Remember the spider? Yeah, really huge and red?
She moved her web between the house and the meth clinic. Since she's relatively small I was unable to get a decent photograph of her since the camera doesn't want to focus on her.
What troubles me is that I keep finding out shit like this second-hand or I'm told over the phone rather than to my face. Either people don't respect me or they fear me or there's something else going on that I'll probably hear about over the telephone or via email rather than to my face.
Asbury Park by Night is dead for all I care and it really doesn't bother me. Of course making such a bold statement would appear to carry the reverse sentiment but it's untrue. I only enjoyed running the game when everyone else was enjoying themselves.
As the rundowns started tapering off over at LiveJournal I should've seen the writing on the wall. When players would be half-asleep during the game I should've taken the hint. But no, I simply kept plugging away endeavoring to be positive and thinking I've been burned out which means the story no longer snaps or crackles which led to passing the reins temporarily to elmgrows.
All fled, all done
put your character sheets on the pyre
the game is over and the lamps expire
Burma Shave.
A salesman comes up to us and I fear he's going to say "You broke it, you bought it" but he has a different angle. The TV belongs to Michael Bloomberg and the salesman is following up on a recall order which is only valid if the device was never used. Technically the device was never used since it broke the first time anyone pressed ON button. After a few dumb questions the salesman whips out a razor blade, slices around the flat panel, rolls it up and wanders away.
We circle the famous former foundation several times like the pilgrims who travel around Mount Kailash in Tibet out of the hope of obtaining good fortune. On one of our circuits I am startled to see that the Freedom Tower had been completed in the span of a few days. My parents were waving us over to them and standing behind them was the previously mentioned mayor of New York City. Everyone sits down on the sidewalk to eat spaghetti and sauce. Dad goes on about how he's always known Bloomberg, how he'd come into the shop and on and on and on. Bloomberg says that he's already been wed in the Freedom Tower and asked if all of us would like to be the second group of people who have been to the top of the building.
When he meant the top of the building, he wasn't kidding.
Next thing I know I'm the third person, after raddidge and my mother, to stand at the pinnacle of the Freedom Tower. It seems much taller than it ought to be, more than 1776 feet, and when I look down (bad idea) there's nothing but a sheet of cloud stretching to all horizons. The tippy top of the building isn't pointed, it's a two foot square with a large brass ball embossed with the year 1776 on two sides. My feet are straddling it as my arms wave around trying to keep balance as the winds buffet me.
Everyone thinks I'm having lots of fun but I'm terrified. raddidge is cajoling me from the side remarking how if she could do it I certainly could do it better, her voice is dripping with sarcasm. Mom is trying to reason with me but that breaks down to berating me over being a failure in her eyes. Fortunately their words fall upon deaf ears.
Common sense, which was absent during the ascent and standing atop New York City, told me that jumping from a two foot square over to a thin white balance beam with a joke of a railing made out of PVC pipes would mean certain doom. I punctuated this thought by looking down hoping to see some birds flapping past but the top half of the structure was too high even for birds. Now the steeple was bending in the wind making slow circles around the laughable catwalk which supposedly would lead everyone back to the ground level. Folks are yelling at me to jump when it bends me close enough to the four inch balance beam meant to be a catwalk. Fear has me petrified to the spot.
Suddenly I'm back in the building in a lobby that's full of glass, wood and gold covered in a deep purple carpet. My mother's sitting on a floating divan pouring diamonds out of her hands onto a small table over her lap. raddidge is taking photos at one of the windows. Her view is a metal Shinto shrine with the words "HELP" spelled in white neon. Beyond it I can see the front range of the Rocky Mountains and realize that I can go home any time. raddidge looks at me funny when I ask if she wants to go home explaining that she wants to stay longer since this is fun.
Now I'm trying to figure out what the hell happened that brought me down from that perilous peak. After some careful thought which took all of five seconds I understood that I was shot, killed, a sample of my DNA was taken in addition to a snapshop of my mind before death. My body was regrown in a tank full of green gel and sent to the lobby which is in the middle of the building. My mother laughs at me when I tell her my theory. I storm over to raddidge hoping she'll listen to me with an open mind but she's not at the windows anymore. Also the Shinto shrine and the mountains are gone, replaced with more clouds which are significantly closer than they were during my trial at the top.
Back at street level, alone, I'm looking up the tower with more fear than when I was at the top. The clouds which stretched out to all horizons were not that big. In fact at street level it's a bright, beautiful and sunny day. The Freedom Tower's needle is tearing great tumultuous rips in the clouds and that frightens me. Once again I start walking around the base.
I'm surprised to see the north and east face of the tower has a façade resembling a medieval cathedral while the south and western faces are modern concrete and gleaming glass.
