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From: faustus@ucbcad.BERKELEY.EDU (Wayne A. Christopher)
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: Re: Short story
Message-ID: <974@ucbcad.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 18-Aug-86 17:00:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.974
Posted: Mon Aug 18 17:00:53 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 19-Aug-86 08:15:24 EDT
References: <3180@ism780c.UUCP> <648@sdcc12.UUCP> <3213@ism780c.UUCP> <1279@ihuxb.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: CAD Group, U.C. Berkeley
Lines: 57

In article <1279@ihuxb.UUCP>, rft@ihuxb.UUCP (Tamos) writes:
> > In article <648@sdcc12.UUCP> st94wb@sdcc12.UUCP (wade blomgren) writes:
> > >In article <3180@ism780c.UUCP>, marty@ism780c.UUCP (Marty Smith) writes:
> > >> 
> > 	Our story so far:
> > >> 
> > >>           Alice Chalmers was a bulldozer of a woman, always pushing
> > >>      people around.  Wearing yellow overalls, she would often cruise the
> > >       streets of Laredo, walking up to various innocent persons and
> > >       making a "vrooom-gzshsh" sound before body-blocking them into the
> > >       gutter.  Then one day, the Laredo city fathers met in a special
> > 	emergency meeting to decide what to do about Alice.  It wasn't so
> > 	much her brutish behavior that bothered the townsfolk as it was the
> > 	dark fumes that constantly emanated from the back side of her yellow
> > 	overhauls.
> > 	     "Something must be done," cried Jerome Peabody, owner and
> > 	operator of Jerome's Fertilizer Emporium.  "She broke into the yard
> > 	last night and mixed ten tons of cow manure in with my new
> > 	shipment of bat guano!"  Jerome was a meat and potatoes man from way
> > 	back.  He always ate his carrots first, and woe be unto he who mixed
> > 	Jerome's carrots in with his mashed potatoes.
> > 	     A number of other citizens agreed with Jerome, each standing
> > 	in turn to speak his or her mind with all the flatulence of a
> > 	fourhundred pound naked hairdresser getting up off a naugahyde
> >	couch on a hot day.  One citizen in particular however, was 
> 	conspicuously silent.  With a sense of amusement, he sat in the center
> 	of the room listening to and observing all that transpired.
> 	     Following the meeting, several perplexed citizens quietly asked
> 	him why nothing was said.  Archibald Sawyer replied, "Well, it's like
> 	this.  I knew Alice when, when she was as sleek as a 'vette."  The
> 	questioners were in awe.  In the 371 cumulative years of existence,
> 	not one citizen could remember Alice in such a way.
                "Yes", the small but somehow *unnatural* man continued, "It was
        in the old days, when man was yet young.  Alice Chalmers and I
        ruled a universe.  We were gods, I say, and gloried in our power.
        Never since has such a..."
                "Oh shut up, you old fool", said Caleb Hayseed. "You're
        crazy."  He and the rest left the building, shaking their heads, as
	the small man who had recently held their attention writhed upon the
	floor making gurgling noises.
                As the men left the building a loud sound from one side
	drew their attention.  As one man, they turned and beheld a sight
	which few mortal men had seen.  "Shee-it, willya lookit that!",
	one gasped.  Then it went away, and they continued on.
		There were five of them, in the group that walked purposefully
        towards Alice Chalmer's house on the outskirts of the small town.
        There was Jerome, who knew his mind and spoke it; there was Caleb,
        who walked tall and surveyed the town as if he owned it; there was
        Mike Mulligan, a towering man with a iron jaw and a leather gut, with
        a sledgehammer for a left and a telephone pole for a right; and then
        there were a couple of other guys who I don't know the names of.
                "Well, here we are," said Caleb.  They looked down, and sure
        enough, they were standing on an expanse of calico cloth.  "The
        outskirts of Laredo."  They looked up, and there in front of them
        was a ramshackled old building.  Being careful to avoid the
        bad tempered but securely bound goat, they approached the heavy iron
	door...