Thanks for picking up POWER STAR 85! We hope you enjoy this ASCII text version, our form of "shareware". You may distribute this text version freely AS LONG AS YOU KEEP THIS NOTE WITH IT. As always, comments to the editor are welcome and may be posted on the BBS you retrieved this from or mailed to the address below, or e-mailed to kimberly.murphy@acenet.com. POWER STAR is published monthly by Kimberly Murphy, 9740-E Covered Wagon Drive, Laurel, MD, 20723-1512, USA, and is copyrighted to Seward/Murphy Publications. Register your copy today--just $5.00 will get you a full published copy, signed by the publisher as your mark of authenticity! Or save and order the hardcopy version of the next issue as well-- just $9.00! 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Send my copy to: Name_____________________________________________________________________ Address__________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________ City, State, ZIP_________________________________________________________ Areas of interest________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________ POWER STAR The Imagination Anthology ISSUE 85 April 1995 Jerry Seward, Editor Emeritus Kimberly Murphy, Managing Editor Monica Rose Kiesel, Production Director Rob Murphy, Layout Editor Brian Neale, e-mail "Postmaster" Bennet Pomerantz, Collectibles Columnist J. Calvin Smith, Manuscript Editor CONTRIBUTORS: Marco Aarts, John Adams, Dean Carlson, Michael W. Dean, Jessica Gancio, Esposito Garcia, Matt Grace, Brett Hendrie, Kersti Kahar, Irina Klein, Amy Klosterman, Machiel Kolstein, Reetu Meri Tuuli Kurkijarvi, Peggy Mei-Ling Li, Kristin Pierce, Jason Robert Thornton, John Todd, Jr., Martijn van Roosmalen, Ann Brill White, Andy Wing, Jon Yager IN THIS ISSUE: Credits `N' Stuff. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 The usual disclaimers, addresses, etc. Murphy's Musings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 An open letter to Craig Miller and John Thorne, Co- Editors of the TWIN PEAKS-based mainstream zine WRAPPED IN PLASTIC. Subscription Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Our usual advertising plug. POWER STAR Shareware Distributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Got a modem? Check out these BBSs where POWER STAR and lots of other great stuff can be found. "Closed Circle", By J. Calvin Smith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Did Madeleine Ferguson have to die near the end of the Laura Palmer murder mystery? J. Calvin Smith explores some of the symbolism in TWIN PEAKS' most controversial scene. "Welcome To alt.tv.twin-peaks", By Kimberly Murphy . . . . . . . . . . . 12 TWIN PEAKS lives on after cancellation, thanks to an offbeat USENET newsgroup. Some of the regulars of the group give their thoughts on the series. "Appointment With Morpheus", By Kimberly Murphy. . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 A being from the dream realm threatens the Coopers' happiness--is it up to Dale to save TWIN PEAKS again? Comm Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Your feedback is the "peak" of our day. "Ye Olde Collectables And Trivia Shoppe", By Bennet Pomerantz. . . . . . 69 Bennet Pomerantz's nationally-renowned column on the latest in collectables. Back Issues Cross-Reference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Previously in POWER STAR about TWIN PEAKS... Coming Next Time.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 ...we celebrate comics in 1995. Read all about it. POWER STAR is a monthly amateur fanzine devoted to science fiction, fantasy, and horror in all media and is published by Kimberly Murphy and Jerry Seward. Seeking material--fiction and non-fiction, prose, poetry, and artwork--on all forms of fantastic media. Comments are welcome. Submission guidelines are available upon request. Issues 1-23 are no longer available. Other issues are available upon request. Shareware copies (ASCII text only), starting with issue 71, are available on several BBSs nationwide, including the official BBS of POWER STAR, šACEš Online. On your modem, dial (301) 942- 2218 (8-N-1, 28800). Comments or submissions may be left as a message for Kimberly Murphy. A complete up-to-date (as of publication date) list of BBSs carrying POWER STAR follows the Subscription Rates section of this issue. BBS SysOps interested in distributing POWER STAR should contact Kimberly at either the post office or e-mail address below. Issues and shareware registration cost $5.00 ($7.50 in Canada/Mexico; $10.00 for other foreign countries) in U.S. funds. Discounts are available for volume purchases. All issues are shipped at Fourth Class Book Rate (U.S. orders) or Printed Matter Airmail rate (overseas orders) unless otherwise requested; there is an extra fee of $3.00 for faster shipping. Make check or money order payable to Kimberly Murphy. Address all correspondence to Kimberly Murphy: Regular mail: 9740-E Covered Wagon Dr./Laurel, MD 20723-1512 USA/(301) 490-3706 Primary e-mail/internet submissions: kimberly.murphy@acenet.com America Online Submissions: pwrstr@aol.com Manuscript Editor's address: calvin.smith@acenet.com Additional e-mail stops: kimmurphy@aol.com or editor@freebbs.com Layout Editor's Address: robbotm@ibm.net (Snailmail information requests, please enclose SASE. E-mail information requests, please include e-mail address in the body of request to prevent misrouting of replies.) * * * * * * * * Copyright 1994/1995, Jerry Seward/Kimberly Murphy. POWER STAR is in no way meant to infringe the rights of holders of copyrights referred to in this publication. All original stories and artwork are copyrighted to the authors. Murphy's Musings Commentary By Kimberly Murphy Craig Miller and John Thorne Co-Editors, WRAPPED IN PLASTIC c/o Win-Mill Productions 1912 E. Timberview Lane Arlington, TX 76014 USA Dear Messrs. Miller and Thorne: Thank you for the mention you gave POWER STAR in your TWIN PEAKS Worldwide Zine Survey in WRAPPED IN PLASTIC issue 15. We are flattered that you included us in your review section. Would that we were as flattered by the review. Some parts we enjoyed; others, we found lacking. Several items in the article itself and in our review specifically we feel need to be addressed in an open forum. 1. Only four of the zines reviewed in your roundup had an address associated with them. Granted, some of these are out of publication (THE TWIN PEAKS GAZETTE, for example); others, such as SECRETS OF TWIN PEAKS and POWER STAR, are still in active publication--you acknowledge so yourself. So why were addresses not included with the reviews of them? I found the reason you cite in your prologue--"We haven't listed addresses because we don't know how many of the zines below are still available, and it's frustrating to order (or receive orders for) unavailable items"--a poor excuse for journalistic laziness. POWER STAR has been in business for nine years now, and has not missed a monthly issue in over two years. Our back issues list is extensive, as you noted by printing the issue numbers containing PEAKS material. We have issues planned out through mid 1996. WE ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE. The only communication I had with you prior to the publication of #15 was a brief letter from Mr. Miller (dated 23 July 1994) notifying me that my issues were to be reviewed in #15 (and would have been reviewed in #13 but for lack of space), but not asking about anything else. Just recently, I posted to the USENET group alt.tv.twin-peaks (where my .signature file clearly identifies me as "Managing Editor, POWER STAR") asking the WIP readers who post there if the review was indeed in issue 15 where it had been scheduled, a post which was answered by Mr. Thorne himself. At no time was I asked if my issues were still available. To review a zine and not list an address where such can be found is as bad as talking about how good a new TV show is and not mentioning where viewers can find it. 2. You mention that you'll be "happy to run an address list in a later issue if the current publishers will let us know ordering details (price/address/checks payable to/etc.)." Again, I have sent you issues with ordering information in them. Ordering details are in every issue since 58; since issue 67, they have been IN THE SAME PLACE every issue--immediately following the Table Of Contents. I send advertising flyers regularly. I am not at all certain how much more information you require. 3. Specifically addressing the POWER STAR review: I am pleased that you found much to like about POWER STAR, which makes your refusal to print addresses all the more tragic. I was of course pleased that you liked my writing style in "Yin And Yang" and "Boys' Night Out", and sorry you found "MEANWHILE..." difficult to enjoy; "MEANWHILE..." co-writer Calvin Smith was dismayed as well by the latter. Priscilla Tweed was happy that you liked her artwork, and Rob Murphy (our Layout Editor) was pleased that you liked the layout. I must, however, confess puzzlement at your dislike of our logo (which you say "is in desperate need of some improvement"): Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't WIP's "logo" merely the words "Wrapped In Plastic" in Adobe Park Avenue Type 1 PostScript font? (Compare it to the font on the cover of POWER STAR issue 61, which happens to be 40-point Park Avenue.). 4. POWER STAR Editor Emeritus Jerry Seward was extremely unhappy with your review of SECRETS OF TWIN PEAKS #4: Not only did you completely miss the point of the panel discussion Doug Giffin and I held--to provide new readers of our zines with perspectives on where our fiction was coming from--but YOU GOT HIS NAME WRONG. It's Gerald James SEWARD, not "Gerald James", as you called him. His name is on the masthead of every POWER STAR, his initials "GJS" were used throughout the panel discussion, his name was in 12-point Times Roman at the top of the page where the discussion starts--how could you NOT get it right? 5. A prominent TWIN PEAKS fandom writer who writes under pseudonyms for both POWER STAR and SECRETS OF TWIN PEAKS (name withheld to protect privacy) was dismayed as well about your reviews of both zines. You mention none of his/her fiction in either POWER STAR (the "Tapes Withheld" series, written under the pseudonym "L. Grey") or SECRETS OF TWIN PEAKS (the entire Ben Horne story, written under the pseudonym "Bobbie Ann Curtis"). In fact, said writer wrote the bulk of SECRETS OF TWIN PEAKS #5 and received not one mention as you sang the praises of Doug Giffin's writing talents and mentioned practically everybody else associated with the zine. 6. Also in regards to SECRETS OF TWIN PEAKS: You may not know the POWER STAR connection to SOTP, even though it's printed in one of the early SOTP issues. SOTP Editor/Publisher Doug Giffin asked anyone who was writing in TWIN PEAKS fandom if they had a title suggestion for his zine; POWER STAR Editor Emeritus Jerry Seward came up with the title for the zine, SECRETS OF TWIN PEAKS, while my title, "The Golden Circle", was rejected for the cover but became the title of Doug Giffin's editorial page. Thus, those of us at POWER STAR feel a special attachment to SOTP. We were disappointed that this anecdote (which I believe is actually in Doug Giffin's "Golden Circle" in issue #1) didn't make your roundup, since you seemed to draw parallels between SOTP and POWER STAR in other ways. 7. More than one person who read the issue commented to me on the condescending tone you seemed to take with most of the zines reviewed. I received phone call after phone call once POWER STAR readers who also read WRAPPED IN PLASTIC saw your reviews. "They think they're so superior to you," a regular reader of POWER STAR complained. "I'd demand an apology for ignoring your longevity," another said. "Anybody who's on issue 80-something's GOT to be doing something right," yet another caller griped. "This is almost as bad as their X-FILES snobbery," still another remarked, comparing your zine roundup to your rather harsh review of X-FILES' first season in issue 12. I'm not going to be that strong, but just remember: You're a zine. I have your first couple of issues. I liked them, and gave #2 a good review in issue 61. But slick covers and worldwide distribution don't change the fact that you're a zine. I remember when you were small and needed all the good word-of-mouth you could get. I was hoping for good word-of-mouth from you as well as a result of this review (your mention of us last year, WHICH INCLUDED OUR ADDRESS, netted us several orders and new readers, some of whom have stayed with us to this day), but to quote one of my callers: "THIS is `good word-of-mouth'?" Again, we do thank you for at least mentioning us. You'll find our address and ordering information throughout this issue. And if your plans call for zine-reading in the future, we hope you'll choose POWER STAR, The Imagination Anthology. * * * * * * * * Rant over. Sorry, folks, had to get that off my chest. You may notice that this issue has no news column. This is an experiment I'm trying out, constantly reworking the issue's format to make it easier to produce and easier to read. Do you read the news column? Do you find it useful? Or would you prefer we left it out and left more room for stories, letters, and artwork? Please let us know. A short note to those who participated in the alt.tv.twin- peaks survey: First off, thank you. Secondly, by the time this sees print, you will have gotten your electronic copies. If you did not send me your address, please do so; all of you in the credit section are entitled to a print copy of this issue. A short note to the rest of you: Thanks for reading and enjoy the issue! -- Kimberly POWER STAR The Imagination Anthology Back Issues Pricing Policy: For all issues EXCEPT THE POWER STAR YEARBOOK AND ISSUE 50: $5.00 per single issue, $9.00 for two issues, $12.50 for three issues, $25.00 for six issues, $40.00 for twelve issues. The POWER STAR Yearbook and Issue 50 are priced at: $15.00 each, or $25.00 for both issues. (Canada/Mexico, add $2.50 in U.S. funds per order; other overseas countries, add $5.00 per order.) POWER STAR Shareware Distributors ASCII text versions of POWER STAR are available on the BBSs and FTP sites listed below. These issues are "shareware"; they may be registered for a "final" finished paper copy for the same price as a regular issue. Discount registrations are also available. New issues are usually uploaded by the 10th of the month. Check out these boards! BBS Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Phone number 001 Science Fiction (POWER STAR Online Bulletin) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (713) 778-0239 Abacus BBS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (205) 393-6312 Anne Arundel Information Exchange (POWER STAR Conference) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (410) 519-0467 Atomic Books BBS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (410) 889-3543 AUDREY archives (TWIN PEAKS archives) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ftp://audrey.levels.unisa.edu.au Bathroom Wall. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (805) 873-8851 BBS Late Night (POWER STAR Directory) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (504) 449-0476 Bulletproof BBS (POWER STAR Directory) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (205) 445-0312 Camelot BBS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (805) 872-6014 Castle Holt BBS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (317) 571-1980 Castle's Gate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (301) 490-8679 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (301) 470-3435 Computer Access. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (805) 397-7506 Crescendo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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(301) 416-0118 Tech Noir. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (410) 859-0974 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (410) 859-1998 Ultimate Connection BBS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (217) 792-3663 šACEš Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (301) 942-2218 [AUTHOR'S DISCLAIMER: Once again, my writing has produced another rather eerie, metaphysical look at the events and situations of the fictional town of Twin Peaks, Washington. The following article, therefore, refers to metaphysical, spiritual, and sometimes pagan concepts which are admittedly controversial. If the reader is offended by such matter, I recommend either skipping the material I have presented, or reading it with a gentle, distancing attitude. I have dealt with these subjects as components of a story, a work of entertainment, that someone created and that I, with my cock- eyed open-mindedness, enjoyed as such. I have not delved into the subjects mentioned here any further than that. I hope that those who do choose to read the following analysis will enjoy it in the spirit I intended.] Closed Circle A TWIN PEAKS Analysis by J. Calvin Smith "Think of me as a friend." When the Giant appeared to Agent Cooper at the beginning of the second season of TWIN PEAKS, I knew that the cavalry had arrived. Laura Palmer's murder would soon be solved, and, at the same time, David Lynch and Mark Frost would take their viewers once again through a dark, dizzying, but delightful psycho-spiritual dreamscape. Cooper would be led by this immense man, I believed, into a world that would make the murder of the high school girl and the other events in the small northwest town seem almost trivial in comparison. However, when the Giant appeared to Cooper at the Roadhouse several episodes later, I felt a strange and contrasting coldness. As sure as I had been that the three clues he had given the Special Agent at the Great Northern Hotel were to lead Cooper to the killer, I was equally certain now that the Giant's forces had led Cooper deliberately to the bar at the most dreadful time possible-- to sit there listening to Julee Cruise and eating peanuts while Leland Palmer/BOB attacked and killed Madeleine Ferguson, Laura's cousin. Why did this happen? The episode with Maddy's murder was a fascinating one. But the murder was especially brutally portrayed, and I was shocked that the titan who seemed to be an agent of good had deliberately allowed this awful murder to happen. Why did the Giant say "It is happening again," over and over, instead of something more useful like, perhaps, "Agent Cooper, get your FBI fanny over to the Palmer house, NOW!"