This piece is so old, it's moldy. A straight paste from html source generated by Word back in the day, so it's going to smell funny, regardless.

I'm deploying Bedlam first for a couple of reasons- it's a test of category filtering with MT, and it's a cohesive, albeit dated, snapshot from the early evolution of things. Nevermind the fact that it's five years old, yo.

The cheese is pretty fierce and egotistical- all I have to say about that is that when this was written, it was cold, I was 18, and I was much less informed and mature than I am now with regards to the workings of pretty much anything. Originally written on an NCR 486 laptop at the house I grew up in, on holiday break from the Art Institute.

Nobody's born good. It takes practice: this would be some of it. :P

Woomp, here it is:

Bedlam

Sometimes things happen when the snow falls. A thick covering of white beauty over everything in sight has a calming effect on some people. An effect that is harder to describe occurs in others. Others like Thaddeus Gallahad, or Kendrick DesBalin. The snow falls, and the boundaries come down with it, thinning, falling to the point that nearly anyone can step through. And someone will occasionally feel the pull, will know the guards are down. And they will feel compelled to act. Sometimes, they get across. And sometimes, their luck runs out.

Sometimes it's worse than you prepared for.

"Lets go through this one more time," the tall, blue-haired woman said, "for the record. Speak into the microphone, so we can properly record you." She looked down at the limp form strapped into the interrogation chair, covered in sweat and scratches, blood and grime from weeks of surviving. She looked down, through the grime, at the haggard face of Thaddeus Gallahad, first Lord of Chaos.

And received no reply.

Thad sat in the chair, unmoving. His hair hung down over his face, obscuring his complete lack of expression. Without the straps holding him in place, he would have slid to the ground and stayed there. The straps weren't moving, and neither was he. The woman took a handful of his hair in her pale hand and pulled it up, forcing his eyes even with hers. Hazel to yellow. Vacant to calculating. A flash, just within his line of sight: a surgical knife, sharp and hungry. It quickly swung out of sight as she let go, his head falling back to his chest like a cut marionette.

"Perhaps you didn't hear me," the woman said. Her breath fogged in the frigid air, barely perceptible in the pale gray light cast through the frost-rimmed portal behind her. "We're going to Q and A you again. And we're going to record it. You will comply, of course." The knife danced in her hand, hungry for blood. Thad nodded weakly, the best he could manage given the situation. "Good. Here's the recorder." A hand-held pocket recording device appeared in the other hand, at the same time more comforting and more frightening than the knife in her right. And she wielded it like a weapon, stabbing it a hairs breadth under Thad's nose.

Sometimes it's worse than you can handle.

"Name?"

"Thaddeus Allistolvus Gallahad."

"Good.... Good. Place of birth?"

"Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. NorAm. Terra."

"Ah. What are you doing on Erroth?"

Ah, finally. The interrogation begins in earnest, Thad thought. No more trying to nail down where I'm from or what reality. Great. He took a deep breath, preparing for the worst. "Accident, it was an accident," he muttered. The worst didn't come. Not yet, anyway. He could feel the presence of the blue-haired woman, and her scientific curiosity. He could feel the recorder, no more than an inch from his bloodied nose. And he could feel the pain of the Black bullet buried in his shoulder. He felt it all, but for one thing: impending doom. He was safe in this woman's hands, as long as he kept talking.

This didn't go over too well. The woman scowled- he could feel it. "Accident? Are you sure?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Of course you are. When did you become active?"

"I don't understand the question. Active how?"

Mild tingle.

"Active on an Arcane level. When did you open your 'third eye', so to speak?"

"Spring, 1996 td. Almost two years." Thad began to get nervous. It was his standard reaction when anyone started probing around that point in time. Reaya....

The woman seemed surprised, accompanied by another mild tingle from his danger sense. What in the hell is up with this person?, Thad wondered. She frowned. The recorder bumped his nose, drew back to its former distance. Uncomfortable, but not unbearable. "I see.... I wonder what the blood tests will have to say? No human or Baille can learn rifting technique in less than two years. And you don't run down The Path, nobody does. You don't have the symptoms. We'll sample some blood and DNA when we pull that slug out of you," this accompanied by a poke with the knife, "and we might even do it today." Thad sensed her smile, though he couldn't see it. She was enjoying this.

Severe tingle. The back of Thad's head tried to crawl off and run away. He braced for impact.

