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_____________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ _____________
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| ___________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ ___________ |
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| | _/_/_____ | | > > _/_/_____ | |
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| | /________/ | | / / /________/ | |
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| | c o m m u n i c a t i o n s | |
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| |________________________________________________________________| |
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|____________________________________________________________________|
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...presents... Possibilities
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by Obscure Images
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>>> a cDc publication.......1994 <<<
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-cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc-
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____ _ ____ _ ____ _ ____ _ ____
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|____digital_media____digital_culture____digital_media____digital_culture____|
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The small room was almost claustrophobic with the clutter of living.
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Terry wasn't concerned with it; she was comfortable there. The room held a
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smell of incense and stale cigarettes from months of alternating the burning of
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the two substances. Her nerves were jangled from a long hard week, a week of
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uncertainty and despair. Since graduating from college, she'd been on her own.
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She'd been paying the rent on the one room apartment from savings and a lousy
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part time job in a hippie clothing store. It was a bit more than that, though.
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New Age crystals and pseudo-Oriental religious tracts filled the spaces that
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the tie-dye products weren't. She'd spent all week going to interviews and
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applying for more jobs than she cared to remember. All of the places wanted
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experience, and being fresh out of college, she didn't have any of that. It
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used to be that you could get experience fairly easy, but these days there were
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more than enough people with experience looking for jobs. She dropped herself
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down on the lumpy futon that she had thought would be great to sleep on
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sometime in the distant past.
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She was staring at the ceiling, looking at the dirty white paint and the
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outdated fixture that held a single low-wattage light bulb. She was too wired
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from the shitty week and the awful looking prospects for the future to get any
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sleep, so she tossed and turned trying to get comfortable. She soon remembered
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the tape some guy had given her that afternoon.
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The guy was really strange, she thought, as he wandered around the store
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earlier in the day. He was tall and overweight, with long brown stringy hair
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and a scruffy beard. He was wearing a dirty old trench coat, but underneath
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the coat he was dressed completely in black. He stopped at a rack here and
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there, muttering to himself. She wondered what a person that looked like him
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would be doing in a store full of color and nostalgic capitalism. He looked
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like he belonged in some old film, one that nobody had ever seen. He
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eventually made his way over to the checkout counter were Terry was standing.
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Instead of moving onward, he stopped to look at her; his prying brown eyes,
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amplified by the thick black glasses, digging into her own. Strangely enough,
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she didn't feel frightened by the probing eyes, just a little awkward.
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"Can I help you?" she asked, somewhat haltingly.
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"No, I don't think so," he said. "I think I can help you though."
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"What do you mean, help me?" she questioned, beginning to feel nervous.
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"You know what I mean. Take this and listen to it later after reading the
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instructions on the inside of the case," he stated, handing her a cassette
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tape.
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"What is it?"
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"You'll see," he said, smiling kindly. "I promise you it'll help."
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He gave her a final grin and then walked out the door, and then down the
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street, out of her sight. She was confused by the whole event, but before she
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had a chance to examine the tape, a crowd of Birkenstocks flip-flopped through
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the door, demanding tie-dye and pretty baubles.
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Reaching off of the futon, she grabbed her purse and pulled out the tape.
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She removed the paper that the tape box was wrapped in, to find a note taped to
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the case. It read: "Terry - You opened the package, that's the first step.
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The next step is for you to put the tape into your tape deck. Once you do
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that, dig out the headphones and put them on your head. Before you push Play,
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let me explain what you will hear. First there will be a series of droning
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oscillating tones that will seem to pulse inside your head. When you feel
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relaxed and drowsy, don't panic, the tones are designed for that. Next, on top
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of the tones there will be a loop of a word or phrase. This loop is optimized
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for your particular mind. I know you're asking yourself how I know these
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things, but don't worry about that, you'll find out soon enough. You should
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get yourself ready for this tape. Go to the bathroom, dress in something
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loose, or nothing at all. So long as it isn't constraining, it's ok. Turn off
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the lights and lay down on your futon (they're awful, I have one too) and press
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Play. You'll have a few seconds to get settled down before the tones start, so
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try and relax and let your mind open to the sounds. Ok, enough of my ranting,
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it's time to start. Oh yeah, my name is Paul. Good luck, and good life.
