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Lukewarm 03
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Test
--------
by tepid
A young man and a young woman decided to test their love.
In the Zygote district, within which they resided, there was only
one politically-correct, morally-acceptable, telegenic, Church- and
Government-sanctioned way to do this. This way was known as the Test.
The young man and the young woman lived in an age of repugnant moral
decay, and as such, couples very rarely felt any love for one another,
let alone the need to test this theoretical love. As a result of this,
very little was popularly known about the Test. It was infamous and
respectable and legendary, but no one really had much of an idea just
what the hell it was.
Not knowing exactly what to expect, the young couple packed their
knapsacks full of all sorts of life-saving items: condoms, peanut butter,
KY Jelly, diapers, handcuffs, expired whipped cream, an Apple PowerBook,
comic books, insulin, Jolly Ranchers, cell phones, soldering irons, a
nine iron, a pitching wedge, dildoes, chocolate candies, hairspray,
turtle wax, and complimentary t-shirts they had received at a taping of
the Jenny Jones show.
Secure in their love for one another, the couple set out to take the
Test.
They arrived at the National Receptacle for Love-Blinded Idealists
after a two hour bus ride through the grungiest, most crime-infested
streets of their district's deeptown hell grid. Once there, they were
promptly whisked inside by smooth-tongued, robe-clad, pale-skinned,
eyeless ghoul beasts.
They were bathed, re-clothed, accoladed, cherished, fed, nurtured,
and admonished.
For the next three hours they filled out the necessary non-
disclosure agreements, parental consent acknowledgments, personal
identification release-notes, and other denial-of-liability forms which
all read approximately the same way:
We here at A&NBC Studios Inc. Ltd. Co. Unlimited, Hollywood,
California, Zygote District, as the proprietors, managers,
stock-holders, and referees of the Test (R) which you are about
to take, cannot be held responsible, in any imaginable or
dreamed-up, bullshit way, for any injuries, fatalities,
emotional trauma, side-effects or calamities that may be
brought about by this Test, no matter how bad or how painful
they may be, and no matter how much it is, actually, our fault.
By signing this agreement, you acknowledge that whatever
happens to you or anyone you care about, ever, from now until
the end of your pitiful life, is solely your responsibility,
and that you can't sue us in any even remotely plausible way.
Best of luck, etc.
The young couple signed their names to every available space,
completed every question to the best of their ability, checked off all
the appropriate boxes (all the while being completely honest, even about
those *dirty* questions), and matched the letters on the left to the
responses on the right that best matched the definition.
And then, the Test began.
They were led away down a long, cold corridor. They were led inside
a small, cold, barren room. They were stripped of their clothes. The
young man and the young woman, feeling self-conscious and somewhat
embarrassed, both tried their damnedest to cover themselves up with only
their own body parts. To little or no success.
And then, they were led, cold and shivering, down another long
corridor. The light all around them seemed to diminish, imperceptibly,
until it was almost pitch dark, but they could still see, for their eyes
had adjusted to this darkness, but then, suddenly, all light from all
life exploded once again into their eyes and their every pore, and they
were blinded.
Hands pushed them from behind and they were sent reeling, sightless,
cold, falling to the floor.
The sound of steel slamming against concrete. And then no sound but
the blood in their ears.
Still blinded, the young man pulled himself into a sitting position.
The young woman, cold and disoriented, did the same. She was about to
call out her companion's name, when an immense, metallic voice ruptured
forth as if from the very earth itself.
"The Test has begun."
The words reverberated against distant walls, and pierced the light
and their blindness.
The man peeled open his eyes, blinked hard, and opened them again.
He could make out--
A long white room, excreting light from every plane. As his eyes
began to focus, the room shrank down to its accurate dimensions: five
meters wide by twenty deep. He at one end, while she was sitting on the
other end, placed as far away from him as possible. She rubbed her eyes,
found her equilibrium, found him in her gaze, smiled, and was about to
speak, when the voice boomed once again.
"The room is divided, although you can not see it, in two halves.
Each of you is now on his or her own half. In this portion of the Test,
you are not to cross over to the other's half. Doing so--"
Dramatic . . . pause.
"--will result in the other's immediate death."
They both gasped.
The voice fell silent.
"Can we talk?" called out the young man.
There was no response.
"I can't see why not," said the young woman.
"Yes," said the man, and stood up. He looked around, but saw nothing
but intense white walls, floor, and ceiling. Not an opening, not a door.
He paced a bit, then turned and looked at the young woman. He smiled
at her brightly. "You know," he said, "this isn't so terribly bad."
The woman stood and surveyed her half of the room: identical, as it
was, to the young man's own half.
"No," said she. "I can't imagine this being too difficult a test at
all."
"My thoughts exactly."
Much time passed.
They talked. Of their love, of their past, of times remembered and
times forgotten. They talked of the future, of what they would do once
this was all over, and how impressed all their friends, associates, and
associates' friends would be once they successfully completed this Test.