And received it. The woman hit him on the back of the head with the butt of the knife, hard enough to throw him back into the darkness from whence he came.

Sometimes it's just plain wrong.

_____________________

Fate views each of us differently.

Rrrrinnnggg....

"C'mon," Thaddeus muttered, "C'mon. Pick it up, Kendrick. It know you and you lazy ass are sitting next to your computer, doing nothing. Pick it up." He paced impatiently, a short circle between telephone and stereo.

Rrrrinnnggg...

"Dammit," Thad muttered, "What I don't know I don't like, what I don't like I-"

"Hello." The voice on the other end of the line sounded bored, almost asleep. And knowing Kendrick, he probably was. It was four O'clock in the morning. Seeing as how Kendrick was still in High School, his alertness at this hour was understandable. Thad turned down the stereo and sat down next to the phone. He was home, and enjoying it. The Christmas holiday was past, and he had some time to waste. May as well be with friends, right?

"Hey, Ken, howzitgoin? Feel like doin' something?"

"Thad?"

"Yep, in the flesh. You should recognize me, ya cockmonkey- I just talked to you face-to-face before you left for your grandparents a coupla days ago. Busy?"

"Not really. I was expecting Payne to call, especially after that whole mess out in the woods. I've gotta talk to that asshole." Kendrick was in fine form, Thad observed. He must still be bent over the last encounter. Of course, so was he. Good- they had something to talk about.

"Well," Thad observed as he twisted the phone cord around his finger, " He's not home yet. Not that I know of, anyway. Want to talk about it? Over a walk, perhaps?" Thad baited a trap of convenience- there was something bothering him, and he knew it was gnawing at Kendrick as well. Suggest a walk, and only one possible location could avail itself.

"Sure," Kendrick assented, "I've got nothing else to do. Want to check out that roadway?"

Thad grinned. Trap sprung, bait successful. "I was hoping you'd say that. See you in twenty." He stood ready, hat on and coat buttoned. A flick of the wrist and the phone was hung. A tap of the knob and he was out the door, into the stark white morning.

Fate toys with us for reasons that she alone understands.

___________________________

Sometimes you see without sight, know without knowing.

Blackness.

Fatigue, a feeling of tiredness so great that Thad wanted only to pass out, to sink slowly into the sea of oblivion. To sleep for an eon, rest until ready. He had been flying on fumes for over a week now, and looked forward to recharging his batteries. Only he couldn't sleep. Or move. Or even see, for that matter. He felt warmth over his entire body, a liquid warmth as if he swam beneath the waters he so desired. The feeling faded, only to be followed by a vague sensation of something probing his shoulder. That soon quit him as well, and with it the sensation of intrusion that he identified as the bullet that had brought him down.

Blackness, and movement. Directionless, like freefall.

By now the realization had come, left its message, and slunk back into the darkness, giggling like an idiot. Thad was unconscious, bodily at any rate. He cursed his mind for sticking around and took a dive into the river. Lethe met and took him in a long, passionate embrace. Thad slept.

Sometimes you know more than they do.

The bullet hit the steel container with a plink, rattling around as it left a thin trail of blood in its wake. The .223 Jacorbine bullet was heavily magicked, warded into a magic-containing wall that would render whomever was unlucky enough to have one stuck in them mundane for the duration. The Jacorbine had been lodged in the shoulder of one Thaddeus Gallahad for two days, causing all kinds of mischief as its spelled lead slowly leaked into his blood stream.

A pair of tweezers reached into the steel bowl, chased the bullet. They caught it, lifting it free and high into the air, coming to a stop in front of the yellow eyes of a blue-haired woman in surgical dress. Two hours ago she had been interrogating the young man that lay on the table, pulling information from him as she had so recently pulled the bullet. Now she was sewing up his shoulder, much the same as she had excised his willpower. Double duty: interrogator and scientific healer. The Baille medical service was strapped for personnel, and those who worked Bedlam had to do double duty. It beat the morgue for sure, and besides, she liked her job. Enough to make up for what it paid.

The operating room was empty, save for her and the patient, stoned out of his gourd on enough tranquilizers and anesthetics to drop a horse. But he hung on, and showed signs of waking at any time. The woman ran a hand over his exposed chest, admiring the pale, smooth flesh, getting more than a little bit of a thrill from it. But there were rules. Empty, sorely understaffed operating room or not, there were rules. She finished stitching his shoulder and disconnected the IV drips.

