204 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
204 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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| #74 |
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|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
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- HER -
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by Tal Meta
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It just happens.
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Life, that is. As I get older, I can see it happening, time going by, the
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world warping around me. Which is a good thing. I used to fear change...
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thought that what i had was something to cling too, to grasp for all i was
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worth. Now I can let go, let things happen and not try to be the one
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holding back the tide.
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But, like a tide, things run in cycles. Nothing is ever truly over, at
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least, not that I have ever been able to detect. People I wrote off years
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ago are still affecting me, causing me to do things without my even
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realizing that they are still influencing me.
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I have had cause lately to question how I got where I am today, and
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realized that I can trace the last 5 years of my life back to one event.
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That the event in question was both momentous and disasterous only sharpens
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my appreciation of its power. I could, if I wanted too, trace the event
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back even farther, to its true, root cause... 5 years earlier than that...
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well, perhaps I will. The number 5 figures promenently here. Some people
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might draw conclusions from that...
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-----
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It all began with a letter....
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I was in Basic Training. Two weeks into my "programming", as they say. Head
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shaved, my clothing taken from me and replaced by shapeless green fatigues,
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no free time to think for myself. In a word, Hell. One afternoon when I
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actually had some time to myself, I decided to write some letters, if only
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to maintain some kind of contact with the outside world. After I'd written
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to all the standard people (Mom, two or three of the girls I hung out with
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in HS) I wrote one more. And so I sealed my doom.
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She was a woman I had always felt uneasy about. Not frightened, per se, but
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the moment I first layed eyes on her I knew SHE would be trouble. When we
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had parted midway in HS, SHE had given me her address. In the intervening
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years, I had never written her. That day, I did. I hadn't brought her
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address with me... It simply popped into my head, unbidden.
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It was a standard "Hi, how ya doing?" kind of thing. It was the first. Her
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letters chased me from assignment to assignment, and eventually were
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replaced by phone calls. I don't remember how much I spent on phone calls
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back then. (If only I had known about phreaking THEN!) But it was alot.
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We'd talk for hours, several times a week. I began to care for her again.
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That uneasy feeling returned, and I gave it a name. Love.
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I was young, I was in love... I asked her to marry me. She ALMOST said yes.
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But SHE didn't love me. I was determined, though. And, three and a half
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years later, several thousand dollars worth of phone calls later, SHE
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finally told me that SHE had fallen for me. For the next year and a half, I
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was in heaven. And then, almost five years after it had all begun, it
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ended.
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Suddenly. Sharply.
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I'm not going to go into the details of exactly how, or why. Thats none of
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your damn business. But SHE left me. I felt as though half of my soul had
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been ripped away. Maybe more than half. But I survived, after a fashion...
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That first night, I drank. I went to the ATM, withdrew about half the money
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I'd been saving towards an engagement ring, (i.e. all it would let me) and
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went to a local bar and proceeded to get stinking drunk. As i walked home
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that night along the beach, in the snow, I contemplated suicide. I was
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going to swim to France. The fact that it was January and the water
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temperature was about 30 degrees didn't bother me too much. Although, in
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the end, I didn't do it. Living has become a bad habit of mine... I've
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really grown rather attached to it over the years.
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I called out sick the next day, spent it drinking and watching cartoons on
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TV. I bought a carton of cigarettes. Decided to start smoking. (She'd
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always hated people who smoked). Spent the next night drinking too. It was
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a good three days before I caught myself laughing at something, and I
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decided then that I might, indeed, live afterall. Life went on.
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Over the next few months, I did lots of silly things. I followed her. I'd
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lie in the brush across the street from her house and watch her come and
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go. She never saw me. (I was tops in my class at Survival School in Escape
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& Evasion!) I'd leave roses under her windshield wiper at work, at the
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skating rink, anywhere where i could get in and out without getting caught.
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Eventually, I stopped... well, let it dwindle off, anyway. Spent the other
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half of my engagement ring fund on a computer.....
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And began the second five year cycle. Instead of following HER around, I
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began to play with the computer. Bought lots of games. Bought a modem.
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Learned how to use it. Called boards around the globe.... learned to phreak
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about five years after it would have REALLY done me some good. Started my
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own BBS... founded my own H/P group. Two years had passed since SHE'd left.
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Then one night, my phone rang. It was HER. SHE told me SHE was getting
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married in April. Part of me died, all over again. I pretended it didn't
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matter. Pretended that I was happy for HER. In a way, I suppose I was. It
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was a resolution, of a sort. But I had this nagging feeling that SHE wanted
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me to talk her out of it. There was no doubt in my mind that if I'd really
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tried that I could have. Perhaps, that was why SHE called. To see if I
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would. In any case, SHE invited me to the wedding. I declined. That would
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have been too much. SHE said we'd probably never see one another again,
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that SHE was moving far away. I told her that she was probably right, but
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that you never know.
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After we hung up, I was left with two bits of information. The date of her
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wedding, and the name of her fiancee. I filed them away as basically
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useless information.
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A few weeks later, I saw her fiancee's last name on a BBS. A new caller was
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advertising a get-together at this person's house. Now, the person doing
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the advertising had already struck me as someone I wanted to get to know
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anyway... he was an all around neat kinda guy. I cultivated Dave into my
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circle of friends, and pumped him for information here and there. Turns out
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HER fiancee was his friend's uncle, or something. More useless info. But
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even though SHE was gone, I still felt HER influence.
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One morning in April I awoke and realized, SHE was already married. Gone.
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Even if I wanted to do something about it, it was irrevocably over.
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Now, when I was 10 years old, I had wanted more than anything else to be a
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private detective. Those detective skills I had honed as a preteen
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(combined with less savory skills learned in a year or so of hacking) gave
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me an idea. I looked in the phonebook. I found her fiancee's name (I
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hoped). I dialed his number, prepared to say I'd dialed a wrong number...
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But I hadn't. The recorded voice on the other end graciously informed me
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that "The number you have reached has been changed" and proceeded to give
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me a number in another state. I filed that away too.
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Later that day, I called the number. HER voice answered... on the answering
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machine. I hung up. I called back, and making no effort whatsoever to mask
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my voice, recorded a message wishing them both "health and happiness".
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Two months later, I found myself having an affair with a married woman.
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Substitution? Who knows. My Id isn't talking.
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That relationship ended a few months later when a new lady entered my life.
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I'd met her at the computer school I'd been attending. Looking back to that
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last phonecall I'd has with HER, I remember mentioning to her that I was
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debating asking the same woman out on a date. SHE had urged me to do so,
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but I hadn't. Maybe I should have. I asked Judy to marry me last year. She
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accepted. Lucky me. :)
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Somewhere in the middle of all this, I ran into another old friend. A
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mutual friend of mine & HERs. And we wouldn't have run into each other at
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all if I hadn't stopped off to visit a friend I'd made because of Dave, who
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I initially only really got to know because he'd been tossing a certain
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last name about on the BBS. She'd been at HER wedding. Even she mentioned
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that there was an odd feeling she'd has at HER wedding, like all was not
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quite right. Read what you'd like into that.
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Its been five years since that night when I last laid eyes on HER. Five
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years since SHE was a part of my life. And yet, SHE is still there, in the
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back of my mind, I can still sense HER. And SHE's still there. Like the
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tide... influencing my life in ways I cannot completely comprehend. I've
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dreamed, off and on across the years, of meeting her again. I have no clue
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as to what I would say, what I would do. Probably nothing.
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A new cycle is about to begin. If its anywhere near as interesting as the
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last one, I'd best be prepared for an exciting ride...
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<20> <20><> <20>
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