The Chronicles of What's His Name. - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

mirevolver · 01-30-2005, 10:06 PM

During my rather uneventful weekend, I came up with an idea for a series of short stories. These stories would not be written in my usual writing style for fiction, but in a much more lighthearted and perhaps humorus way.

And without furthere ado, here is the first installment.
_________________________________________________________

The Chronicles of What’s His Name

Disclaimer: The following is a complete work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons real or imaginary is purely coincidental and overly exaggerated.

I. INTRODUCTION

The following is a series of short stories about a not so ordinary person who lived in ordinary times that were about to become not so ordinary on a not so ordinary planet.

Jared was by definition, a genius. He just didn’t know it, nor would he let anyone tell him he was. More to the point, Jared was an antisocial genius. He lived in a city that was located about twenty miles up the road from hell, or at least it felt like that in the summer months, which for this city the summer lasted from April through September. But Jared enjoyed living in Phoenix anyway, despite the fact that it was also one of the larger metro areas in the United States. So why would such an antisocial person like Jared enjoy living in an area inhabited by several million other people? Because it was the logical thing to do. At least according to Jared it was. Just as fish swam in schools to hide from predators, Jared hid from people by being surrounded by people.

But there were really three reasons why Jared enjoyed living in Phoenix. First of which was the layout of the city. The layout of most cities, with exception to Houston, tends to follow some sort of logic or reason. Take for example most European cities. The streets of most European cities are narrow, winding, often turn back upon themselves and in general tend to go in the direction you least expect the street to take you. They were designed this way because when they were built, there was the constant threat of the army from the neighboring land invading, claiming the city as their own, then deciding that the place smelled funny before looting and pillaging the place and leaving. So the streets were designed to be the most confusing things in the world, until the Rubik’s cube was invented, in the hopes that the invading army would take the wrong turn and then be forever lost in the city. And as the armies of the time were made up entirely of men, they would never bother to stop and ask for directions.

Phoenix on the other hand is the exact opposite of most European cities. This is extremely clear if you fly in or out of Sky Harbor International Airport, which is located in the middle of the city. The streets of Phoenix are laid out in a nearly perfect grid which was really only broken up by the highways that run through the city. Not only was the layout logical in the mind of Jared, but it also gives way to his second reason for why he enjoyed living n Phoenix.

Jared liked to drive fast. And the perfectly wide, straight streets of Phoenix were perfect for driving fast. Many a weekend he would be found in his silver Mercedes CLK convertible cruising along Scottsdale Road or better yet, just driving around the city on the Loop 101. There was really only one thing he didn’t like about driving in Phoenix, the other drivers. To him they just simply impeded him from having a good time and the lot of them needed to go back to driving school. Worst of all were the blue hairs and the snow birds; oddly enough, those who fit into one category would usually also fit into the other. The blue hairs were the retirees living in the city and for some odd reason their cars were unable to exceed 35 miles per hour. It’s as if there’s some secret law that says when you turn 65, a special task force from the Arizona Department of Motor Vehicles will sneak up to your car, pop the hood and install a governor set to 35mph.

As for the snowbirds, Jared dreaded when he was behind a car with a Minnesota, Montana, or God forbid any Canadian license plate. Every winter, they came to Phoenix in order to avoid the frigid, absolute zero temperatures and the twenty foot snow drifts that could be found in their hometown. Then while in Phoenix, they would drive at a speed of ten miles per hour below the posted speed limit. Jared could only fathom that this was because they stared directly into the sun as they drove around. He would imagine that the conversation inside their cars went something along the lines of:

“Hey, look. It’s the sun.”

“Oh, wow. It’s really bright.”

“Yeah, I didn’t know the sun could be that bright.”

“Yes, it’s very bright, so bright in fact that… Oh God, OH GOD, I CAN’T SEE! I’M BLIND!”

Then there was also the possibility at least for the cars with Canadian plates that the person driving was unable to accurately convert between kilometers per hour and miles per hour.

