Event Mangler
                    (started: 1997)



  Stack

The air smelled of sweet dispair. Insectoids flew through the mesh of thoughts,
clipping at them with scissors as they glided through the smoke. They split
the world until finally the last memory had disolved into fine gas. Concrete 
walls in the city below crumbled under their own sins, smashing to the ground 
with a forgiving sigh. White paint dripped from overhead beams into small grey 
puddles for beggars to lick obeyingly. 
	Under a torn cloth cover sat a huddled group of beings, imprisoned by 
the insects. They seeked madly for whatever cover they could find for they had 
lost the sky and the rain would soon swallow them. How far they had come only 
to realize that even travelling had been pointless. They had become soldiers 
without ever noticing a war. Culprits of insane psychological battles raging 
through the air. Physical war was a dream of paradise as here they were not 
permitted to die.
	Square buildings stared at the sights below. Geometric patterns 
decorated the grey and dirty corners of each construction. Small slits let the 
meagre light pierce through. Straight, uniform and broken. Endless rectangular 
spirals closing in on themselves. Ridgid and strong but dented by the mind 
that had created them. Sharp, jagged edges seeked to slice the surroundings 
into minute pieces that would then be thrown into a chaotic heap at the bottom 
of the world. Yet still, it was beautiful.
	The attack on the prisoner was unprovoked. An insect had suddenly
appeared from between two bent houses and had thrashed out at the first 
prisoner sitting beneath the canvas top. It ripped at the prisoners inner 
senses tearing them into shreds. Cutting out the knots that had formed his 
conciousness. The insect did not care. Mammals were only stupid pigs not 
worthy to crawl from their damp holes. Insects would finally inslave them and 
then rid the world from their disturbing existence. All he needed was to crush 
their tiny souls into dead fragments. 
	It did not take long for the anger in his mind to slash the first 
prisoner into a warped shell with an empty mind. He continued on to the 
second, glad it was so easy. His victim stared back without saying a word. His 
expression was controlled and still. His pose still bent but unlike the 
prisoners before him. The insect peered into his thoughts out of curiosity. 
They pictured a utopistic world of innocence long forgotten. A shrinking world 
of silent symmetric structures grinding against each other. A world that 
gradually turned black and blurred until all that was left was a small piece 
of burnt wood.
	The insect let go for a fraction of a second to wonder at the vision
entering his head. In that tiny moment their minds clashed. Slowly repogramming
back and forth, pulling at each weakening threads. Both were finally drained 
of all that kept them sane.
	The buildings looked on without a care for the outcome. They were
never hurt or destroyed. Nobody controlled them. They would always lie quiet 
and unmoved by the changes around them. After all, they would still be here
when the happenings today would no longer have any meaning.


  Trap

A fading thought passed slowly through the decaying mind. Like a germ fighting
for existence. The voice it created never reached the beings listening. The
living could not hear, deaf as they were. He did not care. Differences were
a thing of the past. A past some still clinged to with all their material
strength, their last fibre of muscle, their last whisper of air. Ignorant,
unlike himself. As their importance vanished the images of their sorrowful
faces became part of the chaos in the background. Equal to the smoke and
the dense mist. Quite peaceful, he thought.
	  His body had slowly turned black, flakey and broken. The legs, the 
antenna and organic implants were slowly crumbling. He had lost the precious 
strength to tear the world. His closed eyes seeked to avoid memories he no 
longer needed but they continued to fight through vigorously. He saw his 
murderer stand helpless before him, only waiting for his mind to collapse.
His only joy was to know they were both dead.
	For a moment he watched a looping film of screaming images until even 
they faded slowly away.

