When ninja’s word bid him no longer stay.
When ninja’s message shattered all his plans.
Fredrick, a master of foreign languages, flew the model of the unbroken universal vase to Oslo, Norway, and then took a short vacation in Russia from working on nothing, and was out and about the town and sitting in a restaur–ant awaiting a delicious roast duck when he received an emergency evacuation order from Nobody’s ninjas to immediately hoof it over to the train station.
His heart’s wild drumming had not yet deceased.
Till urgent words bade him no longer there.
While ninja’s warning echoed through the air.
Ciao, chow, he thought to himself. On his way out, he grabbed a cheeseburger from someone who wasn’t looking and calmly walked out the front door and on down the street. Looking back, he saw the police surrounding the restaurant, as well as his car.
Reveal“By Tutankhamun’s tomb!” he softly swore,
“They seek the TOE, and something even more:
My sketched design of forces nuclear,
The pyramid of power at its core!”
“By Tutankhamun’s tomb!” his spirit cried,
“The TOE they seek to wield with boundless pride!
My sketched design of nuclear demands,
Where force pyramidal does yet reside!”
Holy King Tut’s tomb! he exclaimed. They really want to control the world with the TOE! They are probably after my drawing, too, the one showing the pyramidal opposition of the weak and strong nuclear forces and the transition of the electric and magnetic forces.
His pistol nestled close beneath his arm,
He walked the streets, affecting casual charm,
When rang his phone with broken foreign speech:
“Your pyramid betrayed you—flee from harm!”
His pistol’s weight gave comfort as he strode,
While questions of discovery rode,
Till phone-spoke voice in broken accent sang:
“Your pyramid before your house has showed.
He patted his underarm, checking that his pistol was still there, and sauntered down the street. How did they find me? His cell phone rang and a voice said, “How find you, Mr. Fred, is by pyramid in front yard.”
Make haste unto the station’s northern gate,
Where nine-oh-five shall bear you from your fate.”
The line went dead with swift decisive click,
As Time’s swift hands did mock him while he wait.
Please proceed train station. 9:05 train north. Hurry. Click.”
The tunnel’s mouth before him grimly gaped,
Its center dimly lit, its shadows draped
By single bulb that cast its meager glow—
He pressed ahead, lest from his train escaped.
Fredrick walked and jogged a ways without further incident and entered a tunnel that would take him under the train tracks to the station. He hesitated, at first, seeing that the tunnel was dimly lit by only a single light bulb in the center, but then moved on in, not wanting to miss the train.
His phone’s shrill warning pierced the tunnel’s gloom:
“Four crimson KGB sedans spell doom!
They race from either end to trap you here—
Make haste to plot, or this shall be your tomb!”
His cell phone began ringing off the hook and alerted him as follows: “Four KGB red sedans arriving each end of tunnel. Make good plan fast!”
He shed his sweater in the center’s light,
Where lone bulb cast its beam through tunneled night.
The sedans’ screech and crash of dented steel
Announced his foes had come to end his flight.
Fredrick reflected a moment, sizing up the scene. He quickly walked to the center of the tunnel, took off his sweater, draped it over his shoulder, and stood under the lone light. He could hear the red KGB sedans screeching to a halt at each end, some of them going a bit too far and denting their fenders. Very poor and reckless drivers!
Eight agents moved with weapons raised to strike,
Their tranquilizing darts poised to dislike.
“Hands up!” the leader barked in English clear,
While guards stood watch at endings of the pike.
Eight KGB agents entered the tunnel and three of them approached from either direction, the remaining two staying back as rear guards, one at each end of the tunnel.
“No,” Fredrick answered, calm amid their threat.
“Raise hands or sleep!” they warned without regret.
“First tell me who commands,” he calmly spoke,
As closer still their circling dance was set.
“Hands up,” said the KGB leader, in English, as they all pointed tranquilizer guns at Fredrick, front and back.
“No.”
