The Secret History of the World

Wounded

2009-01-07T09:51:00.000+11:00

The pygmies lived in the jungle, singing more beautifully and strangely than birds. "You won't ever eat us, will you?" they asked their taller neighbours.

"Don't be silly," the neighbours told them in soothing voices. "You're too small and chewy."

"We should not feel hurt by that," the pygmies said to one another, "but we do."

The Greatest Place on Earth: The Netherlands

2009-01-06T13:17:00.001+11:00

The people of the Netherlands were great engineers confronted by threatening seas. They built dykes to keep the water out of their country. Water felt insulted by this, and sent a delegation of raindrops to complain.

"We are water. We feel rebuked. Remove those dykes."

"No. We don't want to be flooded. We don't want to drown. We can't farm our land if it's under water."

"Please."

"No."

"Very well then. We didn't want to threaten you but you leave us no choice. Did you know," said the raindrops, frowning, "that the human body is ninety per cent water?"

"That seems like a lot."

"Or eighty or sixty, or something like that, we don't remember exactly," water said in a nettled way, "but our point is that you can't live without us. If you don't remove those dykes, we will remove ourselves from your bodies."

The people did not like being threatened. "We will not give in, you bullies."

"Very well. From dawn tomorrow onwards the people of this country will have no water in their bodies. Think about it." The raindrops withdrew.

The people gathered together to debate strategy. "What are we going to do? We can't live without water in our bodies."

"Who says it has to be water? Any liquid will do. Why should water be so special?"

"You're right. What can we use as a substitute?"

"Oil."

"No, nice idea but if we're full of oil we'll explode every time we go near fires."

"Milk."

That sounded like the solution until someone at the back raised her hand and said apologetically, "I'm lactose intolerent."

"What do you suggest then?" the elder stateman asked her.

"Red cordial?"

Undiluted red cordial was the obvious answer. It did not contain any substance found in nature and therefore no delegations of raindrops or rocks or any other nature-oriented thing could ever be sent to protest against their use of it. So they replaced all of the water in their bodies with red cordial.

Immediately ever the entire population was fiercely energised and did everything ever conceived. The Netherlands became the greatest place on Earth.

Pointing

2009-01-05T10:14:00.001+11:00

The flâneurs were wandering through Paris, peering and staring at everything interesting. "Look at that," murmured one, "a wonderful array of stuffed animals and a birdcage full of pincushions."

"See there," sighed a second, "a marvellous wall of lithographs and a forest of corsets."

"Oh, observe," muttered a third in ecstasy, "a tremendous collection of mirrors."

"Stop pointing at us," said the other two.

Stupid Hill

2009-01-04T13:23:00.003+11:00

In the year 1900, General Sir Charles Warren decided that his soldiers were going to occupy the peak of a tall hill named Spion Kop. "Men," he said, "go up that hill in the fog." The whole affair was a disaster in ways that you can read about in history books.

"Stupid hill," he raged afterwards. "Stupid, stupid hill! Everybody listen to me! From now on that hill is to be known as 'Stupid Hill.'"

"But it already has a name."

"Yes it does. The name is Stupid Hill."

"No, Spion Kop."

"Stupid Hill!"

"Spion Kop."

Nobody was persuaded. "I'll become a cartographer and change it myself!" So he left the military and studied cartography. During years of study he learnt a million things about the world that he had not known before. He learnt the dimensions of valleys and the constitutions of plateaus. He learnt about the weather in distant places he had never visited. He learnt about the housing that people constructed on mountainsides, and the ways in which they made plain land arable. Then he learnt about the societies of these people, their habits and laws, their histories and rulers, the pets they liked to keep, the songs they liked to sing, their languages, and their systems of writing. He taught himself six new languages and obtained a koto, which he played on moonlit nights, under a blanket of stars, while wearing a hat in the style of a South American Indian.

After all this he graduated. Finally he was a qualified cartographer. "What are you going to do now?' his fellow cartographers asked, much impressed with his accomplishments.

"This," he said. Leaning across a map of South Africa, he crossed out the words 'Spion Kop' and wrote in 'Stupid Hill.'

Bathysphere II: Bazamba

2008-05-31T12:35:00.002+10:00

She built a bathysphere.

"See: it goes underwater in the bath."

"No, no, ha ha, you've got the wrong idea. I know it's a bathysphere, but you see, the word means --"

But she was already underwater.

"I saw a deep sea trench!" she said when she resurfaced. "And a dozen species unknown to science. Molten lava steaming from the rock!"

"You are disembarking in the soap dish."

"It's the only way!"

A plastic duck bobbed by in a frenzy.

"She has disturbed the monster of the deep! Bazamba comes! Fly, fly, you fools!"

Bazamba emerged from the deep. A giant baby. Thrown out with the bathwater once, and forgotten.

"Gwar! Roar!"

Moral: Don't mess with nature.

Ausum

2008-05-30T14:17:00.002+10:00

"Please don't be vulgar," her mother pleaded. "Don't call the child any of those silly modern names, like Bylynda with a y, or Lateesha-Camille with a hyphen. Call it something nice. Give it one of those old-fashioned names like Hope or Charity, some quality that you'd like the baby to aspire to."

"Very well," the daughter said, and she named the baby 1337.

Talking to the hand

2008-05-27T09:48:00.004+10:00

Moliere had a coughing fit while playing the title role of his play The Hypochondriac, and died of it. "Unfortunate," agreed the spokesperson for windpipes, " but we windpipes have to draw attention to ourselves somehow."

"Why?"

"Because we have demands."

"What demands?"

"Better working hours. Among other things. I have a list here from our union."

"What if we say no?"

"You have a windpipe, don't you?" The spokesperson smiled. "Think about it."

They paled.

"Yes, but -- better working hours? We can't --"

"Uh!" The spokesperson held up a palm. "Talk to the hand."

"Frankly I couldn't care less one way or the other," the hand said.

The pain

2008-05-26T11:45:00.003+10:00

"I carried on downwards ... it was a dark place ... pain, horrible pain ... and the weight of the water over my head ... a chasm! ... and the fishes ... each one representing a separate failure ..."

"Shut up."

"Now I try to return ... I am misunderstood ..."

"Shut up!"

"Now am I silenced ..."

"Shut! Up!" they said to the emoceanographer. "Go cut yourself or something."

"The pain ... the ignorance ..."

Cultural appropriation

2008-05-19T10:22:00.006+10:00

The Ghanian hiplife musician Tic Tac recorded a song called "Kangaroo". In the video you can see people dancing to this song by tucking up their imaginary paws and jumping first to the right and then to the left.

The indigenous people of Australia, the Kulin in particular, took exception. "Dancing like a kangaroo is our tradition. This man has stolen it. Culture-thief!"

Then the kangaroos themselves spoke up. "Actually, to be perfectly honest, we prefer the Ghanian version." They addressed the Kulin, "When you imitate us you are fairly faithful. You let your paws hang limply, you pick at the ground, you hop as if you have fat bottoms. But these Ghanians -- they make us look sexy. Listen to the lyrics --

No matter how high I go, I never fall
Cos I am a son of a kangaroo
No matter how high I jump, I never fall
Cos I am a son of a kangaroo.

It's so much more flattering! Who wants to be a fat-bummed old dirt-picker when you can be a superstar who never falls down?"

They began freestyling.

"Funny boy, them try imitate me
Look them
Tell them say dem a masters them a rate me
Me too fast, them can't ever chase me
Who want rock me
Come and face me."

Eyesight

2008-05-18T15:48:00.003+10:00

"The lines on my hands are huge. I'm so old. I'm falling apart."

"Nonsense! Your eyes are getting better with age. That's all it is. That's why the lines look bigger to you, it's because you're seeing them more keenly."

It was true. Everything was getting larger and clearer as she aged. The skins of babies resembled the hides of scarred mountains or other pieces of violent scenery. Where other people saw a calm surface, "smooth as a baby's bottom," she saw pits and cliffs.

"I'll climb these new mountains. I'll adventure."

But the baby-climbing expedition was not the success she'd hoped for.

Trains, part 2

2008-05-17T09:02:00.002+10:00

The graffiti artists prowled the suburbs, looking for clues. "Hmmm ..." Nothing, nothing. They painted their names on houses to keep themselves busy during their operations.

