
            DREAM FORGE Lite: The e-magazine for your mind!
               -     -

                 Staff: Managing Editor, Rick Arnold
                        Humor Editor,    Dave Bealer


             DREAM FORGE Lite is a quarterly compilation
             of DREAM FORGE(tm) ISSN: 1080-5877, which
            is published monthly by, and is a trademark of:

                            Dream Forge, Inc.
                    6400 Baltimore National Pike, #201
                           Baltimore, MD. 21228

                         President: Dave Bealer
                    Vice President: Rick Arnold

          dbealer@dreamforge.com or 75537.1415@compuserve.com
          ===================================================


Table of Contents:
-----    --------

Editorial: Domestic Enemies .................. Dave Bealer ...Page   2
DREAM FORGE Interactive - Changing the definition of "magazine" ...  3
TRAVELS WITH LESLIE- a serial of life, eat it. Leslie Meek ........  5
PANDORA'S DOGS - .... fiction................. Mary Soon Lee ...... 11
MELUSINE REVISITING - ..... fiction .......... Gay Bost ........... 18
Advertisement: DREAM FORGE Goes Interactive!            ........... 38
THE EXHAUSTION THEOREM - ..... humor ......... Greg Borek ......... 40
BENTLEY'S RECIPE - .... humor ................ Matthew MacDonald .. 43
GOLF, ANYONE? - .......... humor ............. Jim Rosenberg ...... 46
THE OLANCHA BEAR HUNT - 1st/3 .. humor ....... Bud LeRoy .......... 47
Advertisement: "TRUSS OF VENGEANCE" the movie. Dave Bealer......... 60
VIRUS VERSES - .........fiction .............. Lisa Morton ........ 60
ROADKILL - .........fiction .................. Jack Hillman ....... 67
UNICORN'S FOREST - ....... fantasy ........... Leah Suslovich ..... 78
LUNCH IN THE PARK ...... fiction ..............Francis Kaltenbaugh. 81
Book Review: ALL THE TROUBLE IN THE WORLD .... Dave Bealer ........ 85
Music Reviews/SPIRITUAL ADVICE 'N STUFF ...... Rev. Richard Visage. 86
Poetry -- for you and good too - ............. Various ............ 88
BumperSnickers Seen on the Information Superhighway ............... 92
DREAM FORGE - Advertising Rates ................................... 93
DREAM FORGE - Official Distributors Wanted (ODFD's)................ 94
- ODFD'S - FAQ's .................................................. 96
Legalities & Where to obtain DREAM FORGE ....  Editor.............. 98
Writer's Guidelines ............................................... 99
AWAKENINGS: Puritanical Gardens -- OP-ED...... Dave Bealer ........100


DREAM FORGE Lite               Page  1                 August 1995


                       DREAM FORGE Lite (tm)

                           August 1995

             Publisher:  Dave Bealer   (dbealer@dreamforge.com)

       Managing Editor:  Rick Arnold   (75537.1415@compuserve.com)

    DREAM FORGE Lite is a representative compilation of the material
    contained in three recent issues of DREAM FORGE Magazine.
    DREAM FORGE Lite (DFL) is freeware, and may be distributed for 
    any non-commecial purpose.  DFL may not be modified in any way or
    distributed with any other product.

    DREAM FORGE is published monthly at an annual subscription rate of
    $24 (via regular mail on DOS diskettes) or $12 (via internet email
    or BBS download) by Dream Forge, Inc., 6400 Baltimore National Pike
    #201, Baltimore, MD. 21228-3915

         Contact:  FidoNet: 1:261/1129  (1200-28800/V.34)
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                   Internet: info@dreamforge.com

         Copyright 1995 Dream Forge, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.
         =====================================================

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page  2                 August 1995

Editorial - Domestic Enemies
by Dave Bealer

Robert McNamara, who served as Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and
Johnson, admitted in his recent book that the U.S. involvement in
Vietnam may have been ill advised.  This confirms what a lot of 
people have been saying since the 1960s.  It also goes to show that
nobody is perfect, not even the people who run the most powerful
nation on earth.  In fact Johnson's successor, Richard Nixon, was so
imperfect that in 1974 he became the first President in U.S. history
to resign from office.

Vietnam and Watergate eroded American's respect for their govern-
ment, although there have always been some people suspicious of the
power and motives of Federal officials.  Recent efforts at gun
control have raised the paranoia level of those most worried about
their Second Amendment rights.  The deadly 1993 federal raid on the
Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas brought many of those
smoldering suspicions to the flash point.

On April 19, 1995 a car bomb destroyed a nine story Federal office
building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  Over 150 people, many of them
children, lost their lives in the attack.  Most of the dead were
federal workers, either civilian or military.  Like all those who
serve the Executive Branch of the United States in any capacity, from
the President on down, these people had taken an oath of office upon
entering federal service.  The most important phrase in all federal
oaths of office is a pledge to "Support and Defend the Constitution
of the United States against all Enemies, Foreign and Domestic."

Car bombings are not a new phenomenon, even in America.  Just two
years ago a car bomb, set by Middle Eastern fanatics, damaged the
World Trade Center in New York City.  Because of that attack many
people, including members of the news media, instantly assumed that
the Oklahoma City bombing had been perpetrated by Middle Eastern
terrorists.  This despite statements by Arabic and Muslim groups in
the U.S. condemning the attack, and cautioning against making rash
assumptions.  But this incident, the most deadly terrorist act ever
carried out on U.S. soil, was perpetrated by domestic enemies. 

The suspects in the atrocity in Oklahoma are ultra-conservative
fanatics who were apparently trying to punish the government for its
role in the Waco tragedy.  Are these paranoid people terrorists or
revolutionaries?  Most of them are pathetic losers who can't make 
it in modern society.  Whatever the real cause of their dysfunction,
they blame the government (really, anyone but themselves) for their
problems.  The government hasn't become any more perfect in the past
twenty years, but blowing up federal workers, their children, and
their customers is not the way to change things for the better.

The United States, model for all modern democracies, provides a way
to alter the government if you don't like the fit of the current one.
It's called voting a new one into office.  Many people felt the
system didn't work anymore, but in November 1994 they were proved 
wrong when voters gave the Republican party control of both houses of
Congress for the first time over 40 years.  That revolution will 
continue next year when the Republicans win the Presidency and the
(non-ultra) conservative agenda really starts to roll.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page  3                 August 1995

Americans have proven themselves quite capable of defending their
nation against foreign enemies.  Defending a truly free nation
against domestic enemies is far more difficult.  There will always be
people who oppose the government, no matter who is in charge.  For
all its faults, the U.S. system of government is the best one yet
devised by humans.  Those who use the system to change things
(including the system itself) are revolutionaries, those who attempt
to destroy the system are terrorists.  

Actually, the fanatics who set off the Oklahoma City bomb are guilty
of treason, since "levying war against them [the United States]" is
defined as treason in the Constitution.  Detonating two tons of high
explosives with the intention of destroying a government building and
killing innocent government and civilian personnel certainly qualifies
as "levying war," if anything does.  If the penalty for treason isn't
death by some very unpleasant method, it certainly should be.

Civil disobedience, up to and including violence, is an old American
tradition.  In fact that is how the nation gained independence from
its European masters in the 18th century.  America's Founding Fathers
tried to ensure that Americans would always have the means available
to defend themselves and their country, a very wise provision.  More
gun control is not the answer to the Oklahoma traitors.  Providing
and enforcing severe penalties against those who use firearms (and
other weapons) in the commission of violent crimes is the answer.

                              {DREAM}

Copyright 1995 Dave Bealer, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Bealer is a thirty-something mainframe systems programmer who
works with CICS, MVS and all manner of nasty acronyms at one of the
largest heavy metal shops on the East Coast. He shares a waterfront
townhome in Pasadena, MD. with two cats who annoy him endlessly as he
writes and publishes electronically. Dave can be reached via e-mail
at: dbealer@dreamforge.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------

DREAM FORGE GOES INTERACTIVE (tm)

             >> Changing the definition of "magazine" <<

                     Description & Organization

  DREAM FORGE INTERACTIVE (DFI) takes the concept of an electronic
magazine one step farther, making it interactive.  Delivered as a
daily series of e-mail or conference messages, DFI allows the reader
to continuously interact with the staff, writers, and other readers.

  DFI combines the features of the standard DREAM FORGE magazine:

         * Satire * Commentary * Fiction * Reviews * Poetry *

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page  4                 August 1995

  With features not available in a standard monthly magazine:

   =  Tagline of the Day -- new material for your tagline files
      delivered daily.  No need to wait a month for more great
      taglines!

   =  Who's Online -- a weekly list of celebrities appearing online.
      Updated daily as changes are announced.

   =  DFI Talk - an open channel to the DFI staff and writers.
      This open forum allows communications with the staff and
      other DFI readers.  These real conversations beat even the
      best "letters to the editor" column.

ORGANIZATION:

  DFI is delivered as mailing list messages to an internet e-mail
address, or as FidoNet-technology echoes to bulletin board systems.
Many internet gateway packages allow sysops to set up mailing lists
as public conferences on their boards, so operators of internet-
connected boards can make DFI available to their users.

Conferences are:

  DFI-MAG  - moderated conference that contains the professional
             editorial content of the magazine.  This is where all
             the articles, stories, and taglines will be posted on
             a daily basis.

  DFI-TALK - a public conference where readers can ask questions of
             the DFI editors, writers, or each other.

  Other conferences will be added as needed.  Topical public
discussion areas and moderated conferences for other types of
materials (e.g. photos and graphics) are just some of the
possibilities.

COST:

  DFI is available for the same low price as the standard editions
of DREAM FORGE.  There is no additional cost for internet e-mail
delivery. Sysops who want to receive DFI as FidoNet echoes will
be responsible for polling a DFI publication system for the echoes.
There will be no requirement to poll more than weekly, but the more
often you poll, the more often your users will receive new
information.

  Who? DREAM FORGE INTERACTIVE (DFI) is brought to you by the same
team that produces DREAM FORGE (tm), The Electronic Magazine
for your Mind! -- providing food for thought -- eat it!

  What? DFI provides the same satire, fiction, commentary, and
reviews as the standard editions of DREAM FORGE. It adds timely
information about the online world, such as which celebrities will
be online in the next week. Plus DFI offers the chance to converse
with DREAM FORGE authors, staff, and other readers in conferences
available only to DFI subscribers.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page  5                 August 1995

  Where? DFI is delivered to your internet e-mail inbasket as
mailing list messages, or to your bulletin board system as FidoNet
echoes.

  When? DFI information is released on a daily basis, with such
features as "Tagline of the Day." Articles and other features are
released as soon as they're ready. You don't have to wait a whole
month to get your next DREAM FORGE fix.

  Why? Because online citizens have consistently proven that
they're looking for more than pre-packaged information. People are
online mainly for one purpose -- to communicate with other people
DFI combines professional editorial content with the chance to
interact publicly with the writers and other readers. This interaction
takes place day-to-day, or even hour-to-hour; you don't have to wait
to read a "letters to the editor" section a few months from now.
=====================================================================
                               {DREAM}



(Note: Leslie's adventures will be serialized in future issues.)

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
TRAVELS WITH LESLIE
  by Leslie Meek
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Adventure Continues,
Part 5, (XIII, XIV)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Travels With Leslie
August 28, 1993

  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA -- Las Vegas is just like buttermilk. Either
you love it or you hate it.

  No one, it seems, can maintain a blase attitude while visiting
this plastic, soulless city of obsessions. The glaring neon lights
burn as a 24-hour reminder of the city's false promises and its
founder's ultimate arrogance. Those who turned on the switches for
the first and last time did so assuming they could deceive a human
being's innate ability to distinguish the nighttime from the day.

  The illusion works for thousands of people who walk its casino
lined streets at all hours of the day, looking for something for
nothing. If they paused to consider who paid the electric bills, they
wouldn't be here. But they are here, hoping they will leave with more
than they came with from a city that takes more than it gives.

  I drove down Las Vegas Boulevard with a well-nourished attitude
problem. I was tired. I was hungry. I was lonely. I watched the people
on the "strip" ablaze with fantasy gone riot and forced back pictures
of the long, solitary drive from Corpus Christi. I was overwhelmed with
the feeling that, somehow, I had left reality behind, stranded in the
desert. I thought back.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page  6                 August 1995

  I had watched through my windshield as the sun set over the
rusty orange sand, yucca plants, and jagged out croppings of un-touched
stones. From my speeding van, it seemed the cactus trees were holding
up two hairy arms toward the sky and pleading with me to stop. Granted,
the neck is a bit too long and the head non-existent, but otherwise
the trees look remarkably human. With the setting sun behind them, they
stand as authority figures over the desert floor. But they seem to
become more patient and approachable when the light dims.

  At dusk, I pulled off the highway onto one of the million little
sandy trails that scar the desert. I bumped along through nowhere
until the highway behind me was just a tiny string of silent lights. I
turned off the engine and took off my Nikes. Leaning back in the seat,
I took my first real breath of air since my trip began.

  "Silence" is an unfit word to describe what surrounded me. The
desert whispers to those who listen. It hums for those who dream. I
knew only that I was exactly where I belonged at that moment in time.
I thought about my friend, Jennifer, sitting in front of a computer
screen somewhere, searching for a word that made some sense, and wished
she were with me. She belonged there as well, just at that moment in
time.

  When night falls almost all of the desert's creatures, both large
and small, respond to their instinctive alarm clock and venture out
onto the sand. This is their time to eat, to play and sometimes to die
around the watching cactus. They do this without thought. They wouldn't
change any of it -- even dying -- because this is the way it is meant
to be. Those who survive return to their crevices, holes and bushes to
sleep during the day; none of them with even the slightest expectation
of another night.

  As I watched the desert come awake outside, I began to understand
the difference between being alone and being lonely. This evening would
be all that mattered to creatures blessed with not having to know why
things were as they were. Some would find another of their kind and
copulate with no less passion than we do, yet, part happily and
unchanged. They do not fall in love, because love is not theirs to give
or to take. Love is a gift, given all of them as part of a plan none of
them would dream of designing or changing. They have only to share it
and live it.

  I realized that I was just another animal put here as part of the
same plan. As a human being, I differed from them only in thinking I
could somehow change the plan. My loneliness was a byproduct of this
arrogance. I had to be alone in the desert to understand that.

  I belonged there, just at that moment in time.

  I opened the door and waited quietly. A pack rat appeared from
nowhere and tentatively studied a bush some 20 feet away from me. He
circled it, then, satisfied, skipped off into the darkness. Soon, the
area around me was teeming with animals living their moments.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page  7                 August 1995

  I took off the rest of my clothes, grabbed my purse and some
blankets, and wandered out into the night. I did not watch my feet
as I made my way between the scrubs. I had nothing to fear from
creatures that crawl. Jeni wouldn't fear them either. We would call
them by their genus, Crotalus, and understand one another. Most of
mankind refers to them as rattlesnakes and watch their feet when
they walk in the desert. Our fearlessness stems from playing with
snakes instead of dolls when we were little girls and living with boys
instead of men when we grew older. We've learned.

  In the desert, they rattle first.

  I stopped -- when it was whispered I do so. Then bunched up one
of the blankets and impaled it on the needles at the base of a tall
cactus tree. I spread out another blanket and sat down. Leaning back
against the cactus, I listened and watched and felt. A gentle gust of
wind swept by, swirling around my thighs, tickling and cooling me. It
fluffed my hair, gently carrying strands and wrapping them about the
thorns above me. The sand underneath me gave way for my comfort each
time I moved. There was no competition among the crickets that
serenaded me and no jealously within the owl that watched.

  Hours later I was zooming along the highway, nibbling on what was
left of an apple.

  Heaving up and down over the bumps the highway was built on,
I was filled with a new sense of determination about where I was going
and what I was going to do. The cactus trees seemed to get smaller and
smaller; massive four-legged structures carrying power lines into the
city seemed to grow even larger. The van strained up a hill, then
suddenly, bathed in impossible light below, Las Vegas began lying to
me. A metropolis stuck in the middle of nowhere, it was a geographical
obscenity.

                               *  *  *

August 28, 1993


  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA -- I wonder if Eve would pick another apple
if she had it all to do over again.

  After I had left paradise hours before, I thought I was prepared
to go through with what I learned from the past to be a mistake.

  All of my new-found determination left me when I started fighting
the traffic on the strip. That's when the attitude problem ripened. I
struggled with the traffic for another block or so and then turned into
the parking lot of Caesar's Palace. I parked the van and took out my
laptop, the video camera, my smaller suitcase and my "escape" basket.
The basket is one of those wicker carrying cases crammed full of stuff
like books, poems, letters from friends back home, computer disks and
old diaries. I open it up when I want to run away from today.

  I put the computer inside the basket and locked up my van.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page  8                 August 1995

  The giant hotel and casino loomed in front of me. It was an
imposing building, all lit up in an impossible turquoise-blue color. I
lugged my baggage to the front of the place and asked the guy standing
there in uniform for a taxi. He raised his hand, snapped his finger,
and wham -- a taxi zoomed up and squeaked to a halt beside me. I was
impressed.

  The driver opened up the trunk and started loading the baggage.
He paid particular attention to the camcorder case. I stood there and
watched him. He reached for the escape basket.

  "No, I'll take it up front with me, if that's ok," I said.

  He opened up the back door and tossed the basket in. He stared
at it as I ducked into the back seat. He closed the door behind me
and walked around to his door and jumped in.

  "Downtown, please," I ordered.

  "Oh, you want the bus station."

  "Nope. Fremont street. Motels there below the Nugget."

  The driver stumped on the gas and we were off. He blended into
the traffic with a vengeance. It gave me an inner-sense of joy watching
him play out my resentments against the other drivers on Las Vegas Blvd.
Besides becoming quickly bored with whatever lane he was in, the driver
couldn't tolerate silence.

  "Fight with the boyfriend, huh?" he said, into the mirror. When I
didn't answer he said, "Usually, luggage means the airport. You here on
business or pleasure?"

  "Little of both, I guess."

  "Oh, I see." He was doing a bad job of hiding a smirk.

  As he zig-zagged over lines and between cars, I leaned back in
the seat and tried to relax. The people outside were all anxiously
casino hopping, hoping that the odds would be better next door. I
watched them and realized that I was really very much in the same boat.
I had come to "Sin City," as it is called by some, for different
reasons -- but I was still repeating the same mistake and expecting
something different to come of it.

  "I bet I could guess what your, ah . . . business is."

  I glanced at the driver and noticed that he had dropped all
pretense of concealing his thoughts. So I returned to mine. I wondered
about Eve and tried to remember if there was anyone else with an extra
rib that crashed into her life. Maybe Adam was enough. Maybe she
learned.

  "The video camera part of your business?" The driver asked, chuckling.

  "Well, kinda'. I . . . ."

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page  9                 August 1995

  "Wow . . . . And what's in that basket of tricks there?" He looked
back at me, leering.

  "You've heard of Crotalus cerastes?" I asked.

  "Ah, no . . . sounds pretty kinky, though."

  "Long, thin. It's got little tiny horns on it. Works the same way
the sidewinder missile does. In fact, cerastes were around first."

  "Wow. I don't think I get you. But, I can call in and take the
rest of the night off if . . . ."

  "The missile senses the infra-red heat from a plane's engine.
Crotalus cerastes senses infra-red heat too -- from living things. We
all give off heat," I continued, pointing to a single level motel off
of Fremont Street.

  He pulled in and stopped in front of the lobby.

  "Yeah, I'll say. I'm pretty hot right now, if you don't mind me
saying. I'm not a `Palace' guy, but I have some bucks. Maybe we . . . ."

  "It works perfectly in the dark. It's got a little pit in it's
head, right underneath it's little horns, that tells it where the heat
is," I said.

  "Cool."

  "That's why they call them pit vipers."

  "What the hell?" He spun around in his seat and glared at the basket.

  "Cerastes kinda' moves sideways in the desert sand, so they call
'em sidewinders. That's where they got the name of the missile."

  "A Rattlesnake! Jesus!"

  The driver hit a switch that unlocked the trunk and leaped out of
the taxi. He made the trip back to the trunk a lot faster than one
would have expected from a man his age. By the time I got out, he had
my luggage on the pavement and his hand outstretched for the fare.

  I know I wasn't doing a good job of holding back my smirk as I
stood there, staring at the back door of the taxi. I had left the door
open for him. The basket was on the seat. He followed my gaze.

  "Now, wait a minute, lady. No way. What do you . . . Jesus."

  I picked up my suitcase and camcorder and started toward the lobby.

  "Lady, what the hell? You haven't got everything. Come back!"

  I set my stuff down in front of the door and turned around,
folding my arms across my chest expectantly. I just couldn't resist
the temptation to buy some more moments. Opportunities like this do
not appear often in my little life story of mice and men.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 10                 August 1995

  "No way. No, lady. Nope." The driver was standing maybe fifty feet
from his taxi, carrying on a very intense conversation with himself.

  I walked back . . . slowly . . . and ducked into the taxi for the
basket. The meter read $9 and some change. I hugged the basket close
to my chest and started toward him with a ten-dollar bill. When he
gestured me away, I walked back and dropped it on his seat. Neither one
of us would have considered a large tip appropriate.

  "I just love it when you call me a lady," I told him, as he
crabbed back to his taxi.

  I checked into a room with two twin beds and two of the same
oil paintings on four of the same walls. I tossed my suit case on the
bed furthest from the window and picked up the phone.

  "Thank you for calling the Mirage Hotel and Casino, may I help you?"

  "Do you have a James Clark registered," I asked.

  "Yes, we do. Would you like us to connect you?"

  "No, thank you."

  I yanked the cord out of the phone and got out my laptop. I plugged
the line into the computer, and waited while it booted up. Once I got
Telemate blinking on the little screen, I chose The Night Exchange
Bulletin Board and hit the enter key.

  While my laptop dialed my favorite BBS, I walked over to the window
and pulled the drapes. The bright neon lights outside were now out of
sight and soon, hopefully, they would be out of mind.

  I don't think much of buttermilk.

                               {DREAM}

  (Get the next issue of DREAM FORGE to follow the continuing saga.)

Copyright 1995 Leslie Meek, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Leslie has been searching and in her travels relates to us what she
has found so far. Warrensburg, Missouri is where the travels have
begun and there is no telling where her search will end -- if ever.
Perhaps leaving was her fist step to realizing -- she was *there* and
already knew. She's eager to hear from her readers and can be reached
via: U'NI-net's Writer's Conference and regularly logs onto  Crackpot
Connection (816-747-2525). She likes to chat, if you catch her online
-- tell her Rick said, "Hi!"
=====================================================================

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 11                 August 1995
                                                      
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
PANDORA'S DOGS
  by Mary Soon Lee
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  Ann lit a cigarette and slowly inhaled. The cheap tobacco
smoke scraped her throat raw, but the kick of the nicotine unknotted
her shoulder muscles. Ann leaned back in the chair, one eye on the
clock. Five minutes to four, almost time to go home. Hell, if a call
came through now, she'd ignore it.

  She took another drag on the cigarette, blew a smoke ring gently
to the ceiling.

  The phone rang.

  Ann turned her back on the customer service screen, and watched
the white curls of smoke instead. Two rings, three.

  "Priority call. Picking up automatically," the desk computer
said. Shit. Ann stubbed out her cigarette. Bad enough that the
computer could override her line -- there was no need for it to sound
smug. She forced a smile as the screen dissolved to show the customer.
Her smile slipped into a grin before she managed to control it. Where
had the man found that suit? It looked like a period prop for a movie,
maybe even manufactured from real animal fur. Come to think of it, the
man could have been a prop himself, metal-rimmed glasses pushed up
onto his bald head.

  "Simoco Limited," she said. "How may I help you?"

  "I want you to collect this . . . object . . . immediately."
He brandished a model 232 robo-dog, shaking it vigorously. A gash in
the soft orange synth-fur of the dog's head exposed a pale net of
optical fibers. The old man must be stronger than he looked if he'd
caused the damage.

  "If the unit is defective, I can order a replacement. We have
a wide selection of --"

  "I don't want a replacement. I don't want your sales pitch. And
I most certainly don't want this -- thing -- lurking in my apartment,
sticking its steel snout into my private business."

  "Sir, I assure you that Simoco is in full compliance with the
UN guidelines on reasonable privacy."

  "Don't treat me like a senile dotard, girl. The guidelines
are worth rat's spit. I know precisely what that thing's doing, with
its beady little eyes watching me."

  Ann took a deep breath and counted to three. Never raise
your voice at the customer. She glanced at the information highlighted
at the bottom of her screen. "It says here that the robo-dog belongs
to your son. So he's the only one who has access to its video logs."

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 12                 August 1995

  "Exactly! He's spying on me." The old man thumped the dog
on the table, and its bright orange ears wriggled in protest. "Now
would you please get rid of this thing."

  "I'm sorry, I can't authorize the unit's removal without your
son's consent."

  "Bullshit. You're the senior service representative on duty.
You can issue a recall whenever you feel like it. So shift your
backside and get on with it."

  Beneath the edge of her desk, Ann made a rude sign. Every so
often, one of these centenarians would call up wanting their unit
removed. At least this one hadn't started ranting about the Good
Old Days. Turning to the camera pickup, Ann gave her best saccharine
smile. "I'm sorry, sir. We only issue recalls if our equipment is
hazardous. Apart from a little cosmetic damage, there's nothing wrong
with your unit. Even so, I see that your son requested an auxiliary
unit as backup. It should arrive tomorrow morning."

  "Another one?" the man asked hollowly, all the energy seeping
from his voice. At Ann's nod, he sagged in his chair, his mouth
working silently. Ann bit her lip. The fragile kind were worse than
the Good Old Days brigade. Sitting there, his face all crumpled, the
old man reminded her of her grandfather. In the months after Grandma's
death, Grandpa would spend whole days alone in his apartment, staring
at a 2-D photo of their wedding, not even bothering to look up if he
had a visitor.

  The old man straightened up. "Please. Ann. I'm not asking you
to break the rules, just to bend them at the corners. All I ask is
a week or two -- find some excuse to recall the units for that long.
Please."

  Ann hesitated. "Why? What are you planning?"

  "To subvert the government."

  Ann's eyes widened before she noticed the corners of the man's
mouth twitching upward. "Oh, very funny. What are you really doing?"

  "I don't want to discuss it over the phone. Why don't you
come around and see for yourself?"

  Ann hesitated.

  "I have a few packets of Marlboros you might care to sample --"

  "How do you know I smoke?"

  He shrugged. "I scanned the files on Simoco's employees,
cross-checking with the public databases. You're one of the few who
opposed compulsory sterilizations in South America, and of those
you're the only one who smokes. I can't stand tobacco myself, but I
like people who don't just do what's fashionable. So, how about it?
Will you come over?"

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 13                 August 1995

  Ann bit her lip. For all his grumbles about privacy, the old man
had, had no scruples about poking into her background to try to
manipulate her. Contradictory and devious and charismatic -- and
that, too, reminded her of Grandpa, but in the years before
Grandma died.

  "Okay," Ann said. "I'll come."

                               *  *  *

  The transcity lines terminated half a mile before the old
man's address, so Ann had to walk the rest of the way. Even with a
robo-Alsatian tagging her heels, she didn't like the narrow streets,
fetid with decomposing garbage. Boarded up windows and discolored
graffiti-streaked walls loomed above her. The old man had money, so
why was he living here?

