He sits in a room full of people, but might as well be alone. They offer nothing for him but odd looks. They wonder who he is, why he's here. They ponder the answer in the back of thier minds. Unable to figure out a solution.

Wondering what he came here for, he ponders these questions himself.

The reason he's here is quite simple. The trip to FL was missed, or couldn't happen. He understands why, but doesn't want to admit it to himslef. Aside from the fact that he would like to go back to FL. It realy doesn't matter where he goes. He just wants to go someplace. Take a long trip somewhere. The real destination is of little inportance.

Then comes up the issue of why FL would have been very nice. Thier is a person there he would like to see. Would like to take by the shoulders, and give a good shake. In hopes of wakeing her up.

She's been in the habbit of makeing some realy bad decisions lately. He understands why, but doesn't like the answer. She also understands, but won't realy admit it to herself. She's not ready to understand yet. The time must come soon though, if not disaster could occur.

Duck and cover my friend, for it may not work out in the end.

Passively he watches. Giving advice in times of need, but unable to see the entire picture. Makes it very hard to do properly. Things have changed since they lived together. He's grown into himself quite a bit, and she has become much less native.

They have changed, but still remain friends. As the changes occured, thier relationship has changed as well. It's grown stronger, but a bit more distant. It becomes hard for him to focus on what's realy going on, without looking too deep into things.

Pushing through this thing called life, he waits. Unsure of what he's waiting for. He just knows it's going to happen.

The conversations in the room do nothing but drive him to rage. Pointless people talking about pointless things. Idle conversation about moving to a new place, random chatter of doing laundry. It suprizes him that these people actualy breed. The conversation suddenly switches to 'partys' and 'sex', how do these people make it in the real world?

For some reason he is drawn into thier conversations. For he sometimmes wishes to be like one of them. Once in a while he want's to be 'normal'. To be able to converse for hours on end about nothing at all, to do stupid things, and not feel bad about them. But it's all for not. He's not one of them, he never will be. Any thoughts of being one of them is nothing but a dream. Something he can never have, nor truely wants. At one point in time he didn't understand this, but he has come to a realization. He's diffrent, and must remain that way. Not by his own choice, but due to a decision by some god on high. He's here to serve some sort of specal pourpose, unknown to him.

Thier are so few people out there that can truely understand where he's comeing from. What he's done. All the things he's seen. Why he just keeps going. Slowly he's going mad because of it.

None can escape his peircing gaze. When he looks around the crowd, he seems to stare into the souls of everybody around him. They get oried by this. Can't contain thier discomfort. They squirm around unable to hide from his unshifting stare.

He's not so much looking at how they are dressed, or what color thier skin is. More attention is paid to the way they move, the way they way they stand. How they react to outside stimuli. The way they deal with others. Tone of voice. It's all very inportant. He can tell you more about somebody from simply observing them for a short time that most people who've known them for many years. It's quite bothersome at times, understanding these people, without ever actualy having to interact with them directly.

They are very much like sheep on thier way to slaughter. Most of them anyway. They blindly follow thier leader without repirse. Rarely questioning the true reason. Secoiet is basied on this game for a greater part. Follow the leader. Fit in. Don't be diffrent. Don't question. Stay in line. Don't worry about the gritty details.

He's living the sort of life that he so wanted as a youth. But now that he's got it things look diffrent. Just goes to show that the grass is definitly greener over in the next pasture.

The girl a couple stalls over came in with some of her friends. She's very unshure of herself, wondering where her friends have gone to. She waits for thier return, nerviously. Unshure of where they have gone. She passes the time by eating, looking around, and thinking. Her stare is blank, with little behind it. She has a low self esteam. Bored out of her skull, she looks around some more. Trying to get up the curage to get up, and look for her friends. The blatent truth of the matter, is they are not her friend. They just hang around her for thier own reasons.

Just in time the rest of the party returns, her mood lightens only slightly. She still spends most of her time stareing blankly ahead. Continuing on without question. She hopes desperatly that things will get better. Still quite nervous, and trying to hide it she plays with her rings. She can't hide her fear from him. It's just not possible.

