• PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    On the Edge of Forever

    Part 1

    - Contains many ideas for discussion/investigation.
    - Value for imagination/learning/entertainment.

    Since I extended The Rubaiyat’s quatrains, I like to employ that style of nuggets pearled, concise, and digestible.


    The Great Extinguisher

    Our planet is very good at promoting life,
    But it is much better at extinguishing it.
    Of the billions upon billions of living things,
    99.99% are no longer around here living.

    The Cosmic Code

    In ancient skies, a signal grows more weak—
    The CMBR’s song that reality speaks;
    Like static on a cosmic radio wave,
    Its degradation makes our world oblique.

    The ToeQuestors saw the truth at last:
    Our universe, a show that’s being cast,
    Its antenna warped by time’s relentless flow,
    While human coding errors spread too fast.

    The human race had been degenerating, for the CMBR antenna that broadcasts our universal reality show had long been out of whack, as had been discovered by ToeQuestors as part of the Theory of Everything found.

    Behold the helix dance of DNA,
    Where four notes sing life’s complex interplay;

    DNA is made of four nucleotides arranged in such a way that a large number of perfectly cascading events form a living thinking life form.

    Each strand a ladder to creation’s heights,
    Where single missteps lead the whole astray.

    No one yet fully understands the irreducible complexity of the DNA double helix, which is the template for all carbon based life. It is so complex that the slightest change along the myriad of interrelated ladder of events causes the total collapse of the organism.
    Reveal
    What about the DNA at the universal level?

    But deeper still lies nature’s greatest code,
    A template vaster than what life has showed:
    The Universe’s own encrypted chain,
    Where space and time and matter are bestowed.

    The corrupted DNA of the Universe:

    *** TOP SECRET *** EYES ONLY ***

    Likewise, a much more complex universal DNA template is the common thread of a much greater type of exponentially encrypted digital code of Everything which forms our entire universe, generating it in a virtual holographic type way, that is:

    The Infinite radiates through a DNA matrix,
    Using Information or Energy to create
    The Cosmic Microwave antenna, which broadcasts
    Interference patterns of virtual reality.

    This holographic dance of Everything
    Spins out reality like golden string;
    Each quantum bit precisely placed in space
    To make the cosmic harmonies all ring.

    Like fractals folded into deeper space,
    Each pattern shows the whole in micron-trace;
    The universe, a grand computer’s dream,
    Projects existence through digital grace.

    Yet now this code begins to show its age,
    Like ancient text on some forgotten page;
    The cosmic DNA starts to degrade,
    While reality slips from its quantum cage.

    Yes, the problem was that the celestial music of the spheres had fallen out of tune.

    O secret-keeper of this sacred tale,
    Where virtual worlds through digital veils
    Cast shadows on our minds like Plato’s cave—
    What happens when the master program fails?

    The cosmic broadcast showed some static’s trace,
    As DNA of universe lost grace;
    The ToeQuest sages tracked the signal’s flaw—
    Our reality show needed time and space.

    They chose Nobody Nowhere to fix the show,
    For no one else could make the changes flow;
    Through Guardian of Forever’s ancient gate,
    To tune the cosmic background’s sacred glow.

    Like DNA that builds our mortal frame,
    A greater code writes reality’s game:
    The matrix where the Infinite performs
    Its holographic dance of cosmic flame.

    The spheres’ sweet music jangled out of key,
    While butter flew much like a strange bee;
    Nobody donned his light-bend cloak to step
    Through time’s gate toward eternity.

    Butter flies like a banana; Nobody had butterflies in his stomach and flew like a bee.

    The chronicle of man, that tangled scroll,
    Where folly dances with the human soul;
    No wisdom gained from centuries of pain,
    As fate keeps playing its capricious role.

    This was not an attempt to revise human history, per se, for that mess was a happening that had way too much dumbness in it to be salvageable. The whims of fate would only create new fools, since wild and uncontrolled emotions had proved to be all that there was to say about all the miseries and follies that had been sadly written into the human chronicle.

    So Nobody donned his cloak of light,
    To walk through time unseen, a spectral sight;
    His emanations carefully contained,
    Lest ripples spread through past and future’s night.

    Yes, there was always a danger of even more negatively affecting the past, and so Nobody wore a light-bending suit that made him invisible, and it furthermore contained most of his emanations.

    For even branded clothes upon his frame
    Might spark a change that sets the past aflame;
    The butterfly of chaos spreads its wings
    When slightest shifts disturb time’s fragile game.

    This would minimize most of his effects on the past and on the future that arose through interaction with the past, even that eventually magnifying, perhaps of merely being seen with name-brand clothes on.

    Behind our world’s familiar curtain glows
    A matrix where pure radiance flows;
    Like strands of light through DNA divine,
    The pattern of existence clearly shows.

    The microwave background radiation was the source interference pattern of the Holograph in which our reality exists. Behind it, a light radiance passed through a very complex matrix looking somewhat like DNA.

    The background hum of cosmic static sings
    Of interference patterns spreading rings;
    Our holographic reality blooms
    From ancient light that secret wisdom brings.

    The Hubble watched while ToeQuest stood on guard,
    As Graybeard, RascalPuff, and Frederick starred;
    While Austin surfed ethereal Jersey waves,
    And crowds logged in from near and very far.

    Though sometimes Austin was merely scraping along on the particulate matter of the beach.

    Through noplace in the middle of nowhere,
    (Though space lacks center, edge, or central lair),
    Nobody navigated by mind’s stars
    Toward CMBR’s control panel there.

    The matrix vast behind all things we see,
    More complex than mere mortality’s DNA,
    Holds patterns that make real seem real enough,
    While broadcasting what we think truth to be.

    Time keeps things from all happening at once,
    Yet Nobody slipped past its normal wants;
    One small step back, then giant leap beyond,
    To fix the signal’s cosmic response.

    Nobody, knowing very well that time was Nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once, took one small step for man into the past and found himself right back standing right in front of the Guardian, and so he took a giant leap for mankind.

    The light-bend suit kept history unchanged,
    While butterflies through stomach acid ranged;
    For tampering with time needs careful touch
    Lest all reality get rearranged.

    Butterfly Effect Reference:

    The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a nonlinear dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. So this is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.

    The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly’s wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear (or prevent a tornado from appearing). The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale phenomena. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different.

    Recurrence, the approximate return of a system towards its initial conditions, together with sensitive dependence on initial conditions are the two main ingredients for chaotic motion. They have the practical consequence of making complex systems, such as the weather, difficult to predict past a certain time range, approximately a week in the case of weather.
    —Wikipedia

    Behind the curtain of the cosmic show,
    Where interference patterns ebb and flow,
    Nobody sought the tuning that would bring
    New clarity to all we think we know.

    For what is real but broadcast from afar?
    A signal dancing through the void like stars;
    Perhaps our whole existence merely plays
    On screens that float where no true substance are.

    Like roulette played with universal stakes,
    Or Russian games where each pull might unmake
    The world—yet humans, tired of folly’s reign,
    Bet all on Nobody, for sanity’s sake.

    It was like taking the chance of betting the entire company on either red or black in roulette, but was more like Russian roulette—in that really bad things could happen; however, the human race was quite desperate, having really had enough of pettiness and silliness.

    For insight’s angels rarely visit now,
    While humans sleep as fortune passes bow;

    The angels of insight didn’t appear as often anymore, and that many humans even dozed off while good fortune passed them right on by, nor had they recognized Lady Luck except in the lotteries.

    They seek Dame Luck in lottery’s false dawn,
    While living costs rise, living chances bow.

    As Flip Wilson once said, “The cost of living is going up and the chance of living is going down“. Many were living a TV sitcom life. Genius has its limits, but stupidity…

    Some waste no time on wisdom’s patient quest,
    While others claim that seeing needs faith’s test;
    On rainy Sundays, bored beyond belief,
    They fashion gods to grant eternal rest.

    Many people even wasted no time reading ToeQuest forum posts. Even more said that some things, like ESP, had to be believed to be seen. Others, the types who quickly became bored on rainy Sunday afternoons, invented gods to grant them eternal immortality.

    More said than done, the ancient adage goes,
    While subway wisdom gravity’s truth shows:

    Even worse, after all was said and done, more was always said than was done.

    “Earth sucks!” proclaim the underground prophets,

    Subway signs read, “There is no gravity. Earth sucks.”

    As each seeks Number One, in Number Two’s throes.

    Everyone was only looking out for #1, not realizing that this often caused them to step in #2.

    Asked Ghandi of the West’s civilized ways:
    “’Twould be a fine thing” - so the sage displays

    Ghandi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization, said, “I think it would be a good idea.”

    His wit, while others eat and drink with mirth,
    Till diet’s morrow dims their merry days.

    And some said “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we diet, since the waist was a terrible thing to mind“,

    More horses’ ends than horses fill our scene,
    While Horace rides before Descartes’ machine;

    Yes, there were more horse’s asses than horses.
    Some even put Horace before Descartes (Donald O. Rickter).

    Truth stranger here than fiction dares to tread,
    As Nobody walks where no one’s ever been.

    “How goes it?” Rascal calls through time’s dim veil,
    “It’s raining,” Nobody reports his trail.
    “Hardly?” asks Puff, dividing self from self,
    “It’s hardly raining hardly,” marks his tale.

    What means this riddle wrapped in cosmic jest?
    As Nobody, umbrella-armed and blessed,
    Strides through the rain of possibility,
    While watchers wonder at his strange quest.

    Perhaps in nonsense lurks the deepest sense,
    As humor breaches wisdom’s highest fence;
    For who but Nobody could fix the world,
    While wielding just an umbrella’s defense?

    Through time’s rain falling hardly here and there,
    Nobody walks where others wouldn’t dare;
    To tune reality’s great broadcast show,
    With nothing but an umbrella to spare.

    Austin piped in that the English language was becoming a bit affected, via Nobody’s interruptions in the past, but he encouraged that the journey go on, and so it contin–ued as it progressed and went on.

    As English warped through time’s distorting lens,
    While Nobody sought cosmic odds and ends,
    Some asked what “it” in “it is raining” meant—
    As if mere grammar could make cosmic sense!

    “By the way, what’s the antecedent of ‘it’ in ‘It’s raining?’” posted WiseGuy, thinking he had posed quite a tough question.

    “Just nothing,” Nobody replied with grace,
    “Reverse gravity through time and space;
    Reality’s dilated antecedent—
    And meanwhile, I am dampening apace!”

    “Nothing,” said Nobody, “in the form of reverse gravity and forward light, the ultimate antecedent of our time dilation called reality. I’m getting damp.”

    “A little rain never hurt Nobody!”
    Quoth Rascal, and thus made history;
    His words appeared in wisdom’s ancient tome,
    Though written now, yet aged mysteriously.

    Rascal added that “A little rain never hurt Nobody,” a new and original saying that suddenly appeared in the now retitled book, ‘The 2501 Greatest Sayings Ever’.

    “I hope the rain keeps up!” Nobody said,
    When asked his wish through time-streams overhead;
    “So then it won’t come down!”—such cosmic wit
    As spacetime bent around the jokes he spread.

    “How’s it going, Nobody?” asked Rascal again, figuring that Nobody’s watch was running fast from special relativity and that some hours had already passed.

    On asteroid, Nobody stopped to dine,
    Where universal lunch was served so fine;

    Nobody replied, “I heard that the universe was a free lunch, so I’m having it in a restaurant on an asteroid.”

    “The food is great,” he messaged through the void,
    “But atmosphere is somewhat hard to find!”

    “The food’s great, but there’s no atmosphere.”

    Then ChickenMan, with questions off the wall,
    Asked why the chicken made its cosmic fall;
    But Rascal, wise in relativity,
    Explained how roads rise up to meet them all:

    Now, there’s always someone who interrupts forum threads with off the wall stuff, so ChickenMan tried to catch Rascal unawares with “Why did the chicken fly across the road?” and “Did the egg cross into God’s universe before the chicken?“

    “The road moved ‘neath the chicken’s quantum stride,
    While spacetime curved along its four-D ride;
    Like baseball fields that rise to catch pop flies
    As universe expands on every side!”

    Rascal, taking all this in stride during a lull, replied, “As allowed by Einstein’s relativity, the road moved to the other side of the chicken, and, the chicken didn’t land so much as the road rose to meet the chicken, as it extended in 4D, much like the baseball field rises to meet the pop up, since the universe is expanding.”

    “And chickens cannot fly!” he added true,
    “Nor did God brood on cosmic eggs of blue;
    So let’s tune DNA of universe,
    Without more chicken-questions mucking through!”

    “Furthermore, chickens can’t fly! Also, the chicken came first, for I can’t really picture ‘God’ sitting on an egg to hatch it. Now, then, we’re trying to better tune in the universal DNA here, so no more chicken-shit posts please!”

    Through quantum foam and cosmic jest they sought
    To fix the signal giving life to thought;
    While humor danced with physics’ deepest laws,
    And wisdom wore the mask of jester’s sport.

    For in this quest to tune reality,
    Perhaps the joke’s what sets the signal free;
    As Nobody repairs the cosmic show
    With wit that bends both space and gravity.

    Graybeard cried alarm through time’s dim haze:
    “The cards are changing in these altered days!
    The Ace, once low, now trumps the mighty King—
    Has Nobody set hierarchy ablaze?“

    “Hold it,” warned Graybeard. “Some critical atoms must have been disturbed by Nobody’s journey. Now the ‘Ace’, a new name for the formerly bottommost playing card, the lowly ‘one’, is now higher than the King in many kinds of card games; this is a sacrilege and a travesty! Wait until London hears about this.”