  Ann quickened her pace, careful to look straight ahead. From
the corners of her vision, she glimpsed faces peering out at her, the
whites of their eyes pressed to cracks in the buildings.

  The route-finder beeped: number 572. The old man's place.
Ann blinked. A yellowing brick house squatted between two plas-frame
slums, its windows picked out in fresh green paint. Despite the
building's age, the walls were free of graffiti. Puzzled, Ann pressed
the doorbell. "Mister Warnell?"

  The old man -- Mister Warnell -- opened the door. "That thing
stays outside." He pointed at the Alsatian. "Don't know why you had
to bring it."

  "I don't want to leave it on the street. People might --"

  "If it stays where it is, no one will bother it." Warnell closed
the door firmly behind her.

  Ann sniffed; there was a rough damp smell that she didn't
recognize, a bit like a wet rug, but more agreeable.

  "Through here." Warnell waved her forward. As they passed a
locked door, something metallic scraped behind it. Warnell grinned.
"Your robot's in there; I tricked it into a small trap. But first,
come see my dark secret." He wiggled his eyebrows theatrically, and
opened another door.

  Wet rug smell and high-pitched yaps assaulted Ann before she
sorted out what she was seeing. There were patches of brown fur
jumping around the floor at her feet, like miniature robo-pets, but
there was something wrong with them. Brown hairs littered the worn
carpet. Alive, the creatures were alive. Ann backed away, her throat
dry as sand, trying not to inhale.

  One of the things bumped against her leg, its cold wet nose
snuffling her. She pushed past Warnell. But the door was locked.
Images from school holo-vids ate at her: the plague, children with
their skin peeling from their faces, rats and cats and dogs being
hurled into the incinerators. Gulping, she saw Warnell standing there
calmly, letting the animals touch his bare skin.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 14                 August 1995

  Ann forced herself to breathe normally. If the dogs were
carriers, it was too late anyway. "The penalty," she said carefully,
"for keeping mammals is life imprisonment. But I didn't think there
were any left, and I certainly didn't think anyone was stupid enough
to try. What if they escape outside? What if --"

  "They're called dogs, and they've all been vaccinated."

  Ann shook her head. "No. When I was eight, I asked my
grandmother what animals were. At first she wouldn't answer, but I
nagged at her. And eventually she told me about the plague. How
tramps were shot in the streets because people assumed they were
infected. And the morning her mother put the cats out in a box for
the incinerator man. I'd never seen Grandma cry before. If there had
been a vaccine, people would have used it."

  "Don't be naive. The military had a vaccine almost from the
start, but if they'd used it people might have suspected they knew a
little too much about DY22 to be natural." Warnell held one of the
puppies in his arms. His thumb rubbed gently back and forth across
its fur, but his voice was harsh. "And, as one of the generals pointed
out, it was hurting our enemies worse than us."

  Ann's flesh prickled with cold goose bumps. "That can't be true.
Someone would have told the doctors --"

  "One of the technicians tried. They caught him taking serum
from the lab; a week later his name was listed as a plague victim."
His mouth twisted. "Hell, it wasn't all bad. At least there are no
more rats."

  Ann stared at the bundle in his arms, a little scrap of fur with
pudgy legs and moist eyes. It wasn't what she'd imagined: neither a
manic beast prowling for victims, nor the calculated cuteness of the
holo-vids. The vids never mentioned the smell. She'd have to do so if
she was interviewed: "Woman Who Smelt Real Dogs."

  One of the dogs bumped insistently at her calves. Ann bit
her lip. The vaccine must be safe; there hadn't been any cases of
plague in over a decade. She bent over and lifted it up. The dog was
warm and wriggled in her grip, struggling to free itself. "Woman Who
Held Real Dog In Her Bare Hands." Ann giggled, the situation was
ludicrous. "What's the matter with this one? It won't stay still."

  "Support it properly, and then pat it," said Warnell.

  Gingerly, she stroked the dog's back. There, it seemed
happier, its head lolling against her. Odd how satisfying it was to
hold it. Ann stopped that thought angrily, and set the dog on the
ground. There was no sense in getting attached to the creatures.
Vaccinated or not, they were bound to be killed. When the news had
broken about a laboratory in Switzerland that still had live monkeys,
UN forces buried the site beneath four hundred feet of concrete.

  Ann cleared her throat uncomfortably. "You know I have to
report this."

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 15                 August 1995

  "And there I was, erroneously assuming you had free choice."
Warnell's gaze pierced her sarcastically, before returning to the
puppy in his arms. "Canis familiaris, a species renowned for their
loyalty and trust, the first animals to be domesticated by man. And,
barring any other reckless criminals harboring disease-prone beasts,
the only land-based mammals left alive. Other than man, of course.
How proud you'll feel when you've exposed my scheme, how safe when
the soldiers eliminate the last dangerous specimen."

  Ann flushed, her fingernails digging into her palms. "That's not
fair. You were the one who asked me here. What'd you expect me to do?"

  "I expected you to have more guts."

  "You're trying to manipulate me --"

  "Of course I am! Six hours ago, that metal monstrosity with
its prying camera eyes landed on my doorstep. I never guessed that
Mark, my son, would do that to me. I'm out of time, and I need your
help. Please."

  "Sorry. There's nothing I can do. Now if you'll unlock the door,
I have to leave."

  Without a word, without looking at her, Warnell undid the door.

  Her lips pressed into a hard line, Ann marched to the entrance,
and let herself out onto the street.

                               *  *  *

  Ann knew she should call the police immediately, but she told
herself that it wouldn't hurt to go home first, have a shower. They'd
probably question her for hours, and then keep her in some hospital
isolation ward for tests.

  She stood in the shower for half an hour, letting three days
water ration course down her body. But it didn't help. Even the last
of her cigarettes didn't help, the smoke souring in her mouth. Each
time she thought of reaching for the phone, she felt sick. But she
didn't have any real choice, whatever Warnell said. She wasn't
prepared to spend years behind bars because of some old man. Dogs
were only dumb animals, less sophisticated in many ways than Simoco's
robots. Why did it matter what happened to them?

  Finally, she sat by the phone, pressed the emergency button.
A sunburnt man appeared on the screen, his uniform stretched taut
over his paunch. "Police, fire, or --"

  "Sorry. Mistake." She disconnected the call. Her fingers shook
as she selected another number. One ring, two.

  "Yes? Who's there?" Warnell had switched off the video link.

  "Ann Connor. Look, even if I wanted to help you, there's
nothing I could do. Right?" This wasn't coming out how she'd intended.
She tried again. "Suppose I got rid of the robo-dogs for a week, that
would only delay things slightly."

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 16                 August 1995

  "Long enough for a friend of mine to drive down to see me."
Warnell's face solidified on the screen. "She's a good friend, with
a large transport truck. She tells me she's found homes for forty
breeding pairs."

  "Forty pairs? You have eighty --"

  "Just so. You didn't wait to see the rest of my house. Or to
sample my cigarettes."

  "All right." Ann had the distinct impression she'd regret doing
this, but her mouth carried on by itself. "I'll come back over,
take your robo-dog away. But that's all. Okay?"

  Warnell grinned. "It's a start. Thank you."

                               *  *  *

  Ann sat in her office, waiting for Warnell's son to phone.
Every day for the past nine days, he'd called at precisely noon.
She took a final drag on her cigarette, and braced her shoulders.

  The phone rang.

  Gritting her teeth, Ann pressed the receive button. "Mister Warnell,
what a surprise."

  "Ms. Connor." Warnell, Jr., lounged in an executive water chair,
his scarlet tunic conspicuously filigreed with designer holos. "My
lawyer tells me that the two Simoco units are still on your premises.
Is that correct?"

  "I'm afraid so. Their diagnostic routines are --"

  "Don't bother to fabricate another excuse. At first I
assumed you were merely incompetent. But it's become clear you're
deliberately stalling. Unless both units are installed within the
hour, I'll ensure that you lose your job. Is that understood?"

  "Yes, Mister Warnell," Ann grated. Her blood pressure was
doubling, and her jaws ached from her frozen smile. "But if you
would just give me a little more time, I assure you --"

  "You have one hour. I'm confident you'll decide to cooperate."

  That smug, self-assured -- Ann flicked up the volume of her
outward transmission. "You pompous asshole. I'd rather lose my job
than help you spy on your father. It's none of your business what he
does in his own home."

  "But it isn't his own home," Warnell, Jr., murmured. "Under
UN rules I assumed legal guardianship on his hundredth birthday.
Purely for his own best interests, you understand."

  He clicked the disconnect, and the screen flickered back to
Simoco's logo.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 17                 August 1995

                               *  *  *

  Ann hummed to herself as she approached Warnell's house. In
the autumn sunlight long shadows flowed across the buildings, the
light piercingly clear. She felt as though she'd been turned inside
out, upside down. She'd lost her job, yet she was happy.

  A sheet of plastic shifted in one of the windows, and a boy
peered out at her openly. She waved at him, then jumped as a man
appeared beside him.

  "Ann?" Warnell leaned out of the window. "Come in here for a
minute."

  The front door creaked open.

  Cautiously, Ann stepped through. There was a wet . . . doggy
. . . smell in the hallway. Warnell ushered her into the single
downstairs room. Two foam beds were folded against the walls, a small
rusty cooker in the corner, but the place was clean. And in the
center, clutched in the boy's arms, was a golden-brown puppy.

  Warnell nodded at it. "Half Labrador, half the Lord knows what.
And this is Thomas, he's minding the dog while the others are out."

  "Hello, Thomas."

  The boy sniffed noisily. "Hello. Don't mind if you sit down."

  Taking that as an invitation, Ann eased down onto one of the beds.

  "Thanks." She looked around, noting the three hardcopy books
on a makeshift shelf, the neatly patched clothes.

  Warnell raised an eyebrow. "Not what you expected?"

  "No, I, that is, on the vids . . ." Ann stopped, unable to
continue while the boy was listening.

  "On the vids, unemployables are always criminals. That doesn't
make it the truth. Don't watch like a dope-dulled idiot -- think for
yourself." His mouth twisted sourly. "Not that I ever did."

  Ann sat there awkwardly, her cheeks hot. She played with an
object in her pocket, taking it out as the silence stretched.

  "What's that you got?" The boy gazed round-eyed at her.

  Glancing down, Ann focused on the little hand-carved dog with
its pointed muzzle. "The man in the antique shop said it was a
Border collie. Here, you can have it."

  "For real? I can keep it?"

  "Sure. I was going to give it to Warnell, but he won't mind."
She glanced up at Warnell, but the old man didn't respond. Ann
frowned. "Maybe I should come back tomorrow. Warnell?"

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 18                 August 1995

  He didn't react as she stood up.

  "Warnell?" She laid her hand on his back. "Is something wrong?"

  "Sixty-nine years," he muttered. The muscles bunched in his
arms, and he swung round. "Sixty-nine years ago to the day. I was
eating oysters in a French cafe when the lab director phoned,
priority message. There'd been a power surge, half the networks had
gone down, and several of the DY22 rats were missing."

  He shook his head. "I'd never had any qualms about our research,
thought we needed to maintain a covert strategic advantage. Arrogant,
self-deluded fool." His voice trailed into silence.

  For a minute, Ann couldn't think of anything to say. She
stared at the old man, at the boy crouched on the floor beside him,
his arms wrapped tight round the puppy. There was an odd pressure in
her chest, and her voice emerged thickly. "You've done what you can
to make up for it. Just standing there blaming yourself won't help
anything." She paused. "Besides, you're a centenarian now. I thought
that meant you weren't responsible for what you did."

  Slowly, Warnell looked at her. His mouth crooked into a smile.
"Are you calling me old?"

  Ann grinned at him, her throat too full to speak.

                               {DREAM}

Copyright 1995 Mary Soon Lee, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Mary, a Brit, is now living in PA, and has been writing fiction for
over 3 yrs. Her most recent success can be seen in F&SF May 1995 (out
now), with others seen in ABORIGINAL, GALAXY, PIRATE WRITINGS, and ON
SPEC. She can be found at: mslee@cs.cmu.edu
=====================================================================
                                            

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
MELUSINE REVISITING
  by Gay Bost
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  The birds had alerted him to what lay on the beach. Sea gulls
swooped and landed, only to rise, screaming, for the beach. He'd
left his glasses on the hood of the pickup and didn't care to go back
for them. He didn't really need them to see. They were for distance.
He'd bridge the span between what lay on the beach and himself soon
enough; an elongated lump of something, seaweed covered, more than
likely a dead seal. But the sea gulls didn't so much fight over the
spoils as fuss and announce to each other, in excited voices, that
something special was there. He likened the sound patterns to those
they made on days he scattered potato peels from the catwalk of the
lighthouse.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 19                 August 1995

  As he neared it he thought the seal might be alive. The
gulls danced around the body and chattered at it. He could imagine them
encouraging it to go home. The closer he got, though, the less sure he
was of his impressions. Whatever it was seemed to be partially wrapped
in a dark coat or blanket. "Dead body," he thought, "Junkie or victim of
life gone sour." It happened, if the tide was just right.

  His dread rose like bile, threatening to choke him. There'd
be the sheriff's office and the county coroner tracking up and down
the beach, banging on his door for coffee and answers he couldn't
possibly have. He wasn't fond of the new sheriff, great hulking oaf
with tobacco wadded into his cheek, constantly casting about, looking
for somewhere to spit. Not in his lighthouse.

  He stood over it and looked down, vision half clouded by the
thought of inquiries. They always brought a rash of questions about
a man who preferred to spend his time alone with books and machinery.
Like some bell going off in the heads of widows, divorcees and
spinsters, they'd remember, the women would, that there was a man,
alone, in dire need of baked goods and solace.

  "Now look what you've done," he accused the body. He squatted,
sitting on his heals, talking to the thing. Sand matted hair glittered
in the morning sun. It was, indeed, wrapped in a blanket, or the thing
was tied on somehow, a lightweight shawl sort of thing with bedraggled
fringe. Seaweed had woven itself through arms and around feet, wreathed
itself around the neck. He reached over and pulled on the covering,
rolling the body onto its back. Female, then. The blanket covered most
of her, seaweed the rest, but the unmistakable swell of breasts beneath
told him gender. He brushed the hair away from the face and tilted his
head.

  "Indeterminate age," he pronounced. He looked more closely at
the inside of one arm. No needle tracks. "Who knows," he said to it,
her. "Was life a bit too much for you, then?"

  The fingers curled, loosely, weakly.

  The shock set him back and toppled him onto the sand. He
caught himself on both hands, set behind him into the harsh grains.
He stared at the fingers. They curled a bit more, the hand moving a
fraction of an inch. He scrabbled forward and lifted her at the
shoulders, peeled back one eyelid. Blue gray and very much alive, it
focused on him as if she hadn't the strength to open it herself, but
now that someone else ad she could see. She blinked.

  He felt for a her pulse at her throat, wanting to know how
weak she might be, whether to call an ambulance or get her up himself.
She blinked again, tears rolling from her eyes. Her heart beat strongly,
though it seemed rather slow.

  "Well you're alive," he said. "Did you want to be?"

  She tried to speak. He could feel a spasm beneath his supporting
arm. He rolled her onto her side, though he thought she must have lost
most of the sea water while she was on her stomach. A patch of slickly
gleaming something lay on the sand where her face had been.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 20                 August 1995


  "Well, shall we dance?"  he asked, standing. He thought he saw her
torso shaking as he bent to lift her, seaweed, blanket and all. "I'll
lead."

  He felt her laugh, then, a quivering, pitiful laugh released
to rattle through what must be a very painful throat. She'd taken
water into her lungs and kept it. Pneumonia would probably follow
her survival.

  The gulls scolded him, running alongside, screaming at him
from the air, hovering as he took her back to his world and out of
theirs. "You've made friends and influenced people in your stay here,"
he told her, looking into her face. "I don't suppose you'll get any
lighter as we go along, though."  She'd already acquired ten pounds.

  His arms ached by the time he got her to the pickup and set
her on the tailgate. He propped her there against a barrel and went
into the shed, seeking an old coffee cup he knew was there, and water.

  He returned to find her head slumped forward onto her chest, the
fingers of one hand tangled in seaweed. He lifted her chin with one
hand and put the cup to her lips, carefully tilting and wetting her
mouth. He eyes flew open. She had decided she would live, it seemed.
She sipped, slowly, licking her cracked lips often, stopping to
swallow in obvious pain, sipping again.

  "I'll call into town and get you some help," he told her when she
seemed revived enough to hold herself erect and help him hold the cup.

  Her fingers racked across the back of his hand, and "No," she
whispered harshly. "No."  She frowned. He looked into the eyes so
like a cold morning sea seen at a distance. She didn't plead. She
didn't beg. She instructed. 'No'.

  His own brow furrowed, multiple lines in his high forehead. "Hmm,"
was all he said. She finished the cup of water, looking over its edge
at him, sip after slow sip, seeming to know what she was about.
"Shall I call a cab for you, then?"  he inquired.

  She tried to clear her throat, undoubtedly ready with a
scathing remark, but winced, instead. She sighed, an ironic little
smile shaping her lips. He nodded.

  "I'll get you some clothes. You seem to have ruined your gown."

  The smile grew.

  He shook his head and turned toward the lighthouse.

  "Towel," she croaked, her hand at her throat. She was picking
sea weed from her blanket wrap with the other.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 21                 August 1995

  "But of course."  Fortunately he kept a set of work clothes in the
cabinet just inside the door. Unfortunately, there were no towels. The
bathroom was in his living quarters one level up. He hadn't realized
how much the burdened trek back up the beach had cost his legs until
he took the stairs two at a time. He stopped at the first landing and
massaged his calves, thinking, wondering if he'd lost his mind. He
fully intended to deposit the woman on the cot he kept in the control
room, fully intended to drag it down from that elevation and ensconce
her in his living quarters. But not until she'd shed some of her
dirt. That being his main concern, he filled a plastic bucket with
warm water from the kitchen sink while he went to get the towel.

  She'd managed to loose most of the larger strands of seaweed. They
littered the tailgate. She'd pulled her hair out of her face and
tucked some of the matted strands behind her ears. She'd also untied
or otherwise unfastened the blanket. She had been, of course, quite
naked beneath it. He looked away, watching his feet, watching the
water steam and slosh in t he bucket. He hadn't expected to come back
and find her sitting primly in lace and woolen skirts, but the sight
of her sitting upright, shoulders squared, healthy chest bared ass he
brushed sand from herself, stirred him. It was the shock, of course.
That, or nights dreaming of a woman coming to him from the sea. He
lifted the bucket onto the tailgate and handed her the towel, pointedly
looking at her face.

  She extended her hand to him, palm down, expecting something
his mind could not, at present deal with. He looked at the hand. She
rolled her eyes, a sign her interpreted as exasperation, and took hold
of his forearm, jiggling forward to get down from her perch. The jiggling
didn't help. She jiggled quite nicely. He assisted her, then, her hand
grasping his arm tightly, depending on him to support her weight as she
dismounted. She stood, braced against the edge of the tailgate, firm
thighs suddenly long and shapely, the blanket abandoned totally.

  She lifted her face and croaked, her voice sounding a
bit stronger, "Will you play mother?"

  "What?"  He was at a loss.

  "Pour," she instructed, stretching her neck and tilting her
head upward.

  "Of course. Sorry."  Lifting the bucket he doused her with half
the contents, watching her move her hands swiftly over her body. She
turned, then, presenting him with a previously unseen view. There
were marks on her back, a waffling, as if she'd lain on some kind of
grate and been bruised just beneath the skin. He poured again,
watching the muscles in her back move as she lifted her arms and ran
her hands through her hair. She picked the drop splattered towel up
and applied it to her hair. He warred with himself, then, wanting
desperately to watch her jiggle from the front and needing very much
not to take his eyes from the view of her rear.

  "You've been injured," he managed to say, swallowing suddenly
and discovering he hadn't done that in a while.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 22                 August 1995

  "You should see the other guy," she said. She turned and handed
him the towel, plucking the shirt he had brought off of his shoulder
where he'd draped it. She buttoned it with trembling fingers, obviously
at her end. "Now what?"  Each time she spoke she swallowed hard and
winced.

  "Breakfast, madam?"  he asked, recovering, extending his arm in a
gentlemanly manner.

  "Coffee?"  Surprised at her tone, he angled his head to look into
her face. There had been a desperate plea in that voice.

  "Pots and pots of it," he assured her. "And only one flight of
stairs."

  She groaned and stepped away from the tailgate. Her knees buckled.
He caught her, an arm wrapped around her waist, tightly. She smiled,
ruefully, up at him.

  He found himself gazing into her eyes, aware of her having spoken,
but lost as to what she'd asked. She waited, expectant. She winced as
she prepared to repeat her question. "Bathroom?"  she prompted.

  "Ah," he exclaimed and supplied the information.

  She rose slowly, but on her own, and left the table. A cup of coffee,
steaming, sat before her next a nibbled piece of toast. He looked at
his own cup, held tightly between both hands, and swallowed audibly.
He didn't remember coming up the stairs, pouring coffee, making toast,
or seating her at the table. The cup in his own hands was half full.
He stared into it as if the lost time would be revealed to him within
it's depths. She took sugar, no cream. Or she had, today, for the
energy. There was a hard lump in his throat.

  Behind him the bathroom door closed. In the silence he heard the
light switch being flipped. The shower door creaked open and the
water began to beat against the enclosure walls. He remained still,
hearing everything. There was a sense of waiting, a calm before a
storm, perhaps, but unlike any he had known before. He had a sudden
urge to bolt up the stairs to the watch room and scan the weather
reports. He felt certain something should be happening, something was
missing.

  She seemed to take an unusual amount of time in the shower. He grew
concerned that she had passed out. He thought he would go to the door
and call to her, but found himself unable to do so, unable to do
little more than stare into his coffee, waiting. He occupied himself
with thoughts of work, of routine chores awaiting his attention, of
logging in to the forecast channels, of storm clouds rolling in from
the west the night before. Yes, that was why he had been prowling the
beach; looking for storm wrack. It seemed he had found it.

  Suddenly, without forewarning, her hand was on his shoulder.
The sense of waiting lifted. With the speed of a summer squall the
swiftness of lightening striking a silent headland, he found himself
with an erection. The hand upon his shoulder applied pressure, as
she stopped to catch her breath. The muscles in his back stiffened, a
steel hard response to her need. The moment passed. Her hand lifted
and she moved to the chair, collapsing into it with a self satisfied
grin.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 23                 August 1995

  She shared her triumph with him as guilelessly as a child. In
her hand she held a comb, one she had found in the bathroom. Her face
glowed softly, clean. Her tangled mass of hair hung down the back of
her neck, soaking the shirt. Her arms lifted to her head, throwing
her breasts into relief inside the shirt. He swallowed, again,
knowing he had to get away from her before he revealed his own need.

  He rose, mumbling, "I have work."

  She stopped her struggles with her hair and held the comb
out to him, eyes gently pleading.

  "All right," he assented, taking the comb from her and going
round behind her. She'd made the mess worse, washing it, more than
likely scrubbing at it with vigorous movements. He closed his eyes
and imagined her doing that, breasts uplifted and jiggling with the
movement, all the while his hands touching her damp hair, dragging
the comb through the tangles. She sat patiently, enduring his inexpert
touch, her head bent forward. The ends had begun to dry and curl by
the time he'd finished, yet he continued. At last her hand came up
and found his, stopping him, gently.

  "Long time," she whispered, the harshness of her voice beginning
to smooth out.

  "Yes," he answered. "A long time."  He tossed the comb onto the
table. "I'll bring a cot down in a little while. There's a bed just
the other side of the bathroom. Get some rest. I'll wake you."

  "Thank you," she said, turning to look up at him. She looked like
she would say more, but thought better of it. At his nod she turned
back to the table, picked up the cold toast and began nibbling at the
edges.

  He set the coffee pot on the table before he left, knowing she
was still too weak for unnecessary activity. The shower had exhausted
her. "You clean up nice," he offered over his shoulder.

                               *  *  *

  She dreamt strange dreams and woke with a start, a cold sweat
stinging in the scratches on her back. She rose stiffly, wondering if
there was, at least, one muscle that hadn't been strained in her ordeal.
There were thick drapes on one wall, tiny slashes of light breaking
through where the fabric was worn. She wanted sunlight, wanted the day
to warm her, wanted . . . . She parted the drapes and found herself
looking at the sea through a window which occupied most of the wall.

  "It's a lighthouse," she reminded herself, and wondered what a
lighthouse keeper did. Surely there were electronics and mechanics
to operate the light. There must be a control room of some kind. She
imagined something like the bridge of a great ship. She knew nothing
of the area, knew nothing of fishing fleets or pleasure craft, nothing
of the people who lived this life. She barely knew the sea from which
she had come. There was a taste to it, an oiliness she found
repugnant. The gulls, though, she felt she knew. She smiled at their
eternal antics.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 24                 August 1995

  The tide was coming in. Something below had attracted their
interest, their avarice, some morsel the oceans had tossed up for their
amusement and now threatened to take back. A dead fish, perhaps, washed
forward to tantalize them, to test their agility and intelligence. She
felt the sea did that, especially to its inhabitants. There was a long
history of such.

  The room itself drew her interest. Books lined one wall, neatly
arranged, their bindings even with the edges of the shelves. A set
here, their even color and size somehow reassuring compared to the
riot of color and diversity of sizes displayed elsewhere. A small
desk, a comfortable chair, a table with a lamp and various personal
items scattered about its surface. The kitchen and bath had been
spartan, practical. Here, in his sanctum, were the signs of his
presence.

  She thought of his hands in her hair, the steady strength in
his arms and the consideration he had shown a stranger. Lonely,
perhaps. Lonely enough to risk the invasion of his sanctum? And then
she remembered the humor. She chuckled. Dance, indeed! She crawled back
into the bed, snuggling into his pillow, wondering what his dreams held,
what essence had soaked into the soft downy feathers beneath her own
head.

                               *  *  *

  Damned if she hadn't stripped! The shirt he'd loaned lay at
the end of the bed. She'd mussed his covers and pulled them loose
at the foot. Her hair spread out over his pillow, half covering her
sleeping face. She slept restless, evidently, sheets twisted and tucked,
a corner grasped in long fingers.

  He stood in the doorway, the cot folded and tucked under his
arm. It seemed a ludicrous thing of canvas and wood, odd angles drawn
together, poised to attack the floor space that was chosen for it. He
set it against the wall, meaning to put it up in the kitchen later.
He wished he had the key to Rob's room, then. He'd let her sleep in
his relief's bed and ruin his covers. The cot seemed so small
considering the way she'd sprawled and turned in the bed. He doubted
she'd be able to stay on the smaller piece of furniture.

  There'd been an advisory, a tropical depression threatened to
come ashore in the south, scattering its tempers along the coast to
invade his domain. He wanted his bed. He would be up most of the night
and he wanted his bed, now, for a nap. He watched her breathing,
watched the curve of hip and leg beneath the sheets from across the
room. He'd feed her, again. Cook something nutritious and wake her.
Soup. A hearty stock with meat and vegetables. He thought there might
be something made up in the freezer. A chowder. Yes. And yet he stood,
watching her breathe, her shapely arm stretched out, the long fingers
curled in dream, grasping at who-knew-what. She drew a knee up in her
slumbers, tucking it into her stomach. The resultant curve sent his
pulse racing. Damned if she hadn't stripped! He turned and nearly
walked into the door facing, demanding of himself, "Soup!"

