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The man stepped forward, leaving his horse behind. She spooked easily in new towns. His spurs clicked ominously as he moved purposefully towards the main avenue of the small town. An irregular, grinding metal sound could be heard in the distance. The sky had grown a deep purple; the sort of expanse lovers met under. In any other place, the sunset would have looked beautiful to the man, but here it only added to the surreal irregularity of the dead town. He had reached the main street now and saw the stagnant remains of a once prospering frontier town. His eyes immediately focused on the rising hills at the edge of town, where a mortuary towered over the community like a malevolent god. Even from here he could see that all the graves had been dug up and left empty. He then shifted his attention to the well down the street. Water. He had not had a drip in nearly two days. His whole body was dehydrated, leaving his skin dry and crackling. His mouth was as dry as the collection of bones he saw under the gallows. Strange that the Riders did not take that one. Usually no one was spared. He began to move towards the water, but almost immediately he spun around, pistols drawn, to face…

nothing. There was absolutely nothing, besides his old horse. He wondered what was spooking him so much, so often here lately. Perhaps it was because he had gone without sufficient water and a decent meal in a long time. He had even considered killing his horse for food not too long ago. Maybe it was just knowing that there was something to come--something to be frightened of. Why couldn't it all end? All he wanted was for things to be normal....yet he knew it was too late for him to get back what he had lost. His spirit had lost its virginity, what seemed, lifetimes ago. Although times felt hard, strange, and cold now, he hoped he could make things right, for her at least. Yes, he had to do right by her, if no one else.

He was suddenly taken over by a strange sense of deja vu. For a second he thought he saw a small man in a dark robe, and he could hear a voice ("hail to you, friend."). Then the small man was gone and a different voice that seemed to come from all around him boomed out...

It was his own voice. Often he found himself screaming and hearing the voices of little men. He was unable to control it, but knew why it happened. It was because of the things he had done, and especially at what he had done to her. He had come to this place, this ghost town, with its eerie silence and dug-up graveyard to atone for his own sins, and to revenge those of others. He despaired of his own life. He never knew a time when he was not a stranger. His first memory was of tracking a riderless horse to his father’s body suspended from a tree, his leather hat having caught in the fork of two branches, the chin strap wrapping around his neck throttling him. Unconsolable, his mother retreated from life. He remembered the men, one after the other, who passed through her life, the constantly creaking hammock, the drunken fights. His mother raged against her worn hands, shrivelled breasts, and the years which had hardened the contours of her face into angular planes and left her an old woman at thirty. She would comb his hair for lice and weep at the misery of their lives. He left home as soon as he could ride and shoot and pay his way in the world. Like all men born in desolate places he dreamed of green fields and the life of ease. With a light heart, he set out for the coast, only to panic at the sight of the sea and the city, and to turn back to the badlands. He knew better than any clergyman the meaning of Christ’s martyrdom, of the liturgy of thorn, blood and nails. And he knew that God had made men to torture them in the wilderness. He lived in Indian villages, rode with Mexicans who sold dud slaves, and roamed desolate lands settling other men’s scores. He learned how easy it was to slide a knife into a man’s belly, and he grew to enjoy the thrill of seeing in a man’s eyes the amazement at his own death. Then he met her. She had golden skin and black hair streaked with auburn. Her eyes were greenish amber, the colour of a troubled sea. She was a virgin; but not naive. She had heard the coarse laughter of her sisters and the women in the town and her brothers had tried to force her. But she had resisted. He had camped near her father’s farm and word of his presence, and his reputation, soon reached her. She lay awake and tried to picture him. At sunrise she put on a white cotton dress embroidered with yellow flowers. She tied a ribbon to her straw hat and rode to his camp. She saw him, and understood the pounding of her heart. He told her of his adventures. She was captivated by him. Next morning he came with presents. She threw herself into his arms. “Take me with you,” she begged. “I will,” he replied, instantly regretting it.

