwell

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     JiM'S ACTiON THEATRE:  AGENT MALCOViCH
     by Jim

     Ivan Malcovich didn't like small places.  It was just up his alley, being 
assigned on a train.  He worked his way to the dining car and sat at a table 
near the exit.  In just one hour, the very car he sat in was to become the 
housing for a major change-of-hands in a large diamond heist.  Ivan tapped on 
his collar and spoke softly into the small radio therein.

     "I'm in the diner car.  It's pretty clear right now.  One woman, 
mid-thirties, alone at a table three rows north on the left.  Two men, both 
over fifty, five rows north right-side."

     "No open-fire unless the car is clear," said the voice on the other end.
"Remember, we don't know what they look like."

     Ivan knew:  three persons, two receiving, one delivery boy.  He had 
worked the situation before, but never on a train.

     "Excuse me, waiter.  Is there some way I can get some fresh air?"  Ivan 
needed something to hold himself together before the action.

     "I'm sorry, sir, but there's not much I can do for you.  Would you like a 
drink?"  He did, but he thought better.

     "No thanks."  From the north end, two men came bumbling into the car.  
They sat clumsily, knocking over at least one piece of furniture each.  They 
were drunk and talked loudly.  The waiter worked his way toward their end of 
the car, fixing what disturbances they might have caused, and offered them 
assistance.

     "How about a drink?" they yelled.

     They waiter looked around nervously and blurted out, "Ice?"

     The two drunk men paused attentively, then rolled in the booth where they 
were, laughing hysterically.  This vexed the waiter, and he rushed out of the 
car, passing Ivan's table.  About the same time, two more gentlemen--one in 
his mid-twenties, sharply dressed, a good looker, and another in his early 
forties at least, dressed the same, but with a square jaw--came and sat two 
booths down from the south exit.  The younger one was handsome and sat so Ivan 
could study his face.  He had long, dark hair pulled back tight on his scalp 
and light brown eyes which matched his tan skin.  He had a large mole on his 
right cheek and perfect structure in his face.  The other was a large framed 
man, with broad shoulders and a thick neck.  The waiter came in and proceeded 
to approach the table where the two men sat.

     Ivan could feel something in his mind, and he knew what was happening.  
"It's the waiter.  It's going down!" he whispered into his radio.

     Almost immediately, two agents came barreling in from either exit and 
rushed towards the table that the waiter was serving.  Instantly, the waiter 
dove for a booth across the way, and the older man ducked down.  The agents 
started to draw out their weapons when the younger of the men opened fire with 
an automatic pistol.  The agent advancing from the south end dove for a booth; 
the one from the north was hit.  His chest slammed in as a few rounds 
connected with his kevlar vest, and he fell to the floor onto his back.  Ivan 
could see him clearly from under his table.

     The agent raised an arm as if by instinct and fired his clip towards the 
booth containing the two men.  The young man jerked back and flapped noisily 
over the back of his booth as he took shots from the agent.  Blood painted the 
windows to his side, and he screamed from the floor where he lay protected.  
Ivan got to his knees with his gun drawn and looked as one of the old drunk 
men drew his own piece.  He held a submachine gun and immediately opened fire 
on the agent lying in the middle of the train car.  Bullets crashed down all 
around and through the body.  His vest wouldn't let them penetrate, but they 
pounded him.  his arms tore into bloody strips, and the tops of his legs 
seemed to disintegrate into a red mist.  His head exploded like a melon and 
scattered skull fragments and pieces of brain across the room.  The old man 
continued firing, and Ivan took careful aim, not being noticed.

     He squeezed the trigger, and the machine-gunner's body flew into the 
air.  His chest collapsed, and his back tore open as his spine and much of his 
lungs exited his body.  The man's carcass fell atop a table to the left, and 
his partner darted out from under it.  The lady who had been in the car was 
halfway out the door screaming in a fit when the man grabbed her.  The waiter 
took cover in a booth not but one row in from of Ivan's, across the way.  The 
two older men who hadn't to do with the action were not to be seen.  The large 
gentleman with the square jaw stood up with a shotgun and walked towards his 
partner's vicinity, who was screaming in agonizing pain.  Nobody dared make a 
move so long as the one man held the lady hostage.  The one living agent stood 
tall, holding his gun above his head, and Ivan noticed the waiter reaching for 
his pistol.

