193 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
193 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
'##::::'##:::'#####:::'########: VIVA LA REVOLUCION! CERDO DEL CAPITALISTA!!
|
|
##:::: ##::'##.. ##:: ##.....:: ===========================================
|
|
##:::: ##:'##:::: ##: ##::::::: THE HELOTS OF ECSTASY PRESS RELEASE #498 !!
|
|
#########: ##:::: ##: ######::: ZIEGO VUANTAR SHALL BE MUCH VICTORIOUS! !!
|
|
##.... ##: ##:::: ##: ##...:::: ===========================================
|
|
##:::: ##:. ##:: ##:: ##::::::: "How About A Nice Game Of Chess?" !!
|
|
##:::: ##::. #####::: ########: by -> Cap'n Sparky !!
|
|
..:::::..::::.....::::........:: 3/3/99 !!
|
|
!!========================================================================!!
|
|
|
|
He flicked his way through the channels. The volume was down low,
|
|
barely audible. The channels progressed steadily upward on the cable box.
|
|
Channel 13: "...remember the 80s?" Channel 18: "...ready for 80s Pop-Up
|
|
Video!" Channel 21: "...classic hits from the 80s." Channel 31: "...son
|
|
revolutionized the video industry with the video for his smash-hit
|
|
Thriller."
|
|
|
|
He rubbed his chin and thumbed the remote, pressing further on into
|
|
the higher numbers. "I just don't get it," he said to Julia, who was
|
|
busily organizing her CDs in the corner. "What is it you don't get?" she
|
|
asked, pausing after placing two Adam Ant discs next to each other.
|
|
|
|
"The whole 80s revival thing. I don't understand why anyone in
|
|
their right mind would want to go back there," he said quietly. She
|
|
smiled that special winning smile she had, her eyes lit up just right.
|
|
She knocked over an unsorted pile of plastic jewel cases with her foot as
|
|
she stood up. She sat down next to him, pulling her legs up on the couch,
|
|
"What the hell are you talking about," she kind of laughed, "the 80s
|
|
kicked ass!"
|
|
|
|
"Bullshit," he said, "I don't think you remember the 80s."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah I do," she replied indignantly, "Stars Wars, New Wave, rap,
|
|
tail end of punk, all those video games you love, it's all the 80s."
|
|
|
|
"No, you remember what you've been reminded of. You don't remember
|
|
the way it really was."
|
|
|
|
"Alright, tell me what I'm missing then, oh great swami of the way
|
|
things really were!"
|
|
|
|
He looked down at the remote, kind of nervously. He hit the power
|
|
button. The television clicked off. He was trying to remember what was
|
|
so bad, what was so wrong with the 80s. He put himself there and it all
|
|
came rushing back with the kind of vibrancy that poets and artists dream
|
|
of. He remembered his Atari, but not the games. They were unimportant.
|
|
He remembered how the faux-woodgrain trim on the console went so well
|
|
with his monstrous all-wood TV. He remembered the smell behind the TV.
|
|
The unique smell of super-heated sawdust. He remembered how he used to
|
|
fumble around behind the set, the warmth, the comforting smell as he'd
|
|
hook up the convertor. He remembered how he'd loosen and tighten the
|
|
screws with a butterknife.
|
|
|
|
He remembered everything in a woodgrain pattern. Everything was
|
|
brown and deep red. He remembered how the lights used to seem much
|
|
dimmer, but maybe it was just the glasses he used to wear. They'd darken
|
|
when exposed to bright light, and then return to normal in dim light. He
|
|
thought they were so damn cool, until their magic ran out and they stayed
|
|
in a twilight half-polarized state. He remembered how has father seemed
|
|
ten feet tall, and he remembered how surprised he was when he found out
|
|
that his dad was just a shade over six feet tall.
|
|
|
|
He couldn't get the bad stuff, not yet. He was really trying
|
|
though. Then one isolated incident snuck in, creeping in at the fringes
|
|
of his memory...
|
|
|
|
"Do you remember that made for TV movie 'The Day After'?" he asked.
|
|
Julia shook her head. He hardly paid attention to the response, "It was
|
|
this mini-series, it seemed to go on forever. It was all about the events
|
|
that lead into a full thermonuclear war. Basically, everything was cool
|
|
at first. People were living their lives. Just another day. Then a
|
|
series of ground battles broke out in the Fulda Gap..."
|
|
|
|
"What's that?" Julia asked. She was getting kind of concerned. He
|
|
had that look on his face, she couldn't explain it. She knew he was
|
|
beginning to get a bit angry. He had the tendency to get these really
|
|
strange mood swings. She could tell one might be coming on.
|
|
|
|
He stopped for a second, and then said "It was a really important
|
|
strategic pass. It was the link between the Warsaw Pact ground forces and
|
|
the NATO ground forces. If you would read the news you'd hear tons about
|
|
it. If you payed close attention, you would think that the Russians could
|
|
come charging through with tanks any day. In the movie, the U.S.
|
|
airbursted a tac-nuke over some invading Soviet forces and then everything
|
|
went to hell. This movie really spent time showing everyone the horror of
|
|
it all, what would really happen if everybody went around tossing these
|
|
frigging things around."
|
|
|
|
"What," she said, "one bad U.S. against the world miniseries and
|
|
your life's ruined?"
|
|
|
|
"No," he replied, "it wasn't like that at all. There were just
|
|
these people, normal people, real... ummm... John Cougar type people, like
|
|
Jack and Diane. They just watched these events unfold on the TV then,
|
|
poof, all gone. Everything we worked for over the centuries, everything
|
|
we dreamed of up in smoke. All gone. My aunt and my uncle were over my
|
|
grandmother's, and my cousin was watching one of the later episodes with
|
|
me and my brother. My cousin asked, 'Why are they afraid of the snow.'