"No!" the sound of his own voice screaming startled him. The memories of her came back with searing pain. He could have no regrets, not now. He could not change what happened. Reliving those painful memories would only make him numb, dulling his senses, clouding his judgement, causing him to make more mistakes sacrificing more lives, maybe his own. He had to remain in the here and now. The Riders were out there, he had to stop them. Suddenly, his gaze was drawn back to the mortuary. Was there movement? Quickly he took cover behind an old ammunitions shed. He waited for what seemed an eternity. Finally, he saw it again. There was someone stalking from room to room in the mortuary. Silently he made his way to the rear of the mortuary...

Creeping silently he tried to catch a glimpse of the man's face. The sky had darkened, and a spellbinding blueish light carresed the clouds, as if nature knew of the dangerous situation that he was in, and was setting the lighting for the scene, as though he was taking part in a great play. The wind had ceased, and even the birds had quietened. The anonomous man in the mortuary turned. To his horror, he realised.....it was his father, still sporting the rope, which had led to his death, around his neck....

"Thy Demons! Leave me be!" he yelled at the ghostly apparition of his father. His hands cupped his face and he slumped to the floor weeping. Memories of his life passed before his eyes: the miserable mud hut of his birth, the pendulum of his dead father's body, the anguished cries of his mother, the death gasps of the men he had killed, the panic of lovers of both sexes who never came back a second time--and he counted the wrong turnings that had brought him back to this place, and he choked with self-pity and promised that if he ever got out alive he would become a good man. Steeling himself, he arose and slid onto the street. The town was silent but for the rustle of trumbleweeds, and still but for the carrion birds slicing the crisp purple sky. He moved down the street towards a ramshackle hut near the end. Once it had been his. He had bought it for her, and for their wedding night; a night in which he had left her panting and bloodied behind the bed-cutains, and been assured in his manhood by the guffaws of the old women as they inspected the night's work. At first, he welcomed the change of settled life. Her spicy dishes challenged him. When he mounted her, she would rub her calloused heels down the depression of his spine. And he liked the way she quivered with pleasure when he presented her with little gifts. He was fond of her in the way that he was fond of a loyal horse. But his restlessness grew. Her cloying domestic ways swamped him and drew him under. He feared becoming a patriot and a man of property. He spent more time away from home; always finding lovers for his bed. Often on sleepless nights he would lie and await the reckoning for his sins, only to remind himself that it was a man's destiny to be his own master, and then roll over with his conscience clean. One night he left, stopping only briefly at the door for a last look at her. Later he heard what had happened. His conscience troubled him, his rage grew, and he vowed to return and take revenge. No one destroyed what was his and lived. He approached the hut, pulled aside the cow-hide that was the door, and stepped inside. He tried to picture what had happened. The riders coming in the night. The terrified townspeople fleeing in their night clothes never to return. And his wife. The things they had done to her--and all because of him. He stepped outside. The carrion birds had settled and were shuffling for position along the wall, spattering the ground with ammoniac droppings, and anticipating the coming feast. The riders knew he had returned. And they would come for him.