“Colonel Patov,” came the proud reply,
“With Captain Demetri’s team from rear draws nigh.
Submit to search and come in peace,” he urged,
“Or tranquilized and beaten you shall lie.”
“Must I repeat the command; raise up your hands or go to sleep!”
“No,” replied Fredrick, “I must know who asks me?“
The agents approached a bit closer. “I am famous Colonel Patov; you will follow orders or be subdued and severely beaten. Behind you is Demetri, my best and most merci–less captain, with his team. You have no-where to go, Fredrick. Raise your hands, be searched; come with us peacefully and we won’t even have to use the tranquilizer darts.”
“Since you insist,” spoke Fredrick with a smile,
His hands rose slowly in surrendering style.
“No contest here—I’ll pass the other side,
As lights go out in this dim tunnel’s mile.”
“Okay,” answered Fredrick, “as long as you put it that way.”
The agents approached slowly from Fredrick’s front and back as he began to raise his hands. They were about twenty feet away now. “No contest,” said Fredrick, “I’ll be passing on to the other side. It’s lights out for me!”
With swift resolve he smashed the bulb above,
His sweater fixed where light once shed its love,
Then shoeless, loosed a scream that seemed to fill
Each corner of the tunnel’s darkened grove.
Fredrick raised his hands quickly and smashed the light bulb, then attached his sweater to the fixture, having noted the spot beforehand, slipped off his shoes and left them there, and let out a blood curdling scream that seemed to echo from all directions at once.
The agents, thinking Fredrick charged their line,
Shot darts through darkness thick as ancient wine,
While he pressed silent ’gainst the tunnel wall,
As chaos bloomed within their grand design.
The KGB thought Fredrick was charging them, but in actuality he had just slipped sideways, noiselessly, without his shoes, and had squatted down, hugging the wall of the tunnel that had just been plunged into total darkness.
“Hold fire!” Patov called. “We strike our own!
Two men are down!” Their discord clearly shown.
“Join hands and sweep the walls,” the colonel cried,
“He lurks between us still, though not yet known!”
Darts began flying through the darkness, towards the screech, but Patov, a seasoned KGB veteran, called out, “Stop, we’re only hitting each other. I have one down. Demetri?“
“One as well, Colonel.”
Patov added quickly, “Link hands and sweep ahead, touching the walls; he is still somewhere between us.”
A coat brushed past where Fredrick crouched in shade,
While at his sweater wild confusion played—
Agents thrashing at his empty clothes,
Their blind assaults a comedy displayed.
Fredrick felt the edge of a coat almost touch him, but, just about then the agents reached his hanging sweater and his shoes on the floor there was an intense struggle with Fredrick’s abandoned clothes and shoes, some agents even punching each other out in the darkness.
Along the wall he crept with calculated stride,
Found sleeping guard whose coat he’d soon divide,
Then touched another form that gave him pause—
One more than Demetri had testified.
Thus, during this time, Fredrick scooted along, found the napping agent and removed his coat. While moving toward the end of the tunnel, Fredrick encountered another body against the wall and thought That’s funny, Demetri said only one was down.
The tunnel’s end showed hints of dawning light,
Where final guard stood watch in conscious might.
Above, the coming train announced its way
With whistle’s cry through shadows of the night.
Fredrick halted, noting that there was some ambient light at the end of the tunnel and that there would be no way to slip past the rear guard undetected. A whistle and a rumble indicated that the northbound train was arriving.
In borrowed coat, he spoke in Russian tongue:
“It’s Demetri,” the false assurance rung.
The guard’s brief pause proved fatal to his cause—
Swift pistol-strike, and past him Fredrick sprung.
Fredrick, wearing the borrowed KGB coat, walked calmly toward the rear guard, who tensed and pointed his weapon. Fredrick then whispered, in Russian, from several feet away “It’s me, Demetri“, and so the guard relaxed a bit, and it was in this split second that Fredrick leapt toward him and clunked him on the head with his pistol, took the guard’s shoes, and put them on.
