Time, Out of Mind

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum - harnums@hotmail.com

All Ranma characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi, first
published by Shogakugan in Japan and brought over to North
America by Viz Communications.  Any resemblance to persons living
or dead is entirely on purpose, and is meant to deliberately
insult them.  Unless they resemble you, and you're, like, a 
really big biker with a black belt or something, in which case 
they're not supposed to resemble you at all.

-WARNING-

This fic contains the following:

1)  Motorcycles

2)  Wet T-Shirts

3)  Darkness

4)  Self-Insertion

5)  Really, really bad use of similes

6)  An inconclusive ending

7)  Pointless warnings

You have been warned.  We take no responsibility for hair loss, 
brain damage or shrinking of ventricles caused by this fic.  

---------------------Terminus Est--------------------------------

     The rain hammered down upon the earth like the drummer in 
the garage band of the gods.  Accompaniment was provided by 
thunder, visual effects by lightning.  The water gathered in
puddles in the streets and swelled high in the gutters, for the
fallen leaves of autumn blocked the sewer grates like a 
linebacker made of damp vegetation.

     Through one of these puddles, the tires of the motorcycle
passed, spraying damp water and the unpleasant debris that
gathered in it such as cigarette butts and false eyelashes.  The
rider swore as the legs of his jeans were soaked quite badly.  He
was already damp to the skin from the pounding of the rain, his
short hair slicked to his head as if by an overdose of Dep, his 
glasses nearly fogged to opacity.  Thankfully, there was no one 
else on the streets, or there might have been a bad accident.

     "I have got to get some contacts," the rider said, pulling
the bike around a corner.  Beneath his long leather coat, the
black sheath slapped against his hip like an angry woman at the
end of a bad date, you know, when the guy tries to kiss her
anyway and she really gives it to him.

     The night sky was dark as a white cat dipped in black paint,
lit occasionally by flashes of lightning that looked like rips in
the tuxedo pants of some really, really huge guy.  

     "Please, let me by in time," the rider said.  Up ahead, the
white wall that surrounded a two-story Japanese house loomed.  
The wall continued to loom as the rider approached, because he 
couldn't see anything with his glasses this fogged.

     Thunder rolled in the sky like a god choking on a 
turkey bone, one of those little pointy ones like the one your
dog got caught in his throat after he dug through the garbage
after Thanksgiving, you know, those ones.

     The wall continued to loom, until it decided to loom into
the front end of the motorcycle.  Through a loop in space-time 
that caused a momentary suspension of the laws of physics, the 
rider was not reduced to tomato sauce, metaphorical tomato sauce, 
I mean, because you wouldn't want to put it on your spaghetti
unless you were Hannibal Lecter or something.

     Instead, he was thrown over the wall to land with a splash 
in the pond below.  Behind him, the motorcycle exploded like the
head of a Fist of the North Star character, if FotNS characters
were made of metal and had oil instead of blood.

     Sputtering water like a faulty fountain, the black-clad
rider pulled himself out of the pond, combing his fingers through
his hair, plastered to his scalp like plaster to a wall.  He
reached down to his hip and felt the handle of his weapon.  Good.
Still intact.  Faithful and true his weapon was, just like Ol' 
Yeller, except that it hadn't yet gone rabid and had to be shot.

     He crossed the rain-slicked grass of the yard and pounded on
the front door with his fist.  

     "Open!  You must open!" he called.
     
     A window opened above.  "Do you know what time it is?"
someone shouted.

     "No!" the black-clad boy called back.  "But-"
     
     "IT'S THREE IN THE MORNING!" the angry female voice screamed
back, promptly following it with a hurled frying pan that bounced
off the boy's head like something heavy and metal bouncing off
something soft and fleshy.

     "But I must speak to Ranma Saotome!"
     
     "Ranma Saotome?"
     
     "Yes!  It's desperately important!"
     
     "HE LIVES NEXT DOOR, YOU IDIOT!" the voice screamed.  
     
     "Oh."
     
     The boy turned and began to walk away, right before he was
promptly hit by a thrown dresser that fell from the window like a
descending eagle made of heavy oak, if the eagle didn't have any
wings and was filled with clothing.

     "Ow," the boy said, from his new home underneath the 
dresser, which had smashed him into the soft, muddy earth of the
house's yard like a dog turd hit by a sledgehammer.  After he
managed to stop the funny bright lights dancing in front of his
head, the boy stood up and painfully dragged himself out of the
yard.  
     
     His black boots splashed through the puddles on the sidewalk
as he walked, spraying water everywhere like a St. Bernard with 
an underbite.  He stepped in through the gate of the next house,
walked up past the bushes that stood like leafy green sentinels,
if the sentinels were unarmed and totally useless at defending
anything, and banged on the door.

     The door was slid open almost instantly with a shush sound,
like when you drag a big roll of wallpaper across a shag carpet.

     "Hello there!" said the tall, cheerful teenage girl with her
brown hair tied back into a ponytail standing illuminated in the
doorway.  Perky was a word inadequate to describe her.  She
radiated a kind of vacuous good cheer without any real effort,
rather like a tree turns carbon dioxide into oxygen without any
real effort.