"Thy Demons! Leave me be!" he yelled at the ghostly apparition of his father. His hands cupped his face and he slumped to the floor weeping. Memories of his life passed before his eyes: the miserable mud hut of his birth, the pendulum of his dead father's body, the anguished cries of his mother, the death gasps of the men he had killed, the panic of lovers of both sexes who never came back a second time--and he counted the wrong turnings that had brought him back to this place, and he choked with self-pity and promised that if he ever got out alive he would become a good man. Steeling himself, he rose and slid onto the street. The town was silent but for the rustle of trumbleweeds, and still but for the carrion birds slicing the crisp purple sky. He moved down the street towards a ramshackle hut near the end. Once it had been his. He had bought it for her, and for their wedding night; a night in which he had left her panting and bloodied behind the bed-cutains, and been assured in his manhood by the guffaws of the old women as they inspected the night's work. At first, he welcomed the change of settled life. Her spicy dishes challenged him. When he mounted her, she would rub her calloused heels down the depression of his spine. And he liked the way she quivered with pleasure when he presented her with little gifts. He was fond of her in the way that he was fond of a loyal horse. But his restlessness grew. Her cloying domestic ways swamped him and drew him under. He feared becoming a patriot and a man of property. He spent more time away from home; always finding lovers for his bed. Often on sleepless nights he would lie and await the reckoning for his sins, only to remind himself that it was a man's destiny to be his own master, and then roll over with his conscience clean. One night he left, stopping only briefly at the door for a last look at her. Later he heard what had happened. His conscience troubled him, his rage grew, and he vowed to return and take revenge. No one destroyed what was his and lived. He approached the hut, pulled aside the cow-hide that was the door, and stepped inside. He tried to picture what had happened. The riders coming in the night. The terrified townspeople fleeing in their night clothes never to return. And his wife. The things they had done to her--and all because of him. He stepped outside. The carrion birds had settled and were shuffling for position along the wall, spattering the ground with ammoniac droppings, and anticipating the coming feast. The riders knew he had returned. And they would come for him.

"Thy Demons! Leave me be!" he yelled at the ghostly apparition of his father. His hands cupped his face and he slumped to the floor weeping. Memories of his life passed before his eyes: the miserable mud hut of his birth, the pendulum of his dead father's body, the anguished cries of his mother, the death gasps of the men he had killed, the panic of lovers of both sexes who never came back a second time--and he counted the wrong turnings that had brought him back to this place, and he choked with self-pity and promised that if he ever got out alive he would become a good man. Steeling himself, he rose and slid onto the street. The town was silent but for the rustle of trumbleweeds, and still but for the carrion birds slicing the crisp purple sky. He moved down the street towards a ramshackle hut near the end. Once it had been his. He had bought it for her, and for their wedding night; a night in which he had left her panting and bloodied behind the bed-cutains, and been assured in his manhood by the guffaws of the old women as they inspected the night's work. At first, he welcomed the change of settled life. Her spicy dishes challenged him. When he mounted her, she would rub her calloused heels down the depression of his spine. And he liked the way she quivered with pleasure when he presented her with little gifts. He was fond of her in the way that he was fond of a loyal horse. But his restlessness grew. Her cloying domestic ways swamped him and drew him under. He feared becoming a patriot and a man of property. He spent more time away from home; always finding lovers for his bed. Often on sleepless nights he would lie and await the reckoning for his sins, only to remind himself that it was a man's destiny to be his own master, and then roll over with his conscience clean. One night he left, stopping only briefly at the door for a last look at her. Later he heard what had happened. His conscience troubled him, his rage grew, and he vowed to return and take revenge. No one destroyed what was his and lived. He approached the hut, pulled aside the cow-hide that was the door, and stepped inside. He tried to picture what had happened. The riders coming in the night. The terrified townspeople fleeing in their night clothes never to return. And his wife. The things they had done to her--and all because of him. He stepped outside. The carrion birds had settled and were shuffling for position along the wall, spattering the ground with ammoniac droppings, and anticipating the coming feast. The riders knew he had returned. And they would come for him.

He shook his head in confusion. It occured to him that he had just relived the past 15 years of his three times in a succession. It was painful the first couple times, but by the third he was practically desensitized. The events repeated once more and he realized that he no longer really gave a flying fuck about the stupid whore, his half-wit father or the incessant voices which haunted his dreams, and most recently, his waking hours. Yes, our hero was cracking up, or as some might call it, seeing the light. He found that he no longer felt times to that which caused him pain. In fact he felt no ties to anything which made any sense to him his entire life. Find sense had only distracted him from sensations, which he now felt in his heart of hearts was the true link to happiness. He felt a sudden erge to be naked in a natural setting........

