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   alt.music.pink-floyd      Worshipping David Gilmour & Roger Waters      4,347 messages   

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   Message 2,352 of 4,347   
   a_rod_777 to All   
   Fascinating... (1/2)   
   02 Jan 18 14:28:27   
   
   From: a_rod_777@yahoo.com   
      
   Eight O’Clock in the Morning   
      
   At the end of the show the hypnotist told his subjects, "Awake."   
   Something unusual happened.   
      
   One of the subjects awoke all the way. This had never happened before. His   
   name was George Nada and he blinked out at the sea of faces in the theatre, at   
   first unaware of anything out of the ordinary. Then he noticed, spotted here   
   and there in the crowd,    
   the non-human faces, the faces of the Fascinators. They had been there all   
   along, of course, but only George was really awake, so only George recognized   
   them for what they were. He understood everything in a flash, including the   
   fact that if he were to    
   give any outward sign, the Fascinators would instantly command him to return   
   to his former state, and he would obey.   
      
   He left the theatre, pushing out into the neon night, carefully avoiding any   
   indication that he saw the green, reptilian flesh or the multiple yellow eyes   
   of the rulers of the earth. One of them asked him, “Got a light buddy?”   
   George gave him a light,   
    then moved on.   
      
   At intervals along the street George saw the posters hanging with photographs   
   of the Fascinators’ multiple eyes and various commands printed under them,   
   such as, “Work eight hours, play eight hours, sleept eight hours,” and   
   “Marry and Reproduce.   
    A TV set in the window of a store caught George’s eye, but he looked away   
   in the nick of time. When he didn’t look at the Fascinator in the screen, he   
   could resist the command, “Stay tuned to this station.”   
      
   George lived alone in a little sleeping room, and as soon as he got home, the   
   first thing he did was to disconnect the TV set. In other rooms he could hear   
   the TV sets of his neighbors, though. Most of the time the voices were human,   
   but now and then he    
   heard the arrogant, strangely bird-like croaks of the aliens. “Obey the   
   government,” said one croak. "We are the government, " said another. “We   
   are your friends, you’d do anything for a friend, wouldn’t you?”   
      
   “Obey!”   
      
   “Work!”   
      
   Suddenly the phone rang.   
      
   George picked it up. It was one of the Fascinators.   
      
   “Hello,” it squawked. “This is your control, Chief of Police Robinson.   
   You are an old man, George Nada. Tomorrow morning at eight o’clock, your   
   heart will stop. Please repeat.”   
      
   “I am an old man,” said George. “Tomorrow morning at eight o’clock, my   
   heart will stop.”   
      
   The control hung up   
      
   “No, it wont,” whispered George. He wondered why they wanted him dead. Did   
   they suspect that he was awake? Probably. Someone might have spotted him,   
   noticed that he didn’t respond the way the others did. If George were alive   
   at one minute after    
   eight tomorrow morning, then they would be sure.   
      
   “No use waiting here for the end,” he thought.   
      
   He went out again. The posters, the TV, the occasional commands from passing   
   aliens did not seem to have absolute power over him, though he still felt   
   strongly tempted to obey, to see things the way his master wanted him to see   
   them. He passed an alley    
   and stopped. One of the aliens was alone there, leaning against the wall.   
   George walked up to him.   
      
   “Move on,” grunted the thing, focusing his deadly eyes on George.   
      
   George felt his grasp on awareness waver. For a moment the reptilian head   
   dissolved into the face of a lovable old drunk. Of course the drunk would be   
   lovable. George picked up a brick and smashed it down on the old drunk’s   
   head with all his strength.    
   For a moment the image blurred, then the blue-green blood oozed out of the   
   face and the lizrd fell, twitching and writhing. After a moment it was dead.   
      
   George dragged the body into the shadows and searched it. There was a tiny   
   radio in its pocket and a curiously shaped knife and fork in another. The tiny   
   radio said something in an incomprehensible language. George put it down   
   beside the body, but kept    
   the eating utensils.   
      
   “I can’t possibly escape,” thought George. “Why fight them?”   
      
   But maybe he could.   
      
   What if he could awaken others? That might be worth a try.   
      
   He walked twelve blocks to the apartment of his girl friend, Lil, and knocked   
   on her door. She came to the door in her bathrobe.   
      
   “I want you to wake up,” he said   
      
   “I’m awake,” she said. “Come on in.”   
      
   He went in. The TV was playing. He turned it off.   
      
   “No,” he said. “I mean really wake up.” She looked at him without   
   comprehension, so he snapped his fingers and shouted, “Wake up! The masters   
   command that you wake up!”   
      
   “Are you off your rocker, George?” she asked suspiciously. “You sure are   
   acting funny.” He slapped her face. “Cut that out!” she cried, “What   
   the hell are you up to anyway?”   
      
   “Nothing,” said George, defeated. “I was just kidding around.”   
      
   “Slapping my face wasn’t just kidding around!” she cried.   
      
   There was a knock at the door.   
      
   George opened it.   
      
   It was one of the aliens.   
      
   “Can’t you keep the noise down to a dull roar?” it said.   
      
   The eyes and reptilian flesh faded a little and George saw the flickering   
   image of a fat middle-aged man in shirtsleeves. It was still a man when George   
   slashed its throat with the eating knife, but it was an alien before it hit   
   the floor. He dragged it    
   into the apartment and kicked the door shut. “What do you see there?” he   
   asked Lil, pointing to the many-eyed snake thing on the floor.   
      
   “Mister…Mister Coney,” she whispered, her eyes wide with horror.   
   “You…just killed him, like it was nothing at all.”   
      
   “Don’t scream,” warned George, advancing on her.   
      
   “I won’t George. I swear I won’t, only please, for the love of God, put   
   down that knife.” She backed away until she had her shoulder blades pressed   
   to the wall.   
      
   George saw that it was no use.   
      
   “I’m going to tie you up,” said George. “First tell me which room   
   Mister Coney lived in.”   
      
   “The first door on your left as you go toward teh stairs,” she said.   
   “Georgie…Georgie. Don’t torture me. If you’re going to kill me, do it   
   clean. Please, Georgie, please.”   
      
   He tied her up with bedsheets and gagged her, then searched the body of the   
   Fascinator. There was another one of the little radios that talked a foreign   
   language, another set of eating utensils, and nothing else.   
      
   George went next door.   
      
   When he knocked, one of the snake-things answered, “Who is it?”   
      
   “Friend of Mister Coney. I wanna see him,” said George.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)   

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