But aside from the other people on the road, Jared absolutely loved driving in Phoenix, especially when the driving was taking him to his third reason for enjoying life in Phoenix, the local Indian casinos.

Jared was a gambler, though in his case the word is used rather loosely. Most people who walk into a casino are immediately distracted by all the bright lights and noises and free drinks. But Jared would walk into a casino with a mission and that mission was to make money. His main game was blackjack and he was good. So good in fact that it didn’t matter that the casino was using eight decks, he was still counting the cards. As an idea of how good he was, his Mercedes and his house in Scottsdale were purchased with his casino winnings.

Why did he take up gambling? One may ask. The reason is as follows, casinos are the most antisocial places on the entire planet. The moment you walk into one, you can feel the sheer amount of distrust everyone has for everyone else. The managers distrust the employees and the players. The players distrust the cameras watching them from every possible angle. The security guards distrust everyone. The slot machines distrust the granny feeding nickels to them and slapping the spin button twenty thousand times per minute. The grannies distrust the slot machines which in the past hour have taken their entire social security check and have yet to pay off and forcing them make the long drive home, made longer by the fact that they can’t drive faster than 35mph. The distrust in casinos had an effect on married couples as well. As soon as they walk into a casino, the wife can’t trust the husband for fear that he’ll gamble away all their money and the husband can’t trust the wife for fear that in an attempt to regain the money that he is about to gamble away, she’ll sleep with the first guy who offers her a million dollars to sleep with her.

Casinos were home to someone like Jared and it was not uncommon to see him at one on a Friday or Saturday night. He liked them because he had no intention to speak to anyone else there and they had no intention to speak to him. If there was a Friday or Saturday night and he wasn’t at an Indian casino, it was because he was spending that weekend in Las Vegas.

While Jared wasn’t driving fast or gambling he was often managing his business. Now it may seem odd that someone as antisocial as Jared is a businessman, and under ordinary circumstances in an ordinary business he would be a spectacular failure. But he ran his business the way any antisocial businessman would, on eBay.

At this point in Jared’s 26 years of being on the planet, things were going absolutely wonderfully amazingly brilliantly swimmingly. But unbeknownst to him, it was all about to change. This is his life…

ForgottenKnight · 01-30-2005, 10:34 PM

Funny stuff.

Keep up the good work!

Kostya · 01-31-2005, 05:59 AM

Well I'm hooked.

vonstalhein · 02-01-2005, 11:59 AM

Yeah man. Humour always sits well in my stomach, and you're funny. Update!

mirevolver · 02-10-2005, 05:00 PM

I have the second installment planned out, it's just a matter of having the time to sit down and write it.

ergdork · 02-10-2005, 06:38 PM

Wow.. you've got a problem now. You have to follow that up with something just as good! I can't wait!

mirevolver · 04-17-2005, 09:49 PM

Ok, been busy. But finally got a chapter written.
__________________________________________

Disclaimer: The following is a complete work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons real or imaginary is purely coincidental and overly exaggerated.

II. Close Encounters of the XX Chromosome

It was Friday. Or more to the point it was a Friday night. And despite the fact that the intense Phoenix sun had already plummeted below the horizon, it was still hot enough to cook your dinner on an outdoor grill without having to start a fire.

Jared would have most likely been complaining to himself about the heat in Phoenix, except he was in Las Vegas. And although Las Vegas can still get nearly as hot, the heat in Vegas was unable to get any closer to Jared than thirty meters.

Thirty meters away from the doors to the air conditioned casino of the Venetian, Jared was standing at a craps table. He didn’t know why he was at a craps table as blackjack was his game of preference, but for the moment he didn’t care why he was there. All he knew or cared about for the moment was that he was winning. He just walked up to the table and put a $100 bill on the pass line for the come out roll and a seven was rolled. He let it ride and then an eleven was rolled. Since then there was no looking back.

After playing for about an hour, something else was beginning to take Jared’s attention. To him it felt like there were two pinpricks on the side of his head. They felt like they were slowly drilling deeper and deeper into his skull. He knew this feeling; years of card counting had taught him what this feeling meant. A pit boss was watching him.