    But Kirkpatrick saw the deeper sign:
    How ‘A’ meant ‘All’ in wisdom’s grand design;
    The One that births both monarchy and more,
    As cosmic truth in playing cards could shine.

    Mkirkpatrick somehow got into the conference call and said, “Just heard, but relax. The All is the One; the ‘A’ on the card really stands for ‘All’, for this is what gave rise to the monarchy. And of course the one is the One.”

    While Fredrick, master of the numbered art,
    Assured them strategy stayed true to heart;
    Though ranks might shift in time’s disturbed domain,
    The game’s deep patterns would not drift apart.

    “It’s OK,” Fredrick said calmly, being an expert on numbers and on playing them, “the play and strategy of all affected card games has not been altered much. Keep on going, Nobody.”

    Old Graybeard watched the moon’s unchanging face,
    While counting minutes in the cosmic race;
    And Fredrick checked his fingers, left and right,
    To see if five and five still kept their place.

    While some old times passed, Graybeard stood around looking at the man in the moon and watching the grass grow. Fredrick checked his watch to see if he was wearing it and then counted to five on his left hand. Fine. On the other hand, he still had five fingers, so, all was still going well in the good old days.

    Poor Profpat sharpened pencils to their end,
    As space and time began to curve and bend;
    While Texas Hold ‘em spread through twisted time,
    Like quantum ripples that Nobody penned.

    Rascal interjected, “Some sort of high stakes poker mania called ‘Texas Hold ‘em’ has broken out in some countries. Googling now. It’s even replacing baseball on many TV channels!”

    “Just let it pass,” wise Fredrick calm decreed,
    “A temporal fad that we need not impede;
    For whether Ace rules high or bows down low,
    The cosmic game plays on with little heed.”

    “It’s OK,” reassured Fredrick, “No harm done. We’ll pass it off as another fad.”

    Through Nobody’s wake the changes spread,
    As past and present’s cards got reshuffled, read;
    Yet somehow in time’s shifting parameter,
    The deeper rules stayed true to what they said.

    For in this cosmic game where all’s at stake,
    What matters most is not the rules we break,
    But how the patterns hold through space and time,
    As Nobody tunes reality’s remake.

    Let Kings and Aces dance their ranking’s race,
    While Hold ‘em claims old baseball’s sacred place;
    For in the greater game Nobody plays,
    Such shifts mark merely time’s disturbed embrace.

    Through billion years Nobody made his way,
    Past Dodo birds that frolicked in their day;
    Left asteroids (not hemorrhoids) far behind,
    While alchemy’s first dreams began to play.

    Nobody was heading billions of years into the past, having left the asteroid just before he got a polaroid from sitting on it too long, and was passing many frolicking Dodo birds, along with the beginnings of such ancient notions as alchemy and astrology. Hey, why are hemor–rhoids not called asteroids?

    Across a bridge of planks that creaked with time,
    Past penny stamps and ancient paradigm,
    He reached at last the cosmic CBS—
    The panel where reality’s wavelengths chime.

    A rickety old rope bridge of rotting planks finally led Nobody past many antiquities such as one-cent stamps and on to the control panel of the ancient broadcasting station of CBS.

    “Be gentle!” warned the watchers from afar,
    “Like shower knobs that shift from cold to star:
    One quantum turn brings forth the scalding steam,
    As quarks and quacks make plumbers’ wisdom mar!”

    “Be careful,” advised Profpat. “Be so very delicate with any adjustments. Remember, on Earth, how the tiniest minute adjustment of a shower knob of even a millionth of an inch causes the shower water to become totally steaming hot! No plumber in the universe has ever been able to resolve this problem. It has something to do with quarks, quicks, and quacks.”

    “Fear not,” said Nobody, “I’ll softly breathe
    Upon the dials that make the cosmos seethe;
    We seek clear channels in life’s DNA,
    Not static snow where baseball games yet seethe.”

    “Don’t worry,” answered Nobody. “I’ll be gentle; I’ll just breathe on it slightly. We want clarity in the universe’s DNA and ours, as in improving the reception of a TV set, not unproving it back into the stone age of three channels, of all baseball games, and the weather with snow and static on the others. I’ll do my best, come hell or hot water.”

    Like tuning ancient televisions’ snow
    To catch the signal’s pure and perfect flow,
    His touch must find that sweet spot in between
    Where cosmic clarity might better show.

    No stone-age channels three would serve us now,
    No weather maps through static’s fuzzy bow;
    The universe deserved a clearer song,
    If Nobody could just figure how.

    For in this broadcasting station old,
    Where reality’s first patterns were unfold,
    The slightest touch might change all history—
    Make waters freeze or turn all lead to gold.

    Through hell or scalding shower’s steamy spray,
    Nobody sought to tune our cosmic play;
    To clear the static from life’s DNA,
    And bring fresh clarity to evolution’s way.

    A spray of atoms toward the cosmic screen—
    Then data links blazed bright, then died unseen;
    While telemarketers through time still reached
    To sell time-shares where time had never been!

    Nobody sprayed a few atoms toward the antenna and waited. His data/video link soon improved but then overloaded from the high transfer speed and burned out. Nobody’s cell phone soon rang, but it was only a solicitor trying to sell him some time-share condos.

    But Graybeard’s voice broke through the static’s veil:
    “The stars grow clear, the galaxies unveil;
    Yet careful with that brightness knob, my friend,
    Lest nature’s balance tip beyond the pale!”

    Graybeard finally got through and said “Great, the stars are becoming clearer and I can even see some galaxies with the naked eye, but take it slow; we don’t want to upset the balance of nature by making it too bright at night. It’s good to tighten a screw, but if we tighten it too much we’re screwed.”

    Too clear the heavens grew beneath his touch,
    As Venus showed her age a bit too much;
    While X-ray vision pierced apartment walls,
    And private moments revealed rather such!

    “Wait, hold it! I can see Venus, the goddess of love and passion all too well. Yikes, I didn’t know she was that old! I now have x-ray vision and can see into all the apartments, but the worst thing is that I can hear everything they are saying. Some things should be obscene and not heard!”

    Strange cartoons danced on Graybeard’s TV set,
    Where logic fled and gravity’s rules met
    A universe of rubber-physics play,
    As reality grew stranger than yet.

    “Also, I’m getting something called ‘cartoons’ on my TV set, and they’re really weird, very unreal looking and everyone in them is doing silly things.”

    So Nobody produced his vacuum’s aid
    To draw back atoms that too far had strayed;
    Fine-tuning cosmos like a radio dial,
    Till balance in the broadcast was remade.

    Nobody took out a hand held ‘vacuum’ cleaner and brought a few atoms back in as a fine adjustment.

    “Now try up higher,” Graybeard’s voice advised,
    Though “up” in space leaves directions disguised;

    “Good,” cheered Graybeard, “that’s a good balance. Try something a little higher up and let’s see what happens. I am reading some fluctuations out of kilter around there.”

    “No, no—your other ‘up’!” came swift correction,
    As Nobody through dimensions sized.

    Adjusting the Delicate Balance of Everything.

    Notions of up and down were useless in space, so Nobody picked a direction at random.
    “No,” said Graybeard. “Not that way; use your other ‘up’.”
    “Okay, I’m switching. Back in kilter?“

    “Another goddess walks across my view!”
    Cried Graybeard as the adjustments grew;
    For tuning reality’s great broadcast show
    Brings sights that mortal eyes should never view.

    Between too clear and foggy lies the way,
    Where truth and mystery in balance play;
    For some things should stay slightly out of focus,
    Lest all of heaven’s secrets spoil our day.

    The cosmos needs its veils of gentle haze,
    Its boundaries ‘tween night and morning’s rays;
    For who could bear reality too pure,
    Or truth too bright for mortal eyes to gaze?
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    Part 2

    Between too clear and foggy lies the way,
    Where truth and mystery in balance play;
    For some things should stay slightly out of focus,
    Lest all of heaven’s secrets spoil our day.

    The cosmos needs its veils of gentle haze,
    Its boundaries ‘tween night and morning’s rays;
    For who could bear reality too pure,
    Or truth too bright for mortal eyes to gaze?

    The Cubs, at last in Series glory bound,
    Were swept as myths looked on in horror crowned;

    Suddenly, the Chicago Cubs, which had finally made it to the World Series of baseball, were swept in four straight games, while the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and other unbelievables in attendance looked on in horror.

    While Jordan danced twixt court and diamond’s call,
    As reality spun madly round and round.

    Then Michael Jordan gave up basketball for baseball and then switched back to basketball again.
    Reveal
    The climate swung from tropic heat to freeze,
    While Christ changed faiths with theological ease;
    Hell froze and thawed like cosmic ice cube trays,
    As Lethe’s waters turned to memories.

    Global warming picked up and then an ice age began. Jesus, born a Christian, became Jewish, then converted back again. Hell froze over and then thawed out again. The same with the River of Forgetfulness: everyone was walking on water for a while and running like Hell from Hades.

    The River Styx boiled off in steamy spite,
    As dead souls drowned (again!) in comic plight;
    With CRS disease (“Can’t Remember Shit“),
    They wandered lost through day and endless night.

    Profpat warned “Watch that shower knob, Nobody; the River Styx just boiled away and a bunch of dead people drowned after many more escaped!”
    “Where are they going?” inquired Nobody.
    Profpat replied, “They don’t know; they say they have CRS disease.”
    “What’s CRS stand for?“
    “Can’t Remember Shit.”

    “Up higher!” Graybeard called through quantum haze,
    “That last direction set too many days
    To spinning backward through their proper course,
    While Easter Bunnies watched in mute amaze!”

    “OK guys. A little upper, Nobody,” requested Graybeard. “That other direction was a downer.”

    The bridge of time groaned ‘neath Nobody’s feet,
    As ropes began to fray where aeons meet;
    The TOE researchers held their collective breath,
    While reality played tricks both sour and sweet.

    Now Santa Claus and Jordan shared one sphere,
    While baseball mixed with myths both far and near;
    The boundaries between the real and false
    Grew thin as water-walkers filled with fear.

    The shower knob of cosmos turned too far,
    Mixed holiday with prophet, game with star;
    While Nobody reached up (or was it down?)
    To tune reality to what we are.

    Nobody reached up and out, but the bridge creaked and groaned, causing Nobody to slip a bit as a rope frayed, and all the TOE researchers feared that his adjustment time was now quite limited.

    Time running short upon that creaking span
    Where Nobody must finish what began;
    For when the ropes of cosmic bridgework break,
    All myths and truths might fall to lesser plan.

    For in this game of universal dials,
    Where sports and saints share temporal trials,
    The line between the sacred and profane
    Dissolves in quantum’s joke-filled files.

    As Bonds smashed records into steroid haze,
    Mount Rushmore danced through presidential days;
    While Boston broke their century of curse—
    Reality took strange and twisted ways.

    Meanwhile, Barry Bonds had broken the home run record, but, of course, steroids would be blamed for it. Mount Rushmore had briefly turned into Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan, but just as soon reverted back. However, the Boston Red Sox still won a World Series for the first time in a hundred years

    Then Yogi spoke his wisdom upside down:
    “Too crowded, so nobody comes around!”
    His logic bent like space-time’s rubber sheet,
    As truth wore contradiction’s puzzling crown.

    Also, it turned out that someone named Yogi Berra had said many sayings that seemed to make sense, but really didn’t, like ‘That restaurant is so crowded that no one goes there anymore’, ‘It gets dark early out here’, ‘If people don’t want to come out to the ball park, nobody’s going to stop them’, and many more unsayings.

    The road that “works” stopped working in its time,
    While “Speed Zones” urged the swift to slow their climb;
    And rap met oxymoron on the streets,
    As language tied itself in knots sublime.

    Silly signs appeared on highways, like ‘Road Works’ (it doesn’t work well during construction), and ‘Speed Zone’ (meaning slow down). Something called rap music had become ever-present, as well as a new word, ‘oxymoron’.

    Poor Clinton neither inhaled smoke nor sin,
    As history rewrote what might have been;

    A funny thing happened to President Clinton, but he wasn’t impeached for it. He neither inhales nor have sex.
    “We’ll blame it all on human nature’s way,”
    Said Frederick, with philosophical grin.

    “This one may be hard to explain,” lamented Fredrick, “but we’ll chalk it up to human nature.”

    The signs along our highways told their jest,
    As meaning turned both east and also west;
    “It’s déjà vu all over once again!”
    As Yogi’s ghost proclaimed our cosmic test.

    Through quantum foam these changes rippled far:
    Baseball records, presidential star,
    The paradox of Yogi’s twisted truth,
    And Clinton’s dance with what such changes are.

    “I never said the things I really said!”
    As wisdom’s fool spoke truth turned on its head;
    While history rewove its tapestry,
    And sense from nonsense could not be unwed.

    For in these ripples through our space and time,
    Where baseball stats met presidential climb,
    Some deeper truth behind the madness lay:
    That chaos might hold reason in its rhyme.

    Let Yogi guide us through this twisted maze,
    Where meaning doubles back through quantum haze;
    For in his backwards-forwards wisdom shines
    The light that lights our strange temporal days.

    Nobody twirled the “More of This-ness” knob,
    As Krypton’s folk began their cosmic job:
    Each basketball shot swished from fifty miles,
    While watchers’ hearts with wonderment did throb.