In stolen shoes he scaled the platform’s height,
As northbound train prepared its hasty flight.
“I’m truly Rushin’ now,” he mused with pride,
While Oslo’s troubles faded into night.
He then ran up to the platform and jumped aboard the already departing train. I am really Rushin’ now.
Fate smiled upon our hero’s dining chance:
The duck he’d left behind resumed its dance
Upon the menu of his chosen car—
A feast to ease his northward-bound advance.
But through the window came a warning sight:
Five agents boarding in their vengeful flight.
Swift Fredrick rose and to the coupling ran,
Left half the train behind in comic plight.
It was Fredrick’s lucky day in that roast duck was on the dining car menu and so he ordered it. At the next station, Fredrick looked out the window and saw the five agents, minus one clunker and the two sleepers, running for the train and boarding the rear cars just as they were pulling away. Fredrick’s duck begin to take flight again as he ran to the end of the dining car and uncoupled the remainder of the train, pretty much leaving it sitting in the station. Good training.
To General Burkov word of failure flew,
Aboard his private train with pampered crew.
New orders given, wheels began to turn,
As Fredrick to another engine flew.
The KGBers then notified their top man, General Burkov, who happened to be in the vicinity aboard his own lavish private train, of their latest defeat (a misplaced clause?). Burkov gave new orders to his engineer. Fredrick jumped onto another train.
Through dining car and sleeper swift he passed,
Through baggage car his final sprint was cast,
His ToeQuest card convinced the engineer
To leave his post—the die was finally cast.
He ran back through the dining car, the sleeper cars, the baggage car, and onto the engine, showing his ToeQuest membership card and advising the engineer that he should leave the train for his own safety.
Behind him, Burkov’s train with thunderous might
Came roaring off the siding in their flight.
But Fredrick, wise to railways’ ordered ways,
Knew such close scheduling could not be right.
About then, General Burkov’s train came off a siding at high speed and onto Fredrick’s track, about three miles behind. Fredrick noted this oddity, thinking that trains are not scheduled this closely.
He stopped his train beside a mining track,
Threw switches there, then stepped a little back,
His dinner still in hand, to watch the show
As Burkov’s fate rolled down the ancient track.
Fred continued onward until he saw a signal for an upcoming siding, and stopped his train just beyond it, got out, and switched the main track onto the siding that led to an old abandoned mine, and just stood there to witness the action, carrying his roast duck. This should be good.
Too fast around the curve came Burkov’s pride,
Too late they saw the switch that would decide—
Their emergency brake proved futile there
As toward the mine shaft all were forced to ride.
Burkov came roaring much too fast around the curve, spotted the track switch too late, and tried an emergency stop, but his train kept going onto the siding and off toward the deserted mine shaft.
They leapt for life as eighteen stories deep
Their lavish train took its eternal sleep.
“No one does this!” raged Burkov from the ground,
“Send every agent forth, let no train keep!”
Burkov and friends jumped off at the last minute, just before the entire train plunged into the mine shaft and was swallowed into the eighteen story depths, never to be seen again. Shafted! Burkov cursed that “No one does this to me and lives! Send forth every agent and every train!”
But Fredrick, sampling duck with quiet grace,
Knew forest paths would give a safer space.
Ten miles to ninja shelter lay ahead—
A pleasant walk at peace’s gentle pace.
Fredrick hopped back on the engine, not planning to be on it much longer, for it wasn’t healthy and it wasn’t all that far to the ninja base, ten miles perhaps. He could take to the forest and walk. The roast duck was still with him and so he finally got to sample it. Ah, delicious.
A tunnel loomed ahead through forest shade;
“Not this again,” thought Fred, his choice was made—
He left the train and sought the woodland path,
Where giant bird showed where his route was laid.
There was a tunnel coming up ahead, and Fredrick thought, not this again, and stopped just before it, got everyone out and walked off by himself through the woods and toward the distant ninja base. A large bird pointed the way.
