But the real magic is not the science of pulling rabbits out of hats as we have been led to believe. The real experience is in creating pathways that lead up the stairs and into my fairlady’s bathroom. There, at her feet you will find a note that was signed by the people who we know but do not mention because our tongues have forgotten how to shape themselves into letters.
Instead we seem to find ourselves in the curios scenario of a dead cat. Colonel mustard pointed the candlestick at the gap between rift valley and her sandals.
And so you are really hoping that this journey you are on yields some results.
Sadly, desperately sadly, the whole thing was started by a bet. Little Johnny from down the road had told you that he would give you the dead rat he found behind mama miriam’s kiosk if you had only calculated what life and our entire journey through the universe was. Being very fond of dead rats, and having an unwavering faith in your ability to solve puzzles you made the deal.
But what is to be done?
If these things, as they invariably do, blow up then we shall really need to ask ourselves about the environmental impact. What happens when the monkeys are forced into our gardens to steal back their food? How can we really begin to calculate the amount of things that will happen to the snakes, lions, leopard,
giraffes, dinosaurs, tadpole,
antelopes, elephants, goats,
albatross, algae, chicken
giant squid, ants, crabs
panda, beetles, buffalo
dodo, rats, baby seal
mammoth squirrel orangutan
Then again you have never been one to think of such things. In fact you always just went right ahead. I remember once when your father told you not to spill the dark matter all of the antimatter you didn’t listen. You just went right on and created unfathomed beginnings. These, I assure you, were always things that you were aware of at the time. You’ve never been here. Just somewhere in the future and you’ve been struggling to catch up with yourself. Chasing a laser pointer on the wall you forgot that light is faster that sound.
But this is not something you were told. It was just something you knew, like you know things. Like you know that our entire existence is the result of seventeen horses jumping off a cliff and flying straight into a tunnel. Or that the science behind the rabbit in the hat trick is a smile and a firm grip. Things that are so inherently true that you cannot challenge their truth but also, in being unchallenged, they are not thought about. And in not being thought about, they are forgotten. And , in being forgotten, they are no more. And, in being no more, they are not. And in not they are.
And
an apple. That’s right. 6 pears, two mangoes and an apple” your father was always good at getting the best fruit from the interstellar collection point. He would haggle with the aliens for hours just to find the right price. Which was often a few figures short of two sticks and a piece of rubber.
You wonder if you can haggle in this situation. Would she listen if you told her that all you have to offer is magic and a firm grip? She isn’t sure either. The whole idea that the things that speak can only be understood as the things that are heard is completely confusing. What happens when the words meet the ideas of a past that was barely grasped by the beginning of a year that we never even lived in?
3.
It was the year 3. I remember it like it was yesterday. We had gone out on the town, me and my girl. We had decided that this was the time to do the things that we wanted to do. To say the things we wanted to say and so….
(Let us imagine that I wrote an emotional flashback and continue)
It’s not that you can’t just do that again. I mean, you did it once, so you can definitely repeat it. The whole notion of rest is one that we have long since forgotten how to fathom. How to salute to the king, bend for the queen – close our eyes and count – sixteen. Inside ourselves we have yearned for it but refused to allow ourselves to have it. Instead we have taken steel wires and wrapped them around the the stems in our gardens hoping to somehow invent a future. Without even thinking that we are the future.
“the future’s a real place man”
– name to validate these words
“I’ve been telling you what I’m doing, now let me show you” she said, a finger rested upon her glasses. She moved closer. “see, the when you multiply these numbers by the sum of the total fraction that was created by the quadratic equation inside the oil spill you will find the root of zero. It’s really quite simple.” You got it though. It really was that simple, especially since the root of zero exists if you make room for the animals that you were thinking about when you were thinking about the environmental impact. What did she show you? That magical letters can be spoken from the insides of realms that we are yet to fathom. That the only true way to measure one’s worth is through whispering the secrets of forgotten fairies into the ears of katsumi the boatman and hoping that he is one to take bribes.
Which we all know that he isn’t.
So the truth is your odds aren’t looking very great.
(but what’s life without a little danger?)
You like crashing. We all like crashing really. The idea of destruction and disorientation completely muddles us. We imagine that somehow in order to become ourselves we must destroy ourselves. While this is obviously true no one seems to have thought “but there must be a better way?” You think about the idea of better but in truth there is no better only different. There is only different tools and circumstances. There is only the beginnings of a journey that we don’t think will ever end unless we reverse engineer the effects of a spear in Luanda magere’s shadow. Running counterclockwise to the cogs may help fix this problem but there’s just not enough people doing it go gain traction. One solution to this would be to get more people. And you have tried that and continue to try. However, you wonder if there might be another.
But, as with all inventors, you are going to fail. You will find 1000 ways how to not not crash. And, being a mathematician, you are aware that the only thing more unlikely than a double negative is the square root of zero. But, in being an scientist you wonder.
Surely, even zero has a root.
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