OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO oOOOO OOOO. OOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" .OOOOOO OOOOOo OOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOO oOOOOOOO OOOOOOO. OOOO oOOOO OOOO .OOOO OOOO OOOOOOOOo OOOO OOOO" OOOO oOOOO OOOO OOOO "OOOO. OOOO OOOOo .OOOO' OOOO .OOOO" OOOO OOOO OOOOoOOOO "OOOO. oOOOO OOOO oOOOOOOO..OOOO OOOO "OOOOOOO OOOOoOOOO" OOOO .OOOO"""OOOOOOOO OOOO OOOOOO "OOOOOOO' OOOO oOOOO ""OOOO OOOO "OOOO OOOOOO |---------------------------------------------------------------------------| | | | There Ain't No Justice | | | | #107 | | | |---------------------------------------------------------------------------| - Pop - by Ironhorse I have to admit Janet always was a little bit strange. That's why when she came into the Taco Bell that long ago day and told me she was hearing voices I didn't think anything of it. It must have been about two months ago now that she met me in that rainy Toco Bell. It was November and the tourists that populated our town in the summer had long gone home for the winter, leaving me to stare alone at my Chicken Soft Toco while I waited for her and the few workers busied themselves in the back doing god knows what, I still can't conceive of employment at Toco Bell as a challenging occupation. Just when I was about to dive into the gracious feast before me I saw her walk in. She smiled at me and headed straight for the counter. Damn, she must be hungry, I thought. Janet hates Toco Bell. I found myself even more surprised when she came to the table with no food, just twelve large sodas. "Thirsty?" "No," she said and apologized as some water splashed off her coat as she sat down. "That's okay. What's all the soda for?" "The lids." I looked curiously at her. "Let me explain." "Please do." Janet looked around to make sure no one else could hear, which was obivious, we were alone, and then told me she had been hearing voices for the past two weeks. "Okay..." I didn't really put anything behind this. As I said, Janet was weird. Janet was like many of the women I've dated who, ironically, were all into the occult. Oh I'm sorry, the modern term is Wicca. Whatever, I didn't care. I'm male, they're female; usually when it comes right down to it, that's all that matters. "No really," Janet said seeing my familiar disbelief. "This happen because of one of your spells?" She and her Wiccan friends were always casting some sort of spell it seemed. I'm sure the results they received had a lot to do with a certain illegal leafy plant. "No, you son-of-a-bitch, listen!" Janet never did like the fact that I didn't believe in her hocus-pocus mumbo-jumbo. "How did it happen?" "Well, you know how I love to pop these stupid little bubbles in the tops of take-out soda lids?" "Yeah, everyone does, but not everyone hears voices." "Yeah, well, not everyone has been doing it as long as I have." "You mean to tell me by pushing down one of these," I lent over an pushed in one of the buttons on one of her dozen lids, "I'll go insane? Come on, I think you've been smoking too much." "You got to believe me. But it's not insane. They're real voices. Real people. I've heard them." "So have mental patients all over the world. You're telling me these freaks are actually sane?" "If they're freaks because they hear voices, then I'm one of those freaks, and yes, I think we are sane." Oh yes, I've definitely found a winner here. Why didn't I just stay with Amy? She only thought she was a vampire. So what if she had a biting fetish. "Look, I know it sounds crazy, but I can hear voices. I think the reason why people go crazy over hearing these voices is because they're in a different language." "So you have a multi-lingual hallucinations," I asked rather sarcastically. "Not even! I don't think they're from this world." Oh yes, now was definitely the time Janet and I should be going our separate ways. Still, to humor her... "Oh, and what world are they from?" She seemed to know I was humoring her, but it didn't matter, I was finally listening. "I'm not sure, like I said, I can't understand them, but I think it's a parallel one." "Ah... I think I saw this on Star Trek once." "I'm serious damn it!" At this point she began to furiously punch in all the buttons in her many drink lids. "Okay, okay, calm down. Go on, I'm sorry." She continued, but she also continued to punch in the buttons on the drinks. "Well, I see it this way... The people who hear these voices are actually some how attuned to a parallel world, just like this one, with its own buildings, people, and everything. The reason why some 'freaks', as you call them, hear things and then don't is because we are moving and so are they." "The parallel people? You mean they're