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 25                 August 1995

  The rattling of pans would wake her, the smell of food draw
her from the room and save him the turmoil of bending over her as
she slept. He rattled and dropped, cussed severely in his agitation,
banging spoons and plates, envisioning her coming to the door, rushing
naked into the kitchen to see what was the matter. Instead, a drowsy
eyed face peered round the door, disappeared only to return, frowning.
A moment later she came out, the shirt buttoned to the throat.

  She went to the sink and turned the tap, getting herself a drink
of water, filling the mug she had used earlier and leaning against
the counter to watch him, silent.

  "There's a storm coming up coast," he said, standing at the
stove, banging a metal spoon against the interior of a metal pot.

  "I see that," she said, smiling. Her voice was a throaty velvet,
a lilt of laughter barely concealed. He felt flush. "Tonight?" she
asked, holding his eyes.

  "If it moves as predicted."

  "Who predicts the storms here?"

  Something in her question disturbed him. He scowled. "The National
Weather Service, of course."

  "Ah, I see."  She sipped at her water, looking every bit as if she
didn't see, at all. She took a seat at the table, sliding the chair
across the floor without scraping it.

  He left the spoon to rest on the counter, wiped his right hand
on his pant leg and extended it to her, "I don't believe we've been
formally introduced," he said. "Ethan Quarrels, at your service."

  "Melusine," she returned, lacing her fingertips in his palm,
touching the inside of her thumb to the back of his fingers in a way
he found both disturbing and highly sensual.

  "A stage name?" he asked, smiling slyly.

  "Pardon me?" She looked up at him with genuine perplexity.

  "The name: Melusine. Is that a stage name?"

  "No."

  He felt a chill sweep across his shoulders as he attempted to look
deeper into her sea gray eyes. He could have sworn they had been blue
that morning. "There's soup and then I'm to bed. I've brought a cot
down for you."

  "Yes, I saw it. Thank you."

  He returned to the stove, dishing up their meal, feeling something
trying to dig itself free from his memory. Her presence, her quiet
regard seemed to prevent that.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 26                 August 1995

  "Thank you, Ethan," she said, smiling, as he set the bowls on the
table and handed her a spoon.

                               *  *  *

  He stood on the catwalk, listening to the ever present pulse of
the sea, its life a promise. A solid bank of fog stood offshore 5000
yards or so, more a wall of security than a threat. He'd walked this
way a thousand times, a thousand nights, just so. That fog bank never
came any nearer. A slight chill alerted him to the fact that he was
naked, the cold metal railing a line of ice just below his right knee.
Something flashed along the shoreline. A familiar warmth spread
through his loins. She was coming. The flash was Her pendant, silver
nestled between ample breasts, bobbing as She drifted above the sands
toward the lighthouse.

  He knew Her face, knew ever line, every contour, every tiny
smile and frown wrinkle. He knew the scent of Her hair, the taste of
Her lips, the dewy honey texture of Her love. She came to him often,
here, in the dark, drawn to him, drawn to the lighthouse, by his need.
He was often alone, but never lonely, until he walked the catwalk. The
She would come. In eager anticipation he watched Her. She would look
up, soon, and see him. She would smile, brush the hair back from Her
forehead and crane Her neck as She blew a kiss up to him.

  And then She would run. His excitement would mount as She
slammed the door open, in Her haste leaving it open. He would run to
his room, fling the door open and find Her there, waiting, her arms
held out for him, Her thighs parted, Her own desire glistening in the
fog misted moonlight as it seeped in through the observation window.
He thought, tonight, he would run ahead of Her, not wait for Her to
look up. He left the surety of the rail and made his way back to his
bed, smoothing the sheets, laying himself upon them, his erection held
loosely in his fingers. Any minute She would come through the door. She
might laugh at him, but She would come. She might tease him over his
anxious behavior, but She would hold her arms out to him and drawn him
into Her depths.

  He stroked himself, once, just as the door came open. She
stood, long dark hair still adrift in the wind of Her movement,
laughing. Her eyes shone with a memory of the moon, delighted. Full
breasts rose and fell with Her breaths. Her creamy thighs whispered
passionate promises as She walked across the floor.

  Something jarred him. Something was wrong. He sat up, his
fingers still curled around his manhood. She'd never touched the
floor before! She smiled, strangely, unfamiliar curves giving an
impish character to the face. A face subtly changed. She came to stand
at the foot of the bed, body contours changed. She licked her lips,
breathing deeply through flared nostrils. She watched him, Her dark
eyes, too light, drawn to his hand, the hardness within it. They rose
to meet his, a question She had never asked before. He blinked, once,
twice, trying to get Her back into focus. She should flow to him, her
love a sweet fluid to quench his thirst. Instead his mouth was dry.

  His fingers curled more tightly, stroking slowly.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 27                 August 1995

  "Long time," She whispered, drifting to the window, staring into
the fog.

  "No," he said, not liking the conversation. "Come to bed. Come
away from the window."

  "There is a castle," She whispered. "I thought this was a
castle." She turned from the window, Her back against the glass,
Her form outlined by moonlight and the eternal fog bank. "Too long?"
She asked. "What have you done with the sun?"  She came to the bed
then, stood beside him, reached to touch the back of his hand as it
moved up and down. She leaned to kiss his brow, whispering something
he couldn't quite hear against his temple.

                               *  *  *

  "What?"

  "I said `the fog is rolling in fast'". Melusine stood in the open
doorway, her hair a wild halo of light against the brighter light of
the kitchen behind her.

  Guiltily, he looked down his own length, relieved to find himself
covered. "All right. I'll be right out."

  The door closed behind her. He stared at the solid rectangle, the
memory of a dream gone awry fading swiftly. He exhaled a breath he
hadn't realized he'd been holding and looked at the shrouded remnants
of an afternoon sun as it grew dimmer. He had no time to wonder why
his mouth was so dry, no time to think about the visitor he had taken
from the beach that morning, no time to dwell upon the unrelieved
tension which lived in his groin. On automatic reflex he dressed,
left the dream, left the room, left the strange taste of change behind
to tend to his job.

  Melusine sat on the edge of her cot, bare legs dangling comically
from the wooden bar rail. Her toes buffed the floor in little circles.
He paused briefly in his rush to tell her she could come up and watch
the operation if she had a mind, later, if she felt strong enough. She
smiled a weary little smile and nodded. The was an indefinable sadness
about her, but he had no time for that, either.

  The radio was chattering ceaselessly. Of course some fool had gone
out, gambling against the predictions, gambling against the storm, the
fog, the sea. His light, a beacon reaching deep into the gloom strobed
far past the boat's location, a visual guide for fools who took their
navigation lessons too lightly, forgetting where the land was. The Coast
Guard was on this one. It was early. Much later and this lost wanderer
would be left to drift while those in greater need and danger were tended
to. They must have been close to his location at the onset. Ethan scanned
the weather reports, the radar feed and the text screens.

  This was his most vital duty. Most lighthouses were fully
automated, requiring only maintenance and repairs. Most keepers were
electricians and general handymen. Many were students and part time
shift workers, the care and feeding of a tradition a mere part of their
daily rounds. But here, on the point, a relay station and weather watch
had been established. Here Ethan's special needs were met, multiple
talents utilized. Here he could recluse 30 days on and 30 days off.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 28                 August 1995

  The storm had decided to remain at sea, keep her tendrils to
herself and spread only temperature variables, creating the fog,
and keeping him at his station through the still night.

  Sometime in the small hours of the morning he was startled by
the rumbling roar of medium sized boulders being ground against each
other. She'd found the elevator. Rarely used, its routine maintenance
was often overlooked. The cables needed greasing, had for months. Its
basic operation was unhindered, but within the upright shaft of the
lighthouse the mechanical objections it made to movement were amplified.
The door opened upon a slightly chagrined woman.

  She'd brought sweet rolls and the coffee pot. She had them and two
coffee cups arranged on a large tray. He rose to help her with them.
"This contraption sounds like an old ship being drug along the deep
reefs!"  she exclaimed. "One of those huge metal rust buckets they
sunk after the naval wars were over."

  He noticed she'd taken some care with her hair, tying portions of
it up and back with kitchen twine. He settled her into an observers
chair and pulled his own nearer, suddenly revisited by the alteration
his dream had taken. Something in the shape of her face, the nature
of her attentive regard. He had almost named the differences to
himself when she spoke.

  "This is all so fascinating," her fingers fluttered like an
injured bird over the panels. "You're not alone at all, here."  Her
delight transformed her, he thought. She was quite pretty. Her lips,
quaked in childlike pleasure, only heightened his awareness of her
charms. She watched the radar sweep, enraptured. "These are the storm
predictors, then?"  She'd used her chin to indicate the screen, the
sleek curve of her neck brought to his attention.

  He'd thought her hair brown, but in the well lit vault of the
observation chamber he found rich wheat-colored highlights. Her skin
was rather pale, but he formed the impression that as the sun darkened
her skin it would lighten her hair. She turned blue green eyes on him
and smiled.

  "Yes, in part," he answered. "You'll have to forgive me. I'm
used to thinking before I speak. Having someone here, asking questions,
expecting a timely answer to a question is a bit of an adjustment for
me."

  "I understand," she said, reaching a hand out to him.

  He looked closely at the long fingers, the neatly paired nails,
the tiny bruises and scratches on the back of the hand. "Do you?" he
wondered aloud. He took the hand, drew his chair nearer to hers and
reached for the other one. One of her knees touched his, bare skin
against twill. He thought, then, of a three pronged plug inserted into
a wall outlet, the invisible force of an unseen generator surging
through the contacts of hands and leg.

  "Do you?"

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 30                 August 1995

  Her eyes moved in a slow circle, taking in his face, settling on
his lips. "Yes, I do," she whispered, the hush of a fog cushioned night
seemly part of her speech apparatus. She squeezed his hands, minimally
before releasing them.

  She curled her legs beneath her in the chair, a sudden shift,
like a bird settling into a rocky perch to watch, eyes blinking, head
turning at each flash of light or burst of noise from the radios. The
tails of the shirt covered her thighs in spots and exposed more in
others. He toyed with the idea of fetching her a lap cover and decided
to allow himself the view upon occasion.

  "Am I going to get an explanation of how you came to be washed
up on my beach?" He swiveled round to his keyboard, entering an
inquiry. A prolonged silence drew his attention back to her.

  She seemed suddenly helpless, lost. He considered it might be
an affectation but discarded that idea. Her lower lip twitched, once,
before she answered. "Do you really need one?"

  "Are you an escapee" A criminal? A wanted woman? A wayward wife
gone missing?"

  "I hope not!"  she exclaimed, chuckling. She jiggled, the tails
of the shirt riding up her thighs, slipping loose from where they had
been tucked beneath her.

  "And what am I to do with you? Granted, you don't eat much, but you
don't seem to be able to dance, either."

  "You haven't asked since yesterday, and, at the time, I was a
little worn out from my last partner." She gestured toward the open
sea, invisible beyond the fog.

  The great light stroked the density, silently moving on its well
oiled mechanics. "What shall I do with you?"  he persisted.

  "Are you afraid the townspeople will think you've taken a
sea-bride from the foam? Will they whisper about the lighthouse keeper
and the storm's waif?" Her body attitude was relaxed, her amused smile
conspiratorial in nature, as if they two shared a secret beyond the
ken of those who dwelt away from the constant pulse of the ocean,
wrapped in cozy fires and shielded by the gray light of television,
sheltered from the timeless disturbance of the wave.

  "There is that," he admitted.

  She sighed, a disappointment that he wouldn't, evidently, play the
game she had set for him. "Well, then, I shall be gone when the fog
lifts." She shrugged her shoulders forward in a gesture of dismissal.
"Just think of me as a stray cat come to your door begging fishtails
and milk."

  "One did," he commented, thinking she fit the profile quite well,
curled and perched in the chair, watching him watch the world. She
begged petting, too. "Rob took her home."
 
DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 31                 August 1995

  "Rob?" she leaned forward, ready for a story.

  "My relief. I do a bit of traveling in my off time. There's another
bedroom in the living area. I don't know if you've noticed. That's
the relief's room. He hasn't settled in as much as I have, but then
he has a home in the world, where I don't.

  "You, too, are sea tossed?"

  "My dear, if you only knew." He attended the boards, then,
suddenly dedicated to the monitoring devices. He didn't tell her he
was building a home even more remote and isolated than this solitary
lighthouse. He didn't tell her about families lost to the variances
of lives set at different paces and angles. He didn't tell her . . . .

  Once more her hands were on his shoulders. Both of them. This
time she didn't seek support, but gave. It was a strange feeling, the
warmth which flowed through her hands, trailing along his tense muscles,
falling like sheeting water onto his chest, warm and soothing, cascading
into his lower back and buttocks. Her hands moved to the base of his
neck, fingers stroking knotted muscles and seeking the loosening of
corded tendons. They found their way into his hairline, walking at the
back of his head. He heard her sigh outward, deeply, missed the intake
of breath that should have come, found himself waiting for it.

  Her fingers ran above his ears, pressing lightly in a pulsing
rhythm that matched his own heartbeat. He loathed the thought of her
stopping, needed desperately to turn and face her. Did she read his
thoughts, he wondered, reach the deep pain of loss, the longing, touch
the comfort of his dreams? The hands dropped to his shoulders and
held there, still, before moving downward onto his back. He felt a
restive sort of peace, like the moments, in his dreams, just before
his dream Lady looked up. She worked the large muscle groups, wide
ranging curves, kneading fingers, heavy pressure with the sides of her
hands, pulling grief away like a vine wrapped round a trellis. In a
moment, he thought, he would turn and pull her to him, indeed taking a
sea bride from the foam, at least for the moment.

  She tugged at the tail of his shirt, pulling it from his pants.
She pushed it up, exposing his back, laying her flattened palms just
above his waist, working tissue and muscles upward in undulating waves,
until a roll of fabric rode his shoulders. It was then that he felt
her lips upon his skin, the moist tip of her tongue centered as she
kissed the lower region of his right shoulder blade.

  He felt her breath hovering, awaiting his reaction, perhaps.
She took slow pains to rub fingertips into the place she had kissed,
tiny spirals dancing and retreating, before her lips moved on to grace
another spot. His groin was an agony of delight, his fingers still
on the panel before him, frozen, stolen from their assigned occupation.
The kisses comprised his world, the spirals imprinting them into his
flesh. It was she that stopped the magic, she that grasped his shoulders
and pulled him around, swiveling on ball bearings made in a far distant
world. She looked into his eyes as she stepped between his legs, her
fingers at his throat, stroking the hair which peeked forth. She began
to unbutton his shirt. He swallowed, suddenly dry mouthed, as in the
dream he'd had earlier.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 32                 August 1995

  "You've been wandering through my dreams," he stated, speaking
into her hair as she bent to kiss his chest. His hands came up from
the chair arms where they'd landed when she turned him. He touched
the halo of her hair, buried his fingers in the soft mass and willed
himself not to guide her head toward his throbbing erection. He had
no doubt she knew it was there, cramped within the cruel confines of
cloth. She dropped to her knees on the floor, her breasts wedged
between his thighs, her hands working the muscles of his upper chest
while he held her head. The warmth which emanated from her fingers
spread to his thighs, warring with the tension in his groin, soothing,
quieting, releasing a flow of peace into his lower legs and feet. As
it surged upward, a swirling rush of desire at his groin, a quickening
of his pulse, the radio squawked a call.

  Her fingers paused, returning him to his world. He removed his
hands from her hair and rolled back, twisting to answer. Coast Guard.
A lost boat, a request for a beacon redirect. He swallowed, grabbed up
a gulp of cold coffee and groaned. He felt her rise behind him, missed
her immediately as she left him, heard her footfalls on the stairs,
going down.

                               *  *  *

  He stood on the catwalk, his eyes closed as he listened to the
waves ride across the sea floor and crash onto the sand. A solid bank
of fog stood offshore, a wall which isolated him from unseen horizons.
He walked, as he had before, watching, waiting, wishing. The fog
seemed tattered at the moving surface of the ocean, a blanket just
lifting, or now quite fallen. A chill reminded him that he was naked,
the cold metal under his hands sending chills up his arms. He saw
something flash in the distance, something just coming out of the
water to fall onto the sand. Pain shot through his groin as she fell.

  He gripped the railing, wishing, willing her up, to him. How
had she come this way, injured, changed, her dark hair falling forward
to cover her profile as she lay on the beach, sobbing. He wanted to
vault the railing, fly to her, running, his feet a solid print on an
otherwise ethereal plane. "You're dreaming," said a voice, so like
his own he turned to look.

  His reflection stood, mocking, several feet behind him. "You're
dreaming," it repeated.

  He nodded, an acknowledgment, returning his attention to the
woman on the beach. She'd risen and was coming slowly across the sands
toward him, her face lifted, still obscured by the dark hair which had
fallen over it. She should brush it back. Her hand rose to do so, but
a gull swooped toward her from nowhere. The hand rose as a shield and
paused in mid air. The gull landed there, on the back of her hand, like
a pet. "Of course," he spoke, "she is Lady of the sea."

  "A daughter of the Neptune, submariner, mermaid, delver into
the depths of Atlantis," prompted the presence behind him.

  He turned, again, ready to confront what appeared to be his double.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 33                 August 1995

  The gull screamed. The fog rolled in, sudden, a mass as solid, or
more so than the walls of the lighthouse. He looked up with terror,
realizing the light itself had gone out. No, it was his vision, for
he could barely see his own hands as he held them up before his face.
The sobbing reached his ears, then, in that way fog sounds will, near
and yet so far away.

  The chill which had lain in his arms became a burning, a flush
of water too hot from the shower head. He jerked, awake, suddenly,
and sat up.

  The chill which had lain in his arms became a burning, a flush of
water too hot from the shower head. He jerked, awake, suddenly, and
sat up.

  Melusine was sitting cross legged on the foot of his bed,
her eyes nearly closed. The shirt, now worn for two day lay open,
revealing the creamy skin of her breasts, her belly, the insides of
her thighs. Her arms were braced behind her, an open invitation spread
waiting for him.

  He remembered then, coming down to find her asleep on her cot,
her back turned, her knees drawn up to her chest. He'd showered and
gone to bed, the morning sun just starting to thin the fog.

  He'd sat in his chair, considered reading until his head dropped
onto his chest, picked at the upholstered arms instead, irritating
himself until, in a flurry of activity he'd pulled a thread loose. Then
he'd drawn the drapes closed and fallen into bed, his fingers wrapped
around the semi erection he'd had through the entire shift.

  His chest heaved with the trauma of the dream, with her luscious
presence, with anger and confusion, with a bit of fear that the light
had truly gone out, or worse, that his dream lady was wandering the
beach looking for him.

  Melusine's eyes opened, looked into his, her face devoid of
expression. She leaned forward, closed the edges of the shirt and
got off the bed. She walked to the window and pulled back a flap of
drape, disappeared behind it, bathing in the misting sunlight. "What
have you done with the sun?" she asked, her tone neither accusing or
wondering, as if she read, poorly, from a script.

  He wiped at his damp brow and tried to clear his sight.

  She moved suddenly and violently, ripping one drape from the
curtain rod, tugging on it until it had fallen to the floor. Gulls
whirled outside the window, their cries muted by the double pains of
glass. She faced him, her entire demeanor demanding, "What have you
done with the sun, Ethan?" she hissed, her brows drawn together in
anger and confusion.

  "I . . ."  he paused, uncertain of her tempers, dismayed by the
change in her mood since she had touched him in the chamber above.

  "Night fogs and tattered dreams!" she threw at him, coming across
the room, flying at him on pounding feet.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 34                 August 1995

  "I think the little lady is put out," said his own voice from
the wall behind him. He twitched, jerked around and saw his own face,
enlarged, looking at him from the seascape above his bed.

  "Night fogs and tattered dreams," she whispered into the
hair on his chest, her head cradled there, her hands stroking his
belly. He grasped the sides of her head, lifted her face and looked
into it. Her gray green eyes reminded him of something, something
undifferentiated. Her lips parted, a softly tempting diversion from
the madness of his layered dreams. A tear rolled from the corner of
one eye, fell onto his chest.

  "Melusine," he breathed, the word echoing through the layers of
his dream.

  He woke later, knowing he had overslept, realizing he'd
forgotten to set an alarm. After grabbing up his pants and jumping
into them he took the stairs up two at a time, his legs seeming
endlessly powerful. He slammed a hand on the controls, reading quickly
in the bright sunlight, the report on the light itself. No problem,
there. Relieved, he took the stairs at twos and threes, searching for
his house guest, sure he must have awakened her with his dash through
the kitchen.

  He found a pot of coffee on the stove, still hot. An opened
carton of eggs sat on the counter next the stove, grease already
scooped into a cold skillet. Her cot was folded neatly, leaning against
a wall, the shirt draped over it. Something cold and heavy sunk at the
pit of his stomach, drawing his testicles upward into his body, seeking
a warmth they could find no other way.

  He vaulted the railing and dropped onto the first landing, his
descent so rapid he surprised himself when he reached the exterior
door and flung it open, flooding the anteroom with sunlight.

  Something fluttered near, screaming. He disregarded it, a foolish
gull come searching for scraps, others hovering, waiting for news. He
had become a refuge for the lazier birds. He resented their intrusion
at the moment, flinging his arms about his head and running onto the
beach.

  He must look a madman to her as she turned from the spigot outside,
dunking her blanket into a water filled bucket, twisting to look at
him with a slight smile.

  He came up short, at a loss for words, for thoughts. She stood naked
in his yard, his hospitality neatly folded in his living quarters, his
breakfast laid out, fresh coffee brewed, washing her only possession,
the ragged blanket she had come wrapped in.

  "Good morning, Ethan," she said.

  "You are not my dream!"  he yelled, startling himself, rushing
to her and taking the blanket from her hands. He flung it into the
sandy yard, scooped her up and carried her back into the lighthouse,
his chest expanding with the fervor of his emotions.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 35                 August 1995

  "I never claimed to be, Ethan."  Suddenly he held a crushed child
in his arms, the tears silent and bitter, pooling in blue depths to
overflow onto her cheeks. He stopped where he was, just on the first
step up, and kissed her, his lips a heated pressure against her moist
coolness. Her arms tightened around his neck, her back arched, the
backs of her thighs sliding against his forearm. She returned his kiss,
her tongue seeking past his lips, a passion brought to a life of its
own. The strength he'd held on the way up to the control room remained
as he carried her up the stairs and through the kitchen to his room.

  He laid her on his bed and bent to bury his face between the mounds
of her breasts, afraid to loose contact with her flesh while he took
his pants off. Her hands caressed the sides of his face, guiding his
lips to the erect perfection of a nipple. She squirmed, her hips
sliding over the sheets, her legs parting. His mouth moved downward,
tongue sliding across her belly, dipping into her navel, as he placed
his hand beneath her bottom and lifted her pelvis.

  Her fingers trailed along his shoulder as he pressed his mouth to
her uplifted mound, parted moist lips and tasted her. "Don't move,"
he said, straightening, undoing his britches one handed, the other
still holding her above the sheets.

  "I can't make any promises," she said, wiping a tear from her face
with the back of one hand while her other stole downward and stroked
the lush growth of hair between her legs. He felt the muscles ripple
in his hand, felt her buttocks tighten. He let her drop to the bed,
shoving his pants down over his hips, releasing his straining penis
to spring upward, kicking the constricting clothing away from his feet
as they dropped.

  Carefully, slowly, he knelt beside her on the bed, hands
stroking the soft skin, angling his body to lay next to her, petting
the length of her like the coat of some great sleek cat. She writhed
under the attention, stretching sensually to give him access to an area
she wished touched. His fingers crept to her mound, short, persistent
strokes, determined, finally parting, again, the hair, the swollen
lips there, to roam the slick moisture he had so recently tasted.

  His erection pressed against her leg, insistent, commanding. He
rolled onto her, covering her body with his own, his hips between her
thighs, his hands grasping her shoulders, his lips pressed wetly
against the side of her neck. Her wetness, spread, rocked against his
lower belly, slid, pulsing, there, in tiny movements. He brought
himself to his knees, loomed over her, bent to suck at one nipple and
the other, pulling them tighter and tighter across the firm globes of
her breasts. His groin, his lower belly, his entire being demanded
entrance. He looked into her face, asking silently, for the
immediacy.

  Her hips arched, feet pressed against the bed, bringing herself
to him.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 36                 August 1995

  She moaned, her head thrashing as he entered, the ache that was his
manhood slowly pushing past each soft barrier, tunneling through the
contracting passage, succumbing to the force which pulled him in.
Slowly he plunged, ever falling, ever soaring to her depths. There,
at her center, he rested, his slow climactic plunge finished, as she
bucked beneath him, her own rhythms carrying her into other worlds. He
gave a moment to regret the speed of his descent, yet felt a certain
pride in the intensity of her response, the abandon with which she
continued to thrust upward, seeking her own heights over and over, her
hands grasping at his shoulders. He held himself steady, realizing
he still maintained, at least, a semi erection for her pleasure.

                               *  *  *

  "She comes to me at night, from the sea. Sometimes during a nap,
if I have worked through the night," he explained.

  She lay on her side next to him, the warmth of her cupped palm
on his moving testicles, delighted in what she had referred to as:
"Full shift-work getting ready for the next order of supplies."
"From the sea," she repeated, thoughts racing behind sky blue eyes.
"Like Aphrodite or Venus."

  "Exactly," he said, glad she understood him. "And," he added,
sheepishly, aglow in her affections, satisfied, for the moment, by
her shared desires, "She loves me."

  "Ah." Melusine rolled to kiss his side, her fingers loosening
at his testicles and coming to stroke below his navel, "one may
not contest with such as She, then."

  "It's a dream, another life," he commented, careful of her
feelings, since she took care with his. He drowsed against her,
the only sound aside from their breathing that of the gulls outside.

  He felt her leave the bed and wished for liquid refreshment but
found himself unable to rouse enough to speak. He heard water running
in the bathroom and closed his eyes.

  It was the sound of the lighthouse door closing that woke him.
She was nowhere in the room, a depression at his side the only warmth
left of her presence. Lazily he stroked himself, rolling from the bed,
seeking the bathroom.

  When he'd finished he wandered into the kitchen, took a can of soda
from the refrigerator and ambled back into the bedroom, anticipating
her return. The noisy birds outside his window drew his interest, the
setting sun a bright disturbance he was unable to control, since she
had pulled down the curtain. He frowned at the tempers of women, the
duality of their passions, making a note to ask her to draw the
drapes, next time, using the cord at the side wall.

  He leaned upon the sill, watching the gulls swoop and soar, his
eyes drawn by one that seemed to dive more expertly than the others.
It had climbed very high, seeking whatever gulls might seek in the
heights, and dove with remarkable speed, zeroed in on a figure on
the beach.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 37                 August 1995

  Ethan started when he realized the figure was Melusine, walking
naked along the shore, sunlight gleaming in her tousled hair. The
bird dived, coming up short of her and hovered, wings spread, before
landing on her out held arm. Slowly she drew her arm down. With a
thrust she flung the bird into the sky, dancing upon the beach,
twisting to watch it ascend, a smile on her face, laughter but a
whisper in his mind.

  She was quite mad, of course, running naked along the beach. And
yet, there was a freedom there he envied. In truth there would be no
one coming along this beach for months, aside from Rob, who would arrive
in two weeks. He, himself, could thus cavort without fear of reprisal
from any. He paused, giving the thought some examination. "Now," he
practiced, hearing the townspeople in his mind, "the lighthouse keeper
has been seen running on the beach with his sea-bride."