...But this was the most unnatural of settings. He was suddenly overcome with a sense of incapacitating guilt. No, guilt was not the right word for what he felt. In fact, he felt no guilt at all, and that was what made it so much worse. His feelings sickened him, made him feel like he was no better than what he hunted. The thought of the Riders purged his mind. Their malevolence was unparalleled; no one could be compared with them. He could not continue like this and hope to defeat them. He knew it with the certainty of his cracking mind. He was slipping away, and the Riders knew it. Thats why they left the hanging body here for him... the hanging body... what hanging body? Where did it go?

Turning in blind panic he raced through the building. Searching for the body and laughing insanly he cried; "You can't scare me! You aren't my Father! Your just a piece of that chicken Tikka that isn't sitting right!" He knew in his mind though that the quip was only to distract himself from the reality....that his rotting corpse of a father had returned. What did he want though? As he run he got the feeling that his arms and legs were becoming dead weights. Limping heavily to a window, he caught a glance of the reflection. It was his father's!!! A cold cackle came form behind him, and he turned to see himself, only with his father's soul in it, and from the "man's" mouth came these words....

"You've come a long way to die today son." He tried to shake his head, but he couldn't move. He was frozen, his terror stopping him faster than any mere shackle. Suddenly his father seemed to grow, bigger, and bigger. His voice boomed through the mans head... "You've forgotten your past. You've forgotten your future." The ghostly apparitions face loomed a few feet away, it's features stretched and broken, distorted by it's enormous size. "I'll swallow your soul!" It suddenly lunged forward, mouth wide, and the man felt a sudden wave of nausea as he passed through it's lips. Darkness. He felt himself floating upwards through a sea of emotions. Suddenly he felt strong. He opened his eyes, and peered through black clouds surrounding him. Beams of hot, white light shot forth from his eyes, burning away the darkness where ever he looked. Soon he understood. The woman, the ghost, the town. All of them were a part of him, inside of him. As soon as he realized the truth, that this was all but a nightmare cast upon him by the riders, feeding off his fears, it was gone. The purple haze surrounding him suddenly expanded, then imploded inward, sucking him through the vortex of his mind, leaving him panting in the dirt, alone. No town. No ghost. No horse. He sat down in the dirt and looked around. He was in a small clearing at the base of a mountain. In the distance he could see a busy city. What city? Suddenly he laughed. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he laughed.

Was it the city of lost souls? The city of light? The city on the hill? One of those biblical cities he could never remember the names of? Timbuktoo, perhaps? No! It was none of them. It was not even a city. And he was not at the base of a mountain either. The riders were playing tricks on his mind alright. He found that lines of poetry, picked up over the years from literate men he had known, cleared his mind. He recalled somes lines from Arnold: "Like children bathing on the shore,/ Buried a wave beneath,/ The second wave succeeds, before/ We had time to breathe." That was it. That was how he felt. He knew that he had somehow to seize control and break through the waves that overwhelmed him. He remembered some lines of Coleridge: "A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear,/ A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief,/ Which finds no natural outlet or relief/ In word, or sigh, or tear." That was it. The waves overwhelming him were his grief for her. He found himself whispering some lines of Dryden: "How I have loved, excuse my faltering tongue,/ My spirit's feeble, and my pains are strong;/ This I may say, I only grieve to die,/ Because I lose my charming Emily." Yes. Her. His Emily. He was going to die for his beloved Emily. He was back in reality again. Everything was lucid--the town, his horse, the carrion birds shuffling greedily along the wall. He looked out across the desert, the roofs of the town silhouetted like teeth on a sawblade against the purple sky, and he could sense the riders gathering in the distance.

But what were they gathering? That was the question. "Excuse me," he called, "what are you gathering?". The answer rolled back to him, "Daisies. We're making a daisy chain. Would you like to help?". It struck him as a very kind offer. "Ooh, yes please!" he said excitedly, and galloped off to join them. When he got there, the riders all gathered round him, holding up their daisy chains for him to admire. "We're going to join them all together," said one. "To make a really, really long chain," said another. "It might be the longest daisy chain ever made anywhere in the world ever," said the last, before adding, "or even the galaxy." The riders went back to their self-appointed task with gay abandon, skipping from one patch of daisies to another. They worked at a furious pace, and soon, every patch in the neighbourhood was entirely bare. In vain they looked around for more daisies. There were none to be seen.

