It was a warm afternoon in early autumn.  The air was redolent with 
the fragrance of ripeness.  Under a trellis on some abandoned farm 
land, partly hidden in an unkempt and overgrown clump of asters, 
sat a young fox.  His eyes half closed with pleasure, he sniffed 
the air around him, taking in the rich spicy scents.  He lifted his 
head, the better to follow one particularly enticing odor to its 
source - and suddenly his eyes opened wide.  

Suspended right above him in the mass of yellowing leaves in the 
trellis overhead was a bunch of grapes, a huge purple cluster in 
the absolute perfection of ripeness.  Each grape was dusted with a 
light film of powdery bloom and the entire cluster was glowing in 
the animated sunlight as the leaves above it shifted back and forth 
in the breeze.  The fox had never seen anything so beautiful in his 
life.  It was as if some kindly and powerful Being had put the 
grapes in just that spot, so that the fox might smell them, and see 
them, and luxuriate in them.  

He sat there looking up at the grapes for a long time.  When 
evening came, he sighed and made his way back to his den, a 
distance of some three miles over meadows and through woods.  

It had never occurred to him to eat them.  

21 responses total.

Hm.  For some strange, imponderable reason I was expecting a slightly
different ending.  I wonder what it might have been.

One explanation is that md had a call from his publisher, who said to
quit stalling, and get the next installment in or he wouldn't get his
next retainer. The alternative explanation is more disturbing. Foxes
do eat berries (at least, the Red, Gray and Arctic, do). Therefore
for it to not even occur to the fox, is very strange, and has deep and
unsettling implications.

Rane, that's just sour grapes.

But, how did the fox know?

the yellowing leaves are a clue to many of nature's denizens.

Instead of a sigh, shouldn't the fox have let out a little whine before he went
home?
.exit
Uh oh, now I'm trapped in cyberspace, someone call V.P. Gore with a rescue
team.

I've never thought that just a .  is a readily obvious finish command. It
seems to trap a lot of people in cyberspace. But would this be too sacred
to change (or at least alias) for newusers? Why not let quit be used too
(of course, experienced users would object to not being able to write quit
a the beginning of a line - maybe make it a finish onl{ if alone? - or
have the command expire for a ne{user{_ok after they hav~re been
o{{w3for{a monthw3{{t~r {A{{ghhhh{ ttyq).h2!  help! quit! 

This is too comical to believe.

Actually, I find it very easy to beleive!

Beleive maybe, but believe never.

Ha ha, very funny!
Actually, I find it very easy to believe.
(better, gerund?)

Rane, it's not by any means original with Picospan.  I would **definitely**
object, myself, to having "quit" at the beginning of a line suddenly
terminate my entry, BTW.

Getting there anne, getting there.  :-)

gerund, good, I'm glad you're getting there (wherever there may be)
<grin>

you.....
oh never mind

People going through newuser get experience typing "." to end their
entries when they enter the information that goes in their .plan
file.  Also, they get the message 'type "." to exit' EVERY time
they enter a response.

Agreed.  And I don't think there is *any* possible terminator which is
going to be intuitive for everyone.  I've been on systems where an empty
line terminates input.  I'm always getting booted out when I try to start
a new paragraph.  (Have to remember to put a blank on that empty line.)

MTS does that. I hate it. I can't copy and paste to its editor or
mail programs, if there are paragraphs.

why is this in "writing"? All the people in this discussion also read info
and agora.  Sorry to cvetch.

I don't know. I wasn't drifting - I just followed the thread. What else
is there to talk about? Aesop?

I just answered Rane.  But anyway, this is extremely appropriate in Writing
(though not necessarily in this item), given the existence of aesthetic
theories such as surrealism and stream-of-consciousness literature.

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