  He smiled indulgently at the woman on the sand, watched as she
danced with the incoming foam, watched as she went deeper and deeper
into the surf, splashing like a child, her hands patting the waves as
if she were welcoming old friends. She dropped, dipping below the
surface, to stand, her hair streaming down her back in water darkened
strands which, from his angle, appeared as seaweed. He saw a flash,
then, a tiny light of pearl soft radiance just back of the crown of her
head. Perhaps, he thought, he had plucked a gem from the sea, a living
jewel to grace his afternoon.

  She dipped again, disappearing beneath a wave, the gulls gamboling
in the air above her position, striking out to sea, following her.

  Ethan set his soda can down and leaned into the window, straining
his eyes. He couldn't see her head, her limbs flashing in the waves,
the line of her passing. The gulls rose, one by one, each in their own
time, peeling of from their scattered vigilance, going to their own
affairs, as they, too, lost sight of her beneath the waves.

                               {DREAM}

Copyright 1995 Gay Bost, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Gay is a Clinical Lab Tech with experience in Veterinary medicine. 
From NORTHERN California, she's resided in S.E. Missouri with her 
husband and an aggressive 6 year old boy, since 1974. Installed her 
first modem the summer of '92, has been exploring new worlds since. 
Her first publication, a short horror story, came when she was 17. 
The success was so overwhelming she called an end to her writing days 
and went in search of herself. She's still looking. Find Gay's great 
stories in the best Electronic Magazines.
=====================================================================

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 38                 August 1995

                      SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
 =====================================================================
                    <<(*=--  DREAM FORGE  --=*)>>

                              MAGAZINE
     <<((*=--  The electronic          for your mind!  --=*))>>
 =====================================================================
 (formerly RANDOM ACCESS HUMOR and RUNE'S RAG)

 DREAM FORGE
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 then carefully blend the insightful commentary and fiction of RUNE'S
 RAG.  Shake well (it annoys the staff), and you have DREAM FORGE, a
 magazine for the brave new world of cyberspace.

      All FREE demo issues of DREAM FORGE are available via FTP:

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 YOU can easily have DREAM FORGE delivered via Internet e-mail,
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DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 39                 August 1995

 TALK to the Authors, Editors, and other Readers in the DREAM FORGE
 support conference. Available online at the Writer's Biz BBS, DREAM
 FORGE BBS, and The Virtual Word BBS.

 To order, fill out and return ORDER.FRM.


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 Software Creations (SWC), the giant PCBoard BBS in Clinton, MA., has
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 Type "STORE" to access the SWC STORE Door. Subscriptions are available
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 purchased online in the SWC Store Door.

 Type "J 291" on SWC to join the DREAM FORGE support conference.

    SWC can be reached by modem at:
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DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 40                 August 1995

    SWC is also accessible directly from the Internet:

               telnet bbs.swcbbs.com   (or rlogin)

 * DREAM FORGE is a trademark of Dream Forge, Inc.
 =====================================================================
 {DF Document: INFO.TXT}
 Other DF documents available:
 writers@dreamforge.com   DREAM FORGE Writer's Guidelines
    odfd@dreamforge.com   Info for Official DREAM FORGE Distributors
ad_rates@dreamforge.com   Advertising information and rates
   order@dreamforge.com   Personal Subscription Order Form
 olorder@dreamforge.com   Online Display Subscription Order Form
 odfdfrm@dreamforge.com   ODFD Application Form
 ==============================================
                               {DREAM}

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
THE EXHAUSTION THEOREM
  by Greg Borek
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Proctor: "You will have two hours to complete the midterm.
         Starting now. Good luck everybody."

John: "Eight questions . . . doesn't look too bad. OK, let's see,
      question 1: `Describe how the coefficients in the binomial
      theorem are related to combinations of the exponents. Express
      the theorem in concise summation notation.'  A little work, but
      definitely doable. That would be . . ."

<<<POOF>>>

Hal: Hi Bob!

John: "Whoa! Who are you?"

Hal: I'm an hallucination. You should definitely NOT have stayed up
     all night last night cramming for this midterm, Bob.

John: "An hallucination? How does an hallucination know it's an
      hallucination? On second thought, never mind! Just be quiet
      and leave me alone. I only have two hours."

Hal: Not so fast, Bob. Your exhausted mind created me so now you
     have to deal with it! Hah! This is sure is going to be fun,
     Bob!

John: "The binomial coefficients . . ."

Hal: Say Bob, isn't that a huge hairy spider climbing up your arm?

John: "Aaaaugh!"

Proctor: "Is there a problem up there?"

John: "No, sorry, sir. <aside> Don't do that."

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 41                 August 1995

Hal: Got you that time, Bob! That was way too easy! Whoopee! This
     is such fun!

John: "Where was I? The binomial coefficients are . . ."

Hal: Say, isn't that Patty LeBombshell in the front row? Ooh-la-la!
     What a honey!

John: "Huh? Oh, yeah, she is. I can't think about that right now."

Hal: I know someone who CAN, while you're too busy that is . . . .

<<<POOF>>>

Lust: Who woke me up? Oh, wow! Look at the hooters on that
      honey in the front row! I wonder what she would look like
      covered in strawberry preserves. Hmmm . . . .

John: "Who are you?"

Lust: I'm Lust, as if it wasn't obvious from my profile. I'm one of
      the Seven Deadly Sins you read about this semester in English.
      Let's see the others are . . .

<<<POOF>>>

Envy: Oh, I wish I had his profile.

John: "Please, I can't think about this now. Will you guys just go
      away? No? Okay, then just be quiet."

Envy: Ooh, I wish I had his command presence. Beautiful speaking
      voice. Not like my whiny little voice. It's so forceful.

<<<POOF>>>

Mr. T: I pity the fool that created a hallucination that looks
       like me!

John: "Oh my God! What part of my mind created him? What's next?
      Rosa Lopez?"

<<<POOF>>>

Rosa: Si?

John: "Aaaaaagh!! Will you people please shut up?!?"

Proctor: "Excuse me, but these outbursts are disruptive to the other
         students. Please try to control yourself!"

John: "Sorry, sir . . . sorry. I'll try to keep them under control.

Proctor: "Uh, what?"

John: "Never mind. Sorry. <aside>  Now listen you guys, you have to
      stop . . . ."

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 42                 August 1995

Lust: Hey, Rosa, honey, what are you doing after he passes out?

Mr. T: Where's the food? I pity the poor fool who doesn't cater his
       hallucinations! I could eat a dinosaur!

<<<POOF>>>

Barney: "I love you, you love me . . ."

<<<POOF>>>

Gluttony: I could certainly help you eat part of that dinosaur.
          As a matter of fact, I could probably tackle the whole
          grape flavored morsel . . .

Envy: Ooh, I wish I had his appetite. I couldn't even finish that
      huge hairy spider on John's arm.

John: "Aaaaugh! Ooops. Sorry."

Hal: Don't look at me that way. It wasn't me that time. Looks like
     you need an exterminator.

<<<POOF>>>

Terminator: Are you Sarah Connor?

Lust: I don't know her? What does she look like? Does she wear
      thong bikinis?

<<<POOF>>>

Kathy Ireland: Oh, Hi John. Could you help put sun screen on my
               practically naked body?

John: "Please, not in front of Barney."

Barney: I love you, you love me . . .

<<<POOF>>>

Michael Crichton: JURASSIC PARK was a good movie, no matter what
                  you say. Okay, so it wasn't as cerebral as the
                  book, but you have to "dumb things down" for the
                  great unwashed masses.

John: "No, you don't. I hate when you make that assumption."

Michael Crichton: It made lots of money, anyway.

Envy: Ooh, I wish I had his money.

<<<POOF>>>

The Baltimore Orioles: Listen, this isn't about the money . . .

Hal: It certainly is getting crowded in here.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 43                 August 1995

John: "I'm sorry, were you talking to me? I was just thinking there
      was something I should be doing . . . HEY, somebody get Lust
      away from Kathy Ireland!

Proctor: "Time's up, people. Please put your work on my desk as you
         leave."

John: "Party time! Hal, you buy the pizza!"

<<<<POOF!>>>>

                                {DREAM}

Copyright 1995 Greg Borek, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Borek is a C programmer with a "Highway Helper" (OK, "Beltway
Bandit" - but don't tell his boss we told you) in Falls Church, VA.
He has previously been mistaken for a vampire. Greg can be reached
via e-mail at: gborek@dreamforge.com
=====================================================================
                                                           
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
BENTLEY'S RECIPE
  by Matthew MacDonald
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Dialogue between God and man:

Man: So that was it, then. You made the Earth out of a dull old ball
     of clay and stuck Adam and Eve on it. I can understand that. Not
     very glamorous for an omnipotent being, though.

God (slightly hurt): I tried.

Man: Oh, quite all right. Don't work yourself up over it. A ball of
     clay and Adam and Eve, hmm? That isn't so bad when you get right
     down to it, you know. It's not what most of us think, but I can
     understand it: clay and some people.

God: Er, actually, I hadn't counted on that bit.

Man: What bit?

God: The people.

Man: Well, what did you expect?

God pauses, slightly embarrassed.

God: Bunny rabbits. I did expect bunny rabbits.

                               *  *  *

  "You have a lot of explaining to do, Bentley. Thirty thousand
metric tonnes of methane, just dumped on foreign soil. With all the
ammonia and hydrogen to boot! I mean, to start, you knew you shouldn't
go around casting our garbage all over other people's planets!"

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 44                 August 1995

  "There was no one there at the time." Bentley sounded remarkably
miserable. "I was under a lot of pressure at the time. Finish the
experiments, Bentley. Test the atmosphere, Bentley. Compile the
radiation spectrographs, Bentley. Make us a spot of tea, would you
Bentley, always Bentley! Did anyone else want to help dispose of some
organic waste? No-o-o. No one understands."

  "Disgraceful, it is. Just disgraceful!"

  "Your point being?"

  "My point is that you've made quite a mess of the place. You're
going to fix it up one of these days. How long has it been now? Five,
six billion years? And look what's happened in the meantime!"

  "Look, I've been back before and things didn't quite turn out so
well. All this fuss and commotion! I couldn't even make myself a glass
of wine without confusing the natives, far less clean the place up.
Maybe when I'm a little less busy."

  "And what are you going to tell them?"

  There was a long and awkward pause.

  "Come again?"

  "I said what are you going to tell them!"

  "You mean "

  "Of course!"

  "You needn't become cross about it. I don't think I need to tell
them anything. Look at what they've done in the meantime. Savage wars!
Unbridled malice! The whole universe is ashamed of this affair."

  "Well, it's your affair. If you don't do something soon, Bentley,
I'll bring you before the Galactic Court. I'll give you a few more
years to fix this up, that's all!"

  "The Galactic Court!" He sputtered his words in disbelief. "On
what charge?"

  "Negligence causing creation."

  And Algernon stormed out, not looking back with a single one of
his twelve-odd eyestalks.

  Bentley reflected. Algernon, he decided, was right. It was time
for him to come again. He had been twice so far (yes, Algernon didn't
know about the first time, but it looked like they needed a little help
figuring out those beastly pyramids). Now, what exactly had been the
problem the second time? He had been so proud of the simulacrum he had
brought down to the surface it looked so much like their odd forms! But
he seemed to remember some Judas fellow . . . .

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 45                 August 1995

  Things had not improved much, since then. Oh, there had been the
geniuses Newton, Einstein, Milton, Keats, to name a few. The curious
works of Chopin still delighted some of the eavesdroppers from quite
a few of the races of the Galactic Conglomerate, and the spacecrafts
these humans laboured to build were really a marvel, though they might
save a little effort if they had a better understanding of elementary
quanta.

  Since his last visit, though, there were spiteful wars, rulers
speaking hate, air seeded with venoms, forests ravaged . . . . He was
sure this would clear up before it was too late; they seemed to be a
remarkably adaptable race. Maybe they just needed to see where they
came from; maybe they needed a few more great men and women to lead
them on. Or a story. Maybe they . . .

  Maybe . . . .

  Maybe they just need to be told.

                               *  *  *

Man: I have one last question.

God: Go ahead then. What am I supposed to do, guess?

Man (sheepishly): Well, our bible does say you created everything.

God: Yes....

Man: So I was thinking.... Well, to start did you create the stars?

God: I did.

Man: How about the Earth?

God: That was me.

Man: And the oceans, and the mountains, and the forests?

God: Evolution gave me a little help, but I started it off. Are you
     going to ask me if I created Jerry Lewis, like everyone else?
     You know, these accidents happen; it's no different than slipping
     down a staircase or dropping your pen.

Man: Actually, I was wondering about quantum mechanics.

God: Oh. I don't expect I can help you there. Can't say I understand
     the darned stuff myself.

                               {DREAM}

Copyright 1995 Matthew MacDonald, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew MacDonald has managed to pursue his craving for creative
writing despite being raised by two English teachers. In his spare
time he dabbles rather dangerously in music composition and assorted
dark, supernatural, and long-forbidden magical practices and worships
his girlfriend (where time permits). He also immerses himself in the
classics of every genre, his reading endeavours spanning from Cyrano
de Bergerac to How to Win Friends and Influence People.
======================================================================

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 46                 August 1995

GOLF, ANYONE?
  by Jim Rosenberg
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

  People (read: men) get way too serious about golf. When I
meet a business client, the first thing I do is check for golf
related tie pins, poly/poly blend hound's-tooth slacks, and slippery
shirts adorned with elaborate crests and seals. If I spot a golfer,
I know what's coming next: the golf analogies. "Jim, you hit a good
drive, but I'm afraid your approach shot is in the bunker."
Translation: I'm buying from your competitor."  It's just as well,
because I am horrible at doing business with golf nuts.

  I dread getting fax cover sheets with some lame sexist golf
cartoon about a wife nagging her husband for playing too much. I
can't bring myself to walk into their office and see the plaques
and silly little statues with sayings on them like "I Like to Putter
Around."  And when I say, "No," to the inevitable, "You a golfer,
Jim-bo?" I get a look as if I've said, "No," to "You a male, Jim-bo?"

  Golf is a sickness, like alcoholism. I see little difference
between members of AA and the PGA. Both are fanatics who have sold
out their family for an all-consuming addiction; both get little
overpriced books of cute sayings for Christmas; and both are lousy
dressers.

  I do not speak in total ignorance. I made a respectable run at
golfing beginning in college. I don't know if it counts, but I would
frequently acquire a pleasant, low-grade beer buzz and head off to
Mike Rubish's Golf City in Durham for some "Par 3" with friends.
This was merely an excuse to drink more beer and eat stale Oatmeal
Pies every time we passed the Clubhouse, but it gave me a favorable
initial impression of the sport.

  The next time I took up the game was under pressure. My father
and brothers-in-law played golf on family outings while the women
churned butter and sewed doilies. I was invited to join. I didn't
really want to, but I thought it unwise to make my entrance into
the family as an allergy-suffering, snot-nosed, sports-phobic,
skirt-wearing sissy. I carry that banner with pride now, but back
then I was still halfway trying. Amazingly, my problem was early
success. On my first real golf outing, I did quite respectably. I
made contact with the ball consistently and hit it straight, but not
far. I was a prodigy. I was the Doogie Howser of golf. I was a
natural. I was headed for a fall.

  My fall came quickly. I tried to leverage that early success
with my brother-in-law who lives close to us here in Greensboro,
NC. This was back when we had weekend mornings free before we'd
both been put up for stud. We headed out to Longview Golf Course
at the crack of dawn -- Doug with a rock solid set of championship
clubs in a rich leather bag -- and me with Barbara's "Lady Ironettes"
in a vinyl archery quiver. The woods wore little knitted pink covers
embroidered with "LOVE." I was shocked to see golfers lined up at
dawn on Sunday morning, chain-smoking unfiltered cigarettes and
slamming down Budweiser, or worse. This was not the Masters.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 47                 August 1995

  Every week, Doug added one nice piece of equipment: spiked shoes,
leather glove, metal wood. Every week, I added one bad habit: hook,
slice, an embarrassing high-pitched nervous giggle which undermined
what was left of my credibility. To make a long story short, I don't
think I ever got the ball airborne again, except for a brief shot on
Longview #10 which sailed out over Fleming Road and rattled around
in the roof rack of an oncoming Plymouth Voyager. From that point
on, I only played because I enjoyed Doug's company or I felt some
kind of obligation. Finally, golf and I officially broke up and
agreed to see other people.

  I'll never forget that last day we had together. It was the
me -- I thought I had left behind in Junior High School: I was
wearing thick Hubble Telescope glasses since it was too early to
put in my contacts. The humidity caused sheets of perspiration to
soak my jeans, expanding them to nine times their normal size and
weight. Most of the time, I was either pushing up my glasses or
pulling up my pants. The autumn ragweed triggered an allergy attack
of Olympian proportions, making it seem as if I was weeping. As for
my swing, it had regressed to a barbaric swat followed by the
horrible thud of the club being grounded yards before the position
of the ball. I slouched towards the clubhouse muttering to myself
and wobbling from side to side. I looked like Mr. Magoo or the last
few minutes of "The Fly" when Jeff Goldblum goes completely over to
the insect realm.

  Now when I get a little leisure time, I try to concentrate
on Travel Yahtzee. Less money, less time, less heartache.

                               {DREAM}

Copyright 1995 Jim Rosenberg, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
By day, Jim Rosenberg works in the insurance industry keeping his
sense of humor on leash.  By night, he lets it run wild and free as
the humor columnist for TRIADstyle, a weekly publication affiliated
with the News & Record in Greensboro, NC.  He has not played golf
since the incidents described in this article. abco100@nr.infi.net
======================================================================


THE OLANCHA BEAR HUNT
  by Bud LeRoy
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  Every so often a brilliant idea comes to you all at once. Most
of the time it takes longer, like a beautiful sunrise. At first
there is just the faintest hint of light, then gradually it grows
into an aura of light-blue on the horizon until it ever-so- slowly
becomes illuminated with the pure bright blaze of inspiration. But
the ideas that come all at once are the best. They don't just come,
they strike like a flash! And you are enthralled with your mind's
ability to sort through the humdrum, day-to-day business of living,
and then to hit you right between the eyes with such a strong desire
that must be carried out! -- even at the behest of your friends and
family not to do so. The Olancha bear hunt was just that kind of an
idea.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 48                 August 1995

  We had a restaurant about twenty miles south of Lone Pine, CA,
at the foot of Mt. Whitney right on old Highway 395, where the high
desert meets the High Sierras. It was a laid-back sort of life as
there was not that much traffic during the week. It was fall and
while there wasn't any snow on the ground yet, it was a little too
cold in the higher elevations for camping, so I had time on my hands
for the finer things like reading, fishing, playing piano and getting
ideas.

  The local population consisted of some ranchers and a few
businessmen who owned the two gas stations, one grocery store, and
the one other cafe in town.

  There was also Bob Hensel, the beekeeper. He had a couple of
hundred hives that he kept in a few select spots. One of these
select spots was up against the mountains about two miles behind my
restaurant on a gradual incline rising to maybe 1500 feet above the
restaurant. Bob had gone to check on his beehives one morning and
found that about twenty of them had been demolished -- I mean torn to
ribbons! -- with bear tracks all around the destruction. The locals
in the area said, that on occasion, the Forest Service moved
troublesome bears from parks farther north and relocated them to the
mountains behind our town of Olancha, where they couldn't bother
anyone. In this instance, it didn't work.

  A day or two later at my place, over coffee, two of the local
ranchers were discussing the bears. Bill Leads was about fifty five
years old. He owned a small ranch on which he ran a few hundred head
of cattle and grew about sixty acres of alfalfa. He and his son also
owned one of the two gas stations in town. He'd been a contractor in
L.A., but had come to the high desert to get away from the rat-race of
the city. Bill was a WWII Veteran who'd spent a couple of rough years
in New Guinea that he loved to talk about.

  Leon Boyd, the other man at the table, was thirty years old and the
adopted son of a very wealthy rancher from Newhall, who, according to
Leon, had found him in a line-shack up in the mountains, taken him in
and raised him as his own son. But as Leon grew up he was a little
more than the old man had bargained for. You see, Leon loved Budweiser
. . . not the way most of us loved a cold beer now and again, Leon
LOVED it! And the way it transformed him was almost a miracle.

  He was about 6'1", and he looked a lot like Montgomery Clift. He
was quiet and unassuming, but after six or seven Budweisers, he took
on all the characteristics of John Wayne, right down to the swagger
and the mannerisms. Before 9:00 AM on any given day he was Leon. He
could usually make it to nine before he had the first beer. But after
a couple of them, he was pure John Wayne. No one really knew him that
well because Leon didn't stay Leon for that long each day.

  His adopted father, either on his own or at the urging of local
government, decided to move Leon way out of town. He purchased one
hundred sixty acres of farming land for Leon  at the base of the
Sierras. Eighty acres were planted in alfalfa, and eighty acres were
pasture land for approximately forty head of Polled Hereford cattle.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 49                 August 1995

The alfalfa was irrigated with a watering system run by a big diesel
engine that would water forty acres just by starting the engine. Then
the lines had to be moved to water the other forty. The place was
equipped with everything from a stocked trout stream to a brand new
Heston Wind Rower. There was a double-wide trailer in which Leon's
wife and two young sons resided. If he was living in exile, it was a
pleasant one. I don't know if the place was profitable or that it was
even supposed to be.

  I spent a lot of time with Leon. I was twenty four years old,
with two small children of my own, and too much time on my hands.
I totally enjoyed Leon in both his guises, although my wife didn't
appreciate the drunken John Wayne quite as much as I did.

  I had finished cleaning up the kitchen, gotten a cup of coffee
and, sat down with Bill and Leon just as they were discussing the
bear problem.

  "Something needs to be done with that damn bear before it ruins
all that old man's hives," stated Bill.

  "You're right," said Leon. "Somebody needs to go up there and
shoot that son-of-a-bitch before it comes down lower and tears up
something more serious."

  It was at this precise moment that the flashbulb of inspiration
went off!

  "Hey you guys, why don't we go and get that bear? Hell, you
fellas have hunted bears before haven't you? And I'd love to go on
a bear hunt!" I said.

  As this point my idea of a bear hunt was a trip to the mountain
with Leon and Bill, drinking a few Buds, and picking up a few
arrowheads left by the Paiute Indians. You know, just a fun day with
the good ol' boys. The idea that either one of them could ever find
a bear was simply not in my realm of possibility at all.

  "What do you  guys say?" I asked.

  Bill took a big puff of his pipe and looked over at Leon who was
trying to take a drink of his coffee, but the shakes from last night's
beer were keeping the cup away from his lips. I could see that it
might take a few Buds to get rid of the shakes and get the bear hunt
on. It was still early in the morning, and Leon was weak. He worried
about what his wife would say, and she always had alot to say. I had
the feeling that she'd married the Leon part of his personality. I
never could figure out how she'd gotten to know that part, however,
as it wasn't around that much. But John Wayne was, and I knew HE
wanted to go!

  "What do you think, Leon," asked Bill? "You know that I've got to
butcher a steer tomorrow. I could  throw the stomachs in a tub and
haul them up the hill. The next morning, before daybreak we could go
up there and kill that old bear. Those cow stomachs will sure bring
him down the mountain."

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 50                 August 1995

  "Well, I guess we could," agreed Leon, but without too much heart.

  "Why don't we go up there and see if there are any tracks left," I
suggested, "And get some idea how big this rascal really is." Both
men agreed.


  Leaving the daily business of the restaurant with my dad who
co-owned it with me, we got into Leon's pickup. In the back he kept a
lot of empty beer cans, and a two hundred fifty  pound anvil. I never
knew what the anvil was for, I never even saw him use it. After he
drank a few Buds, though, he always thought he was a road racer, so on
both sides of the truck bed there were big dings and dents where
the anvil's horn would bang from side to side. We hadn't gone down the
street a hundred feet before Leon decided that we should stop and pick
up a few six packs just in case we got thirsty on the way up the hill.
We drove into the town of Olancha to Casey's Grocery Store to do our
shopping.

  Old Michael Casey had probably been in the grocery business as
long as there'd been groceries. He always knew what was going on for
at least fifty miles in all directions from his store. He was a salty
old man who had a constant grin, and a mischievous sense of humor.
Everyone around, at one time or another, had owed him money for
groceries on credit. If you told him that he had a soft spot in his
heart, he'd tell you that it was in his head.

  "What've you boys been up to today?" he asked as we walked back
from the beer cooler.

  "Not much, Mr. Casey," I answered. "We were just thinkin' about
going up the hill to see those hives of old Bob Hensel's that got torn
up by that bear. We figured maybe we would try to go up and shoot it
before it ruined something more serious, or hurt somebody."

  "Hell, it already has ruined something more serious. It tore Jack
Nye's shed all to pieces. He had him a side of beef hanging in the
shed to cure when he heard all hell break loose out back of his house.
He ran outside with his gun and seen a bear come right through the
side of the shed! He fired once, but I don't think he hit anythin',"
Mr. Casey stated. "There were two bears though. One was
cinnamon-colored, about five or six hundred pounds. He didn't get a
good look at the other one. You boys go up there after them bears,
you be mighty careful! Old Nye mighta' missed him; mighta' not. A
hurt bear ain't nothin' to fool with!"

  Bill nodded in agreement as Leon paid for the beer. I thought
about bear hunting . . .

  We loaded up the ice chest with beer and ice, opened one each and
headed up the hill. Bill took a big pull of his bear and asked, "Bud,
you ever hunt a bear before?"

  "Nope," I answered. "Can't say as I have."

  "Bill, you?"

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 51                 August 1995

  "Yeah, a couple of times. Once I had a horse damned-near killed
by one. Twenty years ago, when they used to take the cattle up in the
high country to fatten them up on the good spring grass, I went along
on a drive. We'd gotten the cattle to some nice grass up above
Kennedy Meadows. Ben Hughs had a 'line shack' up there where we'd stay
a couple of days at a time, then we would head back down, leaving one
guy there for the spring. A couple of months later we'd take more
supplies up and leave someone else to watch the cattle for the summer.

  Me and a couple of the boys were out hunting meat for camp when
we came up on this bear cub. One of the boys got the idea of
lassoing the little bugger. These boys was young and dumb, and I
didn't have much more sense. So we lit out after the cub. He started
bawling and trying to run for the trees, but we cut him off. We were
about to throw the rope on him, when out of the corner of my eye I saw
a big, brown blur. Something hit my horse right behind the saddle!
My horse leaped and took off, and I almost got throwed. If I had been,
I wouldn't be here right now. My horse was gashed with four claw
marks, eight inches long and a quarter inch wide. The mother bear only
chased us about fifty yards, but it was a long fifty yards.

  When we got back to the line shack this old hand named Salty was
patching up my horse, and he told us that a few years back he'd been
spending the summer up at the line shack. One evening, just as he
heard a racket outside by the horses, the door of the shack seemed to
explode inward, and there was a big old black bear was just standing
in the doorway. Salty let him have both barrels of a .12 gauge,
loaded with double 'aught buck shot. The bear took off! The next
morning he tracked it for damned near a mile before it finally bled to
death. Bears are tough. You sure you want to go hunting them, Bud?"