He sat with the Riders and they began to join the daisies into a long chain. As they all sat and joked and laughed, he began to look at the men surrounding him. They were all dressed in solid black and each had weapons. Odd, he thought. They shouldn't need guns to make a daisey chain. He turned to the Rider beside him and asked, "Why do you need the gun?" The Rider looked at the man sharply. "You can see my gun?" he stammered. "Yes, and it's a very nice gun, but why do you need it to make a daisey chain?" With that, the world again slid diagonally and when it settled, he was back in the street. They are close, he thought, it's getting easier for them to touch my mind. But what are they projecting through? Then a scuffle broke out amonst the buzzards across the street. One of them seemed to be berating the others. There, thougtht the man. With a streak like lightening, he drew the only thing he had left to him other than his horse, a beautifully gleaming, .357 magnum. Thunder echoed up and down the town as the large buzzard exploded in a shower of feathers. The others leapt into flight as the Riders' control was broken. He quickly threw open the cylinder on the magnum and reloaded the spent round. Now to find the Riders. He turned and walked back to his horse.

His horse was dead. At first glance, he couldn't see anything wrong with the poor animal, but on closer inspection, he noticed that one of the feathers from the buzzard had somehow pierced the eyeball (and presumably the brain) of his trusty steed. He patted the still-warm flank of his horse. "Poor old mare," he whispered, and opened one of the saddle-bags, in search of the inflatable shovel he carried in case of emergency burial situations. The inflatable shovel was the brainchild of a certain M. Wolthorne - a famous Scottish gravedigger - who recognised that people had an unnerving habit of dying miles from the nearest 'proper' mass interrment facility (cemetery, in layman's terms). The problem could hardly be rectified by carrying a standard shovel of the 'wood and metal' variety, in case one was invited to a dinner-party. Thus was the inflatable shovel born. Our unnamed hero unwrapped the shovel from its little bag, pulled the auto-inflation tag (like the ones that life-rafts have) and began to dig.

Having buried his horse, he once again set out after the riders. The buzards had flown off towards the mountains, so he began to walk towards their icy peaks. He estimated it'd be three, maybe four days before he reached their base, but that was fine. He needed some time to form a plan anyway. He couldn't very well just walk up and knock on the door, could he? Of course not. Besides, they had to know he was coming. "In fact," he thought to himself as he stared up into the dark mists surrounding the mountaintops, "They're probibly watching me right now." He shuddered at the thought, and continued walking. As fate would have it, he *was* being watched. It wasn't the mountains that had eyes, however, but the ground itself. As he walked towards the mountains, ever watchful of their massive glory, he failed to notice six sets of tiny green eyes watching him from various burrows in the surrounding field. What he didn't know, indeed, couldn't know, was that he was in the Meeps territory.

It was a very long way from the home where, at that moment, his mother was sitting patiently on the verandah, awaiting her son's return. "I wonder where she is?" the old lady asked herself, momentarily confusing her son's identity with that of the current Uzbekistani premier, Mirja Lukanovic - a formidable, dark-haired woman, with boundless ambition and a secret gambling addiction, which she had funded for these past three years with the help of her contacts at the country's top oil producer and exporter. Lukanovic had visited the town just two weeks ago, as part of her ongoing attempts to secure a second term in office. Her cavalcade passed the old woman's house. On that day, as on this, the old woman sat outside impassively, knitting a garment of uncertain function, for her only son, who was out there somewhere, in the wide world - a world which she knew only from the stories she heard on the radio. It was time for a cup of tea. Almost reluctantly, the old woman put down her knitting, and, leaning heavily on her stick, suddenly keeled over and died of a massive heart attack. But her son, alone in the Meeps' territory, knew nothing of this.

