MSTing: NEW YEAR'S EVE (4/6)
a.ca...@genie.com
>
> In the darkness, David felt something stirring beside him. He
>turned to find it was Ellen; she
Tom: --was making some stew.
>had quietly come over to sit by him.
> "I don't get it," David said softly to her. "Is there something I'm
>missing?
Mike: "I mean, besides all the internal organs I left splattered across the
dashboard of my truck?"
>What's the point?
> "You don't recognize these people," Ellen said, not sounding
>surprised.
> "Should I?"
> "Probably not.
Crow [falsetto]: "The characterization around here is so tepid that it's
hard to recognize anyone."
>It's different every time someone new comes. Each time, someone here
>eventually asks the new person whether =they= recognize what's going on,
>but so far no one ever has. My theory is that these images somehow relate
>to who we are, and that these people resemble the people we've been
Mike: She was Shirley MacLaine in a past life.
>and the people we've known in some way deeper than just appearance." It
>seemed to David that Ellen wanted to say more, but she held it back.
> "Well, I was on my way to a New Year's party when I... died," David
>said. Ellen looked interested.
Crow: That makes one of us.
> "Oh?" Ellen said, a puzzled expression overcoming her. "That's
>funny," she said.
Tom [David]: "Yeah, that one always gets big laughs at parties."
>"Very strange." She seemed to become lost in thought. David turned back
>to watch the scene again.
> David lay on his side, nestling comfortably in the grass, but
>propping his head up with one arm so he could see.
Crow: I hear Leona Helmsley pays people to do that for her.
> From their vantage-point in the heights, they could see much of the
>broad Los Angeles basin spread out below.
Tom: Yeah, right. =See= into the LA basin. Tell me another one.
>Less than a mile away, there was a freeway, still crowded even at this late
>hour. The bright white headlights of the cars and motorcycles and big rigs
Crow: --and flatbed trucks and minivans and Humvees and mopeds and school
buses and limousines and RVs and--
Tom: We get the point, Crow.
>seemed to merge together into a great sparkling river, wending its way
>through all the satellite cities.
Mike: Think we count as a satellite city?
Tom: Population: 4. Heck, if we were in North Dakota we'd be a thriving
metropolis!
>
> "So where are you going to be over Spring Break?" Feliz nudged Andy.
>He did not budge.
> "Hold on -- I'm still waiting for Mike to tell me what's going on.
>He knows I don't like surprises." Andy was starting to sound genuinely
>annoyed.
Crow: =I'm= genuinely annoyed at this whole subplot. C'mon, what's the
surprise? He got Lakers tickets, he joined the Ice Capades, he's dating
Andy's mother, what?
> One of the older logs on the fire crackled and a spurt of spark-
>filled smoke was thrown up into the chilling air. Mike gritted his teeth.
> "It'll be fine. Like I said, don't worry about it --" Mike said,
>looking mainly down at the ground. Andy studied him for a while.
Mike: He has a Mike 101 exam coming up next week.
> Feliz tugged on Andy's arm. "You're sure," Andy prodded.
> Mike did not answer, and he stubbornly kept his eyes on the ground.
Tom [Mike]: "If I can't see him, he can't see me!"
> Andy leaned over toward Mike and, to Mike's astonishment, messed up
>his hair again. "Sorry," Andy said gently. Mike blushed a little.
> "So where are you going to be over Spring Break?" Feliz asked: again.
Tom: Look, another misplaced colon!
Mike: Where was the first one?
Tom: Oh, David misplaced his when he went through the windshield of his
truck.
[Mike and Crow groan]
>
> =Yeah=, David Disch mused to himself, =where would I have been over
>Spring Break?= He probably wouldn't have stayed in Texas --
Mike: Because, y'know, it's =Texas=.
>he would've driven home to southern California, where he used to live. It
>was unlikely that any of his friends would've made the trip out to see him.
