From: crimson@csi.compuserve.com (Mark "Crimson" Friedman)
Subject: Zen Sketch [part 01/01]
Date: 26 Feb 93 16:32:49 GMT

///// [ CUE FILE: zen01.txt ] /////

Alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo patrons,

Damn it's been, what, almost *six* months since I've put anything
serious out (well, besides the Internet Comic Writers' Workshop and,
no, the Legion of Net.Heroes doesn't count ;-).  That's *way* too
long!  'Course, during that time I graduated from college and started
a new job, but still...

This is just another one of my little character sketches.  It's not
exactly cyberpunk, but I think it fits in quite nicely (thank you very
much).  I don't have any plans for writing more Zen stuff at the
moment, but you never know...

				- Mark "Crimson" Friedman (2/26/93)

Plug: 21st Century Schizoid Man WILL continue.

///// [ CUE TEXT: Zen Sketch [part 01/01] ] /////

	"Pssst, you two."

	The pair of staggering students stopped and stared at the man
in the black trenchcoat, who was leaning back against a wall, arms
behind him, toe tapping a syncopated ostinato.  As if on cue, they
simultaneously pointed to themselves in a "who me?" fashion.

	"Yeah, you guys."  He stepped forward, looking side to side
down the street.  "You two look like you might be in the market for a
little, ummm, weekend fun in the form of, ahhh, shall we say, two of
my associates of a differing gender.  Or should we make that three, or
maybe even *four*?  Know what I mean?  Nudge, nudge, say no more..."
He winked.

	They laughed in disbelief, "Four?"  They looked at each other
and grinned widely, nodding in unison.  "Sure, Yank, you're on!"

	"Well, step this way, fellows: the carriage awaits!"  He bowed
and gestured down the side street to a parked Bently.

	One of the two sounded a triumphant hoot as they walked
towards the car.  The other let out a loud grunt, causing the other to
turn...and gape in astonishment.  "What did you do to Toby!?!?"

	The dark man was standing over the dropped youth, weilding a
tonfa in either hand.  He answered the question simply, "Well, I guess
I must've done something like THIS!"  Faster than the Brit could
think, the right hand tonfa had swung around, catching him on the side
of the head.  His eyes immediately closed, and he slumped over to join
his companion on the ground.

	Zen chuckled.  "No fun at all: he fell right over!"  Grabbing
the leg of one and the arm of the other, he dragged both the bodies
into the shadows.  "Time for chow."  He bit into a neck and started to
drink.

	"That's repulsive."

	He was on his feet in less than a second, latched into
defensive mode, scanning the alley for the source of the voice: an all
too familiar voice.

	"I think I'd be sick if it were possible."

	It was right behind him.  He spun around to face the slightly
luminous form of a woman, one that he knew exactly one year ago as his
sister.  She was looking down at the bodies, shaking her head.

	"Shit, Julie," he snorted, "Yeah, I figured it was you all
along: I was starting to wonder when you'd have the guts to show your
face."  He snapped the handles off the tonfa, attached them to the
ends of their shafts, and screwed the two halves together to form a
short staff.  "Now do me a favour and disappear again..."  He started
to feed off the other's neck.

	"Gross.  Totally disgusting."

	He stood up again, wiping his chin.  "Look, I don't need your
moral commentary, okay?  If you want to move my stuff around while I'm
sleeping during the day, then that's fine...slightly *annoying*, but
fine.  But don't bug me when I'm feeding."  He finished drinking his
fill and licked over their wounds so they would heal.

	Julia looked back up at him.  "So you knew it was me, huh?"

	"I had a feeling: it used to be that whenever I had problems,
you'd be nearby, laughing at me.  Why should now be any different?"
He fished out their wallets and extracted the cash and plastic.

	"So now you're a common thief, as well as a murderer?"

	"Hey, I don't kill them, okay?  I take just enough blood so
that I can survive.  As for the money, it's to get the cops to think
it's only a mugging.  I'll trash the cards later."  He didn't mention
that he'd be keeping the cash.

	"Still, it's immoral."

	"Ahhh, get off it.  Stick to your own business and keep out of
mine.  If you want to follow me around, then just stick to your object
displacement crap: I can deal with that.  But *don't* tell me what's
right and wrong."  He turned to walk away, but paused and looked back.
"And one more thing: *don't* start hitting any keys while I'm playing
piano.  I *hate* when you do that..."

	She smirked snidely.  "Yeah, I thought that would probably
piss you off the most."

	"Fuck you, Julie!"

