At the CrossRoads

Unending BE - episode 180

At first, Jim thought the fog was too thick to see through, but then he realized that he was lying on his back, and that the fog was only knee-high. Groaning, he stood up and looked around...

...At an endless, flat, fog-shrouded plain under an overcast sky, and nothing else.

...Except for the guy standing next to him. Jim looked him up and down, blinked a couple of times to dispell the fleeting impression that the guy was translucent, and said, "Okay, who are you supposed to be."

"I'm the guy at the CrossRoads."

"...And?"

The guy looked a little perplexed. "And what?"

"I was hoping to get a little more information."

The guy lifted his arms to indicate the miles and miles of nothing visible in all directions, and Jim again noticed that he didn't seem to be quite solid, as if he was just a shred of fog that had gotten twisted into the shape of a man for a minute. "Look around," the guy said. "There isn't much here for there to be information ABOUT."

"Okay, so where are we?"

"This is the CrossRoads."

"Oh. I don't see any roads."

"Well, you're not standing in exactly the right spot. Try leaning this way about an inch."

Jim tilted his head slightly toward the guy, and suddenly, it felt like somebody had skewered his brain with a million pick-up-sticks from every possible direction at the same time. His eyes locked open, unable to blink, and he saw that he was at the center of an impossible mass of tubes, an infinite number of conduits that seemed to emanate from the center of his aching head and stretch to infinity in all directions, branching, looping, and cloverleafing into a tangle of incomprehensible disorder.

"Ow," Jim said, finally wrenching his head back and clapping his hands to his temples to stop the vibrations. "What the blue-assed hell was THAT?"

"The CrossRoads," said the guy. "The paths of probability beneath your feet. Places you can go. Things you can do. You just stuck your head into the nexus of the infinite possibilities of your future existence."

"Great," Jim snarled through gritted teeth. "I loved every second of it."

"You have to choose, you know."

"Choose? Choose what?"

"A path," the guy said. You can't stay here any longer, so you have to choose a path by which to leave this place."

"Okay," Jim said, "if you say so..." He jerked his head forward, peering into the impossible structure for as short a time as he could manage. "What about that pink path right in front of us? How's that one?"

"That way..." said the guy in cautioning tones, "...that way leads to big tits and big trouble."

"Oh yeah? Well, what about the bluish-white one kind of off to the left?"

"Totally massive hooters and great danger."

"The green one?"

"Great whopping pontoons and a high degree of personal risk."

"The orange?" "The purple?"

"France. That one goes to France."

"Fuck THAT," Jim snarled. Shutting his eyes, he allowed himself to fall forward into the possibility nexus, just missing the purple path, and tumbled into...

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rasa

Tue Jun 30 13:41:10 1998

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