Adventure Gamers - Forums

TimovieMan - 17 September 2016 04:00 AM

Or it’s just one big Babelfish puzzle where things keep popping up that we need to solve before we can actually write. (Can’t write while standing down - sit - can’t write without word processor - open word processor - can’t open word processor without turning computer on first - turn on computer - it’s not plugged in - plug in computer - neighbours too noisy outside the door - get them to keep quiet - something else pops up - etc. etc. etc.)

You’re enjoying the game a lot, aren’t you.  Violet already getting on your nerves?
Can’t win them all, you can pick the next game.

>open cabinet
Last night, near the very end:
“I want you to have your birthday present regardless.”
“Violet, I’ll write the thousand words.”
“I planned a treasure hunt for you.  I wrote clues!  It was going to end in your office.”
“I am going to write tomorrow.  I promise.”
“Look in that cabinet you never use.  You’ll like how I wrapped it.”

It’s locked, budgie, so you’ll need the key.

>x computer
The desktop PC is old but perfectly fine for writing.  In addition to your word processor, applications you can OPEN include a browser, chat and e-mail.

The computer has a USB port in the front and is connected to the Internet with a cable in back.

>x dissertation
You’ve made some really handsome margin and font choices already for your dissertation, wallaroo.  Now all you need is text.

>get snowglobe
Yours, dundeecake.  I still can’t believe I stayed up two nights straight making it.

>

Karlok’s confession: If someone called me dundeecake, wallaroo or budgie every 5 seconds, I’d smack him over the head and throw him out.

>open email
You have 3 unread messages.  You go to click to open the first one, from Julia with a subject line “If V. does leave you… ”

You know you have to stop or else you’ll be checking e-mail every two minutes for the rest of the day.  Lorikeet, you have to focus.

You close your e-mail.

You are distracted by Julia laughing inauthentically and telling Historic Pfister “You are so clever.”

>read them all
I’m not sure what “them” refers to.

>

>open chat
you: hi
violetc: do you have 1000 wds?
you: not yet
violetc: then what are you doing?  GET OFF NOW!

Again, I’m not sure what you expect from me.  Plus you know how I hate emoticons.

You close chat.

>open browser
You open your browser and within five minutes you’ve gone from skimming a post on your favourite superhero-comics blog to reading an epic newsgroup debate about the history of villains made entirely of ham.

Ahem.  If you don’t stop now you’ll just surf away another afternoon.  You have to write.

You close the browser.

>sleep
I know you are tired, vegemite, but I can’t let you sleep away the afternoon when you have to write.

>shout
That is what Julia wants.  She wants you to engage her.  She wants you to argue with her because she knows it will get you wound up and then you won’t be able to concentrate the rest of the day.  You must ignore her.

You’re looking out the window again.  Today in the park, a laughing couple that could have been us toss a frisbee back and forth, and an older gentleman is walking his malamute.

>dance
You’re going to have to use a different verb for me to understand what you mean.

>cry
You wouldn’t let me cry when that man said the dalmatian sculptures in my MFA exhibit were “gimmicky,” so I’m not going to let you cry now.  You can do this.

>laugh
Sorry for being confused, lorikeet, but you’re going to have to use a different verb for me to follow you.

>

Violet IS more than a bit suffocating, isn’t she.

>x desk
Of course the big oak desk is unusually posh for a graduate student office.  It belonged to a professor who had a stroke at his computer and none of the other faculty wanted a desk on which once rested the head of a dead colleague.

On top of the desk are your computer, my itinerary, a framed darling and a pile you cannot even contemplate right now.

The desk’s drawer is closed.  A wastebasket is on the floor to the left.

>x chair
It was just some dreary old office chair that they dragged up from the basement for you, but then I came up one weekend with this amazing yellow veloury-pleatherish fabric and upholstered it.

>break snowglobe
But, you said you thought it was brilliant.  Why would you want to break it?

>take book
Why did you pick up the book?  If you start reading it, you won’t stop, and holding it in your hands is just going to make you want to read it even more.

You start looking toward the door with an irksome dreaminess.  Whatever else about Julia, the woman knows how to choose perfume.  Of course, I’m not sure how much she’s poured on herself that you can smell it this far away.

>open book
Sure, the book looks like something you’d find interesting.  I’m not going to describe its contents any further, though, as I don’t want to risk enticing you to start reading it.

I see the way you are looking down at the book.  You want to read it.  You need to resist.

>take trophy
Yours, muttonplum.  I have to confess, I think the trophy is absolutely sublime.

You fiddle with the cover of the book.  You’re thinking that you could just read the Table of Contents.  And maybe the Acknowledgements.

>x pipe
The garish chrome pipe was obviously added sometime after the building was built, in response to some amendment to the fire code.  It is flush against the wall and runs all the way up to a sprinkler that is only a few inches from the ceiling.

You lightly caress the book’s cover.  You are titillated by the possibility of it having separate indices for authors and topics.

>search pipe
The garish chrome pipe was obviously added sometime after the building was built, in response to some amendment to the fire code.  It is flush against the wall and runs all the way up to a sprinkler that is only a few inches from the ceiling.

Your index finger strokes the a particularly ecstatic blurb on the book’s lower back.  You bite your lip.  This is weird.

>unfold origami
What?  I spent two full days making that.  I can’t see any reason why you’d want to unfold it.

You run the back of your hand along the book’s spine.  If you don’t get the book out of your hands, you will give in and start reading.

>

>x itinerary
A printout of an airline receipt for a certain Ms. Violet C., for a flight from Madison to Chicago to Los Angeles to Auckland to Melbourne.  One-way, refundable.  Departing early tomorrow morning.

I hate that I’ve given you an ultimatum.  But I don’t feel like I’ve any choice.

Temptation finally wins: you start reading.  Each page you know you should stop.  You quit only when it’s absolutely certain that if you don’t start writing immediately you won’t get your thousand words done.  But then you are tired and cannot focus.  By the time you reach the first comma you are thinking instead about how you’ve squandered the day and put yourself in a hopeless position.  Finally you just set your head down on your keyboard and start crying.

I’m sorry.  I can’t do this anymore.



  *** Our relationship is over ***



We don’t have to end this way.  You can UNDO the last turn.  You can also RESTART or RESTORE a saved game.  If you’d rather finish breaking my heart, then by all means, QUIT.

>

Oh boy, what a relief! Let’s rush over to Julia.
Or UNDO?

> undo
Now I have that “She’s Come Undone” song in my head.

[Previous turn undone.]

>

>drop book
You put the book back on the shelf.

You are distracted by Julia talking about her abs.

>x frame
I took the concert flier from our first “date” and made it into a hard plastic laminate—you know, like a Shrinky Dink.  I made a clear plastic sheet the same size to go over the front of the photograph.  Then I fused a sturdy binder clip to the two pieces to hold everything in place.

>x wastebasket
It’s the standard issue University Dreary—sullen cousin of University Drab—metal wastebasket.

A wad of gum is stuck to the wastebasket’s rim.

>open drawer
You open the drawer and there’s a shiny little key and your notebook.

Although you write on your computer, you still like to keep a pen and notebook handy because it sometimes helps to work out more complicated sentences in longhand before typing them in.  You’ve several pens in your bag.

Hey, little numbat: where’s your bag?

>