     "Down!" yelled Ivan as he squeezed the rest of his clip at the waiter.  
His white suit became soaked in crimson, and his lifeless body fell bleeding 
into the aisle.  The agent ducked back down, and the square-jawed man sprayed 
his area with a blast from the shotgun.

     "I'll kill her, goddammit!  Stop fuckin' shooting!" screamed the older 
gentleman with the lady.  They knew of Ivan's presence now, and he stayed 
low.  The two older gentlemen stood up now with their hands raised, and the 
hostage holder motioned for them to go out.  The young man on the floor was 
still screaming, and the lady was crying quite vocally.  Between the noise and 
the tight quarters, Ivan was going nuts.  The agent ahead in the car made a 
move to free the lady being held.  He darted swiftly into the aisle and lunged 
for the man holding her at gunpoint.  The three tumbled to the floor, and a 
gun sounded twice.  For a second, all was still, and blood ran out onto the 
floor from under the lady.  She screamed and jumped up quickly, losing her 
balance and falling to her knees.  The agent rolled into a booth on the left 
side of the car and screamed for her to get out.  Ivan could see the other man 
lying on the floor with two holes in his chest.  A shotgun blast blew glass 
through the car near Ivan's part of the train.  The man with the square jaw 
stood up with his partner over his shoulder.  Ivan stayed low but alert.  The 
other agent rolled out behind the man and went up on a knew to shoot.  The 
smaller man, screaming and bleeding from the shoulder, chest, and mouth, fired 
from a limp arm, hitting the agent in the left knee.  He stumbled, dropping 
his gun under his body.  The bigger man spun around, blasting with his 
shotgun.  Ivan couldn't see what happened, but he figured it wasn't good.  The 
two moved toward the waiter, now lying dead under a table near Ivan.  He 
figured they didn't know his location.  

     The large-jawed man set his partner into a booth facing Ivan's side of 
the train.  He then loaded his shotgun and pointed it towards Ivan's booth.  
Both men opened fire.  Ivan's booth exploded into splinters, and the side of 
the train tore into chunks of metal.  Ivan's left leg throbbed with pain, and 
his face was streaked with blood.  He tried to push his way under the tables 
to the next booth, but his legs weren't working.  He looked down, but blood 
ran into his eyes, and he realized he had been hit in the head.  Ivan felt 
something grip his shirt, and he was suddenly jerked into the air.  His 
visibility showed him that the big-jawed man held him at arm's length.  His 
body was limp in the man's grip, and his head fell forward.  Blood dripped 
from his head and formed a pool under him on the wood floor.  He could see now 
that he had been wounded in the waist area, and his left knee had taken a 
direct shot.  The man carried Ivan to the end of the car and into the section 
dividing it from the next.  He then threw him violently to the ground.

     Ivan heard him opening the door, and the felt the wind from the outside 
air.  The man turned to grab Ivan and slipped in a pool of blood which had 
leaked from his body.  The man smashed down on the floor, and the train 
rounded a curve.  His body slid quickly toward the open door, and he screamed 
as he realized his situation.  He reached to save his life, but the slide was 
too fast.  His body crumpled into a ball as he slammed into a bed of rocks at 
high speed.  The life was knocked from him, and he lay bleeding a few feet 
from the speeding train.

     Ivan felt himself getting cold, and he heard other agents crashing 
through the next car in a race to the action.  One stopped by his side, and 
others ran into the half-destroyed car, blasting at the lifeless bodies 
therein.  Ivan felt the paramedic start work on his hopeless torso and legs.  
He knew he had been given a drug, and he drifted pleasantly into sleep.