Mike: Because, y'know, he's =David=. It's all very self-explanatory.
> "David?" a voice called to him. David glanced around and saw Ellen
>sitting off to one side of him. She was curled up like a child:
Tom: And simmered in a lovely light cream sauce for thirty-five minutes,
also like a child.
Mike: Tom! Where did that come from?
Tom: Sorry. I've been reading a lot of German folktales lately.
>her legs were folded to her so her knees could touch her chin; her arms were
>clutched about her tightly, as though she were trying to protect herself from
>a cold wind; and she was humming quietly to herself as she rocked gently
Crow: Oh, so it's Ellen Unplugged.
>back and forth. She was staring off into the distance. David watched the
>delicate play of firelight reflecting in her eyes.
> "David?" the voice called again, this time less patient that before.
>He turned around to find Jennifer sitting up straight on his other side,
>trying to attract his attention.
Mike: She was madly firing off signal flares.
>She looked concerned. "Are you all right?" she asked.
> "I was just thinking," David muttered.
> "You can't dwell on it," Jennifer said. "It won't do you any good
>to think about it --
Tom: Sorta like how it wouldn't do Stephen Hawking any good to enter the
Boston Marathon.
>your life, I mean. That's all behind you. Why don't you just sit here and
>enjoy it?"
> "Well, it's..." David rolled his eyes, "because I just can't," David
>said. "This just seems so weird. So all-of-a-sudden. I had friends, and
>family, and --"
Mike: "--my long-distance rates just weren't any lower! Where's the
savings?"
> "-- and so you'll have new friends here," Jennifer said, patting his
>knee. "It's just like any other move you've ever made. All you have to do
>is just lie back and enjoy it."
Crow [falsetto]: "So... y'ever make it with a dead chick?"
> "Enjoy =what=?" David looked around. "=This=?"
> "Yes, =this=," Ellen said, abruptly cutting into the conversation.
Mike [falsetto]: "Whatsa matter, you don't like graph paper? You got
something against graph paper?"
>Startled, David turned to face her. "What =else= is there now?" she said
>with unexpected bitterness, then turned away again.
> "Well I wouldn't have put it that way," Jennifer said, somewhat
>miffed. "I just mean that you'll feel a whole lot better if you make a new
>life here and if you're able to forget all the old stuff you use to --"
Tom: A pre-frontal lobotomy takes the pain away!
> "And what if he doesn't want to forget?" Ellen interrupted. "You
>talk about the 'old stuff' as if it has no importance at all now."
> "It doesn't!" Jennifer said. She looked straight at David to get
>his attention. "Just forget it! Let it go. Make a new life here!"
Mike: --in the off-world colonies!
> "That's easy for you to say," Ellen said, acidly. "David still had
>something to live for when =he= died."
Crow: Yeah, he'd ordered the Wet-N-Wild Bikini Spectacular on pay-per-view.
> "Wait a minute --" David tried (unsuccessfully) to get a word in.
> "And who suddenly made =you= Queen?" Jennifer barked at Ellen over
>David's objections. "God! You are so exasperating!"
Tom [God]: "I know. Ain't I a stinker?"
>Ellen said nothing.
Mike: Because, you know, then Neal would've had to come up with something
for her to say.
>"What gives you the right -- the nerve! -- to decide who had what to 'live
>for' when they died?" Jennifer continued. "You don't have the slightest
>idea of what kind of struggles I went through in my life. =I= was the one
>who had to struggle my whole life through poverty, not you.
Crow [old man voice]: "Ah had to walk to school five miles through the snow!
Uphill! Both ways! And ninjas'd pop out an' attack ya with every tree ya
passed! And we liked it!"
>I scraped and clawed my way through the--"
> "Please, spare us," Ellen rolled her eyes.
> "Oh shut up, Ellen!" Jennifer snapped. "You got everything you
>wanted handed to you on a silver platter, unlike the rest of us
>unenlightened people,
Mike: --who had to make do with pewter.