    Nobody did some fiddling of some knobs that he wasn’t supposed to touch, twiddling ‘More of This-ness’, and people on Krypton started to make every shot in basket–ball games, even from 50 miles away, being really IN THE ZONE, plus doing many other superhuman things.

    But Fredrick warned of perfect’s bitter price,
    How flawless skill might turn life’s game to ice;
    For what’s the joy in sports where none can fail,
    When every shot must fall as pure and nice?

    All the TOE viewers from Earth were cheering this, but Fredrick warned them that total perfection might take all the fun out of life.

    In dreams now mortals soared on Superman’s wing,
    While letters, numbers, did their switching thing:
    Poor zero looked like ‘oh’, while ‘one’ met ‘el’,
    As language tied itself in verbal string.

    Zeroes began to look like the alphabetic letter ‘oh’, caus–ing confusion, along with ‘one’ looking like the letter ‘el’.

    “Better hold off,” Graybeard suggested. Nobody dialed the knobs back a little.
    RascalPuff interjected, “Some people are now reporting that they can fly like superman in some new event called ‘sleeping hallucinations’ or ‘night dreams’.”

    Sweet homonyms bred fast through twisted speech,
    While synonyms stretched meaning’s grasp and reach;

    Some words began to have the same sound, as called a ‘homonym’ but not a ‘homonim’, and some with similar meanings; as called a ‘synonym’, although it had none itself, and some words now had multiple meanings.

    How strange that “phonetic” sounds nothing like
    The way its letters ought to sound and teach!

    Nor was ‘phonetic’ spelled the way it sounded.

    “Abbreviation” grew absurdly long,
    While “monosyllabic” did its spelling wrong;

    And why was ‘abbreviation’ such a long word without any? And how come ‘monosyllabic’ wasn’t?

    And “love” found only “dove” and high “above“
    To rhyme with in the poet’s frustrated song.

    Also, ‘love’ was reduced to having only the two good rhymes of ‘dove’ and ‘above’, which soon became overused and stale, frustrating many poets and their readers.

    Perhaps I should not mention that last part,
    As verses struggle with their rhyming art;
    For when reality affects one’s tools,
    The very telling tears itself apart!

    So Nobody dialed back the cosmic gain,
    Lest perfect prowess drive all pleasure vain;
    For in the flaws and failings of our reach,
    Some sweeter victory might yet remain.

    Let basketball miss sometimes from afar,
    Let language keep its puzzles bizarre;
    For in imperfection’s fertile ground,
    The flowers of wonder show us what we are.

    Through all these ripples in the cosmic sea,
    Where letters dance and athletes bend the knee,
    We learn that too much “More of This-ness” might
    Make less of all we struggled to be free.

    In Wildwood, where the Jersey shore should be,
    A slice of Hawaii touched the sea:
    With torch and palm tree, waterfall and song,
    While fat men sang beneath a tropical tree.

    At Sunset Bay, where noumena turned real,
    Raw oysters “well done” graced the evening meal;
    A ship-turned-bar at pier’s end served its guests,
    While sand-strewn floors made reality reel.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    Part 3

    Austin reported that a part of Hawaii had sprung up in Wildwood, NJ, named ‘Sunset Bay’ and that it had had big fat singers, torches, palm trees, waterfalls, tropical flowers, a half-ship at the end of a pier that served as a bar, good food (ordering raw oysters well done), although it consisted of only waves and fields (lucky that his brain turned the noumena into phenomena), and sand all around as a floor.

    And Goo...ooogle stretched its vowels wide,
    As extra “o’s” took quantum’s wild ride;
    While Fredrick calmly rationalized it all:
    “Just marketing,” he logically replied.

    Also, he said that many more ‘o’s had appeared in the word ‘Goo…ooogle’.

    “These sleeping visions help us through the night,
    While homonyms give poets new delight;
    And synonyms enrich our speaking ways,
    As language grows more playful in its flight.”

    Fredrick suggested that the sleeping visions were harmless and probably helped us in some way, that homonyms gave poets even more rhymes, that synonyms and words with multiple meanings would enrich the language,

    “Slash zeros from their ‘ohs’ to keep them clear,
    While typewriters fade into yesteryear;

    that zeroes could have a slash added through them for differentiation, that typewriters were obsolete, that we could get used to the odd words, perhaps some day getting even with them,

    Let ‘love’ find ‘of’ among its rhyming friends,
    As poetry finds new patterns to endear.”

    “This Hawaii sprung from Jersey’s fertile sand?
    Just call it tourism’s strategic plan!
    For who can say where reality ends
    And marketing begins to understand?“

    The waves lap fields where fields should never be,
    While palm trees shade the Atlantic’s chilly sea;
    Yet human minds adapt to stranger things,
    And make them seem as normal as can be.

    For in these shifts of what is real and true,
    We find new ways to bend our world’s bright hue;
    Till Hawaii in Jersey seems quite right,
    And extra “o’s” make searching somehow new.

    and that Google’s extra ‘o’s would probably get used in a marketing ploy as denoting the internet page ranges of interest.
    Reveal
    Perhaps the secret’s not in what we change,
    But how we dance with things that seem so strange;
    For human minds can rationalize it all,
    Till even quantum ripples find their range.

    The bridge began to crumble into night,
    As cell phones chimed their warning of his plight;
    Just about then, the moth-eaten walkway began its collapse, and all the cell-phoners quickly warned Nobody, for they could see the whole scene unfolding before their eyes knew about it.

    A chorus crying “Run!” through digital space,

    “Run!” they all said in unison, and with text messages, as well. “Run for your life. Get out of there. The bridge…“

    Before roaming charges killed their satellite.

    All contact was lost, for Nobody’s cell phone roaming charges had become astronomical and overdue, causing his account to be canceled.

    Then Nothing stretched beneath Nobody’s feet—
    That paradox where void and being meet;
    Yet cartoon physics granted precious time,
    Till consciousness could make the fall complete.

    For like the coyote suspended high,
    Who falls not till he knows the reason why,
    Nobody hung between the now and then,
    While reality pondered how to fly.

    There was now nothing but nothing under Nobody’s feet, an impossibility, of course, for nothing can’t exist, but it was there, never the less; however, Nobody didn’t begin to fall right away, as in cartoons when no one falls until they realize through consciousness that there is nothing holding them up,

    That second’s grace proved all he’d need to act:
    A strip of foil (humanity’s last pact
    Against the reign of sitcom, Paris, fame)
    He fixed upon the antenna, skill intact.

    and so he gained a precious second and leapt, just in time, back onto the falling bridge, having had the presence of mind during that split second of warning to attach a piece of tin foil to the antenna, a last ditch attempt to help humanity progress beyond TV sitcoms, Lindsey Lohan, and Paris Hilton.

    Then leapt back to the bridge’s falling span,
    As fast as light (which faster then!) he ran;
    While planks dissolved like quantum foam behind,
    He raced ahead of time’s unraveling plan.

    He moved quickly and soon accelerated to the speed of light, which was a lot faster back then, on the bridge that was literally (or virtually) crumbling as he ran across it.

    The cell phones dead, their warnings lost to space,
    As cosmic bills came due with mounting grace;
    Yet Nobody outran reality’s collapse,
    While saving us from entertainment’s face.

    One final gift before the bridge gave way:
    A tune-up of our cosmic DNA,
    That might just lift our spirits higher than
    The Hilton heiress’ latest cabaret.

    Through nothing and through something swift he fled,
    While watchers held their breath in quantum dread;
    For in this race ‘tween Nobody and void,
    All future culture hung by tinfoil thread.

    Perhaps in ages hence we’ll mark this day,
    When Nothing nearly won its cosmic sway;
    Yet Nobody outran the speed of light,
    To save us all from reality TV’s decay.

    Concern crept in on cat-soft padding feet,
    While Worry, Woe, and Grimness took their seat;
    A bill collector joined their somber crowd,
    As silence made their gathering complete.

    No one knew where Nobody was or if he did nothing or didn’t do nothing. Concern set in. Worry followed. Despair appeared. Woe rang the doorbell. Grimness sat on the front steps. A bill collector drove up.

    Poor Rascal Googled through his anxious hours,
    While Graybeard’s eyes left Virgo’s virgin bowers;
    “Chaste makes waste,” he muttered, one eye closed,
    His unopened beer still holding hidden powers.

    Rascal saddened, but kept Googling to keep his mind busy, while Graybeard stopped ogling the virgin super clusters of Virgo with both of his naked eyes, although noting, ‘chaste makes waste’, keeping one eye open, and even put off the opening of a beer.

    And Fredrick, misty-eyed, recalled the days
    With Nobody—all good in memory’s haze;

    Fredrick, getting all teary eyed, tried to remember the good times with Nobody. Well, that was easy; they were all good times.

    While RascalPuff checked copyrights with care,
    His language tied in Nobody-thought maze.

    RascalPuff checked all of his copyrights. “Darn, they’re still there.”

    “Why is Nobody home?” the question runs,
    “And what means what when meaning itself stuns?“

    “Why is there no sign of Nobody and why is Nobody not home, and what is the meaning of what I am saying? Or not.”

    Perhaps we should just ask the teenagers,
    Who know it all, as every parent shuns.

    Well, although we are all supposed to know ‘everything’, or at least the theory of, we might as well just ask our teen-age offspring, for they know it all.

    Michael rose from his digital retreat,

    Michael left his lounge chair and put down his laptop.

    While Austin fed sea birds their french-fried treat;
    A thousand gulls pursued his fleeing form,
    As children filmed their father’s swift defeat.

    Austin, although silently alarmed, fed french fries to a thousand seagulls, his step-kids laughing and taking a video of it… until he ran towards the kids, throwing more fries to lead the flapping flock onward toward them.

    What paradox when Nobody is lost!
    What semantic games our minds are tossed!
    For how can Nobody be missing here,
    When Nobody was never here across?

    The seagulls whirl like quantum possibilities,
    While french fries plot their aerial trajectories;
    And somewhere in the void of space and time,
    Nobody’s presence haunts these mysteries.

    Let teenagers explain it all away,
    While bill collectors darken wisdom’s day;
    For in this pause between the now and then,
    We wait for Nobody to find his way.

    Perhaps he did nothing, or nothing did,
    Or something else behind these words lies hid;
    While we prepare remembrance just in case,
    And wonder what of Nothing might be rid.

    Austin thought that Nobody might never make it, and began preparing a remembrance.

    The Possibility of Being

    This is the creature there has never been.
    They never knew it, and yet, none the less,
    They loved the way it moved, its suppleness,
    Its neck, its very gaze, mild and serene.

    Not there, because they loved it,
    It behaved as though it were.
    They always left some space.
    And in that clear unpeopled space they saved
    It lightly reared its head,
    With scarce a trace of not being there.

    They fed it, not with corn,
    But only with the possibility of being.
    And that was able to confer such strength,
    Its brow put forth a horn. One horn.
    Whitely it stole up to a maid —
    To be within the silver mirror and in her.
    (from Sonnets To Orpheus Second Part, R. M. Rilke)

    In Honor Of Nobody,

    Who can under-stand the universe,
    Not even needing a place to stand,
    That is nowhere and everywhere,
    A wizard creating something of nothing,
    Whose imagination reaches the edge
    Of forever, beyond, and before.

    In honor of our Nobody we sing,
    Who needed not a place for anything;
    Everywhere and nowhere was his realm,
    As wizard of the nothing everything.

    Beyond the edge where atoms lose their way,
    Where electromagnetic forces fray,
    He walked through nothing’s thin and empty air,
    To tune the cosmic broadcast of our day.

    The Edge of the Universe

    Existence extends its electromagnetic preach
    As far as its atomic influences can reach;
    Beyond all of that there is nothing there
    But the naught of very thin ‘air’. (nothing)

    Poor Profpat, missed two payments on his car,
    Then turned to dig up treasures near and far;

    Profpat, sidelined by so many recent TOE readings and contributions, had gotten back on his feet by missing two car payments. His career now in ruins, he switched to archeology.

    While MJA proclaimed with wisdom true:
    “Most equal man that ever crossed our star.”

    MJA said, “Nobody was the most equal man I ever knew.”

    Lloyd puzzled time and fruit flies’ dance through space,

    Lloyd pondered the linguistics of “Time flies like a bird and fruit flies like a banana”.

    While Steven’s map showed every here and place;
    For when you seek the spot where you might stand,
    You find it marks existence’s every trace.

    Steven Wright said, “I have an existential map. It has ‘You are here’ written all over it.”

    His imagination reached beyond the rim
    Where space and time grow gossamer and dim;
    Through forever’s edge he dared to walk,
    To fix the signal growing faint and grim.

    Some days the universe resists our will,
    While others burn with fire stranger still;
    Yet Nobody dared dance through nothing’s realm,
    Where only he could cure existence’s ill.

    Meat Loaf sang, “Some days it don’t come easy… and these are the days that never end… and some nights are breathing fire… and some night are nothing I felt or seen before… or will again… no one else can save you now but you…”

    So let us praise the one who dared to stride
    Where something meets with nothing, side by side;
    Who proved that nowhere is a place to be,
    When reality needs someone to guide.

    For in this tale of cosmic repair’s art,
    Nobody played the most essential part:
    The one who could step past existence’s edge,
    To tune the signal where all wonders start.

    Robert finally asked for a minute of silence on ToeQuest.

    In solemn silence ToeQuest bowed its head,
    While Time’s components walked with mournful tread:
    Sad Yesteryear and Forever came,
    With Why and How and Where, by sorrow led.