Knowing nothing of his mother's death, our hero's mind was preoccupied with the problem at hand (which little to his knowledge was nothing more than twinkie lights on the porch of Celeste's mountain cottage. Celeste put them up there because she's Celeste and can do whatever the hell she damn well pleases.) Shaking in his booties, he swooned and fell to the ground. He had mistaken the twinkie lights for a massive amount of rats which he feared more than your average Joe. It all went back to his childhood when his mother used to beat him silly and lock him in his room with his pet hamster. The hamster was caged, but there's no accounting for the whims of delerious highwaymen.

"The whims of delerious highwaymen," mused Amy, putting the book down on the railing and, barefoot, crossing the parquet floor to the refridgerator. Amy enjoyed feeling the cool floor against her feet, and walked slowly and deliberately, pressing first her toes and the ball of her foot to the ground, and then the rest of the sole. It was almost like she was on a high-wire and, instinctively, she stretched her arms out wide, half-closed her eyes. The refridgerator was close now, closer. She stopped, breathing deeply, to calm herself. The silence of the crowd was somehow worse than the thunderous roar which always followed her act. She could feel the lights, hot on her bare legs. Amy reached the refridgerator, and giggled, looking round to see if her boyfriend had caught her playing games: he was still in the shower. Then, a gust of wind blew through the flat, caught the leaves of the umbrella plant and tipped her book over the edge of the balcony. The pages spread open, and the book was gone. Amy swore, ran back to where she had been sitting seconds before, and looked down. A small man, grubby, was picking her book from the pavement. "Hey," she shouted, "Wait there!" but the man looked up at her once, and ran, tucking the book under his arm.

"Damnit" she swore. The book was gone. She threw herself angerly on the bed. By the time she could get some clothes on, and get down the stairs, and throught the front hall, there would be no way of knowing where the slimy bastard had gone to. Her boyfriend would be pissed. It had been his favorite book. It had been given to him by his grandfather. She stood up and threw on the jeans she had been wearing earlier. It couldn't hurt to at least try to find it, could it? She grabbed a t-shirt, pulled it over her head and looked for her shoes. A few minutes later, clad in her favorite Red-Wings jacket, and a pair a black tennis shoes, yelled through the bathroom door, "Jay, I'm gonna run down to the store, I'll be right back." Then, without waiting for a response, she headed down the stairs.

Be back? sure. Thats what she said. But did she return? No. My buddy Travis down in New Orleans said he saw her with her hair all shaved off, running around with some girl they call Frankie. She pretended not to notice Travis. But he saw her. He wouldnt have mistaken her. We used to share an apartment together, three of us, years ago up in Chico. I remember the first time I saw her. She was this dirty 14 year old drug addict staying at my exgirlfriend marcies house. I crashed there one night after a party and woke up at exactly 3:42 to find her painting my toenails green. I knew it was love from that moment on.

"I knew it was love from that moment on," mused Jane, resting the book for a moment on the windowledge, while she fetched the wine from the kitchen. The bottle was still cool, studded with beads of condensation, where it stood on the tiles next to the sink, just outside the prism of lemon sunlight that slanted into the room. Jane was getting increasingly confused, and not just because of the wine - she held it up to the light, and saw that she'd accounted for over half the bottle - but also because of the book. What had happened to the nameless hero, she wondered, and why the sudden transition from his story, to the life of Amy, a fictional reader, who then herself disappeared? All the strange meanderings, the tangential hysteria of the book . . . how could it possibly resolve itself? Where were the strong characters capable of pushing along the narrative? Just then, a falling refugee, who had stowed away in the wheel-arch of a Boeing and had frozen at high altitude, crashed through the thin roof of Jane's kitchen, and killed her instantly.

