June 21st, 2007

Everything you always wanted to know…

… about everything you always wanted to know.

Filed by rhwinter at June 21st, 2007 under circular, meta, short
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April 27th, 2007

“Beep beep”

A small spacecraft landed on my head today. Of course I was not aware of it immediately. As I walked down the street I felt a sort of sting, one of those that really bother to the point of making you stop whatever it is you are doing in order to reach it with your hands and do something as quickly as possible.

And that was precisely what I did. At first I thought it was a mosquito. But is just hurt a bit too much, which led me to conclude it had to be something else; a bee, probably.

This conclusion, as a matter of fact, took place in the very short time during which my left hand traversed the space between wherever it was and the point in my head where I had felt the sting. (Why does this matter?) So this made my arm decelerate abruptly and the hand reached the target much less strongly than it thought it would when it set off. But it really didn’t matter, perhaps because I hadn’t come fast enough to the conclusion that it was probably a bee; or even because my arm isn’t really well trained to perform the maneuver it was ordered to.

No, it didn’t matter: whatever it was I felt it was crushed right when my palm touched it. Not only did I feel it crushed, I felt it was different from what I expected. So different, in fact, that I took a bit longer than before to reach a new conclusion: it was actually not a bee, nor an insect, much less even organic at all, it felt like some kind of metal. “Aluminum foil, maybe” I thought of saying while I foresaw myself telling this story later. But that wasn’t even entirely true; as I approached this thing to my unbelieving eye in order to scrutinize it further, it were not them, but my ears which got ever more unbelieving: a very faint sound came from this thing, which, now so close to my eye, I perceived as what one would say was a little lump of baked potato oddly escaping its original aluminum foil wrap.

I don’t remember very well what ensued, but I’m pretty sure I heard a noise which reminded me of that made by screeching tires sometimes, but not often, when they go really high pitch. Still, the noise was faint. And was going even fainter as time passed and I stood there doing nothing.

By then, somehow, I was pretty sure of what was going on: a spacecraft the size of a rice bean, probably after traveling for longer than is worth mentioning, reached the Earth only to land exactly on my head; but, before it could do anything, I mercilessly crushed it to undistinguishable state. I immediately felt guilty (but, I have to acknowledge, not nearly as much as I should have been).

I still hadn’t the faintest idea what to do, so I did what anyone on those conditions would: closed my hand, taking care not to inflict more damage on the ship, and ran home as fast as I could. It is hard to explain as I think of this clearly now, but I thought then that, somehow, I’d be better equipped to help them if we went home.

What is even harder to explain is how I dropped it along the way without noticing and got home with nothing than more sweat on my face that it’s ever had in years and an empty hand. True story.

This very short story is part of a series of stories never before published (and, probably, unpublishable) simply because they were written, in a serial manner, by none other than me (who had never bothered to publish them).

Filed by rhwinter at April 27th, 2007 under art, short
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April 11th, 2007

“How many people lived in there?”

“How many people lived in there?” she found herself thinking yet again. No, this wasn’t the first time she thought of this thought. Nor, rest assured, would it be the last. As a matter of fact the first time she thought of this was a long time ago and the last would be in a long time in the future, only minutes before she was to pass away. But even before the first time she thought of this, there had already been others who had done it. “How many people lived in there?” a seemingly simple question which can have such a myriad of possible answers. All of which could surprise whoever asked it. But it was not meant to be now that these answers would be discovered. It so happens that none of these answers would ever be discovered, for she who asked them was both unable to answer it herself and unwilling to let others help her answer it. Multiple personality disorder is, indeed, a bitch.

This very short story is part of a series of stories never before published (and, probably, unpublishable) simply because they were written, in a serial manner, by none other than me (who had never bothered to publish them).

Filed by rhwinter at April 11th, 2007 under art, short
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April 9th, 2007

“Fred”

It is true that the television was on, and that so-called celebrities were to be seen chit-chatting inside of it about the most uninteresting subjects known to Fred. Still, his mind cared about one thing. One single thing. One tiny single thing. One very tiny single thing.

It comes very in handy to interrupt this approach before it gets to drag itself much too long. That is why a proper explanation is needed at this point. And that explanation, no wonder, is about the inner workings of a television set. The simplest way to put it is the following: it consists of an electron-sensitive screen and a cannon of the later mentioned (i.e. electrons). As the cannon ejects electrons, these short-lived bastards hit the screen one by one and are transformed into light, which is, inevitably, emitted towards whoever happens to caught sitting in front of the whole marvelous device (not that it is at all possible to sit in front of part of the device, unless, of course, it is disassembled; but that does not really matter right now). What really matters is that the screen is made in such a way so that it is divided in very small little squares, each with a certain color, designed specifically to be hit by the ill-fated electrons. These tiny squares are, for some not-important-reason, called pixels.

And that was exactly what Fred held all his attention to: a single pixel on his television. Not even the unquestionably loud sound of voices, music and the eventual wild donkey could bother him. At all.

As he stared at this specific pixel he could notice how it went on and off, how rapidly it changed, how it, apparently for no reason, did all those things without even having time to think about them.

And this, thought Fred, as he showed by his utter and unshakable concentration on that pixel, was something to think about. It really was.

This very short story is part of a series of stories never before published (and, probably, unpublishable) simply because they were written, in a serial manner, by none other than me (who had never bothered to publish them).

Filed by rhwinter at April 9th, 2007 under art, short
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