	"You already *have*, Thomas, or don't you remember?"

	"RRRAAAAAGGGHHH!!!"  He lunged at her hovering form, which
simply dissipated and reappeared behind him.  He crouched, ready
to pounce again, canines reflexively extended.

	"Still trying to solve your problems through violence.  Such a
pity..."

	Zen kneeled to the ground, leaning on his staff.  "It's
not my fault, it's not my fault..."  His voice trailed off.

	"Oh, it isn't?  Let's see now.  You threatened me.  You
terrorized me.  You raped me.  You killed me.  And I'm to believe that
it's not your fault?  What was it then, some sort of accident?"  She
gave him the same patronizing smile that she did so well while she was
alive.

	He looked up apologetically, "But that wasn't *me*!"

	"Not *you*!?!?  Well the person who killed me, who
defiled my body, who *cursed* me to this existence, he certainly
*looked* like you!"

	"Well it *was* me, but I wasn't the same inside.  It was
the power: it was uncontrollable, and so was I.  It was like I was
hopped up on angel dust or--"

	"Which you were half the time *anyway*..." She held her nose
in the air, as if trying to avoid catching a whiff of a particularly
foul odor.

	Zen pointed a finger, "No, no way, unh-uh.  PCP wasn't my
thing: yeah, I smoked pot a lot, and did some occasional acid, but--"

	"Oh, big difference!  You were still a druggie freak!"

	"Shut up, Julie."

	"Freak."

	"Shut UP, Julie..."

	"Freak."

	"FUCK you, Julie!"

	She shook her head sadly.  "There you go using that phrase
again.  Damn it, Thomas, you didn't know *how* well you fit in with
the Vegas crowd.  What a mire of depravity and debauchery, and you
grew up there, loving every minute of it..."

	"Oh there you go again, Ms. Prude.  Yeah, so I liked the local
action!  What of it, huh?  There was money, sex, and drugs, all right
there, and most of it was legal..."

	"But you debased yourself so *freely*.  It was dirty.  It
wasn't the way we were brought up."

	"Yeah, a lot of good religion did *you*, huh?  If you're so
holier-than-fucking-thou, then why aren't you in Heaven by now?  God
had all the blow-jobs he needed already?"

	"THOMAS!"

	"Heh, yeah, little Miss Perfect: high school cheerleader
captain," he counted the points off on his hand, "homecoming queen,
full UNLV scholarship, student government president, and almost Miss
Nevada.  But take a look at where you are now: wandering the earth in
a bodiless state.  Serves you fucking right, bitch!"

	"Oh, you're damn proud of that, aren't you?  Not content to
just destroy my life, but you have to ruin my death as well..."

	"And why NOT?  You certainly didn't make *my* life any easier!
You, you were always soooo perfect, and it just made me look worse and
worse by comparison.  You had Mom and Dad wrapped around your little
finger: yeah, I tried to please them, I tried hard for a *long* time,
but you just did it better.  I couldn't keep up with Your Highness, so
I just up and dropped out of the race."

	"Yeah, you just quit trying and picked up that philosophy
garbage to rationalize your failures.  There was nothing 'zen' about
it: you were just a solipsistic nihilist."

	"And what of it?  At least it was better than the alternative.
So I didn't subscribe to the mind-control crap that society taught:
big deal!  I was my own man: fuck society, fuck religion, fuck
politics.  All that stuff is just brain-washing to make everyone a
carbon copy in the name of 'the greater good'.  Let's not have any
individualism, noooo, *that* might cause a little *friction*.  Yeah,
and *you* ate it all up and even asked for seconds..."

	"You weren't normal, Thomas, you never were.  Heaven only
knows why my twin brother would be so...different."

	"Different?  Is there anything particularly *wrong* with that?
Hey, I never pretended that I wanted to fit into a 9-to-5, suit and
tie world.  Hell, you *all* did everything possible to ignore my music
career!  I turned a tidy sum every night of the week, had a small
following, and even had some critical acclaim in the local papers..."

	She rubbed her thumb and index finger together.  "Colour me
altogether sorrowful..."

	He clenched his teeth and continued, "Would it have been all
*that* hard for you guys to give me a pat on the back once in a
fucking while?  Instead, all I got was, 'Thomas, it's just not
*normal*.  Why don't you apply to a two-year business school and get a
nice job with your father's company?'"  He spat on the ground.
"'Normal' my *ass*: a *clone* is what they wanted, a *real* twin to
you, the perfect daughter.  Sorry, hon', we may be twins, but we sure
ain't identical..."