    The Procession of the Constituents of Reality

    Sad Yesteryear, Forever, and Everywhere,
    They all came, to weep for Nobody Nowhere,
    With Why and How, Then, Now,
    When, and What and Where,
    Led but by their tears and sorrow. Your posts zing
    With things that ‘none’ can bring: Everything.

    The minutes crawled like Florida’s slow lane,
    Where elderly folks make young folks complain;

    More time passed, as the minutes went by like slugs and snails slowed down by older slugs and snails in their way, like when we get stuck walking behind old people in Florida.

    Till Yogi spoke his twisted wisdom true:
    “The future’s not what once it used to strain!”

    Yogi Berra suddenly came out with “The future isn’t what it used to be.”

    But Fredrick smiled at negatives turned bright,
    For in his numbered days he’d seen the light:
    Though plus and minus sum to nothing’s null,
    The difference holds the wisdom of their flight.

    Fredrick smiled. Although Yogi’s typical observation sounded like it had a negative connotation, Fredrick knew better, for many negatives had been developed into positives during his days of study that were numbered as the dates of his calendar. Also, although all the pluses and minuses added up to zero, Fredrick had the wisdom to know the difference, as well.

    “He lives!” cried Fredrick, joy beyond compare,
    “Where no man’s gone before—and please don’t dare
    Suggest I mean the ladies’ room!” His heart
    Knew Nobody still wandered somewhere there.

    “He’s alive!” said Fredrick. “He’s out there somewhere! …where no man has gone before. And I don’t mean the ladies room!”

    Then Profpat listed ways he hadn’t gone:
    Not departed, passed, expired, or drawn
    To better realms—till Graybeard cut him short:
    “You mean die?” “Yes.” “That’s last upon his lawn!”

    Profpat posted, “I knew he wouldn’t depart, pass on, leave us, expire, perish, pass away, decease, or go to a better place.”
    Graybeard hinted, “You mean die?“
    “Yes.”
    “Well, that’s the last thing he’s going to do.”

    For how can Nobody depart our sphere,
    When nowhere is the place he holds most dear?
    And how can nothing claim the one who walked
    Through spaces where no something could appear?

    The constituents of reality
    Process through time’s grand ceremony;
    Yet Nobody eludes their solemn march,
    By being everywhere we cannot see.

    Let sluggish time crawl past at snail’s slow pace,
    While Yogi twists the future’s changing face;
    For Nobody has found that special realm
    Where something, nothing, meet in quantum’s grace.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    Part 4

    Through time’s swift river Nobody did swim,
    Not stopping once for directions dim
    (Unlike poor Moses’ forty desert years),
    As language shifted at reality’s rim.

    Time was like a river, so Nobody followed the currents through all their twists and turns, not even stopping to ask directions, for there weren’t any (unlike Moses, who didn’t ask, and so got lost for 40 years), swimming (being careful not to use the butterfly stroke) all the way back to the safety of Earth, 2025, almost taking a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

    The ‘lifts’ to ‘elevators’ made their way,
    While ‘bonnets’ into ‘hoods’ switched day by day;
    And ‘muzzies’ transformed into ‘mosquitos’ sharp,
    As words crossed oceans in their language play.

    ’Lifts’ in the UK soon became ‘elevators’ in the US; car ‘bonnets’ turned into ‘hoods’, and the ‘muzzies’ of Australia still stung as American ‘mosquitos’, but luckily nothing much else of any serious nature in this vein of language had diverged in any harmful way other than ‘apples of the ground’ now becoming known as ‘potatoes’.
    Reveal
    Meat Loaf sang what he wouldn’t do for love,
    While country music titles soared above
    All reason’s reach (we’ll leave those well alone),
    As culture shifted like a hand-switched glove.

    Meat Loaf recorded his greatest song of ‘I’ll Do Anything for Love, But I Won’t Do That.’ Let’s not get into country music song titles.

    Through currents twisted by the cosmic dance,
    Past Albuquerque’s dangerous circumstance,
    Nobody swam (no butterfly allowed!)
    Till Earth 2025 came into glance.

    All applauded his return, giving a great reception to the improver of reception, and told him of Earth’s many new marvels, for

    That tin-foil fix worked magic past all hope:

    The tin foil had beat the odds, accomplishing some fantastic things:

    The world bloomed color’s full kaleidoscope!
    The fifties saw both life and TV shine,
    As black and white lost their restricted scope.

    Color had arrived in the world, along with color TV, in the late 1950’s (just look at the black and white TV shows made before then for proof).

    High Definition brought its crystal view
    (Perhaps too crystal—showing pimples too);
    While Earth embraced its newly sharpened sight,
    And welcomed home the one who made it true.

    High Definition had arrived, as well, which allowed us to examine in great detail the pimples on a person’s face.

    They celebrated he who dared to swim
    Through time’s deep waters, both bright and dim;
    Who fixed reception’s cosmic crystal set,
    Though language quirks still followed every whim.

    For in this tale of temporal repair,
    Where words shift meaning through the quantum air,
    Nobody proved that sometimes tinfoil dreams
    Can make reality beyond compare.

    Three gifts of heaven grace our mortal sphere:
    Sweet flowers’ bloom, night visions crystal clear,
    And elfin folk who dance twixt earth and sky—
    Though some, like fallen angels, prove not dear.

    Three types of “heavenly” things had become permanent features of the world: flowers, night dreams, and elfin creatures, the latter of which were the long sought missing link between man and angel (unfortunately some angels had gone bad, although many had remained good, and thus many leprechauns couldn’t be trusted).

    The Dark Age lifted sooner than before,
    As Y1K brought wisdom to restore;

    The Dark Ages had gotten brighter sooner (the Y1K problem),

    The printing press, a century advanced,
    Spread knowledge wide from learning’s sacred store.

    the printing press had been invented a century sooner,

    In Oxford’s halls, a humble sweeper found
    Old Omar’s verses, dormant underground;
    While Plato’s newest thoughts lay close beside,
    ‘Beyond Metaphysics,’ wisdom newly crowned.

    a book of Omar Khayyàm’s thousand year old quatrains was discovered in the Bodleian library by a janitor, not having been noticed there before, along with Plato’s new book of the month, ‘Beyond Metaphysics’.

    The Bard unblocked his pen (no fish required),
    His genius finally fully fired;
    While gentle blondes sought gentler company,
    And Magdalene’s true story was acquired.

    Someone named Shakespeare had gotten over his writer’s block of trying to open a lock with a fish and so had written some of the greatest stuff ever. Blondes began to prefer gentlemen. James the Lesser was shown to really have less, actually being Mary Magdelane.

    The iPod’s tune drew minds from reality,
    As Apple’s fruit grew sweeter on the tree;

    and Apple computers and products were improving and catching on to let us tune out reality (of all things) with the ipod.

    While sixty summers now seemed young indeed—
    Ten years more life, a gift of destiny.

    Ten years had been added to the human life span, meaning that sixty was not old anymore!

    Cartoons kept the children in their sway,
    While Kovacs’ words on TV held their day—
    That “medium” meant excellence was rare—
    And thus we learned to cast the worst away.

    However, we were stuck with cartoons, but, hey, they keep kids busy! Ernie Kovak’s saying of ‘Television is a medium because anything well done is rare’ still stood firm, but we could better see what was worthless.

    Though strangers bid us each a pleasant time,
    Their plans might lead to regions more sublime;

    People still told others to ‘Have a nice day’ even though they probably had other plans.

    And even on the phone, hands dance through air,
    As gesture preceded verbal rhyme.

    Everyone still talked with their hands, even while on the phone, indicating that gestures had proceeded language.

    Now men with nipples walk beneath the sun,
    While consciousness, once naps had come undone,
    Grew bright as dawn—yet some cared not to share
    The wisdom that enlightenment had won.

    However, men now had nipples, but no matter. Enlightenment grew bright, consciousness becoming more that just ‘that boring time between naps’, but some still didn’t know and didn’t care one way or the other to know the difference between ignorance, apathy, and ambivalence.

    Why call a “building” when its build is done?
    Such puzzles leave us wondering, just for fun;

    As for why a ‘building; was called that after it was built, no one knew.

    And why’s a thesaurus not some ancient heir
    To dinosaurs whose time has long since run?

    And why wasn’t a thesaurus a type of dinosaur?

    Behold! A color new had come to stay—
    Not found in rainbow’s arc of light’s display:
    ’Twas brown that graced our world with earthen hue,

    A new and useful color had appeared that was not even in the rainbow: brown.

    While humor spread through words in fresh wordplay.

    Humor was now more widespread, due to expanded and duplicate word meanings.

    The penny candy rose to nickel’s height,

    And cigarettes blazed forth at costs to fright;
    I insured each pack against their doom—
    Small fires claimed them in the quiet night.

    Cigarettes now cost $1000 a pack. I insured all of my packs, but they were eventually consumed by a series of small fires.

    The court dismissed my claims with stern disdain,
    And branded me an arsonist in pain;

    My insurance company wouldn’t pay, so I took them to court, where I was convicted of arson.

    Yet still the world grew better than before—
    The worst was merely “worser” in its strain.

    However, all in all, the world was a better place, in that the worst times were now only the ‘worser’.

    Poor Pluto’s been banished to the underworld,
    Charon rowing him to the Land of the Forgotten.
    Schoolchildren petitioned for his return,
    But he was voted off of the solar island.

    On ToeQuest, souls were gifted yearly flight
    Around the sun—with Poughkeepsie’s delight;
    Second place earned two trips to that town fair,
    Third place got three—oh what a curious plight!

    Everyone on ToeQuest was awarded a free annual trip around the sun and one special trip to Poughkeepsie, NY. Second place was two trips to Poughkeepsie; third place, three trips to Poughkeepsie.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    Part 5

    ’Everything’, at least locally, had indeed turned out to be a single whole defined in the space of ‘=’ by MJA, but only in that every part of a hologram contained the whole. Quantum entanglement had always suggested this, as well, and now it was could be seen that we all have access to the entire universe at every point of the holographic interference pattern, the many more fractional points that were added by Nobody the better for its resolution. Everything connecting to everything proved to be a kind of perception in and of itself and so it begat a ToeQuest thread called ‘The Waving Grains of Sand’, for

    Every part of a hologram contains the whole,
    The whole universe contained within a
    Grain of sand, all eternity within a moment,
    The universe rumbling when an electron vibrates.

    Through quantum bonds that bridge the cosmic deep,
    Where entangled particles their secrets keep,
    At every point the universe complete
    Lies waiting for our consciousness to reap.

    The interference pattern spreads its web,
    Each fractal point by Nobody’s hand fed,
    Till resolution rises like the tide
    And shows us truths that wise men long have said.

    When everything connects to all that is,
    Perception shifts to show what most men miss;
    Like waving grains of sand upon the shore,
    Each mote contains universal bliss.

    The black hole’s secrets whisper strange and clear,
    Its entropy bound not by volume’s sphere
    But by the surface area alone—
    Another hint of projection drawing near.

    Another missed hint of our 3D projection had been that the entropy of black holes depends on the surface area of its event horizon, not on its volume. Could something like the rippled CMBR microwaves be that esoteric radiant interference pattern? Yes.
    Reveal
    And in the ancient light that bathes us all,
    The cosmic background’s rippled waterfall,
    We find at last the pattern’s sacred trace:
    The hologram from which all shadows fall.

    As Bohm proposed, the cosmos flows and streams,
    A vast implicate order beyond dreams,
    Where wholeness dwells in every finite space
    And time itself is not quite what it seems.

    Bohm, too, suggested that the whole universe could be thought of as a kind of giant, flowing hologram, or holo-movement, in which a total order is contained, in some implicit sense, in the same finite space. In reality, time is an illusion.

    The solid world that meets our searching eyes
    Is but projection from more subtle skies,
    Unfolding and enfolding endlessly
    As particles dissolve and crystallize.

    The explicate order is a projection from higher dimen–sional levels of reality, and the apparent stability and solidity of the objects and entities composing it are generated and sustained by a ceaseless process of enfoldment and unfoldment, for the illusions of sub–atomic particles are constantly dissolving into the implicate order and then recrystallizing.

    Like frames of film that flicker swift and bright,
    Reality performs its dance of light,
    Too quick for mortal minds to comprehend
    The constant flux of day dissolved in night.

    Our reality dissolves and reforms in a constant dance that, like moving pictures, cannot be perceived.

    In dreams we glimpse this virtual display,
    This matrix where our consciousness holds sway,
    And wonder: might we craft such worlds ourselves?
    (Dear Spielberg, have we got a role to play?)

    We knew that this same type of stunning virtual reality was likely, for it is presented to us in our night dreams for our amusement or self-improvement, or some such reason. It would be interesting to know more of how the holographic reality operates, of course, so we could get to the next step, maybe even build our own virtual reality. Mr. Spielberg would surely buy into that.

    Dreams as Cinema

    Each night when slumber draws its velvet screen,
    A filmmaker unknown sets forth unseen,
    To craft such tales as Hollywood might prize—
    More vivid than what waking eyes have seen.

    Within these plays, we soar on wings of thought,
    Through jungle depths where physics counts for naught,
    While viewpoints shift like master-crafted scenes—
    Such artistry no mortal hand has wrought.

    Perhaps, instead of building a virtual reality, though, we could tap into the one that already exists within us and is flexible enough to produce great movies: again, our own night dreams. If we could only record them, keeping the ones with movie quality film and exciting story lines, we could make and sell movies without paying millions of dollars to writers, directors, actors, and filmers.

