From: gardabr@unix1 (Gard Eggesbo Abrahamsen)
Subject: I know a girl
Keywords: love, hate, and u know yourself 
Organization: University of Trondheim, Norway
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 92 11:04:28 GMT


I know this story isn't very cyberpunky, but it should be read to get more
from a story I will post later, which is called "I don't know (a girl)"


                              I know a girl
                                  -or-
                             She said "Hi!"
                                  -or-
                          Hello, anybody home?
                                  -or-
                        Another artistic article?
                                  -or-
                           Wait for this one!
                       by Gard Eggesboe Abrahamsen
                        (gardabr@unix1.mrih.no)


There  is a female,  living in Norway,  a country far up  north.  A  cold 
country,  a  windy country,  a long country,  a polluted country.  To  be 
precise, she didn't live far from the (un)known group that carried a name 
of four letters with four punctuation marks and was pronounced "ouch". Of 
course, she didn't know the existence of an ST group called O.U.C.H., and 
she didn't know that it was nearby. Of course not. She had a C64 herself.
   Once,  one  of  the members of this group had  a  bad  experience.  He 
accidentally fell in love with her,  without even knowing her.  Since his 
modesty still was hanging around,  and he still was cutting his hair,  he 
didn't dare to say "hi" to her,  even though she did, he found out, go in 
a class parallel to his own class,  and there should be enough of reasons 
to suddenly get to know her.
   But  he  was a good programmer,  and he had  recently  discovered  his 
talent as a poet. Well, he wasn't exactly talented, or at least he didn't 
think so himself,  but he had a lot of practice,  and knew how to put the 
right words together.  When it came to literature,  he preferred  writing 
short stories.  But these took time to write. A lot more time than he had 
if he wanted to send a short story to her every day.  Instead,  he sent a 
poem  to her every day.  Sometimes,  her first name could be read as  the 
first letters of each line.
   These letters were anonymous,  and little is know of what this  female 
thought of these poems.
   The  annual  christmas  ball of the school closed  in,  and  a  letter 
revealed his identity, something he would regret bitterly afterwards.
   The  part  of  the ball when the  sixth-formers  performed,  he  spent 
recording  this event on video so that he and another in the  group,  who 
happened  to  be a sixth-former that year,  could edit it  and  sell  the 
edited  stuff.  The  main character in this story would do  most  of  the 
camera and make the scroll text programme.
   The  other part of the ball was mostly spent looking for this  female. 
Perhaps he would dare to ask her for a dance?  But no.  She wasn't there. 
He felt somewhat depressed.
   Christmas  went  by,  and he sent more letters,  and at  the  end,  he 
thought it was time to give up.  He wrote a miniature short story to  her 
that ended with a death wish. The next day, the female and her girlfriend 
laughed at him behind his back, as observed by his friend.
   The boy felt depressed, and more depression would follow.
   Not much later,  he observed her together with another boy. Ah. So she 
already  had  a  boyfriend.  Fuck  it!  Other,  rather  late  sources  of 
information  could  tell him the same thing.  He was also told  that  she 
liked drinking a lot, but he couldn't decide if he liked that or not.
   On one side,  he had a very negative view on alcohol, and didn't drink 
himself. On the other side, he worried about her. If she had problems, he 
wanted to help her out.
   Still,  he managed to suppress his thoughts of this female out of  his 
mind,  but  quite  a  while later,  he observed that  she  sometimes  was 
observing him, and since he still was single and felt very lonely, he was 
hoping that perhaps something had changed.
   Even though the crush had ended,  he still liked the female.  For some 
reason,  he liked her girlfriend, too. He wrote a new letter. Damn, miss! 
Nothing happened... as usual.
   After  having  written  a lot about her in  the  UCL  (Ultimate  Crazy 
Letter,  the  letter to Stefan and Richard that ended up at the  size  of 
800-something  kilobytes),  he decided to print all he had written  about 
her  (2-300 kilobytes) and give it to her.  He "mailed" it in her  school 
bag at what he though would be a good time to do so.  Unfortunately,  she 
would  round  the corner only a few seconds  later,  so  he  accidentally 
dropped his pen-case in her bag (or at least that is what he believed was 
what happened).
   Then... nothing happened.
   After a while,  he managed to suppress also this,  and he fell in love 
with another female and broke his personality.  This time,  however,  the 
girlfriend  of  the female this story is about gave the boy  a  dance  to 
comfort him.  This would prove to be the first dance he ever had had with 
a female, which would explain why he usually felt depressed.
   He  felt  so  thankful  for  this dance (and  the  hug  she  gave  him 
afterwards  before  disappearing into nothingness) that he  dedicated  an 
entire game to her.  (This game is actually present on this disk.  It  is 
called "Reverse" and is found in the "Features" folder - Ed)
   But  inspiration persuaded him into making a music video,  and  as  he 
needed a female to star in it, and he couldn't think of anyone who wanted 
to, he did, after many other females, contact the first mentioned female. 
This happened on the bus, to be precise.
   The first thing she said would be "Hi,"
   Of course she didn't want to star in it herself,  but agreed to  check 
out  if anyone else would.  After a week,  he asked her if she had  found 
anyone. She said "Hi!" (Sorry, haven't done anything).
   After yet another week, he stopped her in the corridor. She said "Hi,"
   Of course,  she still hadn't done anything,  and threw out a  comment, 
that noone would want to,  anyway.  And she spitted it out, as if she was 
talking to some shit that just was in her way.  For some reason,  he felt 
hurt.
   After  having given both her and her girlfriend a sixth-former's  card 
each with unique comments (with rhyme,  of course), and he met her in the 
corridor once, she said "Hi," and continued.
   Other times,  they kept meeting each other by accident, she said "Hi," 
and continued.
   As  Commune  Responsi came together,  and they  discovered  that  this 
female  was  born on the Day of Beginning of Life,  he  quickly  wrote  a 
letter (school was over) and wanted more information on her,  so that  he 
could write an article on her. Nothing happened.
   He  tried some other channels to make her speak,  but at the  time  of 
writing, nothing has happened.
   An hour ago (upon writing,  that is),  he met her at school as he  was 
fetching his final grades. She said "Hi," and went.
   He took a small trip to Ulsteinvik City to buy a CD single  (Metallica 
live at Wembley Stadium,  London,  April 20th 1992).  For some reason, he 
met her there, too. She was talking to her girlfriend, so he didn't think 
of interrupting them. Instead, he went straight into the music shop.
   When he came out,  they were both out of sight, but as he got into the 
car and left the car park,  he ended up right behind her. He followed her 
most  of the way home,  since she lived on his way.  Only a minute or  so 
before she would be home, he overtook her, even though she already was 10 
km/h above the speed limit.  (The speed limit was 80.  She was driving in 
90,  so he pushed his car up to 130 to make it at a reasonable amount  of 
road) When he was in front of her, he kept a more reasonable speed, which 
meant that she would have to slow down (heh, heh, heh).
   When he knew she would leave the road, he put his hand up the sun roof 
and  waved good bye to her.  (He had originally planned to drive  to  her 
place,  but  with the post of today in the back of the car,  he  wouldn't 
have  time  to  visit her,  and he hadn't thought much of  what  to  say, 
either. Another thing is that he wouldn't be welcome there, anyway.
   Do you know what she will say next time he meets her? "Hi,"
   Do  you know what she will say if he looses his mind and rapes her  or 
her girlfriend? "Hi,"
   Do  you  know  what she will say in  any  situation  given  (including 
murder, suicide and bank robberies)? "Hi,"

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