You find yourself standing in a clearing in the woods. There are a number of signs pointing down different pathways. Where do you want to go from here?
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to your east is an impenetrable wall of talk show hosts.
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You walk Westward, through the twists and turns of a rocky path. You begin to hear what sound like moans, far off in the distance, then growing louder and louder as you proceed. Unbearable, hellish moans, building to a crescendo of shrieking as you draw closer to the source. Then, abruptly, the shrieking stops and there is utter silence. You round a bend and find yourself on the threshold of what looks like a cheap motel room. A well-known televangelist is lying on a bed surrounded by several naked and scantilly clad floozies, calmly reading the Wall Street Journal. Would you like to turn back? pass through? or join them?
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Apologetically, you make your way through the hotel room and exit through the back door. No one seems to have even noticed you. Once again you find yourself on the rocky path. You continue westward, preoccupied by the question of how to get out of these woods before nightfall, and trying to ignore the rumble in your stomach caused by extreme hunger. You come to a fork in the path. The narrow winding path that veers to the right looks infrequently used, and leads down a steep, rocky hill. You can't see very far down this path but it looks quite forbidding. The path that veers to the left looks much like the path you've been on.
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You flop down on the bed and try to snuggle up to the prostitutes, who will have nothing to do with you after frisking you and finding out you're broke. Just as you are dozing off, you hear a toilet flush, and open your eyes to see Bill Clinton coming out of the bathroom. "President!" you say. "...you have a piece of toilet paper stuck to your foot." As he bends down to remove it, you notice a sweet smelling cloud of smoke wafting out of the bathroom. Mmmm, it's...actually...quite...nice... You feel yourself drifting off to sleep. You have vivid dreams from which you are unable to wake. They last about, oh, say, eight years. Then, when you wake up, you realize that everything that seemed so real in your dreams was in fact, a sham. You become a Republican.(warning: lots of java)
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To your North is a picturesque meadow lush with wildflowers and lighted by golden sunlight. The Spice Girls, the boys from Hanson, Zha-Zha Gabor,
Khareem Abdul Jabar, Michael Jackson, Colonel Sanders, Bill Gates, and Jesus Christ*, hands linked, form a complete human chain across the meadow, blocking passage.
*and anyone else you'd like me to add
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You walk a little ways to the south, only to find your path blocked by several pick-up trucks on jacked up wheels, with a gang of gun-toting, drunk rednecks leaning up against them. If you are identified by the rednecks as a nigger, kike, spic, chink, faggot, commie, bitch, or yankee*, you are killed. If you happen to have your NRA membership card or your EZ snap-on hood handy, you can join the boys! If not, you may pass and continue on.
*English translations: a person of African-American descent, a person of Jewish descent, a person of Hispanic descent, a person of Asian descent (not necessarily Chinese), a person who is sexually attracted to the same sex, a person with centrist or liberal political views, a female person who has opinions, a person who lives above the Mason-Dixon line or who subscribes to beliefs or lives a lifestyle prevalent in the North*.
*If your local diner serves pre-sweetened iced tea and/or grits for breakfast (no charge), you're safe. If not, or if you don't eat at diners so you don't know, you are probably a yankee
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wherever.
whatever.
things.
people.
I'm so incredibly sure.
Not.
Drink Coketm.
back
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you have been killed by a gang of rednecks. Bubba takes your head back to his trailer and hangs it on his wall beside the antlers of a big buck he bagged last spring. The rest of your body decomposes on the forest floor, making good food for native plant life.
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You join the boys for a wild night of beer-drinking, sheet-wearing, rifle-shooting fun. Just as
the sun's coming up, you all drive to the nearest town and cruise by the local McDonalds to
pick up some breakfast. Bubba's girlfriend, Amy Sue, works at the pickup window. Bubba
thinks he sees you giving her the eye. Bubba's the jealous type, and you really can't blame
him, seeing as how fine his woman is, with her bleach blonde bouffant and almost all of her
teeth. He shoots you between the eyes in a jealous fit. You keel over professing your love for
Amy Sue, before you even get to take a bite out of your sausage McMuffin. Bo eats it while
no one is looking.
start over
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You continue Southward. Around another turn in the path, you encounter a group of Muslims,
prostrate on the ground, praying to the East (are they worshipping to the impenetrable wall of
talk show hosts? you wonder to yourself). You stop and gaze a while at this interesting sight.
When the ritual is over, you prepare to be on your way. Not so fast. The muslims seize you
and schedule you to go on trial before the Taliban. While waiting, you are tortured mercilessly,
and are forced to confess to your sins. This evidence is then used against you at trial. If you
eat pork, are an unmarried female but not a virgin, are a female who goes out in public with
her face and hair uncovered, or are a male who shaves or cuts his beard, they kill you. If you
have ever stolen anything, they cut your hands off. If not, you are allowed to pass unharmed.
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You have been killed by a gang of Muslims. They tied you to a tree and stoned you to death,
then they set your lifeless body on fire until it was nothing but ashes, which they stomped
upon, cursing epithets about Americans. The Taliban subsequently held a trial about the way
your execution was handled, and found those involved to have been too lenient. Their ashes
are mingled with yours as punishment.
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Handless, you travel onward, leaving a trail of blood behind you. A hungry wolf picks up on
the trail, hunts you down, and devours you. You give him indigestion and he spits you up.
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Let me get this straight, you expect me to believe that you:
I'm so sure. Get your ass outta here, buddy. We don't like liars.
In fact, we kill 'em...
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Playing it safe, are you? But wouldn't it be interesting to see what's down that other path? Or you could be boring and continue on this one...
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Have you ever been in a horror movie? You remind me of those characters who insist on going out alone at night/opening the attic door/breaking off from the group, just asking for the bad guy to get them. Ok, well, anyway -- you travel down the forbidding path for a while. The path is overgrown in places, very steep, and filled with loose rock that could easily trip you up, so the going is slow. The sun sets, the moon is clouded over, and you have brought no source of light with you. Finally, unable to see well enough to continue, you lie down by the side of the path and make yourself as comfortable as possible. Rightfully, you should be eaten by a grue at this point, but I can't afford to pay royalties to the creators of Zork, so I will have you drift off into a deep sleep until I figure out what to do with you. [to be continued...]
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Aw, c'mon, aren't you at all curious what lies down that other path? No? How about stopping to pick some berries you see growing by the side of the path? After all, you're very hungry. Maybe you could think more clearly if your hunger were assuaged. Or do you want to play it safe and stay on the same path?
Ok
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you travel down the forbidding path for a while. The path is overgrown in places, very steep, and filled with loose rock that could easily trip you up, so the going is slow. The sun sets, the moon is clouded over, and you have brought no source of light with you. Finally, unable to see well enough to continue, you lie down by the side of the path and make yourself as comfortable as possible. Rightfully, you should be eaten by a
grue at this point, but I can't afford to pay royalties to the creators of Zork, so I will have you drift off into a deep sleep until I figure out what to do with you.[to be continued...]
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You are boring. I'm not playing with you any more. How can I be expected to continue to provide you with entertainment when you just can't take a hint? I'm not even going to create one of those convenient little "back" or "home" buttons, which I've slaved over so many times before (with NO appreciation from you, I might add!) I trust you can find your own way out.
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You pick and eat a bunch of the berries. You've never seen or tasted berries like these before. They are blood red, about the circumference of quarters, and taste like bubblegum. They take the edge off of your hunger, allowing you to focus all your attention on finding your way out of the woods. The thought briefly crosses your mind that the berries might be poisonous, but you quickly brush that thought aside. (To be continued...)
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