The truth of the matter is a pit boss was watching the craps table where Jared was at and it was moderately suspicious that Jared had started out with $100 and was now at $5,245. But that was not the reason why the pit boss was watching the table. Standing next to Jared was someone who the pit boss suspected of switching dice. But Jared didn’t know that nor did he bother to look at the pit boss, instead he just collected his chips and went to cash them.

Jared was right about one thing, he was being watched. After he cashed his chips and went to his room to put the money in the safe, he had a sudden urge to go back to the casino floor. On the casino floor he headed to the La Scena lounge and took a seat. After listening to the band play for about thirty seconds, a woman approached him. He ordered a Vodka Martini, shaken not stirred.

When he got his drink, he gave the cocktail waitress the card to put it in his room tab and took a sip. A woman approached him, she wasn’t the cocktail waitress.

Now would be a good time to step away from the story to give a brief lecture about time. Time is an interesting concept. Some see time as being linear and others see time as being circular. Now, as we have no concrete proof of time completing its circle and resuming with the big bang, let’s assume for the time being that time is linear, that there is a period ahead of us known as the future and a period behind us known as the past. There are many people who believe that time travel isn’t possible, and they’re wrong. Time travel is indeed possible. We are traveling through time even as you are reading this. To be more specific, we are traveling through time at a speed of one second per second. We have always been traveling through time at a speed of one second per second. So the problem with time travel is not that it’s not possible. The problem is that we are stuck in cruise control and can’t reach the gas or break pedals, nor can we find the transmission.

But in a literary sense, moving back and forth through time is indeed possible. So it’s time to hit stop, then rewind. And now back to the story, but at a faster pace and from a different angle.

She was sitting at a slot machine when Jared walked into the casino. She had seen him before. Throughout the night, she watched him at the craps table. She was just about to go talk to him when he spontaneously picked up his chips, cashed them and went to the elevators. She found a slot machine near the elevators and sat there. When he came back down, she watched him go to the lounge and order his drink. She approached him.

“Hello.” She said.

Jared looked up to see a suspicious woman standing there, though to anybody else she wouldn’t be suspicious. She was a tall brunette with a stunning figure. She wore a black dress that fit her perfectly and revealed enough to interest a guy, but also left a good amount to the imagination. Covering her shapely legs was a pair of black stockings. The reason Jared found her to be suspicious was because she was the kind of woman that didn’t talk to Jared.

Jared searched his mind for something to say only to find out that his brain had suddenly shut down. He waited for it to reboot.

“Mind if I sit here?” she said as she sat down in the chair next to his.

Jared’s brain was still rebooting.

“My name’s Svetlana.” She said.

“J-Jared.” Was all Jared’s brain managed to get his mouth to say before it shut down again.

Svetlana let out a laugh.

Jared’s brain rebooted again, except this time it went into safe mode so as to prevent itself from crashing.

“What do you want?” Asked Jared.

There are two very simple reasons why this question was the first to cross Jared’s mind and that reason was because he was in Las Vegas. Las Vegas shares one quality with the city of Los Angeles. This one quality is that everyone in these two cities is completely fake. The difference is that in Los Angeles, the fake people try to pass themselves of as being real and in doing so, tend to think that everyone else is also real. In Las Vegas, everyone except the dumbstruck tourists already know that no one there is exactly as he/she/it appears and so attempting to pass oneself off as being genuine is a futile activity. In other words, Las Vegas is really just a big costume party.

The other reason that question slipped out of Jared’s mouth is that he had recently come into a fairly large sum of money.

Svetlana laughed again and if Jared’s brain were not operating in safe mode, it would have had to reboot again. “What makes you say that?” she asked. Svetlana who was indeed wearing a costume, was not familiar to Las Vegas and so did not realize that she was at a costume party.

Jared’s brain was slowly beginning to regain control of itself. “Everybody here wants something.”