Trying to drown out the voices around him, he turns his audio up. It helps, but not that much. He can still tell what's going on. Listening realy dosn't give as much information as you would probably think at first.

In a room full of people he's still alone.

The various groups of people cause him to wonder. People of totaly diffrent walks of life all together in the same place. But the wonder stops there. It's a simple game of follow the leader. The girl siting at the table waiting for her friends is a prime example. She is the folower, and another member of the group is the leader. He may not even be aware of this fact, but deep inside he knows it. For some primortial reason she understands this also. Never realy realizing it on a concous level. Though it still effects her choices.

He finds himself drawing attention again. The only person in the room with more than a grand of electronics on the table. It was bound to happen, people asking questions about his palm IIIx, not even knowing what it is. For all they know it's part of some diabolical plan to take over the world. One of them even has the audasity to ask him to 'up' his bank accounts value. Ludicis, it's not worth the risk.

To wish somebody an interesting life is to curse a person. Our superhero is cursed in this way. He would gladly trade it anyday for an uneventfull one. Bordem can be delt with quite eaily. The interesting parts of life become much more complex, and perplexing in retrospect.

He's been sitting in the same place for over two hors now, doing little but observing what goes on around him, takeing great pleasure in it. Peversely as it may be. Pondering what sort of thing keeps these people going. Keeps them following the leader without question. What keeps the leader in his position. Life is very complex, but few ever take the time to think about it in a rational way.

To loiter, or to not to loiter. If he decides that he's done, where is he to go next? Pleanty of places to loitern in a town like this. Even at 0200. He decides to stay in this place, for it may hold something of intrest yet.

Intrest is a very diverse word. Where talking about a rather strange guy here. He thinks it's entertaining to sit on a street corner, and watch traffic for hours uppon end. He doesn't mind being stuck in line a bit, he rather enjoys it. He enjoys sitting in a place such as the 'highway diner' even more than the act of sex. It lasts much longer, and is definitly more stimulating of an act.

Most people only stay for a short time, but a few linger here for quite some time, both types are of intrest. The ones that take an intrest in him are another topic we should cover.

They definitly intrest our superhero to no end, but they also tend to annoy him. Thier questions tend to be more of a mockery than anything else. Sometimes people have real questions for him, but the raraty of it makes him wonder when anybody decides to take an intrest in him at all. It makes him make snap judegements aganst people who do so on general grounds. This limits his contact with seciety on the whole.

Deep down he wants to accept them, but on a more logical level he knows that they don't have anything to offer to him. Maby a short conversation to pass the time, but nothing more. They don't see things in the same way, views colide. He can only talk about superfical things without makeing them fear him. This situation truely saddens him.

Somebody here has caught his intrest, for other reasons. She comes to this place to drink coffee and read. But has a hard time reading due to all the other people in the room. Her attention keeps being drawn away to others. She bids her time. We wonder why our superhero finds humor in thier idle chat. The person who just sat down beside her looks a bit too boyish for anything perverse to be happening, but also sits close enough to suggest such things. He moves from table to table chatting with random people. His boyish alure drawing girls to talk to him for a short time.

An older man wanders around filling up peoples cups.

Many more people currently here than ususal. It's 0235, and the place is packed. But, then it's a friday night, or saturday morning. Depending on how you view such things.

As it slowly settles down the volume seems to stay the same. People yelling across the room having a conversation. No concern for others welfare. Ignoring the fact that most of the others in the room could care less about them. Small wonders that a child can sleep under such circumstances. She lyes in a booth with what apear to be her parents. They have been here for over an hour, totaly ignoring the child. Thier style of parenting will not prove to be good.

This moves the train of thought to another interesting situation. Have you ever watched a parent play with a child? They don't play so much as they direct the child. They tell the child how things are to be done. What to do with the toys, totaly killing imagination. Laying to waste the childs true creativity. How sad it is to see.

