Well, FUCK YOU TOO, Netscape.

Perhaps that requires a bit of explanation. Skimmer had just written a little blog piece about fanfiction, in response to some comments of Suze's, and rather liked how it had come out and was about to send it off. Simultaniously, she was downloading Netscape. Because she has disabled Javascript in Netscape to escape the hell of popup ads, she was doing so in IE, which she also uses to blog from (she has cookies disabled in Netscape.) She would not have done this had not Netscape decided that their webpage really NEEDED to use Javascript to work. She was downloading version 4.08, because it had occured to her that by doing so she could delete IE altogether from her machine, and use 4.08 for everyday browsing and 4.72 for bells-and-whistles and sites that require login cookies and such. (She has Issues with Netscape, but not so many as with IE.) And guess what, it started using SmartDownload without consulting her. It also popped up a window about a 'security alert' that, when you actually read it, didn't affect anything at all. Said window would not close with a button, so Skimmer closed it using her beloved Ctrl-Alt-Delete. She returned to her almost-finsehed blog entry ...

To find that it had vanished and been replaced with a blank form.

Skimmer is now very, very mad.

If there is one thing I hate it is getting stuck in elevators.

Let me correct myself: if there is one thing I hate it is getting stuck in elevators with a dead body. It's not so much the actual presence of the dead body, perhaps. I've seen plenty of dead bodies, in my time, and will proabbaly see many more. I've been respoinsible for the entry of quite a few into the deceased state, in fact. No. What bothers me about the dead body, in this case, is that the man, some overpaid, overfed, overworked executive judging from his suit, his paunch, and the lines around his eyes, had to piss all over himself when his heart attack struck. I suppose it was the shock of the sudden earthquake that sent him over. The smell is quite unbearable, especially in an enclosed space. I'm not used to bad smells, and my sense of smell is quite acute. I bore it initally by stoicism and then covered my face with a handkercheif. When even that failed to assist me I resorted again to stocism. It's starting to wear thin. There's no air circulation in here.

Of course, the emergency phone isn't working. In fact, when I opened the case there was an empty space with a few wires and a small scrap of paper that read, inasmuch as I could make it out in the minimal light of the flashlight I keep on my keychain, "Beng repaird - back Thus.". The lights went out, too, of course.

It came as no suprise to anyone, I'm sure, that there was another earthquake. I just wish it had waited until I was on my way home. I thankfully am more or less immune to the typical terror most people would experience in this situation. The difficulty is that I therefore spent about five minutes wondering how long it would take until someone came to get me out and then became merely bored. I began by counting the holes in the celing tiles. That took me about fifteen minutes. It's been three hours now, assuming my watch is working. Thank God for luminous watch dials.

I have spent the last three hours in what is essentialy a small box. In the dark. In the company of a dead man.

This is really wearing thin. It is.

I'm bored out of my skull and I can't abide this smell one minute longer and if I cannot get some light in here I will scream.

What a day to forget my cell phone.

I'm hungry, too. That isn't helping. I had been planning to eat on my way home. I haven't eaten in days. I've just been too busy to grab a meal. I've been working fourteen hours a day. Of course, the smell is making me sick to my stoumach. The odd thing is, being sick to my stoumach doesn't make me any less hungry. You'd think there'd be some sort of correlation.

But of course there isn't and so I'm stuck in this hideous little hellhole of an elevator and god only knows how much longer I'll be stuck in here. I tried to pry the door open. It didn't do any good. I couldn't get it open far enough to see through. There's just enough of a tiny crack to keep me from suffocating and it looks like the lights have gone all over the building. How inconvenient. I'm sure that they have better things to do than woory about a hardworking employee who was only trying to get home and has spent the last three hours sitting in a dark box with a dead body.

Damn these earthquakes anyway.

I'm sure that there's some kind of mental disorder you can get from being stuck in an elevator. I've spent longer than this in dark rooms, under varying circumstances, but usually of my own free will and without any urine smell. This is driving me up the wall. I shouldn't allow my composure to crack this easily, but damn it, I have an excuse. I have a very good excuse indeed.