? I have pondered this dilemma during the years since the series' cancellation because, unlike many of PEAKS' critics, I still believe that Lynch and Frost did not just throw story pieces together for no reason. They did not do it all the time, anyway. Mind you, TWIN PEAKS is a surrealistic series, and what many viewers tended to forget, or simply not to realize at all, is that it therefore contains random elements BY ITS VERY NATURE. So do Salvador Dali's masterpieces and the songs of They Might Be Giants. Surrealism searches for deep meaning (actually, it lets the observer do so) in seemingly meaningless, random juxtapositions. But under the quirky, funny, often disconcerting randomness of PEAKS was David Lynch's and Mark Frost's story. The story was always there, even at the end, when it seemed to have been side- tracked and transformed beyond recognition. And, at last, David Lynch brought a bit of the original story concept back in the movie TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, and the way he did this helped me realize the significance of Maddy's death. In the TWIN PEAKS movie, the aftermath of Leland's killing of his daughter was symbolized as blood which BOB pulled from Leland's center (the location of the spiritual "heart" in many religions, including Tibetan Buddhism) and splattered onto the floor of the red-curtained, black-and-white-tiled waiting room of the Black Lodge. The blood then became food, creamed corn to be exact. This food, also called "Garmonbosia (pain and sorrow)" in the movie, appeared to be a substance needed by the Black Lodge's occupants. The Giant was one of those occupants. He was there in the final televised episode, telling Agent Cooper that he was "one and the same" as the elderly room service waiter. So the Black Lodge, in the story, lived on pain and sorrow, in the form of blood sacrifices. The residents did not necessarily approve of BOB's violence, but neither would they always act to prevent it. Even "Mike", who had sworn to stop BOB, sat in the Waiting Room and collected the gory tribute from Leland's belly. Also note that he did not so much as alert BOB to his presence at the train car on the night of Laura's death. He would not prevent the act that would bring the Black Lodge food. This makes Madeleine's murder fit into the story, in my opinion. In the first show of the second season, she spoke of a revelation quite different from Cooper's visitation. She told Sarah Palmer of a dream which involved a patch of carpet in the living room. Later, she screamed and cried as she watched a blood stain magically appear across that patch of carpet. She was terrified, because she was foreseeing her own death. A day later, she saw BOB come for her as she sat, again screaming and crying in terror, in the Hayward's living room. I feel that the Black Lodge planned her death for some time, and that it had a second purpose. This death would lead Agent Cooper finally to the killer, would free Leland from BOB's clutches (through Leland's arrest, incarceration, and suicide), and would complete the cycle, the "golden circle", with blood, Maddy's blood, providing the satisfaction for the Black Lodge's appetite. Remember also that blood was associated with food in the first season of TWIN PEAKS, when the blood of the mynah bird Waldo, who spoke the words of Laura Palmer on the night of her death, spattered across the donuts on the table of the conference room in the Sheriff's station, when Waldo had been shot by Leo Johnson. In retrospect, the story seems to me like a Lovecraft tale: The painting from Missoula (Maddy's hometown) becomes an altar, Maddy becomes the virgin sacrifice (in the PEAKS storyline she could well have been a virgin), and the nameless, horrific, pagan forces of the lodge move closer to being satiated. The pieces start falling into place for Agent Cooper, and finally Leland is released from BOB's clutches through his own bloody death, another sacrifice, this time sealed with water from the malfunctioning sprinkler system in the Sheriff's station. Laura and Maddy share their uncanny resemblance even unto death. Fear and Love become triumphant in the Palmer house, both before and after Laura's demise. The door opens, and it shuts again. Agent Cooper solves the murder, but the Black Lodge and Killer BOB live on. And this, I believe, is the story David Lynch and Mark Frost wanted to tell us: a gothic horror tale/morality play put in perhaps the strangest framework ever seen on television. And in my mind it still stands as one of the best tales ever told on a series of dark nights. Welcome To alt.tv.twin-peaks An Overview By Kimberly Murphy I can't believe I found this newsgroup...this is great! -- numerous alt.tv.twin-peaks newcomers USENET is an odd collection of informational groups divided into seven official hierarchies and numerous unofficial ones. The major hierarchies--comp, sci, rec, soc, news, misc, and talk--are hard to get an official entry point into. There are rules and regulations on who can create a group, a formal charter is required, and periods of discussion followed by online votes by prospective readers and non-readers doom most new group proposals to failure. To get around the complications of the seven majors, the alt hierarchy was set up. Getting a newsgroup on the alt hierarchy is relatively easy--directions are contained in several USENET frequently asked questions lists--and many of the alt groups are just as long-lived and popular as their counterparts in the majors. The distribution of alt groups varies from server to server, but more and more newssites are picking up groups on the alt hierarchy for distribution to interested readers. Discussions of popular TV series often spawn alt groups. Such was the case of alt.tv.twin-peaks, founded during TWIN PEAKS' first season. The show's popularity helped the group take off, but a curious thing happened: Even though the series' ratings plummetted as the show went on, the traffic on alt.tv.twin-peaks settled into a steady pattern. The group's usage still has its peaks (sorry for the pun) and valleys, mostly due to TWIN PEAKS' recent rebroadcast on the cable network Bravo, but the regulars stick around to help make alt.tv.twin-peaks one of the most popular groups on the alt hierarchy. But who are these regulars? And why do they read and post to a group about a show that's been off network TV for three years now? In November 1994, I posted a survey to alt.tv.twin-peaks to find out more about the readers of alt.tv.twin-peaks, asking their views on TWIN PEAKS. Twenty-two people from five different countries responded--not a large sample, but a good cross-section of alt.tv.twin-peaks readers. Their responses were, to say the least, intriguing. Here's what they had to say. * * * * * * * * How did you first discover TWIN PEAKS? Friends helping friends find PEAKS was the overwhelming theme to the answers to this question. "I saw FIRE WALK WITH ME on cable." Andy Wing, 32 agwing@astro.ocis.temple.edu "I was 14 when it first came out, and wasn't at all interested in it then. But my parents have been Lynch fans for a while, and they taped all the episodes of the first season. The fall of 1990 I started to watch the taped episodes and immediately became hooked. I'm so lucky that my parents were interested in it from the beginning so I could watch those early taped episodes." Amy Klosterman, 19 akloste1@cc.swarthmore.edu "Two of my co-workers were talking about it. I watched the `dream' episode (1002) and was blown away." Ann Brill White, 30 anniebw@aol.com "I saw TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME in the theatre. I had seen various shots of the TV series before. Two years ago I picked up all the episodes and it has since become my religion." Brett Hendrie, 16 brett_hendrie@magic.ca "When it was in first run in 1990, I decided not to watch it. When it reran that summer, I gave it a try to see what the fuss was all about. I fell in love at first sight." J. Calvin Smith, 37 calvin.smith@acenet.com "Flipping channels aimlessly one night, I stumbled across the second season premiere. I remember being slightly intrigued by how confused I was." Dean Carlson, age undisclosed coop@west.darkside.com "I saw the commercials, and the first episode captured me. It was unlike anything I ever knew before." Jessica Gancio, 18 gancio46@potsdam.edu "On the night when the pilot was first broadcast in Germany (September 1991) I just didn't have anything better to do. Then I wanted to know who killed Laura, and after a couple of episodes, I just...well, loved it." Irina Klein, 22 i8040106@ws.rz.tu-bs.de "One of my art professors told me how strange this new show was. It was already on the third episode (second plus the pilot). He told me how this strange F.B.I. man was throwing rocks at a bottle, and then a strange little man talked in some weird language that you could understand but then again you couldn't, and then he danced in a red curtained room to a strobe light, and up came the credits. He was so impressed with the visual part of the show that I had to check it out. I had to change my class schedule as I was in class when it was on, but I did, and I've never stopped watching since." Jon Yager, 28 jonyag@xmission.com "After it went off the air, actually. I went to see FIRE WALK WITH ME and fell in love with TWIN PEAKS." Jason Robert Thornton, 25 jthornton@ucsd.edu "My best friend at the time was addicted to watching it and I wanted to know what was so cool about the show. I went to his house one afternoon to watch a tape of some first season shows and I got hooked. Everything was just so cool and surreal--the music, the characters, the dialogue. It made me wish I lived there. It seemed like a great place to `grow up'." John Todd, Jr., 19 jtodd1@cc.swarthmore.edu "I heard all of the hype and was turned off at first. Then, I inadvertently wandered in on the pilot when my brother was watching it and was instantly hooked." Kersti Kahar, 19 kkahar@uoguelph.ca "I saw the summer rerun of the pilot and got hooked." Kristin Pierce, 20 kpierce@ux4.uiuc.cso.edu "When the pilot showed on Dutch television in I believe late 1991, I found it. I had seen the CD in the shops a long time before that but at the time I didn't know it would someday be my major hobby." Marco Aarts, 20 m.f.a.aarts@kub.nl "A friend of mine living in the same student apartment as me watched it on BBC. At first, I wasn't that interested until I heard that Laura's father did it, possessed by BOB. That got me fascinated. So, I watched it, always knowing who did it." Machiel Kolstein, 26 machiel@parabel.nikhefk.nikhef.nl "Flipping channels." Peggy Mei-Ling Li, 20 madge@uclink.berkeley.edu "The first time the series was broadcast was in 1991 in The Netherlands. I didn't see it then, but a year ago, they broadcasted it again and I had heard stories from friends, so I decided to watch." Martijn van Roosmalen, 21 maroosma@cs.ruu.nl "I was a big fan of BLUE VELVET and had gotten the Julee Cruise album way before the show came on, so I was ready!" Matt Grace, age undisclosed mattgrace@delphi.com "I caught the tail end of the series late in the second season, during the Windom Earle story arc. I had ignored most of the hype surrounding the show, and had little idea what was going on, but I was instantly hooked anyway! The odd storyline attracted me, but it was mostly the atmosphere of the program." Michael W. Dean, 26 mdean@athena.cs.uga.edu "I was there from the beginning. I heard about it, it sounded good, and so I watched it. It greatly exceeded my expectations." John Adams, 20 mrpug@ksu.ksu.edu "Everybody in my circle knew about it before it began to be aired in the states. We all read alt.tv.twin-peaks and originally, I believe, it came from our utter fascination with David Lynch. You tend to follow every move of your gods." Reetu Meri Tuuli Kurkijarvi, 23 trreku@uta.fi "My girlfriend just out of the blue said `I really miss TWIN PEAKS.' So I rented the first season episodes and watched along with her." Esposito Garcia, 22 umgarci4@cc.umanitoba.ca What is your favorite episode, and why? Maddy's murder (2007) and the pilot (1000) dominate the discussion here, but a few surprises surfaced in the comments. "The episode where Maddy is killed (2007). Directed by Lynch, full of terror, strangeness, and all the important characters." agwing@astro.ocis.temple.edu "It's really hard to pick one specific episode. I like the end of the pilot (1000), where Donna breaks her curfew to go to The Roadhouse to meet James and to hide the other half of the locket. I like it because Donna's younger sister Harriet is hilarious (`The best laid plans of mice and men...') and because the scene where James and Donna hide the locket is really touching." akloste1@cc.swarthmore.edu "Overall, I would have to say Harry's hangover (2018)--just the right blend of comedy, mysticism, and romance." anniebw@aol.com "The episode where Cooper finally discovers that Leland is BOB (2009). I suppose it's the scene in The Roadhouse when Cooper talks about having to use `magic' that I love...it always sends a chill down my spine. The beginning shot of Cooper, Truman, Albert, and Hawk is pretty great, too. The first season episodes were just as good but less self-contained; hence I have a hard time picking a favorite." brett_hendrie@magic.ca "The one with Cooper's dream sequence (1002). That's the way I dream; I couldn't believe anyone could capture that on film." calvin.smith@acenet.com "The revelation of Laura's murderer (2007); extremely passionate and moving climax." coop@west.darkside.com "Cooper finding Audrey Horne in his bed (1006). I love Cooper's reaction--he's so calm and collected." gancio46@potsdam.edu "I can't really tell which one is my favorite; they're all cool. The last one (2021), of course, and all the other weird parts like the one where Leland dies (2009), just because they're so weird and Lynchish." i8040106@ws.rz.tu-bs.de "The first episode of the second season (2001). I love the pace of the episode. I love the fact that there was all this press and excitement over what happened to Cooper and who killed Laura, and then this ultra-slow starting and wonderful pace to the whole episode. And it totally threw off the normal American viewer with all these new paranormal happenings." jonyag@xmission.com "The pilot (1000), because it was so well-done and dark." jthornton@ucsd.edu "The episode where BOB's identity is revealed to everyone (2007). It caught me completely off-guard. I wasn't expecting the resolution to the `who's BOB' debate. Everything from the appearance of the white horse and the Giant to the real-life thunderstorm going on outside my house added to my enjoyment and fear of this episode. jtodd1@cc.swarthmore.edu "I'd have to say that one of my favorite episodes is the two-hour second season finale (2021). True, a lot of loose ends are left, but others are finally wrapped up. In some ways, it's like a curtain call of the whole series: Almost everyone who was anyone in the show had an appearance. The scenes in the Black Lodge really stole the show, simply by virtue of their surreal nature." kkahar@uoguelph.ca "The second season episode with Truman recovering from his hangover and the `chickadee on a Dodge Dart' scene at the Double-R (2018). Cooper falling in love is just so cute to watch, and that episode has some of the best lines." kpierce@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu "The one where Maddy dies and the killer is revealed (2007). Directed by Lynch, this one has the eeriest mood of them all, especially near the end. The Roadhouse scenes with Julee Cruise and the killing scenes looked and sounded great." m.f.a.aarts@kub.nl "My two favorite episodes--I can't choose--are the ones where Madeleine gets killed (2007) and the last one when Cooper enters the Black Lodge (2021)." machiel@parabel.nikhefk.nikhef.nl "The second season episode (2002) where BOB crawls over the couch toward Maddy--it scared me so much I will never forget that scene!" madge@uclink.berkeley.edu "The episode where Cooper discovers Leland is the killer (2009), one of the most beautiful of the whole series. Very touching and emotional." maroosma@cs.ruu.nl "The final episode (2021). I always liked extremism, and this was Lynch at his most outre. I think it was also his way of saying ` You America for cancelling my show'." mattgrace@delphi.com "My favorite episode by far is the premiere (1000). That episode carried a tremendous sense of mystery and veiled threat-- `foreboding' is a word I often hear describing this episode. It was subtle; the horrific elements didn't exactly leap out at you. Watching that episode on tape, after TWIN PEAKS' cancellation, I couldn't avoid the sense that there was a great deal waiting to be discovered about the town in later episodes. I could write volumes about this one program; I found it even more frightening and striking to BLUE VELVET." mdean@athena.cs.uga.edu "The episode where the killer is revealed (2007); so much happens and it's so well done." mrpug@ksu.ksu.edu "I've certainly seen the pilot (1000) more times than any other episode, just because it's brilliant and I know it by heart. But somehow I think I would have to name the second season opener (2001) as my personal favorite, because they don't have Albert in the pilot. And by the second season there's more mystique, more witty references to earlier episodes (obviously), and more-- Cooper having been shot at, the famous dialogues and monologue in the very beginning, Major Briggs' and Bobby's man-to-man talk, and MORE ALBERT." trreku@uta.fi "The second season premiere (2001), because it is 2 hours and it was directed by Lynch. The scenes with Leland/Ben/Jerry doing the song-and-dance routine in the office was hilarious. And Ronnette's memory of BOB attacking Laura at the end was terrifying." umgarci4@cc.umanitoba.ca Who is your favorite character, and why? F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper and F.B.I. Forensic Pathologist Albert Rosenfield led the way, but some surprises cropped up in people's opinion of this show that at one time had over 40 characters in active circulation. "Leland Palmer, a funny-yet-terrifying example of possession." agwing@astro.ocis.temple.edu "To pick one, I like Jerry Horne. He's always goofy, but carries himself with that certain Horne pride. He's always suggesting something weird like `let's go eat that cheese log, Ben' or something along those lines." akloste1@cc.swarthmore.edu "Cooper, because he is a totally unique character on TV--a person who is eccentric but respected. Plus, Kyle MacLachlan is hot!" anniebw@aol.com "Cooper, Cooper, Cooper. Isn't that reason enough? Seriously, though, probably Cooper was the only one there who had the slighest chance of putting all the pieces together--Desmond, Jeffries, White/Black Lodges, Earle, BOB, Midget, Laura, etc. It's his endeavoring personality and faith in himself that I love. Plus, his quirkiness is pretty funny to watch." brett_hendrie@magic.ca "Philip Gerard/Mike/The One-Armed Man. Every time he shows up, the show gets good." calvin.smith@acenet.com "Agent Cooper--he's a lot like me." coop@west.darkside.com "Cooper, definitely. He's creative!" gancio46@potsdam.edu "Cooper, because he's got that wry sort of humor I really like. His words and lines are the coolest. I also love Gordon Cole, and Audrey as well because her character is well developed; she changes from the girl nobody really likes to...well, to Audrey. My male friends like her for other reasons, though." i8040106@ws.rz.tu-bs.de "It changes every time I see it. Sometimes Cooper, of course, sometimes Bobby because he grows so much. Sometimes The Log Lady because she seems so weird on the surface but is so wise. And of course Shelly because she is so beautiful." jonyag@xmission.com "Cooper, because he's just so darn interesting and bizarre. Albert Rosenfield and Chet Desmond (I'm a big Chris Isaak fan) come in second, and Dennis/Denise Bryson just recently joined them, especially after seeing David Duchovny in X-FILES and KALIFORNIA." jthornton@ucsd.edu "Shelly Johnson. She was beautiful, unassuming, and hard- working. I really felt for her. I hated Leo with a passion. The way he treated her made me cringe in my seat. The soap-in-a- sock routine has always left a bad taste in my mouth. Shelly just made me want to come into the show and save her from Leo and Bobby. She brought out both feeling and compassion and the need to protect from me. She wasn't stuck up like Audrey, she wasn't bitchy like Donna or stupid like Maddy or a screwed-up slut like Laura. She was just a girl who had made some bad decisions in her life and she was dealing with them in the best way that she could." jtodd1@cc.swarthmore.edu "Special Agent Dale Cooper, hands down. He exudes this wonderful stability; he's such a solid character. At the same time, he has complications of his own, and has a link with the supernatural." kkahar@uoguelph.ca "I love almost everyone, but especially Annie Blackburn because she is innocent-yet-strange, and Gordon Cole because it is David Lynch, and Hawk because he just has these lines out of nowhere, and Truman because of his name, and of course Cooper because he is the personification of Twin Peaks." kpierce@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu "Harold Smith. To me, he's the most intriguing character. His past is very obscure and I'm not sure what he's really like. His mind is pretty disturbed, I guess. When he dies, he leaves a lot of secrets behind." m.f.a.aarts@kub.nl "Laura Palmer. She is the most tragic character with a beautiful smile and living in Hell. The homecoming queen loved by everyone, hiding the darkest secrets." machiel@parabel.nikhefk.nikhef.nl "Albert Rosenfield. He was such a mysterious character that seemed so one-dimensional on the surface, but was actually more complex." madge@uclink.berkeley.edu "Albert Rosenfield. How he behaves and changes is just great." maroosma@cs.ruu.nl "Leland Palmer; I've never been so disturbed by a character in a TV show before or since. He was amazing." mattgrace@delphi.com "My favorite character is far and away Agent Cooper! He was just such an innovation; a square-jawed All-American Boy who happened to be exceedingly strange (although his oddness was always secondary to his competence and dedication as an F.B.I. agent). Cooper was, and is, a real breath of fresh air in this time of jaded and bloodthirsty heroes. He was the vital and beating heart of the series." mdean@athena.cs.uga.edu "I liked many, but my two very favorites would probably be Bobby Briggs and Norma Jennings. I don't know exactly why I singled these two out, but they just seemed to have this style. Not that everyone else didn't, mind you..." mrpug@ksu.ksu.com "Albert Rosenfield. Witty as no one ever was. Attitude walking. And I relate to him." trreku@uta.fi "Bobby Briggs. He's just so over-the-top it's hilarious. Dana Ashbrook makes the absolute most of his lines and scenes." umgarci4@cc.umanitoba.ca What is your favorite line? Surefire clips to be turned into .WAV sound files in the future. "There were just so many good ones, I can't say for sure." agwing@astro.ocis.temple.edu "Creamed corn? I specifically requested no creamed corn!" -- Mrs. Tremont, when Donna Hayward delivers her Meal on Wheels akloste1@cc.swarthmore.edu "I'm sick of dullards, dunces, dolts..." -- Albert Rosenfield, as Harry tells him that he's had enough of his attitude anniebw@aol.com "Laura had secrets." -- Dr. Jacoby, in response to Cooper's line of questioning brett_hendrie@magic.ca "He is BOB, eager for fun. He wears a smile--everybody run." -- The One-Armed Man, during Cooper's interrogation calvin.smith@acenet.com "If I had a nickel for every cigarette your mom smoked...I'd be dead." -- Donna Hayward, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, examining an ashtray at Laura's house coop@west.darkside.com "We must dance...for Laura." -- Leland Palmer, the night before Laura's funeral gancio46@potsdam.edu "Does Heaven normally include arson, multiple homicide, and an attempt on the life of a Federal agent?" -- Judge Sternwood, after hearing Cooper call Twin Peaks "heavenly" "Heaven is a large and interesting place, sir." -- Cooper's response i8040106@ws.rz.tu-bs.de "Now you listen to me! While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a nay-sayer and a hatchet man in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method...is