going ape shit press # 9 by hammerhead <00OOoo=- here's the ninth issue of gasp... about time that i released another one... it being like about a week since the last release... we're getting the 10th one out soon... it's going to be a very distrubing story... <00OOoo=- =============================================================================== A Tale of Addiction Howard had heard all the horror stories, all the sad tales of lives ruined, and still he hadn't beleived that he had become a victim of an illness that ruined millions of lives every day and a trail; of pain in it's wake. The people around him, his loved ones and friends had seen the changes in him almost immediately, but like him they thought he had the strength of will to keep the beast under control. Looking back, Howard now realized that the beast had him under its power from the beginning, and he was powerless to undo the damage it had wreaked upon his soul. With the hunger gnawing within him, Howard reflected back to the day when he had first encountered this life destroying thing that now ripped away his control and left him always thirsting for more. He had been in his son's room helping his wife put away the laundry, when he found it under his son's clean socks. He had been furious, he'd seen the commercials on television, the ones where people got up and confessed to being hooked, people with glazed looks of ecstasy on their faces which belied the fact that they had given up their freedom of choice for something they claimed was fun. With 20/20 hindsight Howard knew that the signs had been there that his boy had been in trouble with something he couldn't handle. He and his friends would rush home after school and lock themselves in Howie Jr's room for hours on end, and when they finally came out, they would have that empty-minded vacant smile pasted to their faces and utter strange noises that didn't make any real sense at all. But Howard had been too busy with work, and Howie had always been a responsible boy, and aside from his odd after school behavior, he really didn't cause any trouble, in fact, just lately his schoolwork was showing a very definite improvement over previous years. Now gazing sadly down into his son's sock drawer, Howard realizied that the thing that every parent feared the most had happened to his son, he had become HOOKED ON PHONICS. Although Howard went into immediate action to try to help his son break the addiction, taking him to the best doctors, putting him into the best rehabilitative facilities, even getting his bus assignment changed so he would ride the really short bus to school, on which he knew there would be no Phonics pushers or addicts to put any further peer pressure on Howie to use just to be part of the group. But sadly all of his efforts were in vain, his son never really came back from the terrible mind altering effects of Phonics. Phonics brought his son to his untimely death, and left Howard needing an escape, a way out to deal with the pain of losing his son. Howie had been crossing the street on the way to his bus stop, when in the middle of the street he had a Phonics flashback. He was still trying to sound out the license plate of the eighteen wheeler when it struck him dead in the middle of the street and kept on going. Ominously the truck was on it's way to Howies school to drop off the latest edition of Phonics Books. That's when Howard made the mistake of ever even opening his late son's Phonics book. He had only wanted to understand what had enslaved his son, wanted to know what had taken all control away from his son who had always been so sensible and obedient. Now he found that he understood completely, the monkey had climbed from his son's back and onto his own. At first Phonics made him feel good, he could pronounce words that had previously eluded him, and his diction and vocabulary grew better and larger as a result. After reading a few lessons however, Howard found it difficult to stop, he began to pronounce sounds that had no meaning, any combination of letters was a personal challange he could not back away from trying to produce verbally. Combinations that were not humanly pronouncable were the worst, for although he knew intelectually that he could not do it he absolutely had to try anyway, often times straining his vocal for hours long after his throat would begin to bleed. Howard couldn't even remember when his life went completely out of his own control. He had been devastated over the loss of his son, but had still managed to carry on for a while. After he had started using Phonics however, he began to stay up too late doing the very things his son had done, singing the damnable song from that God awful commercial, the one that didn't have any words, only letters of the alphabet, going through medical books just to see if he could pronounce all the medical terms, which were mostly Latin, a language that has been dead for centuries and the average person would never use in their lifetime. It became such a problem, that he couldn't get up for work in the morning and couldn't go to bed at night, Howard began skipping meals, eating only when his wife gave him Alphabits for breakfast, or alphabet soup for lunch or dinner. Slowly, people began to drift away from him, his friends stopped calling to see how he was, mostly because they couldn't understand any of the strange noises he uttered over the phone, his boss, tired of covering for him, finally gave him a pink slip after he hadn't shown up for work in three weeks, his wife moved back in with her parents, and the bank forclosed the loan on his home after being unable to cash any of his morgage payments because the checks he wrote out were written out Phoneticly, which if sounded out would be alright, but written down, the words on the amount line were gibberish. Now Howard lives on the street, a solitary lonely life that makes him dependant on the kindness of others just to survive. Howard lives day by day begging change from strangers to support his alphabet soup habit, speaking gibberish to himself that no one but himself can understand, and trying to remember what it was like to be clean and free of Phonics. You may have seen Howard on a city street and assumed that he was just a poor crazy homeless person, or an alcoholic or drug addict that had let their desire for a good time ruin their lives, but Howard never had a chance, once he picked up the Phonics, like so many other victims, he could never let go and his life was ruined. If Howard could still speak coherently, he would beseach you, Stay away from Phonics, Don't pick it up and don't ever use it, You could get Hooked. * * The preceding has been a dramatic presentation sponsored by the Foundation For The Treatment And Rehabilitation Of Phonics Users And Abusers. =============================================================================== <]}|\_-=ooOO00> scary stuff, eh kids? just learn from other's mistakes and you'll do just fine... <]}|\_-=ooOO00> end shit and return to dos...