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     Man cannot stand too much reality.
                                                                  -- T.S. Eliot

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     SHARDS OF iCE
     by KidKnee

     once, when i was a kid, i laid down in the snow and watched the snow fall 
like in the movies.  only different.  as i watched the snow gently fall 
towards me in all its graceful beauty, blowing in the chill winter wind, i 
noticed something none of the movies ever told me.  in each tiny crystalline 
snowflake there are millions of tiny, razor sharp edges, coming right at me.  
The frost bit and cut at my ears and stung my nose and it hurt.  i ran into 
the house screaming and crying, and for good reason.  it hurt.  it was then i 
learned that the most beautiful things can be the most painful, and have 
seldom since stopped to enjoy innocence and beauty in the same way.  i may be 
missing something, but at least i know the truth and am no longer stupid 
enough to lie down in ice in the freezing cold just to watch some stupid 
snowflakes.
               
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

     He who cannot say no does not love himself.
                                                                        -- Orin

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     A SPORADiC ACCOUNT OF MY Acquaintance AND APPRENTiCESHiP TO A MAN NAMED
     YAJI ASHUTHATH -- SECTiON 1
     by KidKnee

     a thick, dry, pasty wall of incense hit me as i opened the door.  a deep, 
raspy voice barked for me to shut the door, which i did with haste.  once 
inside, the extremely stifling heat overwhelmed me.  that and the incense 
thick air that i had to labor to breathe almost choked me as i stood there 
taking in the environment.

     the room was lit only by five candles in a vague circle, augmented by the 
warm orange embers of hundreds of incense that also followed a vague circle 
shape.  as my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, i could barely make out a 
figure in the center of the circle mumbling something to himself, hunched over 
in what had to be the most uncomfortable position i have ever seen.  for an 
instant i thought maybe he was dead.  before i could take a step his voice 
boomed out at me though he made no motion.

     "On peril of your life, stay outside the circle stranger."

     that sounded pretty damn important, so i decided to stay where i was.  
there was nothing else to do but sit down in the thick haze before i fell 
down.  The air in there was so thick, it was like trying to breathe a dark 
amber cream. each breath was an accomplishment.  once i was settled i listened 
to the words the uncomfortable one spoke.  as i listened, i found i could only 
understand half the words he spoke, although i heard them all.  why would he 
be switching back and forth between two languages?  this curiosity nearly 
drove me insane until i discovered that it was not indeed two languages, but 
two voices as well.

     shit.  before the realization had even become concrete i was frozen in 
terror, realizing what i had walked into.  I had heard that Ash was into the 
occult, but i never really believed in it until that moment.  sweat broke out 
profusely, and i was drenched in a few seconds between the oppressive heat and 
the terror that filled my brain.  just then Ash let out a terrifying yell as 
the candles roared into flames, engulfing him and the interior of the circle.  
the scream curdled my blood, and in terror my legs began running, even though 
i was sitting down.  It felt like i was getting somewhere, but somewhere in a 
more logical thought i knew that in reality, i was bouncing around, kicking 
over incense, pissing all over myself on the floor.   Somehow i was conscious 
of Ash standing up from his ball of flames and screaming something as loud as 
he could.  The flame went away, and Ash collapsed in the center of the circle, 
clothes and eyebrows still smoldering.

--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--

State  of  unBeing  is  copyrighted (c) 1994 by Kilgore  Trout  and  Apocalypse 
Culture Publications.   All rights are reserved to cover,  format,  editorials, 
and all incidental material.   All individual items are copyrighted (c) 1994 by 
the individual author, unless  otherwise stated.  This file may be disseminated 
without restriction for  nonprofit purposes so long as it is preserved complete 
and  unmodified.   Quotes and  ideas not  already in  the  public domain may be 
freely used so long as due recognition is provided.   The editor may be reached 
at The Lions' Den [(512)259-9546] or at kilgore@bga.com.  Thank you.           

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