    What cosmic force directs these nightly shows,
    Where characters emerge none living knows,
    Where music lingers past the morning light,
    And wisdom deeper than our learning flows?

    But who or what is the source of these night dream movies? Who is the producer, the director, etc.—for night dreams seem to contain surprises, a production capacity way beyond that of ourselves, of people acting in character modes that we as individuals might not even possess, say, that of being singers or comedians or whatever.

    Perhaps we need not build new worlds to find
    The greatest spectacles of humankind;
    They dwell already in our dreaming hearts,
    These films no earthly studio designed.

    For in that space between our sleep and wake,
    What masterworks does consciousness forsake?
    If we could capture but a fragment’s worth,
    What fortunes might these phantom pictures make!

    Yet deeper still the mystery remains:
    What power fills our minds with these refrains?
    What hidden talents lurk beneath our thoughts,
    To birth such art within our sleeping brains?

    So let us pause before these nightly plays,
    And contemplate their meaning through the haze;
    For in these dreams might lie some greater truth
    About reality’s mysterious ways.

    I have many lucid dreams and observe them closely; they are really quite spectacular. Sometimes, I just watch; other times I amaze the onlookers with my ability to fly and hover. One time, some music kept playing for a minute or so after I awoke. Other times, I am just amused by the viewpoint: I was in a plane that was crashing through a jungle, but the viewpoint suddenly switched to one that was from outside the plane, just as real movies do. So, dreams, their mere happening, should be telling us something remarkable about reality, and these kinds of clues are what I try to make significance of.

    THE HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE

    When a tree falls in the forest
    And there’s no one around to hear it,
    Does it make a sound?

    No, for there is no ear to turn
    The sound waves into sound.

    Nor is there a smell, for there is no nose
    For the odorous molecules to attach to,
    Nor has it any color, for there is
    No retina to decode the light frequencies.

    What does it look like, then?

    It doesn’t look like anything,
    For there is no brain to put it all together
    By detecting form, color, texture,
    Size, taste, smell, or vision.

    Since the entropy of a black hole is known
    To depend on the surface area of
    The event horizon and NOT on its volume,
    Then our third dimension MIGHT BE a projection.

    A projected illusion, as in a hologram,
    May still be used as it were really there
    Since we can make sense of it, so to speak,
    But, in truth, the third dimension may not exist.

    Thus, apparently separate particles,
    Like created photon pairs,
    Copy the other when one is changed,
    Because, in truth, they are still
    The same thing in the projector room.

    If the universe is holographic,
    Then the tree in the forest,
    Whether seen or not,

    Is, at heart, an interference pattern
    Brought to life only when we tune it in.

    This is the mystery of the realness
    Of sleeping dreams revealed:
    We tune in to the interference patterns,
    Whether awake or asleep,
    To bring alive the reality projected.

    Everything connects to everything else
    Through overlapping interference patterns,
    And so nothing is so separate at all, as it seems,
    But is one large all-encompassing whole.

    Memory, too, seems to be holographic,
    Residing everywhere in the brain,
    Every piece associated with others related,
    Instantly broadcasting all the connections.

    Every part of a hologram contains the whole,
    The whole universe contained within
    A grain of sand, all eternity within a moment,
    The universe rumbling when an electron vibrates.

    We are part and parcel of everything—
    We are the cosmos; we are life; we are love;
    We are all that is; we are the creator
    Of the dance as well as the dancer.

    Whether the past is recorded and accessible
    As part of the holographic whole is not known
    Or whether the other two dimensions are
    Projected, as well, but perhaps we shall see.

    This then is the secret of the universe,
    Knowing of that which underlies all reality:
    Fundamental, absolute, indestructible,
    Omnipresent, indeterminate, but all pervasive.
    Why absolute and fundamental?

    Because it is made of one piece—itself,
    And therefore indestructible, and eternal, too,
    And makes up all that there is, everywhere.
  • alan1000
    202
    I think it was a huge mistake to stop sacrificing virgins at the solstice. That was where we went wrong, in my opinion. Of course, there were others who thought sacrificing lambs would be enough, but that was just woke gone mad.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    Part 6

    Nobody’s Fake Home Movies of the CMBR Trip

    To view the cosmic films of Nobody’s quest,
    The mighty powers gathered as his guest;
    Three Presidents and agencies galore,
    While YoungerBush shot lame ducks, missed the fest.

    Nobody invited everyone from ToeQuest and the govern–ment over to see some home movies of his trip to the CMBR (because I have some leftover material and went through the joke book again). The CIA, FBI, NSA, DNA, and three former Presidents attended, as well. President YoungerBush would’ve come, but was on vacation for a month, shooting lame ducks and leakers.

    They dined on pasta, anti-pasta too,
    According to their cosmic point of view;
    Some mixed the two in hope of balance fair,
    And promptly burst from what they dared to do.

    Pasta and anti-pasta was served for dinner, depending on one’s universal orientation. A few mixed it, trying to cancel out the effects of eating too much, and then promptly exploded from both ends.

    Reveal
    “The reception’s clear,” Nobody declared,
    “No static mars the footage that I shared.”
    Then Shakespeare rose to pose his ancient quest:
    “To be or not to be?” – Nobody stared.

    “Thanks, everyone, for your support,” said Nobody. “The reception was great; no static or noise. I can take some questions before we start the film that filmed the start.”

    The Bard’s hand rose amid the questioning throng,
    “Your query?” Nobody asked before long;
    “To be or not to be,” came swift reply—
    “Good answer,” proved the riddle right, not wrong.

    For in that ancient doubt lay wisdom deep:
    The choice between the waking and the sleep,
    The dance of being and of nothingness,
    Where questions asked are answers we must keep.

    The questioner and answer fused as one,
    Like stars that both cast light and light outrun;
    In paradox of presence and its void,
    The deepest truth had only just begun.

    When Nothing asks of Something what is true,
    And Something answers Nothing’s point of view,
    The circle closes on itself complete—
    As question, answer, wisdom shine anew.

    “Where found you sustenance?” asked Austin bold,
    “I gathered frozen food from ages old;
    And cooked it in the cosmic microwave,
    While drifting through the universe’s hold.”

    “How did you survive after you left the last Daily Planet restaurant?” asked Austin.
    “I picked up some frozen food in the Ice Age.”
    “But how did you cook it?” persisted Austin, his brain having been temporarily fried, boiled, and sun roasted in New Jersey.
    “Remember, there were microwaves all around.”

    “Your vacuum, sir?” Profpat inquired with care,
    “I bought two units, split my work to share;
    The salesman promised half the labor saved—
    So doubling up seemed only just and fair.”

    “What words,” asked RascalPuff, “could best convey
    Your journey to the cosmos’ earliest day?”
    “Veni, Vidi, Velcro,” came reply,
    “I came, I saw, and I stuck around to stay.”

    “Did you get lost?” young Fredrick dared to ask;
    “Alternative destinations were my task;
    For never lost am I in time or space,
    Though different paths my journey might unmask.”

    “I never get lost, even if I’m told to; I discover alternate destinations.”

    “Did riches flow?” asked Graybeard, seeking more,
    “And might I have your tires from days of yore?”
    “Yes, wealth I found, but faced a cruel choice then:
    ’Tween work and daytime TV’s endless bore.”

    “Did you make enough money to retire, and, if so, can I have your old tires?” inquired Graybeard.
    “Yes, I did, but it’s really a cruel choice: Work or watch daytime TV.”

    “Did Everything make sense?” came Fredrick’s plea;
    “At times I thought so,” Nobody did agree,
    “But consciousness returned to set me straight,
    And mystery resumed its sovereignty.”

    “Did you understand Everything?” asked Fredrick.
    “Often I thought I did, but then I regained consciousness.”

    Then ChickenMan inquired with solemn face
    If cosmic eggs had marked primordial space;
    “Inconceivable!” Nobody declared,
    “Though in your query lies peculiar grace.”

    ChickenMan probed, “Were any chickens harmed during the making of your film? Also, did Mother Earth and Father Time produce the cosmic egg?”
    “Inconceivable, but I like your approach… now let’s see your departure.”

    “What’s reality?” Mkirkpatrick mused;
    “Much ado about nothing,” None refused.
    Then Clinton asked of Hillary’s great run—
    “Blame Macy’s sales,” Nobody’s words diffused.

    “Is your journey responsible for Hillary running for President?” asked Bill Clinton.
    “No, but there was a Presidents’ Day sale at Macy’s and men’s pants were half off.”

    “I’m cured now,” said Bill. “There is no relationship, depending on what the meaning of ‘is’ is. There is really no safe sex from aides. Also, I went to a self-help group for compulsive talkers; it’s called ‘On and On Anon’.”

    The Presidents debated dynasties,
    Of Bushes, Gores, and Chads’ uncertainties;
    “No politics!” cried Nobody at last,
    “Those blood-sucking insects bring no ease!”

    “Why are the two President Clintons always out beating the Bushes?” quizzed ElderBush of Bill.
    “Because Al tried to Gore you and lost to Chad, so I must run for First Gentleman to restore our dynasty over yours. Plus, one handy lady bird is worth two bushes anytime.”
    “Okay Presidents,” interjected Nobody, “no politics, a word that means many blood sucking insects. I’m still taking questions.”

    “The answers simple are,” Nobody taught,
    “Just yes and no and maybe interlock;
    To children all mean yes, but questions still
    Remain the harder part of human thought.”

    Of X-ray vision Graybeard did complain,
    “Now only bones appear!” he cried in pain;
    “Perhaps an airport job?” suggested None,
    “Where such a gift might yet some purpose gain.”

    Profpat posed riddle of two scholars’ fate:
    One versed in arts, one trained to calculate;
    Their paths crossed where french fries perfume the air—
    “Would you like fries?” sealed their unequal state.

    “What did the arts graduate say to the engineering graduate?” asked Profpat.
    “Would you like fries with your order, sir?”

    Two branches of the tree of learning fair,
    Two roads that led to meetings strange and rare;
    One builds the world while one serves up its food,
    In cosmic jest that neither planned to share.

    The engineering mind may draft its schemes,
    While arts explore the meaning of our dreams;
    Yet here they meet where hunger levels all,
    And wisdom’s not quite what it sometimes seems.

    Oh irony of education’s way,
    Where knowledge leads us down its paths astray;
    Some build the restaurants, some work within—
    While both still chase their bread from day to day.

    Of ancestors and trees they spoke at length,
    Of cheese that made the moon’s eternal strength;
    Of holy water boiled free from hell,
    And TV romance tested gravity’s length.

    “Did you meet any of your ancestor’s ancestors?” asked Graybeard.
    “I saw my family tree.”
    “What the heck!” wondered Graybeard out loud.
    “My great-ancestors descended from the trees.”
    “What is the moon made of?” asked Rascal.
    “Swiss cheese.”
    “But it’s all hard and crusty, although it does have holes.”
    “That’s what happens when you leave cheese out.”
    “How do you make holy water?” questioned Profpat.
    “You boil the hell out of it!”
    “What do you think about sex on TV?” wondered Lloyd.
    “It can’t hurt you unless you fall off. Now let’s get serious, folks. We’re all used to the new language features by now and the joke industry that they spawned.”

    In Time’s own garden, Nobody did spy
    The golden lights that danced across the sky;
    Where CARE sat marking shadows as they passed,
    And “now” became both answer and reply.

    “What did you see in the Garden of Time?” asked Mkirkpatrick.
    “There were glimmers and gleams and golden dappled lights like stars hovering and floating slowly about the scene, and a door that invited me into the inner sanctum of the night watchmen’s mainspring. There I found CARE, a gentle old man who sat silently by the sundial in Time’s Sanctuary and slowly marked the hours by the shadows that crept over the face of eternity. I asked him, ‘What time is it?’
    “And he answered to my surprise, ‘Do you mean now?’“
    “Yogi?” I asked.
    “No, Yogi is my distant relative, twice removed, but he kept coming back.”

    The riddle of the present moment stands:
    Eternal reward flows through time’s swift sands;
    Though never passing, always moving on—
    This paradox that no one understands.

    “Anyway, here is the riddle of now:“

    A moment contains eternal reward;
    Both past and future are rolled thereinward.
    Time never passes; it stays as it is;
    Still, it is ceaselessly moving onward.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    Part 7



    "Beyond the CMBR," Nobody declared,
    "Through DNA's vast matrix on I fared;
    There JOY, forever young, in radiant glow
    Spread golden beams through all the cosmos shared."

    “I continued on to the CMBR,” said Nobody, “but I could see through it and the universal DNA matrix off toward the radiant void and there I saw JOY, forever young, who turned toward the glow of the fair light that from the infinite did show, basked in its golden beams, and spread her radiance to everything that’s so.”

    Then Hillary asked if God was woman-made;
    "Yes, Madam Almost-President," he played.

    “God is a woman?” Hillary asked.
    “Yes, Mrs. President-to-be who is no longer to be.”

    "What ultimate quest remains?" asked RascalPuff,
    "Why squirrels dash beneath our wheels," he said.

    Reveal
    “Now that we know the secrets of the universe, what remains as the ultimate question?” RascalPuff asked.
    “It is, ‘Why do squirrels always run back under your car after they are already in the clear?’”
    “Some things remain unfathomable,” ruminated Puff.