  "Sure, he wants to!" chimed in Leon, who'd just finished off his
second half quart of Budweiser. "Hell, there won't be anything to it.
We'll just sit up there, and when that bear goes to get into them cow
stomachs, we'll shoot him plumb dead."

  "Leon, you ever shoot a bear before?" I asked.

  "Nope, but I ain't afraid to, Pilgrim." he answered.

  "What if there's two bears?" I continued.

  "Same difference." Leon replied. [John Wayne was waking up.]

  As we pulled up to where the beehives were, any signs of a battle
were long gone. Old man Hensel had cleaned up the mess. There were
just a few pieces of honeycomb and hive scattered around the place,
except that there were quite a few less beehives than I remembered.
Even the bees had calmed down. I guess getting honey stolen is not
that unusual for them. We got out of the pickup and started around
the clearing to where the hives sat, with Leon and Bill looking at the
ground for tracks. I was looking at the ground for arrowheads . . . .

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 52                 August 1995

  It was beautiful up here. There was a running stream, lots of
trees, and a view that covered the whole of th Owens Lake area. Owens
was a lake that had been drained in order to provide water to Los
Angeles. Now it was just a dry lake bed that ran about ten or fifteen
miles to the north toward Lone Pine, and about ten miles to the west
towards Panamint Springs and Death Valley. When the Indians had been
here it must have been quite a sight. On the site where our
restaurant stood there had been a stagecoach stop, hence the current
name, The Stagecoach Inn. That was all there was from the city of
Mojave, clear to Lone Pine. The real John Wayne had made a number of
movies in the area. Maybe that's why Leon loved it so much here, I
don't know. But you could sure see why the Indians liked it. You had
a bird's eye view of the whole area.

  "The old man's made a mess of the tracks," I heard Bill say, "But
I can still see which way they went."

  "They?" echoed Leon.

  "Yep," stated Bill, "Two of 'em, and they look to be pretty fair
size."

  Leon and I were moving around so we could see the tracks, even
though I didn't know a bear track from a camel print, and I doubted
Leon did either. But Leon squatted down over what Bill was pointing at
just like he had seen John Wayne do so many times before.

  "Yep," he drawled, "They went that-a way!"

  On the way beck down the mountain I asked what kinds of guns they
were going to bring. Bill was planning on bringing a .308 Winchester,
and Leon was bringing a .300 Mag. I had nothing but a borrowed .32
Winchester. This was way too light for bear hunting. It's lighter
than a .30 .30. It had a hexagon barrel, was a lever action, and was
called a saddle rifle. But I didn't think it mattered because I
didn't believe that we would see any bears, let alone shoot at one.

  When we dropped Bill off at home, Leon said that he wanted to go
by his house to see what was going on and to tell his wife about the
bear hunt. We were both pretty heavy into the Budweiser by this time.

  "Leon," I said, "Maybe it wouldn't be too smart to stop by your
house right now."

  But Leon, in his best John Wayne, said, "Now Bud, don't you
worry. The little lady will be just fine."

  When we got there I told Leon that I'd wait in the truck.
Survival is a strong instinct. I opened a can of beer and waited for
the yelling to begin. I didn't have much of a wait because soon there
was a lot of it going on, mostly in a female voice. Leon came out
carrying his gun, with her yelling right behind him. He quickly put
the gun behind the seat and got into the truck. She reached in
through the window and pulled Leon's hat down over his eyes, pushing
his ears straight out from his head, like wings, all the while telling
him what a lousy bastard he was. She always went for the hat because
she knew that it bothered him more than anything to have anyone touch
his hat. As he got the truck started, she turned her wrath on its
outside mirror, trying as hard as she could to twist it off. While we
backed out of the driveway, Leon looked over at  me and declared,
"Well pardner, the little woman has quite a temper on her, wouldn't
you say?"

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 53                 August 1995

  "Yup," I agreed, "She sure has."

  "Maybe I could stay with you and your little woman until this bear
thing is over with?" he implored.

  "Sure Leon," I said. "We'd be glad to have you." And for me, it
was true. But for my wife, a night with a drunken John Wayne was not
her idea of a great evening.

  As we got out of the driveway I said, "Leon, you think your wife's
still mad about the garden?"

  "Probably," he said. "She's been mad about that ever since it
happened."

  It had been a couple of weeks earlier that the two of us had been
fishing in Leon's pond. We wanted to have a fish fry, but we weren't
getting any bites. You could see the trout just swimming around. The
longer we fished, the madder Leon got. After awhile, Leon jumped up
and said, "I'll bet I can catch those little bastards!"

  "What ya got in mind?" I asked. But I didn't get an answer. He
was already on his way toward the barn. I just settled back, put on
another salmon egg, opened up a beer and waited to see what would
happen. I heard a diesel engine start up, then I heard what sounded
like Leon's Caterpillar coming my way. He came into view just above
the pond. The stream was very narrow there and there was a natural
ledge, about three feet deep, where a lot of the stocked trout lay.

  Leon took a big drink of his Budweiser, dropped the blade of the
Cat, and plunged it into the stream, pushing rock and mud and a lot of
water ahead of it, and amazingly, even a few fish, which I believe
were paralyzed with fear seeing such a large intruder plunge into
their stream. Leon backed up, got another bite, and went back through
again. But this time, nothing! Down by the house I heard yelling and
saw his wife coming toward the pond. I knew he was in some kind of
trouble. Leon saw her coming too and took a big chug of his beer. She
was yelling about her garden. It seems Leon had run over her prize
tomato plants on the way up to the pond.

  He throttled the dozer down, stood up, and lifted his hat.
"Well," he said in his best John Wayne, "What brings you to these neck
of the woods, little lady?"

  From where I sat I couldn't see what she had in her hand until
she raised her arm to throw. It was then that I realized it was one
of her prized tomatoes, about the size of a softball. Leon had told
me that he'd met his wife in high school, and that besides being a
champion barrel racer in the rodeo, she was also a great third baseman
on the girl's softball team. But I didn't remember until I saw her
wind up. Leon realized what was coming at the same time and was
turning to jump off the other side of the Cat as the tomato hit him
right under the hat line, square in the back of the head! It was a
pitch that anyone would have been proud of. I would estimate its'
velocity at about  65 MPH! The tomato was not quite ripe, but it
still smashed when it hit Leon's head. He went ass- over-tea kettle
off the Cat.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 54                 August 1995

  I couldn't see what happened to him next, but I didn't have time
to worry about it because just then I realized that she had a tomato
in her other hand and was looking at me! I was sitting with my back
to the tree, right on the edge of the pond. She was about twenty feet
away. I jumped up and made it about two steps before the tomato hit me
right between the shoulder blades. It felt like I'd been hit with a
bowling ball! I lurched forward, stumbled, and went right down the
bank into the pond's icy water. I was a little stunned, and real cold,
but half afraid to come up out of the water for fear that she had
another tomato. But in a couple of seconds, I heard her going toward
the house cussing about her garden. I climbed up out of the pond,
walked over to the Cat, and strolled around to the other side. Leon
was sitting on a rock in the stream. He still had the can of beer in
his hand, but he also had a knot on his forehead the size of an egg
where he must have hit his head when he fell in the stream. He also
had quite a knot on the back of his head from the tomato.

  "Well, buckaroo," he said, "The little lady still has quite an
arm, wouldn't you say so?"

  "Yep," I agreed, "She sure has, Leon. Who was her father anyway,
Don Drysdale?"

  It took the rest of the day to straighten out the garden. The
tomato plants had seen better days.

  We stopped at Casey's Grocery Store again, picked up a couple
more six packs and headed toward my house. "Leon," I said, "Why don't
we drive up the hill right now. When we get close, we'll turn off the
headlights and sneak up to within a couple hundred feet of the hives.
We'll sit there for awhile with the truck facing the hives, then we
can turn on the headlights and see if those bears are there. I'll bet
they are!"

  "Well, I guess we could head up there for a bit," Leon said, and
started up the dirt road toward the mountain.

  "You know, I did have an experience with a bear once," I said. "It
was a few years back, when I was about seventeen. My Dad let me and
a couple of my friends take his pickup for a weekend at Yosemite
National Park to do a  little camping. The big thing to do up there
was to go to the dump at sundown and wait for the bears to come down
to the trash pile. When we got there, there were a lot of people but
no bears yet. We got out of the truck and walked around like a lot of
the other folks were doing. It was a cleared area, about 150' by
150', kind of a landfill where they dumped all  around three sides of
a giant pit then pushed the trash into the pit with  bulldozers. There
were a few trees around the sides which a couple of kids had climbed
them to be able to see the bears when they appeared. We didn't have
long to wait. Coming down the hill, about a hundred yards away, was
the first bear. It's hard to judge how big a bear is in the wild.
Even a small bear looks real damned big.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 55                 August 1995

  Just then, one of the kids in a tree was pointing up the hill at
another bear. Within five minutes there must have been ten or twelve
bears in the dump, only about fifty feet away from us. Just about
everyone was in their cars. There might have been one or two
thrill-seekers in the crowd, but not many. So, we sat and watched the
bears for awhile. Boy, did they go through that trash pile! They'd
find empty cans and bottles and just sit there on their butts, like
humans, with their noses in the cans. They didn't even seem to know
that we were there. Of course, this went on everyday that the park was
open, so it was no big deal to the bears.

  On the other side of the dump was a bear cub and his mother.
Rusty, one of my friends, wanted to move the truck so that we could
see the cub little closer up. I started the engine and slowly moved
the truck to where the cub was. I got within twenty feet of it and
stopped, but I left the engine running. My Dad's pickup was a Chevy
with a 3-speed column manual shift, so I just put it in neutral and
let it idle.

  The bear cub looked like to weigh 30 or 40 pounds, and he was a cute
little guy. He stayed pretty close to his mom who was kind of browsing
leisurely through the trash. When she would move away from us, I would
follow her.

  Billy, my other friend, started talking to Rusty, and I wasn't really
paying attention to the bears. In a minute or two Rusty told me to pull up
again because the cub was getting away from us. I slowly pulled the truck
forward, but what I didn't realize was that the mother bear had moved
around in such a way that we were between her and her cub. Just about the
time we pulled up even with that cub, something hit us in the rear fender,
and I mean hard! It shook us pretty good. Then I heard a growl and felt
another hit! I dropped the truck in gear and popped the clutch and we took
off out of there in a hurry. Some of the other cars decided to leave at
that point too. The bears were getting a little too frisky.

  When we got back to camp I got out and looked at the fender. Right
behind the rear tire on the driver's side, the quarter-panel was punched in
like a beer can! I didn't even think the she-bear was that big was that
big, but I guess a bear doesn't have to be that to be mean, huh, Leon?"
I asked.

  "Yep," he nodded, "I reckon not."

  We were about a quarter of a mile away from the hives when Leon
slowed down and turned off his lights. There wasn't a moon that
night, but after a second or two we could see the road well enough to
make it. We were about half drunk, so I guess whatever angel it is
that watches out for drunks and crazy people was riding with us that
night. I'd caught enough of a buzz so I wasn't paying too much
attention, and besides, Leon and I had been over that road alot of
times before, or at least that's what I was telling myself.

  The dirt road ended at the oak trees. You had to pull a little past
the end of the road into the bushes to get the truck far enough in to
be able to see the hives in the headlights. The hives were set up
right against the mountain, and I do mean mountain, as we were on the
backside of Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous United
States. It's well over 20,000 feet high and the hives were as far as
you could go up against the base of it without going straight uphill.
Off to our left was the creek that flowed out of the high country.
There were still several old trails that began here.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 56                 August 1995

  Leon turned off the engine, rolled down the window, licked his
finger and stuck it outside to see which way the wind was blowing. He
pulled it back in and rolled up the window. "No problem," he stated.
"The wind is blowing off the mountain, right at us. Them old bears
won't even know we're here."

  "That's good," I said, reaching in the bag, getting another beer.
"You want one, Leon?"

  "Yep."

  I opened one, handed it to him, took another and opened it for
myself. "You know," I mentioned, "We're not going to be able to sit
here too long without getting out and taking a leak. That beer is
going through me pretty fast."

  "We'll just sit here for a couple of minutes," Leon said. "If the
bears are coming back, they're probably already here by now. Let's
roll down the windows and listen." he added. So slowly, very slowly,
we both rolled down our windows. Leon stuck his head out.

  "You hear anything?" I said.

  "I'm not sure." he replied.

  I'd been on hunting trips with my Dad and friends all my life, and
although I'd never killed anything bigger than a rabbit, I'd always
felt like the outdoors type. But sitting there, alone on the side of
a mountain, with the only gun behind the seat in a scabbard, and the
strong possibility of there being two bears only a hundred feet away,
who'd been moved to this area because they were not afraid of humans,
was not too reassuring. Especially being with Leon, who at this point
had evolved into John Wayne and could probably handle the two bears
with only a stick.

  Just then there was a noise by the hives. It sounded like one of
them was being pushed over. The hair stood up on the back of my neck.
I very quietly rolled my window back up and locked the door, so "John"
wouldn't get the wrong idea. "You hear that, Leon?" I whispered. "

  "Yep." he whispered back.

  "Then why don't you turn the lights on?!?" I whispered as loud as I
could without my voice raising into a scream.

  "You ready?" he whispered.

  "You're damn right I'm ready," I assured him, "And if you don't
hurry up, this seat is going to get real wet, 'cause I've got to piss
real bad!"

  "Here goes," he warned, and turned on the lights.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 57                 August 1995

  Right in the middle of the hives was what looked like a black bush
or a big, dark rock. Just for an instant, it stood up on its hind
feet, then it rolled away from us and ran up the hill, really fast!
It hit the mountain and started up. It was leaving the range of our
headlights, so Leon turned on his high beams and we saw it for another
second. At most, the whole damned episode couldn't have lasted more
than a few seconds. Because of the distance I couldn't even be sure
of its size, but it looked real big and it was real, real fast.

  "You have any idea a bear could move that fast, Leon," I asked?

  "Yep," he said. "I've heard tell that they can run thirty MPH for
short distances. I also heard that they'll run downhill if they're
hurt. That's if they can."

  We both got out. I walked to the back of the truck and started
relieving myself.

  "I wonder where the other one is?" I heard Leon say from the other
side of the truck.

  My water stopped, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck once
again. "Goddamit, Leon! Why the hell didn't you mention that other
bear before you invited me out here to take a leak??"

  ". . . Didn't think of it." he said. "Besides, them bears are
probably a mile away from here by now."

  "How do you know that?" I demanded.

  "Hunch," he explained. "I've got a flashlight in the glovebox. I
reckon we should go over there and see if we can see the other bear's
tracks."

  "Now Leon," I said, "I will admit that I don't know much about
bears, but I do know something about bees, and there ain't nothin'
meaner than eighty thousand honeybees at night, right after some large
hairy bastard just beat up their house! They don't fly far at night, but
they do sting anything they land on and it ain't gonna' be me!"

  "Well, Pilgrim, you just stay here  with the truck and I'll mosey
on over to them hives and see what I can come up with."

  "Okay Leon, you go on over there. If you don't get ate by a bear,
you're damned sure going to get the hell stung out of you. You want your
gun?"

  "Nope." he replied. "Just the flashlight."

  "Alright Leon, but you'd better stay away from those hives."

  "Don't worry about me, Pilgrim. Them bees won't bother me. Turn the
lights off and save the battery, I'll just be gone a few minutes. And
hand me one of those beers."

  I opened us each one and handed Leon his. I got in the truck on
the driver's side as Leon walked off toward the bees . . . .

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 58                 August 1995

  When I was a kid, there was an old man named Bud Downs who lived
down the street from us. He was a beekeeper and he had about a
thousand beehives. When I was twelve or so, he used to take me to
work the bees with him. He was a crazy old bastard but I loved him.
He spent about half the time talking to himself and the other half
chewing on a cigar, and spitting out tobacco juice. He was always
talking while he was chewing and spitting the juice out of the window
of his truck. Most of the time part of the juice landed on his arm,
which was propped up on the window. When he would spit on his arm he
would just stare at it like he couldn't believe that he had done that
to himself. I'd laugh 'til my stomach hurt.

  He was always working or moving the bees. Sometimes on a Friday he
would take me with him on a trip to Bakersfield with a load of
beehives. He rented the bees to the farmers for pollinating their
fields. After school, Bud would pick me up and we would go to Newhall
and pick up the hives. He usually had them working sage honey. He
drove a Ford flatbed, ten-wheeler truck, circa 1955 or '56. It had a
boom on it to lift the hives, or 'supers' as the beekeepers called
them. We'd get set up at just about dusk, and when the bees would
stop working for the day, we'd start loading. I don't know how many
supers the truck would hold, but the old man would load it down with
all it could carry.

  Bud spent most of the time working the bees with no gloves or
veil. The bee stings didn't seem to bother him. That was not the case
with me. I'd wear a long sleeve shirt tucked in, with pants tucked
into my boots and a bee veil and gloves. At night I still didn't feel
safe because that's when bees would land and crawl, and they would
seem to find a way to get inside the veil and sting the hell out of
your face. We always carried a bottle of ammonia with us because old
man Downs said it would take the pain out of the sting after they
got to you, but I couldn't tell the difference.

  Hwy 99, heading north out of LA through the mountains towards
Bakersfield was called the Ridge Route. This area consisted of eighty
miles of bad road, with long upgrades and steep downgrades. Without
too many passing lanes it was hard on truck brakes. The last six
miles of was a 6%, snaking downgrade called the Grapevine that had
escape ramps on the sides of the road which were really just short
hills made of very deep sand. If a truck's brakes gave out they could
drive off the road onto these ramps and the sand would stop them and
stop. I remember one time seeing a "semi" loaded with watermelons
about half way up one of these ramps, just kind of rolled over on its
side.

  The old  Ford truck was so slow it would take us three or four
hours to get to the top of the Grapevine. We'd pull off at a truck
stop called Signal Cove, where they had the best double-decker burgers
anywhere. After that, we would wind our way down to one of the farms
in the San Juaquin Valley to unload the beehives before daybreak.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 59                 August 1995

  All day Saturday and Sunday we would work on the hives that Bud
owned in the area. In the evenings we would sleep out in the fields
with the smell of alfalfa all around us. Sometimes, depending on the
season, the farmers would be baling hay at night and I would walk
along and watch the hay bales come sliding out of the backs of the
machines until I was tired. Then I'd go back to where we were
sleeping, crawl under the blankets beneath the stars, and sleep the
sleep of the innocent.

  There was this one time, though, that we had trouble with the truck
which was over-heating, and it took us longer than usual to get the
hives to the fields. When we arrived around 4:00 A.M., even though it
was still dark, the bees were more restless than usual. There were
balls of bees hanging over the sides of some of the hives, which was
not a good sign. Old man Downs was in a hurry  to get the supers off
the truck before daylight because he knew that the bees were waking up
and that they would be mad as hell. He put on his veil and gloves and
I stayed in the truck while he was unloading because there was nothing
for me to do anyway during that time, so I'd just watch him through
the rear view mirrors.

  The boom on the truck worked just like a forklift. It had two
forks that fit into the two slats built on each side of the bee box
for the purpose lifting it up. Just as the old man was setting one of
the boxes down, a slat broke, and the box, in what looked like slow
motion, just turned over . . . .

  I heard him cussing as he ran around to the front of the truck.
He yelled for me to turn the headlights on. He was in front of the
truck trying to brush bees off himself with the veil he had removed
from his head. He then went running down the path in front of the
truck, pulling off his pants as he ran! I knew he was getting stung
alot, but when I saw him taking off his pants, then his underwear
while running through that field with his old white ass justa' shining
in the headlights, yelling and jumping like a wounded jackrabbit, well
damn it was funny!

  I just sat there looking out the windshield, and laughing so hard
I thought I was going to break something! Unfortunately, the humor
was lost on me about ten minutes later when Bud came back with his
veil on, got into the truck to move it, and let about fifty bees in
with him. Then it was me who was running through the field getting
the hell stung out of him.

                               {DREAM}

Copyright 1995 Bud LeRoy
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bud is one of those shy and retiring individuals who is well traveled,
and once you get him started: he has something to say. He can be
reached at: 1:135/362.
======================================================================

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 60                 August 1995

                         ------------------
                         COMING SUMMER 1995

               From the producers of "Enter the Wheelchair"
                         and "Fists of Oatmeal"

                             GEORGE BURNS

                        starring as Arthur Itis

                    The first Tai Chi action hero!

                          TRUSS OF VENGEANCE

        See Arthur fight injustices committed in the physical
        therapy department of the Golden Oldies Retirement Home.

                          Running time: 6:18
                  (including numerous intermissions)

                 This film rated PG: Pathetic Garbage

       Special Sneak Previews in selected markets sponsored by
                        Geritol and Depends.
=============================={DREAM}=================================

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
VIRUS VERSES
  by Lisa Morton
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

       -------------------------------------------------------
       VIRUS... 1.  Venom... 2.  Path. A  morbid principle  or
       poisonous substance  produced in the body as the result
       of some  disease, esp.  one capable of being introduced
       into other  persons... 3.  fig. A moral or intellectual
       poison... 4.  Violent animosity;  virulence. 5. A self-
       replicating  program  introduced  into  a  computer  or
       computer network which affects normal operation and may
       prove destructive...
                    Online Oxford English Dictionary,  2012
       -------------------------------------------------------


Journal Entry #247
------------------

    Christ, here I am living in what is probably the most so-
fucking-phisticated voice-activated computer controlled environment
and security system ever designed, the works, and sitting in goddamn
candlelight. Worst part is the situation doesn't seem likely to change
in the near future. Since I lost one of the three roof solar panels,
the generators have got only enough juice to run the computers and the
security systems -- and that's it. No lights. No clocks. I can use the
microwave for a few minutes when I have to feed.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 61                 August 1995

  So much for the ironclad maintenance contract I had with C&C. Put a
call in yesterday soon as the panel went down. Left it on auto-recall
all day. No answer. Today a daemon server brought it back as
disconnected. Another company victimized by hostile takeover. Yeah.
Right.

  Tried to find someone else to do it. Scanned the net (dodged one
new virus - latest variation on the old Anarkia strain) for a half-hour
before I found one company in the area, still operative. I told him my
location. Bastard said he'd consider coming out - with the nonexistent
US Army to back him up. Offered him 50 thousand, plus parts. He hung up.

  Fine. Was prepared for this. Got candles. Gas lamps. Even
bioluminescents.


Journal Entry #248
------------------

  I can wait out the animals.


Journal Entry #249
------------------

  Lost contact with the Tokyo market today. Doesn't look like
something as simple as a new virus in the system. Don't know whether
that means the trashers got the phone lines or goddamn Tokyo. When
this country went guess I knew the rest of the world would follow.
For a while, there was still money to be made. Now . . . at least
Australia's doing business.

  A few net reports coming in from the local newsfront. Looks
like the Ebola-G plague finally ran its course (final total: 62 mil.)
only to give rise to Ebola-H. E-H may be the latest mutant strain, but
I don't worry. It'll fry under my decontamination systems same as any
other bug.

  Downloaded a MPEG file of sufferers. E-H is another hemorrhagic
virus. Lots of blood. Saw a 14-year old trasher who had, had it for
20 hours. There was dark red blood pouring from his nose, mouth, ears,
even around his fingernails. He coughed it up until it bubbled out in
waves. Died drowning in his own fluids. Fucking trasher. Served him
right.

  Served him -- but doesn't fucking serve me. I will not go looking
like an exploded blood bag. I'm safe here. Enough food to last for
years. Water and air purifiers. Generator. The computers to keep me
alive.

  I will survive. I always have.


DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 62                 August 1995

Journal Entry #253
------------------

  Germans reported cholera on the rise again. Cholera?  What a
fucking throwback. At least my vaccine investments should get a boost
from this.

  Financially I'm fine. Net assets holding high.

  Fuck. Who am I kidding. Looks fine . . . on a goddamn computer monitor.

  Truth is: I'm not fine. Bored and lonely and feel like putting
a fist through the wall . . . except there's no telling what I'd let in.


Journal Entry #254
------------------

  Took a day off. Didn't go into the business programs at all.
Instead, spent hours with Monique. Met at a bathhouse in Osaka.
First, she sponged me all over. Then she dried me off and blew me.
Fed me sushi. Rubbed some of that hot green mustard on herself and
dared me to lick it off. I did. She came like fucking bucking bronc.

  By the time I got out of the VR suit, i was drained. Actually wasted
enough water to take a shower. Cold.

  Gotta remember that Monique directory. Whoever designed it is --
was -- a fucking genius.


Journal Entry #256
------------------

  Woke up this morning. Tried to plug into Monique as usual.
She wasn't there. Nothing. Motherfucking shit. Ran a protection
program and sure enough . . . a virus. New strain of Hiroshima. If I
could get my hands on the hacker responsible I swear I'd rip their
arms off and inject a hypoful of E-H into the stumps. I tried looking
for backups hidden locations ANYTHING. Nothing. And no copy of my own.
I was so busy shooting-load I didn't think to download. Now Monique 
is gone forever.

  Tried an old VR orgy program off the net but it was corrupted
by another virus and froze just when some blonde was lowering herself
onto me. Ended up jerking off in the shower.

  Forgot to check accounts again today.

Journal Entry #257
------------------

  Trashers took out one of my outside vidcams this morning.
They cant get directly at it - it's ten feet up and encased in solid
plexi -- but one of them fired a paintball and now all I get off that
side is a red wash.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 63                 August 1995

  They're gearing up for something. That's obvious. Can still see
them with the other cam. I think they want me too. There's four of them
dressed in ragged castoffs and handmade shit. One wears leggings worked
out of tire treads. One's got a vest made from cds wired together. They
all carry guns.

  Maybe I should be worried but I'm not. Fuck'em. They want what
I got. I know foods getting harder to find all the time out there in
the jungle but they'd have to get past my security first. And I don't
think they've got it in them. The one dressed in rubber's already
shaking and wiping his nose. Back of his hand comes away red every time.
If he's got what I think won't be long for his compadres either. Me, I'll
sit here tight, safe. Laugh when they raise scarlet fists and call me
names.

  Then maybe I'll get hard and come in the shower again.


Journal Entry #258
------------------

  The ones outside made their move today.

  It started when the one in rubber collapsed. His threadbare
"Revolting Cocks" t-shirt was drenched in blood. His skin where it wasn't
stained was white and fallen in as if there was nothing left beneath to
support it. The other three looked at him for a while then they started
arguing and finally took swings at each other. The one in the flag tunic
took a punch in the face and went down right into the puddled corpse. He
scrambled backwards frantic then fell on his ass trying to wipe his gory
hands. The other two laughed at him. When he got up he turned and ran.

  That left two. The CD vest and the girl with dreads spray painted
bright colors. They started conversing quietly together. Then I saw
something that bothered me just a little.

  Rainbow Dreads set down her backpack and pulled out a laptop
and started typing.

  Shouldn't have bothered me even that little. My system had been
set up by the best. No 16-year old trasher bitch was gonna get past
my ice. For God's sake the laptop was a fucking antique. Didn't even work
off voice commands. You had to type. Christ. If she got past my outside
gate--

  Later. The outside gate just slid open.

  I'm back. Jesus that was . . . I'm hyped like an overdose of Lightning.
Haven't felt so . . . alive in years. 

  What happened: after the gate opened the girl's partner covered the
entrance with a gun. Waiting. When nothing happened he turned and asked
her something. She typed a few more commands then nodded to him.