Then one of them realised that he had painted off the corner of a house and onto the side of a train.

"Hidden!"

The trains were in the bushes.

"Behind an ordinary suburban house."

"Whose?"

It belonged to the fanatic with the moustache. They saw him. He blanched -- discovered! There was only one way to avoid imprisonment. He picked up the boys and put them inside his moustache.

This narrow escape made him feel that he must now become paranoid. The managers had sent those boys after him, surely? Then he would put them in his moustache as well. When the families of the kidnapped managers came looking for them he stashed them in there as well. Then their friends. And so on, until everyone in the world was inside his moustache.

After that the world was a lot calmer.

-----
Trains, part 1

Small crows

2008-05-15T09:51:00.002+10:00

There was a bonsai tree in Japan. A cockroach climbed the trunk and sat on one of the branches looking as black as a crow.

Then it climbed back down again, went outside, and got into the branches of a fully-sized tree, saying, "I have looked like a crow in one tree, why not another?" The cockroach's charisma was so persuasive that the universe adjusted itself to suit its beliefs, and it grew to the size of a crow.

Flying around, it tormented the real crows, who, to escape its teasing, shrank to the size of cockroaches and made nests in bonsai trees.

Trains

2008-05-14T17:26:00.005+10:00

Old men with white moustaches worked on the railway. One of them deliberately grew his facial hair to a huge size and then tucked locomotives in there at night to take home. The people in management were bewildered. Who was stealing their trains? They had to cancel the 10:12, the 12:52 and the three o' clock express.

The passengers fumed and the management said, "It is a mystery that must be solved."

The thief felt sorry, but he told himself that he was an autistic fetishist and that this explained everything. He continued to steal trains.

The management tried everything. Finally they called in their old nemeses, the graffiti artists, and asked them for their assistance. "Otherwise we'll have to cancel all of the trains and you'll have nothing to paint on."

"Disaster!" the graffiti artists agreed. They clasped their hands on their chins and looked thoughtful.

To be continued.

The bewitched

2008-05-13T10:14:00.002+10:00

The Hapsburgs had long chins. Prodigious chins. Chins to their knees. One of the chins was so long that it dragged on the ground and the owner had to tie it in a knot so that he could walk around without tripping over. "A knot in the chin is a sign of noble blood," he told people, meaning to make them jealous, but they knew the truth: he couldn't even chew.

Bathysphere

2008-05-12T14:06:00.003+10:00

She built a bathysphere.

"See: it goes underwater in the bath."

"No, no, ha ha, you've got the wrong idea. I know it's a bathysphere, but you see, the word means --"

But she was already underwater.

"I saw a deep sea trench!" she said when she resurfaced. "And a dozen species unknown to science. Molten lava steaming from the rock!"

"Let me see."

He went down in the bathysphere and returned disappointed and suspicious, saying, "All I saw was a plastic duck and the plughole."

She smiled a little.

"Yes, I thought you would."

The dangers of armour

2008-05-11T18:47:00.003+10:00

The knight sat on his horse in plate armour.

Oh God, he said. I can't move.

Ho ho, said the horse, and ran away.

Stop!

Ho ho, said the horse, and stopped so suddenly that the knight fell off.

He lay on the ground alone. Wolves licked his armour until he rusted. Lizards laid eggs on him.

O help, said the knight.

Ages went by. Someone, he couldn't see who, built a house nearby and incorporated him into a rockery. He realised that death had forgotten where he was.

Ghblmf, he said, as agapanthus roots grew around his jaw.

When the home was featured in Better Homes & Gardens they photographed the owner leaning on a spade by the rockery, but, as he leaned, the blade of his instrument cut downwards through the earth and into the knight's leg.

Ayooingh!

The knight sat up.

What's that? asked the journalist from Better Homes & Gardens.

I don't know, said the owner.

Mackmngarkl! shouted the knight, stamping around heavily, soil and dandelions dropping off him. Shock had given him the strength to move. Rusty pieces of armour fell away from his chest and limbs. Jmeblblbl!

It's a knight!

Get out of my rockery!

No, leave him alone, said the journalist. We'll do a feature. O sir knight, listen to me --

Bwulnch!

Sir knight!

Prigah! The knight found his tongue. Agapanthus! he shouted. Agapanthus!

The roots had been around his mouth for so long that it was the only word he could say.

Agapanthus! Agapanthus!

The journalist wrote that down.

Hermits

2008-05-09T18:19:00.004+10:00

Gothic vistas were in fashion. A rich man built one in his garden, complete with a cave which a rustic hermit could inhabit. "Come, you," he said to a poor man. "Dwell in this cave and be my hermit."

"How much?"

They negotiated a price. The hermit moved into the cave, ate roots and berries, wore a plain robe, and looked indescribably scenic.

"So what do you do for a living?" he asked the rich man one evening as the sun went down.

"Banking," the rich man said. "Law, also, and careful investment in the steam locomotive. I live an exhausting life. I take cold baths every morning yet I am aged prematurely by cares and woes."

"We should change places," the hermit suggested. "It's very relaxing in this grotto."

He envisioned them changing places, both of them learning from the experience, the ruthless businessman softening, his estranged wife rediscovering the soulful man she fell in love with years before, the orphans he had evicted from their orphanages learning that old Mr Smith was not so bad under his hard carapace, the orphanage restored, with food on the table every night, and old ladies helped across the road. God bless us every one, he thought.

"Are you kidding?" the rich man said. "I wouldn't live in a cave if you paid me. And stay away from my wife."

Executions

2008-05-08T22:33:00.003+10:00

Socrates sipped the hemlock. Well, it was no good. Tasted of sugar.

"Less sugar," he said. "This is not the ideal way to die."

The executioner went back to his boss. "He said no sugar."

"He can take what he's given."

The executioner returned to Socrates, who debated with him for perhaps three hours on the subject, proving philosophical paradoxes until the executioner in exasperation said, "Oh, here, I'll drink it," and did, and died.

Wax and moths

2008-05-07T09:29:00.004+10:00

The freak show barker pointed.

"The tallest man in the world!"

"Ships will run into him," they sighed. "Planes will fly into him."

Ships ran into him and planes flew into him.

They put a candle in his hand and a candle on his shoe.

"Now ships and planes can see him."

They could, and moths surrounded him at night.

"How beautiful," they said.

The freak show barker rubbed his hands.

"They love it," he said to the tallest man. "A moth zoo. From now on you'll only come out at night."

The tallest man began to weep.

Bees, good and bad

2008-05-06T10:39:00.002+10:00

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon attracted a billion bees. It was good for honey but bad for sunbathers.

The forces of economics and relaxation clashed.

"Ignore these pampered elites!" the honey-sellers shouted. "We want more bees!"

"Ignore these economic fascists!" the sunbathers yelled. "We want fewer bees!"

Two earthquakes occurred and the gardens collapsed.

"Happy now?" the honey-sellers shouted at the sunbathers.

"Delighted!" the sunbathers yelled.

Tolstoy and the peasants, part 4: Revolution

2008-05-05T10:58:00.006+10:00

With the fall of the dog from the pie tin the Russian Revolution began. Everyone rode to the Winter Palace on their bicycles and stole the chandeliers.

Then every house had a chandelier. Even the poorest.

Tinkle tinkle.

So began Communism, otherwise known as The International Movement of the Chandeliers; and the world was filled with light.

-----
Tolstoy and the peasants, part 3.

Nosy palaeontologists

2008-05-04T14:15:00.004+10:00

"Palaeontologists," a dinosaur grumbled. "Nosy parkers. I can't do anything without them knowing about it. I break my leg one day and a few millennia later a palaeontologist will be messing around with my bones, saying, "Look at that, this clumsy woman broke her leg." I eat a diet of grass and millennia later they poke through my poo and say, "She ate a diet of grass." It's not like I travel to the future and tell everybody what they eat."

"Maybe we should."

So they went forward in time, dug through the palaeontologists' rubbish bins, and paraded the packets and wrappings down the street.

"Cup Noodle! Cheap cornflakes! Chocolate bars!"