>so you just don't understand what it's like." Ellen looked disgusted.
>"You and your stupid paintings," Jennifer went on: "I didn't have time for
>paintings! I busted my ass
Tom [David]: "Your ass is busted? Oh, well, uh, gotta go."
>to get where I am today
Mike: You mean hanging out on a big sheet of graph paper?
>and I can't believe you have the unmitigated nerve to--"
> "Yeah, well we're all dead now, so quit whining."
Crow: Yeah! All right! You tell 'em... uh, who said that?
> A look of rage flared on Jennifer's face, but by degrees she forced
>herself to let it subside.
> "Look, I didn't mean to start an argument," David said belatedly.
Tom: "But once I did you could've at least made it fun and pulled each
other's hair and stuff."
> A faint, wry smile crossed Ellen's lips. "We know that, David,"
>Ellen said, wearily. She shook her head and looked away. Out of the corner
>of his eye, David saw that Jennifer had opened her mouth to speak again.
>Rather than have to face that, he lay down and looked up at the sky.
Mike: Wow. That's misogyny worthy of the 50's.
Tom: Or even "The Lockhorns"!
> The day before, a storm had wrought havoc on the atmosphere,
>straining, distorting, and finally rupturing the thick fabric of cloudcover,
>flinging mottled scraps up and through the heavens. But now it was over.
Crow: Oh, good! C'mon, let's go.
Mike: The storm's over. Not the story.
Crow: Oh. Well, that's no good.
>Swift winds were afoot, working hard to clear the way for the new year.
>David leaned forward a bit to watch as Mike and Andy brought out an aging
>television and fiddled anxiously with the antenna until at last it showed
>the mob beneath the apple in Times Square. Everyone applauded.
Crow: All right! Taking into account the time difference between New York
and LA, it's... nine o'clock! [all cheer and applaud]
>And the night sky moved silently above them all like a great dark river,
>carrying far away the sick remnants of the storm.
> "David," Jennifer whispered fiercely.
> "What!?" David said as he turned to face her, sounding more annoyed
>than he had intended.
Mike: "Hmm... shouldn't have used the exclamation point."
> "I'm sorry," Jennifer spoke quietly. "I didn't mean to start a fight
>right in front of you. It's just that Ellen and I have our differences."
Tom [falsetto]: "We even have a few quotients!"
> "Really? I would never have guessed."
> "It's an old thing," Jennifer smiled apologetically. "We come from
>very different backgrounds.
Mike [falsetto]: "I had the nice autumn leaves, and she had that ugly
pixelly marble one. But now we both have the new one with the clouds and
stuff."
>When I... got here, I didn't know that Ellen and Jason were sort of a
>couple, and I guess I flirted with Jason and Ellen got mad at me.
Crow [falsetto]: "She even passed a note around during study hall saying
that I stuffed! I do =not= stuff!"
>He didn't seem to mind though."
> "I wouldn't have, either," David smiled. She raised her eyebrows
>and smiled back.
Crow: Cut it out! That's three smiles in less than six lines.
Mike: Oh, give them a break, Crow. They have to do =something= for
entertainment.
> "You =are= cute," Jennifer said, and moved toward him, just a little,
>as if to kiss him. David laughed.
Tom [David]: "Huh-huh! You're right, I =am= cute!"
> "What?" Jennifer said, annoyed. "What is it?"
All: IT'S IT!
Tom [singing]: o/~ What is i-i-it? o/~
> "Nothing. It's... I don't know. That just sounded far to normal
>for this place," he said, glancing around at the black emptiness and the
>Grid behind them.
> "People say that to you all the time?" Jennifer said in disbelief.
> "No, it wasn't that.
Crow [David]: "=I= say that to me all the time."
>Never mind. You want to go somewhere and talk?"
> Ellen snorted. "Yeah, right. Where?"