“I’m not from here.” Svetlana said. “I’m from New Mexico.” She actually wasn’t from there; it was just more convenient for her to say she was.

Jared hated New Mexico. To him it was a barren wasteland with nothing but points of collective boredom known as Albuquerque and Santa Fe. There is however an interesting fact about New Mexico. In the 1940’s the US Government launched a project in New Mexico in the hopes of actually improving the state. It was termed the Manhattan Project and it consisted of building and detonating a nuclear bomb in the state of New Mexico. And to everyone’s surprise, the project actually did result in an improvement for New Mexico. The Manhattan project has created a historical point of interest that actually makes people want to travel to New Mexico.

“I never liked New Mexico.” Jared replied. “And I also never liked socializing. So if you will excuse me, I need to get some rest so I can catch my plane tomorrow.”

By now it was apparent that Jared’s brain had regained full control of his body as he stood up, went to the elevators and returned to his room.

As Svetlana watched him leave, she coyly said under her breath, “See you tomorrow, Jared.”

mirevolver · 06-06-2005, 02:27 AM

A small note to add.

The third installment is already written, however because I'm in currently Germany, I will be unable to post it until I return to the US in July.

ForgottenKnight · 06-08-2005, 10:18 PM

This is a great story. Shame you can't add that third installment while in Germany, but I'm guessing that is written down on your computer in the US...

*waits for mirevolver to return from Germany*

vonstalhein · 06-11-2005, 02:55 PM

When it's finished, can i get a copy e-mailed to me?

