.__ .___ |__| __| _/ _____ | | / __ | / \ | | / /_/ | | Y Y \ |__| \____ | |__|_| / \/ \/ iNTELLIGENT dANCE mONSTER We exist to save you from yourself and your sorry ass apathy \/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/ iSSUE: 6 x 0 04.27.04 "Stellar Space Battle" by twistedgreen \/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/ It was growing dark, and being in I walked through the dark alleyway to my house towards a blinding silvery snail that was squilching away from me into the darkness. Several crickets chirped. The snail happened to be a close friend of mine but he did not recognize me. As far as he was concerned I was hungry and he was my entree for the evening. But large snails, while slow, still move with surprising speed, especially since the sandy pavement was soft and yielding like a small dog's pelt. If you were a curious type, which most of you are, then it wouldn't have taken long for you to discover that the sandy pavement was in fact the pelt of many small dogs. The path this snail decided to take was the hunting grounds of many varied and unusual small dog eaters who spent all their free, not eating small dog time, fashioning pathways with small dog pelts. The snail had left a thick trail of odorous mucous in its wake and I was forced to clamber on the white picket fences lining the alleyway. However, I soon discovered that this slime was no ordinary snail excretion... It seemed to have a strange property. This property, much to my misfortune, appeared to reanimate the dog corpses that lined the roadway. Believe me when I tell you that the sight of a million dead puppy skins roiling free of the asphalt and stone into which they were supposedly sealed is not one you would wish to bear witness. I had dreamt this day would come. After a tragic car accident involving a snail and my childhood pet, I vowed that someday I would live to see the resurrection of millions of dead puppy skins in all of the glory that this one moment began to provide for me. I cracked a wide grin that quickly turned into a crooked toothy smile. THESE WERE MY PEOPLE! I could lead them to victory against the powers that be and nothing could stop me! Suddenly, a harsh wind befell the land. It brought with it an unusual bone-chilling cold that, with my scant clothing, I felt certain would slay me once and for all. All these years of hunting this Master of Snails and I was to fall to a wind! Oh the bitter irony that swirled about my thoughts--but wait! I realized the dogs presence. Still more were arising from the pavement in a life renewed into a biochemical zombiehood. Surely these kindred of the valiant Rover the Great of my childhood days would save me and enable me to complete my mighty quest! Surely their warm (albeit gravelly) hides could protect me from this sudden turn in fortune and lead me to victory! With this, I turned to my numerous undead benefactors and petitioned their help. Much to my dismay, the tongue of Rover the Great was not the same in which they spoke and there a remained an angry barrier, working alongside a mighty wind to see my down fall tonight It was then that I recalled that Rover had informed me of a code... a Canine Code, dating back from before the days of Man, when small dogs everywhere spoke a common tongue and lived in joyous, gleeful herds that bounded a cross the landscape and dominated the food chain. This tongue was actually a dance, a dance which Rover taught me oh so many years ago. If only I could remember how it began, I might succeed in winning the loyalties of these noble potential allies and finally succeed in my lifetime of war against the snail! I adjusted my tie and thought, and then began the dance. Hopping on my left claw and doing a cartwheel onto my back, then jumping up I landed on my leftmost claws again. The dogs stared on, mesmerized... some shed tears when they recognized my efforts. Surely this would mean victory! Surely I have broken the barrier of communication! All at once, the dogs barked out "ROVER THE GREAT COMMANDS US" and began to apply themselves in very intricate layers to my body. What began to take place form was the greatest small dog pelt coat known to the universe. I flexed my arms and could feel the warmth surge through me. I felt stronger than I had ever felt before. And the view! I was somehow connected to the thousands of eyes embedded in my new dog-pelt armour, and I could see in every direction imaginable! It was an exhilarating feeling, to be connected to so much new sensory information, that I almost forgot my Purpose here... but I quickly realized that the snail was trailing off into the distance. I tightened my tie and ran--no, flew!