love. I love you, Sheriff Truman." -- Albert Rosenfield, as Harry Truman prepares to punch him out again jonyag@xmission.com "Through the darkness/The future past/The magician longs to see/ One chants out between two worlds/Fire, walk with me!" -- The One-Armed Man, in Cooper's dream jthornton@ucsd.edu "Fire, walk with me." -- spoken first by The One-Armed Man; later, at various times, also by Leland/BOB and Cooper jtodd1@cc.swarthmore.edu "Damn fine coffee!" -- Cooper, during the rock-throwing session "Through the darkness/The future past/The magician longs to see/ One chants out between two worlds/Fire, walk with me!" -- The One-Armed Man, in Cooper's dream kkahar@uoguelph.ca "I believe that these mysteries are not separate entities, but are in fact complimentary verses of the same song. Now, I cannot hear it yet. But I can feel it." -- Cooper, to Major Briggs, on Leo Johnson's disappearance and Windom Earle's mysterious clues kpierce@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu "...half a license plate, a goat...and a small wooden puppet, goes by the name of Pinochio." -- Albert Rosenfield, describing the contents of Jacques Renault's stomach after his autopsy m.f.a.aarts@kub.nl "Wow BOB wow." -- The Little Man From Another Place, in the final episode machiel@parabel.nikhefk.nikhef.nl "This must be where pies go when they die." -- Dale Cooper, at the Double-R madge@uclink.berkeley.edu "I don't expect you to understand these tests. I'm not a cruel man." -- Albert Rosenfield, during Laura's autopsy maroosma@cs.ruu.nl "I love you, Sheriff Truman." -- Albert Rosenfield, as Harry Truman prepares to punch him out again mattgrace@delphi.com "O.K., Cooper--you gonna let me in on whatever the Hell's going on here?" -- Harry Truman, as Cooper examines Laura's body for the first time "Sheriff, we've got a lot to talk about." -- Cooper's response mdean@athena.cs.uga.edu "Ah, Audrey, the most intelligent face I've seen all day." -- Ben Horne mrpug@ksu.ksu.edu "Black as midnight on a moonless night." -- Cooper, to Pete on how black he likes his coffee "Sleep deprivation is a one-way ticket to temporary psychosis-- and I'm running on a three-day jag." -- Cooper, to Diane the night after being shot "I like to think of myself as one of the happy generation." -- Albert Rosenfield, to Cooper after describing Jacques Renault's autopsy "Look--it's trying to think." -- Albert Rosenfield, on Truman trying to make an observation about Laura's autopsy trreku@uta.fi "Afraid? I'm not afraid--I can hardly wait! Afraid? I'm going to turn it upside down!" -- Bobby Briggs, to Major Briggs before Laura Palmer's funeral umgarci4@cc.umanitoba.ca What is your favorite scene? The Lynch-directed scenes dominated here, with scenes from 1000, 1002, 2002, 2007, 2021, and FIRE WALK WITH ME cited frequently. "Any of the dream sequences directed by Lynch (1002, 2001, 2007, 2021)." agwing@astro.ocis.temple.edu "The scene in Emory Battis' suite at One Eyed Jack's where Audrey lays the goods on him on knowing about Laura and One Eyed Jack's (2002)." akloste1@cc.swarthmore.edu "Leland's death (2009)." anniebw@aol.com "The scene in The Roadhouse where Cooper finally puts it all together with the help of Major Briggs and Senor Droolcup, a.k.a. the Room Service Waiter (2009)." brett_hendrie@magic.ca "Cooper's dream sequence (1002), for reasons I've said before." calvin.smith@acenet.com "The final scene in FIRE WALK WITH ME." coop@west.darkside.com "Cooper's dream sequence, where he meets Laura and the midget (1002); beyond cool!" gancio46@potsdam.edu "The scene where Cole meets Shelly (2018); plus any scene filled with strangelings like The Giant, Little Man From Another Place, the Log Lady, etc." i8040106@ws.rz.tu-bs.de "Maddy's death (2007)--beautiful." jonyag@xmission.com "Cooper's dream (1002)--let's rock!" jthornton@ucsd.edu "Maddy's death scene (2007). Not only did it frighten me, but it made tears well up in my eyes. It just didn't seem fair for anyone to have to die such a horrible death from someone she knew and loved, for no apparent reason. It was sad." jtodd1@cc.swarthmore.edu "The end of FIRE WALK WITH ME, my favorite of the series and movie combined. At the end, following Laura's brutal murder, she is sitting in the Lodge, with Dale behind her. A combination of the beautiful angel, Badalamenti's music, and Cooper's strong, comforting presence had tears rolling down my cheeks. There was such a sense of closure for Laura, as though Dale always had and always would protect her." kkahar@uoguelph.ca "The scene in the Double-R diner where Gordon can hear Shelly and Cooper and Annie look at a chickadee on a Dodge Dart, followed by Cooper telling her the penguin joke (2018)." kpierce@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu "Maddy's death (2007). It isn't nice to watch, it's too disturbing, but it's the greatest scene in the series." m.f.a.aarts@kub.nl "Cooper looking at the surveillance camera in FIRE WALK WITH ME, where Agent Jeffries comes out of the elevator (creepy sound effects in the background), enters Cole's office, and backflashing to the meeting above the convenience store; also, the scene in the final episode (2021) where Laura's doppleganger says `Meanwhile...' and starts to scream." machiel@parabel.nikhefk.nikhef.nl "Cooper throwing stones at the bottle (1002)." madge@uclink.berkeley.edu "Next to the scene where Leland is unmasked as the killer (2009), I like the scene where Maddy is killed very much (2007). Cooper sitting in The Roadhouse with that eerie music in the background...gives me the shivers." maroosma@cs.ruu.nl "Maddy's murder (2007)--rarely have I been that scared! My friend Ginette literally had nightmares for weeks afterwards. I couldn't get the scene out of my mind for days either." mattgrace@delphi.com "The scene where Cooper first sees Laura's body in the morgue (1000). This scene really established the atmosphere of hidden knowledge and discoveries for me. Cooper discovers the letter under the nail and speaks to Diane excitedly, but we the audience have only a partial idea just what it is that's getting to him. The exchange between Truman and Cooper I said was my favorite happens, and then cut! It's confirmed: There are secrets, all right, and they are big ones!" mdean@athena.cs.uga.edu "Either Maddy's death (2007) or Josie's death (2016); both were quite intense." mrpug@ksu.ksu.edu "Anything with Albert in it." trreku@uta.fi "Too many to name; if I had to pick one, it would be Cooper et al interrogating The One-Armed Man in the Sheriff's station (2006)." umgarci4@cc.umanitoba.ca Are there any other characters/scenes/episodes you especially liked? One of the reasons alt.tv.twin-peaks is so lively is because its readers appreciate so many diverse elements in the series. There was no single consensus on great characters, scenes, or episodes. "Major Briggs is my favorite `good guy'. The `Pink Room' scene in FIRE WALK WITH ME is one of the best." agwing@astro.ocis.temple.edu "As a character, I liked Nadine in her high-school mode because she was so vapid, and Albert Rosenfield for his firebrand-yet- good-guy-underneath persona. I liked the scene where Ben and Jerry Horne were reminiscing about their childhood and recalled a babysitter who did a dance with a flashlight, and the scenes where the One-Armed Man didn't get his drugs and started sniffing the air to find BOB. Very eerie." akloste1@cc.swarthmore.edu "Hawk, Audrey, Donna. For episode, the discovery of Laura's murderer (2007) and Leland's death (2009) come in a close second." anniebw@aol.com "I like Albert, Gordon Cole, Phillip Jeffries and Truman quite bit as well. I like any scene in the Red Room (1002, 2021), plus the rock throwing one (1002); the `It's happening again' scene (2007) is also pretty great, and the entire sequence with Phillip Jeffries from FIRE WALK WITH ME. Other episodes: Put me down for episode number 1002, the first dream sequence. I also really like the first three episodes of season one." brett_hendrie@magic.ca "I liked The Giant and Major Briggs; also, that weird picture Laura Palmer got from the Chalfonts in FIRE WALK WITH ME was really neat but strange." calvin.smith@acenet.com "The murderer revelation scene (2009), the final episode's surreal sequence (2021), the effects of Laura's murder on the town in the pilot (1000)...I could go on for days." coop@west.darkside.com "I appreciated Catherine Martell, Harold Smith, Donna Hayward, the scene where Cooper threw the rocks at the bottle, and where Catherine dressed as Sunsei Tojomura." gancio46@potsdam.edu "Basically everything--except for some minor things, I liked the whole thing." i8040106@ws.rz.tu-bs.de "I liked the mayor. During the first season, he got my vote for the killer." jonyag@xmission.com "I enjoyed most of the bizarre, supernatural scenes--for example, Cooper's vision during Maddy's murder (2007), or that great scene at The Roadhouse where Cooper gathers all the potential `killers' together and the Giant returns his ring (2009)." jthornton@ucsd.edu "Hawk was definitely the coolest character ever. Audrey--she had her own theme music, and it had the best beat to it. Josie and Catherine Martell--two-faced and diabolical, but each in their own ways, and I liked it. The day after Leland killed Maddy, in the lobby of Ben Horne's hotel (2008), he was dancing and happy; he'd gotten away with murder, and he knew it. Josie writing in the drawerknob (2016) was really frightening. Audrey's cherry stem trick (1006) for Blackie at One Eyed Jack's--everyone likes this one. And I liked all of the episodes--it was TWIN PEAKS!" jtodd1@cc.swarthmore.edu "I really enjoyed Albert's appearances early in the series-- wonderfully sardonic fellow. Major Briggs was another really good, solid character." kkahar@uoguelph.ca "The scene with Gordon kissing Shelly and saying to Bobby `You have just witnessed a front three quarters view of two adults sharing a tender moment' (2019), and the scene between Audrey and Wheeler with the line `If you bring a hammer, better bring some nails' (2019)." kpierce@ux4.uiuc.cso.edu "Laura, of course; doesn't everyone? I love the conflict in her; I feel I can relate to the way she grew up. By far she's the most developed character of the series, mostly because of the diary. Leland--Ray Wise is, to me, the best actor of the entire cast. He does a great job portraying a man as disturbed as Leland. Other faves are The Giant/The Little Man From Another Place/One-Armed Man. Johnny Horne's pretty interesting but they didn't really develop this character. Too bad. I would have liked to have seen more of Ronnette Pulaski as well. Oh, and Jerry Horne." m.f.a.aarts@kub.nl "Characters: Leland, Little Man From Another Place, Donna (both Moira Kelly and Lara Flynn Boyle's versions), Agent Desmond, Bobby Briggs, Madeleine Ferguson. Scenes: Maddy's murder, intercut with the scene at The Roadhouse of The Giant warning Cooper, Donna crying, and Bobby and James looking depressed (2007); also, the scene from the pilot (1000) when Sarah Palmer calls Leland at The Great Northern to ask where Laura is and Harry arriving to tell Leland his daughter has dies, while Sarah is still overhearing. Lots of other scenes involving Cooper's dreams, visions of BOB or Leland going crazy, and almost all scenes in FIRE WALK WITH ME (too many to mention; all confrontations of Laura and Leland are very good)." machiel@parabel.nikhefk.nikhef.nl "Cooper, of course, and Dennis/Denise--all the scenes with Denise were just hilarious. The scene with Josie in the drawer pull is great; Cooper's entrance into One Eyed Jack's in his tux is also good, and the scene where Albert says goodbye to Truman with the `I love you' ending is great." madge@uclink.berkeley.edu "Of course I like Coop, and Gordon Cole, too, and Hank--he looks so sympathetic. I like the scene in the last episode of the Black Lodge (2021) together with the scene in FIRE WALK WITH ME at the end in the Lodge. At first I was confused, but after a while, I began finding it very beautiful. And I'm a huge fan of Ben and Jerry--those two guys are amazing!" maroosma@cs.ruu.nl "I liked them all, but the dream sequences and Black Lodge scenes remain in my mind well." mattgrace@delphi.com "As for characters, my other favorites are Harry (great reality check for Cooper), Hawk (the Native American tracker idea may be an old one, but it worked anyway!), Jerry Horne (superb comedy relief!), and Albert (comedy relief and reality check, all in one). As for scenes, let's see: The first shot of the train car (1000) (`There's a good place to die,' I said upon seeing it for the first time), all of the Black Lodge scenes (both dreamed and otherwise), Cooper and various police folks listening to the tape of Waldo the bird's imitations of the night of Laura's death (1006) (actually some very chilling stuff), and the scene where Harry, Ed and Hawk first tell Cooper about the Bookhouse Boys (1003). Oh, and any scene with Jerry in it! As for episodes, I like the final episodes of the second season quite a bit, as Cooper and Harry really start to piece together the Black Lodge mystery. The discovery of the painting at Owl Cave is especially good (2019) (`Giant. Little man.')." mdean@athena.cs.uga.edu "I liked the episode Diane Keaton directed (2015)--I think I'm alone here, though. I thought she did a terrific job." mrpug@ksu.ksu.edu "Special Agent Dale Cooper, F.B.I. There are depths to this guy no one will ever figure out. But we sure appreciate them all the same." trreku@uta.fi "Characters: Cooper, Leo, Nadine. Scenes: Shelly and Bobby being attacked by Leo as he comes to (2014); Cooper in the Red Room (2021); Leland looking in the mirror as we see BOB for the first time (2007)." umgarci4@cc.umanitoba.ca Are there any characters/scenes/episodes you DIDN'T like? Major pitfalls befell the series the second season, and the respondents overwhelmingly blamed the new characters. James Hurley also took his share of venom and sometimes brought Donna Hayward along for the ride. "I disliked Richard Tremayne, he's too fake a character for Twin Peaks. Little Nicky is pretty stupid, too." agwing@astro.ocis.temple.edu "I thought the scene where BOB appeared in the Palmer house and was coming toward Maddy and climbing over a couch was too terrifying (2002). I also didn't like the scenes where BOB's face came really close to the camera." akloste1@cc.swarthmore.edu "Anything having to do with the Marshes and Little Nicky." anniebw@aol.com "Little Nicky was terrible. Some characters were annoying (i.e. Dick Tremayne) but they were supposed to be. I can't blame them for that--they helped balance the show." brett_hendrie@magic.ca "The James/Donna/Maddy love triangle was trash. `Teen Nadine' didn't add a whole lot, and the whole resolution--where she got hit on the head and revived--was trash. And I'd blocked out `little Nicky' until someone else mentioned it--that's how bad it was." calvin.smith@acenet.com "Even the worst parts of TWIN PEAKS were leagues better than any television I saw before." coop@west.darkside.com "I hated Leo. He was such a dirtbag!" gancio46@potsdam.edu "I didn't like the James-runs-away subplot that much. It was kind of boring and didn't have that much to do with the rest of the plot." i8040106@ws.rz.tu-bs.de "Not too pleased with the James/Evelyn stuff, although it is more enjoyable after watching SUNSET BOULEVARD." jonyag@xmission.com "Not so much." jthornton@ucsd.edu "Leo: What a bastard! James: Get off of your high horse! Nadine: Ugh--some crazy people I liked, but she was not one of them! Jerry Horne: What a waste of a character." jtodd1@cc.swarthmore.edu "After the episode when the murderer (BOB/Leland) was revealed (2009), the subsequent episodes seemed aimless. It wasn't until Windom Earle appeared on the scene (2014) that things got interesting. The interim (with all the drug smuggling, etc.) seemed like filler." kkahar@uoguelph.ca "Anything with Windom Earle and Leo Johnson; also, most anything with Ben Horne until he became an environmentalist." kpierce@ux4.uiuc.cso.edu "Characters: Tim Pinkell, little Nicky, Evelyn Marsh and company, all these new characters from after Leland's death. Also Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle) because of lack of acting talent. Moira Kelly was much better." m.f.a.aarts@kub.nl "Characters: Audrey, Catherine, Ben Horne, Nadine, Dr. Jacoby. Scenes: Most of the scenes involving the characters mentioned above." machiel@parabel.nikhefk.nikhef.nl "I disliked James and Donna. The episodes where James was with that older woman, Evelyn Marsh. Mostly second season episodes." madge@uclink.berkeley.edu "I hate Nadine. Sometimes I laugh about things she does or says, but she's too weird. The James/Evelyn scenes I didn't like either--they distracted me from the main theme." maroosma@cs.ruu.nl "I didn't like the James character much, especially in the second season with Evelyn Marsh...I really thought it went nowhere and I was glad when it wrapped up. I thought there was a definite decline between Leland's death up to two or three episodes from the end." mattgrace@delphi.com "There was really little about the series that annoyed me, I must say. I never found Nadine to be that interesting, I suppose, but she made Ed's character a bit rounder. James and Donna, when they were a couple, were annoyingly sappy at times, but I still essentially liked their characters. Plus, their romance was punctuated by occasional fits of breaking and entering, so I forgave them for their early cloying sweetness!" mdean@athena.cs.uga.edu "I wasn't too crazy about Lucy or Andy, though I did like Dick Tremayne. I couldn't stand Donna or James, though I did like Donna in the movie. I didn't like the story about Cooper being framed. It just seemed kind of boring--I even liked the Little Nicky storyline better." mrpug@ksu.ksu.edu "I didn't like the guy with the greenhouse--Harold Smith." trreku@uta.fi "When Annie and Coop are dancing (2020). Annie is saying serious stuff to Coop but for some reason she doesn't look him in the eye." umgarci4@cc.umanitoba.ca What is it about TWIN PEAKS that still holds your attention this long after cancellation? The depth of the series and the many layers of symbolism involved were indicated by many readers as a reason to keep watching. "The mysticism, the wide variety of characters, and the endless interconnections (better than most soaps!) between the characters." agwing@astro.ocis.temple.edu "Its good spirit vs. bad spirit issue is very relevant to life. Also, I love to watch old episodes because they are so entertaining. I think that a series like this inspires culthood because there are so many little details and sly references to keep things interesting." akloste1@cc.swarthmore.edu "The mystical aspects of the series--and the fact that there were so many questions that we'll be arguing about it for years!" anniebw@aol.com "Being able to watch it again and again and again and still feel fulfilled. Much like sex, even when it's bad--it's good. I can still find new stuff in it all the time and develop my own theories as to what was going on." brett_hendrie@magic.ca "I see, deeper each time I watch, a real meaning to the surrealism and symbolism in the show. Also, the humor is a long- lasting repeated-viewing brand." calvin.smith@acenet.com "The unexplained." coop@west.darkside.com "How it captivated me from the start. Until then, I never followed TV shows. It wasn't in my nature. But it always held my attention! I couldn't miss a word. It was awesome!" gancio46@potsdam.edu "David Lynch is just great. It's weird, and it's so real-life, but on the other hand it isn't, you know? Also, I'll probably write my graduation thesis on literary motifs or the representation of sex and crime in TWIN PEAKS. So I still have to do some research." i8040106@ws.rz.tu-bs.de "There is just so much there to explore. On the surface things can almost all be explained by normal means, like in the way Albert thinks. But there are supernatural explanations for things that make just as much sense. It also gets much more sad as I watch it multiple times." jonyag@xmission.com "The depth, the supernatural elements, the whole bizarre atmosphere." jthornton@ucsd.edu "The spell just cannot wear off. The beautiful cinematography, the music, and the overall mystique of the series made it something that just cannot be ignored." jtodd1@cc.swarthmore.edu "Along with a few others, TP was one of the few good series to make it to television. I suppose it's futile longing for a return season that holds my attention, along with memories of how much I enjoyed the series." kkahar@uoguelph.ca "It is a very addictive show. It was just so original and it can still freak me out watching it for the nth time." kpierce@ux4.uiuc.cso.edu "Every time I watch I see new things and make new connections. Also, every now and then I see a movie or read a book which has a connection in it. And I'm a collector. It's great hunting down TP stuff. A month ago I found a TP calendar which had been sold out a few years ago and now I found one, and at a reasonable price, too. Imagine how happy I was. There's plenty of TP stuff to buy for the coming years." m.f.a.aarts@kub.nl "Nostalgia to the first time I saw particular scenes; still getting the creeps seeing some scenes again; ongoing fascination for the Black Lodge and what's behind it all; still discovering new things, both in the film and in the series; good TV shows and movies are rare--cherish the few." machiel@parabel.nikhefk.nikhef.nl "I still haven't seen all the episodes, and now they're available on tape and are being re-run on TV." madge@uclink.berkeley.edu "The discussions about it. Every time I watch it again--I taped everything--I like it. The conversations, the questions that rise." maroosma@cs.ruu.nl "The mood of fear and mysteriousness stays with me to this day. FIRE WALK WITH ME was one of my favorite movies for this reason. I guess I like to be unsettled (a character flaw perhaps?)