From: David Hibbs (midnite@iastate.edu) Subject: Story: "Brother Lucas" -- Part 3 Newsgroups: alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die Date: 1996/07/30 Brother Lucas ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Part III Lucas awoke, an incredibly annoying buzzing in his ear. His still large and strong fist slammed down on the annoying black box next to his bed. He looked at it briefly and and groaned to himself; he'd already smacked the thing several times. If he didn't hurry he wouldn't be there when the truck got to the store. He flicked the switch on top, and sat up groggily, rubbing his eyes. This was gonna be a long day... He rose slowly and flicked on the bedside light, providing enough illumination for him to search through his closet, find his clothes for the day and don his bathrobe. He shuffled down the hallway, yawning as he passed the rows of pictures on his wall. Smiling faces peered out at him with bright eyes, encouraging him to move on. He was going to make someone else's children happy today. After piling his clothes on the chair, he shrugged off his robe and stepped into the shower, turning the steamy hot water on his aged body. He washed his body, marvelling as he always did at the ripples and bulges of muscle that still clung to his large frame. No time for self-admiration today, though; he had to hurry. He quickly towelled himself off, rapidly donned his immaculate clothing, and neatly parted his hair. He checked his watch briefly as he put it on--nearly made up all the lost time. Good deal. He wandered out to the kitchen, picking up the paper on his way, and poured himself a glass of juice as he scanned the front page. Nothing too exciting... a photo of Perot at a press conference from the night before graced the front page. He chortled to himself, wishing that that guy'd make up his mind whether to run or not. Ah well. He finished off his glass of juice, filled his coffee thermos from the coffee maker, and headed out the door. "At least that had gotten started at the right time," he laughed to himself as he started his long walk to work. When he arrived at the toy store, he realized he had plenty of time. The Semi hadn't gotten there yet. Lucky for him. He walked through the employee entrance, turning his key in the lock to allow him to pass, and dropped his thermos off in the break room. There was a coffee maker there, but the stuff from that always tasted like the mud from the bottom of the Mississippi river. After punching in, he headed back to the loading dock, where he found the truck was just now backing up to the open door. He waited a bit as the first boxes were unloaded from the truck by some of the younger store employees, then took a box of plushies into a side room to inventory it before they could go out on the shelves. He had no idea what these things were, but they were selling like mad. He grabbed a boxcutter and took out the packing list, then hacked through the clear packing tape across the box top. He briefly compared the list to his purchase order form from the records, noting that a couple items had been back ordered, and then started to see what he had. He popped open the box, and reached into the box to see what he had. Hmmm. "Whoever came up with these things had awful taste in colors," he thought to himself as he turned it over looking for the item number. He finally found the tag sticking out of a seam on the dinosaur(?)'s purple behind. He shook his head, and put it on a shelf, marking it off on his list. He continued the process, counting out the purple critters as he plopped them on the shelf. The first box was ok; everything was there. Glad to be done with those heinous things, he moved on to the next box on the list. After retrieving it from the pile on the loading dock, he popped it open quickly and reached into it, hoping to high heaven that whatever he pulled out wasn't purple and green. As he pulled out the first one, he groaned. More of them. He hurried through them, not liking to look at them any longer than absolutely necessary. Negative after-images and all, you know--he'd be seeing that wretched color all day as it was. The pattern repeated itself. Over and Over again he opened another box, revealing the vile purple plushies. This was just sick--sick and wrong. There was no reason to have hundreds and hundreds of these things! After about 300 plushies, he decided he'd had enough for a while and retired to the break room for some coffee. He munched a bit from the snack foods he kept stashed there, and immediately started feeling better. After about 15 minutes it was back to the daunting task of counting plushies. The pattern repeated itself again and again for the rest of the day. He finally finished up, counting the last of about 700 plushies as he set it on the shelves. They weren't all purple... roughly a third of them were green, goofy looking critters. But still, he couldn't help but wonder why anyone would want these things. Shaking his head, he noticed that it was almost quitting time for him for the day. Whew, time to go home. Lucas grabbed his thermos and headed back towards home, pausing briefly to pick up some ham on his way home for dinner. Should be good, plus he'd have some left for sandwiches later on. After getting home, he washed his hands, and then popped the ham in the oven, adding some pinapple slices to it for just the right bit of extra flavor. He then sat down to read the rest of the paper while he waited for it to finish up. After eating supper and cleaning up the mess, he read a bit longer, and turned in early. It had been a *very* long day. That night, his nightmares returned. ----------- To Be Continued in Brother Lucas Part IV "Brother Lucas" Copyright 1996 David R. Hibbs -- ______________________________________________________________________________ "In the end there will be only one OS, The Mind.. Ponder that for a while..." --unknown "But if the mind is an OS, then there will be infinite OS's, and a vast majority of them will still suck." --me ______________________________________________________________________________