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-paul023 E.L.F."
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"This is too fucking weird to believe," thought Terry, as she hunted
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around the room for the headphones. "What do I have to lose," her mind
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wandered, as she popped the tape into her deck and got up to go to the
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bathroom. She came out of the bathroom, stood in front of the futon and
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thought, "Nothing constrictive, eh? I wonder if this guy is watching me from
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somewhere, trying to get me naked. Hmmmm, oh hell, if he's gone through all
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this trouble just to see me naked I might as well oblige, just for laughs."
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She stripped off her clothes and laid down on the futon again, flipped the
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light off, and pressed the Play button on the tape deck.
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The tones began. Not much else seemed to be happening at first, but soon
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she felt her tension slipping away, and a feeling of warm pleasure swept over
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her. Slowly the words began to phase in. It was one word repeating over and
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over again. As the loop went around a few more times, the words seemed to be
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changing, as did the tones underneath the words. She thought her eyes were
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closed, but she couldn't tell any more. The dim vision of the room faded away
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and was replaced by a fuzzy group of objects in vivid colors, some of which
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were moving. They were all beginning to take shape and come into focus.
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Terry walked along the wooded path in the state preserve. The trail was
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seldom used and was long overgrown with long grasses and sharp weeds. The sun
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was up, but very little of the light fell on the path. She hummed a tune of
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her own creation as she made her way through the sensuous woods to a
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destination she did not know. A bird in a nearby tree chirped happily to
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itself. The twigs and rigid weeds on the path made a crackling sound as she
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stepped on them, unaware of their existence.
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Terry's mind was swimming in the sea of sullen warmth that surrounded her.
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The musky smell of decaying leaves made her feel a bit heady, feeling a joy
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that was almost out of place this woods. It was by pure chance that she had
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found the trail that she was walking on. She was walking along one of the
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other trails in the woods when she happened to notice something out of the
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corner of her eye. When she looked straight on she noticed the little path
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that she would have otherwise ignored.
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She kept walking along the path, which was beginning to twist and turn
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with a greater frequency. A slight left slant, then a short right slant, all
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at constant intervals. Terry didnt seem to notice the changes in the path.
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She just kept moving, a pleasant feeling of tension building in her the further
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she walked. The thoughts began to stir within the confines of her mind.
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Questions, answers, patterns, disorder, all swirling around her brain with a
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greater velocity. Where would she be tomorrow? Who would she love? Where was
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she going to get money to live? All the questions she had ever asked, and more
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that she may have never conjectured.
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There was a light of high intensity coming up on the path ahead, so she
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hurried along the path with the tension building. At the end of the path she
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was dazzled by the light, and her mind exploded in a rapture of such intensity
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that she was knocked to the ground. Her body had to rest for a few moments
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before she dared to open her eyes, but when she did she was startled by the
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sight before her. The path continued out from the forest to the middle of a
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huge field. The sunlight was brighter than she could ever remember it being.
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The colors were vivid to the point of surrealism. She picked herself up and
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continued on the path, making her way to the end of the trail, compelled by a
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force of will she didn't understand.
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She stepped into the circle at the end of the trail and looked at herself.
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She was shimmering; her body stripped of clothing and emitting light flashes of
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colors she had never seen before. The meadow she was standing in was
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resonating to the colors coming from her body. The colors began flashing
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faster and faster, until Terry noticed that the meadow had disappeared, the
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entire meadow other than the circle she stood in. In its place were an
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infinite number of spinning mandalas, all interconnected by strands of
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causality. Despite the alien nature of the surroundings, she recognized every
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one of the unique mandalas as symbols of her soul. She looked back down at her
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body once again to find that it was no longer there. There was only a small
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silver sphere with causal strands reaching out of every available location on
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the surface.