And the smell, the smell is driving me nuts and I'm nauseous and hungry at once and it's too dark in here and the air is hard to breathe and I just wanted to get out and get food and get home and I shouldn't be subjected to this and -

I am so tired of this. I am so tired.

I hate getting stuck in elevators.

Raven was tired, hungry, and her hair was falling in her eyes. In the background, a television droned about the convention and the telethon. She shoved her hair back again, “Could you say that again - slower?”

“Your annual divisor of expenditures amounts to a quantity insufficient to equivalent -” the official continued. Judging from the rate, he either said the speech thousand times a day, or somehow evolved out of breathing oxygen.

Not that she believed that most government officials seemed to need oxygen. Most’d be improved without oxygen. Slightly dead, but improved. The television switched from an announcer to a buzz of voices and ringing phones.

“In summation,” the official flashed the identical smile he used the last time she tried to get a straight answer, “You can’t have an access pass.”

“Why?”

“Your annual divisor -”

“Shut up,” Raven slowly leaned across the wiggly table, “Why - can’t - you - replace - my - pass?”

The official coughed, “Because you don’t spend enough for your income and age bracket. It’s a local commerce initiative. Have a nice day.” He shoved her toward the door and bellowed, “Next.”

Her mood hadn’t improved as she walked to the bus station. There was huge crowds of tourists everywhere thanks to the International Optimism Society Convention. They were in town for the week to run a telethon and a membership campaign. Something about the “month of joy” or something like that. Raven wouldn’t have joy till she had her pass, and she couldn’t have a pass because she didn’t spend enough.

All her income was from the excavation, and all her payments were direct into her bank accont. She couldn’t get to the bank because she’d need a pass to cross the gate. Not to mention the fact that she needed a new pass to work at the excavation since she lost her old one. What did her spending have to do with her lost pass? It was pure luck that she had almost eight hundred dollars in local currency with her.

It was another half an hour wait to get a bus heading toward her apartment. Her stomach was rumbling most of the way. She left for the pass office at dawn, and it was now almost noon. Her breakfast was in the oven waiting for her. It was turned on very low and she had set the timer - hadn’t she?

It was a relief when the bus shuddered to a stop and she escaped from Group 227 of the International Optimism Society. They were just starting their fourth sing-along. The last one was called, “Loving with Cheer and Optimism.” She avoided another tour group and vanished into the alleyways. At least none of the tourists were near her apartment.

Not that she blamed them. Since she got in her neighborhood Seventy-Nine Block C, Raven had been offered three ways to counterfeit money, an illegal weapon, and a fast and easy pyramid scheme. She squinted upward as she tugged the apartment door open. Clouds of smoke weren’t billowing from her rooms.

And she found out why. Her breakfast was still icy. Raven held her hand near oven coils, and muttered something under her breath. It wasn’t even hot. She stepped back and glared. It did not look suitably chastised.

“Cheap hunk of tin,” she growled and turned the oven off. There was a sputtering noise and the lights in the control area went off. The interior light blew with a brilliant flash of light followed by the kitchen lights winking out. The soft whir of the ventilation system vanished and the intruder alarms (which hadn’t worked since she got her place) started to flash. Raven didn’t even know the wall mounted alarm unit worked. The previous owners were the type that fixed stuff by kicking things.

A few seconds later a piercing wail of the alarm filled the small flat, accompanied by a selection of curse words that she picked up from travelling. Raven typed the security code, waited, swore, and resorted to kicking the alarm. It stopped.

Raven bashed her knee on a chair as she turned, and successfully crossed the room without major damage to herself or her possessions. She then dragged the drapes open letting the sunlight illuminate her apartment. For a few seconds, everything was quiet. Dust motes glimmered in the stillness.

“Ok,” she said rubbing her knee, “The fuse’s probably blown.” After checking all of the closets, she finally found the fusebox in a cabinet under the sink. Obviously the most normal place to put a fusebox, right? Fortunately, the sunlight lit the area enough that she wasn’t squinting too badly.