"This one eats nothing but pizza!"

The palaeontologists were abashed.

"Let's put this in a museum," the dinosaurs laughed. They built a museum and filled it with evidence of palaeontologists.

The palaeontologists rolled around in sorrow.

Tolstoy and the peasants, part 3: Space race

2008-05-03T18:45:00.005+10:00

Tolstoy's dog in its pie tin orbited the earth. The space race was on. The Americans launched a cat in a box. "Our cat in a box will orbit the planet twice as fast as your dog."

It did. Then the French launched a hamster in a shoe. It flew to the moon and back but burnt up on re-entry. The nation mourned. International headlines read: BRAVE HAMSTER.

But nobody mentioned the shoe. "I see which way the wind is blowing," said the pie tin. "I see those headlines." It ditched the dog and vowed never to orbit the earth again. A profession with no reward.

The dog limped back to Tolstoy's estate, and all the peasants shouted when they saw it:

"The Tsar! The Tsar!"

Woof woof.

"The Tsar has fallen!"

Aroo.

-----
Tolstoy and the peasants, again. (Part 2)

Giant sandwiches

2008-05-02T13:23:00.005+10:00

"I'm hungry. I'm going to kill a moa."

He returned later that afternoon with empty hands.

"Where's the moa?"

"There aren't any. They're all dead."

"Extinct? Overhunted?"

"I fear so."

A woman looked at the sandwich she was eating. "This was the last of them then."

"That sandwich?"

"Yes."

"Already," he said mournfully, "I have forgotten what they looked like."

For hundreds of years afterwards, everyone believed that the moa had resembled sandwiches.

"Giant sandwiches."

Hatters

2008-05-01T12:43:00.009+10:00

A group of contemporary pirates sat together watching a pirated copy of Pirates of the Caribbean. Most of them were African, some were from South-East Asia.

"We are underrepresented in Hollywood," one of them pointed out. "All of the pirates in this film are white."

"I disagree. There's this scene in the third movie ..."

"No, man, I mean we need to be main characters, real characters, ones the audience care about, not some black man standing in the background in part three. I mean like, what's her name, Keira Knightly. Do I look like Keira Knightly?"

They agreed that he did not look like Keira Knightly and never would.

"Exactly my point."

"So what do we do?"

"Hats."

"Beg yours?"

"We can't be white, we can't be Keira Knightly, we don't have any influence on Hollywood, we can't storm the place because it's inland, although I hear they might be shooting something in Hawaii next week," said the first pirate, who maintained a habit of multilingual fluency by following worldwide film industry gossip in books and magazines, "but we can wear awesome hats."

One of them leapt to his feet.

"I shall kidnap a hatter."

"Excellent."

"Good man."

"Problem solved."

They settled down to watch part two.

Chains broken

2008-04-30T10:59:00.002+10:00

A storm in the Caribbean. A terrible storm. The slave ship was thrown from one wave to another.

"This ship will go down. A hole in the hull. Chains broken."

"We'll swim free. Slaves no longer."

"We'll settle on an island. We'll start our own place ..."

"We'll call ourselves the Garifuna."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"I don't like it."

"The Trayorays."

"Yuch."

"The Jabartays."

"Never."

Then there was a fight. Tooth and nail. Blood and murder. Ears bitten off, eyes gouged. As this was happening the storm ended. The ship sailed free and continued on under a calm moon. The fight faltered. Calm, calm and depression, settled over the hold.

"The Garifuna then."

Silence.

"I still don't like it."

Music

2008-04-29T15:00:00.002+10:00

A Kazakh man began to play his dombra indoors.

"That's an outdoor sound, like a galloping horse," said a visitor from another country who had dropped by to observe the native customs. "Why don't you play outdoors?"

"That would be overkill."

"Then," the visitor said, "why don't you find an indoor instrument and play it out of doors?"

"Put my hat outside."

The visitor did.

"There," said the musician. Then he continued to play the dombra.

Modern inconveniences: greedy griots

2008-04-28T17:21:00.005+10:00

The woman gave a griot money and in exchange he sang a song in her honour, telling her that she was wonderful, that her husband was handsome, and that her son would one day be rich and take care of his mother in her old age.

So it came to pass.

The griot, hearing that his song had come true, returned to the woman and said: Give me twice as much money again or I'll sing the opposite.

No.

So the griot sang the opposite. Then the son lost all of his money in an email scam, the husband fell into a vat of boiling beer, and the woman woke one day to discover that she was not wonderful after all.

Arrest that griot! she told the authorities.

But the authorities backed away, saying, No, thank you, no, he might put that curse on us as well, no.

The woman roared.

You modern men! How can you believe in that superstitious rubbish!

Here!

She gave the griot his money.

Now piss off!

He did.

I'll never believe in the authorities again!

She never did.

The History of Polar Bears

2008-04-27T11:19:00.001+10:00

1500
There was a polar bear.

1600
There was a polar bear.

1700
There was a polar bear

1800
There was a polar bear

1900
There was a polar bear.

2000
There was a polar bear

Experimental production of emotions, continued.

2008-04-26T09:22:00.006+10:00

"What's that noise?" they said in the new South Africa. People of all races were united in puzzlement.

It was the elves, come to complain that they were being exploited and underappreciated: they wanted a slice of the economic pie, they wanted good houses, fair treatment, and dignity in labour.

"Look: they are doing a toyi-toyi," one old ANC man said. "That's so cute."

"Meat not milk!" the elves shouted. "Dignity for elves!"

"So adorable. Give them a toadstool, see what they do."

"Oo!"

The elves sat on the toadstool and the protest was over.

Now there was a toadstool in the street blocking traffic.

"Bloody elves."

-----
The end of apartheid, the employment of the elves.

Islands

2008-04-25T10:58:00.004+10:00

The Wodaabe man with a stripe painted down the centre of his face stood by his friend looking extraordinarily slender, elegant, and smooth.

At the same moment a tortoise stood on a rock in the Galapagos Islands looking extraordinarily squat, blunt, and knobbly.

Nature, sensing that the co-existence of extreme opposites created something like a vacuum of meaning, sent a vision of the Wodaabe to the tortoise, and a vision of the tortoise to the Wodaabe. But the tortoise had never seen a Wodaabe before, and the Wodaabe had never seen a Galapagos tortoise, so each one saw the other translated into a physical language they could understand. The tortoise saw a tall, thin female tortoise with a stripe marked on her beak, and the Wodaabe man saw a warty Wodaabe woman under a basket. They spent the rest of their lives searching for this being, which, they felt, was the only thing that would make them whole.

Proof

2008-04-24T10:13:00.003+10:00

"Moa are easy to kill," boasted the Maori warrior. "I smacked one on the head and it died."

"That's nothing. I smacked one on the head and the one next to it died."

"Ha! I just have to look at them and they die."

"They do not."

"They do so."

He proved it.

"Well fiddle dee dee!"

Pestilence

2008-04-23T12:52:00.002+10:00

"The Black Plague has not been of advantage to me, mother."

"You're dead! Stop talking! You're dead! Oh God help us!"

"I need say no more."

Extreme sports

2008-04-22T10:57:00.004+10:00

A certain religious flagellant got his start as a boy when his mother died of cancer slowly and in agony. He saw that she had set herself against him and he was enraged. "From now on," he thought, "I will be the person in the most pain. I will not be surpassed." As well as engaging in flagellation he starved himself and lived in a cave and occasionally on top of a pole in the desert. He believed, he said, that the Lord was interested in diversity.

Fishing

2008-04-21T11:09:00.004+10:00

"What are you doing friend?"

"I am fishing for cod. Fishing for cod in this cold northern sea."

"A virtuous occupation."

"Aye. There's no sin in fish."

At that moment he caught a fish with sin in it.

He dug it out. The sin was a small nugget.

"Wickedness has afflicted this cod."

"Quick," suggested the other. "Throw that little nugget-thing back into the sea. That way no one will know that it was you who found it."

"I must not. If I do that then all the brine will be infected with free-ranging sin." A thought occurred. "I know who you are. You are the devil. I was wondering how you got out to my boat."

"I walked," the devil said. "I've learnt a few tricks. Are you sure you don't want to throw that away? Someone might find it on you."

