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MIRTH
IN YOUR MAILBOX! |
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THE
NOT-SO LATEST
February
8, 2000 In
our last
installment,
Herbert's operation failed to
take, leaving him with absolutely
no explanation for his extended
absence from work or the fact
that he now had a new
personalized license plate on his
Civic reading "NUWOMN." To make
matters worse, Elizabeth,
Herbert's former lover, had
finally awoken from her coma to
discover that the doctors had
been forced to remove her abdomen
for reasons they could not fully
explain without leaving the room
to laugh hysterically. All of
this was further complicated by a
deranged Margaret Thatcher taking
the entire sixteenth floor of the
hospital hostage, demanding the
release of Steve Winwood, who,
last we heard, had not been
convicted of anything, though for
all the police knew, perhaps
Margaret wanted him to be so she
could properly demand his
release. Matters were further
complicated when the police
discovered that the hospital only
had twelve floors. Not that any
of this has anything to do with
our story, which is about a
little boy that breaks the laws
of
physics... Part
Two (For
Part One, Click
Here) Perhaps
the most unfortunate accident
came when Eddie accidentally blew
up a beloved neighbor's cat (the
cat was beloved, not the neighbor
-- the neighbor smelled of pea
soup and was constantly playing
her Sousa records at high
volumes), during one of his light
speed experiments. The cat, a
preposterously stupid, nearly
bald creature named Biff (for the
sound he made when he ran into
walls, which he did disturbingly
often) by all rights should not
have been allowed outdoors
unsupervised.3 But
there Biff was, licking his paw
in the Campbell's newly poured
driveway -- directly in the way
of Eddie's path, or more
accurately, in the path of the
massive cushion of air that
preceded Eddie when he moved at
these speeds. The effects of this
cushion were relatively
insignificant when the coast was
clear, mostly serving to scatter
leaves and frighten children. But
anything, up to and including
something as relatively harmless
as air, can have a devastating
effect on another object when
moved at high velocities,
something that has been
extensively documented by Volvo
engineers and the blind. And
seeing as how Eddie was currently
moving at several million times
your usual highway speeds at the
time, the effects were
exponentially worse. In spite of
his attempts to slow down, Eddie
managed to ruin another driveway
and send little bits of tabby
flying like little meaty
meteorites in a "U" pattern,
straight through the garage. The
structure before him now had
several dozen holes with shapes
reminiscent of various pieces of
cat anatomy, looking as though it
had been strafed by a desperate
army that had run out of
conventional weapons. Sheepishly,
Eddie snuck back inside and hid
under his bed until school the
next day. For
the sake of avoiding things like
that, Eddie restricted his
experiments to a nearby empty
lot, lest someone notice a cat
shortage in the neighborhood and
file a civil suit or
something. Lawsuits
were the least of his problems,
however. The next day during his
science class, Eddie read in his
textbook that it was impossible
to go faster than the speed of
light. He liked nothing more than
a challenge, so he tried it.
Right there in class. (Who would
notice?) To his shock, it was
actually quite possible. There
was only one problem: He couldn't
see anything, which made the
whole thing underwhelming to
Eddie's TV-addled brain. When he
emerged from his journey beyond
the light barrier, he discovered
that he had demolished a historic
sculpture of a man on a horse in
the town square along with
several motels. (The motels were
due anyway.) To make matters
worse, he had apparently time
travelled as well and
inadvertently assassinated
Archduke Ferdinand. Fortunately,
since Eddie wasn't born for the
whole World War I thing, no one
thought to point the finger at
him for that fiasco. The local
authorities blamed the
motel-thing on botched Korean
espionage. Edwin Sr. seemed
particularly suspicious of his
son that next morning, but Eddie
conspicuously planted a note in
mock Korean in his brother's
shirt pocket for his father to
discover, which -- peculiarly --
seemed to placate the
man. This
was more than enough to make
Eddie give up his relativistic
endeavors, and none too soon.
Much longer, and people were
bound to notice that he was
getting younger. His mother
already suspected as much, but
instead chose to believe that the
passive radiation from the
television was affecting
everyone's sanity, just as she
always feared. That evening, the
TV was mysteriously missing,
replaced by an
aquarium. At
Thursday's Little League
scrimmage, Eddie was fighting
boredom on the bench. The
opposing team was creaming his,
but the coach refused to call a
skunk. A flash of inspiration
struck Eddie. He shook it off.
Another struck, and he found
himself with the bright idea to
eliminate friction for a few
seconds. Just then, Tommy Wilson,
the hairy kid with a gigantic
head who had been held back
twice, was swinging at a lame
curveball thrown by Stan Wilson
(no relation), the fat kid who
popular opinion held had
absolutely no business being on
the mound. Tommy smacked the ball
angrily, sending it flying well
past the fence. Just then, the
air took on a certain coolness.
