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~ Finding, formulating and solving life's frustrations.

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Tag Archives: Science fiction

Naughty Knots

03 Wednesday Mar 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

fiction, Kleins Bottle, Science fiction, story, tale, topology

Dr. J. Clarence Thompson shuffled thorough his unfolded shirts. He glanced at the clock. “Crap!” he muttered, “I’m going to be late. Next time, I’m going to put my shirts away so I know where to find the one I want.”

He muttered to himself a lot since he had been “retired” from his job teaching topology at nearby Kansas State University. “Damn. I’m going to be late for my tee time. Maybe I should call…hold on. Here we go.” At last Dr. J. Found the green and gold Hawaiian shirt he had been looking for. Some of his other golf shirts restricted his movements. He had enough trouble staying in the fairway. “What the hell? What’s with this shirt.” 

Let me explain. Dr. J. Had a habit of removing his shirts so that at least one, and sometimes both sleeves were inside out. This time though, the shirt was twisted in some very odd way. Like the whole shirt was inside out inside one of the sleeves which was itself inside out.

“This kind of crap always happens when you’re in too much of a damned hurry. I should have just gotten up earlier. Or, skipped breakfast. But that never works. What the hell is wrong with this shirt?” 

Without really meaning to, he scrunched his eyebrows together and clenched his teeth. He hated being late for a tee time. He snorted ruefully. “Shouldn’t really be that hard for a topology professor. Ex-professor,” he reminded himself. “This is ridiculous. The shirt…Okay…the sleeve is inside the shirt but he shirt is inside the sleeve that the…Hey, Jenni…Oh, crap.”

Photo by Frank Cone on Pexels.com



He had promised himself to stop talking to his deceased wife. Or, to use her name any more than necessary. Every time he thought of her, it pained him. Stupid skiing accident. He pursed his lips together tightly. She liked golf. At least that’s a safe sport. You don’t break your neck running into a tree. 

Dr. J. thought back to a time he had landed in the woods a few yards off the fairway. He had decided to try hitting the ball toward the hole rather than taking the easy way out and chipping it out onto the fairway. A wasted shot, he had thought. Instead of streaming through the small gap, the golf ball had hit a tree and whizzed back inches from his head. He now lay 40 yards farther from the hole. But he tried it one more time with exactly the same result. Finally, he had “taken his medicine” and chipped out into the fairway. Triple bogey despite some nice putting on the green.

“All right then. Let’s take this one step at a time. I pull the sleeve out this way…and … WHAT?!” 

Dr. J. stared at where his left hand should be. It. Was. Not. There. But…there was no blood. “How could there be? I haven’t cut himself. But where the hell is my hand!? Call 911? And say what? They’ll put me in the looney bin for sure. It doesn’t feel like my hand is gone. But maybe it is a phantom limb phenomenon. No. It can’t be gone.”

He snapped his fingers. He felt his fingers snapping. But there was no sound. “There!” he shouted joyously. “I hear it. But…how can it take that long for the sound to get here.” 

“I need a beer. Jennifer? Can you… oh crap, that’s right. Stupid skiing accident. Damn her! How could you be so thoughtless?! Beer? I need whiskey. I will pull my hand out with my other hand. Then, I will call Carl and tell them I can’t make it. Twisted my ankle. I’m not going to tell them about … this. I just need to calm down and think this through. What is that damned racket? No wonder I can’t think straight.”

In the background, CNN was interviewing some random “man on the street” and Mister Random was saying: “He’s the only politician who tells it like it is. He doesn’t pretend to be all politically correct. You know? He’s truthful.”

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com



The reporter put the mike near his own mouth and asked, “How do you know he’s truthful?” 

“He’s told us! He told us to watch out for — no offense — but you work for the fake news! You guys are all liars. He’s the only source of truth. It’s refreshing.”

Dr. J. glanced at the TV and saw the reporter trying hard not to let his feelings show on his face as he asked again, “And the way you know he tells the truth is that he says he tells the truth?” 

“Yeah, exactly!”



Dr. J. had long ago discovered that when you were absolutely stuck in solving a problem, that it often helped to think about something completely different for a few moments. He shook his head at the hapless fool being interviewed on TV. A vivid picture formed itself in Dr. J.’s imagination. He saw a large orange “picture” of a Klein’s Bottle. Of course, it wasn’t really a picture, just a children’s illustration. Of course, the “logic” of the interviewee wasn’t really a Klein’s Bottle. It was simply a circle that fed itself forever. The hapless fan had no more idea how foolish his circular reasoning was than the eddy at the end of an oar worries about … well … anything. Water doesn’t worry. It is being pushed about by external forces. In the same way, this “fan” had  been manipulated into going in a circle. Dr. J. recalled an illustration in a Scientific American article he had read about ants following pheromone trails. Normally, the ants coordinated marvelously with each other and found their way home without a hitch.

