NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/alt/non/sequitur/722

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From: [e-mail] (Matt Welsh)
Subject: The Paradigm of Fish. Part 2.
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Summary: I'm back at home, and I take a nap. That sums it all up.
Sender: [e-mail]
Nntp-Posting-Host: theory.tc.cornell.edu
Organization: Cornell Theory Center
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 05:40:20 GMT
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It's been put off in the writing, but here it is. Again I appreciate
critique, cash, or money orders. Kick back, relax, grab a Budweiser, and
enjoy...

The Paradigm of Fish. Part 2. "At the Godfoot of the Rustic Cheese."

    I returned home, musty, rugged, stronger, and full. Five years had
passed since I breathed the clean, crisp air of upstate New York, kissed the
tender nubile lips of my girlfriend, or laid eyes upon Jim, that monster,
that self-immortalized social beast and new owner of Jim's Tequila Worm
Farm, which was racking in thousands for the once-broke entrepreneur. I, on
the other hand, had wasted a tenth of my life immolating large game with
heavy munitions. True, I was a pioneer in expanding the uses for smuggled
firearms, and had kept an accurate weekly journal of my travels and
adventures across the plains of Southeast Asia, but the intrinsic purpose of
the trip was twofold: to bring back jerked emu for Jim to try for the first
time, and to find out what it was really like for the cavemen when they
invented automatic weapons.
    After packing my catch in the freezer downstairs, shaving the heavy
growth of beard that tends to accumulate after five years in the wild, and
giving my pet beaver (Chewy, if you remember) a well-deserved oil massage,
I decided to hit the sack and call it a safari. Now, the previous sentence
may pose problems in determining the antecedent of the pronoun "it", but
taken either way makes sense so everything's fine. I dreamt that night that
I was in a white room, surrounded by girls, girls all with red hair. Their
hair was all short, shoulder length, shorter and brighter than my ruddy mane.
I was strapped to a table in a gross anatomy lab, forced to eat applesauce and
silver nitrate through a straw. The lasses stood around idly, sipping diet cola
while talking about shrubs, specifically the legume family. My name was written
slowly, methodically, perfectly, in the Closet Book of the Dead, wherein it
is written the names of the souls that are to be thrown in the closet when the
rapture comes ("yearly" seems to be the appropriate frequency for raptures
these days). My name was written in my own blood. Suddenly, I looked up, and
there she was... it was HER...
    I screamed in agony and woke up, panting like a horse on dexedrine,
clawing at my pink satin sheets which were soaked with sweat. My first impulse
was to grab a notebook and write it all down, so I could sort out the deep
implications in the morning, so I stumbled over to my desk, picked up a
notebook, and reached for my pen--
    Unfortunately, the pen I grabbed happened to be composed entirely of
antimatter, but fortunately it only contained top, bottom, and charmed
antiquarks, and therefore did not react with and annihilate a pen-sized
portion of my left hand, releasing energy and leptons. However, I decided that
it might be dangerous to write with such an instrument (the antimatter ink
might react with the notebook paper) so I tossed it in my drawer along with
the other antimatter ballpoints where it was safe. I glanced at the clock--
and to my utter surprise it was exactly 4:05 a.m., just in time to catch the
Beastie Boys Save the Whales/Missing Children's Fund March, which I had
set the VCR to record. But since I was up, I decided to go ahead and watch
it and save the tape so I could sleep in during Sunday Morning Gospel Cartoons.
    Needless to say, the Beasties were great, and really drove home the
social and environmental aspects of dying whales and missing children with hit
tunes such from "Paul's Boutique" and "Check Your Head". I was distraught that
they decided not to do any numbers from their first album, but I understand
the inherent need for musicians to move on and leave old songs behind for
crappy cover bands and house remixes. That and the fact that the march
raised well over $500,000 for charity put me in a good mood, so I was able
to get back to bed, feeling rested, content, and free of any psychological
wreckage caused by my earlier nightmare. Good rap music has just does that
for me, I can't explain it.
    Before I lapsed into slumber again I remembered that the next day was
going to be monumental: I was due to meet with Columbo Fernando San Perez,
a 16th century Spanish conquistador who was considering an attack upon the
United States with his squalid armada of 40 or so yachts recently acquired
through a prenuptial agreement with Donald Trump. I was hired as the liaison
for the U.S. Navy in dealing with the troublemaker, probably because of my
intense background in international relations and border treaty negotiations
(it was by my ambassadorial sleight-of-hand alone that Wyoming ended up being
perfectly rectangular).
    Ah. It's great to be back home.

End of part 2.

mdw