The girl in the next booth has become quite tired, staying awake only due to the caffene. She came here to study. Not getting the job done very well at all. Some of the people here are 'regulars'. Very interesting people. He would very much like to talk to her, see what makes her tick. But he's far too shy to do such things. Too unshure of himself around members of the oposite sex. So he sits and wonders why.

Temptation waits. A wolf in sheeps clothing, a bonfire, a vampire, waiting for his moment. Never needing anybody. More acuratly, never letting on to anybody that he truely needs somebody. He bitches when surrounded by people that he can't ever be alone, and when he finaly gets to be alone, he bitches because thiers nobody around. Full of contridictions. The advice he gives out is more for himslef than it is for others. Not to say that it's not also intended for others, but it comes down to being for him.

Trying very hard disapear into a crowd he can't. Ususaly people pass over him while looking around the room, but not in a place like this. Here they notice the piercing gaze, and look back. Some of them can tell that gears are moving behind those cold eyes. They question how a person so youthfull can cary the expression of an old man. He makes them wonder.

Our superhero has barely uttered a complete thought since he got here, people become interested, then he pushes them away.

Wondering what the real reason is he ponders. Unable to see what's realy going on. Questions what her true motives are, why she's realy doing these things. An answer is found, rolled around for a while, then rejected. Only to be replaced by another thought that's much more complicated and in his opinion likely. But he can't realy make these decisions, on the tidbits of information that he gets from her. Not that it stop him from concluding fact from vapor of nuance. What sort of person is he to do this? What right does he have? What are his real motives? These are all questions to be answered at a later time. We have not come to a unamous decision on this yet.

The whole idea of being analized like this makes him wonder if they are realy his friends. Not that they can exactly be seperated. They are eternaly stuck togehter for some perverse reason. Unable to be away from one another. They share everything, even thier deepest thoughts. He knows that they are talking about him, wonders why they question him so. Before long he will go back to sleep, and not worry about it much.

He has few dreams, and even fewer hopes. Only thinking of the here and now. It's a strech for him to thinks more than a week ahead, or a week in the past. The few dreams he does have are very simple in theroy, but rather hard to achive. Having no scence of time hinders achiving such things. Makeing it a real bitch to make appointments. Thinking that things are never going to change. But this is due to the fact that they rarely do. If they do change, it's only superficaly. Take a step back, and put it all in prespective. Things haven't changed much at all.

Dialog between murasaki and x9

Use a get -R *

It's not that easy, where talking about 50 megs of data!

It will work

Will the connection stay up that long?

Probably, but if it does die it will be a bitch. You will have to track down all the files that didn't complete and delete them because his ftp server dosn't support auto-resume.

That bastard.

It's not like upgrading his ftp server is a trivial matter. He'd have to cleanly remove the old one first.

Why the hell does he insist on using zmodem to download files?

Actualy, it's much more stable to use zmodem than raw ftp protocals. It can deal with timeouts much more gracefully, and supports auto-resume.

Ok, I can live with that, but it's still a bit unsettleing for somebody to use that protocal over a telnet session.

No doubt it seems wierd, but if I was using a serial link, I'd use zmodem as well. And, contrary to popular belief a modem is still a serial link.

Ahh, I'd never thought about it like that before. Makes some sort of twisted scence now.

He'd gladly uses zmodem over ssh if he could, but nobdoy has ever writen a patch for ssh to do this yet.

Maby somebody did, I'll do a search on freshmeat for one later.

Exelent, he should appriciate that.

I hope so, it seems he doesn't appriciate anything I do for him anymore.

Don't worry my dear, he still loves you very much. He's just not very good at showing it.

It's just hard sometimes.

Have no fears, he will change in time, as will you.

But I don't wanna change, I like me the way I am!

Change is natural, and should be embraced, not looked down uppon like some sort of desiese, or sickness. Just let it happen naturaly, and you will probably not even notice it happening.

Your probably right on that, but it's still hard to accept. Why is life like this?

If I knew all the answeres do you realy think I'd keep them from you?

It depend on what your motive is, from knowing you it's hard to tell. You would probably tell me, but you might also keep them to yourself. And enjoy watching me strugle. Offering little tidbits of advice, but never realy telling it straight.