." mattgrace@delphi.com "First off, I found the atmosphere of it all so stimulating! The music, the use of color, the various metaphors, and what not have never really lost their luster for me! I know a great deal about Laura and the Black Lodge and what not, but I can still watch the show and feel that same sense of trepidation, of mystery and threat! Plus, the characters and their interactions are an absolute joy to me; underneath all the bucking of TV cliche, the parodies, the allusions and the general weirdness of them, they still have a basic humanity to them that is inescapable. I would love to know these people in real life! O.K., maybe not Leo." mdean@athena.cs.uga.edu "It's such a collaborative show. The acting, writing, directing, cinematography, and music all were in such perfect combination, it's hard to single out one aspect." mrpug@ksu.ksu.edu "The dialogue kills. Every scene is beautiful to watch. And that strangely fascinating supernatural aspect that's missing from all other shows. Plus, I'm truly, madly, deeply addicted to the characters." trreku@uta.fi "No closure, great characters--perhaps the best of all time." umgarci4@cc.umanitoba.ca David Lynch loved to include obscure references to movies, books, TV shows, etc., in TWIN PEAKS episodes. What's the most interesing allusion/allegory/reference you've noticed in TWIN PEAKS? Different people noticed different things, proof that no two people view things in the same way, though a significant number cited the references to THE FUGITIVE as something that really stood out. "The whole idea of the `evil in the woods'." agwing@astro.ocis.temple.edu "I usually don't notice very many at all. Maybe Donna's younger sister's lines in the above-mentioned episode (`The best laid plans of mice and men', from Shakespeare)? Or `Ben and Jerry's'?" akloste1@cc.swarthmore.edu "Audrey's `Queen of Diamonds' outfit at One Eyed Jack's, which came from THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE." anniebw@aol.com "INVITATION TO LOVE, the soap everybody watched first season, is itself (as TP is) a mockery of soap operas--it was kind of cute. I heard somewhere the Black Lodge was derived from an old book that was the basis for some people's religion [theosophy]. But my favorite is when Truman (in the pilot) tells Dale's name to Dr. Jacoby: `This is Special Agent Dale Cooper.' `Gary Cooper?' `AGENT Cooper.'" brett_hendrie@magic.ca "The references to meaningful coincidences, a nod to a 1988 seminar on Synchronicity given by--I kid you not--ALBERT ROSENFELD." calvin.smith@acenet.com "THE FUGITIVE reference." coop@west.darkside.com "The mynah bird, Waldo. And Lydecker! They were first and last names of a character in an obscure movie called LAURA. It's oddly reminiscent of Laura Palmer." gancio46@potsdam.edu "All that stuff he took from old myths and legends, like the Black/White Lodge theme and the stuff with the owls. Plus all the small things you don't realize when you watch it for the first time, the really subtle things...songs, pictures, etc." i8040106@ws.rz.tu-bs.de "The One Armed Man--a nod to THE FUGITIVE--and all of the names used in the show." jonyag@xmission.com "Wow. That's a loaded question. My Literature background leads me towards over-analysis, and towards noticing tiny details/symbols/references/etc., so I don't know if I should get started. Right now, though, I'm interested in what I will term the `multi-personality'/`dual-identity' characters, be they cross-dressing men (Dennis Bryson), cross-dressing women (Catherine Martell), or just plain schizos (Ben Horne's civil war personality, for example)--especially in conjunction with Tibetan, or Buddhist, beliefs of reincarnation, etc." jthornton@ucsd.edu "The White Lodge/Black Lodge battle for power and dominance." jtodd1@cc.swarthmore.edu "The good/evil motif in general appealed to me most. During the second season finale, when they're figuring out the map, and eventually, find their way to the Black Lodge, the symbolism is just fascinating." kkahar@uoguelph.ca "I love Annie Blackburn with her red hair and often a red sweater, just like Little Orphan Annie." kpierce@ux4.uiuc.cso.edu "Probably the lodge/dweller on the threshold from Blavatsky and Fortune (theosophy). Note that this was not Lynch's doing but [co-producer] Mark Frost's. Like the favorite quotes, there are just so many to choose from." m.f.a.aarts@kub.nl "I never noticed a single one--I guess I don't know enough movies--except for references to his own films (the floor + the angel + the curtains in ERASERHEAD)." machiel@parabel.nikhefk.nikhef.nl "THE FUGITIVE nod with Philip Gerard." madge@uclink.berkeley.edu "In the first episode (1000) when Sarah Palmer runs up the stairs to find Laura, that shot (the stairs filmed from below) is exactly the same as in Hitchcock's PSYCHO." maroosma@cs.ruu.nl "None really that come to mind." mattgrace@delphi.com "I missed most of the allusions made in the show, I fear. I only caught THE FUGITIVE stuff and some of Lynch's references to his own work. I guess I laughed the hardest when I first realized that the floor in the Black Lodge was the same as that in the lobby of Henry's apartment in ERASERHEAD." mdean@athena.cs.uga.edu "Audrey calling herself Hester Prynne (from THE SCARLET LETTER) at One Eyed Jack's." mrpug@ksu.ksu.edu "None immediately spring to mind." trreku@uta.fi "Cooper getting shot at the end of the first season--`Who shot JR!'" umgarci4@cc.umanitoba.ca How often do you read alt.tv.twin-peaks? alt.tv.twin-peaks readers are nothing if not loyal. Many read it daily; all but three respondants read it at least weekly. "Several times a week, with an offline reader." agwing@astro.ocis.temple.edu "About twice a week." akloste1@cc.swarthmore.edu "About once a week. I'm trying to cut back." anniebw@aol.com "Every day." brett_hendrie@magic.ca "Daily since I subscribed." calvin.smith@acenet.com "Every day." coop@west.darkside.com. "As much as I can." gancio46@potsdam.edu "At least twice a week." i8040106@ws.rz.tu-bs.de "Daily." jonyag@xmission.com "Some of the time--which is why I'm sending this to you ten days after you posted it." jthornton@ucsd.edu "Daily." jtodd1@cc.swarthmore.edu "Several times weekly." kkahar@uoguelph.ca "Every other day or so." kpierce@ux4.uiuc.cso.edu "Every weekday; sometimes I check twice a day to see if there's anything new." m.f.a.aarts@kub.nl "Almost every day." machiel@parabel.nikhefk.nikhef.nl "When there is a sizable amount of posts." madge@uclink.berkeley.edu "At least 5 times a week." maroosma@cs.ruu.nl "I just got on the internet in November 1994, so I've been checking it out only since then. I'm glad it's there, though!" mattgrace@delphi.com "I read the newsgroup about every other day." mdean@athena.cs.uga.edu "Usually daily." mrpug@ksu.ksu.edu "While the show was on I read it every day. Now I just drop in to catch up every few weeks." trreku@uta.fi "Every weekday." umgarci4@cc.umanitoba.ca Perhaps the best summary of why readers of alt.tv.twin-peaks continue to patronize their group long after its series basis was cancelled came from Michael Dean (mdean@athena.cs.uga.edu). On TWIN PEAKS' basic themes, he says: Often, I've heard folks talk about how one of the big themes of TWIN PEAKS was the exposure of corruption underneath a placid exterior. I disagree with this assumption. I think the town was in fact a place of above-average innocence; rather, most of the corrupting elements came from outside. Sure, the town contained quite a bit of adultery, but the bigger evils, from the drug trade to BOB himself were all clearly outside elements. The most obvious metaphor for this was the Black Lodge, which was not reached from within the town at all, but from deep in the woods. The evil in the series almost always seemed to come from somewhere outside of the town: The Lodge itself, One Eyed Jack's, the train car, Jacques' cabin, Partyland, etc. Even Ben Horne and Leo Johnson were slightly outside, living a bit out in the woods. Laura was an excellent metaphor for the town in and of herself; pure at heart, but victimized by external evils to the point where they internalized some of that evil themselves. Appointment With Morpheus A TWIN PEAKS Short Story By Kimberly Murphy (Based On An Original Idea By Jerry Seward) Author's Note: After reading "Yin and Yang", Jerry pitched me an idea he had had running through his head: What if there was a being from the realm beyond that controlled dreaming--what would he think of the precognizant/clairvoyant F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper and his psychic dreams? I thought the idea was interesting but not quite what I had in mind for my next tale. But Jerry kept pressing what he thought was a great idea...and along the way, I finally found an angle on which I could hook a story: What if this dream being was angry at Cooper, not for his dreams, but for passing this ability on to his children? Welcome to TWIN PEAKS--the POWER STAR universe, where the year is 1989 (lifted directly from the series, where Laura Palmer was killed 24 February 1989), Diane is a real person (Cooper's partner and fraternal twin sister, F.B.I. Special Agent Diana Lee Cooper- Truman--known as Diane Cooper-Wilkins in previous stories), BOB is no longer tormenting Cooper and the Palmer family directly (courtesy of my cliffhanger resolution story, "Bridge Between Worlds", and my collaboration with J. Calvin Smith, "MEANWHILE..."), and love conquers all (with the marriage between Dale Cooper and Audrey Horne, described in "New Lives", and a between-story wedding of Diane Cooper-Wilkins and Sheriff Harry S. Truman, who have a baby on the way in May 1990). Those who have never read the POWER STAR version of the universe, Cooper's parents (described in THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF F.B.I. SPECIAL AGENT DALE COOPER) do not have names in the official universe, so I gave them names: Lee and Darlene Frost Cooper. Also, my version of Diane is different than canon only because (1) I don't believe that the "Diane" described in Cooper's autobiography could possibly the Diane in the series, and (2) it seems hard to believe that Cooper, a detail freak, cannot remember Diane's last name as he says in the autobiography. I wrote my version before the book was written, based on what we knew of Diane from the series and postulated her as Cooper's twin sister. I hope you will find my version enjoyable. Below is a list of cast members in this tale, with my additions to the cast marked with an (*). I hope you find the list helpful in picturing these characters. * * * * * * * * Kyle McLachlan . . . . . . . . F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Bartholomew Cooper Michael Ontkean. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sheriff Harry S. Truman Susan Anton (*). . . . . . . . F.B.I. Special Agent Diana Lee Cooper-Truman Sherilyn Fenn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Audrey Horne Cooper Madchen Amick. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shelly Simpson Johnson Catherine E. Coulson . . . . . . . . . . . Margaret Lanterman, The Log Lady Jonathan Frakes (*). . . . . . . . . . .Lee Cooper (40's, 50's, early 60's) Warren Frost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dr. Will Hayward Val Kilmer (*) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Morpheus Connie Sellecca (*). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Darlene Frost Cooper Carel Struycken. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .The Giant * * * * * * * * And now, without further ado, Jerry and I present "Appointment With Morpheus". We hope you enjoy it. And thank you for reading! Appointment With Morpheus A TWIN PEAKS Short Story By Kimberly Murphy (Based On An Original Idea By Jerry Seward) Darkness fell across Twin Peaks, bringing the stillness and mystery of night to life once more. The stars glittered across the black sky, a twinkling display on an onyx background. The cool, crisp November air seemed charged with the energy of the stars above. But in the realm of dreams, the darkness took on a sinister tone as the lights in the sky slowly extinguished, leaving only a faint moonglow...a glow that cast eerie auras around everything. But soon, even the backlit objects became less visible as the dark overwhelmed them...all except for one figure: A sinister- looking figure. An evil figure. A LIVING figure. The dark man looked hostile, animal-like, even as he was hidden in shadow. He kept moving closer, his anger becoming more and more palpable. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS," he hissed. "YOU CAN'T. IT'S GONE TOO FAR. I HAVE TO PUT A STOP TO THIS." Two strong-looking hands reached out of the shadows... "NO!" Audrey Horne Cooper screamed, sitting up in bed. "Audrey?" her husband, F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper, said, awakening suddenly. "NO!" she continued to scream, holding her stomach. "Audrey!" Dale called, taking her shoulders and shaking her. "Wake up!" Audrey blinked and looked at him, then fell into his arms, sobbing. He gently rocked her, holding her tight. "It's all right," he soothed. "You're safe. Tell me about it." "I...I don't remember," she said, crying. "I just know someone was reaching for me, and I couldn't get away..." Dale noticed she was still holding her stomach...as if she were protecting the child they had just discovered last week that she was carrying. His hand reached down to join hers on her abdomen. "Reaching for the baby?" Dale asked. She nodded. Damn you, BOB, Dale thought. You couldn't win against me directly...so now you're trying to go through my child, the way you finally destroyed my mother--scaring her to death as she felt she had to protect Diane and me from you. Audrey had stopped crying. But she was still trembling as she leaned against him. He kissed the top of her head. You won't win, BOB, he mentally vowed. I swear on the life of this child that I will NEVER let you win. "You didn't sleep well last night," Dale's partner and fraternal twin, F.B.I. Special Agent Diane Cooper-Truman--formerly Diane Cooper-Wilkins until her marriage to Sheriff Harry S. Truman a month before--commented as Dale climbed into the passenger's seat of her Dodge Caravan. "You should be a detective," Dale commented dryly as he fastened his seat belt while she backed out of the driveway at Dead Dog Farm. "Those dark circles under your eyes were my first clue," she returned, shifting into "DRIVE" and heading out for State Highway 21 on the way to Spokane and another day of work at the F.B.I. "There's a tape for you next to your coffee cup." "Thanks," Dale said, picking up the travel mug and the tape and depositing a microcassette tape next to her mug. Diane picked up his tape and pocketed it, then picked up her own mug and took a sip. She made a face at the cup. "I hate decaf," the mother-to-be commented. "So you've told me," Dale replied, sipping his own coffee. "You are in a foul mood this morning, aren't you?" "Sorry. Bad night last night." "So I gathered. Want to talk about it?" He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Audrey's been having nightmares." "What kind of nightmares?" "She can't remember. She just knows someone she can't see is reaching for her and she can't escape." Diane stiffened suddenly. "Reaching for the baby?" He nodded. Diane suddenly turned off the highway into a driveway, then backed up and headed back toward town. "What are you doing?" Dale asked. "You and I are calling in sick today," she replied, her eyes focused intently on the road. "What?" "We're not going in. I've got to talk to Audrey and find out more about her dream." He looked confused. "Why?" She swallowed hard. "Because it sounds exactly like a dream I've had for the past three nights." He looked at her, confusion now replaced by fear. She met his gaze for a moment. Her eyes showed the same fear. Audrey was sitting at the kitchen table, forcing herself to eat the breakfast her stomach did not want but her growing baby desperately needed, when she heard the sound of keys rattling at the side door. "Dale?" she called, turning toward the door. Dale and Diane quickly entered the kitchen, each wearing identical stern expressions. Dale quickly offered his wife a gentle smile to ease her anxiety. "Hi, sweetheart," he said, coming over and kissing the top of her head. "Hi, Audrey," Diane said, lifting the receiver and hastily dialing a number. "Is something wrong?" Audrey asked. Dale hesitated with his answer. "Diane's not feeling well," he lied. "So why is she here? And why aren't you on your way to work?" "I was worried about you." "Dale..." Diane depressed the switchhook and dialed another number. "He's on his way," she said as she listened to the ringing on the other end. "I'm calling us in sick." "Thanks," he called back to her. "Dale!" Audrey snapped. "I demand to know what's going on here! Who's on his way? And why are you both calling in sick?" Dale sat down at the table next to her and took her hand. "We have to talk," he said finally. "About what?" "About the dream you had last night. And the night before that. And the night before that." "I already told you, I don't remember anything." "I think you do, somewhere in the depths of your mind. But it may need some help coming to the surface." "Look, why is this so important that you're taking off work? You have dreams all the time." "And sometimes they have messages buried in them. Audrey...I don't think this was just a dream, otherwise you wouldn't have had it three nights in a row. I think someone is trying to send you a message through a subconscious gateway." Audrey looked confused. "You mean send you a message." He shook his head. She laughed nervously. "This is crazy," she remarked. "I don't have psychic dreams. I mean, it's impossible, right?" "Let's go in the living room," Diane said, coming over to the table. "I think there's something about us you probably ought to know." Dale helped Audrey to her feet and led her into the living room, where they took a seat together on the couch. Diane took a seat in the recliner, carefully smoothing her dress over her rapidly-growing abdomen as she folded her hands across it. "What is going on here?" Audrey asked, insistent. "Why are you two being so mysterious? What is it I don't know?" Dale and Diane looked at each other. Finally, Diane leaned forward. "Audrey," she began, "you know we got our dreaming ability from our mother." Audrey nodded. "Mom was a very strong dreamer," Diane continued. "She had...incredible dreams. One of them was a dream about me before I was born. You see, there hadn't been a Cooper girl in many generations--but she knew she was going to have a girl when she was told in a dream." "But she had twins," Audrey interjected. "A girl and a boy," Dale nodded. "An unexpected bonus." "But she had several more dreams about us before we were born," Diane continued. "Dale and I didn't know much of this until after she died and we found some old diaries. She never told Dad." "Dad didn't know much about Mom's dreams," Dale added. "He always told us we understood her better than he did. But she kept a lot of her dreams to herself...trying to protect us." "But what does this have to do with me?" Audrey asked. "One of the dreams she wrote about repeatedly," Diane said, hesitating, "was one where someone reached out of the darkness and tried to grab her very-pregnant stomach." Audrey began to shake. "Oh, my God," she whispered. The sound of a siren in the driveway interrupted their conversation. "I'll get it," Diane offered, rising to her feet. She headed for the front door and opened it. Harry met her on the porch. They shared a quick kiss. "I got here as fast as I could," Harry said. "What's up?" "Come on in," Diane said, stepping aside. "You'll want to hear about this. Harry stepped inside. "Hey, Audrey...Coop," he greeted, then helped Diane sit back into the recliner again. "What's this all about?" "Sit down, Harry," Dale said. "We were discussing nightmares." Harry sat down on the arm of Diane's chair and took her hand. "Go on," he said. Dale turned to Audrey and took her hands in his. "Audrey, I know you're scared," he said soothingly, "but it's important for you to remember exactly what you dreamed...for all our sakes." "I want to...," she began. "I know," he said, placing a finger against her lips. "But you're having trouble remembering. I can help you. But you have to trust me. Do you?" She nodded. He stroked her cheek gently. "I know you do." He lifted her left hand and kissed it, then traced his index finger across her wedding ring and diamond solitaire. "Remember the night I gave you this?" he said, indicating the solitaire. She laughed slightly. "Hard to forget," she replied. "It was quite a night." He laughed along with her. "That it was." He slipped the diamond off her finger. "You know, a diamond is a remarkable thing. Just look at it." He held the ring up at her eye level so the stone caught the sunlight coming in through the window. "You know, this beautiful