But you could turn them into a death cult. Lay a circular trail of pheromones and the ants would follow each other in a circle until they starved to death. 

“Okay, enough of that. Back to the problem at hand.” Dr. J. had begun muttering to himself again. “How do I get my hand out? Maybe if I reach in … like so … from the other side.” 

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

——————————————-

Carl had worked hard to convince the rest of his threesome to come with him. Carl was popular but Dr. J. was difficult for most people to deal with. But they did come, because, as Carl explained, we look out for each other at this age. It wasn’t like Dr. J. to simply forget about their regular Thursday early tee time and not even call. There was no knock at the door, but the apartments at Happy Acres afforded only a few places to hide an extra key. Carl opened the door. Something, he was sure, was amiss. But what? 

They searched the apartment and found no note, no hint of where he had gone. Carl also noted that Dr. J. had left the thermostat set at 72. He would never leave it that hot when he was out and about.

After an hour’s search, they called the police who very politely explained that if they wanted to file a missing person’s report, they could, but that, in his experience, the person always turned up shortly and most of the time, they turned up alive. Not always, but almost always. In any case, police policy forbid them from searching for him or indeed, doing any real investigative work for 24 hours. 

Photo by Daria Shevtsova on Pexels.com

Carl excelled at being persuasive. After all, he had been in the 100 percent club his entire career at Megamax. But he could not move the police officer into action. He put down the phone and realized he had no idea what to do either. He felt sure something was wrong, but he couldn’t really put his finger on anything in particular. Dr. J’s house looked as it always did. It did seem odd, come to think of it, the way that shirt is all folded in on itself.

“Hey, guys, come take a look at this weird shirt.”

Ben put a very serious look on his face and said, “That’s it! He’s in the pocket of his own shirt!”

Then, he and Avram began laughing uproariously.

Carl joined in the fun himself. But he still persisted. “Okay, okay, very funny. But it — I mean if you were going away for a week or two, would you leave your shirt lying on the floor, all twisted up like this?”

Ben chuckled. He could see a great opportunity to ham it up. And in the process, he’d jolly Carl out of being worried over nothing.

“Yeah, here, I’ll solve the mystery. The mystery of the twisted shirt! Watch this folks! I, Ben Sherlock, will place my hand into what appears to be an ordinary shirt!”

That turned out to have been a huge mistake. As were all the successive rescue attempts. 

Photo by Plato Terentev on Pexels.com

——————————————————————

What could be better? A horror story.

If Only.

That cold walk home.

How did I get here?

Trumpism is a new religion. 

Author page on Amazon

The URGENT E-mail

31 Sunday May 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, COVID-19, management, politics, psychology, story, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Democracy, Dictatorship, ecology, fiction, greed, pandemic, Sci-Fi, Science fiction, story, USA

man in black holding phone

Photo by Snapwire on Pexels.com

“You ready to head home, Barry?” 

“Yeah, just let me read this URGENT e-mail. Hold on.” 

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS USERID. THIS WAS SENT FROM A DISCONNECTED SERVICE MACHINE. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, PLEASE DIAL THE TOLL FREE NUMBER AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS MESSAGE. 

“What the heck? I’d better read the rest.” 

WARNING: You have an incompatibility possibility between your X-CalDYS system CWP and your YODEL system HGH. If this continues, you will either cease to exist or your SNABLE account will be cancelled or both or neither. In any case, please fix this immediately by following the proper procedures. Dial 1-800-555-9876 for help. 

“What procedures? What are they talking about? I didn’t even know I had these systems.” 

“Sorry, Barry, I can’t help you on this one. Hey, it’s 8 PM. I’ve been going since six this morning. I’m gone.” 

“See you tomorrow. I’d better call.” 

Barry’s fingers beeped out the tones and then heard the cheery voice of concatenated speech: 

“You have reached the help center. Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line and you’ll be helped by the first available agent. Meanwhile, please listen to these important and informative messages from our CEO!

man wearing blue suit

Photo by Minervastudio on Pexels.com

“Hello fellow employees. Our results for the second quarter of last year are not so far behind the analysts’ expectations for our results for the third quarter of next year as they had been thought to be by the fifth quarter of this year. What does this mean for you? Work harder! Work smarter!! And, whatever you do, help make us the most efficient company in the world so my bonus will be bigger. Next quarter, we….” 

The pre-recorded and completely irrelevant message of the CEO was replaced by the concatenated speech synthesis.

“Thank you for holding. Press 1 for help on Windows, Doors, and Sewer Pipes. Press 2 for help on recipes for Chicken Tetrazzini. Press 3 for general counseling. Press 4 for other help.” 