|
|
I told him how it wasn't snow, it was fallout and it would make them sick
|
|
and die."
|
|
|
|
"So what?" she asked, and laid her head in his lap. "So what?" he
|
|
said. With her head resting on his thighs, she could feel him getting
|
|
angry. She could swear he would get noticeably warmer when he'd get mad.
|
|
She hated it when he got angry like this, almost no warning. She never
|
|
could figure out precisely when it would happen, what would touch him off.
|
|
Julia now knew that "So what?" was definately the wrong thing to say at
|
|
that moment.
|
|
|
|
"Jesus Christ, I was six or seven fucking years old at the time,"
|
|
he fumed, "Someone that young isn't supposed to know about fallout. A
|
|
seven year old isn't supposed to cry at night because some raisin-faced
|
|
asshole in the goddamned White House talks about using nukes against the
|
|
Russians to change their mind every chance he fucking gets! Do you know
|
|
how close we were? How many 'almosts' and 'might have beens' there were?
|
|
Just white light, searing heat, and the end of society. They thought we
|
|
could fucking win a nuclear war! They thought it was entirely possible.
|
|
The advice was to dig a hole, climb in and put some wood and doors over
|
|
it. They were telling us all in case the government fucks up, bury
|
|
yourself so that the survivors won't have to deal with your frigging
|
|
corpse! A seven year old child could realize that... could grasp that
|
|
those fuckers were full of shit, but the adults... the adults would just
|
|
walk around and talk about this shit as if it was perfectly okay. They
|
|
would tell you how much worse it was when they were your age, the air-raid
|
|
sirens and drills, duck and cover, all that shit. They'd tell you how
|
|
they remember the day Kruschev beat his shoe against the table... how he
|
|
said, 'We will bury you!' As if somehow that made it all perfectly okay!"
|
|
|
|
She watched his face carefully. He looked like he was really in
|
|
pain. She really didn't understand what thoughts could be racing through
|
|
his head to make him so pissed. She evisioned him at seven, this tiny
|
|
kid, sitting in this huge chair reading a newspaper. She almost smirked,
|
|
but she was afraid he'd catch her and then get more angry. Then
|
|
everything would go bad. He'd sit there silently, painfully silent.
|
|
She'd try to reach him and he'd brush her hand away, like a bug. It took
|
|
less energy to fight the urge to smirk then it would to put up with his
|
|
childish bullshit again tonight. There was an uneasy silence. She
|
|
figured she had to say something.
|
|
|
|
"I don't get it," she said in her best consoling voice, "all that
|
|
worrying, what was the point? It couldn't have happened, we know all that
|
|
now..."
|
|
|
|
He snorted out a disdainful laugh. It cut her so deep. She hated
|
|
it when he acted like he knew something she didn't. He would kind of
|
|
lord it over her, treat her like a child. "Couldn't have happened," he
|
|
sneered, "Really now? Just because it didn't happen doesn't mean that it
|
|
wasn't possible. It was possible, and then we'd all be dead. We were all
|
|
ready to go. We knew it. Why do you think the 80s were so amazingly
|
|
ruthless, huh? Why do you think there was all that high-finance shit, the
|
|
banking scandals, the recession, all of it? Why? Because everyone
|
|
thought it could happen. Hell, everyone thought it probably would.
|
|
Personally, I'm still amazed that it didn't."
|
|
|
|
She looked up at his face. She could tell he wanted to say
|
|
something. He needed to spit something out. She hoped for the best, he
|
|
could say the most amazingly cruel things at moments like these. She
|
|
prayed he wouldn't, that she could sleep next to him with his arm over
|
|
her. He looked so vulnerable at times like this. Even if she didn't love
|
|
him like she did, she would find it hard not to feel something for him at
|
|
times like this. Sometimes something so simple would just hit him so
|
|
strangely.
|
|
|
|
He looked at the blank television screen, his eyes were vacant. He
|
|
looked like he was watching some banal sitcom. That struck Julia as
|
|
almost funny, almost as if he was acting on reflex. He started suddenly,
|
|
but slowly, "Some nights I wake up, and I'm really thankful that you and I
|
|
got the chance to meet in the first place. It sounds so goddamn hokey,
|
|
but it's true. I'm so glad that we didn't fuck up. I'm glad the Russians
|
|
didn't fuck up. I'm fucking ecstatic everyone I knew is still allowed to
|
|
live out their lives normally, that they're not dead and buried by their
|
|
own hands."
|
|
|
|
They were both quiet for what seemed like ages. She felt his
|
|
fingers on her head, tracing light ethereal patterns in her hair. He had
|
|
really calmed down now. It made her feel good, really good, but tired.
|
|
She wondered, briefly if there was something sick about this relationship,
|
|
if there was something wrong. She'd think about it much more often later
|
|
on in their relationship, but for now it was nothing more than an empty
|
|
thought. She really loved him. She loved the way he made her feel when
|
|
he let out his feelings about her as a post script to the strangest
|
|
tirades. It seemed to her that there was some part of his brain that was
|
|
alway "turned on" to her, that would always find a connection to her.
|
|
|
|
"I love you," she said quietly, her voice barely audible. He
|
|
looked down at her, her hair arrayed about her head like a halo. It drew
|
|
attention to the features of her beautiful pale face. He smiled down at
|
|
her awkwardly and said, "I love you, too."
|
|
|
|
!!========================================================================!!
|
|
!! (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS! #498, WRITTEN BY: CAP'N SPARKY - 3/3/99 !!
|