259 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
259 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
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OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO oOOOO OOOO. OOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" .OOOOOO OOOOOo OOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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OOOO oOOOOOOO OOOOOOO. OOOO oOOOO
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OOOO .OOOO OOOO OOOOOOOOo OOOO OOOO"
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OOOO oOOOO OOOO OOOO "OOOO. OOOO OOOOo .OOOO'
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OOOO .OOOO" OOOO OOOO OOOOoOOOO "OOOO. oOOOO
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OOOO oOOOOOOO..OOOO OOOO "OOOOOOO OOOOoOOOO"
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OOOO .OOOO"""OOOOOOOO OOOO OOOOOO "OOOOOOO'
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OOOO oOOOO ""OOOO OOOO "OOOO OOOOOO
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|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
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| There Ain't No Justice |
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| #107 |
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|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
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- Pop -
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by Ironhorse
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I have to admit Janet always was a little bit strange. That's why when she
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came into the Taco Bell that long ago day and told me she was hearing
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voices I didn't think anything of it.
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It must have been about two months ago now that she met me in that rainy
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Toco Bell. It was November and the tourists that populated our town in the
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summer had long gone home for the winter, leaving me to stare alone at my
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Chicken Soft Toco while I waited for her and the few workers busied
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themselves in the back doing god knows what, I still can't conceive of
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employment at Toco Bell as a challenging occupation.
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Just when I was about to dive into the gracious feast before me I saw her
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walk in. She smiled at me and headed straight for the counter. Damn, she must
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be hungry, I thought. Janet hates Toco Bell.
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I found myself even more surprised when she came to the table with no
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food, just twelve large sodas.
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"Thirsty?"
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"No," she said and apologized as some water splashed off her coat as she
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sat down.
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"That's okay. What's all the soda for?"
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"The lids."
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I looked curiously at her.
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"Let me explain."
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"Please do."
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Janet looked around to make sure no one else could hear, which was
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obivious, we were alone, and then told me she had been hearing voices for the
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past two weeks.
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"Okay..." I didn't really put anything behind this. As I said, Janet was
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weird. Janet was like many of the women I've dated who, ironically, were
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all into the occult. Oh I'm sorry, the modern term is Wicca.
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Whatever, I didn't care. I'm male, they're female; usually when it comes
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right down to it, that's all that matters.
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"No really," Janet said seeing my familiar disbelief.
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"This happen because of one of your spells?"
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She and her Wiccan friends were always casting some sort of spell it
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seemed. I'm sure the results they received had a lot to do with a certain
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illegal leafy plant.
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"No, you son-of-a-bitch, listen!"
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Janet never did like the fact that I didn't believe in her hocus-pocus
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mumbo-jumbo.
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"How did it happen?"
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"Well, you know how I love to pop these stupid little bubbles in the tops
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of take-out soda lids?"
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"Yeah, everyone does, but not everyone hears voices."
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"Yeah, well, not everyone has been doing it as long as I have."
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"You mean to tell me by pushing down one of these," I lent over an pushed
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in one of the buttons on one of her dozen lids, "I'll go insane? Come on, I
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think you've been smoking too much."
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"You got to believe me. But it's not insane. They're real voices. Real
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people. I've heard them."
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"So have mental patients all over the world. You're telling me these
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freaks are actually sane?"
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"If they're freaks because they hear voices, then I'm one of those freaks,
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and yes, I think we are sane."
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Oh yes, I've definitely found a winner here. Why didn't I just stay
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with Amy? She only thought she was a vampire. So what if she had a biting
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fetish.
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"Look, I know it sounds crazy, but I can hear voices. I think the reason
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why people go crazy over hearing these voices is because they're in
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a different language."
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"So you have a multi-lingual hallucinations," I asked rather sarcastically.
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"Not even! I don't think they're from this world."
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Oh yes, now was definitely the time Janet and I should be going our separate
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ways. Still, to humor her...
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"Oh, and what world are they from?"