They talked of music, and food, and wine, and fiction, and
television movies-of-the-week. They laughed.
They sat, smiling at each other, from across the room, their love
like a dense, impenetrable presence in the air between them.
Many hours passed.
They spoke of the love that they would make once this was all over.
But the sonorous, disembodied voice returned abruptly, interrupting
their thoughts and their optimistic promises:
"This phase of the Test is over."
They smiled.
"The next phase has now begun. The halves of the room have been
disregarded: you may now move about freely, as you wish. However, neither
of you may speak. Doing so will incur the penalty upon the other . . .
that of death."
And the voice, again, was gone.
They looked at each other, for a long time, confused.
The young man was about to call out to the air, asking "May we touch
one another?" but held himself back, for fear of the penalty. Instead, he
stood, and stepped cautiously across the room, until he was well beyond
his own half, and only a few meters away from the young woman.
Their gazes met, and all the love they felt for each other sparked
like raw electricity between them, through the air, through their minds
and hearts and spines and fingertips.
The young man approached her, with two broad strides, and knelt down
next to her. Then slowly, carefully, infinitely delicately, he reached
out to her, and his hand grasped hers.
All was well.
They fell to the floor, entwined in each other's arms.
Much time passed.
His fingers in her hair; her lips on his shoulder.
All was well.
The voice returned, more loudly than before:
"You have completed this phase of the Test. The next will now
begin."
They stared deeply into each other's eyes, filled with apprehension
and love.
"Please sit up," rang the voice, "and separate yourselves. As you do
so, the next phase begins: You may now not touch one another.
Furthermore, you must continue to not speak to one another. Failure to
follow these stipulations will, of course, result in the penalty to the
other."
Silence returned.
They sat there, their feet less than a foot apart, staring at one
another. The young man noticed their precarious proximity, and quickly
pulled himself back to a safer distance. Then he looked back at her,
smiling apologetically.
Many, many hours passed.
It became painful, being so close to one another, and unable to
speak or even hold each other. Their smiles slowly faded from their
faces, and before long they were left sitting there, tired and sore,
confused, angry, only able to steal an occasional guilty glance at the
other.
But their love persevered. Only so much longer until they would be
able to leave this horrendous place, and then they would have proven it.
Proven it to themselves, and infinitely more important, proven it to the
entire world.
Only so much longer--
Hours stretched to an eternity. And when the voice returned, they
welcomed it.
"This portion of the Test is completed. Now for the next. From now
on, you must not look at one another. All restraints from past phases are
yet intact: you may not touch one another, nor speak. Any breach of these
guidelines by one of you will bring about the immediate death of the
other."
They turned away from each other quickly.
Hours passed silently.
They each lay on the floor, facing away from the other, and spoke to
themselves inside their own minds. Thoughts turned incessantly to each
other. The young man thought of the young woman: of her smile, of her
wit, her voice, her hair. And most importantly, he thought of all the
kindness he would lavish upon her once this ridiculous Test was over, all
the affection that he could give her, all his love that he would show
her.
Time crawled.
The young woman thought of the young man: of his dazzling blue eyes,
of his voice, of his mind. But as she thought of him, the more she
thought of him . . . the less she could remember. She tried picturing him
in her mind, but to no success. She tried to remember the exact sensation
of his voice falling upon her ears . . . but nothing. She could hear no
voices within her head; all was limp and lifeless. She tried to remember
his face, or the feel of his fingers on her skin, or what his favorite
color was, or . . . But nothing was coming.
She was forgetting him. How could this be?
She had to turn around. She had to turn and look at him. She had to
talk to him, to hear him speak, to touch his skin, to make sure that he
was real. How did she know he was real, after all, if she couldn't touch
him, taste him, experience him with her senses? Did she even know where
she *was* anymore?
She was about to do just that, turn over, stare at him, scream at
him, hold him and feel him--
--but the voice returned.
"This phase of the Test is over."
They both stiffened; inhaled deeply; exhaled and trembled.
"The final phase of the Test is just this: You must not think of one
another. You may now begin."
Three seconds passed.
And the young man thought: I wonder if she will be able--
The voice returned, low, tumultuous, resonant:
"You have failed this Test. One of you has thought of the other."
Suddenly the sound of metal scraping against concrete, doors being
slid open, and feet, many feet, rushing towards them, rushing towards
*her* . . .
And the young woman, frightened, thought: Did he--
"You have both failed the test. You both incur the penalty."
They were both slaughtered ruthlessly.
They had failed the Test.
5:47p.3.12.97
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+lukewarm@bbs.bplanet.com + + + + + + + + + + + ftp.etext.org/Zines/luke+
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+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +-you want our fuck-+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+ + + + + + + + + +copyright? what copyright? (c) 1997+ + + + + + + + + +