The ball now appeared to be
headed for a vacation to the
outer planets. Kids jumping after
it seemed to spend a little
longer in the air than they had
any right to. And hulking Tommy
Wilson, mouth agape (his normal
expression actually, but now a
little more so), took one step,
pitched forward and went
sliding. Eddie
watched and grinned. He continued
sliding through the fields,
eventually travelling the
distance of two football fields.
Just as suddenly as it had
disappeared, the air regained the
warmth that had suddenly gone
missing. Tommy's journey came to
a sudden stop as his face met the
side of the principal's old black
van Coach,
clearly spooked, sent all the
kids home early. No one saw him
again, though the town gossip
alternated between him either
becoming a full-time alcoholic or
a priest, with some of the more
outlandish tales claiming
both. Tommy
Wilson, on the other hand,
enjoyed a brief bout of fame. He
was awarded the nickname "Flash,"
but the glow quickly faded when
he failed to repeat the trick,
succeeding only in skinning up a
large portion of the considerable
surface area of his face. The
"Flash" name was quickly
rescinded, and he was immediately
awarded the much less flattering
"Ol' Vanface." The
next day, Eddie devoted to toying
with time. His math teacher had
just barely opened his book and
the bell rang.4
Then Eddie slowed recess down to
the equivalent of three hours,
most of which Eddie spent
increasing the mass of several of
the more obnoxious teacher's
aides, watching with considerable
glee as they imploded
violently. By
the end of recess, Eddie was
getting anxious for the party and
the school district was getting
frustrated. They had lost four
aides and had to have the
playground quarantined while
government agents studied the
anomalies. The school secretary
even resigned in a huff after
fielding scads of calls from
angry parents whose son or
daughter was sucked into a black
hole while playing hopscotch.
However, in all their
investigations, no one managed to
connect all this to young Master
Campbell. Finally,
the wait for Edwin Sr.'s big
party was over. Eddie rushed home
to prepare a show for everyone.
He built a perpetual motion
machine out of an old hamster
wheel and some pens, and placed
it in a prime spot behind his
mother's antique punch bowl.
Then, while his parents were
getting dressed, Eddie time
traveled repeatedly, allowing
several dozen of him to greet
mystified arrivals at the door
simultaneously -- though he did
have to be careful that none of
his multiples came into contact
with any other. This has been
known to rip open the space-time
continuum, destroying anything
within a billion-mile radius,
something certain to spoil even
the best party. Eddie's
duplicates disappeared into the
timestream just as his father
plodded down the stairs. Trying
to be inconspicuous, Eddie busied
himself by making cold fusion in
his mother's antique punch bowl.
His father smiled at the boy's
seeming good behavior, and soon
turned himself to figuring out
why his guests all seemed so
jumpy. Eddie found himself a
prime spot on the couch next to a
barely cognizant Alex, plunked
down with some punch and settled
in for some
expression-watching. Mrs.
Feynman, the nasty wife of one of
Edwin's coworkers who seemed to
hate children, approached the
snack table and failed to notice
both the perpetual motion machine
rolling away incessantly and the
nuclear reaction raging in the
punch bowl. She seemed more
intent on glaring at Eddie. The
boy gave as good as he got. The
woman saw an evil glint appear in
his eye, and then he lost all
interest in her, instead turning
his concentration to the bowl of
pudding in front of her. Eddie
willed half of the molecules in
his mother's award winning lemon
pudding5 to
spontaneously become negatively
charged, causing sending pudding
flying all over Mrs. Feynman, her
chiffon dress, and Wag, who was
suddenly ready for another
walk. She
let out a howl and instinctively
shot Eddie a look, even though
there was no way she could have
known he was responsible. In a
fury, he eliminated inertia,
causing all the guests to fly
around the room and smack into
each other like pool
balls. This
was the last straw for his
father. "This is the last straw!"
Eddie's father said just before
smacking into the aquarium. "Go
to your room, young man, and
don't come out until I come get
you!" Eddie did as he was told.
He sulked up to his room and
plopped down on his bed.
Downstairs, the guests collected
themselves off of the various
pieces of furniture they had come
to rest on. Then,
something occurred to Eddie.