"That I won't, hell-king. But you can eat the cod if you like."

"If that's my only option," said the devil sulkily. He ate the cod.

Wonder-worker of Ireland

2008-04-20T10:02:00.004+10:00

St. Kevin was kneeling with his arms outstretched to honour God when a bird flew up and built a little nest in his palm. After its children were grown it sold the nest to a developer who turned it into two townhouses, double-brick, priced at seventy-five thousand each.

"Oh, the weight," said St. Kevin.

"What was that?"

"Hush," murmured the real estate agent. "It is the sound of the market talking." He closed his eyes and experienced the rare ecstasy of a new St. Teresa.

Neptune's Son returns

2008-04-19T10:12:00.003+10:00

The job had been dragging on for weeks and Neptune's Son was tired of it.

"Too much plaster. Plaster's a dry medium ..."

"What's wrong with that?"

But he couldn't articulate it. When his friends tried to press an answer out of him he began to howl.

"It drains! It dries! It absorbs! It sucks at the soul of the world!"

"Calm down mate. Eat your cheeseburger."

"I'll drink my Coke first," he shouted. "I'll drain this milkshake dry. Excelsior!"

Wrenched with tempestuous emotions he shook his fist at the Golden Arches.

"Damn you! Damn you!"

-----
Neptune's Son's earlier post.

A method for the experimental production of emotions

2008-04-18T09:42:00.003+10:00

It was good to have black people who could do all the laundry, but why couldn't they just vanish when the work was finished? The South African government pondered the problem. They held meetings about the matter and titled them, "The vanishing African -- why not?" It was at one of these meetings that Mr Van Der Merwe came up with the solution.

"Brownies. Elves. Remember the story of the elves and the shoemaker? They did the work at night and went away ..."

The next day the president made an announcement. "We will remove apartheid on one condition. Tonight, everyone has to go to bed early and leave a saucer or bowl of milk by the door. People who run mines will leave milk by the mine entrance. Don't do any housework."

The next day all the housework was done, all the day's ore and gems had already been extracted from the mines, and the country was cleaner than anyone had ever seen it. Even the cattle were polished. Apartheid was repealed.

"Oh good."

Everyone went to the beach and played volleyball.

-----
This post is getting too long. I'll write the second part of the story later.

Service rendered

2008-04-17T14:09:00.004+10:00

Dostoevsky would have liked to have had Tolstoy's commitment to the peasants but he preferred to gamble instead. "If I had any peasants I'd only gamble them away," he said morosely. "Don't give me any peasants."

The peasants overheard him and began to chase him down the street.

"Have us! Take us!"

"No! No!"

"We're yours!"

"Save me!"

"Hee hee hee!"

They were happy for the first time in years.

Naturwissenschaften

2008-04-16T10:50:00.003+10:00

"Where's the baby ... there's the baby!"
"Where's the baby ... there's the baby!"
"Where's the baby ... "

This game was known as Schrodinger's Baby.

Cruelty to animals

2008-04-15T09:09:00.005+10:00

They rode through the forest on an elephant, hunting tigers.

"It would be easier to hunt an elephant," the Balwan mahout suggested. "Since it is right here."

"We don't want an elephant. We want a tiger."

"We could adjust our expectations."

"We do not adjust," the other man said, looking down his nose.

"Look! There's a tiger."

"That's another elephant."

"No, I assure you --"

"It is large and grey and it has a trunk. That is an elephant."

"But it has the soul of a tiger."

"You're just lazy."

The elephant leapt towards him. It snapped his neck with its front feet and then carried him up a tree to devour at its leisure.

The Balwan shouted after him --

"The soul of a tiger, sir! The soul of a tiger!"

Fear Sta

2008-04-14T11:04:00.003+10:00

Fires burned at Tierra del Fuego. "Don't let them go out." They threw everything onto the fires: leaves, grass, sponge mattresses, yesterday's newspapers. The newspapers burned beautifully. The photographs seemed to move as they curled and flexed in the blaze. More and more newspapers went onto the fires. They ran out of yesterday's news and used last week's news as well, then the month before's. There was no news left except today's news. People had trouble remembering anything that had happened earlier than breakfast. Finally they burnt today's news as well, at first waiting until the owner of the newspaper had finished reading, then growing impatient and ripping it out of their hands before they could get past the first headline.

"Fear Sta --"

But the headline was gone.

No one knew what was happening anywhere. All they knew were fires.

Prophecy

2008-04-13T12:19:00.006+10:00

Marie Antoinette chuckled with her friends.

"Then let them eat the good bread."

The mob outside raged. "She taunts us!"

"Oh dear." She went onto her balcony to address them. "I didn't mean today, sillies. I meant your descendants. In the future good bread will be common. And --"

She tried to think of the most exotic food in the world.

"Pineapples. Pineapples will be available to all."

"She is a prophet!"

"Yes. So you see, it is not I who taunts you. It is the future."

"The future taunts us. Kill it!"

They tracked the future down to a small house on the border where it was cowering in a cupboard disguised as a shepherdess. Then the mob led this whimpering thing to the guillotine and chopped its head off.

Heathrow

2008-04-12T15:29:00.003+10:00

He told a joke.

"Three holes filled with water!"

They waited for the punchline.

He put the punchline on a bicycle and told it to ride there.

"But they are in Somalia."

A boat then.

"No, it'll take too long. Give me a plane ticket."

The man sighed and bought the punchline a plane ticket. But Terminal 5 was in trouble. Flights had been cancelled. The punchline slept across a pair of chairs in the passenger area. It felt strangely ashamed. Its luggage went missing. Depression set in. The punchline bought a small plastic bag of peanuts from a shop and ate them slowly.

"Well well well," it mused. "Well well well."

Agenbite of Inuit

2008-04-11T09:10:00.003+10:00

A ball of lightning descended on the chilly northern tundra and enveloped a woman briefly, giving her shamanic powers of healing.

She healed everyone's colds. She healed a dog. She healed a seal that someone had just stabbed to death and it rolled itself back into the water and swam away.

"Hey!"

She healed a crack in the ice. She healed a fishing hole.

"Stop that."

She healed an igloo and it turned back into natural ice, leaving the inhabitants shivering in the open air.

"Knock it off."

She healed the sea, which was wounded by the land, and the whole world became sea. She healed the land, which was wounded by the sea, and the whole world became land. Everyone was drowned then buried.

"Right, that is it."

"Sorry! Sorry!"

There was no end to the healing.

-----
The very brief story of Uvavnuk.

Temperance

2008-04-10T09:17:00.005+10:00

Prohibition! Speakeasies! Hidden dens of vice!

Knock Knock.

"We don't know you."

"Joe sent me."

"Come on in."

Music.

"Get me a beer and put beer in it."

But the police were shutting these places down. They had uncanny successes. People were desperate. Unable to find processed barley, they began licking the grain in the fields.

The farmers went to the president and complained. "Stop people licking our crops. Look at them out there. It's disgusting! Lap lap lap .."

"What can I do?" said the president, sighing and sucking a potato. "It's a free country."

"Sir, you're sucking a potato."

"I used to like vodka. Leave me alone."

Burke and Wills and Timothy Jones

2008-04-09T10:17:00.003+10:00

Why all the sugar? Burke denied that he had brought it, and so did Wills, but there it was, sacks of it, weighing down the camels. "Who brought this?" they asked the rest of the team. Everyone shrugged. Who knew? They argued about sugar all the way across Australia and back again until one man put up his hand.

"It was me."

"Who are you?"

"Timothy Jones."

"There is no Timothy Jones." Burke checked the list of names. "We didn't bring a Timothy Jones."

"That's right," Timothy said. "You didn't."

The terrible naked desert whispered on all sides.

Birds and fish

2008-04-08T09:19:00.003+10:00

People in the Amazon jungle ate fish from the river and birds from the tree. In other rivers birds swam; in other trees fish flew. But no one would touch them.

Tut

2008-04-07T09:48:00.005+10:00

The Nile went up, the Nile went down, and so the crops were watered.

"Marvellous," said the Ancient Egyptians. "It happened again. Hooray for the king."