The fuses were labeled in German. “Real helpful,” Raven muttered and noticed that one of the switches was flipped to the side marked, “replace.” It read, “Das Wohnzimmer.” She shoved through her pile of books - to double check just in case. She had to have a German - English dictionary somewhere - unless if she lost it when she moved from Warsaw. Being a traveller had its advantages. Her German dictionary slid off the pile and thunked safely on the floor missing her feet. The French-English dictionary did not. Just her luck.

After five minutes of skimming, Raven was indeed certain that the “Wozzen-whatever” was her living room fuse. Why the living room fuse would apply to all her apartment she didn’t know. She did have a box of fuses on the kitchen windowsill, and there was even a compatible one. After a few minutes of fussing, Raven cautiously flipped the power back on.

The lights flickered on. They wavered.

Raven held her breath.

The lights steadied.

She relaxed and checked to see if her oven was now working. She tried turning it on and turning it up to full power. Nothing happened. She debated kicking it.

Her violent thoughts were interrupted by someone knocking on her door. Raven sighed and limped over to the door. Her knee was still hurting. “Yes?” she said as she opened the door.

There was a lady with an immense pile of hair perched on a tiny head. Her eyes twinkled behind a pair of tinted glasses. Her face seemed to be creased into a perpetual smile, and her teeth reflected in her shiny satiny blouse. A number of bangles and bracelets clung to her wrist like parasites. “Hi there,” the newcomer said in a bubbly voice, “I’m with the International Optimism Society and we’re doing a membership drive. We were wondering if you, Raven Gliss, would -”

“No.”

“Did you know that your lights were out for a while?”

“Yes.”

“Anyways, we were just wondering if you’d like to join -”

“No, thank you.”

“Oh, are you sure?”

“Yes, quite.”

The tiny headed woman blinked repeatedly, “Have you checked your oven?”

“What?”

“It’s smoking.”

Raven spun around. Her oven was indeed smoking. The fire alarm beeped twice, made a strange whir,and failed to go off.

She turned off the oven and opened it a crack using a broomstick. Thick cloud of smoke issued. No flames. The frozen breakfast was thawed though - slightly carbonized, but thawed. Raven closed the oven door.

“You know, Miss, the fees are very very small, and we have regular meetings for stress management,” the lady continued, “We live in such troubled times and all.”

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” Raven finally snapped.

“Oh,” the lady tossed her mass of hair back from her face, “I guess you won’t sign up then.”

“Yes.”

“Can you recommend anyone?”

Raven sighed.

“You haven’t turned the oven off, dear.”

She turned the dial again (though she could have sworn that it was set to “off” already) and evil thought came to her. “You know,” Raven said gently, “I can think of someone who’d love to talk to you.”

“Really?”

People were so gulliable. “Yes,” Raven made an almost convincing smile, “The Pass Office lads would be perfect. They need your help. Their jobs must be terrible.”

The lady bobbed her head and scribbled an almost illegible note on a clipboard, “Dear, are you sure you turned the oven off?”

Raven looked inside. The elements were red hot. The dial was turned to “off.”

“Well, I’m sure everything will be fine with your baking.” She patted Raven on the shoulder, “It’ll be fine, trust me.”

Raven kicked the oven, “Yeah, just lovely.”

The lady sailed out still smiling.

Raven shut the front door quietly, and locked it. She then rummaged till she found some welding gloves left over from a repair project at the excavation site and used them to take the blackened meal out of the oven. She set it in the sink and winced at the sizzling noises as the foil hit wet ceramic. Raven twisted the cold water dial, turned to the oven, and noticed something. No water was coming out of her faucet. She turned the hot water to max. Nothing.

She shrieked in frustration and banged the faucet a couple of times. Water poured out in a quite satisfying quantity. Raven had barely enough time to back away before clouds of steam filled her apartment. She hadn’t scalded herself. Quite nice, steam burns were nasty - plus it stopped the smoke. One down.