"Orderly!," she called as she pulled down her mask, "drop this one with his friend! I have business to attend to!" She passed the orderly on her way out of the room, a large, gray-skinned orderly-type who looked as if he could scare the most obnoxious mentally deficient into sanity. Good, young Thad was as restrained as he was ever likely to get. She knew where to find him, and would look him up after he came out of his drug-induced coma. She stripped her operating whites and gloves, revealing an all-black bodysuit and spiked boots. The woman looked more like a kick boxer than a doctor, but fortunately she could mix business with pleasure. She stalked down the hall toward her office.

More often, they know a lot more than you.

There was a nurse standing in front of her office door. A timid-looking young thing with pale pink hair and thick glasses, she looked nervous enough to faint. And faint she nearly did when the woman coughed politely behind her.

"Oh!," the nurse exclaimed, "you must be doctor-"

"Doctor will do nicely," the woman said, carefully stressing the D into upper case. Doctors were a rare commodity these days, worth their weight in artifacts. And she'd be damned if this whelp would think any differently. "And as to whether or not the name on the door matches the one on my birth certificate, I can assure you that it does, as my ID here will verify." She didn't give the girl enough time to look at it, but she knew who the Doctor was anyway. "Now, young lady," she said with her best I-am-a-busy-bitch-voice, "what do you want?"

The poor girl was falling all over herself with fear at any of a combination of factors. She eyed the spikes on the Doctor's boots and swallowed nervously, covering her mouth with her hands and moaning. It can't be me, the Doctor thought. I'm fear-inspiring, but this poor thing is positively beside herself. What could scare her so greatly? "Uh-uh-uh-ummmmmm misss... um...," the nurse stammered, running a visibly shaking hand through her short pink hair, "The-the-there's a mmmmman dd-down in the l-lobby. H-he wants to talk to you, pperson-to-person. He s-said h-his name's T-t-ttantek. And he wants to see you. D-downstairs. Nnn-now." Her knees were knocking together and she was shivering. He nurse slumped against the wall with relief, her message delivered. The Doctor remained where she stood, pondering the message and watching the messenger.

An Officer of the Black Army Technocracy. Here. To see her. Anything involving the BAT didn't bode well for non-members, she knew. So what could it be? It wasn't protection money. The BAT had the lock on this particular section of NorAm for a bit of a stretch either way, and they did one hell of a fine job protecting her small city from the BAR, and the occasional intrusion of GDF agents. Like Thad.

That had to be it. The boy had admitted, unwillingly, that he was a default member of the GDF, as was his friend Kendrick. Default because they resisted the BAR and occasionally the BAT, and generally supported the health and well being of the Gaia life-force of their home reality. That separation of worlds made them enemies, though not willingly on her part. The BAT was an enemy by their own nature on Terra. Now two members of the GDF had penetrated the winter frigidity of her world, and naturally the BAT would want to know all about it.

So they'd send someone who knew Terra, and maybe the agents themselves, to deal with it. The BAT had undergone a few encounters with a BAR experiment in the area on Terra, and she had heard Tantek had been involved somehow. Tantek, and Factor Nine. Why the BAR had used a banned technique in such a primitive society, only the goddesses knew. But Tantek had been there, and now he was here. So was Thad.

Tantek wanted to see her. Her.

The proper response was to show up, suck up, and accommodate.

The Doctor ran down the corridor to the stairs, her cobalt tresses streaming behind her. The nurse looked up and sighed with relief, what was most likely the single most stressful event of her life over with.

Sometimes even the powerful must grovel.

____________________________

Fate has her own Agenda.

The morning sun streamed through trees and over the fields of the safe area as Thad and Kendrick slowly strode DeCoursey road, engrossed in conversation. They had been talking for well over 20 minutes, discussing the problems inherent in past life regression and the way said problems affected their mutual friend Payne, with whom they were currently suffering a bit of animosity.

The two cut long silhouettes on the stretch of road that Thad had dubbed "the landing strip", as he had seen it used as such on more than one occasion. Their backs to the rising sun, the shadows of the two cut far into the distance,. Face-on shadow puppets of a Fedora-clad man in an overcoat, and a shorter youth in a bomber jacket. headed for the intersection of DeCoursey and Mase. The winter air was chill and calm, for once devoid of wind of any kind. Conversation seemed warranted, and Kendrick was certainly up to keeping it interesting.