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She seemed to know I was humoring her, but it didn't matter, I was finally
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listening.
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"I'm not sure, like I said, I can't understand them, but I think it's a
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parallel one."
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"Ah... I think I saw this on Star Trek once."
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"I'm serious damn it!" At this point she began to furiously punch in
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all the buttons in her many drink lids.
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"Okay, okay, calm down. Go on, I'm sorry."
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She continued, but she also continued to punch in the buttons on the
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drinks.
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"Well, I see it this way... The people who hear these voices are actually
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some how attuned to a parallel world, just like this one, with its
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own buildings, people, and everything. The reason why some
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'freaks', as you call them, hear things and then don't is because we are
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moving and so are they."
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"The parallel people? You mean they're walking away from the people who
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can hear them?"
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"Maybe. But I was thinking, what if their planet spun in the opposite
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direction of ours? Then those people who could hear the voices would hear
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nothing when, say, our New York was passing over their Atlantic Ocean."
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"That is if they have an Atlantic Ocean," I interjected. She did
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seem to think this thing through. Delusions were like that.
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"Exactly."
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Yes, definitely a space cadet. At least she was pretty to look at. The brain
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dead ones usually are.
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"You came up with all this from popping the tops of a few soda lids?"
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"Not a few. I figure in the thousands. You know my dad was a truck driver?
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Well, he always took me on the road with him and a large portion of my diet
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was fast food."
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"So you say that all the people who pop these little buttons on their
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sodas in fast food joints all over the world are going to sooner or later
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hear the voices of people on another planet that's somehow in a parallel
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dimension to this one?"
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"Yes. Actually, I think there's a little more to it than that. You have to
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be open to the possibility."
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Oh no, not that again. That is the backbone of every Wiccan's arguments
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to a non-believer. 'You have to be open to the possibility for the magic
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to work.' Bah, magic is magic, it should work whether I believe in it or
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not.
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"And I suppose you are open to the possibility? How come no one else has
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heard these voices?"
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"They have, there's institutions full of 'em."
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"How come no sane people have heard them? Like your Wiccan friends? I
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would suppose they are 'open to the possibility'."
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"Well, unfortunately most Wiccans are vegetarians and won't step foot into
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a fast food restaurant..."
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"Which is the only place they could get these kinds of lids... I
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understand. Plus I'm sure they couldn't possibly have been exposed to as
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many as you have."
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"Yes!"
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"And the people in the asylums haven't figured this out because they are
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being 'treated' and told it isn't so, so they lose their openness?"
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"Exactly!" She was getting quite happy. She felt I understood. She
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thought I actually believed her. She told me to wait a moment while she
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went up and got twelve more sodas.
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"What are you doing," I asked when she returned. "If you're 'tuned in'
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now, aren't you afraid of 'tuning out'?"
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"I'm going to prove this to you," she said, popping buttons like, well,
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like a mad man. "It doesn't work like that, it seems the more you pop the
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more in tune you get."
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"Oh...." We sat in silence for a while and then I decided I needed a
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break and may as well get some desert. I excused myself and went to the
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counter for a Choco-Toco, shrugging at the questioning stares of the
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employees.
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"PMS," I whispered to the manager as I passed and he smiled as I returned
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to my seat.
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That was the last moment the doctors tell each other I had in touch with
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reality. I know different, but who's to say? They keep bringing me take out
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soda lids, and I keep popping away.
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The papers say Janet was another of the freakish cases of Spontaneous Human
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Combustion, but I know a different story. That night while I was smiling at
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the manager in our lonely Toco Bell, Janet was punching her eighty
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second thousand four hundred ninety third button on the lid of her Mountain
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Dew, and she crossed over.
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She's in that parallel world now. I know it. I'm been punching my buttons
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and I know it's true. I've heard the voices, and I've heard her tell me so.
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I'm coming Janet, only fifty thousand more buttons to go.
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Pop.
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<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20> <20> <20> tanj@pms.metronj.org <20> <20> <20> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
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