You have learned well, and been a good student, why would I do that to you?

You enjoy it?

I'm impressed, but won't let on to the real truth of that statement. It's more than you need to know right now.

Hmm, do you realize that it's almost 0400?!

Yes, but time is irolovent, just another way to keep people in line.

Sad isn't it?

I'm not even going to start on that, I would go on for hours.

Thanks for saving me from it ;)

Anytime my dear, but I remember to torture you with a lecture on it later...

*wince*

Don't worry, it will be much later, like maby next week ;)

So, anotherwords, never?

Precicely

We need more coffee, could you find some?

I'll get the attention of one of the waits for you.

Thank you.

It is a wonder sometimes why people hang out in a place like this at 4:00am. They do it as if they had nothing better to do with thier lives.

What about us?

How true, it's not like where realy above them, even though we like to think we are.

*nod*

But, at least where doing something interesting. Having a good conversation and such.

Some of the others here are doing the same thing, remember the 'self help' group that was in here earler?

Yah, and they kept giving us wierd looks the entire time. It was driving me nuts. Expecaly that guy in full cammos. He was obviously the leader.

Yah, and he brought the others at the able to tears a couple times too. I didn't like him much either.

Not to mention the way they all made a point of hugging him just before takeing off.

He scared me a bit.

Ehh, just annoying in my opinion.

On to other things, wondering what we should do after we leave here.

Strangly enough, I was thinking about driving to kansas for lunch. Hows that for wierd?

Comeing from you, not realy all that wierd.

I don't suprize you much, do I?

Not nearly as much as you'd like to think. If that's what you mean.

I'll just have to work harder on that :/

My head explodes and my body aches...

I like that song as well. I'm glad you found that band.

Well, it wasn't realy me, it was one of our friends, don't you rember?

Ahh, yes; Back when we where kina living at that one guys house, but not realy.

We might as well have been though, spent enough time there.

I don't think he minded, we slept on the couch. But, it was better than the alternitive.

Yah, that other guy who lived in the house with us was pretty annoying.

I wanted to beat him to a pulp for his actions. But he had this wierd ability to convince us that otherwise. He honestly pissed me off because of that.

At least you found a novel way to get rid of him, without actualy having to tell him off.

I'm still a bit suprized how well it wored.

Do you ever wonder how he took it?

No, I try to think about him as little as possible. I still don't know why we kept him around as long as we did.

Heh, I'm not shure how we put up with him that long. He was the epitimy of lazyness. Even when he went out with the intention of doing something usefull, it was all for not. He realy didn't even try.

Understood, one of the reasons we didn't bother paying the rent. The same reason we decided to be homless for a time. Being homeless realy wasn't nearly as bad as people try to make it out to be.

I kina liked it.

It had it's perks, but being harrased by the police for being a vagabond was one thing I didn't realy care for thaat much.

At leat they where nice about it.

That's probably because we had a job. Most homeless people don't do that. It was very wierd, and they understood that.

Yep, they basicly just told us to move along, and didn't realy cause any sort of problem. Except that one time.

That sucked, I didn't enjoy spending an hour standing around while 3 officers searched the car. At least they let us off with a warning, and didn't confascate the scanner.

That brings back memorys...*distant stare*

Your definitly the type to spend her time thinking about the past. It's not a bad thing, but you should also think of the future.

I havn't been there yet :)

You will soon enough though, because time keeps ticking by, without fail, and without remorse. Never takeing into account what it's doing.

Time is a strange concept.

Agreed, it's best left measured in days, or moons. It's much more simple that way. Less confusion is caused.

Except that most people seem to need time. They would be lost without it, or at least the concept.

Sadly you are right.

Wanna skip this joint after he finishes the smoke?

Definitly, we've been here for well over five hours now. Probably makeing the workers wonder a bit.

No doubt.

Coffee, and smokes. The two things that keep us going. Too bad they are both detremental to our helth ;)

Then the two sink back a bit, and settle down. As though not that much. Our superhero needs them right now. He's lonely.

EOF