    "The strain of cosmic travel took its toll—
    An upholstery machine did swallow whole
    My form, but I recovered well enough,
    Though exorcists still claim my unpaid soul."

    “How are you feeling? Wasn’t the trip quite a strain on you?” wondered Fredrick.
    “Yes, I fell into an upholstery machine, but I am fully recovered now, but if I don’t pay my exorcist I may get repossessed.”

    "Inflation stretched me thin," Nobody sighed,
    "The road rose up to greet my wounded pride;
    But weight I've lost since then, and gained some wit,
    Though fortune-tellers short and small abide."

    “Also, I entered a period of great inflationary expansion and suffered a small cut on my forehead when the road rose up to meet me, but I have since lost some weight.”

    “Did you hear that the short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large?” asked WiseGuy.
    “I have now. That is sure a puny pun that deserves punitive measures.”

    "Does Nothing dwell out there?”young Fredrick pressed;
    "No, nada, null and zilch," Nobody stressed,
    "While pregnant possibility gives birth
    To all invention, as Austin suggested."

    “Does ‘nothing’ exist out there?” asked Fredrick.
    “No, nada, null, zilch, naught, nix, nil, and zippo. Nothing is unconceivable of existence, while the pregnancy of possibility is the mother of all invention. Austin told me to say that.”

    Of tainted money Profpat dared to speak;
    "All money's tainted," said Nobody with pique,
    "Taint yours and taint mine neither." Then at last
    Came Austin's query of life's purpose deep.
    “Since the government mostly paid for this trip, isn’t the money tainted?” asked Profpat.
    “A lot of money is tainted. Taint yours and it taint mine.”

    "Let life flow through you," Nobody replied,
    Then told of memories from his father's pride:

    “What is the purpose of life?” asked Austin, seriously.
    “To let it flow through you.”

    That first gleam followed by Olympic race,
    Through tube to egg where spirit did reside.

    “What is your first memory of flowing life?” continued Austin.
    “I do remember being a gleam in my father’s eye, my first glint of spirit. And half of me seems to remember shooting down some sort of tube and emerging into some liquid, then some kind of Olympic swimming race and a merging with an oval football kind of thing and an endless floating about for many months.

    Of floating months in darkness then he spoke,
    Till voices cooed and ancient silence broke;
    "There can't be more than water, calm and dark!"
    Such wisdom from his pre-birth self awoke.

    Then, about a month before I was born, I heard some sounds, like ‘Cootchy-cootchy-coo. Who’s in there?’ Then, the day before I was born, a voice told me that there is a whole big world out there, and I thought, no, there can’t be; there is only water and calm and darkness; that’s all there is; there can be nothing more. I guess I was not such a visionary back then.” “

    "Born on my birthday," Nobody declared,
    "Though parties waited till next year," he shared,
    "My first words asked for shades against the light—
    A writer's wit already well-prepared."

    Then, the next day—I remember it well since I was born right on my birthday (but had no party until a year later), I was thrust into the light, and I think my first words were, well, it’s a bit hard to recall them since I was very young when I was born, but, since I am a writer, I did speak my first words early, and I think they were: ‘Does anyone have a pair of sunglasses; it’s awfully bright out here.’”

    Then Lincoln asked why birthdays shift and change;
    "February's confusions to arrange:
    Fat Tuesday, Valentine's, and Presidents
    All mixed in love's and skunks' shared monthly range.

    The pancakes flow on Mardi Gras' wild day,
    Then ashes mark our dustward-trending way;
    Sweet Valentine's breaks Lenten fasts too soon—
    Such paradox does February sway!”

    Abraham Lincoln asked, “Why did they move my birthday?”
    “Well, February is a confusing short month; for example, this year Fat Tuesday is on February 12, which used to be your birthday, before they moved it, and is the big finale of Mardi-Gras, when we’re supposed to eat enough pancakes and sausage to get us through the 40 days of Lent’s fast food (at Wendy’s & McDonalds), I mean fasting, and give up sweets, as of Ash Wednesday, the 13th, a sort of smoke-in day when we remember dust to dust and that we will eventually make ashes of ourselves, then VD on the 14th, I mean Valentine’s Day, when we are supposed to eat a lot of sweets again! What a mixed-up time. Also, Abe, we wanted another three-day weekend, so we combined all of youse guys birthdays into President’s Day. Plus, it is the month of love, as well as skunk mating season, but I repeat myself.”

    Virginia, Austin's mother, sought to learn
    The meaning road signs hold at every turn;
    Nobody shared his wisdom of the way:
    "Four ways to stop your car you must discern:

    The brake, the clutch, emergency's firm grip,
    And dragging foot—all four must make you slip
    To standstill; STOP A-HEAD means just that thing:
    A head blocks passage on your morning trip!

    WATCH CHILDREN warns of romance in the air,
    Get rooms, don't linger 'neath the signpost there;
    And BIKE PATH leads between the yellow lines
    Where cyclists claim the highway's central flair.

    When yellow lights appear, just speed ahead—
    They'll shift to green as physics' laws have said;
    The morons crawl, the idiots race past,
    While jaywalks grant the right to join the dead!”

    “I don’t understand the new road signs,” stated Virginia, the only woman on ToeQuest, who is actually Austin’s mother. He signed her up so he could try to use her WebTV to get on ToeQuest from Chicago (it didn’t work very well).
    “A 4-WAY-STOP sign means to use the foot brake, then downshift, pull the emergency brake, and drag your foot, as the four ways. STOP A-HEAD says that a head is in the road! WATCH OUT FOR CHILDREN means: Don’t hug, fondle, kiss, touch, or sweet-talk beneath the sign, for you may do the conceivable. So, get a room. BIKE PATH: The official path for bikes is between the two yellow lines in the middle of the road. Also remember that if you speed up when you see a yellow light it will never turn red, since its frequency shifts toward green as you near C, the speed of light! Furthermore, morons always drive slower than you and idiots drive faster than you! Finally, jay walkers have the right of death.”
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    Part 8



    Then Nobody unveiled his massive screen,
    Eight feet of iPhone glory to be seen;
    Through centuries of horsemen did they gaze,
    To cavemen’s walks where time had never been.

    It was time to show the movie again, but larger, so Nobody powered up his 8 foot diagonal iphone. The video showed someone in the 1800’s riding a horse, then someone riding a horse in the previous century, and so on back for tens of thousands of years, then hundreds of thousands of years of cavemen walking.

    Profpat to ledgers sought his swift escape,
    While Fredrick made his calculator gape
    At zero’s void; and Lincoln scribed address
    On envelope’s wrong side—historic shape.

    Profpat, bored, tried to sneak out the window to go do some exciting accounting. Fredrick tried dividing by zero on his calculator. Abraham Lincoln wrote a historic address on the wrong side of an envelope.

    Reveal
    Gray counted spots upon the ceiling high,
    As Austin drifted into dreamland’s sigh;
    Kirk fled to Turkey, Rascal slipped away
    To Heaven’s realm, the seventh slice of sky.

    Graybeard counted the spots on the ceiling and connected the dots into a pleasing image. Austin fell asleep. Mkirk–Patrick went to Turkey before it could be devoured by Hungary. Rascal slipped off into the 7th dimension for a while (the Heavenly realm). MJA said that boredom is not really equal to excitement after all.

    “The present age,” said Nobody with pride,
    “Holds wonders that no past could provide;
    Our DNA we’ll shape to speed our growth,
    As evolution’s gates swing open wide.

    “The trip wasn’t all that interesting at first,” said Nobody, “as we now live in the most amazing of all time. Soon, we may be able to alter our own DNA and further speed evolution on its way.”

    The Bang still echoes in our listening ears,
    As human race springs forth through coming years;
    Just one percent along perfection’s path,
    While science daily new horizons clears.

    “We have just heard the Big Bang and have sprung off of the starting line… The human race is on. We are perhaps 1% of the way along to perfection. The possibilities for the finish line are endless, for scientific revelations are entering the fast lane almost daily.”

    This royal crown of moments precious-bright
    Shines through us all with possibilities’ light;
    The universe spreads forth its free repast
    (How will you count that, Profpat, in your night?)

    “Life now is really a royal diadem of momentous gems shining through us all. We live in the best of times, as the universe is truly ours to experience. It is the ultimate free lunch (how do you account for that, Profpat?).”

    To ToeQuest give, where Everything unfolds,
    All denominations welcome in our holds—
    Though fifties, hundreds bring the sweetest joy!”
    Then back through time the final scene unrolls:

    “Please contribute to ToeQuest, for that’s where Everything is happening. We accept all denominations, but we prefer fifties and hundreds.”

    Through stars dispersing into cosmic dust,
    Through matter’s dance and gravity’s sweet thrust,
    Till all resolved to words both bright and clear:
    The ‘Beginning’ showed where all endings must.

    Nobody sped up the video of the past and soon everything went back into the stars and then the stars dispersed into dust which went back to form the words “The Beginning“, as the film ended.

    When hoopla died and watchdogs lost their chase,
    (Those crack-pot theorists proved too wild to trace),
    Fed-Up delivered parcels to the few—
    A note, some pictures, tickets wrapped in lace.

    The hoopla over the CMBR trip had died down and the watchdogs had quickly and luckily lost interest, feeling that the ToeQuesters were a bunch of crackpots (crack and pot at the same time?).

    ToeQuesters in the know soon received a certified package from Fed-Up (Fed-Ex and UPS had merged), containing a note, some pictures, an airline ticket to Los Angeles, and a DVD. The note read:

    “Dear friends,” the vanishing ink seemed to say,
    “Read quickly ere these words should fade away;
    The jokes were meant to fool the CIA,
    Those acronyms that snoop both night and day.

    Dear Everyone Involved With My CMBR Trip,

    This note is written in disappearing ink (an old check writing trick used by Profpat), so please read immediately.
    First of all, the topic of our TOE discovery is very serious, so there are no jokes herein; those were just to throw off the CIA and all the other acronyms. I couldn’t reveal everything at our last meeting since there were too many government snoops about.

    Your mix of silly questions served us well,
    Though which were which, I truly cannot tell;
    The movies that you watched with patient eyes
    Were false—a shield ‘gainst those who’d make us sell.

    I thank you all for mixing in some silly questions with the serious ones, although I’m not sure which were which, and for sitting through the home movies, which I must now tell you were fake.

    Dark matter hunters dig through endless night,
    Six Empire States below Dakota’s height,
    To find one WIMP within their golden mine—
    While we hold secrets of far greater might.

    Just look at the cutthroat competition over discovering and explaining dark matter, even among reputable scientists. Many are spending millions and using deep mine shafts to avoid cosmic rays in order to try and detect one little measly weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP), the most promising efforts of which are occurring in the defunct Homestake gold mine in South Dakota, which is deeper than six Empire State Buildings, in which they have built a haystack and are looking for a needle in it.

    A small potatoe (blame Dan Quayle’s pen
    For extra ‘e’ that graced his ink back then)
    Is nothing to the cosmic truth we found—
    The TOE itself, stripped bare of prefix when

    The cosmic background whispered secrets deep,
    Far greater than these small fries we might keep;
    For in the CMBR’s ancient glow
    Lie truths that make mere spelling errors sleep.

    Let politicians fumble with their words
    While we decode the song of cosmic birds;
    Our discovery makes spelling quarrels fade
    Like morning mist when deeper truth occurs.

    The universe cares not for how we spell,
    When radiation has such tales to tell;
    These small potatoes (spelled however bright)
    Pale before the cosmic TOE’s great swell.

    This is a small potatoe (and small fries) to what we have discovered about the CMBR, the toe itself without the prefix pota-. You can thank Dan Quail for the spelling, not my trip.

    The government has searched my history,
    But found that I am Nobody, you see;
    No past, no present, future all unknown—
    A ghost whose very absence sets me free.

    So, anyway, the attention is off of us for now, and we have a clear channel; however, the government did a routine background check on me and discovered that I don’t exist, for I am Nobody. My past has no history and my future is a mystery. Nor do I have a presence in the present. They are as hot on my case as they would be for illegal aliens and so they have given me a past imperfect and so have made my future tense.

    Upon a mountain summit, far from sight,
    Where tents and microwaves make welcome light,
    We’ll gather soon to share the truth at last,
    The real film of our cosmic oversight.

    Therefore, I have taken refuge in a certain uncharted mountain top retreat, where we will gather in a month or so to discuss the contents of the true CMBR home movie tape that I’ve sent you all with your plane tickets.

    Use real names as you journey toward our goal,
    For ToeQuest handles might reveal our role;
    Remember ‘Nowhere Man’ upon the screen—
    Their surveillance could take its fearsome toll.

    Do not use your ToeQuest nickname while traveling, but employ your real name, if you can remember it, so that the spies will not catch on. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the TV series, ‘Nowhere Man’, the greatest show ever made, but there are organizations out there, government and otherwise, that have super surveillance equipment, hence our remote and unknown meeting spot, which by the way, is still intact (it was a TOE research center back in the 70’s), with the addition of a few more tents and a CMBR-powered microwave oven.

    Our funding flows from Profpat’s clever scheme:
    Each government account provides a stream
    Of pennies, day by day, to fund our needs—
    Accounting’s thrill exceeds his wildest dream!

    All incidental, intentional, and exceptional expenses will be reimbursed, because Profpat happened to take note of many government account numbers and passwords. He will be taking a penny (and any fractions thereof) out of each government account on a daily basis to fund our endeavors. This should not arouse any bankers unless a pretty woman is nearby. Who would have ever thought that accounting could be so useful and exciting!

