Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
From: jperry@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (John Perry)
Subject: Almost Knew
Organization: Liberal Materialist Party Headquarters
Message-ID: <1994May26.174303.28573@cs.ucla.edu>
Date: Thu, 26 May 94 17:43:03 GMT

    Hilly and I were driving down the Autobahn looking for a good 
liter of stout.   I call her Hilly because she hates the name
Hildegard and because it accurately describes both her emotional
disposition and the upper regions of her anatomy.  The passenger
side wind-wing of the car was still broken from a run-in with
some skinheads.  Silly me; I thought we'd be safe once we got
in the car and started to drive away.  We might have been if
Hilly hadn't kept shouting obscenities at them (I assume they
were obscenities, my German's not so good).  Anyway, the wind-wing
was still broken and the warm rain was blowing in on Hilly's lap.

  "When are you gonna get this fixed?"

  "When I have time."

  "Or when you're not spending all your money on beer.  Seriously,
you should get it fixed.  The carpets gonna get all mildewed, and
the cars already overrun with bugs."

   As if on cue, a cricket chimed its assent from the back seat.  It
was actually the crickets that kept me from fixing it so far.  I kind
of liked the eerie music they produced on a warm evening drive, and 
since I didn't have a radio in the car at the time, they were the only
entertainment available.

  "You're right.  I'll get it fixed on pay day."

   I thought of a group of transients I once saw back in L.A. standing
around a trash can set on fire.  I could visualize all the crickets
kicked out of my car standing around a little tiny trash can passing
a bottle of insecticide, and I started giggling.

  "What?"

  "Nothing, sometimes I just think funny thoughts."

  "The technical term for it is Schizophrenia."

  There's no talking to her when she gets like this.  I was trying to
think of a way to maneuver her back to my apartment after drinks when
I noticed several groups of men out in a field by the side of the road.
They were in groups of four, all dressed the same: long belted robes
of some burlap-like fabric, and matching floppy wide-brimmed hats.  They
were doing some silly looking little dance, each group of four in unison
with each other, and singing mindlessly.

  "Deedle deedle deedle dee,
   deedle deedle,
   deedle deedle deedle dee.

   Deedle deedle deedle dee,
   deedle deedle,
   deedle deedle deedle dee."

  I looked over at Hilly and she was as terrified as I was.

  "They've found us."