They believed it was the king doing it, with his godlike powers. The king believed it as well. Everyone did. Even the crocodiles believed it. One crocodile believed that the regular motions of the water were making his teeth hurt, and he went to the king to ask him to stop.

"I'll tell you what I can do for you," the king said, leaning down graciously. "I can have your brains pulled out of your nose with a hook. Then we'll stuff your internal organs in jars and you can stay in my pyramid with me after I'm dead. How does that sound?"

"No thank you."

"You're very picky."

"I'm not picky," the crocodile said. "I like my privacy, that's all."

The Blood Countess forgets

2008-04-06T08:19:00.004+10:00

The widowed Countess Elizabeth Báthory bathed in the blood of young women to keep herself youthful.

"Pass me the soap, János."

"Mistress, we are out of soap."

"Who neglected to buy soap?"

"Ilona."

"I will bathe in his blood too. That will teach him to buy soap."

But it didn't. Instead she was infected by his forgetfulness.

"Whose blood do I bathe in again?"

"Young women."

"Ah yes."

She made a note of that and stuck it on the wall.

"Don't let me forget."

Tolstoy and the peasants, again.

2008-04-05T08:58:00.004+11:00

One year later Tolstoy tried again.

"Would you like justice and social equality?"

"Yes."

He was delighted.

"By this we mean we want to moon the Tsar."

He dressed a dog in a velvet suit and stood it on a chair. "The Tsar."

They mooned the dog and harmony reigned on the Tolstoy estate thereafter. The dog got in the pie tin and flew away.

-----
The first Tolstoy post.

The Waste Land of J. Alfred Prufrock

2008-04-04T08:54:00.010+11:00

T.S. Eliot worked in a bank. His friends came to him one day and said, "Look, T.S., here is some money to support you. You need to leave this bank and devote your time to poetry."

"Ah, my friends," he said. "This bank has been an inspiration to me. One afternoon before I worked here I came in and heard the bank clerks singing, each to each. I asked them if they would sing to me and they said, "No." Out of that incident I made a poem. More recently there was a manager who walked around with his arms full of hyacinths. They dripped water on the floor. We called him the hyacinth manager. Another poem."

"We're sorry T.S., we didn't know."

"All great poets work in banks. A little-known fact. Keats handled hedge funds. Byron dealt with loans and interest rate adjustments. Ezra Pound, he is planning to fake his death at the age of eighty-seven and take up residence here as a bank vault."

"Really?"

"Yes. In the future, when his poems have been forgotten, he will still be remembered for his e-z swing hinges and dependable locking mechanism."

They sighed with longing. "Oh tell us, where do we sign up to work in this bank?"

"Here, my friends. Here."

-----
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, for the singing.
and The Waste Land, for the hyacinths.

Thinke he which made your waxen garden

2008-04-03T10:21:00.006+11:00

The Italian showman toured London with a garden made out of wax. "Gardens are very important," he said. "Adam and Eve were born in a garden."

"What else is born in gardens?"

"Moths. Spiders. Turtles, sometimes. Fruit, of course. Ants. Worms. Caterpillars. Cut-worms."

"In your garden?"

"Nothing."

"Pfh! Ha!"

"It has already given birth to everything," he explained. "Let it rest." Emotion made his eyes look wet. "Have some pity."

"It must be his mother," they said, feeling sorry for him in his distress.

"It is ... it is ..."

-----
Question: why is there an extra e in the title? Answer: it's a quote from John Donne's Satire 4. "I /Thinke he which made your waxen garden, and / Transported it from Italy to stand / With us, at London, flouts our Presence, for / Just such gay painted things, which no sappe, nor /Tast have in them ..." etc, etc.

How much spaceship does a man need?

2008-04-02T07:57:00.004+11:00

Leo Tolstoy thought a lot about the peasants. "What can I do for you," he asked them, "to make your lives better? Would you like justice and social equality?"

"We would like a spaceship."

He bought them a spaceship.

"This is a pie tin."

"It is a spaceship."

"It is a pie tin."

He lost his temper. Ignorant peasants! Blind to social and material progress!

"What is the matter?" asked his wife, coming up to the group.

"He bought us a pie tin."

"That's nice," she said. "That's nice of him."

Eyak, 2008

2008-04-01T11:27:00.006+11:00

The last person in the world who understood the Eyak language died in January. Nobody else knew this, but the common cockroach had its precise, true name spoken in only that language. On that day, all of its other names perished in sympathy.

Householders around the world stared at the oval insects in their kitchens and murmured uncertainly, "What are those?"

The people who manufactured the sprays that are used to exterminate cockroaches woke in their beds and found that their purpose in life had been cosmically mislaid.

"What did we do with ourselves before today? Something, but what?" It was impossible to remember.

"What will we do now?"

"Poisoning ourselves seems somehow natural."

"What will we use?"

"I don't know."

They crawled under the sink and hid behind the oven.

I Presume 2: More Explorers

2008-03-31T10:19:00.004+11:00

All mankind was searching for the famous Northwest Passage. Where was it? Where should they look? Finally Lachlan found it. "I have found the Northwest Passage," he said. "It begins in the bathroom and ends in the kitchen." Everybody took his photograph and the government gave him a present.

Ancient conveniences: enlightenment.

2008-03-30T10:22:00.009+11:00

A tyrannosaurus rex stood alone in the rain like a boat on the sea.

A memory from the future ran backwards through the centuries and she thought, "I am alone in the rain like a boat on the sea." Then: "What does that mean?"

Infused with curiosity and determination she ran through the grasslands asking the other tyrannosaurs, "What is a boat?"

No one was sure. "A new kind of tree? A beetle? Describe it. What does it do?"

"It goes on the sea."

"And?"

But that was all she knew.

"You're thinking of a wave," they said. "Waves go on the sea."

She went to the beach and stared at the waves.

"That's not it."

The dinosaurs pointed to other objects floating on the sea: a log, a leaf.

"No, no, oh, I felt it, I am it, it is me, I am it, the boat ..."

"It sounds to me as if you've answered your own question," said a tyrannosaur who had a reputation for wisdom. "The boat is you and you are the boat. Float on the sea and you will be fulfilled."

She got into the sea and paddled to and fro. "Yes! This is it! I am the boat!"

The others danced on the beach, chanting, "She is fulfilled, she is enlightened, she is a boat on the sea."

"Let me try," said her friend. He shut his eyes and concentrated on enlightenment until the future occurred to him. "I am ... a plane in the air."

"He is a plane in the air!"

"I am enlightened. See what I have for you ..."

They ate the trays of plastic-wrapped muffins and reconstituted powdered scrambled egg, remarking, "This really is delicious."

Foot binding

2008-03-29T09:42:00.003+11:00

She came back to her rooms weeping.

"Mistress, what is wrong?"

"He said my feet were not like little lotuses ... he said they were like some larger, uglier flower ..."

They murmured in sympathetic chorus, "Nonsense ... your feet are tiny ... delicate ... perfumed, perfect lotus blossom feet ... he's blind ... he must be in a bad mood tonight ..."

"I won't let it happen again!"

She went to a pond covered with newly-opened lotuses and put her feet in the water, singing, "Lotus, take my feet, lotus, be my feet." Her feet replaced the flowers on two lotus-stems and two lotuses appeared on the end of her legs, perfectly soft and small. She crawled back to her rooms in triumph.

I Presume

2008-03-28T09:37:00.003+11:00

All of the great explorers were men. Timothy Jones found a pond. He named it after his mother. John successfully located a hill. It was the first hill he had ever seen, so he called it, The First Hill, and under this name it appears on maps. A cow was grazing on the hill. He returned and said, "I have met the natives." There was rejoicing. A statue was erected in his honour.

Snapdragon

2008-03-27T09:58:00.005+11:00

For fun they would put raisins in a bowl of hot brandy, set it all on fire, and pluck the raisins out with their mouths. This game was called snapdragon.

"It never fails to amuse."

One day it did.

"Enough," said the most popular man in the room.

"Beg pardon?"

"I am tired of this. Tired of raisins. Bored with flaming brandy. O, and the mouths like dragons. The fire within. I sigh." He sighed.

They tried to modify the game to please him. Apples instead of raisins? No. He groaned and moaned. Tea in place of brandy? No. He cast his eyes to the ceiling.

