EnigmA Amiga Run 1995 November/EnigmA AMIGA RUN 02 (1995)(G.R. Edizioni)(IT)[!][issue 1995-11][Skylink CD].iso/earcd/docs/sillyd3.lha/ICBT.doc

Text File | 1993-03-08 | 7KB | 136 lines

Wednesday 6th September 1995
(C) Joona Palaste




                    It Can't Be True!



Ah. So you're all here. Let us proceed.
  I am not too sure where exactly is "here", but you get the point of the
expression. I think. But anyway...
  Let us study how the effects of a simple reality modification affect the life
of a living entity.

First, let us choose the subject.
  Let's take a small schoolboy, aged about 12, from Aberdeen, in Scotland. On
second thought, let's not. For were we to do so, his parents would become
worried about him because we had taken him away from them.
  So let's take someone else instead. Let's take a bum, about 45 years old,
living in Newcastle, England. His life was ruined by excessive consumption of
alcoholic beverages a decade ago. He has no home, no job, no money and lives on
the streets, sleeping under bridges.

One day, this very bum woke up and glanced at his wrist watch. It was the only
decent possession he had left - a quality digital watch from Japan. The time on
the wrist watch showed 11:05:60. "Oh crikey", he thought, "that surely is an
odd time reading."
  A police constable strolled leisurely past. The bum asked him what was the
time. "It is now exactly 11:05:72", he told the bum. "And what is today's date,
if I may so inquire?" asked the bum. The police constable told him that it was
now the 31st of September 1996. That was fine, thought the bum.

The bum searched his clothes and habitat for his identification card. He needed
it, because he had forgotten his name. He didn't find his identification card.
Now he would never find out what he was called.
  "Oh blimey", he thought, "I'd better invent a new name for me." And he chose
a name: it was Ebenezer.
  Ebenezer spent the day normally: he begged for money for food, and having
acquired some money, he ate a meal in a nearby fish-and-chips shop. He glanced
again at his wrist watch. It was now showing 20:34:47. That was a normal time.
He went to sleep under a bridge.

When he woke up, it was again 11:05:60. The same police constable strolled by,
and after his inquiry, he told him that it was now the 32nd of September 1996.
"That's funny", thought Ebenezer, "I don't remember Septemeber having so many
days. Something must be wrong here."
  And at that very moment he was kidnapped by Martians.
  Now one would think Ebenezer was the only one to actually see these Martians,
because they had come especially to kidnap him. But such was not the case. In
fact, Ebenezer was the only one not to actually see these Martians. The police
constable saw them, and greeted them with a lift of his hat.
  The Martians greeted the police constable back, and sucked Ebenezer inside
their craft.

It took some time before Ebenezer became aware of his present surroundings.
After finally realising he was aboard an alien vessel, he began to inspect its
size, for he knew the Martians might have altered his own size.
  He found a ruler with common British inch markings on it. He measured the
the height of one of the tables in the ship. It read 2.5 inches. Then he
measured the height of the entire ship. It read 7.3 inches. Then he measured
his own height. It read 18 feet 4.7 inches. Now he was definitely feeling that
something was very wrong.
  He didn't like the colour of the ship's walls very much. So he took a nearby
brush and paint can, and began to paint the walls. The paint left no trace on
the walls, yet it happily painted anything else, the colour being a chequered
pattern of infra-violet and ultra-red.

Ebenezer began to think why the paint hadn't affected the walls. He even carved
a piece of the wall out of the wall, and painted it in his palm. The brush
painted its surface as perfectly as it always should have done.
  Ebenezer looked out of the windows. He saw the shape of the ship. It was in
the shape of a Moebius strip, with only one side. And he was painting on the
wrong side of the strip. He soon gave up his attempts at painting the ship's
walls.

He moved through the corridors, hoping to meet his captors. He kept measuring
the corridors' height and his own height. His own height remained 18 feet 4.7
inches. The height of the corridors varied between 6.8 and 8.1 inches.
Something was very, very wrong, he thought.
  Then he spotted one of his captors. First he thought the being was a human,
for it was the same height as he. Then he measured his own height again and
saw that he was 5 feet 3 inches taller than the other being. Yet the other
being was not an inch shorter than him.
  Then the other being revealed his colours - they were mostly greenish hues,
with standard emerald at the head, slowly fading into a more army-like murky
green hue at the toes. His one hand was grass green, and the other a very pale
green, almost white.
  But he shouldn't have called him him. Because the being said its race had
three sexes, and it belonged to the third sex. It said it would be best for
Ebenezer to call him it. So he did.

"What am I doing in this place?" he asked his captor. "We will see the answer
in this document", it said. It created a transparency projector out of thin air
and placed the transparency it was holding on it. Then it turned on the
projector and the document was projected on the ship's wall.
  It said that Ebenezer had been chosen for this task by the Creator. "How do
you know this?" asked Ebenezer. "Look out of the window and see for yourself",
said the other being. Ebenezer did so and saw huge letters which read:

    Ah. So you're all here. Let us proceed.
      I am not too sure where exactly is "here", but you get the poiny of the
    expression. I think. But anyway...
      Let us study how the effects of a simple reality modification affect the
    life of a living entity.

    First, let us choose the subject.
      Let's take a small schoolboy, aged about 12, from Aberdeen, in Scotland.
    On second thought, let's not. For were we to do so, his parents would
    become worried about him because we had taken him away from them.
      So let's take someone else instead. Let's take a bum, about 45 years old,
    living in Newcastle, England. His life was ruined by excessive consumption
    of alcholic beverages a decade ago. He has no home, no job, no money and
    lives on the streets, sleeping under bridges.

Ebenezer needed not read any further than this. For now he understood he had
been chosen by the Creator. He asked the other being for a pen, about 3 miles
long, and about 260 yards thick. He got the pen and jumped outside.
  He began to write, in huge capital letters. He wrote:

    WELL, IN MY OPINION, THEY HAVE AFFECTED MY LIFE QUITE DRASTICALLY. I SHALL
    NO MORE DRINK ANY ALCOHOL AND I PROMISE TO GET A DECENT JOB AND LIVE LIKE A
    NORMAL PERSON AGAIN. HAPPY NOW?

He wrote it under a line saying something about everybody living happily ever
after.
  So the Creator saw his writing, and decided he had passed the test. He was
sent back to his own town, where he regained his normal size. The other people
welcomed him, and he kept his promise, and lived like a normal person. He found
a nice woman, married her, and had children.
  And they all lived happily ever after.
WELL, IN MY OPINION, THEY HAVE AFFECTED MY LIFE QUITE DRASTICALLY. I SHALL NO
MORE DRINK ANY ALCOHOL AND I PROMISE TO GET A DECENT JOB AND LIVE LIKE A NORMAL
PERSON AGAIN. HAPPY NOW?