"Jaaaane!, Nooo!", screamed Joe as he saw building ruble smash right into his Wife. She was dead instantly and the only one to be held accountable for this freak disaster was lying flat on his back, looking half frozen to death in his bedroom. As he aproached the unknown intruder a strange feeling of recognition washed over Joe, but he couldn't quite place it. At that instant the intruder jumped up, yelling at the top of his lungs and Joe lunged across the room after him. "You killed my wife!" he screamed as he landed a solid fist into the intruder's chin. "Ow!" was all the intruder had to say while Joe tried to figure out what the new slimy material was that he had on his hand. Was it makeup he thought to himself, No it couldn't be. Then it hit him who this guy really was. "Do you know who you just hit? I'm David Hasselhoff, the most watched television superstar to ever walk the planet." Joe was stunned, "What the hell are you doing to my house, my wife, my..." "I was on a shoot for a new series called 'Skywatch' where I'm like a half stewardess, half pilot that gets thrown into all sorts of unlikely situations and solves them all in less than an hour." Joe made another lunge with his fist at the well known superstar, but tripped over the book and fell to the ground. He must have caught a piece of Hasselhoff because they were instantly both falling towrds the mysterious book. It seemed like they were falling forever, until suddenlty the hit earth. "Strange, were did al of this sand come from?" Joe asked. Hasselhoff was just as perplexed watching the Riders storm across the desert towards them. "Don't worry buddy, I get into these kinds of situations all the time. Just sit back and let me do the talkin..."

"Uh, hey," mumbled Hasselhoff as the hooves of the riders beat a loud tattoo on the dusty plains. "Hey," said Hasselhoff, as the lead rider brandished a long, curved blade. "Hey guys!" shouted Hasselhoff, as the riders bore down upon them. "H-" whistled Hasselhoff as his head was separated from his body with one clean stroke. Joe fared no better. The riders cantered on for a hundred yards before reining in their horses. "What say we go for a beer?" asked one, to nods of assent from his counterparts. There was one dissenting voice. A rider on the egde of the group raised his hand, "I can't," he started, "I've got to," he continued. "I just won't be able to," he ended lamely, and, acutely conscious of the whispers that started up behind him, he turned his horse and started for home. An hour later, having changed and showered, Oscar, the fifth rider, sat on his couch with a beer, scratched himself, and for the umpteenth time that week, wondered why he hadn't done more with his PhD. He swatted half-heartedly at a lazy fly. This riding lark, it was all very well, but the dust got right inside him, and the horse smelt of something unsavoury, and he was worried that the saddle was making him sterile. Worst of all, black just wasn't his colour.

Meanwhile, in a small pub, quite resembling the Athenian Bar and Lounge in Walled Lake, Michigan, save the fact that it was called the Musk Ox Inn, and was located on the outskirts of a small town in a world completely unlike Michigan, the remaining four riders discussed their companian's strange behavior. The current opinion was something along the lines of his being, in the words of Frobo (the youngest member of the group), a "Introverted piece of Meep dung." The fact that none of the group had ever actually seen a Meep, nor had any idea what Meep dung would look like, if, in fact, they produced dung, did not quench the disdain they began to feel towards poor Oscar. Not long after their fifth round of Keinehens the idea of punishing Oscar began to roll around. By the seventh round, it was settled. The four riders mounted their horses, upon which time Frobo, not yet accustomed to the heavy drinking of his cohorts, promptly fell off his horse. Amid the course laughter of the group, her remounted, and they rode towards the unsuspecting Oscar's abode. Oscar, meanwhile, was completely unawares of the other riders intent. He was, at the moment, much more concerned about the strange manner in which his livingroom wall had suddenly slid open, reveiling a strange glowing mist, and three men staring in awe into his living room. The four men stood staring, Oscar at the three men and the strange machinary behind them, and the three men first at Oscar, and then to the television beside him. "What in the name of Cthulhu have you done to my house?!" Oscar shouted through the mist.

Celeste's eyes followed the words on the screen... "meep dung? Hasselhoff? Oscar? What the hell is going on?" She thought to herself. She shrugged and hit the link that said "continue the story" and decided that she would talk about whatever the hell she wanted to talk about because she could because no one was there to stop her. Sure theyd all just crush her with a piano or sumpin in the next chapter, but oh well. She liked living on the wild side and all. As long it was make believe wild, of course. Something she said to AJ at Denny's at 3 am "Can you image how frightening life would be if it was real?" Aj smiled uncomfortabley. His life had been all too real for him to deal with now and then. He realized what a pure little girl he was digging, but way too pure for his hands to touch. He'd never reach her. She'd never understand his pain. She wouldnt even sit still long enough to talk. She was up and wandering the restaurant asking people if they owned the van outside. She likes shiney objects, colorful vans... you know...