They turned left at the intersection, heading down the hill to an are where a drama had unfolded a few nights before. Conversation turned in that direction, punctuated by the rhythmic rapping of Thad's staff upon the snow-packed road.

"Remember that whole cordoning thing the other night?," Kendrick asked.

"How could I forget?," Thad replied, " That's why we're here. The spirits showed us something amazing , and now Payne and Zed aren't here to 'say thee nay' to a little bit of reconnaissance. Why else take a walk at six thirty in the morning? And during a snowstorm, no less?"

Kendrick looked at the new snow, a few inches at best. They had been slogging through it since the two had linked up at Thad's driveway. "Snow's good and all," he observed, "but what about tracks? And what's this about a recon?"

There was a slight breeze at their backs as Thad replied. "Look behind us," he said, "our tracks are fairly well covered." And indeed they were. The breeze had followed them all the way, having filled in the evidence of their passage quite nicely. "As to the recon, my curiosity is aroused by anything those two choads wouldn't want to go near. They wouldn't know a Door from a hole in the ground. The spirits wouldn't show us something with no reason whatsoever, now would they?"

"Well... The summer of '96 comes to mind when you speak of 'no reason'," Kendrick noted as he kicked a small snow mound out of his way.

"Shut up, " Thad groaned, " You weren't there. One isolated incident does not an SOP make, my young friend. I think this is on the level. Even if it isn't, it'll be a learning experience."

"Ever realm-hop before?"

"Nope."

Fate's long-term plan usually involves a hard object lesson.

_________________________

Sometimes groveling is unnecessary.

Tantek was a very imposing figure, and he knew it.

A customized cybernetic body with lots of semi-organic parts, he largely resembled a tall, box-like man with half of an AV shop for a head. He was sculpted from a flesh-colored alloy, with an outer hull modeled roughly in the shape of humanoid male musculature. The overall impression was one of immense strength, gained partly from his muscular-appearing frame being squeezed into an army jacket that was obviously large, and partly from the fact that Tantek was just a hair under eight feet tall.

He stood near the lobby entrance, idly fiddling with a small cube-shaped puzzle. He looked bored, and was oblivious to the Doctor's presence as she cleared the stairwell, in a rush.

So this is the infamous Tantek, she thought as she straightened her clothing and slowed to a walk. No wonder the man didn't come to my office: he barely fit through the outer doors! She collected herself, running a hand back through her hair as she contemplated what she would say to him. The cyborg stood nearly two feet taller than her, which was something she wasn't used to. At six foot three inches, she was used to looking down on people. Oh well, she thought. Tantek is important enough to warrant me looking up to him anyway. She stepped forward and coughed politely into her hand. "Mister Tantek?"

The cyborg diverted his attention from his cube long enough to see who it was that had the gall to harass him. His optic rig met her eyes, and a look of recognition somehow passed over his mechanized face. He put his puzzle in a pocket and stood up fully- this was what he was here for, after all. "Of course," he said. His voice was a synthesized baritone, but could change easily to whatever he wished: he was being diplomatic. "And you're Doctor-"

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Yes, of course I am," she said. "The lobby is rather crowded today," she lied, "Would you prefer someplace a little more private to talk?"

"That won't be necessary," Tantek stated. "The only comfortable place for me would be outside in the command truck, and you're hardly dressed for the weather, now aren't you?" He waved his hand, indicating her bodyglove, skin tight and skin thin. He wasn't making a pass at her- the statement had all the implications of an accurate observation. "You've got something I'm highly interested in. Two somethings. We really need to talk, Doctor."

Sometimes the truth isn't necessary. Sometimes it is.

The two youths from Terra.

That's what Tantek was after, the Doctor surmised. He was BAT, they, or at least one of them, was GDF. She had noticed the tattoo while performing surgery on him. A horizontally stretched globe with the Gaia Defense Force initials inset in the design, on the inside of his left thigh. Of course Tantek was here about that. Had to be- no two ways around it. Yes, Bedlam was one of the few functioning asylums/hospitals left in NorAm, and he could be here on other business, but she doubted it. BATs didn't go poking around mundane hospitals- they took care of their own wounded out in the woodlands somewhere. When they intruded on Terra, they became the enemy by default. Now someone from the front was here, and they were the enemy. The BAT had to be having a fit about this one. So Tantek was here to talk terms, probably release.