    His vanishing ink tricks deserve their tale:
    When clients brought their pens, they’d surely fail;
    For VOID appeared in time upon their checks,
    Like Ocean’s team, our craft shall yet prevail.

    That reminds me of a Profpat story: Upon receiving a useless check made with his vanishing ink, a big client insisted that Profpat write a new check with their own pen that they had brought along to outwit the Prof’s trickery; however, Prof saw them arriving and quickly wrote VOID on on blank with latent ink, an ink which would materialize on the check within a short while. Our team is starting to rival the one in the ‘Ocean’s 13’ movie and Brad Pitt has joined us to get away from his marriages.
  • Banno
    26.7k
    Shouldn't this be in the Lounge?
  • DasGegenmittel
    40
    "Why is there something... rather than nothing...” Good question.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    "Why is there something... rather than nothing...” Good question.DasGegenmittel

    ‘Nothing’ Cannot Obtain; the Simple Fundamental Something is Ever Something is and a lack of anything isn’t.

    To be Fundamental, the Something cannot have parts, else the parts would be more Fundamental, and so there cannot be an infinite regress of lesser and lesser parts. Composites cannot be Fundamental. ‘God’ is out; impossible. Neither can be a lasting template of the lesser ever having to come from the greater, ad infinitum. The logic herein matches the cascade from the least to the greater that’s seen in our universe, along with the ubiquitous waves found in nature.

    There cannot be a sequence in time from a lack of anything to Something because ‘Nothing’ has no time, nor anything; thus the Something cannot appear spontaneously, as if there was ‘Nothing’ and then there became Something, and besides, ‘Nothing’ cannot have being.

    Thus the Fundamental Simplest Partless Something has to be ever, as Eternal; it has no alternative. It is also Continuous because there cannot be any spacers of ‘Nothing’ in it and it is also Eternal because it cannot be made of parts that it can’t have and because it cannot broken into parts because there aren’t any. It is ungenerated and deathless. It was there before the Big Bang and exists ever after. The Bang was from the Something. A ‘Beginning’ and ‘End’ to the Something is impossible. This shows the multiverse.

    Why isn’t the Something Still, never doing anything? If the Something has Stillness, then naught would happen. Scientifically, the uncertainty principle indicates that ‘Stillness’ is impossible. The Something is ever in motion; it is energetic. We don’t need all the proof when we have the truth.

    From what can it form entities? It can only form entities of itself, as that’s all there is. In short, its motion as fluctuations makes for a wave nature that allows the elementary forms to be quanta of its excitations at stable rungs that grant some persistence.

    See Quantum Field Theory (QFT). We know that the elementaries of a type are identical and so that also tells us that they are directly quanta forms, plus that they can be annihilated shows us that they are secondary. Why are the elementaries so minuscule? The Something as the simplest is lightweight and then so must be the elementaries.

    Can the metaphysical creep back in as a hyperphysical substance to be the Something? No, the elementaries are physical and they are the quanta of the Something and so the Something is physical. What the elementaries go on to form is also physical. There can’t be anything esoteric about matter and forces.

    What of the fluctuations of the Something that don’t reach a quantum energy level? They are the so-called virtual particles that ever come and go. Can the virtuals ever persist more? If there was inflation, it would drive them apart quicker than they could annihilate.

    What is the Something? It has to be the quantum ‘vacuum’ fields, for the proposed absolutes of time, space, and particles making fields have fallen by the wayside.

    Are there things? The quantum ‘vacuum’ is the only thing; all else are temporary events. A tree is a long event; the sun is a longer one; a proton’s life is very long; photons don’t decay on their own. Events come and go.

    So, we and all the temporaries that the Permanent Something forms are consigned to oblivion? Yes, even the universe, but the Permanent ever remains and all is of its fields.

    Well, there’s no ‘Separation’ at heart, but we and all as field forms must fade, the universe unwinding like a spring, no matter our grand complexities that outdo in scale that of the Simplest. We always knew that the Theory of Everything (TOE) would be boring in Nature’s frugal simplicity. What if a universe just doesn’t work? Some will, like ours does, although ours is not near to the best or near to the worst. It’s just OK.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    Good questionDasGegenmittel

    In Other Words…

    Why There is Something, and Further Extensions —

    If a lack of anything were the case… but ‘it’ has no time, so, no ‘were’, plus ‘it’ has no it. An unstable situation?

    ‘Nothing’ can’t be, so, existence has no alternative of nonexistence, and thus that notion is out and done with. There is no ‘were the case’, as in ‘fact’. ‘Nothing’ cannot even be meant, much less have any properties or be productive, and so even any notion of it is forever squashed.

    So then, Something had to ever be, it having no alternative, with no option not to be, with no opposite, and with no possibility of it coming from the impossible ‘Nothing’. The Something, then, is eternal, in that it is uncreated can never go away. It is Permanent, as the Causeless Cause of what comes forth of it, which can only be temporaries, such as the elementary particles that are as lumpings of quantum fields as stable field excitations.

    The Permanent Something cannot be still and unmoving, for then naught could have become as the temporary happenings that we take as something. The impossible ‘Stillness’ thus gains single quote marks, akin to its cousin of ‘Nothing’, neither one able to be. There is always motion.

    So, the Permanent Something of Necessity as the only true and lasting real thing can only form the temporaries through various arrangements of itself in such a way that it ever remains as itself. It has to do this because it cannot be still and is thus energetic and so it has motion within it. The quantum realm is indefinite; zero is definite.

    Its nature has to be that the Something is the simplest state of being, as partless, for it would not be Fundamental, as the only cause, it if were composed of parts whose fundamentality preceded its own. It also has to be continuous, because it is both unbreakable and unmakeable, that is, eternal, not to mention again that it cannot have spacers of the nonexistent ‘Nothingness’ in it. The Something is thus the one Existent that cannot not be!

    So, then, the lesser, which in this case is the least, gives rise to the elementaries, the composites, and the complex, as the temporary universe, which from our point of view as one of the temporaries might call it to be ‘greater’ in the sense that the temporary is more interesting than the simple base alone, much grander in its splendor of multiplicity, even; yet it pays the transient price—death.

    The transcendental notion of the lesser having to come from a Greater can now be totally thrown out, as another Impossible, and, besides, the notion leads to an infinite regress. That religious template is dead. It is also that not anything composite can be Fundamental, not even the tiny proton, much less anything more composite or even infinitely complex, such as a Great Mind, begging the ‘question’ that didn’t even have to be begged.

    So, we have the Truth, but out of curiosity as well as for the ultimate satisfaction from the Proof of confirmation.

    The quantum vacuum with its overall quantum field fits the bill to a T: the rather persisting elementaries form from excitations at the stable rungs of energy quanta in the quantum field. The elementaries don’t get quantized; they are quanta directly. We know the rest of the story.

    Quantum Field Theory (QFT) gave us all of physics and most of our modern devices. It is the most successful theory in the history of science. Universes may come and go, but the Permanent Existent ever remains, and anything can become of it, but they are temporaries doomed to fade.

    All That Underlies Our Lives is Now Known.
    In the stars our atoms are slowly grown,
    From the quantum field elementaries—
    Omar’s knot of how human fate is sewn.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    Part 9



    At LAX a hairless guide you’ll meet,
    Avoid their feast of parsley, though it’s sweet;
    Then motorcycles climb in lowest gear—
    Wear tropical attire against the heat.

    At L.A., you will be whisked to a special charter jet that will take you to your final destination. After you land, a Hari-Krishna will give you a map at the airport. Look for the one with no hair; no, never mind; s/he will recognize you. Do not attend the feast that they will offer you, since it is just but a few sprigs of parsley. Although I cannot tell you where we are meeting, you will all have to rent motorcycles and endure an uphill climb up a mountain in first gear. Wear old shoes, a colorful tropical shirt, and some weird shorts, and try to act normal: to thy own selves please do not be true.

    For ninja training must prepare us all,
    Before the governments should heed our call;
    The TOE we’ve found must stay secure and safe,
    Till we convene behind our mountain wall.

    Reveal
    Unsigned, this missive bears Nobody’s hand,
    Questions post on ToeQuest’s distant strand;
    The truth of cosmos waits within our grasp—
    If only we can meet as we have planned.

    Now, the inevitable is that all governments of the world will accidentally wise up and realize that we have the TOE and so I am sending you all to your local ninja training school for a week of instruction before your ‘vacation’.
    unsigned,
    nobody

    P.S. Post any questions about the expedition on ToeQuest…

    “Should Lincoln to his time now homeward go?”
    Kirk asked, but Nobody was quick to show:
    “He’s honest politics’ last standing man—
    Let’s pit him ‘gainst fair Hillary’s campaign flow!”

    “Shouldn’t we return Abraham Lincoln to his own time?” posted Mkirkpatrick.
    “Not so fast; we’re thinking of running him against Hillary Clinton, for he’s now the only honest politician on Earth.”

    “My Theory shirt proclaims that Thing is One:
    Just Energy!” Kirk spoke, his words to run.
    “My nothing’s no-thing,” Nobody replied,
    While Austin claimed that food was all he’d done.
    “Can I wear my new T-shirt about ‘The Theory of Thing’ that says ‘Forget Everything; There is Only One Thing: Energy’?” added Mkirkpatrick.
    “That’s fine, but my none thing is no-thing.”
    “Mine is food,” said Austin to Mkirkpatrick.

    “Two parallel lines make my one thing true,”
    Said MJA, as questions further grew;
    Kirk asked of chairs made pure of energy,
    “I sought a bigger part!” he then broke through.

    “My one thing is two parallel lines,” said MJA.
    “Can I bring my lounge chair that is made of energy?” asked Mkirkpatrick.
    “Yes, but why do you have so many questions?”
    “I asked Austin for a bigger part,” Michael answered.

    “That energy you seek,” Profpat declared,
    “I sit upon!” while Graybeard’s wisdom shared:
    “Don’t let it slip away!” Nobody spoke:
    “Our synergy will power all we’ve dared.”
    “Michael Kirkpatrick,” said Profpat, “I’ve been looking all over for that energy and here I am sitting on it!”
    “Well, try not to let any escape,” said Graybeard.
    “OK guys,” said Nobody, “Our synergy will produce all the energy we need.”

    “Where lies the punch line?” Michael dared to ask;
    “Reality’s protection is our task—
    No funeral of fun,” Nobody said,
    Though ChickenMan’s egg jokes broke through the mask.

    “Where’s the punch line?” asked Mkirkpatrick.
    “The protection of the secret of reality is a serious undertaking, not a fun-eral,” answered Nobody. “Remember, the jokes are over.”
    “What about egg jokes?” asked ChickenMan.
    “The yolk is on you!”

    “Of voids,” asked Fredrick, “where might they reside?”
    “Nature abhors them,” Nobody replied,
    “Save Profpat’s checks, which void themselves with time—
    That much remains completely justified.”

    “Is there a void anywhere?” asked Fredrick.
    “I would avoid a void like the plague since Nature abhors a vacuum and since no void has coughed up or voided anything but a whole lot of goose eggs.”
    “What about the void that Profpat wrote on a check?” continued Fredrick.
    “That was unavoidable.”

    “How shall I ride,” asked Rascal, “without fall?”
    “Gyroscopic wheels shall guard you through it all.”
    “But I’m Australian!” Graybeard did exclaim;
    “My sympathies,” came Nobody’s dry call.

    “How do I ride a motorcycle without falling over?” asked Rascal.
    “I will give you one with gyroscopes front and back that look like wheels“
    “But I live in Australia!” exclaimed Graybeard.
    “My condolences.”

    “Is Austin’s mountain hideaway our place?”
    Asked Rascal, probing secrets face to face;
    “No,” came reply, then: “Is that truth unveiled?”
    “I ain’t not lying,” Nobody showed grace.

    “Is this secret meeting place anything to do with Austin’s mountain top hideaway?” questioned Rascal.
    “No.”
    “Is your answer an untruth,” added Rascal, “for security purposes?”
    “I ain’t not lying about nothing no way, no how, or nothing exists,” unanswered Nobody.

    “Meanwhile,” he added, “lunch flows freely here,
    For Profpat’s wisdom-trading scheme is clear:
    A penny for their thoughts he gladly pays,
    Then keeps the change when two cents’ worth appears!”

    “Meanwhile,” added Nobody, “we’re serving free lunches for everyone and giving away a lot of other stuff, for Profpat has been giving people a penny for their thoughts and then keeping the change when they put in their two cents worth.”

    The Eternal knows no point where it begins,
    No gateway through which any design slips in;
    Thus must it be the All-in-All that flows
    As line by line or where all lines are twins.

    What has no start must stretch through every way,
    Through linear paths where moments mark their sway,
    Or simultaneous in timeless dance—
    For how else could the Boundless choose to play?

    When entry points are nowhere to be found,
    All possibilities must there abound:
    As flowing stream, the instant’s flash of light,
    The sequence, or the circle’s endless round.

    Without a threshold where its being starts,
    The Eternal must embrace all cosmic parts—
    As time’s long river flowing ever on,
    Or instant’s unity where difference parts.

    Imagine Form as boundless ocean deep,
    Where all potential does its secrets keep;
    Our measured world, a single droplet drawn
    From depths where countless possibilities sleep.

    This scrutinized reality we know
    Is but one pattern that the Forms bestow—
    A crystal lifted from infinite seas
    Of what could be, what might yet come to flow.