Barry jabbed the 4 key. 

“Thank you. You have reached general help. Please enter your employee number followed by the Hunkdab.” 

Barry keyed in his employee number. “The what? Hunkdab? This must have been mistranslated from Serbo-Croatian. Probably the pound sign.” 

“That is not a valid employee number. There is no corresponding record in the SNABLE system. Please enter a valid employee number.” 

“What? Maybe the asterisk key?” 

He rekeyed his employee number followed by the asterisk. 

“That is not a valid employee number. There is no corresponding record in the SNABLE system. Please enter a valid employee number.” 

“Oh, crap. What is this all about? Geez. It’s 8:30. I’m outta here.” 

Barry moved the cursor to the entry line and typed “LOGOFF.” 

The computer beeped. “ERROR 95433-J: Machine cannot be logged off by a non-existent user.” 

“What the–? What is this? Some kind of virus?” He hit the power switch. “What a day.” Barry packed up his laptop and opened his office door. 

Beyond the door, the dim hallways and locked doors that typified the drab and depressing departmental decor had disappeared. Instead, Barry looked out on pure whiteness, infinite and featureless in every direction. He blinked. Tentatively, he began to stick the tip of his finger into the white goo, thought better of it, and used his pen instead. The pen felt as though it was going into hot tar. It disappeared beyond the plane of his doorframe. He pulled the pen back. The half that had been enveloped in the whiteness was gone. 

He went back to his desk, grabbed some loose change and tossed a few pennies into the white space. He waited for the coins to hit something far below. Barry cocked his head. A long time went by. There was no sound. He shouted into the whiteness, waiting to hear a tiny echo. 

Nothing. 

“Okay. Okay. Possibility one. I’m crazy. Possibility two. I’m in some really new weird part of the universe. Possibility three. I’m the victim of an elaborate practical joke.” 

close up photography of a snow

Photo by Constantin Dorin Adrian on Pexels.com

pastedGraphic.png

J slid to S’s work bubble and peered at S’s progressively overheated dance. S blinked at J’s presence and joined her hands. The bubble popped. 

woman with face paint with pumpkin

Photo by VisionPic .net on Pexels.com

“Problems with your A-life studies, S?” 

“Yes, Master. Just like all my previous experiments, the organization reaches a certain level of complexity and it self-destructs. Each of the autonomous agents still seems rational but the whole doesn’t work. What am I doing wrong here, Master?” 

J laughed his mighty laugh. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, S. Even I haven’t totally mastered the emergence.” 

“I guess you did have a problem…there were some creations you had to scratch. Just recently, the Sol Project, I believe?” 

“Rumor races faster than fact. I call it the Earth Project after the planet with the intelligent life forms, but you are right, I might well have to scrap it. Same problems you’re having but at a larger scale. The so-called intelligent agents are destroying their own ecosystem.” 

air air pollution climate change dawn

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

“Smart!” said S sarcastically. He pondered for a few moments. “Are they too smart? Is that it?” 

J considered. “I don’t think they are too intelligent. Cetaceans are more intelligent and they are doing just fine except for being killed off by the two-legged apes and having their oceans befouled. No, these particular forms grew into this weird combination of being intelligent problem solvers and inventors yet nearly blind to Ka and Karma.” 

“How can they survive at all?” 

“Not completely blind. I said ‘nearly’ blind. They are aware of the fact that they are destroying the ecosystem in a kind of frenzied self-centered greed. They have actually made a scientific study of their own behavior; written books about what they call ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’.” 

“Well, then, with all those insights, what’s the problem?” 

“They aren’t doing anything about it, or at least not enough to survive. Instead of baking more pies, they squabble about the pie they have.”  

“It’s the same thing really in my little experiment. Everybody knows the company has too much bureaucracy and greed and some people do try to fix it but as often as not, the fixes make things worse. But, you obviously already solved it for the company case, right?” 

pastedGraphic.png

Barry found the number for the crisis line, picked up the phone to dial. Then, he noticed that the whiteness was creeping closer like a sea of living, moving, Elmer’s Glue, thick and deadly. And closer. And closer. The office, just a few feet in front of him, was disappearing with a hiss. He dropped the phone, turned, then ran to the emergency exit. Then, he remembered that it was locked from the outside to prevent people from stealing equipment — though, in fact, that had never once happened. 

“What the hell?!” were the last words he uttered. 

2E9EBFDF-8366-41E3-B9D1-47136A7D029B

————————————-

The Truth Train

The Pandemic Anti-Academic

Pies on Offer: Mincemeat & Rhubarb

Index for Pattern Language for Cooperation & Teamwork

Author Page on Amazon

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