XPost: alt.religion.kibology, alt.webtrance, alt.slack
From: rescyou@spro.net
On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 19:26:49 +0200, _Schwann_
wrote:
IFYPFY, Schwang.
> Dear Penthouse Forum:
>The guard smiles broadly while opening the gate. I wind down the window
>and dust off my Afrikaans.
>"Hoegaanit met jou?"
>"Nee, goed dankie, meneer", he answers, happy I speak Afrikaans, a
>'cross-over' language understood by the San. English doesn't work here.
>Encouraged, I continue, "Dis warm vandag in die berge."
>"Ja, dit kan baie warm hier wees, meneer."
>We smile at each other. Fex remains mirrored behind sunglasses. He hands
>me the battered clipboard. I sign in on the dotted line, scrawling
>'Schwann' in the big column, leaving the others empty. He doesn't bother
>looking at what I wrote. So far, so good. I return his salute then
>gently put the overheating Jag into gear. Crawling past the gatekeeper,
>who closes the gate while waving goodbye, we meander down a stretch of
>gravel towards a formation of eroded orange rock, which appears to
>shelter a cluster of buildings shaded in the same colours. I follow the
>reception sign, which points to the right, up a mild incline, towards
>the stucco style buildings built around ambient rock formations. Pulling
>over into the parking area in front of reception, I'm nervous enough to
>look in the rear-view mirror, but there's nothing following, so I kill
>the engine.
>"Better wait in the car while I check us in. Let's get settled before we
>take any tours."
>"Sounds like a plan."
>I give her a brief smile, but don't hold her gaze for too long. Even
>with the shades on, she makes the car seat look like an acceleration
>couch and I don't want to get more spooked than I already am. Before I
>can open the car door, a guy with long blonde hair dressed in a ranger's
>uniform is already half-way to the car. I decide to stay seated.
>"Hi, welcome to Kagga Kamma. I'm Gary, your guide."
>"Hi Gary. What's up?"
>"It's quiet here right now. You up from Cape Town?"
>"Yeh, we came to see a bushman shaman. You know any?"
>"You must mean, !K'ha."
>"Yeh, maybe."
>"He's the only one you could call a shaman around here."
>"You know him?"
>"!K'ha is my friend. He's a bit of a strange one."
>I mimic the pronunciation a few more times. "K'ha..'K'ha!..!K'ha?"
>He laughs at my poor rendition but I can tell he likes me.
>"That's more or less it."
>"This is my wife, Fex." I give her the look.
>"Hello."
>He pears into the car and is immediately transfixed by her strangeness.
>I get quickly to the point. "I'm a writing a sci-fi book about an
>ancient bushman legend."
>This information gets her off the hook, for the moment. Shamanic
>intuition tells me that he's obviously sensitive, so I resolve to stay
>as close to the truth as possible.
>"That's far out. !K'ha knows lot's of legends and he'll be delighted to
>meet a writer. Why don't you go check in. I'll come over to your hut
>afterwards and we'll talk some more. I'm a big sci-fi fan."
>"UFOs here in the mountains?"
>"We've seen all kinds of things up here. I'm really interested to hear
>more about your book."
>"Yeh, that'll be great. Lemme log in and we'll see you in ten minutes or
>so, OK?"
>"Great. See you then."
>Gary backs off enough for me to open the door. Fex remains motionless. I
>can't help shivering as I head towards reception. As usual, there's no
>turning back. However, it's not as bad as I'd feared because sacred
>madness is with me.
>
>Checking in is easy, if you do it in Afrikaans. No passports required,
>also, no questions posed by the attractive safari-suited receptionist
>about my 'wife'. I get directions, then head back to the car with the
>key of bungalow nineteen clutched fiercely in my hand.
>"No problem." I show her the keys.
>"Yeh, so why is he waving at you?"
>She points out Gary, who has somehow divined which bungalow we've been
>assigned to, and is making hand signals in case I get lost.
>"Like I said, no problem".
>Reversing the Jag over the solid rock surface, also doubling as the
>parking area, I narrowly miss colliding with a giant Toyota Land Cruiser
>which appears from nowhere. Fortunately, Gary is not looking in our
>direction. Nerves shredded, but reputation intact, I head slowly back
>the way we'd come. I hang a right at the 'Bungalows 11-19' sign. A round
>brick hut with a wood framed roof, filled in with thatch. It's at the
>end of the row and there isn't much room in the allotted parking, which
>is squashed between some large bushes. Conscious of Fex and Gary
>watching me, I manage to avoid the far-side bush, but in the process the
>Jag's silencer drags painfully over an unseen rock. I switch off, but
>not before hearing the sound of a punctured exhaust. I make a mental
>note to try and avoid thinking about minor problems because we've made
>it and there's more pressing stuff at hand. Getting Gary to take us to
>meet !K'ha without asking too many unanswerable questions is one of
>them. Fuck, why am I in this precarious position in the first place? On
>a physical level, it probably comes down to Nino's napoletana sauce. At
>a higher frequency, my subconscious assures me that I've had an out of
>body experience and that it could happen again at any time. Shit
>happens. Meantime, I'm in the mountains so I resolve to relax and enjoy
>myself. Fex remains seated. Maybe she's scared to leave the car?
>However, her thoughts are deeper than that.
>"You know that if this comes off I could get re-called?"
>"It had crossed my mind, but meantime back on Earth it's beautiful here
>in the mountains, so let's enjoy what we've got. We'll work something
>out. You own a starship, don't you?"
>
>Lost Planet: Copyright all media by Schwann 2004
--
Kevin S. Wilson
Tech Writer at a University Somewhere in Idaho
"Who put these fingerprints on my imagination?"
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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