Then shadow stirred and took a living form:
“Good moves,” it spoke, “through all this recent storm.
Third degree now yours,” the Ninth declared,
“From Master Ninja, to tradition’s norm.”
In a while, a shadow appeared and came to life beside Fredrick saying, “Good moves, Fredrick-san. I give you third degree now. I am ninth degree ninja Grand Master.”
“Hello ninth.”
“Like wind I move, like water flow with grace.”
“I heard both functions at a different place,“
Fred quipped, while Ninja spoke of darkness arts:
“From nothing came I to this meeting space.”
“You not see me come; move like wind and go like water.”
“I heard you breaking wind and going water.”
“C’mon, that speech figure; beside, those awhile back. I wear black, come out of black between bush; appear as nothing.”
“In nothing,” Fred replied, “I hold degree.”
Then boom of explosion split earth and tree.
“Red engine meets our tunnel’s other end,“
The shadow smiled. “Now that was meant to be.”
“I am an expert on nothing.”
They heard an explosion. “We take care of light at other end of tunnel, some kind of speeding red KGB engine.”
“But where were you,” asked Fred, “when first I fought
Those eight who thought they had me surely caught?“
“I watched you learn—good training! Then I stayed,
You touched me once, remember? Second thought?“
“Thanks, but where was my protection from the eight KGB agents in the first place in the first tunnel?” asked Fred.
“Ah yes! The count seemed odd within the dark!”
“Just half of me was needed for that spark,
But splitting’s not my style!” the Ninja grinned.
Through forest depths they traced their woodland mark.
“Good training. But I there in second place in tunnel to protect you,” said the Ninja, “but you not need me.”
“You were there in the tunnel?“
“Yes, I there. You touch me once.”
“Oh yeah, thanks for being there; I thought I had an arithmetic problem. Okay, but was that it, just you?“
“That even too much, just need half of me, but I no like banana split so bring whole self! Ha-ha.”
“Good one, half and half.”
They walked on, for many, many miles.
“How goes it, Fred?” the shadow softly said.
“One foot before the other moves ahead.”
“Yes.” Then: “Sweet music comes to pierce the soul,
No preparation serves,” the Master led.
“How going, Fred?“
“I’m just putting one foot ahead of the other.”
“When cross zone, hear the sweetest saddest music ever. It go down deep, but also energize. No one can be ready for this.”
“I’m ready,” Fredrik spoke with certainty,
Until the notes flowed forth in purity—
Such sweetness mixed with sorrow touched his heart,
While tears revealed humanity’s deep plea.
“I’m ready.”
“OK, here come.”
“You spoke true words,” said Fred through misty eyes,
“No soul could ready be for such sweet cries.
They speak of human plight, yet give us strength
To aid the cause as far as power lies.”
Tears streamed from Fredrick’s eyes. “You’re right, there was no way to be ready for that; it reminds one about the plight of humanity, energizing one to aid the cause.”
Within the ninja base, tests did begin:
“What cola graces now this cup herein?“
“Not Coke nor Pepsi, but RC’s diet brew,“
Fred solved the riddle with a knowing grin.
“Now,” Fred, sir, “do some taste test: this Coke or Pepsi?“
“Neither; it is RC Diet Cola, from a can; nice try.”
“Ah, you have good taste. Now, what wine this be?“
“It’s a nonalcoholic sparkling grape beverage from Holland.”
“Ah, Fred, but what year.”
“This year“.
Through wine and duck the testing carried on,
Till taste itself became their wisdom’s dawn:
“Three classes of the buds,” Fred sagely spoke,
“Through vectors sweet and sour are withdrawn.”
“Now you taste this,” said Fredrick, as he pulled a piece of duck out of his pocket.
“Ah, yes, duck from Peking, south region. Very good. Now, what taste really consist of.”
“Well, although taste buds vary somewhat, there being three main classes, it all really comes down to the length of the vectors of the taste matrix of sweet, salt, bitter, and sour.”
