Story: Arron's Chronicles 1 of 2 (Mg, gg, inc)   
      
        Arron Winters fiddled with the radio as he droned east on I-64.  It was   
   into the small hours and only semi's and the occasional vacation bound   
   sport-ute shared the gently winding asphalt with the old Taurus wagon.  He   
   gave up after a few minutes.  The car's tired old am radio could only pick   
   up a half-dozen religious shows and one oldies country station full of   
   scratchy old voices wailing about their woes.  He snapped the knob off then   
   cranked his window down a notch and lit a cigarette.  The Late February   
   chill that roared through the cracked glass whipped the smoke away and   
   helped brace up sagging eyes.   
      
       He passed reflective green signs announcing exits for places like 'Green   
   Sulfur Springs', 'Dawson', and 'Smoot'.  The green West Virginia forest   
   rolled by on each side, rendered inky black by the night.   
      
       Arron was the older of the Winter's brothers by four years.  At   
   thirty-eight he was over educated and under employed.  A masters in   
   classical literature had done little for his employment hopes so he'd   
   returned to school and added a BS in geology to his repertoire.  That   
   should have turned the ticket but for one small hitch.  He'd found out a   
   little late that he had no taste for corporate America.  Five years and   
   eleven different employers had proved that out well.  He was finally left   
   with a resume full of bad references and no real desire to submit the thing   
   to anyone anyway.  He'd been rescued from impending poverty only by the   
   death of an elderly uncle.   
      
       Neither brother had seen the old coot since they were children.  Arron   
   had vague memories of a portly, balding man with a florid face who would   
   regale for hours about crooked politicians and greedy business interests.   
   Subjects of little interest, at least to a five-year-old.   
      
       The old man had lived in a battered mobile home in a park full of   
   equally battered mobile homes.  The fact that he owned the park had never   
   raised the family's estimates of him in the least, so it was with   
   considerable surprise that it was learned that the old miser had managed to   
   squirrel away $600,000 and then left everything to two sons of a snooty   
   sister that he'd met only once.   
      
       After selling the park and paying the taxes the two were left with about   
   $200,000 apiece.  Arron had seen the gift as a life ring and reached for it   
   with both hands.  A quick trip to an investment adviser and it was all   
   placed in nice, safe, low return stocks and funds.  Income rarely ran over   
   ten-thousand a year but it rarely fell below that either.  Arron had sold   
   his overpriced home for the value of the note, ditched most of his   
   possessions at fire-sale prices and taken to the road as a traveling   
   pauper, but not a bum at least.   
      
       In the past five years he'd crossed the country a dozen times.  He'd   
   hiked the Appalachian trail, visited every battlefield, crawled through   
   miles of dank caves.  He'd hit a state park and set up for a week or a   
   month then off again to whatever else interested him.  In the winter he   
   drifted south, sometimes as far as Mexico.  In the summer it was north,   
   sometimes as far as Canada.   
      
       His happy-go-lucky lifestyle had sit poorly with his over-achiever   
   family, particularly with his younger brother Carl, an over-achiever's   
   over-achiever.  While Arron had been sitting through lectures on Homer and   
   Machiavelli Carl had been driving his way toward an MBA.  While Arron had   
   been sitting through lectures on igneous rock formation Carl had baled out   
   on his first company with a golden parachute and promptly founded another.   
   While Arron was cleaning out his desk yet again Carl had watched his third   
   Company go through its third stock split.   
      
       Arron had visited his brother only three times in the intervening years.   
   The visits had been tense affairs full of unspoken accusations and   
   recriminations.  He'd rarely stayed over a day, always bailing out with a   
   promise not to do that again.   
      
       That had made it all the more surprising when Carl had tracked him down   
   in Colorado and pleaded with him to come East.  The voice on the phone had   
   been tired, worn, not the 90 mph all business all-of-the-time voice Arron   
   remembered.   
      
       "You know the land I bought in West Virginia?"   
      
       "Yeah, in the park."   
      
       "That's it, can you be there in a week or so."   
      
       "Sure."   
      
       "Good,.........looking forward to seeing you bro."   
      
       And that had been that.   
      
       The exit sign for State Road 55 blazed green in the high beams.  Arron   
   slowed and gave a signal.  The tires whined and he left the inter-state   
   behind.  State Road 55 was a two lane that wound generally north.   
   Generally because it followed the path of least resistance.  The road   
   writhed around hills with turns so sharp they set the wagon's old cv joints   
   to chattering then dropped into a hollow so suddenly that the stomach   
   needed a moment to catch up.  Sometimes the road was blasted out of the   
   side of a mountain with only a single strip of steel or cable between the   
   passenger's door and a vertical drop of hundreds of feet.  At other times   
   it dropped into forest so dense that it seemed to close overhead like a   
   tunnel.  Arron had a compass affixed to the windshield, he watched in awe   
   as it swung through 270 degrees in less than a mile of road.   
      
       Dawn found him pulling into the bustling burg of Ives.  He slowed at a   
   wide place and pulled off into a gravel lot.  An old two story general   
   store of peeling white planks loomed over three modern, electronic pumps.   
   The glistening appliances looked out of place.  He used his check card at   
   the pump and set the Taurus to feeding then stepped inside.   
      
       A bell tinkled as he opened the door and a friendly, white haired head   
   popped over the lip of the counter.   
      
       "Howdy son.  What can I do for you?"   
      
       The inside of the store was a maze of tiny paths through towering   
   shelves offering groceries, garden hoses, car parts and every item in   
   between.  Arron turned from the confusing array and greeted the proprietor.   
      
       "Just getting gas.  I was hoping you could tell me where I could get   
   something to eat around here."   
      
       "Polly's is just up the road bout half a mile.  Good breakfast."   
      
       "That's what I'm looking for, thanks."   
      
       He bought two packs of Kool's then headed back to the car.  The plank   
   floor creaked as he stepped outside.   
      
       Polly turned out to be about five feet tall and nearly as wide.  She   
   smiled and seated him at a corner table.  In less than a minute he had a   
   steaming cup of coffee and a grease stained menu.  He was going to have   
   bacon and eggs till he noticed venison was one of the meats available and   
   had that instead of bacon.  Breakfast arrived with a yeast biscuit so light   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)