  He took a step in . ..and burned.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 64                 August 1995

  She hadn't cracked the ice. Just the first outside shell around it. The
security system was still intact. When CD boy's foot connected with my
ground he took 50 thousand volts up the ass. He jerked for a few minutes
then fell over smoking. The girl gaped in disbelief. Her mouth hung open
for a while then she got up shoved the laptop into her backpack and
split. Not even so much as a goodbye. No vaunted trasher loyalty on
display here. 

  One problem . ..the asshole's corpse was blocking my gate, keeping it
open. 

  I'd have to move him.

  I have the equipment to go out of course. A state of the art
quarantine suit. Head to toe. Has its own air tanks. Completely safe.

  I hadn't been outside in nearly a year.

  But I didn't want to risk leaving the outer gate open. So
the suit went on. One last look at the vidcam screen and out I went.

  Deactivated the security. Opened the inner door. Edged down
the decontam hall. Unlocked that door and crossed the courtyard.
There he was at my feet.

  He didn't look dead. Not like the one I could see a few feet away
outside. That one looked like a used tampax somebody had thrown away.
This one was just . ..stiff.

  I started to drag him out . ..then saw his gun.

  It was old but well oiled and obviously cared for.  Big. Powerful
looking. I didn't know much about guns but thought this was an automatic.

  I wanted it.

  It was metal. Nothing organic. I could take it through decontam. It
should come clean. 

  Picked it up . ..and BANG someone was firing who wasn't me.

  It was the girl. Rainbow Dreads. She hadn't split after all. Had hidden
out waiting for me. 

  I raised my gun and pulled the trigger. The gun rocked and the girl
rolled. 

  Actually she exploded. The gun fired more than once. Maybe four or five
times. Fucker didn't just shoot -- it made holes. Big ones. Pieces of
little Rainbow Dreads were sprayed ten feet around her. Part of her face
and a few of the dreads were gone.  She looked even worse than the E-H
kid. 

  It was better than any VR sim.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 65                 August 1995

Journal Entry #259
------------------

  Couldn't write any more yesterday. Exhausted. First time since Monique
was deleted that I've felt genuinely tired. Wasn't much more to say
anyway. I finished dragging the corpse outside. Went back through
decontam. Took an extra long time with the gun. Came back inside.
Stripped out of the suit and talked out yesterdays entry until I fell
asleep. 

  Spent the first part of today working to identify my new acquisition.
According to a collectors guide I downloaded its a 9 mm. VP70 with a
magazine that holds 18 rounds. I figured out how to release the clip and
pulled it out to see what I had left. Lucky number 13. It slid back in
and caught with a satisfying THUNK. Its 2 pounds feel good in my hand.
Reassuring. 

  Maybe the trashers have the right idea after all.

Journal Entry #260
------------------

  Fucking headache this morning. Don't get these too often, but woke up
with this mother. Painkillers did nothing even after I doubled the
dosage. I can barely speak to get this out right now it's so bad.

  No work today obviously. The gunmetal felt cool against my throbbing
temples. I rubbed it there with my finger on the trigger. I didn't worry
-- knew from experience how hard that trigger was to pull. 

Journal Entry #261
------------------

  Oh Christ, it wasn't just a headache.

  Woke up this morning with a fever. Almost 103. Had a sleep full of
fever dreams. Shots going off over and over and over. Shouting commands
at a computer garbled with incomprehensible symbols. Cruising the net
desperately for any sign of life. 

  Gave myself a shot of antibiotic but I don't think its done any good.
Still have the headache. The fever. Tried to eat but threw it back up two
hours later. There was a lot of red in it. 

  The fever makes me edgy, achy, weak but restless at the same time. Now
I'm laying on the floor below the main term screen. My voice saying this
sounds soft and choked. Something wets on my upper lip. Christ...just now
I ran my sleeve over it then saw the sleeve was bloody.

  Legs feel like water - like some stupid fucking newborn colt. But I'm
on my feet now going into the bathroom. To look. 

  Ha. Oh god. There it is.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 66                 August 1995

  Blood. Everywhere. Coming out of my nose in two thin dribbles.
Squeezing around my teeth. Gums look like exploded intestines. Can't look
any more. But when I try to squeeze my eyes shut to block it out for a
moment they leak too. Little red trails joining the others. Making me
look like some tribal-scarred native or maniac fresh from the scene of
his crimes.

  Back in the work room. Unngghh - sorry, just fell to the floor.
Command: turn up the heat. Find me a doctor. Tell them to get here
FAST. They can have money. A lot. Millions. All of it if that's what
it takes. Just don't let this go all the way.

  Must've passed out for a while. Woke back up just now. Think it's maybe
two, three hours later. No response to my call for medical help.

  Can't move. Can only whisper this. Don't know whether the computer can
hear me or not. It can't talk back to me. It can't tell me. It can't talk
to me. Please talk to me. Say anything other than "Command?" or
"Executed" or "Error Message." Say you understand. Sympathize. Feel
sorry. Glad it's not you.  Bastard. 

  All I can see is red. All I can feel. All I hear is my own blood
rushing out of my head. What I taste. What I smell. The blood's coming
out through every pore in my skin now all over my body. I'm not even
human any more. Not an animal either. What am I now?  I used to be pale
and clean. Used to smell like expensive soaps and wear clothes that were
dry and smooth to the touch  Now they're soaked through with me. The soft
plastic flooring is sticky with me. It's all me and yet no longer myself.
I'm losing myself. My life. Seeping out of me like hot liquid from a
sponge wrung too tight.

  How did this happen?  There were sterilizations and cleansings and
quarantines. Maybe it came in with the computer. A computer virus.  The
ultimate deadly Michelangelo.

  But I think my computer is still working. I hope. No it must have come
in when I had to go out to clean up the trashers. They were all carrying
it. But no no NO!  I went through decontamination. Even took longer than
usual. My decontam systems will kill fucking anything. Put the gun
through decontam too...

  Oh Christ, I know. The gun.

  Yeah, I decontaminated it.  But I didn't do the fucking clip. I opened
it after I was inside. 

  The fucking bug rode in on the bullets.

  Jesus. If I could still laugh the irony would be rich.  One of the
world's last rich men in a fortress and killed by a magic bullet.

  The gun... I left it near the main terminal.  Only ten feet away.  If I
can just get there. Pull myself. Across the floor. It's slippery now
should be easier. Get the gun. Put it up against my head...

  I'll never make it. Even if I did wouldn't have enough strength left to
pull the trigger. Nothing for me but to...

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 67                 August 1995

[ERROR CODE - UNABLE TO TRANSCRIBE]

  Christ, so much blood but not much in me any more. Just talk to me.
Say something.  I just need...

[ERROR CODE]

  what
     will
        they
           find
              what
                 have
                    I
                    become
                         is
                          this
                             what
                                itwas allfor
                                           allthework
                                                    allthe
                                                         money^


############{END                 FILE}
              #################
                                 ################                   END
                                                   #################FILE}

                               {DREAM}

Copyright 1995 Lisa Morton, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Lisa Morton's career as a screenwriter began in 1988 with the horror-
fantasy MEET THE HOLLOWHEADS (aka LIFE ON THE EDGE), and the fantasy
ADVENTURES IN DINOSAUR CITY. Her short fiction has appeared in DARK
VOICES 6: The Pan Book of Horror, The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein and
AFTER HOURS magazine. Later in 1995, her story "Love Eats" will appear
in the new hardcover anthology DARKER VOICES, and her chapbook THE
FREE WAY will be published by Fool's Press.
======================================================================
                                                              

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
ROADKILL
  by Jack Hillman
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  The cat raced through the field on his way home, following the
enticing scent. Hunting had been good, satisfying the hunger of
both stomach and psyche. Now it was time to mate. The scent of the
female drifted over the grass in a beckoning wave that drew him in
irresistibly. He raced out onto the road without a thought just as
the pickup truck turned the corner. The front wheel broke his back.
The rear wheel crushed his hips. He never even felt it.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 68                 August 1995

  The crow was picking at the feline remains when the sleek
speedster whipped around the turn. The bumper caught the bird
glancingly as it rose from the corpse, snapping a wing and wrenching
its spine. The feathered body lay in the weeds along the road in the
hot sun for hours before dehydration reached its limits. The weak cries
of the bird frightened off any other predators until, at last, the
bird slipped unconscious and died.

  The dog ignored the body of her enemy on the road and picked up
the feathered remains in her mouth. She needed food while she weaned
her pups in the old culvert up the road. The sudden appearance of a car
caused her to jump out of the road and drop her burden. Several cars in
a row made her decide this meal wasn't worth the risk.

  The bodies lay on the hot asphalt in the baking sun, drying out
before the maggots could dissolve the flesh from the bones. Then, as
the evening shadows appeared, clouds rolled across the sky in a sudden
summer shower, drenching the area with torrents of rain. It fell much
too fast for the parched ground to absorb and ran off in rivers across
the landscape. The bodies of the bird and cat were carried by the
current into the ditch on the lower side of the road. Then, with the
other debris washed from the roadway, they flushed into a storm sewer,
headed for the river in the distance. But an accumulation of brush
formed a webbing across the pipe several hundred yards from the road.
The corpses were caught and held, with other debris, as the water
receded at the end of the shower. The body of a pup had joined the
macabre collection.

  An endless stream of insects and the hot summer sun combined
to turn the bodies into dried flesh hanging on the hardened remains
of the skeletons. The brittle skin, fur and feathers hung from the
mass of brush for weeks until they heard the call.

                               *  *  *

  ". . . Then I reached up under her blouse and unsnapped her bra,"
Jed Miller boasted to the crowd sitting under the porch roof. The
young men were listening to the latest in a series of tall tales about
teenage mating rituals while they passed the time on a hot Saturday
afternoon.

  "Yeh, right, Jed," answered one of his pals. "With her father in the
next room." The group laughed with little malice and even Jed smiled
at his attempt to put one past them.

  Jed looked out past the group and put his empty bottle down on the
wood deck of the store. A better target for some fun had just arrived.

  They called him Jake, but no one really knew his name. He drifted
into town on odd days, buying a few staples, then drifted back into
the hills. No one knew what he did for money, although more than a few
suspected him when the rash of break-ins hit the summer before. Nothing
had ever been proven, however.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 69                 August 1995

  Children had tried to follow him back into the hills; young boys
daring each other to count coup by stealing some small item from the
cabin, young girls giggling and shaking with feigned horror at the
stories the boys told. Jake ignored them all. He seemed to disappear
once he entered the woods. No one found his cabin. No one could follow
him once he entered the woods surrounding town. He seemed to melt into
the trees.

  The last few times Jake had drifted into town, an old yellow hound
had followed behind the man. The dog moved as slowly as Jake and paid
as little attention to the people they passed.

  "Hey, Jake," Jed called out, "Stop and have a beer with us."

  The group laughed as they turned to watch the old man's reaction.
Jake ignored them as always, prompting further attempts. Each of the
young clods attempted to outdo each other with vulgar assessments of
Jake's habits. When Jake gave them no satisfaction, they turned on the
dog.

  The hound had stopped outside the store, knowing it was forbidden
entrance. It lay in an untidy heap by the doorway, ignoring the calls
and thrown rocks as its master had. Basking in the Fall sunlight, the
yellow hound lay in a bony pile, looking more dead than alive except for
the occasional deep sigh of relaxation.

  But the older rowdies had reached their limit with the old man
and his dog after weeks of taunting. This time they followed Jake as
he left the store with his packages, the dog trailing behind. Jake
never acknowledged the banter and made his way past the edge of town,
headed for the woods and safety.

  "I'll show him," Jed said as he got into his truck. He raced past
Jake and the dog, coming as close as he dared. As Jake turned off
the road and into the trees, it finally happened.

  Sam Jenkins threw a stone that hit the dog on the back, causing
him to jump to the side. Unfortunately he jumped out onto the road
just as the truck roared past on its last attempt to hit/miss Jake. The
hound bounced off the front bumper like a ball from a tree, landing in
the brush at the edge of the road without a whimper.

  Jake set his packages down on the trail as the rowdies crowded
around Jed's truck, wondering what the old man would do next. Jake
knelt down by the dog, confirming the obvious: the dog was dead. Jake
took the pile of bones and skin in his arms and stood, looking at the
crowd around the truck. He carefully looked each of them in the eyes,
memorizing the faces. He looked at Jed and Sam a long time. Then Jake
turned and walked into the woods without a word, the packages left lying
on the trail, of lesser importance than his companion. Within a minute,
he was lost in the trees.

  Some of the boys piled into the truck and headed back into town to
find another target. The rest decided to call it a day and leave
problems as they were.

                               *  *  *

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 70                 August 1995

  I was home, working in the yard at the time, but the story was all
over town in a few hours, the grapevine being as good as it was. I
stopped work as I saw the young boy next door try to get in without my
seeing him. When he noticed my look, he stopped and came over.

  "You don't have to say it, Sheriff," Jimmy said as he looked
carefully at the ground. "We screwed up big time."

  "You want to tell me what happened?" I asked, motioning him to the
porch and a seat.

  "We were just sitting around shooting the shit 'til Jed saw the old
man come into town. Jed's had it in for Jake for a while, I don't know
why." Jimmy recounted the happenings carefully, just like I had taught
him to report what he saw around town. Another case of a decent boy with
a poor choice of friends. "I know we owe Jake, but I don't know what to
do about it."

  "For now, just stay away from that bunch like I've told you. I
think you mother's got a fair amount of work to do around the house
that should keep you out of trouble until I can talk to Jake and work
something out."

  "Okay, Sheriff, sounds fair." Jimmy got to his feet and headed across
the yard. He stopped about half way home and turned. You could see the
tears in his eyes, trying not to come out. "I really am sorry, Sheriff."

  I waved and nodded. As I watched him walk into the house I realized
again how much he looked like me.

  The next day, I tried to find my way through the woods to Jake's
cabin, without success. However he did it, Jake was still keeping the
cabin a secret. I never could find the place on my own, only when he
took me there himself. Along about noon, a yellow hound walked out from
between two trees in front of me, watched me for a minute or two, turned
and walked off, stopping after a few steps to see if I was following.
I was.

  Within minutes, we were at the cabin. I wasted several minutes
calling Jake and knocking before I tried the door. As it swung open,
I knew the old man was gone. All that remained was a small package
sitting on the table in the middle of the cabin's single room. I walked
into the cabin and looked at the package. It had my name on it. The rest
of the cabin was empty of all furniture and possessions. It was like no
one had ever lived there.

  I opened the package carefully. Inside was a short note in Jake's
crabbed handwriting and a cloth wrapped object. The note was to the
point.

  "They killed my dog," Jake wrote. "They only care about themselves
and how much death and destruction they can cause. I've had enough."

  My hands were shaking and I had to set the package down rather than
drop it. The last line on the note, separate from the rest and almost
at the lower edge of the page, caught my eye.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 71                 August 1995

  "Take care of my dog, boy."

  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Sitting in front of the cabin
was a dog that could have been the hound's offspring, and probably was.
Jake had left this animal in my care, it seemed.

  While I sat, I opened the cloth bundle in the box. Inside was a
stone knife and an old necklace made of bear claws and water polished
stones. The knife felt strangely warm while the necklace was cool. I
slipped the necklace over my head since it was too large for a pocket
and wrapped the knife in the cloth before thrusting it through my belt.
I walked outside to check on the dog.

  The yellow hound sat about fifty yard away from the cabin, waiting
for me to come to it rather than moving to meet me. As I walked over to
the dog, I noticed a burnt ring on the ground, with a coffin sized pile
of ashes in the center of the ring. Somehow, I knew what it was.

  "Oh, Jake, what have you done," I said to myself.

                               *  *  *

  Jed Miller was a good mechanic. He could fix any car, usually
without going any further for parts than the junkyard at the edge of
town. People in town knew he would go into partnership with his father
as soon as he managed to get through high school.

  But Jed had trouble keeping his mind on school. When he wasn't
working on a car in the shop, he could usually be found with his
buddies, sneaking beers behind the wrecks on the far side of the
junkyard. They'd cut classes and slip off in the middle of the day to
sit among the shattered bodies, dreaming of what they could do with a
"real set of wheels". They sat behind the wheels of pickup trucks and
battered sedans and dreamed of Ferraris and BMWs, talking about the
dull people in town and whatever movie starlets had captured their
attention this week, drinking beer from the can like it was fine wine.

  Today, Jed was working by himself since he really was working and
his buddies knew if they stayed around they'd be drafted for manual
labor. Jed had a can of beer poised on the fender of the beat-up Chevy
as he worked with the wrench to take out the carburetor. The car in the
shop didn't need the whole carb but it was easier to scavenge for parts
than repair the old one. Jed had been working on the junker for an hour
and was getting hot in the afternoon sun. He stopped to take a pull on
the beer before taking hold of the wrench for a solid tug. The wrench
slipped and Jed slammed his knuckles against the firewall.

  "Goddamn, sonuvabitch, piece of shit," Jed yelled at the top of
his lungs. The knuckles were skinned and hurt worse than they were
damaged but Jed colored the air anyway. As he took a semi-clean rag 
from his back pocket to wipe his hand he noticed the dog.

  The yellow hound sat watching Jed intently.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 72                 August 1995

  "What are you looking at?" Jed yelled at the dog, without
effect. The hound just sat watching the young man. Jed picked up a
rock from the ground. He pulled his arm back to throw but turned
suddenly as he heard something close behind him. The eight point buck
caught Jed squarely on its rack, skewering most of the vital organs but
missing the heart. Jed screamed as the stag lifted him off the ground
with unnatural strength. He didn't notice the broken ribs sticking from
the deer's side.

  In fact he only noticed the hound sitting calmly, watching, as
the stag dropped its screaming bundle onto the hood of a nearby junker,
neatly sliding Jed onto the broken antenna. Jed spasmed twice as the
metal spike punctured his heart and slid out the front of his chest. As
his arms flung wide on the hood, the antenna snapped at the base and the
boy slid off the fender to end propped by the side of the vehicle. The
antenna pulsed with the last contractions of his heart until a stream of
blood poured from the end of the tube, draining the last life from the
body.

  The stag looked over to the hound. Slowly, with a measured step,
the yellow hound walked over to the crumpled form. The stag watched
the hound as it urinated over the corpse. Then, as the hound turned
and walked away, the stag nodded in an almost human gesture and
collapsed in a pile of dried bones and rotting skin next to the bloody
pile that had been Jed.

                               *  *  *

  "Geronimo!" came the loud cry, followed by an even greater splash.

  The bank of the river was level at this point but decades of wear
had dropped the water to several feet below the edge of the bank. That
made the drop from the rope swing respectable enough to raise a splash
ten or twelve feet into the air. The group had been swimming since they
ducked out of school at noon and now there was only an occasional splash
followed by some serious beer guzzling. Four single-minded poker players
sat off to one side on an old blanket. The remaining two took turns
drinking from a quart bottle and swinging out into the water.

  The crew was intent on their fun and never noticed the movement
in the high grass surrounding the trampled earth of the swimming area.
The youngest member of the group had just launched into the water when
the yellow hound walked out of the brush and sat facing the group on the
blanket. The hound sat waiting until one of the poker players looked up
and noticed him.

  With a howl that snapped heads around, the hound signaled the attack.
Out of the high grass came a horde of animals: raccoons, possums, cats,
dogs, even a bobcat. They made straight for the drunken swimmer and the
poker players and rolled over them like a wave. The swimmer in the river
was trying to dodge a crow and two smaller blackbirds that had already
torn a flap of skin loose on his head. He stayed under water as long as
he could, but every time he surfaced the birds attacked until the crow
locked its claws in the boy's eyes and forced the screaming head under
water to drown him.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 73                 August 1995

  The poker players found the blanket under their feet shredded by
dozens of snakes that ripped through the covering and fastened fangs
and teeth into arms and legs. Black snakes wrapped around necks and
squeezed with uncharacteristic strength, strangling the four before
rattlesnake poison could take effect.

  The other swimmer struggled to his feet only to be knocked down by
barn cats that flew into his face and ripped eyes and flesh like some
demonic shredder. Once on the ground, he was attacked by other beasts,
ganging together to leave nothing but a bloody puddle in the dirt.

  When the screams stopped and the only sounds left were the buzzing
of flies come to attend the unexpected feast, the animals all faced the
yellow hound. The hound nodded its head and turned to walk into the
woods as the attackers collapsed into piles of broken bones and rotting
skin. The call had been answered. Their work was done.

  The hound's was not.

                               *  *  *

  I had started back home immediately. The hound followed for a
while, but soon ran off into the woods, ignoring my calls. I felt sure
he would turn up at my house later that night. He seemed to know exactly
what he was doing.

  I stopped off at the office on my way through town and heard about
the carnage at the river from my deputy. The poor man was almost
hysterical. I could understand why: he had found the remains and one
of them had been his own boy. He kept shouting that he was going to get
the SOB who did that to his son. I left him in the care of his wife and
went on home. The reports on this one could wait for morning and a
better inspection of the site.

  As I walked into my yard, I saw the young hound lying beside my
porch, staring at the young man next door as he worked. The dog knew
the way home better than I did, it seemed. I set the knife and the
necklace on the kitchen table as I went by and took out a pan of water
for the dog, going back inside to look for something to feed him.

  I set a plate of two day old meatloaf in front of the dog and sat
on the steps to look him over. The hound sniffed the plate and the
water and trotted over to me, lying down on the step by my feet. I
reached over and scratched him behind the ears then got up and went into
the house. I paused at the sink to rinse off my hands and get a glass of
cold water. As I soaped my hands, the faint odor of burnt fur rose from
the water. I shrugged. The dog must have found a burn off up in the hills
and rolled in the ashes. I tried not to think of the obvious source.

  I sat down at the table and looked at the gifts from Jake in
the bright light of the fluorescents. The knife was some type of dark
stone, like obsidian but a different color. Holding the knife up to the
light, I could see a faint reddish tinge to the stone. It was nothing
native to this area, I was sure. The necklace was more understandable.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 74                 August 1995

The claws were clearly bear claws and the stones were a collection of
water-washed quartz, jasper, granite and one piece that could have been
part of an old soda bottle. The stones had been set into carved settings
of wood or bone and strung on leather thongs. It could have been Indian
work, but something about the entire piece bothered me when I considered
that. I knew a bit about Indians of the area from talking to Jake and
from reading on my own. I was no expert but I knew more than most people.
Besides, Indians didn't use soda bottles for necklace decorations. This
piece was made for a purpose, I felt.

  I checked on the dog and then went to call the state police. I
wanted to know what was going on in town and they owed me a few favors.
This was more than just rabid animals.

                               *  *  *

  "Looks like he was lifted and dumped onto the car," I commented as
the county coroner finished his exam. The dents in the fender showed
fibers from Jed's pants caught in the rust.

  "Looks like it. The antennae went right through the heart like he
came straight down on it. It's those other punctures that bother me
more." The coroner pointed to the pattern of the holes in Jed's chest
as he lay slumped against the fender. "If I didn't know better, I'd
swear they matched the pattern of that rack." He gestured at the
skeleton of the deer laying to the side and I felt a shiver, again.

  When Dave Miller had called and said he found his son that
morning in the junkyard, I was worried. When the coroner put the
tentative time of death as prior to the events at the river, which he
had also examined, I was even more worried. I walked over and examined
the stag. I had seen enough dead deer in the woods to judge this one
dead for several months. The broken ribs sticking through the remains
of the skin seemed to show it had been hit by something before it died.
The bones had been broken while the animal was alive, not after the
fact. I checked to be sure the photographer had gotten pictures of the
corpse and picked up the skull, antlers attached. As I looked closer, I
got my answer. There was blood on the tines. I carried the rack over to
the body. Without touching the chest, I held the tines in position.
They matched.

  "Oh, shit," the coroner said. "How do you figure this one?"

  I turned to the man carefully. "You keep this to yourself," I said,
eye to eye. "We don't need a lot of wild tales floating around."

  "Sure, sheriff, no problem" he answered as he carefully packed
his kit to leave. "Nobody'd believe me anyway." He placed the skull
and rack in a big specimen bag and put it in the wagon for evidence,
such as it was.

  Now all I needed was a suspect. And I was pretty sure who that was.

  I was also sure he was dead.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 75                 August 1995

  Jimmy was home, working on the flower bed around the porch while
his mother supervised when I arrived. I nodded to his mother, careful
to observe the small town propriety for a married woman with her husband
out of town.

  "Morning, Debbie, Jim," I said as I took off my hat and wiped the
sweatband. Looking at Jimmy digging away without a shirt to soak up
the sweat running down his back made me even hotter.

  "Morning, Al. Can I get you anything?" Debbie asked, as she dusted
off her hands from the potting soil. "Lemonade?"

  "Thanks, yes. And I need to talk to Jimmy for a bit." She nodded
and went in the house.

  "You heard about the river yesterday?" I asked Jimmy, as he leaned
on his shovel. He nodded. "Well, his father found Jed Miller in the
junkyard this morning skewered by a dead deer."

  "Beg pardon, Sheriff?"

  "You heard right. What I need to know from you is who all was in
that group that went after Jake the other day."

  Jimmy looked a bit sick as the thought sunk in.

  "Jed was driving. Then there was Bill Harvey, Jack Stoner,
Dave Harris, Harry Keller, Dan Davis, Sam Jenkins and Bob Smith." I
counted them off: all the boys at the river except for Sam. And Jimmy,
of course.

  "Anyone else?"

  "No, there were one or two others earlier but they had left before
Jake showed up."

  I stood up as his mother came out with a glass of lemonade. "Okay,
here's the deal: you stay around the house with your mother until I get
back. I don't want you alone at any time. I'm going for Sam and then I'm
going to figure out some way to keep you two safe." I drank the lemonade
without pause. "Thanks, Deb. Keep an eye on the boy and stay near the
house."

  "Sure, Al." Her fingers moved across mine as she took the glass.
"Thanks for watching out for Jimmy."

  I stopped in the house for the necklace and knife. Jake never did
anything without a reason and I had a hunch his present had something
to do with what was going on. I put the necklace under my shirt and
stuck the knife in my belt. The knife was uncomfortable as I sat in the
car, but I wasn't going to take any chances at this point. I drove out
of town, headed for the Jenkins place on the ridge and hoped I was in
time.

  I pulled into the yard at the Jenkins place, in between the rusting
washing machine and the old jeep carcass. I walked up to the door
carefully. There was a silence in the air that I didn't like. The door
swung open just before I reached it, outlining Sam in the doorway.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 76                 August 1995

  "What do you want, Sheriff," he asked, followed by a loud belch.

  "I want you to come into town with me so I can try to protect you,"
I answered as I moved to the door. It was still too quiet for this
time of day in the woods.

  "Don't worry about me, Sheriff," Sam replied, as he reached down
next to the door. There was a pump 12-gauge in his hand when he swayed
upright again. "I can take care of myself."

  "Where's your folks, Sam" I asked, as I looked around the open room
that was the first floor of the home.

  "Gone for the weekend, or the week or something like that," he
answered, not caring much about the situation. "Come on in and have a
beer and sit a while." He reeled back to a chair in front of the empty
fireplace with a battery powered radio in pieces next to it. It had not
been a good day so far, apparently. Sam propped the shotgun against the
chair as he reached for his beer. That's when it hit.

  The back door of the building crashed in, taking the door and sash
to the floor. Sam fell as he tried to grab for the gun, then froze as
he saw what was in the doorway.