	As he woke up again he felt a strange warmth surrounding his thoughts, 
those faint murmurs. His feet and hands - so small in proportion to what he
remembered - felt for anything he could picture in his mind but he was only 
surrounded by pulsating fluids. Those fluids slowly moved around his body and 
through the dark passages near him. Where had he been, he wondered, but the 
answers were already sliding away reluctantly. He almost expected they would. 
Truth was a thing of the past, and today it was to be erased. He pushed 
himself downward towards the light below him. Screams of agony echoed around 
him as he fought. While he was being drawn nearer the opening he asked 
the world where he was.
	"Where your victims dare not come," answered the world. He lay
quietly for a moment before he asked the world again,
	"Where am I?"
	"At the gateway to hell," replied the world before going to sleep,
leaving him to struggle out of the womb screaming and crying at the pain 
realization caused.


  Exit

A victim of fate, the prisoner sat in darkness. He felt himself floating 
forward with steady determination. The surroundings meant nothing to 
his barely concious mind. Only old images inside his head kept him moving, 
if only to escape them.
	The world seemed to have changed for him now. It was slower and more
silent than he remembered. He slowly began to forget himself and what he had
once been. The universe around him reformed into a new complex structure, 
carrying his thoughts with it towards a humming mesh of magnets ahead.
As he watched the universe he passed endless balls of cables and electricity 
without ever being able to see where they lead.
	A being approached him with a relaxed glide. He recognized it to be a 
friend, although he knew not why. The friend did not seem to be bothered by 
the changing environment. The solemn face brought a tranquility to his chaos. 
"Who are you?" He asked the friend. Never blinking an eye or bothering to turn
his head, he replied, 
	"Green."
	Acceptable. All he really needed to know. Funny he had even asked.
To imagine it was possible! Around them other corpses were gathering to glide 
in unification towards the ocean of electronics ahead. Thousands of them 
staring up at the empty sky. They were not really dead but glad not to be 
alive. Another friend approached them. Her expression matched Green's. An 
empty, peaceful face. No longer cares or a world to haunt her. The prisoner
wondered who she might be.
	"She can't talk," explained Green as if the question had been asked 
out loud. Maybe it was. Everything was so unsure here.
	"Who is she?" The prisoner was sure he asked now because his voice 
teared at his ears.
	"Blue." Somehow everything began to fit together. He should never have 
asked. Nobody did that anyway.
	They continued their journey, closing in on another, becoming
one personality. A personality to rule them all and a personality to forget 
them. All around bodies continued gathering together, as they did, forming an
endless stream leading to a vague black screen that could be seen in the
distance. It shone and gleamed in defiance of all their beliefs and 
heightening their confusement - or at least the prisoner's. As they drew
towards the screen their pains dispersed with a bright glare. An electronic 
sigh of relief. None to slaughter them now. None to crush them. The death of 
their death.
	He was forming into a new being, but he had already forgotten what
he used to be.
	"Red." A voice beside him whispered, or perhaps it was inside him.
	"What?"
	"Who you are - were. Your function in death."
	"Oh." Silence. Why did only he ask questions? Had they been here
before? Had they always been here? "Where am I?", he continued.
	"Where your nightmares dare not follow." Acceptable, though for some
reason he wished they would.
	"Where am I?"
	"At the gateway to heaven." 
       He joined with the two friends beside him and as they grouped
together they slowly turned a bright white. He enjoyed the company he had 
missed so dearly and bathed merrily in their thoughts. The cables were behind 
them now, as were the magnets. He, along with thousands of corpses around him, 
slid through the screen. 
	A scene opened up in front of them. Three beings were sitting on a 
sofa and a baby was crying by their side. A happy family enjoying the 
isolation from the world they lived in. The beings' minds appeared dead 
even while their bodies attempted to live. They did not move, however, and 
their eyes continued to look forward without expression. Dead beings sitting 
on their leather sofa in the middle of hell. The family stared at the masses 
of corpses flying through the screen, forming patterns dwellers of hell could 
understand and take pleasure in watching. The patterns then continued to slide 
slowly out of the television towards the nightmarish beings and finally took 
hold of their immobile brains.