From: leigh_butler@paramount.com (Leigh Butler) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan Subject: [TAN] A Story (was Re: Hotel Information) Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2002 18:20:42 GMT Organization: Paramount Pictures On 4 Sep 2002 03:29:29 GMT, jsn@concentric.net (John S. Novak, III) wrote: >In article <3d74fd1c.8592265@news.cis.dfn.de>, Leigh Butler wrote: > >>>> Yeesh. Though I have to admit I got a kick, in retrospect, out of the >>>> way our waitress took our orders and then simply walked out of the >>>> restaurant, never to return... > >>>...I do not believe I remember this. > >> You weren't at our table. > >Tell us a story, Auntie Leigh. Ask, receive, etc. It was a dark and stormy night - What? What'd I say? Okay, so it wasn't storming. So. It was a dark night - Well, no, actually it wasn't so much "dark" as "appallingly drenched in neon" - But it was definitely night, okay? Jeez. Or early morning. Whatever. So, at some point with some degree of illumination there was some type of weather. Since it was Vegas we'll assume "bone dry" and "hot as fucking hell" are in there somewhere. Okay? We all cleared for takeoff here? Good. Anyway. Once upon a time a DELIGHTFUL young lady named Leigh Dalton Anne Butler the First took it into her head to fly off all by her damn self to a strange, tacky and occasionally wonderful fantasy land in the middle of the desert that doesn't really exist, or at least has no business existing in a sane world, which just goes to show you. Leigh was going there to do what most young untried hero/heroines do when they go off to strange fantastical lands, which is meet up with a fair number of strange fantastical characters and have some strange fantastical adventures. Which is more or less exactly what happened, and with no time wasted either. First on my agenda was the ObAcquiring of Trusty Sidekicks, which was accomplished nicely at the airport. Aren't you lucky, Fuschia One? You and the Milota Collective get to be sidekicks! Aren't you proud? After the brief bit of the Strange Fantastical Character Social Cocktail Introductory Thingy my Sidekicks managed to get me to, a large number of the S.F.C.s seemed to be wandering off THATAWAY. I wasn't sure why all the S.F.C.s were so keen on going to the Mystical Horseshoe Place as opposed to staying at the Magical Golden Place, but hey, what do I know, they're strange and fantastical! I and my Sidekicks (two of them, anyway, I think Fuschia One may have wandered off somewhere) follow bravely! (Later, I learn, one of the Strange Fantastical Birds of Prey which are inevitably featured in this type of tale makes much mockery of this phenomenon. I defiantly maintain that (a) it was a sense of adventure that prompted us to follow, so (b) none of that "sheeple" nonsense, and (c) carnivores have a particularly weird and predatory sense of humor anyway, so there, nyah nyah.) (Besides, all was forgiven later when I was allowed to participate in a dragon slaying, or at least a dragon desecration, which realistically is the best you can hope for these days.) Ahem. Where was I? Oh yes. So we entered the Mystical Horseshoe Place, where the walls go bling bling and myriad oxygen tanki roam, and were ushered forthwith into a dank and gloomy dungeon. I wasn't sure about this dungeon shit but then again what kind of adventure would this be without being thrown into a dungeon at least once? Besides, this dungeon lured us in with the promise of victuals, which I gather was the focus of this section of the quest, so _that's_ all right. We sit down, I and the Milota Collective and the Other One. There has been much speculation on the identity of this Third Man, but I can tell you right now, he sure as hell wasn't an amalgamation of me and Noell. The rest of the S.F.C.s were scattered into different cells, probably to keep us from joining forces and making the dungeon keepers _not_ charge a freakin' dollar for extra cheese. Anyway, our guard greeted us with suitable cynicism and gloom, and took our last requests with more of same. I would say she could have stood in for the very personification of all stereotypical dungeons everywhere, she was that upbeat. I have rarely come across a human being less thrilled with life, but I suppose being a dungeon guard doesn't have a lot of, how you say, job satisfaction... And here's the proof that Vegas is indeed a strange and fantastical land, where everything's turned on its head - a Wonderland to give even deranged and/or drugged-up British authors nightmares. How else to describe a place where the prison guards escape from the dungeon while the prisoners wait patiently? And wait, and wait, and wait... Finally, most dissatisfied with the quality of our imprisonment, one of the Milota Collective flags down another of the guards and asks what happened to ours. She goes off to investigate the matter, and soon returns to sheepishly detail our erstwhile detainer's flight from sentinance vile, which on reflection we decide was a last ditch effort to keep us from eating the prison food, noble soul that she was. Alas, we did not heed her, the more fools we. Sentinance? Hey, it's a word if I say so. Y'all hush. Finish the fucking story, already, you say? Such impertinence. But, uh - well, that's it, really. Wait, where are you going? Hey! Well, jeez, I _told_ you the story already, the stupid woman took our orders and walked out! Don't give me that shit about "climax" and "denoument", what do you think this is, Masterpiece Friggin' Theater? Ungrateful whiny bunch of strange fantastical people, the lot of ya. See if I ever tell _you_ a story again. -- Leigh Butler leigh_butler@paramount.com ****************************************************** The opinions expressed above do not necessarily reflect those of Paramount Pictures or its affiliates.