walking away from the people who can hear them?" "Maybe. But I was thinking, what if their planet spun in the opposite direction of ours? Then those people who could hear the voices would hear nothing when, say, our New York was passing over their Atlantic Ocean." "That is if they have an Atlantic Ocean," I interjected. She did seem to think this thing through. Delusions were like that. "Exactly." Yes, definitely a space cadet. At least she was pretty to look at. The brain dead ones usually are. "You came up with all this from popping the tops of a few soda lids?" "Not a few. I figure in the thousands. You know my dad was a truck driver? Well, he always took me on the road with him and a large portion of my diet was fast food." "So you say that all the people who pop these little buttons on their sodas in fast food joints all over the world are going to sooner or later hear the voices of people on another planet that's somehow in a parallel dimension to this one?" "Yes. Actually, I think there's a little more to it than that. You have to be open to the possibility." Oh no, not that again. That is the backbone of every Wiccan's arguments to a non-believer. 'You have to be open to the possibility for the magic to work.' Bah, magic is magic, it should work whether I believe in it or not. "And I suppose you are open to the possibility? How come no one else has heard these voices?" "They have, there's institutions full of 'em." "How come no sane people have heard them? Like your Wiccan friends? I would suppose they are 'open to the possibility'." "Well, unfortunately most Wiccans are vegetarians and won't step foot into a fast food restaurant..." "Which is the only place they could get these kinds of lids... I understand. Plus I'm sure they couldn't possibly have been exposed to as many as you have." "Yes!" "And the people in the asylums haven't figured this out because they are being 'treated' and told it isn't so, so they lose their openness?" "Exactly!" She was getting quite happy. She felt I understood. She thought I actually believed her. She told me to wait a moment while she went up and got twelve more sodas. "What are you doing," I asked when she returned. "If you're 'tuned in' now, aren't you afraid of 'tuning out'?" "I'm going to prove this to you," she said, popping buttons like, well, like a mad man. "It doesn't work like that, it seems the more you pop the more in tune you get." "Oh...." We sat in silence for a while and then I decided I needed a break and may as well get some desert. I excused myself and went to the counter for a Choco-Toco, shrugging at the questioning stares of the employees. "PMS," I whispered to the manager as I passed and he smiled as I returned to my seat. That was the last moment the doctors tell each other I had in touch with reality. I know different, but who's to say? They keep bringing me take out soda lids, and I keep popping away. The papers say Janet was another of the freakish cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion, but I know a different story. That night while I was smiling at the manager in our lonely Toco Bell, Janet was punching her eighty second thousand four hundred ninety third button on the lid of her Mountain Dew, and she crossed over. She's in that parallel world now. I know it. I'm been punching my buttons and I know it's true. I've heard the voices, and I've heard her tell me so. I'm coming Janet, only fifty thousand more buttons to go. Pop. ú ùþ ú ú þù ú ÛÛÛÛÛÜÜÜÜþÜÜÜÜ ú ù ú ú ù ú ÜÜÜÜþÜÜÜÜÛÛÛÛÛ ±±±±ÛÛÛßÛ²ÝÛÝÛÛÝþ Üú úÜ þÝÛÛÝÛݲÛßÛÛÛ±±±± ±±±±²²²²²ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÜþúÝ ù ù ÝúþÜÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ²²²²²±±±± ±±²²²²ÛÛßßÛßÝÛÛÛÛÛÝÜúþ þúÜÝÛÛÛÛÛÝßÛßßÛÛ²²²²±± ²²²²²Ûß þúßÞþßþþÜùþ þùÜþþßþÞßúþ ßÛ²²²²² ²²²²Ûß ú ù ù ú ßÛ²²²² ²²²ÛÝ ÝÛ²²² ²²²ÛÜ ÜÛ²²² ±²²²ÛÝ ÝÛ²²²± ±±²²²ÛÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÛ²²²±± ±±±²²²²²²ÛÜ Phoenix Modernz Systems: 908/830-TANJ ÜÛ²²²²²²±±± ÛÛ±±±±±±²²²Û VapourWare BBS: 61/3-429-8510 Û²²²±±±±±±ÛÛ ÛÛ±±±±±±²²²Û underworld_1995.com 514/683-1894 Û²²²±±±±±±ÛÛ ±±±²²²²²²ÛÜ RipCo ][: 312/528-5020 ÜÛ²²²²²²±±± ±±²²²ÛÜÜÜ etext.archive.etext.org ÜÜÜÛ²²²±± ±²²²ÛÝ ÝÛ²²²± ²²²ÛÜ ÜÛ²²² ²²²ÛÝ ÕÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ͸ ÝÛ²²² ²²²²Ûß ú ù ³ TANJ Mailing Address ³ ù ú ßÛ²²²² ²²²²²Ûß þúßÞþßþþÜùþ ³ PO Box 174 ³ þùÜþþßþÞßúþ ßÛ²²²²² ±±²²²²ÛÛßßÛßÝÛÛÛÛÛÝÜúþ ³ Seaside Hts, NJ ³ þúÜÝÛÛÛÛÛÝßÛßßÛÛ²²²²±± ±±±±²²²²²ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÜþúÝ ù ³ 08751 ³ ù ÝúþÜÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ²²²²²±±±± ±±±±ÛÛÛßÛ²ÝÛÝÛÛÝþ Üú ÔÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ; úÜ þÝÛÛÝÛݲÛßÛÛÛ±±±± ÛÛÛÛÛÜÜÜÜþÜÜÜÜ ú ù ú tanj@pms.metronj.org ú ù ú ÜÜÜÜþÜÜÜÜÛÛÛÛÛ