> "Can you just leave us alone for half a second?" Jennifer complained
>to Ellen. She rolled her eyes.
Tom: They came up boxcars.
> "I don't know what you're trying to accomplish," Ellen said. "You
>just don't get it, do you."
> "Yeah, and you do," Jennifer said. "I'm just trying to help David.
>Jesus Christ." Ellen did not reply.
Mike: Of course she didn't. She thought Jennifer was talking to Jesus
Christ.
> "David," Jennifer tried again, "I know that it's going to be hard
>for you to accept that you're here now, with us, rather than with all of
>your friends and family
Crow [falsetto]: "--but you'll =like= it here at AT&T!"
>you used to know, but you've got to come to grips with it sometime, and now
>is as good a time as any."
> "So what should I do?" David asked. "I mean, it's like everything
>was a just an old dream, and now I'm here -- like I've always been here. I
>feel...
Tom: "...pretty!"
>he shook his head and couldn't think of the words.
> "Go on, David," Jennifer said, encouragingly.
> "I don't know!" David said. "I don't want to talk about it."
Crow: "All I want is a Pepsi!"
> "You should get your feelings out in the open."
> "You don't know what it's like," he said.
> "Tell me."
> "I don't know!" he said. He folded his arms in front of him.
>Jennifer smiled knowingly, and gave him a peck-kiss on the cheek. David
>resisted the sudden urge to swat her away. Jennifer snuggled close to him,
>but he did not help her.
Mike [David]: "I just remembered... I don't like girls!"
Tom: And =I= just remembered -- we gotta go. C'mon.
[1...2...3...4...5...6...]
[Tom looks at Mike.]
[Mike smiles at Crow.]
[Crow says nothing. He just waits.]
[Tom looks at Crow.]
[Mike smiles at Tom.]
[Crow waits.]
Mike: Okay, this is lame. Let's see what Dr. F. is up to.
[Deep 13B]
[Dr.F. is quite clearly saying something, but his voice is drowned out by
not so much the Mexican-restaurant music as by the thumping and screaming
upstairs. It sounds like a bunch of young children moving furniture around,
smacking into each other, and shrieking and crying about it.]
[SOL]
Tom: You know that whole thing about trying to get back to Earth? Forget it.
[Deep 13B]
[Dr.F. is pounding the ceiling with a broom handle.]
Dr.F.: I'm gonna kill these kids!
[Someone upstairs starts vacuuming. A fight breaks out. Soon at least
twenty-three separate children are upstairs wailing.]
Dr.F.: I'm gonna KILL these kids!
[Someone pounds on Dr.F.'s door. He opens it. Towering in the doorway is
an enormous Slovene. His name is Brute.]
Dr.F.: Yes?
Brute: EYOU STOLE MY TAWLET PAPER! I WILL KEEL YOU LITTLE MAN!
Dr.F.: Uhh... what?
Brute: RETYURN TO ME MY TAWLET PAPER IF EYOU WANT IT TO GO BETTER FOR EYOU!
IF EYOU DYON'T RETYURN THE TAWLET PAPER EYOU WILL REGRYET IT!
Dr.F.: Look, you've got the wrong guy. I'm sure that back in the East Bloc
toilet paper was a priceless commodity, but trust me, here it is cheap and
plentiful! Why would I want to steal it?
Brute: DYON'T PATRONIZE ME LITTLE MAN! [slugs Dr.F., slams door]
Dr.F. [clutching bleeding, broken face]: OW!
Voice from upstairs: HEY! KEEP IT DOWN DOWN THERE!
[SOL]
Crow: Umm... we didn't take that guy's toilet paper, did we?
[lights flash]
All: AAAHHH! WE'VE GOT GRAPH PAPER SIGN!
[6...5...4...3...2...1...]
> Jason and Flint came over from where they had been talking all of
>this time on the far side of the fire.
> "You've started a party without us, I see," Jason said as he
>approached.
