Start of a transcript of HALOTHANE An Interactive Restoration Copyright 1999 by Quentin.D.Thompson. License 1999, The Theatre Of The Sensible. [Please type 'help' in times of doubt - or just for fun. To toggle between default and original colours, use 'colours on' and 'colours off'.] Release 1 / Serial number 990928 / Inform v6.15 Library 6/8 Standard interpreter 1.0 (6F) / Library serial number 981213 >restart Are you sure you want to restart? y [ Ketamine and phencyclidine, which produce amnesia, catatonia and a feeling of dissociation from the environment, block the ion channel associated with the NMDA (N-methyl D-aspartate) subtype of glutamate receptor... - William.F.Ganong, "Review Of Medical Physiology"] Halothane [depress SPACE......] You'll never really know how it all started. That's not surprising, because you're not even sure what happened in the first place. If it had been anything else, you would have dismissed it as ninety-nine per cent bad digestion and one percent fancy, much as Ebenezer Scrooge would have. Somehow, in this case, that explanation doesn't really grab you. Did it really mean anything? Or was it, as the physiologists would say, just a matter of a few neurons in your brainstem working overtime? But life is strange. It's almost impossible to predict - as Heisenberg pointed out - where exactly you might end up, even when you start in as mundane a place as your own home.... Your Bedroom This is hardly the place for an adventure to begin. You know the furniture of this room - desk, chair, bed and bookcase - almost as well as the contents of your pockets. On the wooden desk is a dusty manuscript. >i You are carrying nothing. >x manuscript A pile of false starts to the Great Global Novel that you plan to complete someday. It deals with 25th century people who try to understand the lunacy of the 20th century by travelling in time to the 28th. It also includes no gratuitous sex or violence, which explains why no publisher's ever been interested in it. The manuscript is in a state of disarray, which is strange considering that - since you live alone - no one else but you could have touched it. Pages 102 to 205 are spreadeagled, and you fancy you can see something buried under it - but you're not sure what. >l under it You rootle among the papers for a few seconds, and find a flower and a note buried amongst them. Funny, you don't remember putting them there.... [Your score has just gone up by four points.] >x note A small, nondescript scrap of paper. Strangely, though the paper itself looks like it was torn from one of your numerous notepads, the words on it are printed, rather than written in your sprawling hand. You can't help but feel that there's a purpose to all this..... >read it In a slanting, Old-World style font, the following words are printed - François, Ch 1. Lines 34 - 39. "Let there be light", a Voice said. "But before there can be light", it continued, "there must be a source of light". "And", added the Author, "a light producer". "That might be a little difficult for the future generations to understand", the Voice rebuked. "Very well", replied the Author. "We shall use an ancient word - the Greek halogenos, the light producer. "That is good", the Voice sighed. "But things have a knack of getting lost in transl....." [Here the line ends in mid-sentence, as if the printing process was suddenly interrupted.] >s It's way past your bedtime, and you're feeling too sleepy to do anything except get into bed. >get into bed You get onto the old bed. >sleep It's way too hot for you to fall asleep. Maybe if you had some ventilation..... >open window You can't see any such thing. >stand You get off the old bed. Your Bedroom This is hardly the place for an adventure to begin. You know the furniture of this room - desk, chair, bed and bookcase - almost as well as the contents of your pockets. On the wooden desk is a dusty manuscript. You can see a small note and a yellow flower here. >x flower It's unlike any flower you've ever seen before; it has, in blatant defiance of whatever the botanists say, an outer whorl containing six yellow petals, and an inner whorl of four pointed, unnatural-looking pink petals. You're sure you've seen it before, but you can't remember where... >smell it You take a deep breath - but smell absolutely nothing. Bizarre... >x bookcase Until about five years ago, other people could approach this bookcase with impunity, as it was cluttered with other people's writings. Currently, however, it is solely used to store your own. It's currently closed. >open it You open the bookcase, revealing a copy of your first novel. >read novel You know this one even more in detail than your untitled current effort. You even mumble the characters' names in your sleep, until people wonder whether you're a paranoid schizophrenic. >open it That's not something you can open. >search it You find nothing of interest. >search desk On the wooden desk is a dusty manuscript. >l under bed Though there's nothing under the bed, by craning your neck awkwardly you can see that there is something under the desk. >l under desk Ah, your trusty fan. You pull it out, anticipating a rather high nocturnal temperature. [Your score has just gone up by two points.] >plug it in That's not a verb I recognise. >turn it on That's not something you can switch. >x fan A device to ensure that you get enough breeze to enable you to fall asleep without Valium, security blankets, or air-conditioning. Battery-powered, too, so you don't have to worry about tripping through wires. The fan is currently switched off. >switch it on I doubt the fan would give you even a little ventilation in its current position. >put fan on desk You put the fan on the wooden desk. >switch it on I doubt the fan would give you even a little ventilation in its current position. >put fan on bookcase You need to be holding the fan before you can put it on top of something else. >get it Taken. >put fan on bookcase You promised you'd fill that bookcase with nothing but your own works. >i You are carrying: a fan >l Your Bedroom This is hardly the place for an adventure to begin. You know the furniture of this room - desk, chair, bed and bookcase - almost as well as the contents of your pockets. On the wooden desk is a dusty manuscript. You can see a small note and a yellow flower here. >put fan on chair You put the fan on the chair; it's now pointing more or less towards your bed. [Your score has just gone up by four points.] >turn on fan You switch the fan on. >lie on bed You get onto the old bed. >sleep You feel yourself drifting slowly into sleep. Strangely enough, the breeze from the fan doesn't quite smell like night air, or even like yesterday's leftovers...Your back touches cold metal, and your level of consciousness wavers. A voice floats around your head, in one ear first, the other next... "Welcome to your world." [Please press SPACE....]