01-30-2005, 10:06 PM	#1 (permalink)
mirevolver Inspired by the mind's eye. Location: Between the darkness and the light.	The Chronicles of What's His Name. During my rather uneventful weekend, I came up with an idea for a series of short stories. These stories would not be written in my usual writing style for fiction, but in a much more lighthearted and perhaps humorus way. And without furthere ado, here is the first installment. _________________________________________________________ The Chronicles of What’s His Name Disclaimer: The following is a complete work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons real or imaginary is purely coincidental and overly exaggerated. I. INTRODUCTION The following is a series of short stories about a not so ordinary person who lived in ordinary times that were about to become not so ordinary on a not so ordinary planet. Jared was by definition, a genius. He just didn’t know it, nor would he let anyone tell him he was. More to the point, Jared was an antisocial genius. He lived in a city that was located about twenty miles up the road from hell, or at least it felt like that in the summer months, which for this city the summer lasted from April through September. But Jared enjoyed living in Phoenix anyway, despite the fact that it was also one of the larger metro areas in the United States. So why would such an antisocial person like Jared enjoy living in an area inhabited by several million other people? Because it was the logical thing to do. At least according to Jared it was. Just as fish swam in schools to hide from predators, Jared hid from people by being surrounded by people. But there were really three reasons why Jared enjoyed living in Phoenix. First of which was the layout of the city. The layout of most cities, with exception to Houston, tends to follow some sort of logic or reason. Take for example most European cities. The streets of most European cities are narrow, winding, often turn back upon themselves and in general tend to go in the direction you least expect the street to take you. They were designed this way because when they were built, there was the constant threat of the army from the neighboring land invading, claiming the city as their own, then deciding that the place smelled funny before looting and pillaging the place and leaving. So the streets were designed to be the most confusing things in the world, until the Rubik’s cube was invented, in the hopes that the invading army would take the wrong turn and then be forever lost in the city. And as the armies of the time were made up entirely of men, they would never bother to stop and ask for directions. Phoenix on the other hand is the exact opposite of most European cities. This is extremely clear if you fly in or out of Sky Harbor International Airport, which is located in the middle of the city. The streets of Phoenix are laid out in a nearly perfect grid which was really only broken up by the highways that run through the city. Not only was the layout logical in the mind of Jared, but it also gives way to his second reason for why he enjoyed living n Phoenix. Jared liked to drive fast. And the perfectly wide, straight streets of Phoenix were perfect for driving fast. Many a weekend he would be found in his silver Mercedes CLK convertible cruising along Scottsdale Road or better yet, just driving around the city on the Loop 101. There was really only one thing he didn’t like about driving in Phoenix, the other drivers. To him they just simply impeded him from having a good time and the lot of them needed to go back to driving school. Worst of all were the blue hairs and the snow birds; oddly enough, those who fit into one category would usually also fit into the other. The blue hairs were the retirees living in the city and for some odd reason their cars were unable to exceed 35 miles per hour. It’s as if there’s some secret law that says when you turn 65, a special task force from the Arizona Department of Motor Vehicles will sneak up to your car, pop the hood and install a governor set to 35mph. As for the snowbirds, Jared dreaded when he was behind a car with a Minnesota, Montana, or God forbid any Canadian license plate. Every winter, they came to Phoenix in order to avoid the frigid, absolute zero temperatures and the twenty foot snow drifts that could be found in their hometown. Then while in Phoenix, they would drive at a speed of ten miles per hour below the posted speed limit. Jared could only fathom that this was because they stared directly into the sun as they drove around. He would imagine that the conversation inside their cars went something along the lines of: “Hey, look. It’s the sun.” “Oh, wow. It’s really bright.” “Yeah, I didn’t know the sun could be that bright.” “Yes, it’s very bright, so bright in fact that… Oh God, OH GOD, I CAN’T SEE! I’M BLIND!” Then there was also the possibility at least for the cars with Canadian plates that the person driving was unable to accurately convert between kilometers per hour and miles per hour. But aside from the other people on the road, Jared absolutely loved driving in Phoenix, especially when the driving was taking him to his third reason for enjoying life in Phoenix, the local Indian casinos. Jared was a gambler, though in his case the word is used rather loosely. Most people who walk into a casino are immediately distracted by all the bright lights and noises and free drinks. But Jared would walk into a casino with a mission and that mission was to make money. His main game was blackjack and he was good. So good in fact that it didn’t matter that the casino was using eight decks, he was still counting the cards. As an idea of how good he was, his Mercedes and his house in Scottsdale were purchased with his casino winnings. Why did he take up gambling? One may ask. The reason is as follows, casinos are the most antisocial places on the entire planet. The moment you walk into one, you can feel the sheer amount of distrust everyone has for everyone else. The managers distrust the employees and the players. The players distrust the cameras watching them from every possible angle. The security guards distrust everyone. The slot machines distrust the granny feeding nickels to them and slapping the spin button twenty thousand times per minute. The grannies distrust the slot machines which in the past hour have taken their entire social security check and have yet to pay off and forcing them make the long drive home, made longer by the fact that they can’t drive faster than 35mph. The distrust in casinos had an effect on married couples as well. As soon as they walk into a casino, the wife can’t trust the husband for fear that he’ll gamble away all their money and the husband can’t trust the wife for fear that in an attempt to regain the money that he is about to gamble away, she’ll sleep with the first guy who offers her a million dollars to sleep with her. Casinos were home to someone like Jared and it was not uncommon to see him at one on a Friday or Saturday night. He liked them because he had no intention to speak to anyone else there and they had no intention to speak to him. If there was a Friday or Saturday night and he wasn’t at an Indian casino, it was because he was spending that weekend in Las Vegas. While Jared wasn’t driving fast or gambling he was often managing his business. Now it may seem odd that someone as antisocial as Jared is a businessman, and under ordinary circumstances in an ordinary business he would be a spectacular failure. But he ran his business the way any antisocial businessman would, on eBay. At this point in Jared’s 26 years of being on the planet, things were going absolutely wonderfully amazingly brilliantly swimmingly. But unbeknownst to him, it was all about to change. This is his life… __________________ Aside from my great plans to become the future dictator of the moon, I have little interest in political discussions. Last edited by mirevolver; 04-17-2005 at 09:50 PM..

01-30-2005, 10:34 PM	#2 (permalink)
ForgottenKnight Jesus Freak Location: Following the light...	Funny stuff. Keep up the good work! __________________ "People say I'm strange, does that make me a stranger?"