rare gem started out life as an ancient sea plant. A beautiful green sea plant that eventually died and sank to the bottom of the ocean and got pressed down below the surface." He began to twist the ring between his fingers slowly so its facets twinkled in the sunlight. "And when the waters receded, and the ocean bottom turned into a land mass, it got pressed harder and harder...and deeper and deeper...until it became a layer of coal...that got pressed tighter and tighter by the weight of the world above it until it became a brilliant, polished diamond, shining and glistening in the light and sparkling on the end of a beautiful woman's finger." He stopped talking and looked into her eyes. Audrey's eyes were completely glazed over, hypnotized by Dale's quiet voice and effective technique. Dale turned businesslike immediately. "Can you hear me, Audrey?" he asked. "Yes," she said in a monotone. "All right. I want you to think about the dream you had last night. I want you to think about it and see it all as if you were watching a movie." He paused. "Can you see it?" "Yes," she said, nodding. "Tell me what you see." She looked off in the distance. "It's very dark. The sky is filled with stars. They look like candles on a cake. But they're going out...one by one...until only the moon is left. Everything looks so weird." "How?" "Everything is dark, but it's like there's a glow outlining everything. There's this man...he's in shadow, but the glow is really bright around him. He's standing over the bed...there's a man and a woman lying there together. He's moving closer...She wakes up and sees him. She reaches over to wake her husband, but he's gone. The man keeps moving closer." "Can you see his face?" "No. It's too dark, and the glow's too bright. But he's big, and dark, and threatening...and he sounds terrible." "Stay calm, Audrey. You're just watching it happen. What's he saying?" "He's saying, you can't do this...you can't. It's gone too far. He keeps saying, I have to put a stop to this." Audrey began to shake. "He's reaching for her...he says he has to stop this before it goes any further...oh, God, he's reaching for the baby..." "This has gone far enough," Dale decided aloud. "Audrey, I'm going to bring you out. I want you to take a deep breath and close your eyes. When you hear me snap my fingers, I want you to wake up and remember what you've told me. Close your eyes." Audrey closed her eyes, still trembling violently. Dale snapped his fingers next to her ear. Audrey stopped shaking and blinked, then looked at Dale. "Are you all right?" he asked. She shook her head. "What's happening to me?" she asked fearfully. He took her in his arms and held her tightly. Diane could feel herself shaking. Harry's arms went around her shoulders instantly. Dale looked over at his sister, his eyes questioning. Diane nodded in reply to his unspoken query. Dale sighed hard and hugged Audrey even tighter. Harry watched the wordless exchange between the Cooper twins and pounded his fist against his thigh angrily. "Dammit," he said frustratedly, "I know you two don't need words, but the rest of us do! What the Hell is going on here? Why is she describing Diane's dream?" Audrey turned to Diane, her expression filled with fearful surprise. "You had this dream?" she asked her sister-in-law. Diane nodded. "I didn't want to say anything until I knew for sure," she replied. "I've had this dream for the past three nights...the man comes out of the darkness and reaches for me and says this has to stop before it goes any farther. Then, he reaches for my stomach--and I wake up screaming for Harry." "This is too weird," Audrey said softly. "This is really too weird." Harry looked at Dale. "Coop, did you know about this?" he asked. "I knew Audrey was having nightmares," Dale replied, "but I didn't know the content until now. And I had no idea Diane was going through the same thing." He looked skyward. "And that bothers me." Harry thought about it for a moment. "Maybe you weren't meant to." Dale looked confused. "What do you mean?" "Maybe this dream isn't meant for you. Maybe it's meant for Diane and Audrey." "Or our children," Diane said, the realization hitting her. "Mom," Dale agreed. "She had the same type of dream." Diane shook her head. "She had the same dream." "How do you know?" "I went back and re-read the entries Mom wrote about her dreams before we were born. Dale, it's the same dream Audrey described...the same dream we've both been having for three nights." "And you and I are having the same dream because we're both carrying Cooper children," Audrey deduced. "Frost children, actually," Diane said. "Special dreaming comes down through the Frost line--Mom's family. And the same thing that Mom saw in her dreams is after our children now--just like it was after us!" "BOB?" Harry asked. "I don't know," Diane replied. "I've never seen BOB." "But you were in the Black Lodge..." "But I didn't see BOB there," Diane reminded him. "Or, at least, I didn't see his true face." "She saw Steve's face," Dale added, the memory chilling him and angering him simultaneously. "And my face." "That means you're the only one who's ever seen BOB," Harry told Dale. "And I didn't have the dream, so I don't know if it was him or not," Dale frowned frustratedly. Audrey clutched Dale's hands tightly. "So what do we do?" she asked. "I can't go on like this...I'm afraid to fall asleep..." "I know," Dale said. "And the first thing we've all got to do is calm down. Now, you've got a doctor's appointment today, so you'd better get dressed. I'll take you to lunch at the Double-R afterward." He looked up at Harry and Diane. "I think the best thing for all of us would be to take some time, collect our thoughts, and get a new perspective on this. Whatever happens, we have to stick together...for the sake of our children." Harry and Diane nodded and came over to join Dale and Audrey at the sofa. They all joined hands and looked at each other...four lives joined by bonds of blood, bonds of law, and bonds of love. "How are you feeling, Audrey?" Dr. Will Hayward said as he placed his stethoscope under the hospital gown in the center of her chest. "Fat," she complained. He laughed. "You think you feel fat now, just wait a couple of months. You'll wish you were this size. How do you feel, really?" "Tired," she admitted. "I'm...not sleeping well." "That's not unusual." He moved the stethoscope to the middle of her back. "Deep breath." She did so. "Good," he said. "How's your stomach?" "Uncooperative. I feel nauseous all the time." "Also not unusual. I'm going to start you on pre-natal vitamins so neither of you starves just because you don't feel like eating. Now, lay down and let me feel your abdomen." She lay down on the examining table. "Doctor, are nightmares normal during pregnancy?" she asked. "Sometimes. Usually it's just anxiety that causes them. I'm sure you're more than a little nervous about being pregnant." "Yeah," she giggled nervously. "It's kind of a scary thought." Will gently pressed on her abdomen. "Your uterus is getting bigger," he said. "Means your baby's growing." "Then why don't I feel anything moving?" "Audrey, you're barely two months along--only about ten weeks. You won't feel anything for at least another month." He probed her stomach again. Dale, sitting off to the side, noticed. "Is something wrong?" he asked. "Probably not," Will said. "She's just a little bigger than I'd expect her to be at ten weeks. Either I miscalculated, or you're going to have a good size baby. Audrey, are you sure you weren't already pregnant when you got married?" "Positive," Audrey replied. "I always know when I ovulate because I feel a sharp pain in my side when it happens. I ovulated the day after the wedding." "Then you must be going to have a really big baby." "Maybe a giant," she teased, glancing at Dale. "Let's hope not," Dale laughed. "I'd like to think I'm the father." Will smiled. "Let's have a listen and see if we can hear this little guy in there," he remarked, placing his stethoscope on Audrey's abdomen and listening carefully. He moved the stethoscope around to either side of her tummy and frowned as he did so. "What is it?" Dale asked. "I'm not picking up anything," Will replied. "What?" Audrey asked. "My baby..." "Calm down," Will reassured. "I'm sure your baby is just fine. It may just be too soon to hear anything. The baby's heart's got to be big enough for its pulse to be audible over yours, and sometimes that doesn't happen this soon." "But you said I'm bigger than you thought I should be." "Audrey, relax. I'm sure you're fine, and I'm sure your baby's fine. You're not showing signs of a miscarriage--no pain, no bleeding, no uterine spasms. There's a couple of explanations as to why I'm having trouble hearing a heartbeat. Your baby could still be too small to have an audible pulse, even with you being bigger than normal at this stage, or it could just be turned wrong so that I can't find it easily. Your abdominal muscles may be so thick and firm that they don't allow sound to penetrate easily. Or, most likely, given your husband's genetics, you're expecting twins." Audrey and Dale looked at each other. "Twins," Audrey whispered. "It's definitely a possibility," Will said. "Identical and fraternal twins run in both your families." A frightening thought suddenly occurred to Audrey. "Your mother's dream," she said to Dale. "Beg pardon?" asked Will. Dale thought quickly. "My mother didn't realize she was pregnant with twins," he covered. "She had lots of dreams about a daughter--but none about another child." "Well, at this stage, it's really just a guess. A sonogram won't show anything, and I can't find a fetal heartbeat because the pulse isn't strong enough. I can run a battery of tests, but it's too soon for a lot of them to be accurate. What I suggest is that we wait until you come back in a couple of weeks and try again to find a heartbeat. This could be much ado about nothing...but I think you ought to be prepared for the possibility of twins." He patted Audrey's hand gently. "My dear, you are perfectly healthy. Let's keep you and your baby that way. Go ahead and get dressed, and you can pick up your prescription for the pre-natal vitamins on the way out." "Thanks, Doc," Dale called as Will left the examining room. Audrey looked at Dale. "Dale...the dream...your mom had this dream when she was pregnant with you and Diane," she said. "I know," Dale said. "What are we going to do?" For that, Dale had no reply. He took her left hand and gripped it tightly between his hands, trying to calm her and himself at the same time. Harry and Diane walked slowly around Easter Park, bundled against the November wind coming off the pond. Harry's arm was wrapped around his wife's waist, his hand resting gently on her pregnant belly, absently stroking its growing roundness. "Penny for your thoughts," Diane said. Harry smiled slightly. "You mean you can't read them?" he teased. "I can't even read Dale's. I just know what he's feeling." She paused. "And I can guess what you're feeling." Harry sighed hard. "I feel so damned helpless. I don't understand what's going on here. Before I met you two, I'd never heard of psychic dreams or empathic bonds or anything like that...and now, I'm in the middle of some kind of psychic war zone that's threatening our baby." "Babies," Diane said. He let out a slight laugh. "Maybe," he said. "We'll find out next week when Doc Hayward does the sonogram." Diane rubbed her stomach. "Babies," she repeated. "I feel certain. Mom said she didn't have any dreams when she was pregnant with Emmet. But she had strong ones when she was pregnant with Dale and me." She paused. "I hadn't thought about it until now." "Does your brother dream? I mean, your older brother." She shook her head. "He used to think we were weird...especially me. I started dreaming first." "Cooper didn't?" "No. He didn't dream his first special dream until a few months later. My first dream was when I was eight years old. It was about my grandfather Frost. I felt this cold fog surrounding us, engulfing both of us, choking us down--and then, suddenly, he was gone. I woke up screaming. Two days later, my grandfather, Dale Frost, died suddenly of pneumonia." "What was Cooper's first dream?" "Dale had asthma as a child really bad. There were lots of nights where Mom sat up with him and nursed him through fits of gasping and choking. One night he screamed in a fevered delirium for Mom and kept telling her to run faster. When he woke up, he said he'd dreamed a man he couldn't see was chasing Mom and caught her--and they both disappeared in an explosion of fire." Harry looked at her. "BOB," he realized. "I suppose so," she nodded. "Dale could always see things better than I could. But he never remembered how it felt--the mood, the temperature, the feelings surrounding him. We almost never had the same dreams as kids--but when we did, he always remembered the details and I remembered the sensations." She shook her head. "Now, it seems like we have more unison dreams than separate ones. Interesting how we've both changed." "Could you see each other in your dreams as kids?" "Sometimes. Mostly we felt the extremes of each other's emotions. We still do...only now, the extremes don't have to be so extreme. But sometimes, Harry, it's like our minds are connected. And when that happens...we both get chilled by it. It really is like Hawk said that one time--we really are two souls sharing one life, with a bond joining our hearts, minds, and destinies." Harry sighed hard. "And sometimes that's hard for me to understand," he confessed. "And hard for Audrey, too. I know. Dale and I have talked about it on tape a lot. But both of you are so important to us. Harry, I don't know what I would do without you. You've brought love back into my life again, made me feel safe, and given me the chance to give you a child. I need you to help me get through this." Harry chuckled ironically. "How?" "The forces trying to hurt the Cooper children feed off fear and hate. The only way to counteract that is through love. I need your love, Harry. I need your love to fill me and protect me...to protect our baby." Harry's hand caressed her belly. "Babies," he corrected. She laughed at the tension breaker. He took her in his arms. "God, I'm glad I married you," he said, drawing her into a loving kiss. The short-order cook at the Double-R slapped the counter bell as he put an order on the shelf between the kitchen and the restaurant. Shelly Johnson swept by and picked up the two hot plates in one swift motion. She then headed out from behind the counter to one of the wall booths, where Dale and Audrey sat waiting for lunch. "Here you go," Shelly said, setting the two orders in front of her customers. "Two meatloaf specials with mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans." "Thank you, Shelly," Dale said. "Could I get a refill on my coffee?" "Sure." She turned to Audrey. "Would you like another milk, Audrey?" "No," Audrey replied. "But I'd better have one. Thanks, Shelly." Shelly looked sympathetic. "Not feeling so good?" Audrey scowled, then fixed Dale with a mock-angry look. "If men had to be pregnant," she said, "the human race would die out in one generation." "Which is why God created women," Dale replied, smiling a self-righteous grin. Shelly laughed. "One coffee and one milk coming up," she said as she turned and headed back toward the counter. Dale picked up his fork and took a bite of his food. Audrey looked at her plate and frowned. Dale noticed. "You have to eat, Audrey," he said. "I'm not hungry," she replied. "No, but the baby is. And he'll feed off of you if you don't put some food in there for him." "I know. It's just so hard...my stomach is upset all the time." "And worrying doesn't help matters." "No." He reached across the table and took her hand. His thumb lovingly stroked her skin. "It's going to be all right, Audrey." She looked at him. "I believe you." "Good." He released her hand, then reached across with the other hand and picked up her fork. He stabbed the fork into the meatloaf on her plate, cutting off a bite, then raised it to her lips. "Open wide," he cajoled. She giggled, then ate the bite he offered. "Good girl," he said. She reached across the table, took his fork off his plate, and scooped up a small bite of mashed potatoes from his plate. Then, she lifted it toward his lips. He leaned forward to take the bite. She suddenly pulled away from him and ate the bite herself. He broke into a boyish grin. "Sneak," he teased. The sound of footsteps stopping at the table interrupted their whimsical meal. They both looked up. Margaret Lanterman, The Log Lady, was standing beside their booth, cradling her Ponderosa Pine log and looking like a stern schoolteacher. "You're playing with your food," she scolded. "And enjoying it," Audrey retorted. "What's wrong with that?" Margaret ignored Audrey and turned to Dale. "My log has something to tell you," she continued. Dale immediately tensed. As eccentric as Margaret was, she was also a liaison between the White Lodge residents and this realm. If "the log" had a message for him, it meant someone from the other side was trying to reach him. But in order to get the answer, he had to ask in a way that would not offend her--which meant he had to address the log, if that was what she wanted. "May I ask it?" Dale queried. "It does not need to be asked," Margaret replied. "I will translate." She stroked the log as one would stroke a baby, leaning close and seemingly intently listening to it. "The gateway is open," she said hesitantly, then listened to the log again. "You have...an appointment with Morpheus." Audrey turned pale. She knew enough about the psychic realm to understand what "the gateway is open" meant--it meant someone from the other side wanted to talk to Dale. She looked at him anxiously. Dale was not looking at either one of them. He was instead looking off in the distance, lost in thought. "An appointment with Morpheus," he repeated in a reverent whisper. "An appointment with Morpheus?" Harry said. Dale nodded. "That's what Margaret said," he replied, taking a sip of his coffee as the Coopers and Trumans gathered once more at Dale's home, Dead Dog Farm. Diane leaned back in her chair. "Morpheus," she said. "The Greek god of dreams." "So what does it mean?" Harry asked. "It means someone wants to talk to Dale," Audrey said, frustratedly leaning against the corner cushions on the sofa. "It could mean any number of things," Dale replied. "It could mean I'm going to have the same dream you two have been having. It could be a message to alert me to an impending visit from The Giant. Or it could mean that someone from the other side that I haven't met yet wants to talk to me." "Or it could mean that the Black Lodge is trying to trick you again," Diane cautioned. Dale shook his head. "They can't trick me anymore," he said. "I'm beyond their tricks." "But we both know they'll never stop trying." "And we'll never stop fighting." He paused. "Which means I'd better keep my appointment with Morpheus." "How?" Audrey asked. "I've been thinking about that," Dale said, setting his mug down on the coffee table. "It's obvious that this message is going to come to me through a sleeping dream, not a waking vision. Which means I need to fall asleep." "So you want us to leave while you take a nap?" Harry asked. Dale shook his head. "Relying on a random sleeping pattern to aid me is too risky. I need some help getting to sleep." "Sleeping pills?" Audrey asked. Dale shook his head. "Sleeping pills impede dreaming. No, I need to naturally fall asleep--but I need to be guaranteed that I'm going to do so." He looked at Diane. "Diane, I want you to hypnotize me and make me go to sleep." Diane nodded. "Makes sense," she replied. "The trick's going to be getting you under. You're awfully keyed up." "I know. But it's the only way." "So, when do you want to start?" "Right now." He shed his suitcoat and handed it to Audrey, then removed his gunbelt and handed it to her as well. He then turned to face her. "Audrey, I need to stretch out," he said. She nodded and got up off the couch. He slipped off his shoes, then loosened his tie and leaned back on the corner cushions and stretched out nearly horizontal across the sofa. "Harry, can I borrow your medallion?" Diane asked. Harry removed his necklace and handed it to her, then helped her out of the armchair and to her feet. Diane walked over to the couch and started to sit on the edge of the cushions, then thought better of it and took a seat on the coffee table. "I'm getting too wide to share a cushion with anyone," Diane smiled. "Just don't break my coffee table," Dale teased back. They both laughed, then simultaneously reached out their right hands and joined their pinkies, linking their matching rings in a symbolic representation of their symbiotic bond. "Good luck," she said. "I'll need it," Dale replied. They broke the link. Diane took a deep breath and looked skyward as if offering a silent prayer, then turned back to her brother. "All right, Dale. I want you to clear your mind and relax. Take a minute, get a deep breath, and let me know when you're ready." Dale nodded and closed his eyes, adjusted his position on the couch, then opened his eyes again and looked at her. "O.K.," Diane said. "Now, I want you to concentrate on listening to me. Let everything else go. Focus on the gleam of this medallion and the sound of my voice." She lifted the