     "Kasumi Tendo?" the boy asked wearily, as the rain fell down
upon him, dampening his blond hair so that different bits of it 
alternately stuck up in spikes or fell down against his scalp.
He pulled off his glasses and began to clean them against his
wet t-shirt, squinting up at the girl with a pair of blue eyes
roughly one-tenth the size of hers.

     "Yes, that's me!" Kasumi said.  She was one of those people
who managed to add an exclamation mark to every sentence,
including such ones as "we're sorry to inform you your puppy has
been hit by a truck" and "unfortunately, the cancer appears to be
terminal."

     "I'm sorry for waking you," the boy said, putting his 
glasses back on.  "But I bring an urgent message."

     "You didn't wake me!" Kasumi said.
     
     "Well, you're a very early riser then," the boy said.
     
     "Oh no!" Kasumi said.  "I don't ever sleep!  What if
someone came in and dirtied the house while I was asleep, and
then the next morning I slept in late and father and Akane and
Nabiki and Ranma and Genma had to get up to a dirty house?  Why,
I'd never hear the end of it!"

     "How do you stay up?" the boy asked.
     
     "I drink ten cups of coffee every hour!" Kasumi said, and
giggled like a circus freak.

     "Yes," the boy said.  "If I may introduce myself, I am
Aran Harnumo.  I have a desperately important message for Ranma
Saotome."

     "Oh my!" Kasumi said.  "Ranma's asleep right now.  Perhaps
you'd like to give me the message, and I'll tell him in the
morning!"

     "Oh man," Aran said, shaking his head.  "He's really gotta
know this.  If I don't warn him before he gets married to Akane
Tendo..."

     "Oh my, Ranma and Akane got married two weeks ago!" Kasumi 
said.

     "Damn daylight savings time," Aran muttered.  "But I guess
I'm not too late... they must be delaying."

     "Do you mean that evil plot by forces from beyond space and
time to make sure Ranma and Akane never marry?"

     Aran snapped his fingers.  "That's the one!"

     "The one led by that awful man who runs around with with a
turnip-shaped growth on his scalp as a sign of his devotion to 
the forces of darkness?" 

     "Yes!"
     
     "Well, Ranma already defeated him!" Kasumi said.  "So
there's nothing to worry about!"

     "But... what about the henchmen?  And the monsters?  And the
kidnapping to the Temple of the Monkey Men?  And the final battle
atop Skull Mountain?"
     
     "Those already happened!" Kasumi said.

     "The expedition to the Subterranean Caverns of the Monstrous
Mole-Men?"

     "That too!" Kasumi said.
     
     "The tear-filled, angsty parting scene between Ranma and his
mother?"

     "That happened!"
     
     "But... but..." Aran said.  "But I didn't get to do 
anything!  I didn't get to use my magical sword, Nosethumper, or
use my special attack that I named by combining random phrases
from a Japanese dictionary!  I didn't even get to be engaged to
Nabiki or Ukyou!"

     "But Nabiki got engaged to Konatsu, and Ukyou ended up 
running off to China with those three nice fellows from the Musk
Dynasty!" Kasumi said.

     "Oh," Aran said.  "How did that happen?"
     
     Kasumi began to explain, as Aran stood on the doorstep 
getting more and more soaked.     
     
     "Oh," Aran said at the end.  "I think the most surprising
was the part with Pink and Link, and Genma and Soun."

     "I was a little sad when Happosai got strapped to that 
missile and shot into the sun!" Kasumi said.  

     "Yeah," Aran said.  "Well... uh... I guess that's it.  
Certainly an incredible series of events.  Wish I'd been around
to participate in them."

     "I'm sorry you were too late!" Kasumi said cheerfully.
     
     "Guess I'll just go and stand in the rain some more till I
die, okay?" Aran said with a weak smile.

     "Alright!" Kasumi said, and closed the door.
     
*********

     Back inside, Kasumi walked back to the kitchen.
     
     "What a nice young man," she said.  "I hope he finds a
cardboard box to shelter under.  Now, where is that book Dr. Tofu
lent me?"
     
     She found the heavy, leather-bound volume on the kitchen
table and sat down to begin reading.  Outside, dogs began to 
howl, and a voice began swearing in accented Japanese, gradually
retreating as if the owner were being chased by, say, a large 
pack of hungry dogs.

     "Now where was I... oh, yes, here we are... Ia, Ia, Cthulhu
F'tagn... P'nglui M'wagalnath R'lyeh... Oh my!"

*********

     The amazing adventures of Aran Harnumo went on to shock and
astoud millions.  Well, they probably would have, if he hadn't
been caught and eaten by the wild dogs an hour after he left the
Tendo house.  His last thought was this:

     "Puppy Chow for a full year, till he's full grown..."
     
     It is a terrible thing to die.  It is an even worse thing to
die with a really bad commercial jingle stuck in your head while
being eaten by wild dogs.  

The Moral:  Life really sucks sometimes.  And that Puppy Chow 
song is kinda catchy.  Getting eaten by wild dogs isn't too good
either.  

                              THE END
                              
Notes:

God help me, I don't know what this is.  I'm tired, I'm staring
at the draft of Chapter 13 of WuE with no idea if it's any good
or not, and I just wrote this.  If anyone has any clue as to what 
the hell it is, please tell me, because I sure don't.  I'm going 
to sleep.  Goodnight, everyone.

-Alan Harnum


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