02-01-2005, 11:59 AM	#4 (permalink)
vonstalhein Insane Location: Where You Live.	Yeah man. Humour always sits well in my stomach, and you're funny. Update! __________________ No Win No Fee

02-10-2005, 05:00 PM	#5 (permalink)
mirevolver Inspired by the mind's eye. Location: Between the darkness and the light.	I have the second installment planned out, it's just a matter of having the time to sit down and write it. __________________ Aside from my great plans to become the future dictator of the moon, I have little interest in political discussions.

02-10-2005, 06:38 PM	#6 (permalink)
ergdork Tilted	Wow.. you've got a problem now. You have to follow that up with something just as good! I can't wait! __________________ "You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it." - Robin Williams

01-31-2005, 05:59 AM	#3 (permalink)
Kostya Little known... Location: Brisbane, Australia	Well I'm hooked.

04-17-2005, 09:49 PM	#7 (permalink)
mirevolver Inspired by the mind's eye. Location: Between the darkness and the light.	Ok, been busy. But finally got a chapter written. __________________________________________ Disclaimer: The following is a complete work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons real or imaginary is purely coincidental and overly exaggerated. II. Close Encounters of the XX Chromosome It was Friday. Or more to the point it was a Friday night. And despite the fact that the intense Phoenix sun had already plummeted below the horizon, it was still hot enough to cook your dinner on an outdoor grill without having to start a fire. Jared would have most likely been complaining to himself about the heat in Phoenix, except he was in Las Vegas. And although Las Vegas can still get nearly as hot, the heat in Vegas was unable to get any closer to Jared than thirty meters. Thirty meters away from the doors to the air conditioned casino of the Venetian, Jared was standing at a craps table. He didn’t know why he was at a craps table as blackjack was his game of preference, but for the moment he didn’t care why he was there. All he knew or cared about for the moment was that he was winning. He just walked up to the table and put a $100 bill on the pass line for the come out roll and a seven was rolled. He let it ride and then an eleven was rolled. Since then there was no looking back. After playing for about an hour, something else was beginning to take Jared’s attention. To him it felt like there were two pinpricks on the side of his head. They felt like they were slowly drilling deeper and deeper into his skull. He knew this feeling; years of card counting had taught him what this feeling meant. A pit boss was watching him. The truth of the matter is a pit boss was watching the craps table where Jared was at and it was moderately suspicious that Jared had started out with $100 and was now at $5,245. But that was not the reason why the pit boss was watching the table. Standing next to Jared was someone who the pit boss suspected of switching dice. But Jared didn’t know that nor did he bother to look at the pit boss, instead he just collected his chips and went to cash them. Jared was right about one thing, he was being watched. After he cashed his chips and went to his room to put the money in the safe, he had a sudden urge to go back to the casino floor. On the casino floor he headed to the La Scena lounge and took a seat. After listening to the band play for about thirty seconds, a woman approached him. He ordered a Vodka Martini, shaken not stirred. When he got his drink, he gave the cocktail waitress the card to put it in his room tab and took a sip. A woman approached him, she wasn’t the cocktail waitress. Now would be a good time to step away from the story to give a brief lecture about time. Time is an interesting concept. Some see time as being linear and others see time as being circular. Now, as we have no concrete proof of time completing its circle and resuming with the big bang, let’s assume for the time being that time is linear, that there is a period ahead of us known as the future and a period behind us known as the past. There are many people who believe that time travel isn’t possible, and they’re wrong. Time travel is indeed possible. We are traveling through time even as you are reading this. To be more specific, we are traveling through time at a speed of one second per second. We have always been traveling through time at a speed of one second per second. So the problem with time travel is not that it’s not possible. The problem is that we are stuck in cruise control and can’t reach the gas or break pedals, nor can we find the transmission. But in a literary sense, moving back and forth through time is indeed possible. So it’s time to hit stop, then rewind. And now back to the story, but at a faster pace and from a different angle. She was sitting at a