[Other installments of Sekocom, Inc. games include DISADVENTURE!, DISADDENDUM!, DISMORALIZED!, DISINSOMNIA!, WHARTON!, GRADING!, DISBELIEF! and DISCONVENTION!.]
Copyright (c) 1980, 1982, 1983, 2009 Sekocom, Inc. All rights reserved.
GRADING! is a registered trademark of Sekocom, Inc.
Revision 28 / Serial number 8940728
You are standing in an open field west of a white apartment complex, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
> go inside
It is such a beautiful day out. Why not explore awhile?
> go inside and grade
You throw caution to the wind and amble aimlessly around fields bathing in inspirational pastels swaths that compel poets to compose poetry and—
> kill kinkade
Your inability to access the adumbral profundity of—
> kill alliteration
You are exploring a verdant meadow whose vertiginous pleasures verily—
> stop crap poem go inside and grade
You reluctantly return to the white apartment complex and—
> damn right hippie
And decide you would rather not grade so you—
> hippie must grade now GO INSIDE
So you begin to skip to the blessed beat of some auscultated thrum—
> hippies made for dying
Idle threats will do you no—
> hippies good at dying
I said—
> inside and grade or else
You enter the white apartment complex and begin to grade your students' final papers. The good ones are predictably good. The poor ones are predictably poor. The hours drag like sleds pulled by drunk slugs. You think you fall asleep when in fact that is what your student thinks language is. You grab a pen and—
> JAB IN EYES JAB IN EYES
You must grade or el—
> JAB HARDER MAKE SELF DIE
If these grades are not turned in by—
> NO CARE WANT DEATH
You try to ignore your responsibility to your students but—
> NO BUTS BRING DEATH BRING DEATH BRING DEATH
The grue devours you before you have a chance to scream.
(Thanks to Joran Elias for reminding me how much I enjoy venting via text adventure.)
The hours drag like sleds pulled by drunk slugs
Nice. There's a Chandler echo (minutes piling up like pennies?) but I can't recall it, quite.
Posted by: Vance Maverick | Sunday, 22 March 2009 at 09:58 PM
I'm so sick of grading I willingly took a break to fill out job applications. :( That's how sucky it is.
Posted by: Sisyphus | Sunday, 22 March 2009 at 10:28 PM
Vance: I remember something from Chandler like "The minutes passed by on tiptoe, fingers to their lips"? I also think I remember a striking simile for time dragging from Marlowe's narcotic stupor in The Long Goodbye, but my brain is a sieve.
Posted by: CP | Monday, 23 March 2009 at 06:11 AM
Maybe someone slipped those sled dogs a mickey.
Posted by: JPool | Monday, 23 March 2009 at 07:49 AM
That's sled slugs, JP, and they're hitched to my clipboard, too....
Posted by: Ahistoricality | Monday, 23 March 2009 at 08:36 AM
That's sled slugs
Ah, I had missed this the first time through. "Drunken" seems like overkill, slugs not being very good sled pullers at the best of times. But, perhaps in spring (or whatever season Californians are pretending to have now) a young Scott's thoughts turn to garden defense.
Posted by: JPool | Monday, 23 March 2009 at 11:19 AM
That's a great link....
Posted by: Ahistoricality | Monday, 23 March 2009 at 07:35 PM
Holy crap, I'm famous! ;)
Sadly, this reminds me that I have grading to do.
Posted by: jme | Monday, 23 March 2009 at 09:12 PM