Welcome To Hellville - Part 16 By Rich Mills

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"What music are you into, man?" The American exchange student who had earlier introduced himself, without any regard for Alan's need to be alone, suddenly threw a curve-ball of a question like this in his direction. "Well I listen to..." What followed was a definitive list of bands from Alan's wide-ranging rare vinyl and CD collection, he even had a couple of 8-track carts, but not managed to get his hands on a player as yet. He'd filtered, narrowed and condensed the list down to those key pieces that he considered the person in front of him would be most impressed, intrigued, and sucked in by.

Twisting and contorting the actual truth, in such a way that he could produce a half-truth which would satisfy the questioner, without ever having to fully drop the defences of the respondent, himself. Basically Alan had done a quick assessment of this guy's likely musical knowledge, taking into account his age, style of clothing, the shit he'd been talking for the past half hour, and other such assumptions about this loser he randomly made up.

"Whoa! That's cool, I like them too, don't you think their last album was a bit of a let down?" This is where things started to get insidious, as when you discuss music, your heart and soul are laid bare to be measured against a mythical cool -ometer. For Alan this guy had just dropped off the bottom end of the scale. He'd hit his third strike in a row, but knowing this socially retarded fool was never going to walk away from the plate, he decided he himself must climb down from the pitcher's mound. He got up, picked up his drink and found himself a less populated corner of the bar.

"You sad tosser," an inaudible whisper trickled over his lips as he walked across to the other side of the room. The band that the bloke had mentioned hadn't recorded an album in over five years, not since one of the two singer-songwriters had become a hopeless heroin addict. Apparently, or so the groupie grapevine says, he now spends his life aimlessly shuffling between rehab clinics and living at his father's house in some shitty little end-of-the-line seaside town. Alan finished his beer, and made his way out of the Last Chance Saloon.

His new-found friend from Newfoundland tried to arrange a 'get together sometime', as Alan hurried away deciding that making friends or even just talking to people was more than he could handle at the moment. The doors of the bar swung wildly behind him as he gleefully headed homewards, to be alone.

"Whoa! A new E-Linx terminal," he was going to have to control this recently developed habit of mumbling his thoughts out loud to himself. With this in mind, he strode over to the retro-chromed terminal, staring in awe at its mass produced aesthetic beauty. "Welcome to E-Linx, Alan." Silence. "As you are a first time user would you like any assistance in using the E-Linx terminal?" Questions, well Alan had a few questions, like how did this thing know his name?

And this first time user business made him feel a touch paranoid. Silence.

Continued ....next page,

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