slot machine when Jared walked into the casino. She had seen him before. Throughout the night, she watched him at the craps table. She was just about to go talk to him when he spontaneously picked up his chips, cashed them and went to the elevators. She found a slot machine near the elevators and sat there. When he came back down, she watched him go to the lounge and order his drink. She approached him. “Hello.” She said. Jared looked up to see a suspicious woman standing there, though to anybody else she wouldn’t be suspicious. She was a tall brunette with a stunning figure. She wore a black dress that fit her perfectly and revealed enough to interest a guy, but also left a good amount to the imagination. Covering her shapely legs was a pair of black stockings. The reason Jared found her to be suspicious was because she was the kind of woman that didn’t talk to Jared. Jared searched his mind for something to say only to find out that his brain had suddenly shut down. He waited for it to reboot. “Mind if I sit here?” she said as she sat down in the chair next to his. Jared’s brain was still rebooting. “My name’s Svetlana.” She said. “J-Jared.” Was all Jared’s brain managed to get his mouth to say before it shut down again. Svetlana let out a laugh. Jared’s brain rebooted again, except this time it went into safe mode so as to prevent itself from crashing. “What do you want?” Asked Jared. There are two very simple reasons why this question was the first to cross Jared’s mind and that reason was because he was in Las Vegas. Las Vegas shares one quality with the city of Los Angeles. This one quality is that everyone in these two cities is completely fake. The difference is that in Los Angeles, the fake people try to pass themselves of as being real and in doing so, tend to think that everyone else is also real. In Las Vegas, everyone except the dumbstruck tourists already know that no one there is exactly as he/she/it appears and so attempting to pass oneself off as being genuine is a futile activity. In other words, Las Vegas is really just a big costume party. The other reason that question slipped out of Jared’s mouth is that he had recently come into a fairly large sum of money. Svetlana laughed again and if Jared’s brain were not operating in safe mode, it would have had to reboot again. “What makes you say that?” she asked. Svetlana who was indeed wearing a costume, was not familiar to Las Vegas and so did not realize that she was at a costume party. Jared’s brain was slowly beginning to regain control of itself. “Everybody here wants something.” “I’m not from here.” Svetlana said. “I’m from New Mexico.” She actually wasn’t from there; it was just more convenient for her to say she was. Jared hated New Mexico. To him it was a barren wasteland with nothing but points of collective boredom known as Albuquerque and Santa Fe. There is however an interesting fact about New Mexico. In the 1940’s the US Government launched a project in New Mexico in the hopes of actually improving the state. It was termed the Manhattan Project and it consisted of building and detonating a nuclear bomb in the state of New Mexico. And to everyone’s surprise, the project actually did result in an improvement for New Mexico. The Manhattan project has created a historical point of interest that actually makes people want to travel to New Mexico. “I never liked New Mexico.” Jared replied. “And I also never liked socializing. So if you will excuse me, I need to get some rest so I can catch my plane tomorrow.” By now it was apparent that Jared’s brain had regained full control of his body as he stood up, went to the elevators and returned to his room. As Svetlana watched him leave, she coyly said under her breath, “See you tomorrow, Jared.” __________________ Aside from my great plans to become the future dictator of the moon, I have little interest in political discussions.

06-06-2005, 02:27 AM	#8 (permalink)
mirevolver Inspired by the mind's eye. Location: Between the darkness and the light.	A small note to add. The third installment is already written, however because I'm in currently Germany, I will be unable to post it until I return to the US in July. __________________ Aside from my great plans to become the future dictator of the moon, I have little interest in political discussions.

06-08-2005, 10:18 PM	#9 (permalink)
ForgottenKnight Jesus Freak Location: Following the light...	This is a great story. Shame you can't add that third installment while in Germany, but I'm guessing that is written down on your computer in the US... waits for mirevolver to return from Germany __________________ "People say I'm strange, does that make me a stranger?"

06-11-2005, 02:55 PM	#10 (permalink)
vonstalhein Insane Location: Where You Live.	When it's finished, can i get a copy e-mailed to me? __________________ No Win No Fee