The Doctor slipped into diplomat gear. "This wouldn't happen to involve the GDF, would it?" She could tell it was by his body language. He was surprised that she knew about such things. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him. Immediately, anyway. "Yes, I thought it might. What do you want?"

Tantek made throat-clearing noises and looked pensive. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, which objected with a severe groan. "I want them released into my custody, of course. You know what I represent and what our goals are. We have a vested interest in the one of them. " He made a rather amusing gesture, miming long hair and glasses. "He was brought in with a gunshot wound to the shoulder. He's got a friend with him. The kid had to be restrained, if I remember correctly. "

"Thaddeus Gallahad and Kendrick DesBalin," The woman said, "we have them. What are they worth to you?"

Tantek considered. "Hmm. You've had them less than 12 hours and got names already. Probably birthdates, bloodtypes and all the rest." He shook a finger at her. "You know I disapprove, Doc. I could threaten you with your life, or threaten to just take the two. You know I won't, or you would not have asked for something in exchange. This hospital is a valuable piece of NorAm equipment. You're running low on supplies, I happen to know. I've already taken the liberty of diverting two resupply trucks of gauze, stitches, drugs, and antibiotics from a Terran hospital. They will be delivered within the hour. Now, where are they?"

The Doctor was shocked, visibly. Tantek watched as she collected herself. Two trucks of supplies. They were worth far more than their weight in gold to her, and Tantek knew it. Since a third of Erroth dropped away in The Collapse, there was little to nothing available for supplies. The wounded were forced to suffer recycled equipment, dirty surgical implements, or natural medicine. Unfortunately, Shamans avoided hospitals like the plague. Tantek had just given her a priceless gift, for a loaded price. She had no choice but to give up the two prisoners.

"I can see that you appreciate my generosity," Tantek said. "You have them in the mental ward, am I right? The proper place for two out-realm actives in an otherwise xenophobic society. Take me to them before this place drives them to a warranted residency." He took his weight off of the wall, which sighed gratefully. It was obvious that he intended to be accommodated.

The Doctor was not one for groveling in thanks, nor small talk. "Follow me, Mister Tantek." She started down the corridor to the mental wing. "I apologize for the less than accommodating ceiling, but you realize that we don't get many cyborgs in this neck of the woods. May I ask what it is that you want with these two?"

Sometimes you get more than you bargain for.

____________________________

Fate is a bitch at times.

Snow, deep and cold. A blanket of white twelve inches thick as far as the eye could see, disrupted frequently by enterprising trees. The quiet and the peace of the morning stretched through the Forest and the fields it surrounded for miles. The town of Liberty slept in peace, with nary a worry on its mind. As always, the town slept through the conflict, the war that raged right under its nose. But such is the way of Liberty, particularly in the depths of winter. A day like this one couldn't help but sleep in and enjoy the quiet to its fullest. Natural beauty abounded, for only two to see at this point in time.

"Fucking snow," Thad swore. His boot had managed to find another gopher hole as he and Kendrick crossed the warded roadway that stood before them, etched through the woods like a main circuit cable that only an active could see. "This weather can bite my ass." He extricated his leg, only to sink back again on his next step. "FUUUCK!"

Kendrick laughed. Though he hadn't been having much luck with the warded terrain himself, he found it amusing that Thad was getting bent over frozen water.

"Shut up, choad,' Thad muttered as he stepped back out of the knee-deep hole. Finally, he found stable footing. He closed his eyes and projected his annoyance into the earth, followed by utter calm and an image of stable footing. His footing improved one hundred percent, Thad continued his slog into the woods, following the trail cut by power lines. It was quiet. The only noise was one that could not be heard by mundane ears: the wail of crickets.

"Do you hear that, " Kendrick asked, "We've gotta be close. That was the noise it made the other night, right?"

"It's the noise a door always makes, " Thad mused. "open or not. If it's set, it makes noise. And there it is, right over there." He pointed about fifty yards ahead, to a blackish-orange presence that could be barely seen with their intuition and magical awareness. "That's it. Got any plans for the next couple of days?"

"Nope. What about you? Why aren't we taking someone else with us?"