Lakes at sun-set, cuff-links, coins. No-one seemed to own the van, and she'd asked everyone in the place. AJ watched her walk from table to table, interrupting conversations, carrying an edgy, unsettled kind of air with her that seemed to boost the volume in Denny's two-fold. When she came back to his table, AJ was quiet. Not unresponsive, but elsewhere, and Celeste wanted something else too, she had her wings on that night, and she wanted to use them. Back home, with the screen in front of her, she noticed the story had moved on in her absence. It had a life of its own. A fragile life, with a fluttering heartbeat, but still a life, and now it was inviting her to take it somewhere, to give it a home, or a place to go, or even just somewhere to spend the night. A couch to sleep on, or a road to follow.

The story, however, was impatient. Despite it's rather polite invitation, Celeste made no move to take it anywhere, let alone offer it the couch. In disgust, the story decided to take itself somewhere. After a few drinks at the bar, and a brief liason with a strange dark-haired woman calling herself his "little silver angel," the story decided that the time was right. Offering the hooker a drink, it picked itself back up where it had left off. "So, Oscar yells through the mist, okay? Suddenly the three men look over their shoulders, and behind them Oscar sees a Ravenous Bugblatter Beast come crashing through. The men rush towards the mist..." Suddenly, Oscar felt very twisted, and distorted, as if he were pulling away from himself. He could both see, and not see, the men coming through the mist. For a moment he thought he heard his wife Spence yelling at him, and he thought he could see the men sitting in front of him, but this all seemed to vanish, leaving him with the rather dismal feeling of being completely drunk and disoriented, despite the fact that he hadn't had enough to get a two week old kitten drunk. He had a bad feeling that he and Spence were going to miss out on something amazing, something profound. In fact, he was getting the feeling that it was going to be a very bad night indeed. The sudden sound of horses appoaching at a rapid pace did nothing to stave off this feeling of dread. The sight of the other riders coming over a hill, weapons drawn, actually made the feeling worse. A lot worse. Throwing on his armor, his cape, and his holster, he called up to his wife. "Spence honey, I think you should come down here. We have, uh... company." Watching the riders spread out in formation across his front lawn, he had the sinking suspicion that it was going to be a very, very bad night indeed.

Spence was upstairs, re-arranging Oscar's library of Douglas Adams and HP Lovecraft books. It was a chore which she took very seriously, and had, in the past, been a source of friction between the two of them. As her pale fingers flicked lint from the spine of a 1939 hardback edition of 'At the Mountains of Madness', she cast her mind back for a moment, and allowed herself to remember Oscar's wearying insistence that the books be allowed to occupy pride of place in the lounge. How she had come to regret her lack of defiance. She had yielded. Oscar's books were piled in the lounge, and grew, and continued to grow, throughout the first years of their marriage. And then came the accident. One day, while he was balanced on top of the step-ladder, adding a Japanese edition of 'So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish' to the top of the second Adams stack, Oscar sneezed, and disturbed the equilibrium of the entire collection. Spence, who was seated in the remaining corner of the room, had no time even to scream. As the shadow fell across her, she raised her hands to ward it off, but to no avail. She was freed a couple of hours later, but would never be able to walk again. From that day on, she had insisted that the books be separated into various silos around the house, and that she should be given sole charge of them. She had also nurtured a secret hope that, one day, Oscar would suffer as she had suffered. She heard her husband calling, and wheeled herself over to the window . . .

There are two versions of this story, both starting with the same post, diverging in totally different directions and later converging into a separate story. This is the first version of the story. You can read the second version of the story or you can read the converged story.