  We didn't have all that many bear in the area but every once in a
while one trotted into town to raid garbage cans and I had to go track
it for relocation. The bear that had been hit on the highway was an
occasion everyone knew about. I had trailed it for three days to be
sure it didn't turn rogue. I buried what remained after it bounced off
that semi, fifteen miles from where it had been hit. Now I could see
where pieces of parking light had been driven into the flesh and strips
of chrome from the grill had wedged between the ribs. There was even a
chunk of mud flap hanging from the splintered scapula.

  I drew with a speed Buffalo Bill would have envied and emptied a
clip into the bear's chest as I moved across the room and grabbed Sam.
He had sobered enough to grab his gun and start pumping rounds into
the beast at point blank. I could see chunks of dried flesh being
blasted away from the corpse but it still kept walking forward, on two
legs since the right foreleg was mangled by the truck. As I reached
Sam and reloaded by the numbers, the bear stopped it's advance. Sam
stayed behind me as the macabre invader moved to circle me and reach
the boy. I fired at it's legs to try and slow it down but the only
result was a louder roar from the damaged throat.

  As we swung around with our backs to the ruined door, I pushed Sam
out, following close as the bear matched our moves, still keeping away
from me as it tried to reach Sam. The boy stumbled out the door and
moved to the left, toward the corner of the house. I moved to keep the
bear inside, aware of something deterring it's advance but not sure
what. I kept firing at it's legs without effect as I stood in the
doorway, watching Sam reach the corner of the building. That was when
I hit the end of the clip.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 77                 August 1995

  It happened all at once. I ejected the spent clip one-handed as
I pulled my last one from my pocket. As I slipped the clip home and
released the slide, the bear turned from me to the wall of the
building and crashed through into the sunlight. I had a quick glimpse
of Sam's face, a mask of fear, then the huge corpse landed on him like
a falling boulder. I knew it was too close to fire with Sam underneath,
but some reflex made me reach for the knife in my belt. The cloth fell
away as I swung the stone blade hard into the neck of the bear.

  The corpse fell apart as the knife pierced the leather flesh,
bones falling from their joints and the entire skeleton collapsing on
itself. I dropped the knife and pulled the section of wall off the boy,
hoping for the best. But Sam was dead, crushed by the weight of the wall
and a corpse that walked on it's own.

  As I stood looking down on the remains, something caught the corner
of my eye. I looked up and saw the yellow hound sitting at the edge of
the clearing, watching me. Then it turned and started down the hillside,
toward town. I knew where it was headed.

  I made it back down that dirt road in a new record that cost me
a set of shocks and probably an oil pan. As I pulled up in front of
Jimmy's house I saw something that almost stopped me cold. Sitting on
the end of the sidewalk was the yellow hound, calmly watching the
house. In the yard around the building, front and sides and probably
the back for all I knew, was a crowd of dead animals. They had to be
dead, considering the broken limbs, crushed chests and gaping wounds
that were evident. As I got out of the car, the animals closest to me
moved away. I walked up to the front door of the house, animals moving
from my path, and saw Jimmy and his mother watching through the curtains.
I turned and faced the crowd. People on the street were staring through
their windows but no one moved to help us out. I guess they figured the
sheriff could handle whatever was going on.

  "This is the end, Jake," I said to the hound. "It stops here."

  The yellow beast moved closer to the porch, it's regal steps
parting the army of roadkills like a wave. It stopped at the bottom
of the steps and sat watching me closely.

  "You had a right to be angry," I told the dog. "But that doesn't
give you the right to hand out your own justice."

  The hound snuffed and motioned to the door with it's snout.

  "Come out here, Jimmy," I called through the door.

  "Are you crazy?" I heard echo behind the door as Debbie tried to
stop the boy from coming out. But I think Jimmy understood. He opened
the door and stepped onto the porch, setting the baseball bat down on
the deck. The crowd moved closer.

  "No, Jake," I said. "Keep them back. You've got to hear him out."
I reached down and pulled the necklace over my head, dropping it over
Jimmy's. The hound gave me a stare that was just like Jake, like when
you made a good move in a chess game against him. "Tell him, Jimmy.
Tell him what you told me."

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 78                 August 1995

  "I'm sorry, Jake. Really, I am. I know we shouldn't have tried to
hurt the dog. I'm just a dumb kid who screws up sometimes and I'd do
most anything to make it up to you, but you got to leave my mom alone.
And Sheriff Al, too. He was your friend, is your friend. You want
something from me you got it, but leave them alone."

  I looked down at the dog. The hound looked carefully from the boy
to me and back.

  "He's a good boy, Jake. A little stupid sometimes, but he gets that
from his Pa. I can't let you hurt him, just for one mistake. I can't
let you hurt my son."

  I don't know whose look bothered me more: Jake's or Jimmy's. But
I moved in front of the boy and started down the steps to the hound.
Jake turned and looked out across the yard at his army. The he turned
back and without warning jumped for my throat. The weight of the body
pushed me back on the steps and I twisted to try to get out from under
as we landed. My hands had gone for the dog's neck in an old reflex and
I didn't even realize I had the knife in my hand until I saw it sticking
out of the hound's throat.

  In the yard around the house, the animals collapsed into piles of
bones and skin.

  The next day, Jimmy and I took the hound up to Jake's cabin and built
a pyre on the same spot Jake had used. It seemed appropriate.

                               {DREAM}

Copyright 1995 Jack Hillman, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack is a freelance writer, who has been published in BLOODREAMS,
ONCE UPON A WORLD, and GATEWAYS. He writes a bimonthly SF/F column
published in THE MAGAZINE of SHAREFICTION, and his book reviews
appear in POPULAR FICTION NEWS. As a contributing editor to ON THE
RISK, he keeps track of "life".
=====================================================================
                                                    

UNICORN'S FOREST
  by Leah Suslovich
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  They came seeking her, as they always did. They rode side by
side, a wiry warrior-girl and a magician. The girl had left her
daggers behind. No weapon could come into the unicorn's forest.
They rode bareback and their horses wore no bridles. The unicorn
allowed no animal to be trapped in her woods. It was the one
sanctity left to her in a world of turmoil. Here, no carnivores
hunted, no animals starved. There was no cold, no frost, no snow;
there was only an endless Spring. And, occasionally, the humans
who came searching for the wish a unicorn could grant.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 79                 August 1995

  The unicorn watched them, invisible. Sometimes she stayed
hidden, sometimes she led the humans on, clever as a fox, leaving
them baffled and frustrated in their inability to find her. And
sometimes, rarely, she showed herself and granted a judicious wish.

  She considered what she would do this time as she watched the
two dismount. The wizard patted the horses' noses. "Stay," he
said briefly. "Or leave if you wish."

  The unicorn snorted in surprise, then galloped across the
meadow to the edge of the trees. The horses' heads swung briefly
as she let them feel the ancient woods, the freedom and beauty in
the unicorn's forest. Softly, the unicorn nickered. Two humans
would be walking home today.

  The horses dropped their heads and began to chomp the grass.
Astonished, the unicorn approached the horses, then lowered her
horn and touched one's flank. The wizard's eyes followed the
horse's gaze before the unicorn moved away. An expression of
triumph flashed in his eyes.

  But the unicorn had ascertained what she wanted to know; the
horses were under no geas. So this was no trick to impress her.
Or maybe it was to impress her, but it was no trick. She watched
the pair.

  They began to pick up stones, arranging them in a pattern in
the center of the meadow. It was no pattern the unicorn had ever
seen before. It was composed of two triangles, set at right
angles, within a circle which was within a square. They did not
speak as they worked but when they were finished, they exchanged
quick glances. The girl took a purple stone from her pouch and,
leaning over, placed it gingerly in the center of the strange
pattern. Then she stood back -- waiting.

  Curious, the unicorn approached. A strong aura of magic
leaked from the purple stone. She ignore the other stones
disdainfully -- there was no mere pattern of rocks that could trap
a unicorn -- and lowered her head to the stone.

  She felt the rope coming and leapt away instinctively but,
quick as she was, she wasn't quick enough. The rope settled over
her shoulders and pulled tight. The girl raced to a nearby tree
and wrapped the rope around it, tying it with a strong knot. The
unicorn felt herself become visible. Furious, she turned and
slashed at the rope with her horn.

  It would not be cut.

  The unicorn slashed again, and again the rope held. This was
impossible. No rope could hold a unicorn. She turned to the
humans, her eyes glinting.

  "What rope is this?"

  "Unicorn hair," said the magician smugly.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 80                 August 1995

  Understanding and horror made her anger fade. She bent to the
stone. It had a glamour cast over it, nothing more. After all
these years, to be fooled and trapped like this! She had grown
overconfident. She swung her head around to face the humans. "You
killed a unicorn!"

  "He would not grant our wish. We could only kill him -- not
trap him, as we did you." The magician smirked. "Curiosity caught
the unicorn."

  The unicorn felt fear rising within her, for the first time in
hundreds of years. It made her tongue loose. "You fools! There
are only three!"

  "Two," said the magician softly. "The other unicorn was
killed two hundred years ago." His eyes met hers. "And now you
are the last."

  "Imbeciles! Three unicorns are a balance -- they --" She
would not tell them. She lashed out with her hooves at the girl,
who moved quickly aside.

  "We know," said the magician. "Three unicorns are needed for
peace and balance. But since the first died, chaos and war have
been too common."

  "The first unicorn was killed -- by one of your kind. Did you
think killing a second would help?"

  The girl spoke for the first time. "We had to kill him to
trap you, so that you might grant our wish."

  The unicorn snorted. "And you are selfish enough to destroy
your world to fulfill your desire?"

  "No!" said the magician. "We are doing this to save our
world. Two unicorns are not enough."

  "One is even worse."

  "There must be three again," the magician asserted.

  "We wish to know where unicorns come from," said the girl.

  The unicorn froze.

  "Grant it!" said the magician.

  "I will not." Her voice was quiet as death.

  "You must."

  She turned her head slowly. "You fools. We unicorns came to
grant you a favor. And for this you killed two of us and trapped
a third? We were never obligated to grant your wishes."

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 81                 August 1995

  "We won't let you go until you do," said the girl, shrilly.

  The unicorn jerked herself forwards. The rope held. She
glanced back. The knot was secure -- connected to the tree. Her
tree. A tree of her Woods... She felt a rage rise within her.

  "And if I do not answer -- ever?"

  The magician laughed. "How long can you stay tied, Unicorn?
Can you live a captive? Or must you be able to run free?"

  "You don't dare let me die." Die. She'd never had to think
about death before. The unicorn felt a wintry coldness at the
thought. "Humans," she spat in disgust. "We should never have
come here. Your kind don't deserve the balance."

  "I don't believe you know where the other unicorns are," said
the girl scornfully.

  "I know." The unicorn trembled, then steadied.

  "You will tell us," said the magician. "Or -- we will burn
your Woods. The Unicorn Woods. This one is the last, just as you
are."

  "We know more than you think!" cried the girl triumphantly.
"The Woods are the only places where a unicorn may stay on this
Earth. Maybe the world you creatures come from has nothing but
Woods. But you love your Woods and would do anything to stop us
from hurting it."

  "Wrong," said the unicorn. "I would never allow you to draw
two more unicorns into your world. I would never give you humans
that much knowledge of us. You live to destroy. There will be no
more unicorns here. You get only one chance and your kind failed."

  She swung her head. At the last moment, the magician
suspected what she was going to do and leapt forwards with a cry.

  But it was too late.

  A searing white flame leapt from the unicorn's horn. It
wreathed the tree to which the rope was tied.

  "No!" gasped the girl. "You can't! It's not possible."

  The tree toppled, slowly, and the flame touched the rope.
There was an angry, hissing sound, the flame flared, went out, and
the rope disintegrated into dust. The unicorn was again free.

  She stood, unable to be glad at her freedom. Pain burned
through her as though in cutting the tree, she had cut her own
heart. She had felt it die, experienced its pain. Her tree...gone
because of these two. Humans!

  They were staring at her, the girl in shock, the magician in
new found fear.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 81                 August 1995

  "It is done," she said. They would never understand her pain,
never know the full meaning of what they had forced her to do.
"You have ended it. I will go back...and when there are no more
unicorns at all, chaos will reign. You will destroy yourselves.

Thousands of years shall pass -- you will create strange machines
that kill, and you'll tamper with Nature, set her against you --
and, in time, you will all die. And you will always know that you
did it to yourselves."

  She turned and left. They made no move to follow her. The
magician was white-faced, the girl had sunk to the ground. They
stayed there at the beginning of the end of the world, beside a
fallen tree, watching the unicorn gallop away and disappear among
the trees as the first flakes of snow began to fall.

                               {DREAM}

Copyright 1995 Leah Suslovich, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Leah, has been published in SHAPESHIFTER, and SHOW & TELL. Enjoys
reading and writings, especially fantasy and science fiction, as well
as Rollerblading and biking. Leah has a planned trip to Israel for an
educational program, next year.
======================================================================


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
LUNCH IN THE PARK
  by Francis U. Kaltenbaugh
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


  Melanie was late for work, again, and very upset, with herself,
her surroundings, and life as she knew it. Once again, it wasn't
her fault, but the boss would of course -- blame her.

  Her last lover and part-time fiancee, when the mood struck
him, had barged into her apartment at 3:52 am. Drunk, over-amped,
and horny, he wanted to discuss her taking him back -- again. This
was the third time she took away his *only* key to her apartment. He
had argued with her till 6:31 am; when, in his asinine inimitable
style, demonstrating his anger, he smashed an ashtray into her neatly
arranged nick-knacks. Then he stalked out slamming the door for
emphasis, knowing it would upset her elderly neighbor. She would hear
about it.

  After the subway ride, her bus, which would get her to work
fifteen minutes early -- broke down. She was thirty minutes late,
and *hated* to be late for anything. She demanded others be on time
always, herself included, and would berate herself endlessly, whenever
late for anything.

  "Damn!" she thought. Her portly and greasy boss was standing
there, hunched over her work area -- inspecting her work from
yesterday. She glanced at two of her co-workers, produced a twisted
smile and silently nodded.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 82                 August 1995

  Denise, watching Melanie as she entered, turned to Lori seated
next to her and rolled her eyes. "Look at her. Black! Always
wearing black everyday, can ya believe her? Gawd!"

  "Little behind schedule are we -- AGAIN?" the boss asked. He
turned to follow her, as she hurried past him. He was showing his
best stern look for the benefit of the others, but it didn't mask
his lust for her.

  She muttered, "Stupi . . . hole."

  "What! Didn't catch that?" He blurted.

  She couldn't wait any longer. Needing relief since leaving her
apartment -- all the way to work. "Damn Super! Damn Toilet! Damn
Ex-fiancee!" And then her boss, hanging around waiting for her grand
entrance -- just so he could make a scene. His way of trying to
pressure her, a little more, pushing without touching -- knowing she
would *give in* -- eventually.

  When she was done in the restroom, she gingerly opened the door
a crack, peering out to see if anyone was about to enter. She only
needed a few well rehearsed moments . . . . She walked out and he
wasn't in sight; ignored stares from co-workers and settled in to
absorb herself in her work, feeling more at ease. Losing herself in
the little accomplishments of a job well done, she felt better.

  Caught up in her work and having lost track of time, she turned
around to glance at the clock, and noticed two things at once: it
was lunch time and the boss was standing by the door -- waiting.
Used to the ritual, an excuse ready, she was surprised to see him
walk off with the new girl in tow. He grasped the girl's arm with
his pudgy little hand as he opened the door for her. Surely he was
bending her ear with all the advantages of working here -- especially
with him.

  Each girl had received the same indoctrination, except, he was
obsessed with Melanie. "You know what they say about girls who wear
black," he had told her many times, with a stupid smirk. She let out
a sigh, relieved at not having to play the daily game of wits,
explaining why they couldn't take lunch together. Another trip to the
restroom, and then she'd be better able to face the lunch crowd.

  Upon reaching the crowded bustling street, she ignored all the
trash and litter from humanity, and accepted it as a bright, cheerful
day; a great contrast to the windowless rooms where they worked. She
decided to skip lunch again, instead, she would go to the nearby park.
A lovely day, some sun, a little reading and relaxing in the park
would make her feel much better; she even had some tidbits stashed in
her purse, rationed and leftover from last night, when she had visited
friends from a neighboring apartment building.

  The park bench was hot from the sun, almost too hot. She squirmed
a lot as she sat there, finally the heat became warmth and she felt
it spread comfortably. Her black knit-bag served triple duty: purse,
an often needed carry-all, and sometimes home. In it, she finally
found the book she wanted, SNOW CRASH, by Neal Stephenson. Reading
would help her escape. A few minutes later, she fished into her bag
and pulled out the leftover morsels, looked around cautiously, and
quickly consumed them.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 83                 August 1995

  Dan saw her as soon as she came through the park entrance. In
this bright sun, he wondered, "_Why in the hell would anyone be
wearing all black!_" Full length skirt, almost hiding her knee-high
black lace-up boots, see-through black blouse with black bodice
beneath, black shawl draped over her back, and a black knit-cap --
that was completely hiding her waist-length blonde hair from view
completed her ensemble. He especially noticed the very large black
bag she carried. "Looks like a damn black laundry bag," he muttered;
"gotta be somethin' worth my time there."

  He was starting to feel it -- bad, and needed to take care of
business fast. The prospects in the park looked slim to Dan -- Sally,
the bag-lady, a few winos, and the continual refuse from humanity --
the homeless. Most of the people who worked in the area avoided the
park like the plague. He was getting desperate. She was there,
obviously on lunch break, a working girl, and should be an easy mark.
A bicyclist approached and Dan tried his luck . . .

  "Hey man! Got some change? Gotta make a phone call bad. Lost
my wallet," he pleaded.

  "Get bent!" spat the bicyclist, as he sped by.

  "Yuppie punk! Yo mutha . . ." Dan mumbled, not enthused enough to
continue without an audience to hear his torrent of rhymed curses. He
looked to Melanie sitting on the bench.


         Hawk circles in the distance -- pretending not to
         study its prey, while intended victim, absorbed in
         its own microcosm, is oblivious to impending danger.


  Melanie relaxed; alternately scanning her book and then her
surroundings -- always aware. You never knew what to expect in this
part of the city, and this park in particular. Looking up from her
book, she noticed a big, apparently ownerless, tabby nosing around
some fast-food bags laying beside a trash-barrel. She liked cats.
Big ones. Leopards in particular, and often thought of herself as a
big black cat -- reincarnated; female and as deadly as needed for
survival, wherever she found herself -- including this urban jungle.

  She was enjoying her lunch: languishing in the sunshine, her book,
forgetting her problems, and escaping into her little bit of solitude,
distanced from the derelicts and other refuse in the park.

  She thought, "Every time I tell 'em I'm a big black leopard, the
guys always tell me, `You mean panther.' What do they know." She
started reading again, then laughed quite loudly from a passage in
her book.

         Flying -- in ever tightening circles, hawk moves
         directly above unsuspecting prey, as victim concerns
         itself with its own needs, desires, and patterns of
         existence -- unseen.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 84                 August 1995

  She pulled her travel alarm from her bag checking the time. "Back
to the grind -- gotta hurry back to work." She slide her book into her
purse, rummaged in her bag, and got up from the bench. She could chance
being late -- twice in one day! by crossing the park and taking the
safe way back to work, hoping traffic would allow her to J-walk. Or,
using the underground pedestrian walkway, which would get her back to
work in plenty of time. Dangerous at times, and pretty dark with all
the lights busted, but she had learned to endure it. "Oh well!"

  Dan moved very near, slowly working his way behind where
Melanie sat. Far enough away, figuring she wouldn't notice him
studying her. "Be easy, real easy. Shit! she's bookin'." He made
a move.

  Heading for the underground walkway, she looked around and couldn't
see the guy she had spotted before. She breathed a sigh of relief and
walked more quickly, knowing she should avoid any confrontation.

  She felt so much better after relaxing in the park, reading,
listening to the birds, buzzing -- much better than she had for days.
Such a fine day. It really lifted her spirits. She would have to speak
to the Super as soon as she got home. "_Gotta make him fix that damn
toilet and stop the leak in the sink. The leak's driving me crazy!_"
She entered the underground pedestrian walkway.

         Wings sweep back, diving -- hawk plummets to attack!
         Outstretched talons reach for a tender neck -- easy prey.

         Claws spring forth, a cat's-paws -- countering hawk's
         deadly grasp. Feathers become very ruffled.


  She took several deep breaths to counter the adrenalin rushing
through her and to stop shaking. Melanie had to step over the
prostrate form, took a few steps away, then hesitated. In the dim
light of the underground walkway, it took a minute, but finally
found and withdrew some tissues from her purse. She wiped her
straight-razor clean then tucked it back into her wide belt. As
she threw down the soiled tissues, hating to litter but had to
hurry, she heard a final rattle and gasp.

  "Damn! I'll be late for work -- again."

                              {DREAM}

Copyright 1995 Francis U. Kaltenbaugh
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Francis is a writer who enjoys exploring, looking under the rocks of
humanity and checking the darker side. When not looking under rocks,
you can find Francis in cafes, restaurants, and bars trying to find
the elusive glue to paste a book together. Electronic publications
are great and Francis knows there are Aliens out there, who have
received and are reading electronic magazines -- and should soon be
sending some of their electronic publications to us.
=====================================================================

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 85                 August 1995

Book Review: ALL THE TROUBLE IN THE WORLD
  by Dave Bealer
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

  Repent, the end of the world is near! You'd think it was
inevitable, what with all the (very fashionable) worrying about
famine, plague, overpopulation, racial hatred, and environmental
catastrophe. Doomsday myths have always been popular, but modern
pseudo-science gives them an air of authenticity that is very
seductive, even to the modern skeptical mind, unless you happen
to have the actual facts.

  P.J. O'Rourke has been poking holes in over-inflated egos and
debunking popular myths since the 1960s. A former editor of the
NATIONAL LAMPOON, these days he writes for ROLLING STONE, and
certainly gathers no moss, seeking out assignments as a correspondent
that allow him to travel where the action is around the world. Unlike
most popular economic/political commentators, O'Rourke has actually
been to places like Bangladesh, Somalia, Bosnia, and Vietnam. He
makes the most of these experiences, using them as the basis of his
latest best seller, ALL THE TROUBLE IN THE WORLD: The Lighter Side
of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague,
and Poverty.

  In the section on overpopulation, O'Rourke points out that
Fremont, California, a tony city located on San Francisco Bay, has
the exact same population density as Bangladesh. Even the worst
doomsday predictions would leave the planet with the same population
density as the State of Pennsylvania. Anyone who has driven Interstate
80 through north central Pennsylvania can assure you that even in the
worst case scenario, there will still be plenty of desolate places
where people can "get away from it all."

  O'Rourke landed an assignment in Somalia, where he investigated
famine. P.J. discovered that there is really plenty of food in
Somalia. You don't even need food stamps to get it, just an AK-47.
Statistics prove that the modern world grows a lot more food, feeds
a lot more people than ever before, yet suffers from more famine.
O'Rourke notes that "This would seem to defy physical law . . .
When a thing defies physical law, there's usually politics involved."

  A long time commentator on American cultural eccentricities,
O'Rourke is really in his element when he gets going on the shambles
that is the American environmental movement. Starting off with the
U.S. Government's horrendous record as a steward of the environment,
he finishes with a summary of his attendance at the 1992 Earth Summit
in Rio de Janeiro. Along the way, he takes well deserved swipes at
such noted environmental "thinkers" as Henry David Thoreau and
Roderick Nash.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 86                 August 1995

  O'Rourke sums up his treatise on global suffering with a
chapter on Economic Justice, subtitled: "The Hell with Everything,
Let's Get Rich." As an example he uses the Republic of Vietnam.
Although still a communist dictatorship, the citizens of Vietnam
"have let go of Marx with both hands." Everyone in the country is
hustling, making things or providing services on the side, in
addition to whatever "official" job they might have. O'Rourke notes
that "You can do pretty much what you want to do in Vietnam. You are
not, however, supposed to have opinions about doing it." To give you
an idea how well the country is doing, just 20 years after the last
helicopter lifted off the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon --
Vietnam is sending food aid to the former Soviet Union.

  ALL THE TROUBLE IN THE WORLD: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation,
Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty.
by P.J. O'Rourke; Atlantic Monthly Press, ISBN: 0-87113-580-9  $22

                              {DREAM}

Copyright 1995 Dave Bealer, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Bealer is a thirty-something mainframe systems programmer who
works with CICS, MVS and all manner of nasty acronyms at one of the
largest heavy metal shops on the East Coast. He shares a waterfront
townhome in Pasadena, MD. with two cats who annoy him endlessly as he
writes and publishes electronically. Dave can be reached via e-mail
at: dave.bealer@dreamforge.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Sound Byte:

  "Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help
   Mom do the dishes."  - P.J. O'Rourke
=====================================================================
                                                              


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
SPIRITUAL MUSIC ADVICE 'n' STUFF
  by Rev. Richard Visage
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


It's quite amazing how things meander around in Cyberspace - I
put a short, nasty review of Hole's latest CD in some months ago,
and just now found hostile email in the tank.

Really, how was I supposed to know that beneath the screeching,
howling and feedback, that there was music in there. I'll give it
another listen, honest.

Just for some contrast, we're going to go with the very new, and
the very old this month. As loudly requested, let's first spin
Green Day . . .

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 87                 August 1995

DOOKIE
Green Day
-=-=-=-=-

I approached this one with a fair bit of trepidation. It's wa-a-ay
up there on the charts, and has the reputation of being the new
teenage angst album. This is generally not a good sign.

Guitar crash and lots of power chording light up the instant you
put this one on the CD player - much what you'd expect. It's
recorded in a thin, garage band style, and would be viewed as
being weak by a musicologist.

So how come it works, and works damned well? The blazing chords
blend well, in fact, these guys have taken power chords into a
new, high orbit, and there's even some clever hooks. The boys
have some pop sensibilities, it would seem (they won't like to
hear that, trust me). Surprisingly, as a package, it's fresh and
sounds new, even though there's really nothing you can point at
to say what's new about it.

It's a rare tune that has anthem-like qualities, the Who's 'My
Generation', the Stones' 'Satisfaction', and the Pistols' 'God
Save the Queen' all come to mind. I think we can add Green Day's
'Basket Case' to that list. I won't suggest that Ms. LaBamba
donned her peek-a-boo leathers and trashed the hotel room while
'Basket Case' was playing, just in case the Dream Forge lawyers
are reading this.

This probably isn't an album for the over-forty set, but it's
just damned good music, charged with energy and new
interpretations.


Voodoo Soup
Jimi Hendrix
-=-=-=-=-=-=

I have always avoided posthumous albums like the plague. I mean,
really, just how new can you expect something to be when the
musician has been dead for 25 years. Somehow, they seem to manage
to trot out new Hendrix and Jim Morrison albums on a regular
basis.

I only bought this one because of a gushy review (probably
Rolling Stone) that made this one sound special.

Is there anything new here? Not that I could find. Yes, a few
obscure tracks, but all have been on vinyl at some point. And
there are good tunes here - a few of the 'Band of Gypsies'
favourites like 'Angel', 'Freedom' and 'Ezy Rider' - and unless
my ears tricked me there's been some slick re-mastering work
along the way somewhere.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 88                 August 1995

Still, I'm not impressed. I think Hendrix peaked on the 'Electric
Ladyland' album, and it stands to this day as one of my all time
favourites. Do yourself a favour, skip 'Voodoo Soup' and add
'Electric Ladyland' to your CD collection.