	"I can't believe this!  You have the audacity to blame *me*
for your shortcomings?  Hah!  You're just a quitter and a loser, and
you can blame nobody but yourself."

	"Ahhh, don't give me that crap!  I knew what you were doing
*all* along: don't try to play innocent with me.  I *saw* the pleased
sideways glances you made when I got in trouble or got bad grades.
And to make it worse, whenever I failed at something, *you* had to
bring up something wonderful that you did that day, *just* make my
position seem even worse.  You played on that damn twin-comparison
like a cat torturing a dying rat.  I HATED you for that, I hated you
and wanted to hurt you *bad*..."

	"So you despised me and planned my murder."  She let out a
bored sigh.  "How typically immature of you."

	"No, it wasn't *like* that.  When I was vamped, I suddenly had
the power to do whatever I wanted.  Lucretia stressed this as part of
the Brujah way, and I took to it immediately.  It was what I'd always
said, 'fuck society' and all that..."

	Julia placed her hands on her hips.  "You didn't have to take
it literally, though..."

	He covered his eyes with his hand.  "It's like all that power,
it surpassed my superego and freed up my id, my libido.  Whatever was
in my subconscious was what I did.  So, yeah, I'll admit that I
secretly hated you, and without any self-control I really didn't have
to think twice about doing you in.  As for raping you," he shook his
head, "that was just to add insult to injury: it's not like I took any
pleasure from it.  I knew it would publicly embarrass Mom and Dad even
more than just your murder, so I figured I might as well twist the
knife while I was at it..."

	"You missed my funeral, too.  I think that made a lot of
people suspicious."

	"Yeah, well, I couldn't safely attend: sunlight and vampires
don't exactly mix.  Hell, it was hard enough to wake myself in the
middle of the day to answer the police questioning.  Lucretia got me
through that one: supernatural damage control, you could call it.  She
got a detective to clear my name by dominating his mind, and that was
that."  He shrugged it off.

	She perked up, "Police!"

	"What about 'em?  That was almost a year ago, and we're
a whole hemisphere away from--"

	"No!  I mean, the police: they're coming this way!"

	Zen squinted at Julia.  "Really?"  He laughed.  "No, no,
you're just trying to mind-funk me..."

	"No, really, they're coming from the east," she pointed down
the road.  "You'd better run or they'll catch you!"

	"Yeah, right, like I'm supposed to believe--"  He stopped
short upon catching the glare of red and blue out of the corner of his
eye.  In a matter of seconds, Zen found himself five blocks in the
other direction, hiding behind a pub dumpster.

	Julia reappeared across the alley from him, glancing once to
the street.  "You're safe.  They found your victims and called for an
ambulance..."

	"Why?", was all he could muster.

	"Because they were injured, of course."

	He let out an exasperated breath.  "No!  I mean, *why* did you
warn me?  I mean, here I was telling you how much I hated you, and you
turned around and did me a big favour.  I figured you'd be *pleased*
to see my sorry ass in jail, and even eventually executed.  What's the
deal?"

	She closed her eyes and shook her head as if speaking to a
slow child.  "It's hard to explain.  I don't know much about how or
why I became a ghost, but something gives me the feeling that you're
the only one that can free me from this tormented existence."

	"Me?"  He stood up and brushed off his trenchcoat.

	"Yes.  We've always been linked, it seems: birth, life, death,
all in close synchronicity.  If I help you out, then it might get you
on the right path.  If you can regain your humanity, then maybe I can
be released from this curse as well.  Spirits always seem to have
unfinished business on Earth, so maybe this is my task: I suppose I'm
your guardian angel, in a sense..."

	Zen chuckled softly.  "Ummm, Julia...?"

	"Yes, Thomas?"  She looked up again, into his eyes.

	"Go to hell."

///// [ END TEXT: Zen Sketch [part 01/01] ] /////

Thomas/Zen and Julia are Copyright by Mark Friedman 1993, all rights
reserved.  Get permission before using them in your own storyline.

Comments and criticism openly accepted at mfriedman@csi.compuserve.com

///// [ END FILE: zen01.txt ] /////

--
Mark "Klone Crimson" Friedman is crimson@ihz.compuserve.com....................
"There is nothing former  "Beat poets,    "Bite me,   "My jacket! I killed
 about King Crimson."      not children."  it's fun!"  Kennedy in this jacket!"
 - Robert Fripp, 5/11/90   - anonymous     - MST3K     - Ron Post