"What am I doing here?" he
thought. "I can move faster than
the speed of light. I can turn
dogs into cats. I can do
anything. He can't ground
me!" Eddie
dispersed his molecules and he
floated through the floor right
into the middle of the party. He
looked around. The guests all
seemed too busly cleaning pudding
off their clothes to notice his
presence. It didn't take much to
fix that. "I'll
show you all! I am the most
powerful boy in the world! Quake
before me!" They
did. Especially Wag. Well,
all except for his father. "Edwin
Michael Campbell Junior, cut this
insanity out right now!" Eddie
could tell his father must have
been really mad; he had used
Eddie's full name. Eddie,
who was by now taking his hobby
very seriously, made his voice
sound deafeningly loud. "Foolish
one! You have no power! This is
power." Eddie caused himself to
grow a hundred times his own
size. Then he stepped on his
father. His mother
fainted. Eddie
made himself even bigger,
crashing through the walls of the
now insignificant home. He became
far bigger than the sun. He
watched with infinite pleasure as
his gravitational pull caused the
solar system to go haywire.
Planets went wobbly and crashed
into each other. Eddie
kept growing. He could see the
entire universe. And
then he became the universe. Or,
rather, the universe became
Eddie. And
Eddie was happy. And all was
quiet. Eddie
sneezed. A galaxy
expired. Eddie
sighed. The
Universe was bored. So Eddie made
himself ultra-compact. Then he
exploded, expanding in all
directions. Galaxies and planets
were born. This was all
fun6,
but he was still
bored. So,
to amuse himself, Eddie created
life on one planet. He sped up
time so he could watch it evolve.
Fish crawled from the sea, they
flopped around for a while, but
then they died. So Eddie skipped
the whole fish thing and made
dinosaurs. Dinosaurs were always
fun, Eddie thought. The
dinosaurs pranced around for a
while. Occasionally they bit each
other. It
didn't take long for Eddie to
realize that the dinosaurs were
actually pretty boring. Watching
stupid lizards bite each other
can only entertain for so
long. In
a fit of rage, He killed them.
Great big meteor. Eddie laughed.
Wham, bam, thank you
Rex. Eddie
took aside one of the mice that
had survived and sped up time
again. He wanted to get to the
good stuff. Mice became birds,
who became monkeys, who
inexplicably became mice again.
Pretty soon though, humans
appeared. But, like the
dinosaurs, they were pretty dumb.
They spent most of their time
drawing on cave walls and hitting
each other with bones.
Occasionally, they bit a lizard
or two (or vice versa), but that
was about it. So
he sped up time again. He waited.
He realized that these people
were all woefully oblivious to
His presence. Eddie decided that,
when the time was right, he would
reveal himself.7 But
he wanted to do it in a way that
no one would expect. Eddie
found one of the people who
talked really funny and had hair
that stuck out in all directions.
This would be his messenger. The
man spent all his time writing on
boards and pieces of paper, which
reminded Eddie a lot of those
cavemen who were so boring. But
Eddie could be patient for this.
This would be worth
it. Finally,
the time had come. The man with
funny hair stood in front of a
bunch of other people, many of
whom had funny hair too, but in a
different way. Then, the first
man started writing on the walls
again. He wrote a lot, all sorts
of things. Then,
reaching the end, he wrote the
following: All
the men burst into applause.
Eddie was very pleased with
himself. He had shown them how He
worked. He had embedded his very
essence into the nature of the
Universe. And there, on that
piece of paper, it was for
everyone to see. Finally, they
understood! Then,
he noticed something. He was
wrong. They didn't get it. They
didn't get it at all. He had the
man write it again. Everyone
applauded again, but they still
didn't understand. People were
writing it all over the place,
but they still missed
it. The
Universe became very
upset. Then,
The Universe just gave
up. Things
were very quiet for a
while. Somewhere,
there was a knock on the
door. No
answer. There
was another knock.
"Eddie?" A
pause. "Yes,
Dad?" The
door opened. "Son, I'm sorry I
yelled. Do you want to come down
and have a little punch and some
pudding?" Eddie
nodded. "Come on then, I want you
to meet some people." They walked
downstairs. They came up to a
kindly looking gray-haired
gentleman. "Eddie, this is Al.
Al, this is my son, Eddie." There
was an uncomfortable silence as
the older gentleman and the
little boy studied each other.
Eddie mostly stared at the man's
hair. Finally
Eddie's father broke the silence.
"I, uh..." His father stuttered.
"Please forgive his outburst
earlier. Sometimes it's like
Eddie is in his own
world." "Yes,
I imagine that is true," the old
man said, smiling. "But then
again, don't we all?" 3
In fact, the cat was so
impossibly dumb that it should
not be allowed to breathe
unsupervised, but laws on this
matter are notoriously behind the
times.
Also
featured in the not-so
latest: All
contents of this web site -- even the
periods -- are TM & © Patrick
Keller, Gern Blansten Productions, so
don't try to steal 'em. Any unlawful
distribution, copying or non-educational
use is highly frowned upon, and will be
prosecuted when I get enough money to hire
a lawyer. Violators will be spanked.
Shoplifters will be persecuted.
Prosecutors will be violated. |
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