>    
   >   
   > Zaren Ankleweed  wrote:   
   > >   
   > > Zaren settled   
   > > down onto the porch swing and took another look around. A batcat fluttered   
   > > it's way to him and curled up in his lap, purring and cleaning it's wings.   
   The   
   > > mailbox was stuffed with pink envelopes, and had long since overflowed onto   
   > > the ground.   
   > >   
   > > Still, it was good to be back. It always is.   
   >   
   > "Musta dozed off", Zaren thought as he stretched his arms and yawned in   
   > the drowsy summer breeze.  He got up from the hammock strung between two   
   > cottonwood trees along the side of the Rancho and scratched his   
   > head..."and must have been dreaming I was on the porch playing   
   > with one of Source's catbats".   
   >   
   > Then a snap and buzz hit him between his temples and he shook his head.   
   > That had been happening for awhile now.  It blurred his vision and   
   > sometimes hurt.  Friends said he should 'get a checkup, just in case'.   
   >   
   > Snow began to fall, big cold- dry flakes. In the distance down the dirt   
   > road he heard an engine and saw lights.  Then it stopped, but the lights   
   > remained on.  When he heard the muffled slam of a car door, he stepped   
   > back around the side of the Ranch and hid behind a cottonwood.  He heard   
   > scrabbling sounds at the front gate.   
   >   
   > The man at the front gate read the tattered notices 'Fighting Ferrets Pep   
   > Rally, Tuesday.  Attendance is mandatory.  Don't make me send the   
   > dra...' and 'The technospiders ate my homework is not a valid excuse'.   
   >   
   > He poked about the trellis arching over the gate and searched the ground   
   > below.  Lifting a rock he muttered "There it is", and held up a key,   
      
   > waving it towards the low dark sedan on the road.  In a moment a car   
   > door slammed shut, the lights turned off.  He waited a bit, shrugged and   
   > opened the gate and walked in.   
      
   Poly hesitated before getting out of the warm sedan. The trip had been so   
   sudden, so unexpected, and now she could hardly believe where she was. Was   
   it one of those real dreams she had sometimes? Looking up at the old house   
   through the melting snowflakes on the windshield, it looked exactly the   
   same as she remembered it, but dark and still.   
      
   How long had it been? She couldn't remember clearly. Life just...   
   happened. She remembered settling down with Sourcerer years ago in the   
   field out back, with camping chairs and coolers and picnic basket; their   
   Picnic at the End of the World. They had stayed out there a long time, and   
   once in a while he would go back to the Rancho, but his reports were not   
   good, and Poly didn't want to see it so altered. One thing led to another   
   and they had drifted farther and farther away from the Rancho, which had   
   been overwhelmed at last by the engulfing tsunami of commerce, and   
   abandoned for years.   
      
   She thought they'd moved on. They'd started a web business, lived in the   
   desert for 5 years, became interested in photography again, moved back   
   east, bought an old brick house in the neighborhood where Sourcerer had   
   been born and raised, put in a garden. Life was good but it had not been   
   easy, and the struggle had taken its toll. Sometimes they hardly   
   recognized themselves.   
      
      
   > The wave crackled between his ears and he nearly fell to the ground. The   
   > doctors said they couldn't find anything and to stop worrying about a   
   > brain tumor.  The snow stopped in a final fall of gold glitter which   
   > melted away before he could inspect the flakes.   
   >   
   > Poly suffered from it, too, and that made him both mad and curious.  It   
   > had taken years, but he thought he'd finally tracked it to its source.   
      
   The headaches were irritating, and at first they'd been able to point   
   to many sources: cracked furnace housing, not taking the time from work   
   to take care of themselves as they had struggled to make a living; but it   
   was the sense of missing something vital that really drove them crazy.   
      
   And then one fine autumn day Sourcerer announced that he was well again   
   for the first time in years, and could think clearly about more than the   
   day ahead. He set up his instruments again, and the feel of the controls   
   was good in his hands, it felt right. Immediately he realized that their   
   headaches coincided with the ebb and flow of a weak and erratic signal he   
   picked up coming from the direction of cyberpunk and the Rancho.   
      
   When he had told Poly it was time to go back and check in, she resisted   
   the idea at first. There were project deadlines looming, the holidays were   
   coming up, and the last thing she wanted to do was to revisit the Rancho.   
      
   It had meant so much to them, and it was painful to think of it as it was   
   the last time she'd seen it, overwhelmed by swarming spam and cross-posts.   
   They'd kept in touch with some of the Rancheros, but had lost track of   
   others, and that was painful also. But Sourcerer had simply started   
   packing, and soon it was time to leave, and to see what they would see.   
      
   The drive had been quiet - all she could hear was the ringing in her ears   
   and thoughts against being where she was. "You can't go back, so what are   
   we doing here? Is it possible to simply pick up where we left off? Will   
   the Rancho even be there?" The surreal, dream-like feeling increased, and   
   finally they pulled up to the house.   
      
      
   > He thought he heard voices, a chorus of voices, rising and falling, but   
   > he couldn't make out the words.  They stopped abruptly.  Shadows seemed   
   > to move in the trees, peeking out at him from behind the outbuildings,   
   > and from the porch.  The voices rose up again, pitched to laughter, and   
   > then a long sigh, drifting off.  Things seemed to scrabble in the tall   
   > brown grass.   
   >   
   > There it was in the middle of the lawn.  A structure, a machine,   
   > surrounded by a high fence. Mists rose from the near river, figures   
   > danced in it like faeries in a mushroom ring.  The moon rose -- the   
   > wrong moon in the wrong place in the wrong sky, Sourcerer noted.   
   >   
   > The crackling between his ears became more insistent.  He pulled a sack   
   > from beneath his greatcoat.  He'd brought his tools.   
      
   The world was out of balance, and the meta-metaphor built long ago by   
   eyebrown was the source of the signal that had reached them, giving them   
   headaches.   
      
      
   > "This is the problem", he said.  There's a short in the Meta Metaphor   
   > Machine.  Eyebrown was sloppy, leaving it like this. Let's see..." he   
   > touched to panel at the fence's gate.   
   >   
   > This discharge knocked him to the ground, blood ran from his nose.  "I'm   
   > a dead man" he thought.  As he blacked out, he heard a voice scream   
   > "No!".   
   >   
   > He was standing before the porch steps.  A soft, pillowy hand had raised   
   > him up and caressed him, and had held him like an infant.  "My mistake", he   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)