Eric on March 4, 2006 at 5:13 pm said:
Y’know, this reminds me of that one Borges story with the guy writing the play, who has to face a firing squad.
-Eric
Juke Moran on March 4, 2006 at 9:07 pm said:
Y’know Eric that reminds of the one about the guy writing the play about a guy writing a play, who has to face a firing squid.
Ford Dent on March 4, 2006 at 11:46 pm said:
JFK is confused. He’s not about to die, he’s the President!
“I’m sorry,” he says to the Qwik rabbit, “But you are quite mistaken. I am not dying. In fact, I feel quite lively at this moment.”
“True, you are not dying now, but that’s because I stopped time!” The Qwik rabbit replies, smiling.
Kennedy looks to his right and sees the bullet. Comprehension dawns on his face. “I see. This is most unfortunate.”
“True,” the rabbit replies, “but you did get some delicious chocolate flavoured milk!”
“Can’t argue with that.” The President replies. “You know what? I think I shall move my head to the left, just to mess with the minds of the world. My assassination should have conspiracy theories. All good ones do.”
“Sounds like a great idea!” The Qwik rabbit says. “You’ll definately cause a stir!”
“Yeah, it’ll be great!” JFK says, forgetting for a moment that he is about to be shot in the head. “A real mystery for the masses!”
“Well, have fun!” The rabbit replies, and hops off.
Time resumes its normal course.
HonoreDB on March 5, 2006 at 5:30 am said:
The Qwik Bunny is at *that* stage of the evolution of deities, then. The transience of this particular expression of a god’s nature is due to the fact that all gods pass through this stage, granting pain, or reverence, or spaghetti, or courage to each soul at the moment of death, reasoning that only when there can be no consequences for the gift is it a pure answer to the emptiness of the world, and not treacherously an answer to something trivial.
Time cannot be sliced infinitely thinly and so inevitably there is some overlap. So those at the point of death experience everything it is possible to experience, except where the ynth of some gift has overmastered anothers. Spaghetti is much ynner than the experience of writing a novel, and Borges’s god and the FSM share an affinity for the same moment, which is why most experience spaghetti and only a few experience novel-authorship. This melding of gods’ gifts resolves to life itself. When the bunny notices this, he will, by a divine trick, insert himself into that godlife as an actor instead of an author of it, and begin searching it for just what exactly yn means.
GoldenH on March 5, 2006 at 7:42 am said:
“bzzzzzz”
“Hummmmmmm”
The tiny winged creature known to certain historians as Hernando faced off with the immense blue-and-white obelisk known to his people as FRED, short for Frying Reticle of Enormous Doom. There were many other things like FRED but FRED was the largest and the longest lived of it’s kind. It had survived for 20 generations, always a fixture in the stories of parents warning their children to stay away, that they would die if they approached the glowing obelisk by a creature they could neither see nor hear until it was too late, and it’s victory howl trumphited it’s kill like lightning hitting a wire mesh.
Most children learned to stay away from FRED and it’s ilk, eschewing the strange obelisks and their creators who roamed the lands around them, still active despite having been active even from ancient times. These children grew and lived their short, mayfly lives in the forests surrounding the citadels of wood and concrete, content with the plentiful warm food that filled their bodies but they never knew the joys of urban development, for those who lived in the shadow of the Builders never need fear food or shelter or mates, as such things the Builders gave to them as well, apparently out of sheer generosity.
But FRED was the fate of many of those who dared the urban environment. FRED, which did nothing but sit there, it’s invisible killer chained on an invisible leash. FRED, which merely illuminated the darkness with its iridescent light and its everpresent hum. It had killed many of them, and they went one after another to destroy it, for why should it stand when so many others had fallen? It galled them to know that the smaller models could last only a few short years before they were snuffed out, yet FRED last for time immemorial.
Hernando was one small child who had heard these legends and been cought up in their story, and when he flew up to FRED amongst his brothers, to take his place in the legacy and his chance to destroy it, and when it came his chance to dive in he did so without a second’s hesitation, diving towards the glowing idol with such gusto as could never be imagined. All his life was balled up into this moment, which would surely be his last, as he sped towards the iron cage that marked the limit’s of the beast’s reign, friends and strangers alike falling moments after passing through, sparks glittering off the metal as the beast’s thousand claws struck them with a deafening racket.
But right when he past the brink of certain death he was filled with a bright light, and fell with his comrades, stunned when he should be dead. but something warm was approaching.. warm and tasty!
The Qwik Rabbit looked at the tiny winged creature that landed on his cup of hot milk as it struggled back to life. Shocked, and thirstier than he had ever been, he stuck it’s proboscius into the flavorful liquid and drank.
“Yuck!” Hernando exclaimed with disgust and terror. “What is this cholately demon liquid? It burns when it should be a comfortable 37 degrees centigrade but it is far hotter! it does not even sate my hunger! this is no food but a demon’s curse!”
The Quik Rabbit, chastined by Hernando’s outburst, sighs in regret. “I only attempted to bring you some last pleasure in your final moments, noble creature! I am sorry that your delicate palette was so offended by my tasty drink.”
“Ah, it is no matter,” says Hernando, “For you are an even more tasty meal!”
“Alas, I should have expected this when your fellows displayed your ferocious appities.” The Qwik rabbit brushed his ear, knocking dozens of Hernando’s still-living, yet distracted comrades, who now hovered in the air around him.
“But I cannot eat when faced with a chance such as this! My name will be told in the stories amongst the thousands of others who fight to free ourselves from tyranny!”
“Ah but don’t you see, noble Hernando, you are already dead! The powerful currents of the wire mesh have fried you to dust, just as the creators intend!”
“What? But why! We had always thought that the beasts had taken the obelisks by force, and the Creators simply had been as blind to it’s presence as we!”
“No, they put that here to destroy you! They don’t like your constant humming, your buzzing, your feeding, your irritation. Haven’t you noticed how they shoo you away so violently?”
“Then why would they build such elaborate homes for us to live in? Why would they feed us so often, only rarely taking offense? why do they have made such perfection, and deny us this eden by killing all who venture into it?”
“They think it’s beautiful.”
“Beautiful? But.. what is beauty?”
“Ah… and that’s what makes what they do ok.”
For as the Qwik bunny spoke, the great Obelisk FRED sputtered and died, it’s cathode and anonde forever disconnected by the power of justice, and the clever coincidence that the manufacturer had put in its warrenty a disclaimer that stated that it would only be able to kill one million *and one* mosquitos.
SusanC on March 5, 2006 at 11:49 am said:
I was lost on dark roads when she tried to speak to me.
“Hey, Honey, your body’s getting awful cold. You need to wake up now” was what she wanted to say. But she was mute, her only language silent pictures:
Gasoline. Lighted match.
“Listen Honey, I know what happened to you, how you felt. I’m real sorry for what I’m going to show you now – it ain’t real an’ all – but I need you to wake up now, or you’re gonna die on me.”
Match thrown into the gasoline. Choking smoke. Burning gasoline on my skin.
I saw who held the match.
I wake, and I’m so terribly, terribly cold. I rub the circulation back into my arms, and say a prayer to she who watches over me.