Article: 261278 of talk.bizarre
From: Andrew Solberg <andsol@cml.rice.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: Marquette House Nightmares: 1
Date: 1 Dec 1995 01:13:33 -0500
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Status: RO



GUN
***

Gun has a very small room.  The floors are hardwood and have not been
varnished or sanded in a century or more.  There is one window covered
with Venetian blinds; the slats are cracked slightly and the light paints
narrow bars on the floor.  The air is full of dust.  I can see the sunbeams.

There is nothing in the room.  The walls are bare.  There are no appliances,
no phones or stereos or TV's or other signs of habitation.  There is only
one piece of furniture -- a wooden kitchen chair -- and it sits at the
very center of the room.

Gun sits in that chair.  He is middle-aged and balding.  He is wearing
ratty jeans and a white tee.  He leans forward in the chair, hunched down,
his forearms resting on his knees.  He stares straight ahead and slightly
down; his gaze is focussed on a spot several hundred yards away.  His face
is entirely blank.  His left fist is clenched.  His right hand holds the 
Gun itself.

The Gun looks thoroughly evil.  It is a dull black and is shaped strangely.
The barrel clearly fires large shells with a rectangular cross-section.  The
loading housing is at the rear of the chamberworks instead of in the butt.
The trigger requires two fingers to pull.  A tiny red light at the top of
the Gun emits a thin beam that paints a dot on whatever happens to be the 
target at the time.

I enter the room.  Gun's eyes do not register any change at all, and he
does not turn to face me, but his right hand pivots, pointing the weapon
at me.  The beam puts the dot right on my forehead.  I get the feeling that
I am being watched through a tiny red laser-eye.

I am confused.  "You are not the same as you were yesterday."

Gun speaks without any emotion or modulation of his voice.  "I AM STILL GUN."  

"Yesterday you were a woman.  A thin blonde woman with short hair.  She wore
scrubs, like a doctor."

"THAT ONE DID NOT CONTINUE.  I AM GUN."

"Did she die?"

"THAT ONE WAS NEVER ALIVE WITHOUT ME.  I AM GUN."

Gun, I learn, changes people like people change clothes.  They carry Gun
around, and their fingers pull the trigger.  That's all they are needed 
for.  Gun does the rest.

Gun kills in a very strange way.  His projectiles emerge from his barrel
in a flash of plasma and devour the target.  The victim dies in both the
physical world and the world of continuity.  Anybody shot by Gun does not
exist, will not exist, and has never existed.  I have not witnessed Gun
slaying anybody in this manner -- Gun does not shit where he sleeps --
but I know that I have felt the void in my mind where prominent people
might once have had a memory, and I have known that Gun was at fault.  Some
days I wake up saying to myself "Was Clinton *really* the president yesterday?"


-- 
This post is COPYRIGHT 1995, Andrew Solberg.  All rights reserved.
Standard usenet distribution is acceptable; other forms of reproduction
or reprinting may be considered in violation of international copyright law.
Andrew Solberg is HWRNMNBSOL: andsol@cml.rice.edu, Math Dept., Rice U.