"Because," Thad said, "Payne is downstate, Zed and Saytis are at work, and the lot of them are totally against it. I think they're a bunch of paranoid mental holdbacks, personally. But that's just me. Here we are!"

The pair stood within the field of energy that Thad had dubbed a Door. The feeling of quiet magnified a thousandfold, the noise of crickets intensifying to a scream making at all the weirder, for their ears heard naught. An apocalyptic stillness pervaded everything, as if reality were waiting on their next move. There was no wind, and yet Thad's greatcoat blew fiercely in a transcendental gale. Kendrick's hair blew fiercely, obscuring his vision. In counterpoint, Thad's ponytail moved not at all. Crickets whirred.

"Now what?," Kendrick asked. He seemed a little nervous, and more than a little anxious. Energy flowed through him, from the earth and the door. His body was a conduit and so, Thad knew, was his.

"The conclusion is obvious," Thad stated in his best professor-impression. "You know how this works. Do what feels right. And I don't mean run back to your house and play Pool of Radiance until noon. " He hummed the Moby version of the James Bond theme music. Thad could feel the energy coursing up and down, through him to the point of the bass guitar. "Do what feels right. Trust your intuition. When I blank my mind, the first think that pops into it is railroad track. Concentrate on that. Do you see it?"

"Yes," Kendrick stammered. "And those damned crickets won't go away. I can't concentrate."

"You choad, It's supposed to be that way (I think)!"

Sometimes fate and luck conspire to give you a nasty surprise.

It was, in fact, supposed to be that way. And the laws that apply to physics blew out the window as the more important laws, those of intent and desire, pure potentiality, and all the rest, came into force in a big way. Crickets screamed, nonexistent wind nearly blew Thad and Kendrick over as the idea of railroad tracks appeared more solidly in Thad's head. He held Kendrick by the arm, dragging him along. His mind opened to a hitherto unexperienced angle, and again slammed back to normal.

Thad fell over and passed out. Kendrick followed suit.

They awoke on rails, to the sound of freight train whistles.

Fate likes to play jokes. It's all in good fun, of course. To her, anyway.

_____________________________

Sometimes a loss is a gain.

A tall Cyborg with a sensor rig for a head walked down the hallways of Saint Mary Of Bethlehem's mental patient wing. He was hunched over, as his eight foot frame could not readily fit into a seven foot passage way. He was accompanied by a tall, blue-haired woman in a black bodysuit and kickboots. They were embroiled in conversation and knew where they were going. Recognizing the woman, none of the resident staff did so much as ask them their business. Whatever it was, they didn't need to know. The conversation didn't carry far, dissipating quickly into the chill Bedlam air. Heat was a premium that had been cut from the operating budget when the coal ran out.

"We require the two in order to fulfill an obligation to the GDF member," Tantek was saying. The Doctor listened raptly, as it wasn't often she heard a lot of the outside world. Tantek was a talkative sort, and never gave away critical information to untrustworthy sources. His candor was a complement. Of course, what could she do with the information? The supplies were a temptation she could not deny. "The member, our friend Thad, is, through unfortunate circumstance, in position of holding me in life-debt. Therefore, any error on his part, no matter how inane, I feel responsible for. You understand." It wasn't a question. "Kendrick DesBalin comes with him by virtue of association. The two are actives in the Safe Area on Terra. They are already missed, and they are a necessary factor in resistance against the BAR and Them."

"Them?" This was a new development. "Who are They?" The Doctor was curious.

"They are best left unmentioned. Sufficed to say, They are a mutual enemy. Shadowwalkers. Thad and three of his friends are a result of an attempt by the BAT to form a combat team. We were unfortunately successful."

"We're nearly there," the doctor gestured to a door at the far end of the corridor. "How can success be unfortunate?"

"You've heard of Factor Nine." Another non-question. "Experimentation has been banned for a reason. The affects wear off quickly, you understand. It served the purpose. Is this the door?"

"Yes, it is."

"Open it."

Sometimes a door opens on more than a room.

 

 

This short story was written in two installments between the hours of 0030 and 1430 on 31 December 1997. There was no pre-writing, no formulation of an outline, and no revision. What you have just read came straight to the computer from my head through no interfering medium, which explains the quality. If revised, I would do several things to this piece to change its overall appearance and tone. It has been a learning experience in the world of writing- something I shall have to repeat a number of times before I turn out something of consistent quality.