From: joshua@dmccorp.com (Joshua Lellis)
Subject: The Shit
Date: Mon Mar 20 05:22:42 MET 1995

the shit
by joshua lellis
copyright 1995 joshua lellis

for cara


  the shit was stored in the back.
  kept cool at around negative three hundred degrees, the shit was frozen
solid. transportation costs and all that made sure that the shit had to
be frozen. crossing the climates was hard work, of course, and the
temperature changes demanded that the shit be cool enough so that it
didn't break open. if it did, who knew what the fuck would happen.
  the shit wasn't exactly something you wanted to break out. it was kept
that cold when they were transporting it, like right now, from the lab in
los angeles to it's final destination just outside of new york city.
  they were handling it dangerously if they were going to take it from
los angeles to new york. first, they shouldn't be taking it by truck,
because anything could happen along the way. shit, the truck could blow a
tire, and they had eighteen, and the entire truck would flip. it would
flip, and the truck would break open. the shit would be spilled out along
the highway, eventually it would defrost, and if there was a crack in it
from being handled incorrectly, or from someone who breathed on it wrong.
someone who breathed on it funny, someone that accidently let some part
of it loosen a bit, then what? it would get loose. it would do what it
was supposed to.
  second, there wasn't really enough to protect it. the shit, in itself,
was about the size of a broken pencil tip. doesn't sound like much, does
it? well, it isn't much. but there are about fourteen billion shits
inside that container, and each one of them programmed to do something.
all of them inside this one pencil tip that was designed back in the los
angeles lab. a couple of the doctors had decided they didn't want to take
part in the shit project, locked themselves in quarintine, and waited it
out until they died. you see, you didn't want to work on this shit
project.
  third, the shit was so contagious. it was, of course, programmed to be
that contagious. they had had a tough time deciding whether or not to
just keep it contained to direct blood-to-blood contact, or to have it
airborne. eventually they decided that the chip would make it so that
they could have it airborne, if they had an anti-gravity device on it.
but they couldn't shrink the device down that low without just operating
one big anti-gravity machine on it. that would lift the whole world, tear
it apart at its seams. it wouldn't work.
  so the shit was airborne. so they were traveling the shit to the lab in
a truck. the shit was about twenty miles from new york city, and they had
stopped on the road, at a rest stop, to get a couple of beers and then do
whatever.
  the shit was just sitting there. it wasn't melting. if it had melted,
everyone that had come in contact with it, handling it, would be dead.
not like they took the shit out of its container and dragged it along for
a walk. the shit stayed where it was, and whoever touched it needed to
put on a space suit and walk inside there.
  the shit, however, had already found a way to melt its way through the
large layer of ice that surrounded it. the container had burst, and the
shit was now making its way into the normal world. all the shit had to do
was to find some life forms.
   unfortunately, there was one way for the shit to travel off of the
truck, by itself. it would have to be in a particle of water as it went
through one of the cracks in the truck. that's how it made it off.
   they had gotten their beers and were driving again, the driver, of
course, not drinking anything. well, he didn't drink the entire beer.
   the shit stayed at the rest stop, crystallized.
   someone has yet to pick it up.



--
If you ever need anything      Joshua Lellis -- Jacob Latter -- Stauf
Please don't hesitate to         joshua@client.dmccorp.com
Ask someone else first          Stauf @ CE (telnet 204.156.18.1 5000)
I'm too busy acting like I'm not naive
I've seen it all I was here first