Religiously yours,
Rev. Richard Visage
fido (1:163/409)
rv@visage.akasha.net

(Note to Editors: Gee, thanks guys. It must have taken one hell
of a lot of effort to reel in an endorsement from "BillyBob's
Records" and get me that free disk. Don't get me wrong, it's not
that I don't *like* tuba music, it's just that when I listened to
'Ferd Quigly and his Tuba - Unplugged' I couldn't quite make it
through the version of 'Innagaddadavida' without having to crack
a new bottle of JD.)

(p.s. Saaay, there's an idea - think the nice folks that distil JD
would want to sponsor the column?)


                               {DREAM}

Copyright 1995 Rev. Richard Visage, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Rev. Richard Visage is the official Spiritual Advisor to Fidonet,
and is listed on the masthead of the Fidonews, where his
correspondence is published regularly. The Rev. operates
1:163/409 on a laptop from various hotel rooms, and is bankrolled
by expense accounts from unsuspecting publications who showed the
poor judgement of hiring him. Canadian Government officials list
him and his semi-clad secretary, Ms. LaBamba, as officially being
"at large" somewhere in North America. rv@visage.akasha.net
======================================================================


<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<------>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
                              POETRY . . .
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=******-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

THE MISSED MILLENNIUM

 A new millennium approaches
 and the old fin de siecle madness
 begins to spread, the violence,
 the hatred, the mutual distrust
 and paranoia -- we've already flayed
 the tosser of the monkey wrench.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 89                 August 1995

 A few years got lost
 a while back -- so keep
 your millennial angst at bay
 (of dust) for at least
 another thousand revolutions
 around the sun. For ten
 of your terrestrial years
 we observed you as peers,
 walking and talking among you,
 fathoming the human condition
 as best we could -- what it means
 to be ephemeral,
 to feel the flesh,
 to apprehend
 beginnings and endings,
 to feel the flesh,
 to welcome insights like flashes
 in the darkness, the darkness
 that is terra cognita
 to the benighted,
 to feel the flesh --
 and for the decade-long
 duration of our experiment
 we nullified your sense
 of the passage of time.
 For you there was only
 the eternal now moment,
 the augenblick
 that alone among you
 Meister Eckhart seemed to understand.
 For ten years we sowed
 your fertile soil
 with gratuitous graces
 and subliminal messages
 and watched you grow, then vanished
 back to the bay of dust
 and the keep of old forgotten dreams,
 and we snapped our fingers
 and you all woke up.
 Bed-wetters, the lot of you.

 So you ve missed your new millennium,
 it s ten years behind you
 and the world didn't come to an end.
 But rest assured
 we can arrange for you
 to arrange that for you. Don't push
 your luck and you'll be fine.

Copyright 1995 KEITH ALLEN DANIELS, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Keith Allen Daniels, a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association
since 1979, has been publishing poetry since 1972. He has been called
"one of the foremost science fiction poets of our time" by David Kopaska-
Merkel, editor of _Dreams & Nightmares_. His poems have appeared in
_Asimov's Science Fiction_, _Weird Tales_, _Recursive Angel_, _Poets of
the Fantastic_, _Narcopolis_ and numerous other magazines and anthologies. 
In addition to winning the National Association of Independent Publishers 
Fallot Literary Award for _What Rough Book_ in 1993, his work has been

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 90                 August 1995

nominated for the Nebula Award, the Rhysling Award (10 times), the
Pushcart Prize and the Clark Ashton Smith International Poetry Award. His
other books include _Loopy Is The Inner Ear_ (Quick Glimpse Press, 1993),
_Dyscrasias_ (Anamnesis Press, 1994/1995), _Field Notes From The 
Antipodes_ (Dark Regions Press, 1995) and _With All of Love: Selected
Poems by James Blish_ (editor; Anamnesis Press, 1995).

He lives in San Francisco with his ladylove, the artist Toni Montealegre,
and likes to make funny voices.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=******-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
DRUNKARD'S LAMENT
  by Bud LeRoy
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


 Where do you go when you're completely out of space
 And the world's pushing in on all sides?
 While everyone's rushing at a mile-a-minute pace
 And you have nowhere at all left to hide?

 When the people that you work with don't really understand
 And they drive you so crazy you can't think,
 Let me give you a suggestion on how to take a stand,
 Sit right down and have yourself a drink!

 After five or six it doesn't matter what those bastards do,
 When they talk to you, pretend that you don't hear.
 And If it hasn't dulled your senses 'til nothing bothers you,
 Then sit right down and have another beer.

 Now if their very presence makes you want to throw a fit,
 I really think you shouldn't raise a stink.
 You might consider violence, but I'm loathe to advise it,
 Why not sit right down and have another drink?

 Life takes on such dimensions from the bottom of the glass,
 It makes you so damn happy you could almost shed a tear . . .
 "Hey buddy, if you look at me again I'll knock you on your ass!
 Yo' barkeep, would you bring another bottle over here?"

 Boy I'm feeling kinda' frisky, and as strong as Hercules.
 A double shot of Turkey, barkeep, since you're kinda' near.
 Shouldn't drive?  Are you kidding, I can handle it with ease!
 And by the way, I'll chase that with a beer.

 I really do hate fighting, it's not something that I chose.
 There was that time my nose broke, and it blackened both my eyes.
 But it's really close to never that I ever lose.
 Besides, he must have been three times my size.

 My wife says that my drinking's gonna' drive her to her grave.
 Hey, barkeep, there's a reason to set me up once more.
 Hell, all she ever does is cry and rant and rave . . .
 Sober people are such a monumental bore!

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 91                 August 1995

 I'm getting kinda' dizzy, could you help me to my car?
 My head is really spinning, the car is way too far.
 I'm really rather sleepy, I'll just rest here on the bar.
 I think I've had way too much to drink.

 Copyright 1995 Bud LeRoy, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
 =============================================

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
 THE HANGOVER
  by Bud LeRoy
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

 Have you ever woken up with your eyes so swollen shut
 That you had to pry them open just to see?
 With your lips stuck to the pillow and your butt up in the air
 And someone else's tooth stuck in your knee?

 Have you ever laid face-down in the rain, on the ground,
 Because you were too blitzed to crawl on back inside?
 Now let me tell you boys, I'm a dedicated drunk,
 But these hangovers are damned near suicide.

 My friends are telling me that I've had just too much fun.
 I'm too long in the tooth for these wild and woolly nights,
 Even though I'm pretty tough, and now and then I've won,
 In the mornings I'm a really ugly sight.

 So lately I've been thinking that maybe I'll stop drinking
 But I don't know what to do with my spare time.
 I guess I could start smokin', the reefer I'll start tokin'
 But then I forget just where I left my mind.

 I'm a little bit confused - maybe it's pills that I should use!
 (The ones that slow your body way on down.)
 Except I stumble when I walk, and I forget just how to talk,
 And when I slobber, I look like such a clown.

 That good ol' crystal speed - could be just the thing I need!
 It sends your body whirling right off into space.
 And it really fries your brain, but without one there's no pain.
 I think I'd just as soon start breathing mace.

 And what about that crack?  Take one hit and you lay back
 For fifteen seconds, then you want another hit.
 Pretty soon you're looking 'round, out the windows, on the ground,
 Then you throw yourself a paranoiac fit!

 At least there's good ol' smack - find a vein, give it a whack,
 Then you throw up and your head begins to nod.
 Pretty soon they all collapse, then you're taking lots of naps,
 'Til at last you're sleeping underneath the sod.

 Now I don't usually advise, but here's one word to the wise,
 Drugs are something that you should always fear.
 But thinking makes me shudder and sobriety makes me stutter...
 Wadda' ya say we have just one more little beer?
 ===============================================

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 92                 August 1995

Copyright 1995 Bud LeRoy, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bud LeRoy was born in California in 1946, where he immersed himself in
the local culture through the '60s, but he grew restless and wandered
the country, far and wide. He's a potter, sculptor and poet who has
driven friend and family alike to distraction with his verbalizations
of anything that would rhyme, preferably Robert Service. He's husband
to 1, father to 2 and if truth be known- favorite author is Dr. Seuss.
Bud can be emailed at Fido 1:135/362.
======================================================================

  Taglines -- BumperSnickers Seen on the Information Superhighway
  -=-=-=-=    -     -        -           -           -

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.  - Ben Franklin

I'm not illiterate, my parents were married!

Show me a sane man.  I'll cure him for you.

Evolution: life's a niche, and then you die.

If your not part of the solution, your precipitate.

I showed up.  Where were you?   - Godot

Space, the final frontier... wait, did you say FIVE YEARS?

Pieces of seven!  Pieces of seven!  Parroty error detected.

White dwarf seeks red giant for binary relationship.

Intel inside, idiot outside.

Another triumph for truth, justice, and automatic weapons!

I had some morals.  Luckily, I got my money back.

A mind is a terrible thing to...uh....I forget.

Anatomically correct beats politically correct any day!

I know I have a clean mind, I change it often enough.

Nightmare: cats with opposable thumbs!

I still miss my ex-wife, but my aim is getting better.

I have to stop now, my fingers are getting hoarse.

We're all here because we're not all there.

It is morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money.

Discoveries are made by not following instructions.

Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 93                 August 1995

I had a cat once.  Tasted just like chicken.

We're doomed!  The world will not end soon!

I tried to question reality but couldn't get a subpoena.

Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is the best defense.

Why is it when shit happens it's on my shoes?

Those who pull the oars have no time to rock the boat.

Suture Self Magazine: the home guide to personal surgery.

Three dreaded words during sex: "Honey, I'm home!"

Cream rises to the top... so do dead fish.

Darwin was wrong, any idiot can survive.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Flattery is counterfeit money, circulated by vanity.

Empty cans make the most noise.

Avoid the Tate's Compass: "He who has a Tate's is lost!"

"I'll be with you in a moment, I'm just sealing some fates."

Cannibals won't eat clowns.  They taste funny.

Do Cheshire cats drink evaporated milk?

Just like Saddam Hussein and Ms. Muffet, they have Kurds in their way.

Life's Great Irony #146: Turtles have a drag coefficient of .03

Barney: A purple blob pretending to be a dinosaur.

A fool and his money are soon partying!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=



                  DREAM FORGE ADVERTISING RATES:

Display Ads:
=-=-=-=-=-=

  Rates are for a single online display page: no larger than 79
  characters (columns) wide and 23 lines long. Layout ready copy
  only -- inquire for ad design rates.

       ASCII Text:       $25/month       $275/year

       ANSI or RIP:      $40/month       $440/year

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 94                 August 1995

  A 10% discount will be applied for two or more pages of advertising
  run in the same issue.

       (The publisher reserves the right to refuse any
       advertising deemed inappropriate for DREAM FORGE.)


Published by:   Dream Forge, Inc.
                6400 Baltimore National Pike, #201
                Baltimore, MD. 21228-3915

                e-mail: dbealer@dreamforge.com
          Fido netmail: 1:261/1129 (410) 255-6229

    Dave Bealer, President
    Rick Arnold, Vice President

* DREAM FORGE is a trademark of Dream Forge, Inc.
=====================================================================

           OFFICIAL DREAM FORGE DISTRIBUTOR INFORMATION
=====================================================================
                   <<(*=--  DREAM FORGE  --=*)>>

                             MAGAZINE
    <<((*=--  The electronic          for your mind!  --=*))>>
=====================================================================
(formerly RANDOM ACCESS HUMOR and RUNE'S RAG)

DREAM FORGE
Dream Forge, Inc.,
6400 Baltimore National Pike, #201
Baltimore, MD 21228-3915
BBS: (410) 255-6229 (data to 28800 bps)

     Publisher: Dave Bealer         Managing Editor: Rick Arnold
     dbealer@dreamforge.com          75537.1415@compuserve.com


DREAM FORGE (tm) is a monthly e-magazine for a thinking and literate
readership.  Dream Forge, Inc. is seeking Official DREAM FORGE
Distributors (ODFDs) throughout cyberspace.  The ODFDs will sell
individual copies of the current issue (and back issues) of DREAM
FORGE to their callers on a pay-by-download basis.

The list price of individual DREAM FORGE issues is $2.95.  (All
amounts are in US dollars.)  As additional online sales technologies
become available, the ODFDs will be encouraged to offer DREAM FORGE
using these new techniques.

Benefits for ODFDs:

  1) The ODFD retains 40% of all DREAM FORGE sales ($1.18/copy
     sold at a list price of $2.95) made, less any transaction
     fees incurred (see #5 above).  The ODFD also retains any
     time based fees incurred by any user as they download the
     emag.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 95                 August 1995

  2) The right to advertise their system as an Official DREAM
     FORGE Distributor.  A logon screen may be (indeed, should
     be) displayed to all callers so identifying the system.

  3) A listing in each DREAM FORGE issue identifying the ODFD,
     including System name, primary data telephone number,
     number of lines, and location of system (City/state/country).

  4) A 20% discount on any advertising purchased in DREAM FORGE
     to advertise the ODFD system, or any products or services
     offered by the firm that owns the ODFD.  This discount is
     cumulative with any other applicable discounts.

  5) A 40% discount on a display subscription to DREAM FORGE for
     the ODFD system.  Applies only to a prepaid annual
     subscription, and is not cumulative with any other offers.
     (e.g. The operators of a 100 line BBS that is an ODFD will
     pay $89.97/year to display DREAM FORGE to their callers rather
     than the normal fee of $149.95.)

Responsibilities of ODFDs:

  1) Make DREAM FORGE available to their callers using any
     available online sales technology (e.g. sale by download).
     The ODFD warrants that all DREAM FORGE downloads will be
     counted and paid for on a monthly basis.

  2) Promote the availability of DREAM FORGE to all callers
     during the logon process.

  3) Resolve any customer complaints related to obtaining
     DREAM FORGE from their system (i.e. broken archives,
     aborted downloads, etc.).  Dream Forge, Inc. will assume
     no liability for any such problems, other than replacing
     any broken DREAM FORGE archive sent to the distributor's
     system by the publisher.

  4) Provide a monthly report to the publisher showing the
     download count for each DREAM FORGE issue carried by the
     system.

  5) Remit the publisher's share (60%) of all DREAM FORGE sales
     to the publisher promptly on a monthly basis.  Any credit
     card or transaction processing fees incurred in selling
     DREAM FORGE are strictly the responsibility of the ODFD.
     If an ODFD chooses to sell DREAM FORGE for a discount, the
     publisher's share remains 60% of the official list price
     of the magazine ($1.77/copy at the list price of $2.95).

  6) Provide a complimentary account on the ODFD system for
     the use of DREAM FORGE staff.  The account need not have
     any sysop privileges, except that it should allow DREAM
     FORGE staff to view the current download counts for all
     DREAM FORGE issues being sold.  The account should have
     all upload and download privileges normally offered to
     those with "free, shareware uploader" status.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 96                 August 1995

Interested Sysops should contact the publisher, Dave Bealer.
Internet e-mail:  dbealer@dreamforge.com
FidoNet netmail:  Dave Bealer @ 1:261/1129

* DREAM FORGE is a trademark of Dream Forge, Inc.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

   Official DREAM FORGE Distributors - Frequently Asked Questions


   In the short time since the release of the January issue of DREAM
FORGE, many sysops have asked about becoming ODFDs.  To save time (a
precious commodity these days) I have created this list of frequently
asked questions.


 Q) What kind of software is available to take orders/control
    downloads?

 A) A tough question, and the answer depends entirely on your BBS
    setup.  Your best bet is to contact a support board for the BBS
    software you are running/planning to run.  They should be able to
    point you in the right direction regarding order processing
    software/hardware packages for your type of system.  We are looking
    for established commercial boards as distributors.  Line count
    isn't important, but you should have experience accepting online
    orders, or at least online subscriptions, to be seriously
    considered as an ODFD.


 Q) I don't live in the United States.  How do I handle pricing?

 A) There is a system used by print magazines in North America
    whereby magazine covers contain two prices:
               example:  $4.95 US, $5.95 Canada
    This accounts for the fact that the Canadian dollar is worth
    somewhat less that the U.S. dollar (about $0.70 US, as of 1/95).
    There is no reason why such a plan cannot be used for e-mags
    as well.  ODFDs are therefore allowed to charge the local
    equivalent of $2.95 US in their local currency.  Further,
    Non-US ODFDs will be allowed to charge a premium of up to 10%
    to recover long distance and currency exchange costs.  The ODFD
    may want to round the price down to the nearest customary price
    point (3.95, etc.) in local units.

    For instance: Canadian ODFDs could charge $4.50 (Canadian) for
    each copy of DREAM FORGE.  ($2.95 US/0.70 = 4.21 Canadian, plus
    10% = $4.63 Canadian.  Round down to $4.50 Canadian.  Note that
    given the 0.70 exchange rate factor, a Canadian ODFD could NOT
    charge more that $4.63 Canadian per copy of DF).

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 97                 August 1995

 Q) How do I make payments to Dream Forge, Inc.?

 A) Simply mail a check or money order every month to the
    publisher:        Dream Forge, Inc.
                      6400 Baltimore National Pike, #201
                      Baltimore, MD. 21228
                      USA

    We expect to accept checks online eventually, which would
    allow ODFDs to logon the Dream Forge BBS and pay by check
    without having to mail any paper.  Remember that all checks
    and money orders must be in U.S. funds.


 Q) How would I get the new DREAM FORGE issues?

 A) Several ways are available:
     1) By internet e-mail (as a uuencoded file attach).
     2) Logon to The DREAM FORGE BBS and download the new issue.
     3) Via private Fido-technology Tick file echo.


 Q) Can I give sample issues away to my users to entice them
    to subscribe?

 A) No, that is what the free demo issues are for.  Beginning
    in July 1995 we will publish a free quarterly (tentatively
    titled DREAM FORGE LITE (DFL)).  DFL will contain the table
    of contents of the previous three DF monthly issues, plus a
    few (very few) sample articles from those issues.  The samples
    will usually highlight any new features added to DF since the
    last quarterly edition.  DFL will be freely distributable the
    same way the sample issues are, so there is no need for ODFDs
    to give away the monthly DREAM FORGE issues.  Actually, you
    MAY give away the monthly issues, provided you pay Dream Forge,
    Inc. the fee of $1.77 (US) per copy given away.  <g>

 Q) May I print DREAM FORGE on paper and sell it that way?

 A) No.  DREAM FORGE is an electronic magazine.  The publisher
    retains full control over distribution format.  If we do
    decide to offer a printed edition or non-English language
    editions in the future, rights will have to be negotiated
    on an individual (per-project) basis.


Dave Bealer
Publisher, DREAM FORGE (tm)
May 1995
=====================================================================
{DF Document: ODFD.TXT}
Other DF documents available:
   odfdfrm@dreamforge.com   ODFD Application Form
   writers@dreamforge.com   DREAM FORGE Writer's Guidelines
      info@dreamforge.com   DREAM FORGE Subscription Info
     order@dreamforge.com   Personal Subscription Order Form
   olorder@dreamforge.com   Online Display Subscription Order Form
   ---------------------------------------------------------------

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 98                 August 1995

                           >> Legalities <<
                                 and
                               >stuff<

DREAM FORGE is published monthly by Dream Forge, Inc. Although the
publisher's BBS may be a part of one or more networks at any time,
DREAM FORGE is not affiliated with any BBS network or online service.
DREAM FORGE is a compilation of individual articles contributed by
their authors. The contribution of articles to this compilation does
not diminish the rights of the authors. The opinions expressed in
DREAM FORGE are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of
the editors or publisher.

DREAM FORGE is Copyright 1995 Dream Forge, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

This electronic magazine is a commercial product, not shareware or
freeware. DREAM FORGE may only be distributed by the publisher, or
by Official DREAM FORGE Distributors. The original text of the
magazine must never be modified. DREAM FORGE may not be posted, in
whole or in part, on public conferences. Readers may produce hard
copies of the magazine or backup copies on diskette for their own
personal use only. DREAM FORGE may not be distributed in combination
with any other publication or product. CD ROM, print, and other
publishers, including network managers may contact the publisher for
rates charged for reprint rights and display of DREAM FORGE (tm).

DREAM FORGE is a trademark of Dream Forge, Inc.  Many of the brands
and products mentioned in DREAM FORGE are trademarks, service marks,
or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

                    >> Where to Get DREAM FORGE <<

Via FTP:  ftp.clark.net   /pub/dream_forge

Demo (Jan - Mar) issues can be downloaded at Virtual Word,
1:261/1129, (410) 437-3463; WRITERS BIZ, 1:2601/522, (412) 588-7863;
DREAM FORGE BBS, (410) 255-6229.

DREAM FORGE is available by subscription directly from the publisher.
Individuals with internet e-mail accounts, and those willing to
download the monthly issues directly from the publisher's BBS, may
subscribe to DREAM FORGE for $12/year (US funds). You may also have
DREAM FORGE mailed to you on a DOS diskette each month for $24.00
(US). Send e-mail to info@dreamforge.com for details.
==============================={DREAM}===============================

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 99                 August 1995

         WRITER'S GUIDELINES FOR DREAM FORGE MAGAZINE
=====================================================================
                   <<(*=--  DREAM FORGE  --=*)>>
                             MAGAZINE
    <<((*=--  The electronic          for your mind!  --=*))>>
=====================================================================
(formerly RANDOM ACCESS HUMOR and RUNE'S RAG)

    Publisher: Dave Bealer          Managing Editor: Rick Arnold
    dbealer@dreamforge.com           75537.1415@compuserve.com

forge, v.t.; from L. fabricari, to make, construct; from
       _faber_, a workman, artisan.
       2. to make by or as by this method; to form; to shape;
       to produce. syn. make; hammer; invent.

Monthly e-magazine for a thinking and literate readership, 95%
freelance written. Will work with new and underpublished writers.
Publishes ms average of 1-2 months after acceptance. Takes first
serial rights, will accept one time rights on reprints. Pays
approximately 30 days after publication. Submit seasonal material
2 months in advance. "Looking for stories with a positive message,
even if the message is hidden deep within the fabric of the work."
Preferred length 1,000 to 2,000 words, fiction 2,000 to 4,500.
Writer's guidelines for #10 SASE or download as DF_GUIDE.TXT. Sample
e-copy and guidelines on dos disk for $2.00 with SAS(M)ailer.

METHOD OF SUBMISSION: Send your ASCII ms by data Modem to: DREAM
FORGE BBS, (410) 437-3463 to Sysop; file attach to FIDO address
1:261/1129; WRITERS BIZ (412) 588-7863 to Sysop; f/a to FIDO
1:2601/522; or INTERNET to: dbealer@dreamforge.com, or Via mail on a
DOS disk: uncompressed, pure ASCII, with two copies of the ms on the
disk, e.g. MYSTUFF1.DBC, MYSTUFF2.DBC. Where mystuff1 is the file
name and .DBC the extension consisting of your initials. Include a
short Bio with your submission, e.g. ALLANPOE.BIO; 5 TO 10 lines with
a 70 column maximum. If you're submitting on paper, it had best be
short, very good, and expect a much longer processing time. Important:
Include an e-mail contact address, or BBS number for e-mail along
with your home phone (contact hours), and postal address. All
manuscripts will be considered disposable, unless you provide RETURN
mailer and sufficient postage.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE:  In WORD, File, Save as, MS DOS Text w/Line Breaks; WORKS,
File, Save as, DOS Text; some others you must redirect "print" to
a file to get ASCII text. Preview with a text editor, like DOS EDIT
or QEDIT, you should see only text. Some Gateway software is wasting
part of the documents with print codes, when they expect ASCII only.
====================================================================

NONFICTION: Humor, satire, essays, reviews, Op-ed, and political
commentary from 1000-4000 words. Pays $10-$100, plus profit sharing.

FICTION: Short stories most any genre from 1000-6000 words, longer
works will be serialized; accepts humorous short-shorts under 1,000.
Pays $10-$100, plus profit sharing.

POETRY: Any style and length will pay: $2-$20, plus profit sharing.

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 100                 August 1995

DREAM FORGE shares profits with authors; where 10% of profits, from
specific revenues, are paid on a pro-rated basis as a bonus to the
authors from the issue in which the authors' work appears. Details
of the profit sharing are contained in the authors' contract.
                   *********************
If you are an overly successful author, you may decline payment, and
your funds will be donated to targeted non-profit agencies which
DREAM FORGE, Inc. supports:  Reading Is Fundamental, Laubach Literacy
International, and Literacy Volunteers of America. ***
=====================================================================
"There's no fiction as imaginative as that seen on the nightly news."
=====================================================================

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
AWAKENINGS: Puritanical Gardens
  by Dave Bealer
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

  The Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. Although the
Puritans, who called themselves Pilgrims in a vain attempt to conceal
their true motives, weren't the first to land in America, their
influence has been profound. This is rather unfortunate, since the
Puritans are the most stuck-up, sexually repressed bunch of stiffs
ever to influence a country. The Puritans came to America to "escape
persecution" in Europe. In truth, the Europeans counted themselves
lucky to be rid of them.

  Although no longer a recognized group like the Quakers or the
Amish, the Puritan influence is still felt every day. Individuals of
a puritanical nature are commonly found in positions involving thought
control, like television network censors, members of the Federal
Communications Commission, and moderators of online conferences. The
Puritans have been losing ground to the liberals for many years, but
still score the occasional victory.

  Jocelyn Elders recently lost her job as Surgeon General of
the United States, primarily because she advocated having the schools
teach teenagers to masturbate. The Puritanical element of American
society had a major collective fecal seizure over this proposal. I
agree with those who vehemently oppose such an effort, but not on
moral grounds. I feel it would be a colossal waste of scarce
educational funds. Teaching teenagers to masturbate is about as
necessary as teaching them to breathe. On the other hand, there are 
adults who would pay big money to see a video tape of the proposed 
class, so it might make a good commercial venture. Get Roman Polanski
to direct it, and you're almost assured of a runaway hit, at least in
the U.S.

  The Consumers Union is one of the most conservative groups in the
United States. A nonprofit organization, Consumers Union (CU) conducts
independent testing of the safety and reliability of hundreds of
consumer products. For more than 50 years CONSUMER REPORTS, the monthly
magazine published by CU, has carried test reports on everything from
new cars to lawn mowers to ice cream. A good example is the May 1995
issue, which features reports on running shoes, sunscreens, mutual
funds, clothes dryers, upscale sedans, and condoms. Condoms?

DREAM FORGE Lite               Page 101                 August 1995

  It took the AIDS epidemic to overcome America's puritanical
aversion to publicly admitting the existence of condoms, the primary
male birth control method. The condom has moved from behind the
pharmacy counter to the check out aisle of many grocery stores. It
has changed from being an object of embarrassment and ridicule,
especially for teenagers, to being an "impulse purchase" item.

  Although not an overt bastion of prudity, CONSUMER REPORTS figured
to be among the last places to report on sexual health and safety
devices. I, for one, would have wagered that CONSUMER REPORTS would
publish test results for automatic assault weapons before it would do
condoms. I don't know which "taboo item" will next be tested for
CONSUMER REPORTS, but I suddenly want to volunteer as a product tester
for Consumers Union. Just don't tell the Puritans.

Copyright 1995 Dave Bealer, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
==============================={DREAM}===============================
DREAM FORGE is Copyright 1995 Dream Forge, Inc., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
                                {FIN}
                                                                  
                                                              