“Yes, sir Fred. Fine taste. So, someone say something taste no good, then…“
“We don’t believe them, since their taste buds may be different from ours.”
“Some see the colors different than we see?“
“Yes, slight,” said Fred, “as different all may be.”
“That why some dress for darkness in the dark?“
“Why dress at all?” Fred matched his repartee.
“Some see different color too?“
“Yes, slightly.”
“That why some look like dress in dark?“
“We getting near outer zone of base, Fred; maybe see some magic stuff.”
“Really?“
“Yes, that could be, but you dress for the dark in the dark and go forth into the dark, so why wear anything?“
“Ah, good. Ha-ha.”
“What finest taste has crossed your knowing tongue?“
“Eternity’s sweet flavor,” Fred had sung.
“Ah, wise man you!” the ninja praised with joy,
While wisdom’s bells through both their laughter rung.
“Fred. What best taste ever?“
“The taste of eternity that I am tasting right now.”
“Ah, Fredrick, you wise man.”
“As wise as wise guy you.”
“Why not use pistol in the tunnel’s night?“
“No aim was true, the flash would give my plight.”
“If desperate?” “Then throw the cocked gun far,
Let chaos lead them from my path of flight.”
“More ha-ha. Why not shoot pistol in tunnel?“
“Well, there was nowhere to aim, plus they could have identified my position from the chamber barrel flash before I had a chance to shoot them all.”
“Good. What if they put light?“
“Then the better I know where they are to shoot them.”
“What if you get desperate or have to sneeze.”
“Then I cock the pistol and throw it where I am not, as I run away. Hopefully, it fires where it lands and draws their attention to it and away from me as I escape.”
“All this you planned within a minute’s span?“
“As traffic planner, that’s how thought began—
All directions must be weighed with care,
Through tunnel, sky, and every mortal plan.”
“All this plan in one minute make?“
“Yes, I am a traffic planner and must consider all directions, even up and down, and underground through tunnels.”
“Shall we sell tale to mystery’s DeMille?“
“I thought such tales from fancy’s simple will!”
“No, truth stands stranger far than fiction’s art,“
As wisdom’s laughter echoed through them still.
“Well, you mind if we sell story to detective mystery writer DeMille, make money?“
“Fine, go ahead, but I always thought they made these things up.”
“No, truth stranger than fiction.”
“How long’s a china man?” the ninja played.
“Yes, that’s his name,” Fred’s answer quickly made.
“No double positive exists!” came next.
“Yeah, right,” Fred smirked, their wit in masquerade.
“Any more tests?“
“How long is a china man.”
“Yes, that is his name.”
“No can fool you.”
“You hear of double negative, like ’didn’t see no duck’?“
“Yes, they cancel and a duck appears, for since I didn’t see everything but a duck, then I must have seen a duck, but even this is not for sure.”
“Yes, maybe you ate duck. Now, there no such thing as double positives!”
“Yeah, right.”
“What study calls you now?” “Just nothing’s way.”
“Ah, hardest state to hold from day to day—
For nothing needs a force to keep intact,
Then something fills the void we sought to slay.”
“Good one. What study you lately?“
“Nothing.”
“Ah, very hard state to maintain, so maybe not exist.”
“Really?“
“Yes, it would take a god or some force to keep nothing intact, but then not really nothing, for other stuff there. That my theory. It nothing really. Very little. A small point. A void to avoid. Not much. No big deal. Some zilch.”
“The Theory Of Nothing grows most long,
On ToeQuest’s thread where seekers throng.”
“True, Mr. Rick. First sleep, then rest, then void...”
“Welcome to NoQuest!” sealed their wisdom’s song.
“All right already; it’s not easy studying nothing, you know; but the Theory Of Nothing (TON) ToeQuest thread is one of the longest threads ever.”
“True, Mr. Rick. I like do nothing. But first I relax, then sleep, then rest up, then prepare do nothing, remove all thoughts, try not move…“