Tom: Nazis don't exactly have the most wonderfully developed sense of fun.
> "I guess," David said, amused, looking at Ellen, Jennifer, and
>himself, all sitting on the ground and not talking to each other. "Does
>this pass for a party around here?
> "Here, have a beer," Flint said, and conjured two Miller Lites.
Crow: All right! Heaven may offer eternal bliss, but this place has =booze=!
>He handed one to David, who stood up.
> "Hey, now we're getting somewhere!" David said. "It doesn't make
>any sense." He turned to address Jason.
Tom: "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers..."
Mike: Uh, Tom, you already used that one.
> "You know... I've just been thinking.
Crow [David]: "Then my head started to hurt, and I stopped. But it was
kinda fun. Might do it again someday. If I feel like it."
>You say these things you create are not real," David said to Jason, "but
>what does that mean, here?"
> "Same thing it always meant," Jason said.
> "But look," David said. "If I've got this right...." He produced
>a small, smooth stone,
Tom: Yowtch! That had to hurt.
>and played with it in his palm.
Crow: Whee! It's fun!
Mike: You get the feeling this guy's easily amused?
>"Look: it's there; it's solid," he held it up for all to see. "It's even
>kind of cold... I mean, it's really a rock. No wonder you live in an empty
>world if you believe nothing exists!"
> Flint laughed. "That's cool," Flint said.
Tom: See, Neal, this is why pronouns were invented.
>David took another sip of his beer.
> "Actually, that's dangerous thinking," Jason countered. "We all
>know that that rock just springs from your mind.
Crow [televangelist]: "An' then it goes straight to your LOINS! Oh Jaysus,
Jaysus, SAVE us from this devil's music!"
>It may seem real, but it's not -- it's only a figment of your subconscious
>imagination. You're just fooling yourself if you say it's actually real."
> "Then why do we =all= see it?" Flint asked, smiling at David.
Mike: Further smile updates as events warrant.
> "Because spacetime is different here," Jason said, as if remembering
>a well-rehearsed speech. "Unlike the other world, the spacetime here
>supports the subconscious thoughts outside of the actual brain itself.
>They leak outside.
Tom: It's a saggy afterworld that leaks.
>They can be picked up by other people. Probably their
>intensity falls off as some function of the distance,
Mike: What SF story would be complete without technobabble?
>but the idea is that a strong enough thought will still get noticed by the
>rest of us. When one person's subconscious gets convinced that it is seeing
>a rock, or a tree, or whatever, this impression sort of spreads out toward
>the rest of us.
Tom: "Pretty soon we're =all= doing Cagney."
Crow: "You doity rat!"
>And of course when you stop thinking about it, it disappears as if it never
>were."
> "What do you mean, it disappears?" David asked. "I haven't seen
>anything disappear..." his voice trailed off as he saw Jason grinning.
Crow: Uh-oh. I think I just figured out where all the missing stuff goes.
Nazi-Boy here turns it into soap.
> "Where's your saxophone?" Jason said simply. Daniel anxiously
>glanced around him, but the saxophone was nowhere to be found.
> "Oh," David said.
Tom: Wait... but... I mean, if he's looking for the saxophone, then he's
thinking about the saxophone, visualizing it, so logically, shouldn't it,
you know, show up again...?
Mike: Don't try to follow along. It'll go a lot easier.
> Flint cleared his throat. "Jason, listen," he said. "You and I
>have been over this a hundred times, probably literally a hundred times, and
Crow: "--y'know, now that I think about it, that's pretty pathetic."
>that's the same theory you've given us all along, just with a little more
>mathematical mumbo-jumbo. Without all the dressing,
Mike: "Your argument is covered with Thousand Island!"
>you're really just saying that although something looks real, feels real,
>and everybody thinks it's real, it somehow isn't. I don't buy that. And
>anyway your theory's got a lot of problems."