medallion just above his eye level. "Focus. There is nothing but the medallion and the sound of my voice." She began to twist the medallion slightly so its surface twinkled as the room lights struck it. "Focus. Hear nothing else. See nothing else." Her voice grew softer as she spoke. "Focus. When I count to three, you will completely relax. One...two...three." Dale's eyes glazed over completely. Diane lowered the medallion. "Can you hear me, Dale?" she asked. "Yes," he said in a monotone. "All right. Do you remember what you wanted to do?" "Go to sleep." "Other than that." "To keep an appointment with Morpheus." "Good. I'm going to count to three. When I reach three, you will fall asleep naturally...and wake up on your own naturally when your appointment is over. And when it is over, you will remember everything that happened in your dream as clearly as if you were wide awake. Do you understand?" "Yes." "All right. One...two...three." Dale's eyes closed. His breathing became deeper and more rhythmic. Diane moved her hand in front of his face. Dale never moved. Diane looked up at the anxious faces of her husband and sister-in-law. "He's asleep," she announced. Audrey nodded and clutched at his coat nervously. The room was quiet. Too quiet. Dale opened his eyes and looked around. He was lying on the couch in his own darkened living room...alone. There was no sign of Harry, Diane, or Audrey. He sat up, then got to his feet and began to walk through the dark house. His bedroom door at the end of the hallway was strangely closed. But there was a faint glow coming from under the door. Dale opened the door. The flash of light that exploded out of the room nearly blinded him. But his eyes quickly adjusted as he forced himself to look into the glare. There was nothing in this room resembling his bedroom. Instead, he was in a large chamber. And the knob his hand was resting on had become the handle of a wrought iron gate. "THE GATEWAY IS OPEN," he whispered aloud. "BUT UNDER PROTEST," came an angry masculine voice from beyond the glare. Dale looked around, startled. "WHO WAS THAT?" he called back. "NEVER MIND," the angry voice replied. "STATE YOUR BUSINESS." "I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT WITH MORPHEUS." Silence greeted his statement. Then, a shadowy animal-like figure silhouetted by the brilliant light materialized in front of him. Dale forced himself to stand firm. THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR, he told himself. YOU ARE HERE ON A MISSION. YOU ARE HERE TO PROTECT YOUR FUTURE. The figure moved closer...until his face became clear. Dale did not recognize him. This was not BOB. He was instead a young man, dark-haired and roguishly handsome. His eyes gleamed with the wisdom of the ages, the arrogance of foreknowledge, and the mischief of a little boy. "I WASN'T EXPECTING YOU SO SOON," the man said. "BUT AT LEAST YOU KEPT YOUR APPOINTMENT...EVEN IF YOU DID BARGE IN AS USUAL." "WHO ARE YOU?" Dale asked. "I THINK THAT'S QUITE OBVIOUS," the man retorted. "BUT I'LL INDULGE YOU." He gestured with a flourish toward the chamber. "I AM MORPHEUS. WELCOME TO MY REALM...THE REALM OF DREAMS." Harry poured coffee for himself, Audrey, and Diane, then joined the ladies at the kitchen table in Dead Dog Farm. He took a sip of the coffee, then made a face. "I hate decaf," he said. "You sound just like Dale," Audrey commented. "I think the only reason he puts up with decaf in the morning is because he knows he can get a real cup when he gets to work." She looked toward the living room, where Dale was asleep on the couch, attempting to keep the appointment The Log Lady had told him about- -an appointment with someone called Morpheus. Diane followed her sister-in-law's gaze. "He'll be fine, Audrey," Diane told her. "I keep telling myself that," Audrey replied. "I know." She turned to Harry. "Honey, why don't you go back to work? With Lucy being on maternity leave, the station's probably a zoo." "We've got a Can-Do temp," he replied. "And Andy and Hawk aren't totally helpless...though Andy's been more high-strung than usual since his son was born. But they know where I am and they'll call me if they need anything. Right now, I need to be here supporting the people I love, not sitting in my office worrying about them." "I'd better unplug the phone in the living room," Audrey suddenly said. "If they do call you, it'll wake him up." She got up from her chair and headed into the other room. Diane watched her go. "She's so scared," Diane observed quietly. "Can you blame her?" Harry replied. Diane shook her head. "I know exactly how she feels." Harry reached over and took her hand. She clasped her other hand over his, holding it tightly. Audrey entered the living room and unplugged the telephone on the end table next to Dale's head. Then, she looked at her husband as he lay sleeping on the sofa. Dale had hardly moved since Diane had put him to sleep through hypnotic suggestion. But his expression was tense. It was an expression Audrey recognized. Dale was dreaming. And the dream was intense, from the stress showing on his face. She sat down in the recliner next to the sofa and closed her eyes in silent prayer. Please, God, she thought, protect him. Keep him safe and bring him back to me...to our children. In the realm of dreams, Dale looked at the strange man standing before him. "YOU ARE MORPHEUS?" he asked. "YOU SOUND SURPRISED," Morpheus replied in the arrogant tone he had used from the moment Dale had entered the realm. "YOU WERE EXPECTING A GIANT, PERHAPS? OR A DWARF? OR SOME LONG-HAIRED DEMON IN DENIM?" "DO YOU KNOW THEM?" "THEY'RE FARTHER UP THE CHAIN. I SEE THEM EVERY NOW AND THEN. THEY PASS THROUGH MY GATEWAY ON THEIR WAY OUT." "YOUR GATEWAY?" "OH, THAT'S RIGHT. YOU'RE DARLENE FROST'S KID. YOU AND YOUR SISTER THINK YOU OWN THIS GATEWAY." Morpheus' arrogance was growing irritating, Dale decided. "YOU SENT FOR ME," Dale reminded him. "SO I DID," Morpheus replied. "COME ON. LET'S TALK." He turned and began walking down the long corridor. Dale never moved. Morpheus turned back and shot him an irritated glare. "COME ON, COOPER," he said. "THIS ISN'T THE BLACK LODGE--I DON'T WANT YOUR SOUL. I'M NOT GOING TO PLAY ON YOUR DEEPEST, DARKEST FEARS. I JUST WANT TO TALK. WE NEED TO GET A FEW THINGS STRAIGHT. NOW, COME ON." He started walking down the corridor again. Dale slowly followed. It was hard to walk in this realm. Dale felt like his shoes weighed a thousand pounds each as he forced himself forward down the unending hallway. "HAVING TROUBLE?" Morpheus asked. "IT FEELS LIKE I'M WALKING THROUGH CEMENT," Dale replied. "TIME HAS NO MEANING IN THIS REALM. LIFETIMES PASS BY IN HERE IN A FEW SECONDS OF `REAL TIME'. THAT'S WHY YOU'RE HAVING TROUBLE MOVING. THAT'S WHY PEOPLE FEEL LIKE THEY'RE `TRAPPED' IN DREAMS WHERE THEY CAN'T ESCAPE." "THAT'S WHAT I WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT." "I KNOW." Morpheus gestured toward one of the walls. "STEP INTO MY OFFICE, COOPER." Dale looked at the wall. It was blank. He looked back at Morpheus. "SOMETHING WRONG?" Morpheus asked. Dale looked at the wall again. There was now an elegant mahogany door in front of him. "ARE YOU ENJOYING PLAYING GAMES?" Dale asked sarcastically. "I ALWAYS ENJOY MANIPULATING PEOPLE'S IMPRESSIONS OF REALITY IN HERE," Morpheus replied. "BUT I HAVE TO WORK HARDER THAN USUAL TO MANIPULATE YOURS." He gestured toward the door. Dale looked back at his sinister-looking host. "SUSPICIOUS, AREN'T YOU?" Morpheus said, then opened the door and stepped inside. Dale followed. He was now in the stereotype of an executive's office-- mahogany paneling and executive desk, leather chairs, endless bookcases, and a wall of portraits--including an intricately-carved 16x20 wooden picture frame that was empty. "IMPRESSIVE FOR AN ILLUSION," Dale noted. "I TRY," Morpheus responded, sitting down in his chair behind his desk. "SIT DOWN. LET'S TALK." Dale reluctantly sat down in the chair across from the desk. "YOU'RE THE MAN IN AUDREY AND DIANE'S DREAMS," he said. "SCORE ONE FOR JUNIOR G-MAN," Morpheus answered. Dale frowned. "YOUR ARROGANCE IS IRRITATING." "NOT HALF AS IRRITATING AS YOURS." "I DON'T FOLLOW." "OF COURSE YOU DON'T. YOU WERE NEVER TAUGHT RESPECT FOR THIS REALM." "YOU KEEP SAYING THAT. WHAT DO YOU MEAN? I'VE ALWAYS BEEN VERY ATTENTIVE TO MY DREAMS." Morpheus looked at him. "YOU REALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND, DO YOU?" Dale was tired of this game. He leaned forward and looked Morpheus in the eye. "I DIDN'T COME HERE TO PLAY WORD GAMES WITH YOU. I CAME HERE TO PROTECT MY WIFE AND CHILD. NOW, I WANT ANSWERS. WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL MY CHILD?" Morpheus looked offended. "I DON'T WANT TO KILL YOUR CHILD!" "THAT'S NOT THE IMPRESSION YOU'VE GIVEN MY WIFE. SHE'S TERRIFIED." "YOUR WIFE SCARES EASILY...UNLIKE YOUR SISTER. OR YOUR MOTHER." The realization hit dale. "YOU WERE THE ONE IN MY MOTHER'S DREAMS." "THAT'S TWO POINTS," Morpheus said. "YOU'RE ON A ROLL." Dale forced himself to stay in control. "IF YOU WEREN'T TRYING TO KILL MY CHILD, OR DIANE'S, OR US THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, THEN JUST WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO DO?" "TEACH A FUTURE GENERATION RESPECT." "THERE'S THAT PHRASE AGAIN. RESPECT FOR WHAT?" "FOR THE RULES! COOPER, THERE ARE RULES IN THIS REALM--RULES YOU AND YOUR SISTER AND EVERY OTHER FROST DREAMER HAVE VIOLATED FROM THE MOMENT YOU FIRST USED YOUR `SPECIAL DREAMS'!" Now Dale was offended. "MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME RESPECT FOR DREAMING. SHE TAUGHT ME TO PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT I ENCOUNTERED ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS GATEWAY. SHE TAUGHT ME THAT DREAMS WERE A WAY TO EXPERIENCE THINGS THE FIVE SENSES COULDN'T DETECT." For a moment, Morpheus just looked at Dale. Then, he rose from his seat and began to pace the room. "AH, YES," he said. "YOUR MOTHER. DARLENE AMANDA FROST. I REMEMBER HER WELL. SHE USED TO TEAR DOWN THIS CORRIDOR LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL SOME NIGHTS, PAYING NO HEED TO MY PROTESTS. SHE USED TO DRIVE US ALL CRAZY, SEEING THINGS SHE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO AND REACHING BEYOND WHERE SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO STOP." He stopped at the picture frame and stroked its edge. The interior of the frame began to glow as a plasma-like mass of energy and light took form inside the frame. Dale watched as the picture the plasma was forming came into focus. "LEE?" his mother's voice echoed through the room. Dale jumped, startled by the sound. The portrait inside the frame was now a living window into the past. Dale recognized the lovely dark-haired young woman walking down the street, holding hands with a tall, handsome, dark-haired young man. "MOM," he whispered. "THEY MADE SUCH A CUTE COUPLE," Morpheus said. "THE SWEET LITTLE MUSIC TEACHER AND THE LONELY, RESTLESS, ECCENTRIC PRINTER." Dale watched his father and mother walking together. "WHEN IS THIS?" he asked. "MAY 9, 1947. THE NIGHT BEFORE THEIR WEDDING." Dale found his attention riveted to the psychic home movie. "WHAT IS IT, DARLENE?" Lee asked his bride-to-be. Darlene smiled nervously at him. "LEE, DO YOU BELIEVE IN FATE?" He smiled. "NOT REALLY. I BELIEVE EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON--BUT I DON'T BELIEVE IN FATE PER SE." "I DO." She giggled even more nervously. "YOU'RE GOING TO THINK THIS IS SILLY." Lee held up his right hand. "DARLENE, I SWEAR I WON'T." "O.K." She paused. "I HAD A DREAM THE NIGHT BEFORE YOU PROPOSED." "HOPEFULLY, NOT A NIGHTMARE." "NO, NO. IT WAS A DREAM. A GOOD DREAM. I DREAMED THAT YOU AND I WERE LIVING TOGETHER IN A HOUSE JUST LIKE ONE OF THESE"--she gestured about her--"WITH A HOUSE FULL OF KIDS. I FELT SO AT PEACE...SO HAPPY...SO LOVED. I KNEW THEN THAT WE WERE GOING TO BE MARRIED SOON." "THAT'S NOT FATE. THAT JUST SHOWS HOW MUCH IN LOVE WE ARE." "THERE WAS MORE, LEE. I REMEMBER EXACTLY HOW EVERYTHING LOOKED. WE LIVED IN A SMALL GREEN TWO-STORY HOUSE, WITH YELLOW AWNINGS, IN A NEIGHBORHOOD JUST LIKE THIS ONE. AND WE HAD THREE CHILDREN--TWO BOYS AND A GIRL. AND I WAS WEARING A WEDDING BAND AND A DIAMOND ENGAGEMENT RING..." She held up her hand. "AND IT LOOKED JUST LIKE THE ONE YOU GAVE ME." Lee looked at his fiancee for a long moment. "DO YOU ALWAYS DREAM LIKE THAT?" he finally asked. "SOMETIMES," she admitted. "MY MOM USED TO SHAKE HER HEAD AND CALL ME `DAYDREAMING DARLENE'. BUT DADDY DIDN'T. HE'D SAY, `PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR DREAMS, DARLENE. THEY WILL TELL YOU WHEN SOMETHING IS IMPORTANT.' SO, I DO. AND WHEN A DREAM IS THAT CLEAR AND PRECISE...I KNOW TO PAY ATTENTION. SO, WHEN YOU PROPOSED, I KNEW IT WAS RIGHT. THAT'S WHY I SAID `YES' RIGHT AWAY." Lee pulled her close. "I'M GLAD YOU DID...BECAUSE YOU'RE MY DREAM COME TRUE." They dissolved into a loving kiss. The image in the picture frame faded to black as Lee and Darlene kissed. Morpheus turned to Dale. "DID YOU KNOW YOUR GRANDFATHER, DALE FROST?" he asked. Dale nodded. "HE DIED WHEN I WAS EIGHT," Dale replied. "I REMEMBER HIM WELL." "DID YOU KNOW HE DREAMED?" "HE NEVER TALKED ABOUT IT." "BUT HE DID DREAM. I ALSO REMEMBER HIM WELL. HE ALSO TENDED TO IGNORE OUR WARNINGS--THOUGH HE WAS A LITTLE MORE ATTENTIVE THAN YOUR MOTHER. AND A LOT MORE ATTENTIVE THAN HIS NAMESAKE GRANDSON." He resumed pacing. "OF COURSE, YOUR FATHER NEVER REALLY UNDERSTOOD ALL OF THIS. YOUR MOTHER USED TO SCARE THE HELL OUT OF HIM...ESPECIALLY EARLY ON IN THEIR MARRIAGE." Dale looked at Morpheus oddly. "WHY DIDN'T YOU APPEAR IN MOM'S DREAMS WHEN SHE WAS PREGNANT WITH EMMET?" "IF IT HAD BEEN NECESSARY, I WOULD HAVE. THE IDEA OF DARLENE FROST COOPER BEING PREGNANT...EXPECTING ANOTHER GENERATION OF FROST DREAMERS...ABSOLUTELY SHOOK ME TO THE CORE. BUT I SHOULDN'T HAVE WORRIED. YOUR FATHER DID THE WORK FOR ME. HE WAS SO INTOLERANT OF YOUR MOTHER'S DREAMS THAT ALL THAT NEGATIVE ENERGY CARRIED THROUGH AND SUPPRESSED ANY CHANCE OF EMMET DEVELOPING THE FROST DREAMING ABILITY. BELIEVE ME, I WAS RELIEVED. I HAD HIGH HOPES OF THIS DISRESPECT FOR THE RULES OF THIS REALM STOPPING WITH DARLENE. BUT THEN, TWO THINGS CONSPIRED TO DASH MY HOPES." "WHAT WERE THEY?" "FOR ONE THING, YOUR MOTHER STOPPED TELLING YOUR FATHER ABOUT HER DREAMS. THAT DID WONDERS FOR HIS PSYCHE, AND HE LOWERED HIS GUARD. THEN, GENETICS KICKED IN...AND DARLENE GOT PREGNANT WITH TWINS. YOU KNOW--TWO SOULS SHARING ONE LIFE, AND ALL THAT JAZZ. BUT ALL THAT LIFE FORCE INSIDE HER WAS TOO MUCH FOR ANY RESIDUAL NEGATIVITY TO OVERCOME...AND YOU TWO GOT A FULL DOSE OF THE FROST POWER. THAT'S WHEN I KNEW I HAD TO INTERVENE...TO TRY AND STOP THIS LEGACY FROM GOING ANY FURTHER." As he spoke, Morpheus touched the frame again. Its center began to glow as the window into the past opened up again. "NO! NO! STOP!" Darlene shouted, shooting up in bed. "DARLENE!" Lee said, sitting up to join her. "WAKE UP!" Darlene blinked, then clutched at her abdomen, swollen in the fourth month of pregnancy, and rocked back and forth. Lee held his wife tightly. "YOU HAD A NIGHTMARE," he deduced. She nodded. "TELL ME ABOUT IT." "SOMEONE WAS REACHING OUT OF THE DARKNESS, TRYING TO GRAB MY BABY," she whispered. "WHY?" "I DON'T KNOW! OH, LEE, I'M SO SCARED..." "SH-H," he soothed. "IT'S ALL RIGHT. YOU'RE SAFE. IT WAS JUST A BAD DREAM. AND YOU HAVEN'T HAD ANY DREAMS THAT MEANT ANYTHING IN A VERY LONG TIME." Darlene said nothing. But it was clear she was still terrified. "YOU GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT?" Lee asked. She nodded reluctantly. "LIE BACK DOWN," he said, easing her back down in his arms. She snuggled against him. He closed his eyes. She waited until he was asleep to start crying softly. Dale's cool expression turned angry. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO HER?" he demanded. "I WAS TRYING TO PUT SOME DOUBT IN HER MIND ABOUT `SPECIAL DREAMING'," Morpheus replied. "DOUBT THAT SHE COULD TRANSFER TO HER UNBORN CHILDREN TO PREVENT THEM FROM EVER TRYING TO USE WHAT THEY HAD. I NEVER WANTED TO HURT YOU, MUCH LESS TO KILL YOU. BUT I HAD TO ASSERT MY AUTHORITY." "DO YOU WANT TO KEEP THE DREAM REALM FOR YOURSELF?" Dale challenged. "IF SO, YOU'VE FAILED MISERABLY. IT'S A SCIENTIFIC FACT THAT EVERY LIVING CREATURE GOES THROUGH AN R.E.M. SLEEP CYCLE, IN WHICH THEY DREAM." "I'M WELL AWARE OF THAT, COOPER," Morpheus sighed. "BUT WELL- BEHAVED PEOPLE KNOCK AT THE DOOR AND WAIT OUTSIDE THE GATEWAY TO BE LET IN. WHEN WE LET THEM IN, WE TRY TO GUIDE THEM THROUGH THE DOUBTS IN THEIR MINDS AND HELP THEM FACE THE THINGS THAT THEIR MINDS HAVE TROUBLE DEALING WITH IN THE CONSCIOUS REALM. I'M NOT AN EVIL DEMON, COOPER, AND I'M NOT A VINDICTIVE MONSTER. I'M...WELL, I'M KIND OF A PSYCHIC POLICEMAN, SERVING THE WORLD BY HELPING THEM CATALOG THE DAY'S EVENTS, LIVE THEIR ULTIMATE FANTASIES, AND FACE THEIR SUBCONSCIOUS FEARS. BUT YOU...ALL OF YOU HAVE SOME SORT OF SUPERNATURAL SKELETON KEY THAT LETS YOU BARGE IN THROUGH THE GATEWAY AND GO TEARING DOWN THE CORRIDOR PAST THE DREAM REALM INTO THE REALM OF VISIONS. YOU DO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DREAMS AND VISIONS, DON'T YOU?" Dale nodded. "DREAMS ARE A SUBCONSCIOUS TOOL FOR UNDERSTANDING CONSCIOUS REALITY. VISIONS ARE THE MIND REVEALING ITSELF TO ITSELF, A WAY OF UNCOVERING A HIDDEN REALITY." "CLOSE ENOUGH FOR JAZZ." Morpheus took a seat on the end table next to the picture frame and crossed his legs Indian-style. "ANYWAY, I NEVER INTENDED TO HURT YOU, DIANE, OR YOUR MOTHER. BUT I STEPPED IN FRONT OF HER AS SHE TRIED TO BYPASS ME A FEW MORE TIMES BEFORE YOU TWO WERE BORN JUST FOR GOOD MEASURE. I THOUGHT I'D SUCCEEDED. BUT I SOON FOUND OUT OTHERWISE." He brushed the edge of the frame again, and the window opened up once more. "MAMA! MAMA!" eight-year-old Diane screamed. Darlene came running into the room. "DIANE?" she said, sitting on the bed next to her daughter. "HONEY, WAKE UP!" Diane looked at her mother for a moment, then sat up and threw her arms around Darlene and sobbed. "OH, BABY," Darlene sighed. "IT WAS JUST A BAD DREAM. YOU'LL BE ALL RIGHT." "I'M SO COLD, MAMA," Diane cried. "I COULDN'T BREATHE..." "IT'S ALL RIGHT," Darlene soothed. "TELL MAMA ALL ABOUT IT." "POP-POP AND I WERE DOWNSTAIRS HAVING A TEA PARTY, AND IT GOT REAL DARK AND REAL COLD. ALL THIS FOG CAME IN. IT WAS HARD TO BREATHE. POP-POP STARTED COUGHING AND CHOKING...AND THEN THE FOG COVERED HIM...AND THEN HE WAS GONE! MAMA, HE DISAPPEARED IN THE FOG, AND I COULDN'T BREATHE..." "SH-H," Darlene said, stroking her daughter's long blonde hair. "YOUR NIGHTIE JUST PROBABLY GOT TURNED WRONG ON YOU SO IT WAS TOO TIGHT, AND YOU GOT COLD AND HAD TROUBLE BREATHING. LET'S STRAIGHTEN IT OUT, AND THEN YOU CAN GO BACK TO SLEEP." Darlene helped her daughter straighten out her nightgown, then eased her back under the covers. "GO BACK TO SLEEP, HONEY," she said as she pulled the covers around Diane. "NIGHT-NIGHT." "IS POP-POP GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT?" Diane asked. "I'M SURE HE'S FINE," Darlene reassured. "GO TO SLEEP." "NIGHT-NIGHT, MAMA," Diane said, turning over in bed. Darlene left the room and stopped outside the door for a moment, her face lined with worry. "MAMA?" Dale's voice said. Darlene turned around to see her eight-year-old son standing in the hallway behind her, looking confused. "IS DIANE ALL RIGHT?" Dale asked. "SHE'S FINE," Darlene reassured. "YOU HAVEN'T BEEN HAVING ANY BAD DREAMS, HAVE YOU?" Dale shook his head. "I'M A-O.K., MAMA." Darlene smiled. Then, she hugged her son. "WHAT'S WRONG, MAMA?" Dale asked. "NOTHING," she lied. "CAN'T I GIVE YOU A HUG?" Dale shrugged. "SURE." Darlene released the embrace, then patted his arm gently. "GO BACK TO BED," she said. "SCOOT." "NIGHT-NIGHT, MAMA," Dale said, heading back for his room. Darlene watched him head for his room, then leaned back against the wall, her expression helpless. The picture faded to black. Morpheus turned to face Dale. "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR `POP-POP'?" he asked. Dale met the metaphysical figure's gaze. "DALE FROST DIED OF PNEUMONIA TWO DAYS LATER," Dale replied. "PNEUMONIA," Morpheus repeated. "A DISEASE PEOPLE SOMETIMES SAY FEELS LIKE A COLD FOG FILLING THE LUNGS." He shook his head. "BOY, WAS I PISSED OFF WHEN THAT LITTLE PRINCESS RAN DOWN THE HALL AND IGNORED MY ORDER TO STOP. OF COURSE, SHE WASN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO IGNORED ME." The window reopened at the touch of Morpheus' fingertips. Darlene sat in a chair at the side of eight-year-old Dale's bed, replacing a cold compress on her feverish son's forehead. "MAMA?" Diane's voice asked. Darlene turned toward the doorway of Dale's room, where Diane stood, looking inside curiously. "COME ON IN, SWEETIE," Darlene said. Diane came in and stood by her mother. "IS HE ANY BETTER?" she asked. "NO," Darlene confessed. "HE'S STILL GOT A BAD FEVER." "WHY DOES ASTHMA MAKE HIM SO SICK?" "BECAUSE IT HURTS HIS LUNGS AND MAKES IT HARD TO BREATHE. AND WHEN HE CAN'T BREATHE, HE HAS TROUBLE FIGHTING OFF COLDS." Diane looked guilty. "AND I HAD THIS COLD LAST WEEK." Darlene gave her daughter a one-armed hug. "BABY, YOU DIDN'T DO THIS TO HIM. HE'D HAVE EVENTUALLY GOTTEN A COLD THIS WINTER ANYWAY." She felt his cheek, trying to gauge his temperature. "I JUST WISH THIS FEVER WOULD BREAK." Diane touched Dale's cheek as well. "HE'S SO HOT," she said. "WHY IS HE SHIVERING?" "BECAUSE HIS BODY IS FULL OF GERMS, HONEY. IT TAKES A LOT OF