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She was confused. At that time a voice spoke to her from all directions.
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"Don't worry, there is nothing wrong. The illusion has been stripped down to
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the barest essentials for your comprehension, although those are not really
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necessary either," the voice intoned.
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"Are you God?" she asked.
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The voice chuckled and replied, "No, I'm not God, I'm you, and everyone
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and everything else."
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"Doesn't that make you God?"
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"No, it doesn't, not by any means. Let me explain. I make no choices, I
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have no influence over you. I don't even exist except for the fact that you
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created me."
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"What are you then?"
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"I'm reality, I'm possibility. I am the collapsing wave. That's all,
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nothing more. Possibility? Yes, I am defined by every action made by anyone
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at any time, I am also every possible outcome for every event. Everything is
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possible, nothing is forbidden," the voice said, fading away.
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Terry's mind was spinning. The information was overwhelming. The answers
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were breeding more questions, forming a neon labyrinth in her mind. There were
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no strings attached, nothing to guide her back out of the glowing maze. Her
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synapses fired at accelerated rates as she moved further along the maze.
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Climbing over the obstacles, she whisked by Zen koans strewn amongst the
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abstract mathematics of the cognition. She closed her eyes and pushed at the
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barriers of understanding. Possibility, nearly infinite choices, all equally
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valid for this one moment outside of time and space. She felt the tugging of a
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mind far away, pulling her away from the end, from the truth. She diverted
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some of her attention, shoved the mind away, and continued onward. She gained
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momentum as she rounded the last turn, her soul racing down the last straight
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path. She reached the end and she understood. She brought her body back, and
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looked at the still swirling mandalas of possibility. Seeing a small golden
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apple with the letter "K" inscribed onto its surface, she reached out and took
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the apple into her hand. The apple sunk into her skin, and she felt the meadow
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come back around her. There was a smile on her face as she made her way back
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up the trail, her nude form emitting a soft golden light.
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Her eyes opened to the golden light of the sun creeping into her room
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through the window over her futon. She saw the golden light that was draped
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over her body and felt like a goddess. She got up and went into the bathroom
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to look at herself. She hadn't felt so good in the morning since she was a
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kid. She studied herself in the mirror, trying to see a difference. Same
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face, same breasts, same stomach, same legs... yet there was something that
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seemed different. She shrugged the feeling off and took a shower to get
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herself ready for work.
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She walked into work exactly on time. It was the first time she hadn't
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been late for work in quite a while. The day dragged onward, but Terry didn't
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seem to mind as much as usual. Around quitting time, the man who gave her the
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tape came into the store. He didn't bother himself by wandering around the
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store, instead coming straight up to the counter.
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"You listened to the tape, I see," he said, smiling.
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"Yeah, I did. It was... incredible," she said with a faint smile.
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"I'm happy you listened to it. You passed the test. You have the job."
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"What job? I don't remember anything about a job."
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He handed her a gold-colored business card and said, "You can start right
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now."
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"Start what?" she asked, still perplexed.
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"You'll see. Let's go get something to eat," said Paul, motioning to the
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door.
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Terry closed up the shop a little early and walked off to dinner with her
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new boss. He didn't mention what her job was exactly; he just told her that
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she'd know what it was when it was time. Later that night, laying in bed, she
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realized what her job was going to be. She smiled and then fell asleep.
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_______ __________________________________________________________________
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/ _ _ \|Demon Roach Undrgrnd.806/794-4362|Kingdom of Shit.....806/794-1842|
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((___)) |Cool Beans!..........415/648-PUNK|Polka AE {PW:KILL}..806/794-4362|
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[ x x ] |Metalland Southwest..713/579-2276|ATDT East...........617/350-STIF|
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\ / |The Works............617/861-8976|Ripco ][............312/528-5020|
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(' ') | Save yourself! Go outside! DO SOMETHING! |
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(U) |==================================================================|
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.ooM |Copyright (c) 1994 cDc communications and Obscure Images. |
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\_______/|All Rights Reserved. 11/01/1994-#283|
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