> "Like what?" Jason said, crossing his arms. David looked to Flint.
Crow: Oooh, that little tidbit of information was vital.
Mike: Well, Neal decided that the story just wouldn't be complete if we
didn't know exactly who was looking at whom in what way at all times.
> "Like the rock David was talking about. Let me see that," he said,
>reaching over to David. David handed him the rock.
Crow: The rock! Pass me the rock, man! I got an easy hoop!
>"Now you say that this rock comes from =David's= subconscious, and that it
>will go away when he stops thinking about it.
Tom: I get the feeling that he'll stop thinking about it the second he gets
a glimpse of something shiny.
>But suppose he hands it to someone else who takes it miles away, and =that=
>person continues to think about it long after David has forgotten?"
> "No, no." Jason said, shaking his head. "It's a feedback loop."
Crow: All the cool bands are usin' 'em.
>Flint smirked, to Jason's discomfiture. "Once the object -- or rather, the
>bundle of percepts we're calling the object --
Mike: Okay, does anyone here not think this story was originally a project
for Neal's Philosophy 105 class?
>has preceded from David, each of our subconsciouses
Tom: "Hmm... 'subconsciouses'? 'Subconscii'? Oh, screw it."
>grabs hold of it, sort of re-positing the existence of that bundle, and then
>each subconscious reflects it back with its own special interpretation, at
>once magnifying and enriching the combined quality of the object. Each of
>us, then, sees small details supplied by others of which we ourselves did
>not conceive,
Crow: Ah, so that explains why "MADE IN TAIWAN" was stamped on the back of
the rock.
>and so we are further convinced that the object has, well, objective
>reality. So even if David forgets it, provided at least one person still
>carries that bundle with him, the perception will for him remain."
Tom: Would this be a good time to point out that humans just don't talk like
this?
> "Whew!" Flint said, and patted Jason on the back. "Well spoken.
>But you still deny that this bundle of percepts is real?"
Mike: Of course it's not real. This whole story isn't real.
Crow: Come to think of it, I'm not real either. Tom, are you real?
Tom: Nope! I'm a crudely-made puppet thrown together from a bunch of toys.
Heck, right now I'm not even that. I'm an imaginary entity supposedly
uttering these words, which aren't even actual spoken words but rather just
a bunch of pixels on a computer screen. Cool, huh?
Crow: Touche. Ceci n'est pas un pipe.
Mike: Okay, this is getting way too postmodern for me.
> "I deny that it is anything more than a bundle of percepts," Jason
>answered.
> "But what is reality?" Flint said. David groaned. "Who knows?"
>Jennifer said. At length, Ellen spoke up.
Crow: Oh, boy. Just what this story needs. More length.
> "I don't think I understand what you mean by the subconscious. My
>idea of a subconscious is basically a mixed up mess of old memories and
>repressed desires.
Tom [falsetto]: "You know, like how I want to kill my father and sleep with
my mother. Or is that the other way around? Kill my mother and sleep with
my father... or maybe my father wants to kill =me= and sleep with... no,
that's not it..."
>The subconscious you're talking about seems to have a will of its own, and
>furthermore, it doesn't explain how we can make things all by itself? And
>how can something, sustained purely by belief, still seem real after
>everyone agrees that it is just an illusion?"
Crow [falsetto]: "And for that matter, just what the hell were those
Scooby-snacks, anyway? Some kind of dog amphetamines?"
> "Ellen!" Flint said, pleased. "That's more thoughts in one sentence
>than I've come up with in a hundred arguments with Jason."
Mike: Not =good= thoughts, but hey, thoughts is thoughts.
> "Well, it was more than one sentence," Ellen said, looking
>apologetically toward Jason.
> David smiled to himself. He toyed with his beer can and took a long
>drink, more or less finishing it off.
Tom: He's the afterworld's answer to Mitchell.
[Commercials]
[Continued in Part 5]