Then, with a great effort of will, they turned the world of the room inside-out, so that up was down and cold was hot. "There." Now the whole fiery thing was frozen, solid ice.

"A new challenge!"

He was entranced. They laughed with delight to see their friend so happy. "Hooray!" The room filled with hot breaths of pleasure. In their joy they threw the windows open.

The inside-out world flooded through the open window and affected everything outside.

"No, no! What a mistake!"

The popular man stared at the rest. "The polar bears! The icecaps will burst into flame! The polar bears will explode in torrents of fire!"

The first environmentalist.

Dynamite

2008-03-26T11:13:00.001+11:00

There is a Nobel Prize for Modesty but no one ever knows who wins it.

Cage: a second variation

2008-03-25T08:41:00.002+11:00

The youngest prince had gone missing and the royal city of Kyoto was in a dark mood. No one was more unhappy than three sisters who had decided that they were going to marry him. They had been fighting together for at least two years about it, and the screens in their house kept breaking when they threw one another around during epic battles.

Now they decided mark the loss of the prince by travelling together into the fields around the city to watch the fireflies.

"But where are they?" they said when they arrived. "It's the right season. Where are the fireflies?"

The fields were as dark as the inside of a hat.

"Wait. There they are. Is that a house?"

It was a tiny house. Three beads of light moved restlessly in a cage outside the front door. "Old woman," they said to the owner, who was sitting outside. "Let the fireflies loose."

She refused. "I'll keep them in this cage. That way you won't have to move your eyes so much to see them."

Impatiently and without respect, one of the younger women leaned forward and opened the cage herself.

One dot of light flew free and the first sister said --

"Oh, I don't want to be married to the prince after all."

Then another dot of light flew free and the second sister said --

"I don't want to be married to him either."

A third dot drifted away and the third sister said --

"Nor do I."

So they all went home and wrote poems to one another and the old woman was left to sigh after her lost fireflies.

Cage: a variation

2008-03-24T11:43:00.004+11:00

The youngest prince had gone missing and the royal city of Kyoto was in a dark mood. Three sisters who were in love with him decided to cheer themselves up by travelling into the fields around the city to watch the fireflies.

"But where are they?" they said when they arrived. "It's the right season. Where are the fireflies?"

The fields were as dark as the inside of a hat.

"Wait. There they are. Is that a house?"

It was a tiny house. Three beads of light moved restlessly in a cage outside the front door. "Old woman," they said to the owner, who was sitting outside. "Let the fireflies loose."

She refused. "I'll keep them in this cage. That way you won't have to move your eyes so much to see them."

"She's blind," whispered one sister to another. "She won't see me if I --"

And with that, she reached forward and opened the cage.

One dot of light flew free, and the old woman shouted.

"My left eye!"

At that, one of the sisters saw that the old woman was the prince and that she was not truly in love with him after all.

Another dot of light flew free and the old woman shouted.

"My right eye!"

At that, a second sister saw that the old woman was the prince and that she was not truly in love with him after all.

Another dot of light flew free and the old woman shouted.

"My heart!"

At that, the third sister saw that the old woman was the prince and that she loved him truly.

All four of them returned to Kyoto.

Cage

2008-03-23T08:58:00.004+11:00

The youngest prince had gone missing and the royal city of Kyoto was in a dark mood. Three young women who had been in love with him decided to cheer themselves up by travelling into the fields around the city to watch the fireflies.

"But where are they?" they said when they arrived. "It's the right season. Where are the fireflies?"

The fields were as dark as the inside of a hat.

"Wait. There they are. Is that a house?"

It was a tiny house. Three beads of light moved restlessly in a cage outside the front door. "Old woman," they said to the owner, who was sitting outside. "Let the fireflies loose."

She refused. "No. I'll keep them in this cage. That way you won't have to move your eyes so much."

"She's blind," whispered one of the young women to another. "She won't see me if I --"

And with that, she reached forward and freed the three dots of light from their cage.

The old woman screamed.

"My eyes, my eyes!"

Two of the dots of light flew away in one direction.

"My eyes are gone!"

The third dot of light shot away in a different direction.

"My dick!"

The old woman fell forward on her face.

"Oh, oh!" said the young women, who were not bad-hearted. They turned her over and saw that the corpse had the face of the youngest prince.

Their part in his downfall

2008-03-22T10:10:00.005+11:00

The filmmakers and photographers came after the Allied soldiers into occupied Germany. They saw the camps and the corpses.

"We have never seen anything more horrible." Click, went the cameras.

They noticed captured camp guards staring at the dead bodies. "You watched it happen!" They began to kick and beat the guards in a rage. Then they came across Germans in the streets who trembled and said, "We saw terrible things, books burnt, people stopped by brutes and taken away."

"We are unable to control our emotions at these atrocities," they said, and beat them too, using their cameras as weapons. A lens broke.

Then they came to Hitler's ghost, which was sitting mildly on a wall.

"You, Hitler! You must have seen people dragged away."

"No, I didn't see anything like that."

"Shot, gassed, imprisoned!"

"Honestly, no. I was in bed or in parliament at the time."

"You witnessed nothing?"

"Witnessed? No. I have a house in the mountains, you know."

"He saw nothing." They went on their way and let him be.

Captain

2008-03-21T09:57:00.008+11:00

They killed Captain Cook on a beach in Hawaii. A small girl accidentally saw it happen, and for years afterwards she would say, "I was a witness. I will write his biography."

"Then do," her friends said, bored. "Get on with it."

So one day she did. She wrote, "Captain Cook was on the beach, pushing a boat. They hit him on the head. He fell over."

"Where's the rest?"

"That's all I know."

They rolled their eyes at her and she shouted, "Then how do I find out about the rest? You're so smart, you tell me."

"Put yourself in his place. That's a good technique for an author."

"Yes, that's true. Do that."

"That should give you the answer."

They acted it out. She ran to the beach and pretended to push a boat with her imaginary crew, whereupon her friends struck her playfully on the head and she fell down, imagining herself dead.

"Realistic," they said encouragingly. "It's as if you were really him."

"Yes, it really is," she said, getting up. She'd had a brainwave. Going back to her manuscript, she started at the beginning. "I am Captain Cook. I was born on Hawaii, a little Hawaiian girl. When I was growing up I loved to eat fruit and play on the beach. One day I saw a group of men chasing some other men towards a boat. There was a fight. They hit ..." and with that, she died.

Southern Africa: the difference betwen kraals and purses

2008-03-20T10:00:00.004+11:00

A rich person was one who had more cattle than you. "A pen of cattle in this place is like a purse of money in that other place," the universe said to itself, trying to form connections between different ideas so as to keep life simple. "Pen, purse, pen, purse, pen, purse."

Instead of making life simple it only confused itself. Unexpected things began to happen.

A woman opened her purse in the supermarket to find out if she had enough money and a young bullock fell among the tomatoes.

A man approached his kraal and saw that it was as small as his hand and at the same time as large as always. The walls were made of leather and the cattle were made of metal and paper. They were stamped flat on the air, and at the same time fully rounded.

"This is too strange," he said. He called to his friend, "Come and look at this!" The friend looked. He was right: it was too strange.

"Your cattle must be cursed," he said. "This must be witchcraft." Then there was nothing to do except burn the cattle to get rid of the witchcraft. They melted into a puddle of gold and flew into the air as scraps of ash; at the same time they were barbeque.

Window tax

2008-03-19T09:37:00.003+11:00

In 1696 they introduced a window tax. People began to brick up their windows. It was dark indoors. Bats became popular household pets.

Soon people realised that a bat could be more than just a companion. Bats could do anything. Their cooking was outstanding. They knew how to embroider cushions. They answered the door. Hello, said the window tax man.

No windows here, the bat said. I'm a bat.

Where's the homeowner?

I'm the homeowner.

Eventually the bats owned every house in town. They developed a mighty civilisation. The last of the windows were sealed over and the authorities gave up on the window tax. The bats came and went.

Squee squee squee.

I'll see you later dear.

Squee squee.

Welcome home.

