“Why did we escape from the sanitarium?” Rabies looked up from his bowl of Cookie Crisps, pausing mid-crunch. Slowly, he went back to moving his jaws, before answering with a shrug. I couldn't come up with an answer. It seemed that we had started our trip away from the institution with some goal in mind, but what that goal had been somehow slipped away from me when I wasn't watching. It was snowing outside. Nothing major, just a quiet flurry of tiny snowflakes, enough to lay the foundation for a later blanket. Rabies went on eating his cereal. Dear Sheos, Were thing better before Television? Curiouser and Curiouser Alice in Wonderland, Yes. They were. Communities were stronger, lives were richer, and the overall status of the public was in better shape than it is today. Before television, before the internet, before the technological age, people lived in huts that were supported by nothing more than a few magic incantations, and though their lives were ruled by the giants that roamed among their towns, for the most part they were happy. Of course, there was always the off chance that one from their family would be crushed by said giants, but for the most part, the crushed men and women were able to survive with only the loss of a limb or two. Yes, before television, times were simpler; the humans, however, were just as dumb as they are today. We had made it as far as Troy, Ohio, before we finally decided to stop. The cold was catching up to us and Troy seemed like a fairly safe place to lay low for a while. We got an apartment close to the town's main street and tried to get on with life, as limited as it may be. That was four months ago. Now, with the winter snows coming in, and with little else to do, I tried to remember why we had left everything we had known. Was there a mission? Were we just bored? I sighed. “Do you want to go back?” Rabies asked. I thought about it. As restricting as the place was, I had made friends there. And I missed the food. In fact, the sanitarium would have been an overall nice establishment, had it not been for the Rev. Brian Worley. I squinted my eyes at the thought of him. The Rev. Worley wasn't a bastard, he just used unsavory methods to keep his patients in order, most prominent in my experience was solitary confinement. I hated solitary, mainly because I didn't like to be ignored when angry. The guards there weren't allowed to speak to anyone in confinement, yell and plead as the patients might. But the thing that always pushed me over the top was the fact that it was always just me that he put down there. Never Kabadob. Never Matt Bison. Only me. I hated it, and I hated him. But was that why I had escaped? If that was the case, why hadn't I done it sooner? Questions. Always questions. Answers were so hard to come by. Dear Sheos, How can I keep my dog from barking at night? It's driving me insane! K-9 Commander Kibbles, Take the dog to the shelter and get a cat. If your problem still persists, you probably have gone quite mad, and there's nothing you can do about it but accept the state that has been given to you. The snowflakes had gotten bigger now, filling more of the sky, covering more of the ground. There was a knock on the front entrance, followed by a “skrit-skrit” kind of sound. Rabies and I both looked at the door, but I was the one to get up and see who it was. I looked through the peephole, but there was no one there. Cautiously, I opened the door and stuck my head out to scan the hall. Still no one. When I turned back to join my coffee at the kitchen table, I saw an expression fixed to Rabies that I had never seen before. It wasn't fear so much as it was puzzlement. “What?” I asked, but he didn't have time to answer before I felt it crawling up my leg. Dear Sheos, I can't stop playing Resident Evil 4, and it won't come to a conclusion. It just goes on and on and on, like it will never end. Tell me what to do! How do I conquer this addiction? Please help me!!!!! Gamer101 GamePro+, The problem with video games is that they take up all your time without really giving you much back in return. Sure, one could make the argument that they tell a good story, or that they give you a sense of accomplishment once you've beaten them a few times; however, the truth of the matter is that they suck the life from your veins. Unlike a good book, that teaches you about life, love and despair, not to mention upping your vocabulary and teaching you about the various techniques of the written word, video games eat at you mind until you are nothing more than a drone with a remote control. That being said, I can't give you an answer to your question, except to say this: Resident Evil 4 is the greatest game ever made, and I advise that you cherish the time you spend with it, and hope that the games of the future will take a page from its book. I jumped a little higher than I had meant to and hit the ceiling. I came crashing down, slapping at my leg where the spider-baby had been. The spider-baby had come about during mine and Rabies's earlier days at the sanitarium. One early autumn day, Rabies entered the commons with eight baby dolls Rev. Worley had allowed him for good behavior. The rest of the day Rabies spent in a corner tearing the dolls apart and then reconfiguring them so that they made one baby with eight arms. Rabies also carved an M on the discarded baby heads and hung them high in the rafters. Then, just to mess with the good Reverend, Rabies made the spider-baby come to life only around the other patients. Any time an orderly came within range, the thing turned back to plastic. When the coast was clear, it terrorized the rest of the wing. Then one day it crawled into the ducts and was never seen again, until the day it was crawling up the leg of my jeans. I always thought spider-baby was a mistake. It would turn out that this was one issue about which I was completely and undeniably correct. The spider-baby hit the floor with a thud, but was soon on its way toward Rabies, who tossed his bowl of cereal at the thing and ran away, locking himself in the bathroom. The spider-baby fidgeted with the handle of the door, but finding no luck there, it crawled back to the floor and tried to figure another way inside. I snuck into the kitchen for a knife. Dear Sheos, I lived in Asia for a while, and now that I'm back in the States, I feel like I shouldn't have to tip anyone for anything again, ever. Is this so bad? My friends say that I'm being a cheapskate, but I think that I've just gotten used to that particular cultural difference. What do you think? Johnny Cash Cash, You are being cheap, but what have those people ever done for you that warrant your bestowed dollar. I say if a servant doesn't push my experience to the limit, they'll be lucky to get a nickel from my hard earned pocket money. Tipping has become expected in America. Like Christmas and Easter, the bad memories surrounding the origin of this particular event have been pushed aside. Now, instead of remembering the ideals of your forefathers, that a good job gets your wage and an above the bar job gets a little more, servants just wait with their hand out, thinking that it's only a part of the act they play. Well, I say fuck ‘em! You can forget the Holy Zombie because his resurrection was gross, but there will be no freebees from this god, no sir. I snuck around the corner to find the spider-baby digging at the drywall. I stepped as quietly as I could, but it wasn't quiet enough. The spider-baby quickly turned around and saw me and the knife in my hand. It promptly darted into the next room. I chased after it, but didn't get too far before my legs were taken out from under me. The knife flew from my hand and tumbled on the floor. I looked down to see that I had stepped onto a trip line of webbing, and when I glanced back to my knife, it was gone. “Shit,” I said. I could guess where it had most likely ended up. Right on cue, the spider-baby came around the corner with the edged weapon in its hand. The thing rushed at me, raising the knife high, but before it could plant the blade in my head, Rabies burst out of the bathroom and punted it to the other side of the apartment and into a pile of dirty laundry. “Come on,” he said, and helped me from my restraints. We had just made out the door as the spider-baby was freeing itself from the clothes. ___________________________________________________________________
|
10
|