She walked over to the living room (Das Wohnzimmer) window, unlocked it and pried it open. The last owners obviously hadn’t used it, but at least it could open about four inches. That would start to vent out the smoke and steam.

Raven was almost feeling thrilled. She had done two things without major dilemmas. That was great considering her day so far. Humming she walked back in the kitchen to try to turn off her rogue oven. There had to be some sort of plug to an electrical thing, right?

Water was almost to the top of the sink.

Raven turned both dials to nothing and banged the faucet until the water stopped.

There was now a spreading pool of water on her pseudo-tile floor. It was approaching the living room carpet.

She turn, skidded on the water, and crashed into her laundry room upsetting a pile of clothes. She was stopped by banging her knee on the dryer.

“Damn.”

Raven sighed again and carefully stood up. Her knee wasn’t happy with her at all. Not a good sign. She dumped an arm load of clothes on the spreading puddle of water, and used a towel to mop up most of the water. It was actually rather efficient. The clothes were already dirty - what could the floor do to them?

After she was sure the the floor near the sink was dry, Raven found the fuse box and turned off the main power. She really didn’t want to electrocute herself on top of everything. The oven elements slowly faded to black. Two down.

She took the egg timer off the backsplash of the oven since she’d need to move it. The oven was a hulking dented mass of plastic and metal. Raven grunted as she pulled the oven slowly away, “Guess you’re getting your workout. Might as well be glad of that.” She unplugged the oven and turned back on the power. Nothing new exploded.

The phone rang.

Raven cautiously picked it up, but no sparks or smoke appeared, “Hello?”

“Oh Raven dear, you sound so shy,” the speaker burbled, “It’s the lady from the Optimists Society. I had a lovely time with the Pass Office. Just lovely. Nicest half hour I’ve ever spent.”

“Oh,” Raven sat down on her pile of mostly dry clothes and rubbed her knee. How did the lady get her phone number?

“And, they said they’d all sign up. That I never have to come again, but I’m so confused, dear.”

“Really?” Raven personally didn’t think it would take much to confuse her.

“I mentioned our tour group, and they were so insistent. They just didn’t want us to come, but they were very sweet about escorting me to the door.”

“That’s - lovely,” Raven picked up her egg timer and rubbed some grime off of it. Probably from the smoke.

“How’s your baking?”

“It’s alright.”

“Oh, I was so worried, dear.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“Yes, I was so worried I forgot to tell them I’d be back to swear them into the group and about our meeting next week,” the lady dropped her voice to a confidential note, “We always meet at new member’s workplaces. To bring cheer you see, cheer and optimism, and you are their friends, and I was wondering what I should - the cheer and optimism, you know.”

Raven winced. She really didn’t want to hear the song again. “You know,” she said quickly, “You could surprise them. Show up at the door without warning?”

“Oh yes,” that was delivered with a delighted squeal, “Surprising with cheer and optimism.” Where did they find this woman? “There’s this lovely song,” the lady continued, “About cheer and optimism.”

Raven quickly turned her egg timer to “0.” The buzz was clearly audible. “Oh no,” she said, “That’s my timer. I’ve got to check something. Sorry.”

“Oh, I quite understand. Hope your baking’s fine, dearest.”

Raven carefully hung up the phone and turned the timer off with a bit of trouble. Seemed like it was sticking a bit, but she finally wrenched the dial enough that the buzzing whine stopped. The silence was quite pleasant.

She looked around her apartment. Her oven was sitting at a crazy angle. Her sink still wasn’t draining. There was about a weeks worth of clothes on the floor. Two chairs were upset by her mad dash to the window. The emergency lights were dead. The alarm unit had a few more dents. The egg timer buzzed again.

Raven reset the timer to “0,” and double checked that it was set to “0.” Last thing she needed was a malfunctioning egg timer. Not that it would cost much to replace. Cost much to replace . . . . She slowly smiled. Insurance and the apartment’d have to pay her some sort of refund for the repairs. And, that’d up her “expenditures.”

“And then I’ll have my pass,” she laughed and sat on the couch, “Poor boys at the pass office.” The egg timer buzzed.