    The abyss of Forms holds every dream untold,
    Each possible shape that matter might unfold;
    While we perceive one manifestation clear,
    The endless pool holds mysteries yet to mold.

    From vastness of the possible sublime,
    We dredge one moment’s substance out of time;
    Yet still beneath our certainties there swirls
    The infinite from which all forms may climb.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    Part 10



    Fright Ride

    At midnight rang the cryptic calls to all:
    “Your skills we’ll hone, though you know much withal;
    First test: a journey through the darkened night—
    Practice with cats before you heed our call.”

    The prospective operatives received after-midnight calls, stating:

    It will be a pleasure to instruct potential agents so well conditioned and already knowledgeable in so many fields; we will merely hone a few of your reflexes that may have become dulled. Training begins with a challenging journey to our nearest center. Meanwhile, you might practice walking around in the dark with a cat.

    Each received more individual and specific instructions, along with a suggested route.

    To Rascal came specific orders clear:
    “By bicycle through country roads you’ll steer,
    No lights allowed through forests deep and dark,
    While blinding headlamps test your cycling fear.”

    Reveal
    Rascal’s instructions read:

    You will need to ride a bike rather soon along the dark country roads with many dips and hills, twists and turns, from your home to our facility. No lights are allowed. You should consider beforehand what you will do about any blinding headlights coming at you and how you will navigate the pitch dark areas of roads when you pass through dense forests. A cold diet coke with vitamins awaits you. Good luck. This is not a drill, for there are those who have just recently become aware of your many talents.

    Six black sedans pulled swift before his gate
    As Rascal worked on cosmos’ expanding state;
    He fled so fast his image lingered still,
    While agents breached his door—already late.

    Rascal made his preparations and then finished some work on the expanding universe. Out the window he could see six FBI-looking black sedans pulling up very quickly. He grabbed a water bottle and raced out the back door so fast that a faint image of himself was left standing in the house. He hopped on his bicycle and was off and away while the Feds broke down the front door which was already unlocked.

    Through moonless night he pedaled swift and strong,
    In fifteenth gear down slopes he flew along;
    Then crawling up in first gear’s lowest pace,
    He paused to drink, both right and wrong.

    The bike ride was going to be a lot worse than he had thought, for there was no moon. Rascal reached 15th gear on a down slope and only downshifted when it became harder to pedal, of course, finally just inching along in first gear upon a steep up-slope, where he stopped to survey the scene and have a sip of H2O.

    “The price of knowing Everything,” he mused,
    As yin and yang within his heart diffused;
    Both elevated by their cosmic finds,
    Yet hunted now by powers they’d refused.

    I knew this would happen when we discovered the work-ings of Everything, feeling both elated and deflated in a sort of yin/yang balance.

    When headlights blazed against his cycling path,
    One eye he closed to save night vision’s wrath;
    The other blinded, then quick-switched to see
    The mailbox looming on destruction’s swath.

    Rascal was soon off again and sailing along when a car with bright lights approached him from the opposite direction. Rascal closed his right eye just before his left was blinded by the lights, then quickly opened his right eye after the car had passed. Whew, that was close, he thought, after swiftly correcting out of the way of a mailbox.

    Through forest dense where darkness absolute
    Denied all sight to guide his desperate route,
    He found the roadside’s white line far below—
    A ghostly guide through night’s pursuit.

    He next rode on a road through a densely forested area and could see virtually nothing at all, but he didn’t panic, and quickly gazed downward at the white line at the side of the lane for guidance, but it was really rather scary.

    More fearsome than a theater’s dark surprise
    (Where larger ladies might unseen arise),
    He followed that pale thread through blackest night,
    For DNA’s deep truth before him lies.

    It was much worse than walking into a dark movie theater and sitting down on a fat lady. Anything for the DNA information, he thought.

    Ahead the trees flashed warning’s dancing light
    Of pursuers hidden from his sight;
    He dove to shelter in a roadside ditch
    As sedans thundered through the racing night.

    He noted some flickering lights bouncing off the trees ahead, meaning that they were coming from way behind him, knowing this without even having to look back, for this is how it is riding at night, and so he pulled over into a ditch behind some bushes, and watched six black sedans pass by at about 90 miles an hour. Holy mother of all reality, he exclaimed softly.

    In seventy-ninth gear he flew once more,
    As truck lights loomed his swift retreat to score;
    Like gluon bound, he threaded white line’s path,
    Then drafted upward toward wind’s higher door.

    Rascal checked his map and was off again, in 79th gear, going so fast that he didn’t care to stop for a large truck coming up behind him, and couldn’t anyway, so he hugged the side of the road and threaded the white lane marker, sticking to it like a gluon as the truck swept alongside, then quickly swerved towards the rear of the truck and drafted behind it uphill, defying gravity at its own game in losing it to the wind.

    When truck turned off, brief rest he dared to take,
    Till brain commanded rear to re-awake;
    Through whistling air his pajamas did flap,
    While bugs left testimony in their wake.

    The truck turned off; Rascal rested. It was time to really get going again, said Rascal’s brain to his rear that was now resting back. He got up to speed again, exhilarated by the adventure of the escapade. The air was was rushing by and whistling in his ears and his pajamas were flapping in the breeze. Bugs splatted against him.

    “Now this is living!” thought he with a grin,
    Though death and life drew boundaries paper-thin;
    His water drained, heart racing, legs grown numb—
    Five miles remained through darkness thick as sin.

    Now this is living, although there is a fine line between the here-before and the hereafter thereafter. Rascal was drenched in sweat, even on this cool night, and drank the last of the bottled water. Only five miles or so to go. His heart was racing at 150 bpm and his legs were getting numb, so he had to stop. He could hardly stand it, so he sat down. This simple ninja training exercise had turned into a life and death struggle. The enemy will do anything to gain my information about the Theory of Everything.

    A barnyard circus crossed his path in haste:
    A rooster chasing love, a possum placed
    In death’s pretense, deer darting through the dark,
    And squirrel beneath his wheels, life nearly erased.

    He was off again. A rooster crossed the road because there was a chick on the other side, and Rascal missed hitting it by just a feather, then a possum played dead in the road, or was already, and a deer darted out… If these were not enough, a squirrel that was already in the clear tried to dive under his wheels.

    Like juggler skilled with cosmic thoughts in air,
    He threaded time’s eye with a nimble flair;
    Through needle’s loop where camel fears to tread,
    He wove between the here and over there.

    His ability to juggle multiple ideas came in handy and so he threaded a needle that he found in a haystack and sewed a stitch in time and passed through the eye like a camel into the night’s heavens.

    Twelve headlights swept their searching beams around
    As FBI combed every inch of ground;
    Behind the bush he paused for nature’s call
    While agents searched each structure to be found.

    Twelve headlights were returning, and the searchlights scanning, the Feds now realizing that Rascal had not been driving a car, or had turned off the road, and so Rascal again took to the bushes and peed while the FBI searched every farmhouse, hen house, and outhouse.

    Like bat from hell he rode dimension’s edge—
    Too fast for sixth, too slow for heaven’s ledge;
    The training center raised its bridge in haste,
    But Rascal leaped beyond its closing wedge.

    Rascal now rode more like a bat out of hell, going just fast enough to enter the 6th dimension, but not so fast as to enter the 7th, for that was Heaven and he wasn’t ready yet. He cut through a trail in the woods as shown on his map and could see the ninja training center just ahead; it was raising its drawbridge to close for the night. Rascal raced up the ramp, sailed through the air, and came down on the other side, coasting into the safety of the center.

    At last within the safety of those walls,
    Where diet cola blessed his protocol’s,
    He savored sweet escape from those who sought
    The Everything his knowledge still recalls.

    A diet coke never tasted so good.
    A hologram of Nobody appeared:
    “None forgets the bike,” his wisdom shared.
    “A pleasant walk,” sighed Rascal, spent and sore;
    “Car’s front tires man, car’s back exhausted aired.”

    “Welcome, Rascal,” said a holographic interference pattern of Ultimate Master Nobody, “No one ever forgets how to ride bike.”
    “I would have preferred a pleasant walk down the road.”
    “Definition of golf is: a pleasant walk ruined.”

    Before the car, a man may weary grow—
    The tire’s grip shall lay his vigor low;
    Behind it, fumes shall drain his essence sweet;
    Pursued by sedans swift, to hist’ry flow.

    Such wisdom did the Master share that night,
    When danger stalked and safety took to flight;
    Six black cars hunting through the darkness deep
    Made clear which path would lead toward morning’s light.

    The message sent bore warning’s subtle jest:
    Three fates for those who put the road to test;
    Two paths to weariness, and one to death—
    Choose well which way shall serve your journey best.

    We knew the peril when we sent you forth,
    As sedans prowled from south to east to north;
    For some must tire, and some must lose their breath,
    While others race through time for all they’re worth.

    “No could have worked,” replied Nobody, in broken English, “Man who walk in front of car get tired; man who walk behind car get exhausted; man in car chased by six high speed sedans become history. We know danger when send message.”

    “I walked a round of golf the other day,” added Rascal.

    Through dreams of motorcycles Rascal slept,
    Till morning when the Grand Master adept
    Appeared, dissolved, emerged again to say:
    “Welcome, Puff, whose mind must now be prepped.”
    Rascal had a good sleep, dreaming of riding a motorcycle, and awoke the next day to begin further training.
    A ninth degree Grand Master appeared and disappeared and reappeared. “Welcome to training center, Mr. Puff Rascal.”

    “The drawbridge closure—was it meant to fright?”
    “Just cheap thrill,” Master smiled into the night.
    “Then take my peace of mind!” Rascal declared,
    “And lose your own!” The Master: “Not quite right.”

    “I am lucky to be here, Grand Master,” Rascal replied, “and the drawbridge; do you close at 4 AM?”
    “We give you cheap thrill.”
    “I’ll give you a piece of my mind and you will not have any peace in yours!”

    “Close eyes and listen,” Master softly spoke,
    “What hear you now?” as silence gently broke.
    “The world pursues!” laughed Rascal. “Hear your heart?”
    “It pounds like thunder!” came the swift rejoinder’s stroke.
    “Tut-tut. Close eyes. What you hear?”
    “I hear that the whole world is after me and the others.”
    “Ha-ha, good joke. Now, seriously, hear you your own heartbeat?”
    “Are you kidding? It’s still beating out of my chest!”

    “What else?” “A grasshopper beside your feet.”
    “And thermal dance?” “Thank god we cannot meet
    Those vibrations with mortal human ears—
    We’d surely go quite mad upon that beat!”

    “Very good. What else you hear?”
    “I hear the grasshopper at your feet.”
    “Excellent. Can you hear thermal vibration?”
    “Those are, luckily, just below the threshold of human hearing; we would go crazy if we heard those things.”

    “Hear Toes a-questing?” “No.” “Then hear you void?”
    “The cleaning lady’s gone,” Rascal employed
    His wit. “And hearing aids?” “No STDs—
    I never heed where a-holes are deployed!”
    “We will teach you thermal method. Hear grass growing?”
    “No, but I hear the lawnmower mowing.”
    “Oh sorry, I stop them. Done. Now, hearest you sound of toes questing?”
    “No.”
    “Good, they run on, and no post readable. Hear vacuum?”
    “No, the cleaning lady went home.”
    “Ah, you catch on, you Rascal. Have you hearing aids?”
    “No, I have no sexual transmittable diseases, for I never listen to a-holes.”

    “One hand’s applause?” “A finger’s snap will do.”
    “And Puff the dragon?” “Didn’t inhale through!”
    “Of goats?” “No, but some seagulls Austin gave
    In this verse here!” Their laughter echoed true.

    “Fine, fine; you good candidate. Assume you not have visual aids for same reason. Can you hear the sound of one hand clapping?”
    “Yes, if I snap my fingers.”
    “Very good, sir Puff. Puff the magic dragon?”
    “Yes, but I didn’t inhale.”
    “Ha-ha and more ha, Ninja Puff. You superb. Have you heard of goats?”
    “No, but I have a flock of seagulls that Austin just gave me in this paragraph.”

    “Sun shining?” “All ears!” “Earth’s turning?” “Space
    Turns too—they dance as partners, set to trace
    Their mutual path.” “Why speak I thus compact?”
    “Unnecessary words take needless place!”

    “Fine answering, Puff-man. Hear the sun shining?”
    “I’m all ears.”
    “We teach you. But many places the sun not shine. Moon shine?”
    “Alcohol dulls my senses.”
    “Ah, good. Hear Earth turning?”
    “Yes, and space, too.”
    “Oh?”
    “The Earth turns as much as space turns around it.”
    “You wise man.”
    “But hear you missing words?” the Master tried.
    “Ah yes!” as understanding did provide
    The lesson’s heart. Then Master winked and said:
    “Deaf me, blind wife—we’re perfect side by side!”

    “Why do you often leave out articles and other little words in your speech?”
    “Unnecessary.”
    “Maybe. Try adding a word or two.”
    “You wise old man.”
    “Never mind.”
    “But you still hear the missing words, do you not, Grasshopper Puff?”
    “Ah, yes; I see; that is part of the hearing test!”
    “You no see. This hearing test. You are a good listener and of course I can speak perfect English, except in the UK.”
    “Yes, once a lady in a hotel asked me for a lift and it didn’t go over very well when I lifted her up.
    “Thank you, first degree ninja puffing rascal. Me, I am deaf and wife is blind; therefore we make perfect couple!”

    “She trips on mess unseen; you can’t hear her complaint.”
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