What I saw today would render the universe nonsensical. Two days before, Simi Dorgash who came to live in the apartments three years earlier because her parents divorced and sold the family house, and Miss Pettikins, her cat, got up, walked backwards and got a beer. Now I wouldn't have thought this odd but for the cat. It's damned hard to train a cat and to train a cat to walk backwards is nearly impossible. But Simi, with her damned upbringing on the family farm and the college degree in veterinary stuff and the ten years working as State Extension Agent, might have trained a cat.
So what if the cat walked backwards one side of my brain says. Why worry? Well Eddington stated all the reasons for time-asymmetry. The cat wanted raisins and both Simi and Miss Pettikins should simply have got up from the chair and walked to the kitchen. My eyes saw Simi and Miss Pettikins after they ate the raisins go backwards. They took the raisins out of their mouths, put the raisins back in the box and then put the box back in the cabinet. That's what Eddington called a bad case of "lex parsimoniae." Simply put, it's too simple.
And anything too simple might be wrong. Like the time I found all that money in the street after the bank robbery. It wasn't that the robbers lost it. It was that the police misplaced it. Silly boys, finders keepers. But this wasn't that. I know I saw the cat two days ago. But what I saw today seriously disturbed me. Simi reversed herself and was never born. Now that's seriously disturbed. I'll have to tell her that next time she wanders through. But then, she's dead and that's paradox.
--Dave F.
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9 comments:
Despite the distortion in the space-time continuum, I knew this was a "Dave" from sentence uno. Schroedinger is smiling down (or perhaps he is frowning) on you, dear!
Meri
This was very hard to write because I had to stop myself from editing it.
I have taught my mind to edit thoughts like this before I even type or speak them. I conceive of a sentence and mentally condense it and cut it down before it goes from my mind to the page.
Not Schroedinger, look up "Time's Arrow" and time-asymmetry.
Have you ever wandered into the insanity known as Time Cube? Google it. See if your mind survives.
Okay, I know this is supposed to be an example of something awful, but I loved it for real. What a fun voice you have going here, Dave.
This made my brain go all wobbly -- but in a good way. Very well done, Not at "lex parsimoniae" but "plurimus difficilis" to pull off with such consistent grace.
Like the time I found all that money in the street after the bank robbery. It wasn't that the robbers lost it. It was that the police misplaced it. Silly boys, finders keepers. Yup, very good bad back-story, Dave!
Ooh, you wrote a whole new meaning for 'backstory' and still included the usual meaning. You've outdone yourself on this one, Dave. Excellent!
Oh my. This is classic, Dave! Backstory in a backwards story? Priceless.
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