--after my target. I quickly gained on it, rushing through the air, the imminent approach of the snail's doom like a rich taste that invigourated my very being. Finally, I was hovering about the demon snail. It peered up with one of its many eye stalks and stopped. The snail snickered, and my face tightened into a frown. The arrogance! The snail would never get away with this. His frown quickly turned into a howl the likes of which I did not know snails were capable of. It was as if this snail was not a snail but in fact a two year old human child pretending to be a snail, leaking secret snail juices from his nether regions with uncanny abilities, as if part of a super hero fighting force. the whole situation had me puzzled. I thought that I had all of the pieces to put things together but that was not the case at all! But I cast all of this aside. This snail was of the tricksy sort, and regardless of its true form, it must die. So I swung down upon it and, with a crushing blow to its shell, I split it open and annihilated the Demon snail's spirit with my tie, which had hardened into a sword. The snail's remains smouldered on the rocky plains and I sat back in relief. The snail vanquished, I could now return to my humble sky abode and plan my next act of vengeance. I shed my coat of dogs and smoothed my tie back down, and called my robot butler with the rocket car. We road off into the sunrise of a new day breaking, excited to be returning home after all of this time. My house was built in the clouds of Jupiter. I had had them fitted to a custom design which I had fashioned myself, in the tradition of my fourteen sub-fathers during my Airing years. It was a bit out of the way of the normal space lanes, and consequently I could enjoy the solitude more often than I would otherwise be able in a living space more proximate to the System's cultural centres. The clouds, in their brilliant shades of orange and red, still had the power to instill a deep calmness in me upon sight. Their size and magnificence had never ceased to effect their beauty. I knew that it was all in my perception, but what else is there, after all? I ordered the butler to land the car at the edge of my ringway so that I could retrieve the day's post. I knew that I could have had the butler do that as well, but I did prefer to maintain a sense of self-sufficiency even in my immense wealth. I had found that being waited upon constantly had the effect of weakening the demeanour, the idea of which I did not relish. This was the latest of my many victories against the vicious Snail-race that had been infesting an increasing number of planetoids in the outer reaches of the System, and it certainly would not be my last. I opened the hatch to the sky car and stepped down upon the translucent ringway that surrounded the Jovian atmosphere. What was once Jupiter's faint ring was now paved into a circular plane which was used by those few wealthy enough to have taken residence among Jupiter's fierce beauty. My mailbox was suspended near the ring's edge, at the corner of its intersection with my own transway which led to my home. But these are all superficial details, whose importance dropped dramatically when I glanced at the headline of the newspaper I had retrieved. "CASUALTIES MOUNT AS SNAILS BESEIGE PLUTO" the headline read. I almost dropped the newspaper in my shock and subsequent excitement. "Those fools!" I thought. "Such a rash move could hardly be wise at this time. But the Snail-race are hardly one to act on impulse... there must be some missing bit of this puzzle to which I remain ignorant." I signaled to my butler to park the car in the garage. I would walk the rest of the way, and take the manual passageways to my pensive chambers. Rolling the paper into a rough cylinder, I began the walk back while gazing distantly at some surface storm. Hundreds--if not thousands--of kilometres across it would be, perhaps traumatizing old Rorchan's house. The fool, to build it so close to the surface... though still, he admired the boldness in the action. Yet he could not help but sense the undercurrent of futility in attempting to stem the tides of nature. "One cannot halt such inhuman forces," he mused. "But these Snails are another matter." TO BE CONTINUED <-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-> issue: 6x0 of iNTELLIGENT dANCE mONSTER released 04.27.04 This is part one in a continuing series! COME BACK SOON! <-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-> iNTELLIGENT dANCE mONSTER is the latest and greatest creature from gir. iT will never get soggy in milk and will probably give continual nods to the wonderful world of music that makes gir giddy like a school girl. aLSO be on the look out for science of the fiction variety to appear withing these virtual pages. dON'T worry though, angstmonster will make an eventual comeback. tHINKING about writing for idm? eMAIL gir [gir at port11.net] with a marginally on topic submission (music and or science of a fictional variety) and you too shall see the glory of intelligence and dance in a tasty monster treat. gOT nothing to say? tHAT'S a-o-k! dIGGING on this release? fEEL free to pass it along to all of your friends. jUST make sure that you leave it as it was or at least give credit where credit is due. gET caught biting our styles unauthorizedly and we'll sneak up on you ninja style with DOOM! lOVE and kISSES, the iNTELLIGENT dANCE mONSTER crew. <-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-> find us online at http://www.angstmonster.com/txt/idm/ <-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|->