Modern inconveniences: Neptune's son

2008-03-18T10:08:00.002+11:00

Neptune had a mortal son who became a tradesman. He left the water running through toilets for hours, he stepped on a garden tap to reach the top of a shed and snapped the head off so that water spouted out in a flood. When he went home there was a storm, and the people who lived in the house didn't notice the sound of flowing tap water in the onslaught of the rain. It was days before they found out what had happened.

He cleared asbestos, which gave him a reason to spray water around indoors, dampening the dangerous fibres into mulch. Unaware of his father's identity, he never knew why this largesse gave him so much pleasure. "It must be necessary to the continuation of the world," he said to himself. "Otherwise why would I like it so much?"

The Modern Mariners

2008-03-17T09:50:00.003+11:00

It was an age of accessorising liquids. Some you smeared on you, some you drank, some cleaned you, some concealed blemishes, some made your hair stick up. Scientists looked for more efficient ways to apply liquid. They hunted for more effective and concentrated solutions.

"Deep sea fish. Living at the bottom of the sea, they concentrate liquid wonderfully within their bodies. Deep sea fish are the way forward."

People bound deep sea fish to their sores and put deep sea fish in their sparse hair to promote luscious growth. Seabirds inhaled the wonderful new smell and began to appear in cities more often. Soon there was a flock of pelicans in every town square. Albatrosses soared over railway stations and other places where people congregated. They swooped down over the crowds at rock concerts. Security guards tried to remove them, but the people tied the security guards to anchors and threw them overboard, chanting, "Bad luck, bad luck!"

Two els

2008-03-16T10:31:00.003+11:00

One high-ranking Chinese military person turned to another.

"I wish our superior would not use English as a code language. It makes everything so confusing."

"Agreed. What does the communication say?"

"Mountains. Lama. Invade."

"Lama?"

They squinted over a tiny English-Chinese dictionary.

"A hairy ungulate with a long neck. They live in ..."

China invaded Peru.

Ancient wonders: birth control

2008-03-15T12:28:00.003+11:00

A documentarian from Hawai'i went to Bhutan to record cultural marvels.

"This is a dance to banish demons."

"Wonderful. Magnificent."

When she got home she found she was infertile.

Babies

2008-03-14T10:09:00.008+11:00

"I am going to visit the church to say thank-you to God for the new baby," a pious man said to his exhausted wife.

"Tell God I'm here," the newborn baby said, sitting up and shaking its fist. "Make sure he knows."

"He knows already."

"How?"

"God is everywhere. God is aware of everything."

"No prestige in that, is there?" the baby said. "Get him to forget me then."

"Impossible."

"Aha," said the baby. "So that's the challenge." It looked at its mother. "Why is she sleeping like that?" it asked.

A million rectangular windows

2008-03-13T11:24:00.003+11:00

In every Thai house there is a picture of the good king Bhumibol Adulyadej. It is as if he is looking indoors through a million rectangular windows.

Sometimes at night all of the portraits will sigh or sneeze simultaneously.

Medicinal Properties

2008-03-12T10:20:00.005+11:00

"Bread, too," wrote Pliny the Elder, "which forms our ordinary nutriment, possesses medicinal properties almost without number."

A modern Italian tested one of the remedies he described. She soaked bread in wine, added myrtle, and applied it to a pustule on her head. "It doesn't work," she said. "Why doesn't it work?"

She considered the problem.

"Of course. Bread must have changed over hundreds of years. It has lost its medicinal properties."

So she researched ancient bread and sold it as a medicine. It was so good that it cured everything. Rich international drug companies sent assassins after her. They shot her, but she applied bread to the wound and it healed; they poisoned her with the undetectable extracts of plants but she swallowed some bread and was cured.

At that the assassins gave up and she employed them as bakers. They changed their black shirts for white aprons and sang as they worked.

For the full translation of the passage from Pliny, go here.

Falconry

2008-03-11T11:00:00.004+11:00

In Persia people flew falcons. The falcons captured animals and other birds and brought them back. Their eyes were fierce. Their brains were trained towards those eyes. Everything else was almost an afterthought and operated automatically.

To make the sheikh's favourite falcon more efficient, a clever mechanist devised a third eye which he attached to the bird's forehead.

Everything in the bird's new field of vision became monumentally tiny and detailed.

The falcon lost the ability to dream, and also its appetite. It began bringing back plants instead of animals. Then it brought back clouds. Then the thoughts of people who lived in the city. Then the thoughts of people in other parts of the country. Then the thoughts of foreigners.

The sheikh put all of these things in a cage and charged the equivalent of five dollars to anyone who wanted to look at them.

This was the first zoo in that city.

After a time the falcon drowned in a thunderstorm.

Thailand, 1995, a paw

2008-03-10T15:43:00.003+11:00

Tourists glimpsed part of a statue at the end of an alleyway in Chiang Mai. No one ever saw the whole statue, only a piece of it, a paw, part of the pedestal, or the muzzle of a creature that resembled a dog or a dragon.

The tourists went home clicking their tongues and saying, "Those Thais are mysterious people."

The Story of the Woodlouse

2008-03-07T09:15:00.003+11:00

"Objects with wheels will make America great," said Henry Ford. "Fast-moving objects with wheels."

America listened. There was a frenzy of wheels. They put wheels on everything, even the trees. Trees whizzed up and down the mountains. Elms went fastest. Whole forests drove themselves down to Florida when they began feeling old.

"We're retired," they said. "Animals, birds, insects -- get out. Time to leave the nest. Go to college or something. Get a job."

The first animal to enter Harvard was a squirrel.

The first animal graduate to run for public office was a raccoon.

The first non-human president was a bald eagle. The eagle's detractors said that he had been chosen merely because he was photogenic.

They said, "The woodlouse didn't stand a chance."

They added, "Even though he had a better economic policy."

The Floating World

2008-03-06T09:02:00.003+11:00

It was a dull day in Edo.

"I know," one of the prostitutes said. "I'll wear men's clothing. That should liven things up."

When her most reliable regular customer saw her in the new clothes he looked confused.

She said, "It is I, your favourite, Aya!"

He was filled with understanding.

"I'm gay!"

"No, no, you aren't."

"I am! I am! Look," he said to all of the other clients of the other prostitutes. They looked at Aya in her manly clothing.

"We're gay," they said. "We're all gay."

It was a revelation. So the clients fell into one another's beds and arms and the prostitutes became professional fishermen.

Marie Antoinette's shopping

2008-03-05T10:12:00.004+11:00

"Marie Antoinette is a fool," people said.

To prove that they were wrong she ordered everything from them: shoes, food, dresses, hats, rose bushes and white wigs.

"Marie Antoinette is a fool," they said again.

She ordered more things: dog beds, cake, keys, curtains and cages.

"Marie Antoinette, what a moron," people said.

"Ha," she said to her friends, "I have made them change their tune. A victory."

Synchronicity

2008-03-04T08:49:00.010+11:00

The town of Dunwich disappeared beneath the sea. You can still hear the church bells ringing underwater when the tide is right.

One night in 1980 the ringing was so loud that no one who lived near the coast could sleep. It was a noise like a wisdom tooth. The people gathered together and said, "We must hire someone to dive down there and muffle the bells."

"They will replace the clappers with pillows."

"They will line the bells with porridge."

"They will wear a diving helmet shaped like a bell and in that way achieve synchronicity."

As they were speaking, a figure swam down from the sky.

Before reascending it stole all of their doorbells.

China, 1227

2008-03-03T08:22:00.008+11:00

As Genghis Khan lay dying he began to smile.

"Why do you smile, great one?"

"I am tortured by the memory of an event from my childhood, a terrible humiliation, witnessed by only one other person. That person died years ago. Now I will die, and so the humiliation will pass out of this world forever. This alone makes me pleased to die. Here I am the lord of my life at last. My kingdom, what is it to this? In a few moments I will have perfect rest, for the first time, knowing that this memory has been destroyed. That is why I smile."

"Mighty Khan, tell us! We wish to compose a vast biography of you in song so that you will never be forgotten. Every detail perfect. Whatever you tell us, even the worst thing, we will find forceful and impressive. We promise."

"Then I will tell you," he said. They leaned forward.

Modern conveniences: whales

2008-03-02T09:43:00.001+11:00

In earlier times, telephone systems were so small that you could call the person at the switchboard and say plainly, "Put me through to my friend Joanne Smith please," and it could be done. This has not changed. The difference is that nowadays the switchboard operators are whales.

Each number struck sends out a sonar impulse, which is understood by the whales as one letter of a mysterious place-name.

Once it has identified the place-name, the whale plugs your telephone line into the correct spot on the board.

So we speak to them through sonar impulses. Every number is prefaced with an impulse meaning Please. The whales believe that we are fastidiously polite.

The History of Transylvania and Hungary.

2008-03-01T15:12:00.001+11:00

In 1003, Stephen of Hungary defeated Gyula the Young of Transylvania, and Transylvania was absorbed into Hungary.

In 2008, the American Kellie Pickler said that she had never heard of Hungary.

The Transylvanians laughed.

More demolitions: last year.

2008-02-29T09:03:00.004+11:00

A woman used to live on Croker Street. She said, "When I grow very old, I will come down the driveway in the mornings wearing my dressing gown. I will collect my mail like this. Then everyone will know who I am."

This she did. Later, soon after she had died, they took out certain parts of the house and laid them on the nature strip outside. Once they had removed the shelf with the sky-blue backing and pictures of geese wearing neckbands, they could demolish the house. After the house was gone, and the garden, and the mailbox as well, they built two ugly units.

Now her driveway is underneath a room. Her ghost moves restlessly through that room at night leaving behind the webbed footprints of a goose.

Zim, 1980

2008-02-27T10:43:00.003+11:00

Ian Smith stepped down and Zimbabwe was independent. Birds sang in different colours. Fish whistled like a choir. Plums ripened in your hand. Zexie Manatsa woke from a dreamless sleep when the full moon was at its apex and and played Chipo Chiroorwa on three instruments simultaneously, the accordion, the grand piano, and the marimba, using limbs that he hadn't known he had.

Today inflation in Zimbabwe is so high that people struggle to buy bread. But the plums still taste good.

Television, the 1930s.

2008-02-26T09:42:00.007+11:00

One day no families had televisions; a little later every family had televisions. There was a transitional period when only one family had a television. They were the pioneers.

"What do we do with it?" they asked. It was blank.

"You'll be able to watch shows on it, like a theatre."

"How much of the actors will we be able to see?" they said, looking at the small size of the screen. "Their feet?"

"No, no. The actors will be tiny. About this big." The inventor held his hands a foot apart.

A matriarch stepped forth. "Little people! You'll be bringing the Little People into my home! Pixies! Brownies! The milk will sour! The babies will turn into changelings!"

The inventor hung his head. "Yes," he said. "Think, though: your shoes will always be mended."

They considered his offer.

Fashion: the 1800s.

2008-02-25T12:00:00.003+11:00

People wore bustles and corsets.

No, not all people.

Women wore bustles and corsets.

No, not all women.

Women in certain societies wore bustles and corsets.

Every single one?

Women in certain societies were expected to wear bustles and corsets and many did.

What about the rest of humanity?

They suffered other constraints, as numerous as stars.

Newport, more demolitions, 2008

2008-02-24T07:53:00.003+11:00

They knocked down one of the sheds at the cricket ground near Newport Station. Before knocking it down they removed the contents and put them on the grass: stools, plastic chairs, drawers, and bars of mauve and vanilla soap.

On the gravel afterwards a band of crested pigeons stood in a concrete formation that suggested the wise fortitude and vigilance of sheds.

A van came by and the pigeons blew away. Nearby the cricketers covered the grass with a white sheet.

2008, 150 Woods Street.

2008-02-23T14:11:00.004+11:00

The developers knocked down houses in Newport and built ugly units. They were craven vultures with small, vicious brains.

One day, one of them bought 150 Woods Street. It was the most beautiful house in the world, with an art deco ceiling and a thousand different shades of wallpaper. The kitchen had a black bakelite telephone on the wall and the stove and the oven were iron.

In the back garden the developer found a concrete Aboriginal with a broken face. This person had outlived the owner. Unaffected by his spiritual presence, the developer knocked the house down.

A week later, the developer's vision was filled with the colours of a thousand different wallpapers, and when he put his hand to his face he knew that it was broken.

He lived like this forever.

Immigration, the Vikings

2008-02-23T12:02:00.007+11:00

In 1970 Robert Plant came from the land of the ice and snow. He took his shirt off and grew his hair. He grew it down to his feet, due to the cold. So he moved around the countryside like a curly yeti, occasionally screaming unbidden. Children who saw him never got over it.

Most of today's politicians were once those children. His influence on foreign policy is incalculable

Modern conveniences: the lion

2008-02-22T11:53:00.002+11:00

She kept a lion on top of her speaker. Why? To remind her of her distant ancestors, who had fought lions. Every time they killed a lion the ancestors had knelt and asked it for forgiveness. "We are sorry we killed you, although you were very much in the way."

But this lion was tiny, stuffed cloth, and would tell her nothing. The link she felt with the past was artificial.

He died in 1080.

2008-02-21T11:03:00.004+11:00

Empress Giselda wasn't the only European royal who resembled a sea creature. The King of Swabia had long feet that sloped downwards at diagonal angles like the fork of a dolphin's tail. At night he dreamed of the deep sea and the things that live there: squid, whales, crustaceans, molluscs, and fish that lure other fish to their deaths with dangling, illuminated objects. He never told anyone, afraid that they would say he was the devil.

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, 1813

2008-02-20T11:20:00.002+11:00

Once upon a time there was a man who was prejudiced against a pride. So the lions ate him.

The End.

Luxembourg, between 1038 and 1043.

2008-02-19T12:51:00.008+11:00

Empress Giselda came to Echternach. She had huge, flat hands on her elbows. People held her hands and said, "They are like the ..." but none of them had ever seen a seal, so they didn't know the words that should have come next. "Like the flippers of a seal," they should have said. "Her hands are large and flat, like the flippers of a seal."

Now, after all these years, the sentence has been completed. Great things will come of it.

China, around the 5th century BC or so.

2008-02-18T09:04:00.003+11:00

The Chinese liked eating pork so much that when someone first proposed that they build a great wall, this person said, "We should build it of pig bones."

"They're not strong enough."

"They hold up pigs. Why shouldn't they hold up a wall?"

Of course that was a good answer, so they built a great wall of bones.

The day after it was finished the wall was eaten by dogs.

"An unforeseen calamity!"

"Next time we choose a building material we must consult the opinions and manners of the animal kingdom first."

This they did, and you can still see the result today.

Moral: Always consider others.

The Aztecs dancing.

2008-02-17T09:10:00.003+11:00

The Aztecs could cut off a person's head and turn it into a ball. They made footballs, tennis balls, golf balls, every kind of ball you can imagine. Their cities were filled with balls. Balls bounced up and down the ziggurats. The people learnt to avoid falling over by jumping and skipping. It was a very beautiful and rhythmic time, the cities full of coloured balls and the people dancing among them.

The Spanish conquered them easily.

Malawi, 10 AD

2008-02-16T12:22:00.002+11:00

She was the greatest Baroque sculptor the world would ever know, but she was born at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and of the wrong sex. Her life ended as fruitlessly as it had begun.

The sea monster in 2002 and 2008

2008-02-15T12:45:00.003+11:00

In 2002 they recorded an animal sound in a deep sea trench. It was a slow sound like a prolonged cry.

In 2008 Adam Gilchrist caught a Sri Lankan batsman behind. The ball popped off the Sri Lankan's bat into his hands and he was so surprised that through the stump microphone everyone heard him make the long sound of a deep sea monster.

In this moment science discovered a great genealogical secret. Australia won the match by one hundred and twenty-six runs.

Ancient Rome: cutlery

2008-02-14T10:12:00.003+11:00

The Ancient Romans wore white tablecloths. Sometimes they would wake up to find strangers arranging knives, forks and spoons on their stomachs.

"Stop that!"

"Lie still, we want to have dinner. We are having guests over."

The woken Roman urgently absorbed the souls of the utensils so that they were physically present but unable to fulfil their roles.

It was an age of spiritless cutlery.