ENERGY TO FIGHT GERMS--SO MUCH THAT SOMETIMES YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH ENERGY LEFT TO KEEP WARM. ALL THE HEAT'S BEING USED TO KILL THE GERMS." Dale began to stir restlessly. "LIE STILL, BABY," Darlene said, stroking his cheek to soothe him. It did not help. Dale's head tossed fitfully. He began to moan softly. Diane shivered. "MAMA, HE'S SCARED," she whispered. Darlene looked oddly at her daughter. "HOW DO YOU KNOW?" she asked. "I DON'T KNOW! I JUST KNOW HE IS!" "CALM DOWN, DIANE. IT'S GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT. HE'S JUST REAL SICK RIGHT NOW..." "MAMA!" Dale suddenly shouted out. Darlene turned her full attention back to her son. "DALE!" she called back. "NO!" he continued to shout in his delirium. "RUN, MAMA, RUN! DON'T LET HIM GET YOU!" He tossed violently, as if he were running in his sleep. "LEAVE HER ALONE! NO! HURRY, MAMA! NO! NO! NO!" "DALE!" Darlene said, trying to hold him down. Lee came running into the room. "WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?" he demanded. "HE'S DELIRIOUS," Darlene replied. "CALL THE DOCTOR." Lee turned and ran back down the hallway. His presence in the doorway was replaced by elder son Emmet's. "WHAT'S ALL THE COMMOTION?" "EMMET, TAKE YOUR SISTER AND LEAVE US ALONE," Darlene ordered. "NO!" Diane pleaded. "I DON'T WANT TO GO! HE NEEDS ME!" She reached out for his left hand. As soon as their hands joined, Dale stopped thrashing. He calmed down and lay still, his hand clutching Diane's tightly. Darlene touched his cheek...and felt a slight dampness. Lee hurried back into the room. "DR. WARWICK'S ON HIS WAY," he stated. "NO NEED," Darlene stated. "I THINK HIS FEVER JUST BROKE." Lee breathed a sigh of relief and leaned against the doorway. Diane clasped her other hand over her brother's. "IT'S O.K., DALE," she said. "YOU'RE GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT. IT WAS JUST A BAD DREAM." Darlene looked at Lee, her expression both sorrowful and helpless. Lee pounded the wall in frustration. Morpheus looked back at Dale. "DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU DREAMED?" he asked. Dale nodded, still chilled by the memory. "I WAS ALONE IN THIS DARK ROOM WHEN I HEARD SOMETHING THAT SOUNDED LIKE ROARING FLAMES APPROACHING. THEN, I SAW MOM RUNNING AWAY FROM SOMETHING, FRIGHTENED...AND I SAW THIS MAN CHASING HER. I SCREAMED FOR HER TO RUN, BUT SHE COULDN'T. HE CAUGHT UP TO HER...AND THEY DISAPPEARED IN A FIERY PILLAR." "SO BOTH YOU AND DIANE SAW DEATH IN YOUR FIRST DREAMS...THE VIOLENT DEATHS OF FROST DREAMERS." He shook his head. "I COULDN'T HAVE STOPPED YOU IF I'D TRIED. YOU WERE LIKE A HELLION, BARRELLING DOWN THIS HALL AT BREAKNECK SPEED. I DID GOOD JUST TO GET OUT OF YOUR WAY." He got off the table and began to pace the room once more. Dale was getting frustrated by this entire experience. "I'M NOT SURE I UNDERSTAND WHY YOU SUMMONED ME HERE," he said aloud. "YOU OBVIOUSLY DON'T LIKE THE FACT THAT DIANE AND I CAN USE THE GATEWAY TO SEE A LARGER REALITY AND USE THAT ABILITY TO OUR ADVANTAGE. BUT WHAT HARM HAS IT DONE YOU? YOU STILL HAVE PLENTY OF CLIENTS WHO NEED YOUR `SERVICE'." Morpheus chuckled slightly. "YOU'RE ASKING THE WRONG QUESTION, COOPER." "THEN WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION?" Morpheus walked behind him and smiled wickedly as he leaned over Dale's shoulder. "THE QUESTION IS, WHAT HARM HAS IT DONE YOU?" Dale's jaw tightened noticeably. "I DON'T FOLLOW." Morpheus paced again. "THAT MAN CHASING YOUR MOTHER IN YOUR FIRST DREAM...DID YOU SEE WHO IT WAS?" "NO." "BUT YOU SURELY MUST HAVE SOME IDEA." Dale nodded. "BOB." Morpheus stopped and leaned against one of the bookshelves. "HOW DID YOUR MOTHER DIE?" "SHE HAD AN ANEURYSM." "COME ON, COOPER. WE BOTH KNOW THAT WAS WHAT THE DOCTORS SAID. TRY AGAIN." He looked away. "BOB KILLED HER." "FRIGHTENED HER TO DEATH, ACTUALLY. DO YOU REMEMBER AN ATTRACTIVE YOUNG LADY NAMED CAROLINE EARLE?" "YES." "HOW DID SHE DIE?" "HER HUSBAND STABBED HER TO DEATH..." "COOPER..." "...UNDER BOB'S DIRECTION." "MUCH BETTER. WHO WAS YOUR SISTER'S FIRST HUSBAND?" "STEVE WILKINS." "F.B.I. AGENT, IF I REMEMBER RIGHT. GOOD MAN. EVERYBODY LOVED HIM. THEY HAD A HAPPY MARRIAGE, RIGHT?" Dale clenched his jaw tightly. "NO." "NO? WHAT HAPPENED?" "HE ABUSED HER." "HOW TERRIBLE! I'M SURE YOU WERE RIGHT THERE BY YOUR SISTER'S SIDE." Dale's fingers clenched the arms of the chair. "NO." "WHY NOT?" "HE HATED ME...HE CONVINCED DIANE THAT I HATED HER." "HE DID?" "ALL RIGHT. WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM BOB." "AMAZING. WHAT HAPPENED TO LAURA PALMER?" "BOB RAPED AND MURDERED HER." "FASCINATING. YOU AND BOB ARE OLD ACQUAINTANCES. WHAT HAPPENED THE NIGHT OF MARCH 25TH?" "I WENT INTO THE BLACK LODGE TO RESCUE ANNIE BLACKBURN." "AND?" "AND I GOT TRAPPED BY BOB." "WHAT HAPPENED TO POOR ANNIE?" Dale forced his rising anger down. "BOB KILLED HER...HE SCARED HER TO DEATH." Morpheus sat on the edge of his desk. "SO YOU'VE SPENT MOST OF THE PAST TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS FIGHTING A DEMON FROM THE GREAT BEYOND. A DEMON YOU MET IN YOUR DREAMS." He leaned forward. "DID IT EVER OCCUR TO YOU THAT BOB MIGHT NEVER HAVE BOTHERED YOUR WHOLE FAMILY IF ALL OF YOU HADN'T RUN AMOK IN THIS REALM AND GONE PLACES YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO?" Dale had had enough. He rose to his feet angrily. "NOW, LOOK," he said, his voice hard and flat as steel. "I'VE MADE MISTAKES IN MY PAST THAT I'M NOT PROUD OF, BUT I'VE BEATEN MY DEMONS. MY LIFE IS MINE NOW, NOT YOURS OR ANYONE ELSE'S IN THIS REALM. AND MY DREAMS HAVE BENEFITED COUNTLESS PEOPLE AND SAVED MANY LIVES BECAUSE I WAS ABLE TO USE WHAT I LEARNED TO STOP EVIL IN ITS TRACKS. AND I'M NOT LETTING YOU OR ANYONE ELSE PUT ANY LIMITS ON ME." "THEN YOU'D BETTER ENFORCE SOME LIMITS ON YOURSELF." "WHY SHOULD I?" "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU MONDAY, THE 22ND OF MAY?" Dale looked at him oddly. Morpheus gestured about him dramatically. A cacophony of voices filled the air, their volume increasing with each passing second. Dale winced and held his ears. Morpheus waved his hand again. The voices silenced. The ruckus brought back Dale's memory quickly. "A DRUG MADE MY MIND GO HAYWIRE," he said. Morpheus laughed heartily. "THE DRUG DID THAT?" he said smugly. "THE DRUG CREATED ALL THOSE VOICES THROUGH THE GATEWAY INSIDE YOUR HEAD? COOPER, THAT DRUG DIDN'T DO A DAMN THING THAT YOU WEREN'T ALREADY CAPABLE OF. ALL IT DID WAS SUPPRESS YOUR NATURAL BARRIERS AND LET YOUR MIND REACH OUT MORE FREELY. AND I'LL TELL YOU SOMETHING--IT DIDN'T EVEN BEGIN TO APPROACH ITS FULL RANGE. WHY DO YOU THINK YOUR VISIONS ARE SO MUCH MORE POTENT WHEN YOU'RE SICK OR DRUGGED? IT'S BECAUSE YOUR DEFENSES BREAK DOWN AND YOUR CLAIRVOYANCE RUNS AMOK! AND AS MUCH AS THAT THOUGHT SCARES YOU...IT SCARES US TWICE AS MUCH, BECAUSE YOUR SISTER'S MIND IS AS STRONG AS YOURS. IF SHE EVER LET HER MIND LOOSE, THE EMOTIONS THAT STRONG EMPATHY WOULD FEEL WOULD TURN HER INTO AN INSTANT BASKET CASE IF SHE COULDN'T GET IT UNDER CONTROL...OR MAKE HER SO POWERFULLY PSYCHIC THAT SHE'D BE UNSTOPPABLE IF SHE COULD CONTROL IT." Dale drew back slightly. "DON'T YOU SEE, COOPER?" Morpheus continued. "THAT'S THE KIND OF POWER YOU'RE PASSING ON TO YOUR CHILDREN. EACH GENERATION PUSHES THE ENVELOPE JUST A LITTLE BIT FARTHER. YOU AND DIANE ARE FAR STRONGER THAN YOUR MOTHER COULD EVEN HAVE HOPED TO BE...AND SHE WAS FAR STRONGER THAN HER FATHER EVER WAS. AND THE NEXT GENERATION HAS SOMETHING GOING FOR IT THAT PREVIOUS FROST GENERATIONS DIDN'T-- YOUR SPOUSES ACCEPT YOUR DREAMS AS BEING PART OF YOU. THEY AREN'T FRIGHTENED BY THEM, SO THEY DON'T GENERATE THE NEGATIVE ENERGY THAT SUPPRESSES THE POWER. THAT'S WHY I HAD TO INTERVENE. I'M TRYING TO PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN--THE TWINS DIANE IS CARRYING, AND THE TWINS AUDREY IS CARRYING--FROM THEMSELVES. I HAVE TO TEACH YOUR CHILDREN TO LIMIT THEMSELVES BECAUSE YOU WON'T." Dale steeled himself against Morpheus' threat. "I CAN'T ALLOW YOU TO DO THAT," he said resolutely. Morpheus smiled wickedly. "YOU DON'T HAVE A CHOICE." "I'LL FIGHT YOU..." "NOT IF I DON'T LET YOU." "TRY AND STOP ME." He turned to go. Morpheus grabbed his arm firmly. Dale looked at Morpheus and tried to pull his arm loose. Morpheus tightened his grip. "SORRY, COOPER," he said. "I HATE TO DO THIS. BUT IF KEEPING YOU HERE IS THE ONLY WAY TO STOP YOU, THEN I WILL. EITHER WAY...THIS TIME, I'M GOING TO WIN." Diane felt a sharp pain inside her head and a tight sensation around her upper arm. She clutched at her arm and doubled over in pain. Harry reached for his wife. "Diane?" he asked. "Something's gone wrong," Diane whispered. "Diane!" Audrey called from the living room. Diane forced herself to suppress the pain and got to her feet. She headed into the living room to join Audrey, who was now sitting on the coffee table and holding Dale's hand. "Look at his face," Audrey said. Diane looked at her brother. Dale's face was contorted with pain, as if he were fighting an intense mental battle...and losing. Diane quickly snapped her fingers next to his ear. "Dale-- wake up," she said firmly. Dale lay still, the pain still evident on his face. Diane clapped next to his ear. "Dale!" she demanded. "Wake up!" Still nothing. "Dale!" Audrey screamed, reaching forward to shake him. "He's in a coma," Diane realized. "He's gone too deep." Harry immediately plugged the phone back in and quickly dialed a number. "This is Sheriff Truman," he said when the called party answered. "Get me Doc Hayward." Diane sat down in the recliner, reached out and put her hand on Dale's shoulder, then closed her eyes and concentrated hard on her empathic bond with her brother. Dale, it's Diane, she mentally spoke. This has gone far enough. Come out. No reply. Dale, please, she mentally called again. Come out. Still no reply. "Can you reach him?" Audrey asked. Diane shook her head. "I can't hear him," she replied. "But I can still feel him." Harry hung up the phone. "Doc's on his way," he reported. "I don't think it'll do much good," Diane said. "Medical help isn't what he needs." She closed her eyes again. Harry reached out and put a loving hand on her shoulder. That was the support she needed. I need help, she mentally called. I don't know any names...but I know someone out there can help me. Please bring my brother back to me...to his wife...to his children. An impossible brightness pressed against her eyelids. She opened her eyes. Before her stood the towering form of The Giant, his gaze concerned and fatherly. She looked up at him pleadingly. He nodded his understanding and knelt down next to Dale and Diane. He gently brushed his fingers against the motionless Audrey's abdomen, then against Diane's. Diane felt a surge of warm love go through her as he did. He reached out and touched the comatose Special Agent's forehead. The light grew even more brilliant as it completely engulfed Dale and The Giant, surrounding them in an aura of mystical energy. The office where Dale and Morpheus stood suddenly began to glow with an incredible luminescence as The Giant materialized next to the doorway. Morpheus released Dale's arm. "HEY, GIANT," he said nervously. "WHAT'S UP?" "YOU ARE TRYING TO HARM HIM," The Giant said firmly. "WELL...NOT REALLY," Morpheus replied. "I'M JUST TRYING TO DO MY JOB." "YOU KNOW THE RULES." "OH, COME ON, BIG GUY. HE'S THE ONE ALWAYS BREAKING THE RULES. TELL HIM." The Giant looked at Dale with the same paternal gaze he had used with Diane. "WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE ABOUT POWER?" he asked the Special Agent. Dale met his ally's gaze unblinkingly. "THAT WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY," he replied. "RESPONSIBILITY THAT I AT ONE TIME FLED. Responsibility that I now accept willingly." The Giant nodded. "TEACH YOUR CHILDREN THIS WISDOM," he said, "AND THERE WILL BE NOTHING FOR ANYONE TO FEAR." Dale nodded. "I WILL," he swore. The Giant looked sternly at Morpheus. "YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR ONCE AGAIN," he chastised. "YOU KNOW YOUR JOB IS NOT TO IMPEDE OTHERS, BUT TO HELP THEM." "BUT HOW CAN I HELP THEM IF THEY WON'T LET ME?" Morpheus protested. "BY LETTING THEM FIND THEIR OWN WAY. THOSE WHO NEED GUIDANCE WILL SEEK IT OUT. THOSE WHO DO NOT WILL MANAGE ON THEIR OWN." Morpheus looked beaten. "I GUESS I DID OVERDO IT A LITTLE," he confessed. He turned to Dale. "YOU'RE FREE TO GO IF YOU WANT." "AND FREE TO RETURN?" Dale asked. Morpheus shrugged. "I CAN'T STOP YOU." "AND YOU'LL STOP TRYING TO INFLUENCE MY WIFE OR MY CHILDREN?" Morpheus cast a venomous look at The Giant. "I SUPPOSE I'LL HAVE TO." "AND THE SAME GOES FOR MY SISTER?" Morpheus sighed hard. "YES, YES, OF COURSE." The Giant obviously did not like Morpheus' attitude. He fixed a hard stare on him. "THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN," The Giant stated. "OF COURSE NOT," Morpheus promised. The Giant turned to Dale and placed a massive hand on the father-to-be's forehead. Dale felt a surge of warm love fill his entire being as the world around him turned a brilliant white. "Dale?" Audrey's voice echoed through his head. Dale slowly stirred and opened his eyes...and was rewarded with the sight of his beloved wife before him. "Hi, beautiful," he said in a dry voice. She breathed a sigh of relief, then pulled his hand to her lips and kissed it lovingly. He looked around him and spotted Diane sitting in the recliner next to the couch and Harry standing over her. "Harry...Diane," he greeted. "You had us worried there for a few minutes," Harry said. "You O.K.?" He nodded. "How long was I out?" Diane looked at her watch. "About an hour," she replied. "Make any progress?" He smiled. "Diane, I don't believe you or Audrey will be troubled by any more nightmares...or at least, not the kind you two have been having these past few nights." Audrey breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God," she whispered. "But who was that man in my dreams?" "That," Dale said, "was Morpheus." Harry looked confused. "So, who is this Morpheus?" he asked. Dale sat up and smiled broadly. "Harry," he said, "he's a dream-world bureaucrat." Harry couldn't help himself. He burst out laughing. All of them shared in his laughter as they celebrated their victory. T H E E N D COMM PANEL 9740-E Covered Wagon Dr. Laurel, MD 20723-1512 USA (301) 490-3706 kimberly.murphy@acenet.com [Not much feedback this month, but what we've got is really good. Let's explore it...] * * * * * * * * I have a question and suggestion for you: I subscribed to POWER STAR two issues ago, and noticed that often you will publish Part One of a fiction story, then not include Part Two until at least two issues later. This is very frustrating, because I have limited disk space and have to remove the POWER STAR issues from my disk quota soon after I receive them. I take the issue, sent in about 20 parts, and re-divide it by topic, so the news/reviews, episode guides, and each fiction story are separate. Then I print out the news and store the fiction on a floppy. I was going through my files and found three stories, "First Impressions", "Better Late than Never", and "Winner Take All" of which only Part One has been included. Could you tell me when further parts of these stories are planned to be sent out? I would suggest that you wait until all parts of a given story have been sent to you by the author before including Part One, so that all parts can be in consecutive issues, or else include the whole story (if only 2 parts) in the same issue. Then when you include Part One, you can say exactly how many parts the story is total, and which parts will be in which upcoming issue(s). Other than that, I must say I am enjoying POWER STAR, and I wish you good luck. I know you've had some health problems lately, and I was sorry to hear that. You do a great job of putting it together, and hope you can continue it, at least the electronic version. As a former fanzine and newsletter editor (and current publisher of the electronic news column, MR. DATA'S DATA), I can sympathize with how difficult it is to keep it up over a period of time. I would also like to ask something else. The Milwaukee science fiction club newsletter publishes fiction stories in serialized form (2-4 parts of 8 pages each, each page a half-sheet legal size). Are the stories published in POWER STAR exclusive to your publication, or is it possible to request the Email address of the author to contact them regarding non-exclusive publication in a non-profit newsletter? I feel this is different from a fanzine, which may be sold for profit, and the newsletter would be less likely to compete for the fanzine market at cons, etc. I know you also publish a hardcopy fanzine form of POWER STAR. Please let me know your policy on this. I am particularly interested in non-STAR TREK fiction. Thanks very much. Jay Badenhoop The Electron Slayer Keeper of MR. DATA'S DATA Milwaukee Time Lords/Star Fleet Academy badnhoop@siucvmb.siu.edu [As I said in a private e-mail, Jay, one of the reasons we don't list how many parts are in certain stories is that sometimes the authors aren't sure. "First Impressions" and "Winner Take All" are two parts each; "Better Late Than Never" is five parts. I could suggest you print your copies, but in all seriousness I think we've gotten better about bringing parts closer together. Opinions, anyone?...KAM] * * * * * * * * On rec.arts.sf.tv recently, you wrote: "Yeah, the rumor's been circulating for over a year now that there'll be a live action [THUNDERBIRDS] film (Tom Cruise reportedly has the inside track for Scott Tracy). Personally, I'll believe it when I see it." The thing is, how can they top the original FX in the shows? I mean, yeah they were on a budget and all, but still, Derek Meddings did the best whiz-bang in the business--nobody, but nobody can do a launch sequence like him! I can't imagine an "updated" Thunderbird 1 roaring out of the Tracys' jacuzzi (let's face it, if they're going to pay Tom Cruise's rate, the bean counters are going to cut back somewhere!); personally I'll stick with my old tapes. The thing that kind of bothers me now is that THUNDERBIRDS (and in my case FIREBALL XL5) inspired a lot of kids in the 60's to go into engineering (yeah, maybe Apollo helped a bit as well), but if you show them to contemporary kids, the reaction is just so...blah. Sad. Michael Brown mwb@jpr.com [I'm with you. Sometimes the pace of the older s/f escapes today's kids. Maybe it's the short attention span, or maybe it's the oversaturation of shows like MIGHTY MORPHIN' POWER RANGERS that are quick-cut and about as deep as a sheet of paper...KAM] * * * * * * * * Thanks a lot for responding to my rec.arts.sf.tv posting about LOIS AND CLARK episodes--and for that big mail message, POWER STAR 82! That takes some time to get through. :) But it was worth it for the LOIS AND CLARK episode guide! Thomas Wilhelmi willi@twi.rhein-main.de [Glad you liked it, Thomas! Internet is amazing--questions answered within hours, whole zines across a phone line...KAM] * * * * * * * * Hi, Kimberly. I saw your message on the fanzine list [fanzine@psuvm.psu.edu]. Yes, please send me information on your zines. Also, you might be interested in my STAR TREK Writers and Artists club. We've been going now for ten years and publish a quarterly newsletter advertising STAR TREK fanzines, reviewing zines, putting in free ads for publishers, etc. If you would like to advertise with us, or would like to forward a review of one of your zines, please feel free to write us at: U.S.S. SKYLARK 413B 19th St. #423 Lynden, WA 98264 USA Zine reviews can be sent E-mail to myself or to the newsletter editor, cathy_mayo@mindlink.bc.ca. Also, if you have fliers that advertise your stuff, you can send them to me at the above address as well. Thanks. Lois R. H. Balzer lois_balzer@mindlink.bc.ca [Hope you like issues 77 and 83 that I e-mailed you. And I'll send you fliers for future issues, Lois...KAM] * * * * * * * * POWER STAR past contributor Greg Peczkowski e-mailed me this at work in response to my observation that we should hold a "Name The Doc" contest after the STAR TREK: VOYAGER episode where the holographic doctor tried to come up with his own name. 1. Dr. Justin Holly-Graham 2. Dr. Knott (Not!) 3. Doc Lite (Can YOUR doctor do this?) 4. The Un-real McCoy 5. Doc Hol-i-day 6. Doc Holo-doc 7. EmMed HolPro (Emergency Medical Holographic Program) 8. Dr. Livingstone (too presumptuous?) 