Posted on January 6, 2004 by Jenna
Jane walks past a bird. “Hi, bird!” she says.
Jane scans the bird. It has two wings. It is covered in feathers. It has two feet. It stands on its feet. It has a beak. It uses its beak for biting things. It can also sing.
“I’ve learned some important things about birds!” Jane says, and walks on.
Jane sees the sun. “Hi, sun!” she says.
Jane scans the sun. It’s very big, but also very far away. It’s made of fire. Four horses pull it around the sky. The horses are made of fire. They tried ice horses once, but they melted! It wasn’t the smartest idea. The horses wear sunglasses. That’s because of the glare. If you pulled the sun, you’d wear sunglasses too!
“I’ve learned some important things about the sun,” says Jane, “but that really seemed to be more about the horses. I find that disappointing and I will write a letter of complaint.”
Jane giggles. She’s not going to write a letter of complaint! She likes scanning things!
Jane walks by a siggort. “Hi, siggort!” she says.
Jane walks on. Then she blinks. “Wait!” she says. “I better scan the siggort!”
Jane scans the siggort. It has two wings. It is covered in feathers. Its stomach is roly-poly. It has two long legs. It has a wheel of knives. It’s innocently vivisecting passersby and leaving their corpses for investigators to discover. It has a long yellow beak. It uses its beak for smiling. It can also sing.
“I’ve learned some important things about siggorts!” Jane says. “I wonder if I should report it to Animal Control.”
Jane thinks hard. “No,” she decides. “It’s vivisecting people innocently. That must mean it’s okay. If it were a serious problem, then I would have scanned it as vivisecting people guiltily.”
Very good, Jane! It’s important to apply logic to the situations in our lives.
Jane passes a wogly. “Hi, wogly!”
The siggort incident wised Jane up! She doesn’t dilly-dally—she scans the wogly! Who knows what it’s up to now?
The wogly has pale blue skin and two winky eyes. It’s shaped like a torus. Woglies say “hiss!” Inside the wogly it’s empty. Integrity leaks out of the universe into the wogly. It’s not eating moral integrity—it’s eating the integrity things have that make them the way they are. It’s a serious problem, but someone else will deal with it.
“Wow!” Jane says. “I think that’s the first time I’ve learned about woglies!” She takes a piece of paper out of her pocket and writes WOGLY on it. It’s important to keep track of the events in our lives! Then she folds the paper up and puts it away again.
“The wogly is scary,” she says, “but someone else will deal with it.” She walks on.
Jane passes Martin. “Hi, Martin!”
Jane walks on. Then she blinks. “Wait!” she says. “I better scan Martin!”
Martin has two legs and two arms. He also has a face. He is not Bob. He’s slouching against the wall. Jane should give him her My Little Tao doll.
“Hey!” says Jane. “You’re messing with my scanner!”
“It’s still a source of absolute universal truth, even if I can change what it says,” Martin points out.
Jane frowns. She can’t argue with that! “It’s rude to push people,” Jane says, “but you’re a special case.”
He is, you know. PUSH!
David Goldfarb on April 10, 2006 at 10:52 am said: