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The relentless logic of children:
“Do they have fish in England?”
“Of course. Fish are everywhere.”
“Everywhere?”
“Yep. Everywhere.”
“Then,” with an impish grin, pointing to a coffee cup, “are there fish THERE?”
“Don’t be stupid!”
“But you said EVERYWHERE!”
I have obtained the journal of the late Peter Kugel-Schwanz, investigative journalist for the German tabloid Spektakel, through devious means, which I am not at liberty to divulge. The following is an excerpt, dated the day before his untimely death in a freak accordion accident.
In the course of my research surrounding the mysterious Document 1285a, I have learned of the involvement of one Harry Bollocks, Jr., an operative of an obscure British agency called the Ministry of Abstruse Development; it is so obscure that its acronym is a state secret.
It seems that Mr. Bollocks was a key player in the time machine project alluded to in the afore-mentioned document. I was determined to find and interview this gentleman, but he seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth around January of last year, around the same time as the filing date on the document. While delving deeper into the workings of the ministry, I was able to make the acquaintance of someone who once was employed there, who must remain anonymous; I will call him Mr. Y. At about the same time, I became aware of several suspicious events, which I could only interpret as attempts upon my life. This has prompted me to write down as succinctly as possible the facts I have learned through several intensive interviews with Mr. Y.
First, as to the functioning of the time machine: it could be set to arrive at any precise time and date in the past by ministry officials, but the return journey depended on the operative who was sent into the past, a fact whose significance will become clear.
Second, the operative who was sent on the mission in question was none other than Harry Bollocks, Jr.
It was determined by those in charge of the operation that Bollocks would be provided with a cover identity, a verifiable historical entity, in order to minimize any collateral effects of his presence. The identity that was chosen was that of an obscure German dispatch runner who had been wounded severely at the Battle of the Somme, and had died March 4, 1917 of infection. Bollocks assumed this identity, counting on the force of history itself to clear up any contradictions, in order to carry out his mission to assassinate Heinrich Knebel, a lieutenant who would later rise to prominence and instigate WW II. The idea was to forestall the Second World War entirely by eliminating this person.
The name of the deceased dispatch runner whose identity Bollocks assumed was Gefreiter (Pfc.) Adoph Hitler.
The coffee shop I frequent was out of peanut butter cookies today, again. This may seem a minor issue to you, but there’s a backstory.
When I was very young, I put my trust in all the usual stalwarts of society – the used car salesman, the insurance company, the heroin pusher, even (against all my instincts) the priest – only to see my hopes crushed one by one, until all that remained was a bitter shell of a man. I became a cynic, and believed that not only was everyone just out for personal gain, and to hell with everyone else, but they actively sought and enjoyed the experience of disappointing others. Worse, I thought they had tumbled to my instability, and banded together to make my personal life miserable. I would hear of a terrific sale, only to find that the price had doubled once I made an irrevocable order. Or I would attend a formal affair, and find that, not only was my fly open, but the zipper was irreparably broken (I still don’t know how they did that). Worst of all, whenever I would start buying something regularly, it would disappear from the shelves.
I know what you’re thinking. That’s just crazy paranoia, and I should get over it, trust the used car salesmen again, get on with life.
Well, that’s exactly what I did. It was a tough, grueling road, fraught with traps and pitfalls, but with perseverance and, yes, positive thinking, I began to see these coincidences for what they were.
Then I started going to a small local coffee shop, just a hole in the wall, really, but with a friendly, quirky vibe. They had a display case with a variety of munchies, including which were, regularly, peanut butter cookies.
Now, a peanut butter cookie is the perfect snack. Fist of all is the delicious flavor, along with that unique and inexpressible texture, which together make for un unsurpassed snacking experience. As if that weren’t enough, the thing is made of peanuts, a small amount of sugar, and eggs. Nutritionally speaking, you couldn’t find a combination that could provide a better fuel for a human. So I started buying one regularly with my breve.
It started slowly. I would go in one day, and they would be out of peanut butter cookies. No big deal; it happens, and the next day all would be well. But it started happening once a week, then twice a week, until, now, I rarely find the cookies available, ever. When I ask, I’m told the last one was sold just moments ago; once recently, they even went to the lengths of pretending their oven was broken, and they sold only funky looking things that looked like gravel encased in polyurethane.
Yeah, right. If the oven was broken, how did they make the gravel cakes, hmm?
But this time, I’m not giving in. I’ll never go back to the life of paranoia that I so narrowly escaped. I know exactly what to do.
As God is my witness, I will never eat another peanut butter cookie as long as I live.!
That should get them back on the shelves in no time.
I was in the grocery store, jam-packed on this gorgeous day, when I saw a lane with nobody in it. Unbelievable, I thought, and went for it. As I was unloading my cart, I joked with the check out person.
“Jeez, was it some thing you said?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Then she pointed to the bagger: “It must have been him!”
“Sure,” I said, “blame it on the lowest wage person here!”
We all shared a laugh, and then the check out person got this pensive look on her face, like an infant child about to fill its diapers.
“It is funny, though,” she said. “He works much harder than I do, and gets paid less.”
Well, this got me to thinking. What if the hardest working people got paid the most? Would that be fairer? Would it solve any of our social problems?
Nah.
If that happened, then everyone would want the hardest jobs. Before you know it, everything would be done.
There we’d be, nothing to do but sit around and talk revolution.
I have been following the exploits of Vladimir Vladimirovich in Crimea with great interest of late. As a Latvian I can see which way the wind is blowing, so I’m changing my Gravatar image:
I’m hoping this new image helps me fit in with the new look.
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