9. Dr. Ho 10. Casper The Friendly Doc 11. Dr. Doctor ("Gimme the news/I got a bad case of lovin' you...") 12. Doc In-The-Box 13. Dr. ItHurtsWhenIDoThis (then don't do that) 14. NoBones 15. Dr. Dolittle-More 16. James Tiberius Doc 17. MDV (I want my Emergency Medical Holographic Channel) 18. Dr. WannaB 19. Scars-`R'-Us 20. Gene E. O'DaLamp (You ain't never had a doc like me) 21. Dr. Lamont Cranston (The ShadowDoc knows...) Any others? Bob Porto Pasadena, MD [Oh, come on, Bob. How could you have missed Dr. Pepper (IT'S NOT A DOCTOR...IT'S SOMETHING MUCH MUCH MORE) or Disco Doc (LASERDISC-O, THAT IS)? But that's a good start. Any other suggestions?...KAM] Ye Olde Collectibles And Trivia Shoppe By Bennet Pomerantz Ex-x-x-cu-oo-oo-oose me if this column seems a bit scrambled and unmanageable this month--I just received a computer upgrade and Microsoft Windows (I always said I don't do Windows!), and everything (I repeat--everything!) is in utter anarchy. I promise the Shoppe will be neater on your next visit. A WIDE POINT OF VIEW I've been getting a couple of comments and questions from people regarding the new wide-view collector cards. I have heard both positive and negative responses about these oversized cards. Such card series like STAR WARS wide-view film cards, STAR TREK: GENERATIONS movie cards, DC Vertigo's collectors series and SUPERMAN: MAN OF STEEL are the prime enjoyment or bane of the card collectors's burdens. Are these cards going to catch on? That is a hard question to truly answer, since I have no idea what is going on in card companies' minds. However, it will make more labor for S/F card collectors to pick up two different kinds of plastic card sheets or collector boxes. Are they going to be worth the trouble? Many different card companies are jumping on the band wagon with these wide-view cards. Many card collectors and dealers are also taking notice of this trend--just like they noticed foil cards, chase cards, holograms, and cel-like cards. Are they going to justify the higher price sticker for these cards? If the public demands this, then we will see more of these. However, if these products rest upon dealer's shelves, then it will be another trading card mania that will bit the dust. OTHER VOYAGES OF THE ENTERPRISE As a authority on S/F collectables, I have to seek out new products wherever they may be. (Yeah, this is a tough job sometimes.  ) If you're a STAR TREK fan and you have read all the novels as soon as they appear in the stores and every issue of POWER STAR as soon as it's hot off the press and still want more, you may want to seek out some of the novellas of fan STAR TREK merchandise. Before some of you say something like "that trash?", think about this...some of the best SF writers started in STAR TREK fan publications. Authors like Peter David, Kathleen Sky, Della Van Hise, and others cut their writing teeth on fanzine STAR TREK sagas. In TRUE VULCAN CONFESSIONS (Rez Mundots 2293), the devotee stories are slanted to a Vulcan edge. Editor Dusty Jones has a astute Vulcan eye for tales that will keep you interested and amused. With many people wanting stories of the green-blooded alien race that was almost cut from the original cast of STAR TREK, these stories are a lifeline in a cultural Vulcan desert of literature. To order, send a SASE to Dusty Jones/1009 East-West Highway/Takoma Park, MD/20912/USA. My friend Mary Battles and her House Mouse Productions prose read like episodes of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. In A VISIT TO THE PAST, Deanna Troi visits a STAR TREK convention in 1992. It is pleasure to read it. It moved vigorously with very few writing blemishes. The prose is stimulating and on the mark with the pre- movie NEXT GENERATION story lines. If you enjoy PAST, get a copy of SIGNS, which involves the deaf negotiator Riva. As Spock would say, "Fascinating!" Mary has outdone herself as a writer and a fan publisher. To order these and other House Mouse products, write House Mouse Publications/P.O. Box 2309/Aston, PA/19014/USA. THE JOYS OF PVTS As any good collector knows, you want to buy your Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror treasures at the lowest possible price you can get. If you like collecting SF films, you ought to know about PVTs (Previously-Viewed Tapes). The reason I bring this point up is that I just bought a haul of PVTs from a Blockbuster Video location which was closing, a treasure trove for film buffs like myself. Why are PVTs out there? Many small video stores are going out of business, or had overstocks of a certain tape (Blockbuster had an overrun on SNOW WHITE, FREE WILLIE, THE LAST ACTION HERO, and others). These tapes are at lower rates than buying them new. In my case, the Blockbuster was closing, which meant everything was up for grabs. I picked up V (the original mini-series), TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (with added minutes), Japanese animation (THE LENSMAN), THE NINE LIVES OF FRITZ THE CAT (the R-rated sequel to the X-rated film), some Disney classics, and other goodies at a lower price per tape than I could have ever found for new tapes. For any collector of S/F Films, this sure beats going to Suncoast Video (or other video outlets) and paying full price. CONVENTION NEWS I will be at Balticon 29 on April 14-16, 1995 at the Radisson Lord Baltimore Omni International Hotel (boy, is that a mouthful!). Guests include James P. Hogan, Hal Clement, and David Cherry. I will be there doing my 3.5 panel topics required for a well- balanced con diet, so come by and see me. So until next time, let's be good to each other! Back Issues Cross-Reference Issue 35 Primary story: "Beware Of A Fool's Mate", a TWIN PEAKS story that takes place between the Laura Palmer murder and the Windom Earle mystery, where Agent Cooper has been shot again and a mysterious agent named D.L. Wilkins arrives in town to investigate. Also: "Cries Of The Courageous", part one of a four-part STAR TREK:THE NEXT GENERATION script where the ENTERPRISE is assigned to ameliorate relations between an affluent management faction and a striking labor force on a Federation world that threatens to explode into civil war; "A Serpent In Paradise", part one of a four-part TOTAL RECALL story where, on a reborn Mars, nightmares are troubling Quaid, leading him to wonder if Hauser is regaining control; conclusion of "Satisfaction". Issue 39 Primary story: "Two-Pronged Attack", a TWIN PEAKS story that follows up the attempted assassination of Cooper in "Beware Of A Fool's Mate" (issue 35) by asking the question: Was Cooper's would-be assassin caught in the act--or was he just a decoy? Also: Book reviews of The First Americans and Marching Through Georgia; part two of "A Serpent In Paradise". Issue 41 Primary story: "Zara", an original story about a beautiful alien and the lengths two warring commanders--one her common-law husband, one her lover and the father of her child--go to protect her. Also: Interviews with authors Somtow Sucharitkul and P.E. Cunningham; reports from TWIN PEAKS parties in Washington, DC, and Baltimore, MD; part three of "Cries Of The Courageous"; conclusion of "Ultimate Truth". Issue 42 Primary story: "Bridge Between Worlds", part one of a two-part TWIN PEAKS story which resolves the series' cliffhanger and brings F.B.I. Special Agent Diane Wilkins to Twin Peaks once more. Also: "To Dale And Diane", a TWIN PEAKS poem; book reviews of THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF F.B.I. SPECIAL AGENT DALE COOPER and WELCOME TO TWIN PEAKS: AN ACCESS GUIDE TO THE TOWN; a viewer's guide to ALIEN NATION; "Excursions Into Academia", Cinda Gillilan's call for information on and study of fandom; "Only Half The Man"; part one of a three-part MANIMAL story which finds Jonathan Chase caught between man and animal form after receiving a severe electric shock; "They Don't Make Them Like They Used To", part one of a three-part STAR TREK:THE NEXT GENERATION story where Data builds an android version of Tasha Yar. Issue 43 Primary story: Part two of "Bridge Between Worlds", where Diane must rescue Dale's soul from the Black Lodge--but only if she can face her own deepest fears. Also: "Back Alley Crisis", a G.I. JOE story told from Cat's point of view; part four of "Operation: Paradise Lost"; part five of "Twisted Web 2: Resurrection". Issue 44 "Two Souls", part one of a five-part TWIN PEAKS script where Dale and Diane--their ordeal in the Black Lodge over--attempt to rebuild their lives in Twin Peaks, much to the dismay of Benjamin Horne, who vows to rid the town of the two F.B.I. agents any way he can. But Benjamin may have bitten off more than he can chew by recruiting unscrupulous mortgage broker Jack Allenback to aid him in his pursuit. Issue 45 Part two of "Two Souls", which finds D.E.A. Special Agent Dennis "Denise" Bryson arriving with bad news for Dale and Diane about a notorious drug dealer who's headed for Twin Peaks--a drug dealer who launders his money through brokering mortgages. Issue 46 Part three of "Two Souls", which finds Dale and Diane tracking the trail of drug dealer John Allen, Benjamin accelerating his plans to purchase Dale's mortgage, and Jack Allenback's preparation for his own assault on the twin agents. Issue 48 Primary story: Part four of "Two Souls", where Jack Allenback accelerates his plans to stop Dale and Diane as they rapidly close in on him. Also: Conclusion of "Do Thunderbolts Strike Twice?". Issue 49 Primary story: Conclusion of "Cries Of The Courageous", where civil war threatens to engulf the mining planet of Yervossa, and the Away Team--including Picard--are trapped in the middle of the hostilities. Also: Conclusion of "Two Souls". The POWER STAR Yearbook SPECIAL ALL-TWIN PEAKS ISSUE! Two color covers add to the cost of this special issue, a perfect introduction into the POWER STAR version of the TWIN PEAKS universe; cost is $15.00. In this issue: Kimberly Murphy's trilogy of PEAKS stories introducing Diane and resolving the series' cliffhanger, including revisions to "Beware Of A Fool's Mate" and "Two-Pronged Attack" to cover "truths" revealed in the series' later episodes, are combined into a single anthology called "The Saga Of Dale And Diane". Issue 50 Special Celebration Issue! Color covers of STAR TREK and QUANTUM LEAP add to the cost of this much larger issue; this issue costs $15.00. Primary story: "My Brother's Keeper", part one of a three-part QUANTUM LEAP story about Sam leaping into Al during his days as a P.O.W. in Vietnam. Also: "I Will Not Be Pushed", part one of a three-part PRISONER story that finds Number Six back in the Village after twenty years; an episode guide to BEYOND REALITY; a viewer's guide to NIGHTMARE CAFE; an editorial on CreationCons; the history of STAR TREK's Lt. Commander Gary Mitchell; review of the European version of the TWIN PEAKS pilot. Issue 51 Primary story: "Voices Through The Gateway", part one of a four- part TWIN PEAKS story in which Dale is accidentally injected with a mysterious drug during a hostage rescue and begins to experience increased psychic sensations. Also: "Penny's Diary", part one of a two-part LOST IN SPACE story about the Robinsons' ordeal on planet Monotony; an episode guide to MANIMAL; reviews of ALIEN3 and BATMAN RETURNS; part two of "Only Half The Man"; part two of "My Brother's Keeper"; part two of "I Will Not Be Pushed". Issue 52 Primary story: Conclusion of "My Brother's Keeper", which finds Sam in Al's form leading an escape from a Viet Cong prison camp. Also: "The Warrior", a STAR WARS short-short; "Comes The Cheetah", part one of a multi-part FLASH story, about a deadly female CIA operative who has Barry Allen's powers and who has been sent to kill him; "The Renewal Run", part one of a multi- part LOGAN'S RUN story, a story that takes place just before the end of the M-G-M film and is based on the unfinished Marvel Comics story by John Warner; STAR TREK:THE NEXT GENERATION submission guidelines, courtesy of Paramount Pictures; conclusion of "Penny's Diary"; conclusion of "I Will Not Be Pushed"; part two of "You Can't Keep A Good Joker Down"; part two of "Voices Through The Gateway". Issue 53 Primary story: A belated tribute to the late, great Gene Roddenberry. Also: "If Only I Had Known" and "The Ending Of The Game", STAR TREK poetry; Starfleet Engineering excerpts on food replicators; a history of the U.S.S. SURAK; a report from the FANEX 6 convention; fanzine reviews of MIDNIGHT MARQUEE, BLOOD TIMES, and SCARLET STREET; review of TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME; "Home For The Weekend", part one of a three-part STARMAN story, where Paul Forrester, Jenny Hayden, and their son Scott reteam with SETI agent Mark Shermin to find the Starman's lost spaceship; "Reunion: The Men In Black Incident", part one of a multi-part PROJECT: U.F.O. story that finds Jake Gatlin and Harry Fitz searching for the REAL reason aliens may have been visiting Earth; part two of "NightSpeak"; part three of "Voices Through The Gateway". Issue 54 Primary Story: Conclusion of "Voices Through The Gateway", where Diane and Harry race against time to save Dale's sanity while Dale battles the voices coming through his subconscious gateway that threaten to overwhelm him. Also: Universe guides to TWIN PEAKS and COUNTERSTRIKE; "The Savage She-Hulk", part one of a three-part SHE-HULK story that recreates the green-skinned Amazon's origins; conclusion of "Only Half The Man". Issue 55 Primary Story: "Night People: Night Of The Owl", part one of a multi-part original tale about a girl vampire in a small resort town and the unsuspecting family who comes there for a vacation. Also: "The Man Who Fell From The Sky", part one of a COUNTERSTRIKE story that sees familiar faces Monique Lamer and Nicole Beaumont resurface as the team undertakes a mission to save a friend of Alexander's from the malicious, malevolent Strand; fanzine reviews of SATELLITE LINK... and SECRETS OF TWIN PEAKS; part two of "Down At The End Of Lonely Street"; part two of "The Truth Behind The Mask"; part two of "Family Matters". Issue 57 SPECIAL FANTASTIC TELEVISION ISSUE! A salute to Sci-Fi/Fantasy Television begins with-- would you believe--the return of Maxwell Smart as chief of CONTROL in "The Almost, Absolutely, Positively, Ultimate KAOS Kaper", part one of a new multi-part GET SMART story. Also: Peter, Gabrielle, and Stone must save a childhood friend of Peter's from an assassin at a Psychic Fair in the COUNTERSTRIKE story "The Fortuneteller"; the aftermath of Cooper's experience with the psychic-enhancing drug in "Voices Through The Gateway" (issues 51-54) begins to manifest itself as an investigation into vandalism at a construction site demands his full attention in part one of a new two-part TWIN PEAKS tale, "So Much As A Nightmare"; "What's Your TV I.Q.?", a quiz for couch potatoes reprinted from COSMOPOLITAN magazine; fanzine reviews of PILOT NEWSLETTER, TIME TRAVELLER, and the ST:TNG-inspired script "Jean-Luc Junior". Issue 59 Primary Story: Part two of "The Man Who Fell From The Sky", where Peter and Nikki encounter the malevolent Strand while Stone and Monique attempt to find them both. Also: A review of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000; part three of "A Serpent In Paradise"; conclusion of "So Much As A Nightmare". Issue 61 SPECIAL ALL-TWIN PEAKS ISSUE! POWER STAR celebrates TWIN PEAKS' third anniversary with this special issue centering around the offbeat Lynch/Frost series. Primary story: "MEANWHILE...", a complete-in-this-issue TWIN PEAKS tale that takes place four months after the Laura Palmer murder, as the town begins to return to normal--but not Sarah Palmer's life. Also: "The Rebirth Of Superman", D. Lynn Bivens' take on the possible resurrection of the DC Comics hero; a roundtable discussion between SECRETS OF TWIN PEAKS editor/publisher Doug Giffin and POWER STAR staffers Jerry Seward and Kimberly Murphy on TWIN PEAKS fiction; excerpts from a panel discussion at FANEX 6 featuring Russ Tamblyn (PEAKS' Dr. Jacoby); fanzine reviews of WRAPPED IN PLASTIC and FLASHBACK. Issue 63 A salute to famous detectives! Primary story: "Night Of The Shylock", a complete-in-this-issue Sherlock Holmes/WILD WILD WEST story in which the young Holmes travels to the American West with a theatrical troupe and runs across James West and Artemus Gordon, who help him solve a blackmail case. Also: BATMAN returns in two stories, trying to find a serial killer dubbed "The Mad Hatter" in part one of a multi-part story, "The Tea Party", then racing against time to rescue Alexander Knox and Gotham City from the Joker's deadly positron plastique in the conclusion of "You Can't Keep A Good Joker Down"; Agent Cooper ponders the mysteries of a coffee vending machine prior to his arrival in TWIN PEAKS in the short-short "Tapes Withheld, #1", then teams with his twin sister Diane to find a killer with an affinity for mixed-gender twins in part one of a four-part script-story, "Yin And Yang"; a press biography of BEYOND REALITY's Carl Marotte (Dr. J.J. Stillman). Issue 65 Friday The 13th Festival! Primary stories: Ryan and Jack must save Micki from a haunted house in the conclusion of "Down At The End Of Lonely Street" and from Jason himself in the conclusion of "The Truth Behind The Mask". Also: Agent Cooper oversleeps prior to his arrival in TWIN PEAKS and describes the experience to Diane in the second "Tapes Withheld"; a movie review of JURASSIC PARK; part two of "Yin And Yang". Issue 66 Fantastic Television Festival! Our annual salute to TV begins with part one of a three-part SPACE:1999 script-story that finds Koenig questioning the reason for their strange adventures, "The Devil's Sweets". Also: Sam Beckett leaps into a mental patient whose wife is conspiring to steal his land in the complete-in- this-issue QUANTUM LEAP story "Pardon My Insanity"; a SPACE:1999 "tech sheet" on Alpha as the "Hub Of Our Solar System: Lunar Transportation Node"; TWIN PEAKS' Agent Cooper tangles with a cantankerous stapler in the third "Tapes Withheld"; a FLASH filksong, "You Won't See Him"; FLASHBACK editor/publisher Steve Beverly reviews the Golden Age sci-fi classic series SCIENCE FICTION THEATER; part two of "Comes The Cheetah"; part three of "Yin And Yang". Issue 70 HAPPY NEW YEAR! Primary story: Sam Beckett leaps into an Air Force officer investigating U.F.O.s in the complete-in-this-issue QUANTUM LEAP story "Space Case". Also: J. Calvin Smith's one- shot STAR TREK:THE NEXT GENERATION comic "Some Days It Just Don't Pay"; book review of A TWIN PEAKS INTERPRETATION; conclusion of "Yin And Yang". Issue 73 TWIN PEAKS ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL! Primary story: Ben Horne's up to no good in the complete-in-this-issue story "Boys Night Out". Also: Cartoonist J. Calvin Smith turns out "A Musical Guide To TWIN PEAKS For The Very Young"; Cooper discovers the joy of temperature regulation in Federal buildings in the latest "Tapes Withheld"; conclusion of the Russ Tamblyn interview. Issue 78 FANTASTIC TELEVISION III! Primary story: CAPTAIN SCARLET AND THE MYSTERONS collide again as Spectrum tries to protect a World Navy exhibition in a "Time Warp Tales" reprint of the out-of-print "An Exercise In Hope". Also: A bank holdup in Spokane two days before Dale and Audrey's wedding draws Dale and Diane's attention away from TWIN PEAKS in the complete-in-this-issue story "New Lives"; an ALIEN NATION filksong, "We All Live In An Alien Nation"; QUANTUM LEAP filksongs "Bringin' On The Rain" and "Quantum Blues"; reviews of THE SHADOW and the 60's Japanese kids' series ULTRA 7. Issue 81 HOLIDAY GRAB BAG! Primary story: Fandom universes converge and only the Fictional Hero Protection Alliance can sort out the damage in J. Calvin Smith's sequel to the non-media-based tale "D.V.O." entitled "F.H.P.A." Also: L. Gray explores how Harry Truman and Dennis Bryson formulated their plan to rescue Agent Cooper from Jean Renault in an episode from the second season of TWIN PEAKS in this complete-in-this-issue "missing scene" tale, "Uniformity"; learn why Ben Kenobi stopped fighting evil in the complete-in-this-issue STAR WARS story "Fading Faith"; a STAR WARS satire, "DEC Wars"; from the internet, the BABYLON 5 frequently asked questions (FAQ) list. POWER STAR Past Stories (Cross-Referenced By "Universe") (* = Still In Progress) Book/Zine Reviews THE FIRST AMERICANS Book Review: 39 MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA Book Review: 39 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF F.B.I. SPECIAL AGENT DALE COOPER: MY LIFE, MY TAPES Book Review: 42 WELCOME TO TWIN PEAKS: AN ACCESS GUIDE TO THE TOWN Book Review: 42 A TWIN PEAKS INTERPRETATION Book Review: 70 MIDNIGHT MARQUEE Zine Review: 53 BLOOD TIMES Zine Review: 53 SCARLET STREET Zine Review: 53 SATELLITE LINK... Zine Review: 55 SECRETS OF TWIN PEAKS Zine Review: 55 GEORDI'S ENGINEERING LOG Zine Review: 56 PILOT NEWSLETTER Zine Review: 57 TIME TRAVELLER Zine Review: 57 "Jean-Luc Junior" Script-zine Review: 57 WRAPPED IN PLASTIC Zine Review: 61 FLASHBACK Zine Review: 61 "A Visitor" Script-zine Review: 62 STRANGE NEW WORLDS Zine Review: 62 SOUTHERN ENCLAVE Zine Review: 62 FOR YOUR INFORMATION Zine Review: 62 THE WORLD OF DARK SHADOWS Zine Review: 67 CINEMACABRE Zine Review: 67 "MIRACLEMAN Among Finest Comics On The Market": 76 CLOAKING DEVICE Zine Review: 77 TWIN PEAKS "Beware Of A Fool's Mate": 35 "Two-Pronged Attack": 39 COOP Party Reports: 41 "Bridge Between Worlds": 42, 43 "To Dale And Diane": 42 "Two Souls": 44, 45, 46, 48, 49 "The Saga Of Dale And Diane": Yearbook TWIN PEAKS European Pilot Video Review: 50 "Voices Through The Gateway": 51, 52, 53, 54 TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME Movie Review: 53 Universe Guide: 54 "So Much As A Nightmare": 57, 59 TWIN PEAKS Fiction Roundtable: 61 Russ Tamblyn Interview: 61, 73 "MEANWHILE...": 61 "Tapes Withheld": 63, 65, 66, 73, 93 "Yin And Yang": 63, 65, 66, 70 "Boys Night Out": 73 "A Musical Guide To TWIN PEAKS For The Very Young": 73 "New Lives": 78 "Uniformity": 81 POWER STAR The Imagination Anthology COMING NEXT TIME: -- Our 1995 Comics Special begins with X-MEN colliding with Magneto and his forces in the conclusion of "X-Men" -- CAPTAIN SCARLET is concerned about the "Differences" in his life after Spectrum's initial encounters with the Mysterons in a complete-in-this-issue short-short -- SILVER SURFER brings Galactus to Earth in the conclusion of "What Price Be Mercy?" -- The usual nonsense plus much more! Don't miss the next exciting issue of POWER STAR!